Euthyphro dilemma

[Angrboda]

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.

The reason it was objected that in the original formulation that the meaning of morals would be arbitrary was because there was no other reason besides the fact that it comes from God for giving it moral weight.  You haven't removed the arbitrariness, you've just moved it down a notch.  There's still no rational reason for accepting God's standards and character other than the fact that they are his.  That makes them arbitrary.  You have no rational justification for your claim that God's nature is not arbitrary.

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. 

Your God is becoming smaller by the minute.  It is certainly within God's physical power to do evil.  Free will means the ability to do anything within one's power.  If you say he is not free to act within his power, that he is determined by his nature, then you are indeed denying his free will.  "Nature" is just another word for saying that his choices are determined.

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.

You consistently claim to have shown things that you have not indeed shown.  You're the biggest braggart on the block.  Regardless, I've shown in the past that the notion of a greatest conceivable being is incoherent, though you didn't understand the last time so I'm not optimistic that explaining it again will help.  When you say that God is the greatest conceivable being, you're saying that God has all the good qualities.  But goodness is a subjective judgement, so greatest possible being is a judgement made up of subjective judgements.  For every subjective judgement that says X is a great making quality, there is an equally valid subjective judgement which says that X is a bad making quality.  The reason is because qualities and properties are neither good or bad in and of themselves, they only become so when a subject attaches a value to them.  You cannot construct a greatest anything out of properties that are inherently neutral. So "greatest conceivable being" has no meaning other than as a religious catchphrase.

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.

You're gonna argue with the definition of objective now?  Good luck with that.  If God's actions are determined by his "nature", which is whatever it is that God reasons with, then his nature is indeed subjective. God's "nature" is internal to God, therefore it's subjective. You say that God's moral goodness has reasoning behind it?  What is this reasoning?  Explain why I should accept his arbitrary nature as a standard of good?  You're just as bad as Neo, you talk about things being intrinsically good or bad, and having natures, without bothering to accept the vast weight of metaphysical baggage that comes along with such concepts.  Explain to me what it means for a person or being to be "intrinsically good" or how this supposed good nature of God communicates itself to the human intellect.  If you can't do that, all you've got is a bunch of handwaving.