(July 17, 2015 at 11:04 am)lkingpinl Wrote: When Euthyphro's dilemma is applied to Christianity, it mischaracterizes the Biblical view of God. Goodness is neither above God nor merely willed by Him. Instead, ethics are grounded in His character. Moral notions are not arbitrary and given to caprice. They are fixed and absolute, grounded in God's immutable nature.
Further, no outside definition of piety is necessary because morality is known directly through the faculty of moral intuition. God's laws express His character and--if our moral intuitions are intact--we immediately recognize those Laws as good.
This doesn't mean Christianity is true, only that it's is not handicapped by Plato's challenge to Euthyphro.
Words, words, words. Not arbitrary or capricious? Really? Tell that to the Amalekites. Or are you prepared to say they had it coming based on the narrative penned by the victors? I'd love to have had a chance to read about that conflict from the Amalekites' perspective. I bet they'd have had some interesting things to say about Yahweh's "grounded" ethics. But of course people who get wiped out don't get to contribute their book.
Perhaps it was a moral slaughter because Yahweh willed it (see where I'm going here?). Or maybe, contrary to the moral intuition supposedly written into our hearts, the slaughter was somehow amoral. But it clearly wasn't immoral because . . . um . . . it expressed the "fixed and absolute" ethics of the immutable god, who nevertheless dabbles in situational ethics.
Yeah, right.
You want to slip the euthyphro noose via mere assertion. Too bad you have that holy book.
