Euthyphro dilemma

[SteveII]

The first horn was whether a thing is good because God says it is good. The entire reason that the dilemma is even discussed is that this horn leaves Christians with the uncomfortable position that God has decreed what is good (which is arbitrary). I am saying that God has not decreed what is good. I am moving one step back and explaining that God is bound by his eternal inviolable nature wrapped up in the definition of God. God decreeing what is good and God being bound by his unchanging good nature are not the same thing therefore it is a third option and the dilemma is broken. 

You're equivocating, Steve.  The original Euthyphro dilemma was presented.  You responded that it was avoided by God's goodness being a part of his nature.  I responded with a reformulation of the dilemma that applied to that case.  That is what we are discussing now.  Do try to keep up.

The version of the dilemma which we are currently discussing is: "Is God's character the way it is because it is good [horn 1] or is God's character good simply because it is God's character? [horn 2]"

That's the point. I don't have any problem with #2. It no longer is the equivalent of "it is right because God commands it". It removes the arbitrary objection. It is good because the nature of God would be the exemplification of goodness, not that his decrees would be good because of other qualities (omniscience for example) or just a desire to do good when it suited him or to achieve some other goal.

You contend that in order to get away from the first horn you need the definition of goodness to be external to God. That's clearly not the case. Since if God is bound by his nature and could not decree anything contrary, then you need to reword the horn to say the good is good because it proceeds from the eternal inviolable nature of God. Such a statement is not remotely uncomfortable for Christians.

Ignoring that you're behind a page in the argument, what you're saying now is directly contrary to the notion that your God has free will.  If your God is "bound by his nature" then he does not have free will; he is an automaton; a robot.  The moral decrees of a being without free will are, according to traditional thought, empty of moral import.  Your God cannot be the source of morals if his behavior is determined by his nature.

That God is bound to his nature is just the definition of nature. If he was not bound to his moral goodness, then it would not be a nature, it would be a preference. Free will does not mean "can do anything". One's nature would always be a limiting factor to available choices. 

Regarding why God's nature has moral significance, it's part of the definition of God to be supreme or perfect in all of his attributes.

In other words, it's just dogma.  There is no reason for your belief, it's simply what you believe.  This is what Christians inevitably retreat to when confronted with the dilemma, nothing but dogmatic assertions.   How you conceive of your God does nothing to get him off the horns of the dilemma.  I'll repeat what I said earlier, it's not a question of whether God is good, but rather why do we consider God to be good?  Retreating to "that's simply our definition of him" does nothing to answer that question.  That question leaves you with the choice repeated above, and neither horn of that dilemma results in God being a meaningful source for morals.  And you've utterly failed to provide any third option.  Instead, I get more assertions that God really, really, really, really, is good.  That doesn't feed the bulldog, Steve.

The definition of God is the greatest conceivable being.  As I have shown, there is no dilemma with such a concept. If you want to redefine God as something other than the traditional definition, go ahead. It does not apply to me. 

I think anchoring morality in an eternal unchanging nature that even God is bound by is as objective as you can get.

Something is objective if it is not influenced by the preferences or opinions of a person or being.  God's morals are definitely the opinion of a being.  That makes them subjective.  And as noted with Neo, regardless of the content of his morals, you would say the same things about him and his morals.  Your words do not refer to a specific state of affairs, but to whatever the case happens to be.  Perhaps what you mean is that God's morals "are as good as" objective.  But they demonstrably aren't "just as good" as objective, as God's morals are arbitrary and not based on anything objective.  You don't redefine the word objective by simply repeating an untrue proposition.  God's morals aren't objective, no matter how many times you say that they are.  That's just abusing the language and telling falsehoods.

I don't agree.  If part of the definition of God means that his moral nature would be the exemplification of moral goodness, that means that moral goodness has reasoning behind it. It can not be there are more than one set of exemplifications of moral goodness. God's moral nature is an objective standard.