Euthyphro dilemma

[Amarok]

Saying good can't lack something is merely an assertion . I can easily envision a god of pure evil lacking any goodness so clearly he can conceivably lack goodness. and see nothing necessary about god being good .

[The Grand Nudger]

@Ham
-and that's the crux of it.  People who do not understand the dilemma, quite unsurprisingly, find themselves thinking that they've somehow evaded it even as they affirm one horn or another as an article of faith.

Responding to conclusions of arbitrarity arising from the second horn they insist "It's not arbitrary, it's grounded in -god's something-!"  

That is the arbitrarity being criticized.

[Amarok]

Gods capacity to make something does not even come close to proving that the maker is good . Theists are just sad.

[Whateverist]

The first horn "is something good because the gods will it" or
The second horn "do the gods will it because it is good?” but now
The third option (that has no unwanted conclusion): it is not God's will that defines the good but his unchanging nature that governs his will and his commands to us.

With a third option, there is no dilemma. The defeater of the dilemma is to point out that God's goodness is a necessary property (which is a third option). Goodness is not a property that God could have lacked. As the greatest conceivable being, there is no possible world where God is not good.

Does the third option as you formulate it take goodness off God's list of responsibilities?  If so, goodness, rather than an extra ingredient whipped up by God in creation, becomes His goal.  So like us God can only intend and aim for goodness.  You might suppose He is better at achieving that goal, maybe He is the best even.  But at least goodness isn't something inevitable which God, like some idiot moral savant, cannot help but exude whether intended or not.

[SteveII]

The first horn "is something good because the gods will it" or
The second horn "do the gods will it because it is good?” but now
The third option (that has no unwanted conclusion): it is not God's will that defines the good but his unchanging nature that governs his will and his commands to us.

Is his nature good, or do you call it good because it's his nature?  [1]

With a third option, there is no dilemma. The defeater of the dilemma is to point out that God's goodness is a necessary property (which is a third option). Goodness is not a property that God could have lacked. As the greatest conceivable being, there is no possible world where God is not good.

Pointing out goodness as a property possessed by a god is an affirmation of the first proposition, not a third option. [2]

As for the elaboration, the articles of your faith compell you to claim that if god were not good it would not be god..but that's not a logical conclusion.  Meanwhile, in this actual world, the "good god" exhorts his followers to rape and genocide. [3]  Does that establish that he's not good, or not god?  Or are you pretty sure that those exhortations were good?  

Your call.

1. Neither. It defines good. All moral theories need an explanatory ultimate. This is a particularly good one since it is eternal and unchanging. 

2. Nope. The first horn is clearly talking about a goodness as contingent property. It needs to be arbitrary otherwise the horn has no undesirable conclusion. I am talking about a nature that governs God. God cannot do or command anything in violation of his nature. 

3. I don't think he did command rape or genocide.

[The Grand Nudger]

1. Neither. It defines good. All moral theories need an explanatory ultimate. This is a particularly good one since it is eternal and unchanging. 

That's option 2, not option "neither". If tyhe definition of goodness is whatever a gods eternal and unchanging nature happened to be, then the definition of goodness is arbitrary.

2. Nope. The first horn is clearly talking about a goodness as contingent property. It needs to be arbitrary otherwise the horn has no undesirable conclusion. I am talking about a nature that governs God. God cannot do or command anything in violation of his nature. 

Then whatever constrains god and gods nature as a good nature is the standard and definition of goodness.  Option 1.

3. I don't think he did command rape or genocide.

You could have ended that sentence after the first three words, or began it after the first three words....and it would have been twice as accurate.

Let's run with it, though, why do you think he didn't do that? Could he have done it and still been good? If he did order either would they then be good?

[SteveII]

The first horn "is something good because the gods will it" or
The second horn "do the gods will it because it is good?” but now
The third option (that has no unwanted conclusion): it is not God's will that defines the good but his unchanging nature that governs his will and his commands to us.

With a third option, there is no dilemma. The defeater of the dilemma is to point out that God's goodness is a necessary property (which is a third option). Goodness is not a property that God could have lacked. As the greatest conceivable being, there is no possible world where God is not good.

"Goodness is not a property that God could have lacked."
Whether or not God could have lacked the property says nothing about whether the standard of goodness resides with God, or outside of him.  Those are the only two options, and dressing it up with fancy terms like "necessary property" do nothing to evade the dilemma.

"As the greatest conceivable being, there is no possible world where God is not good."
Again, this doesn't resolve the dilemma.  The question is not, "Is God good?" but rather, "Why is God considered to be good?"  Your objections about necessary properties and such do nothing to resolve that question.  You're still stuck on the horns of the dilemma, you've simply introduced a red herring.  Either the standard of goodness comes from God, in which case it's arbitrary, or it comes from outside him, and he is not the source of morals. There is no third place it can come from.   Moreover, the ontological argument is fatally flawed, so bringing things like "the greatest conceivable being" into the equation only undermines your argument.  Essentially, all you're saying is that God is good because you define him to be so; that isn't any kind of "third option."

Are God's eternal unchanging moral properties arbitrary? Could they have been any other way? Perhaps, perhaps not--I don't think that is clear. I don't think it matters however, because you need God's nature to be arbitrary not in the sense that if could have been different, but that it still can be different. A nature that changes is a defect and not compatible with omniscience so that is not a coherent argument. If it is unchanging, and governs the actions of God consistently, then the dilemma is broken because neither horn applies.

[Edwardo Piet]

@Ham
-and that's the crux of it.  People who do not understand the dilemma, quite unsurprisingly, find themselves thinking that they've somehow evaded it even as they affirm one horn or another as an article of faith.

Responding to conclusions of arbitrarity arising from the second horn they insist "It's not arbitrary, it's grounded in -god's something-!"  

That is the arbitrarity being criticized.

Thanks Khem. And yes that is what I was saying.

[The Grand Nudger]

@steve
Imagine for a moment that you're god.  It shouldn't be too difficult.  Let's say that part of your nature was being dumb as a bag of rocks.  If your nature defines goodness, then being dumb as a bag of rocks is good.

However, if you weren't as dumb as a bag of rocks, if that wasn't in your nature..if..instead, you had even the slightest shred of intelligence, and your nature defined goodness, then having a shred of intelligence is good.

This is the arbitrarity being referenced.  Do you understand?

[Edwardo Piet]

He won't understand. We understand. It's a Lonely World of Rightness that we live in.