The Euthyphro is a dialogue by Plato in which a troublesome question arises for a (poly)theist: do the gods love something because it is pious or is it pious because the gods love it ?
This question has been modified and used as an argument with regard to God being the source fo morality. That is, "Is an action good because god commands it or does god command it because it is good?" If the former option is true, then morality is subject to the capriciousness of the gods, i.e., child rape would be moral if god commands it. If the latter option is true, then there is a standard of morality over and above god which he must conform to, i.e, morality is independent of god.
When confronted with this, some theists proclaim that morality is simply a reflection of god's eternal and absolute nature. The argument can then ostensibly be framed in terms of God's nature.
I used to think that this was a satisfactory response to the reformulation of morality in terms of god's nature, but I'm not so sure anymore. Surely, if god's nature is absolute then it is not subject to any form of capriciousness or incessant tranformations. And therefore the argument is not directly analagous to Plato's dialogue and therefore is not a sound argument for why god can't be a source of morality.
Note, I am not saying that god
must be the source of morality, only that there is no dilemma in claiming that to be the case.
Thoughts?
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