Morality, Socrates, and Euthyphro

Anyone who has spent much time studying ethics is likely to respond to the moral law with what is known as the Euthyphro Dilemma. In the Plato's dialogue, entitled Euthyphro, Socrates asks the title character "...is the holy loved by the gods because it is holy? Or is it holy because it is loved?"(10a).

For purposes of our study, of course, we are not considering "the gods", but God. The question essentially, then, becomes does God decree something because it is good, or is it good because God has decreed it?

The dilemma is difficult to answer because no matter which answer the Christian gives, he compromises some part of Christian doctrine. The first answer is that something is good because it has been decreed by God. This is known as Divine Command Theory (DCT). DCT seem appropriate on the surface, but it has an inherent weakness. If this theory is correct, then God's goodness, indeed any goodness at all, is arbitrary. God has decreed murder wrong, and it is. But the consequence of DCT is that on the command of God, this could be instantly reversed. This infringes upon both the goodness and immutablity of God.

Of course the second horn is not any more favorable. If we say God commands something because it is good, then we are making God subject to a higher moral law. If we proclaim God is sovereign, then He cannot be subject to any higher law.

Those that pose this dilemma sometimes would like us to believe that if we cannot give a response to the problem, then they have just disproved any possiblity of God's existence. While an inability to fully address this question would certainly be a stumbling block for one trying to prove God's existence, we should understand that it does not disprove Christianity, any more than the correct response can prove it.

What is the "correct" response? It seems that the best way for us to address the dilemma is to accept a part of each of the horns. Put very simply, it might look something like this: there is a definition of goodness apart from God's fiat. That definition is inherent in the character of God. That is not to say that God is good (or, God=good), but that what is good is a characteristic of God.