Euthypro Dilemna

I haven't really got the zest to re-thread this old tyre for you DA. But one last mile .. okay?One doesn't need a "method to determine" an a.k.a. And that's all that's been done by me with the word "good" - assigning it to a.k.a. "the flavour of God's doings", "God's will" and the like (depending on the particular aspect you want to examine). When you insert that meaning into the above; where you talk of good/right/righteous (all versions of the same notion: good), your objection becomes a nonsense."Good" has no other meaning to me outside the one applied. Yes, there are derivatives of God's will or the flavour of God's doings which are too called good: kindness, gentleness, generosity, etc. When we do these things is it because of the image and likeness of God in which we are made expressing itself - and being derivative of God's will, those attributes and actions are also known as 'good'.And so there is no euthypro dilemma for me.I've not got time to deal with the rest of your post now. Perhaps you could address the above and formulate a response in the light of this 'new' info.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Goodness is another word for 'the flavour of God's activity'. For example: God tends towards punishing those who act contra his will and that experience is considered negative/undesirable/painful by those exposed to it. The flavor: negative/undesirable/painful/etc. is God's flavour when dealing with those who act contra his will. That flavour is described as good.I didn't say the purpose of goodness was to differntiate from evil. I said one point of goodness has to do with our being provided with a choice. Goodness forms one option, evil another. The two are rendered distinguishable from each other according to God. He has given us his knowledge of good and evil. That we call what he calls evil 'good' and vice versa doesn't alter anything. What's in a name?The fundamental principle is our being equipped to know the difference between God's view of good and evil (a knowledge of good and evil) by God. There is no implication that we need step outside that in anything I've said.- Children grow up. Mentally handicapped people aren't devoid of conscience. Elderly people with dementia were once young people without dementia. PTSD doesn't mean the destruction of conscience.What you seem to be angling for is a reason to absolve folk. Whilst I've no doubt that God will take all into account - the PTSD, the desparate upbringing, man can still be judged on what he knew - however little that was. Remember that it's a persons wilful response to what they know that is posited as contributing to their decision - not whether they knew a little or a lot. In other words: a scale is balanced whether you put a gram on either side or a kilogram (of knowledge of good and evil)- See above.- Man is a sinner and everything that works to cut the shackles of conscience will result in a natural slide into depravity. Whether the social programming is an experiment at Stanford or an experiement in Nazi Germany isn't the issue. The issue is man's inherently evil nature - arrested only by conscience.- You mean, no doubt, God "breaking" a commandment issued to mankind to govern mankinds dealing with each other eg: "thou shalt not kill". Given the definition of good = God's will then God is being entirely consistant. He doesn't want man to kill man and commands him so (God's will). He does, however, want to kill man for x reason and does so (God's will).Where's the inconsistancy.(there is, in addition, the not-too-simple problem of supposing God subject to commandments he issues to mankind to resolve. On what basis do you suppose him subject to laws issued to us to govern our dealings with each other?)- God kills everyone at some point: directly or no. What's indiscriminate about it?God can't murder - he cannot act unrighteously (per definition). And murder is classed as an unrighteous killing.There are two ways to bow to God for eternity. Willingly with joy or willingly without. The willing with joy is obvious - those who chose for God have no issue with bowing to him. Those who will bow otherwise will do so simply because they'll get to see God as he is: Lord of all. It is in mans makeup that he bow on recognising God as he is - God designed man to be so willing. It's just that there'll be no joy involved for some - they will recognise what God's lordship means for them.If you considered, truly considered, the scale of God as he must be were it that he did indeed create all this then you'd quake at the idea of shaking your fist at him. Not simply because he can squash you - but because your abilty to correctly evalute the truth of the matter can't hope to compete with his. All he has to do is show you the whole working of this mechanism involving your sin and his salvation - including where your arrogance/deceit/pride allowed for an alternative, God-denying mechanism - and you'll wilt.- Jesus said "I am the truth .. and no one comes to the father except through me" About as black and white as one could possibly be.I agree that the world isn't simple and I'm not suggesting that what's good and evil (according to God) can be worked out simply in every case. There are those difficult issues to do with young children or the severely mentally handicapped where the Bible doesn't give us pointers.But to suppose that leaves us void of very clear direction is to err seriously.
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The command/influence 'love thy neighbour' (written in conscience) acts as a balance/counter to the sinful nature of man which commands/influences man to "hate thy neighbour'. Influences in both directions thus (God drawing us in one direction / our natures drawing us in the other) means you now have the set up of choice.Had God designed conscience to command man to 'hate thy neighbour' then you'd have both conscience and sinful nature comanding man to 'hate thy neighbour'.And so you would be bereft of choice.(Which means you can neither chose* for what God stands for - nor can you be condemned for robotically 'chosing' for what God hates. Which renders God's Mission Unaccomplished)- Supposing my claim is correct then what is the issue? We have an explanation for varying, contradictory morality between men. We also have (by same suppressive mechanism) a reason why the individuals own personal compass is rendered wonky. What we can conclude in the general and the individual case is that man is responsible for the state of affairs.Note that this all fine and dandy as far as the mechanism of salvation/damnation is concerned. A man's sin is utilised in the attempt to save him (guilt and shame attach to sin and have a certain 'motive power' which drives the salvation/damnation mechanism). Or a man's sin is utilised in justifying his damnation.Conscience.. and the suppression of it, are core drivers in this affair.- Sorry - the point was framed poorly. Permit me to another attempt.It's not all that important what name (good/bad) you attach to events/actions by way of moral judgement. What matters is what God judges them as. Which means there can exist possibilities that something you consider good are actually bad and vice versa. You may even find your self fighting for a cause that everyone and his brother thinks is bad but you think good - and God thinks good. In which case it is good.Point being - God see's the heart. Man-judged titles don't count for anything.- It happens to be a central ingredient of God's scent and the choice we're faced with involves spending an eternity around that scent or outside any trace of it.The set up of things in this world gives us a taste of both that scent.. and it's opposite number - and all shades inbetween. And God's goal is that we get to make a choice about it. A positive pro-God choice will take the form of a hearts desire for more of that scent (without necessarily knowing that God is it's source). Or a hearts desire to be rid of the stink of it's opposite number (without necessarily knowing that God is the means of being washed clean). A negative, contra_God choice will look like the opposite of that- Made in his image and likeness I'm afraid. When truly expressing selflessness (and I'd challenge even ourselves to judge ourselves accurately on that) it's only because of God's image in which we are made.We are not our own - we're Gods. And he has sat us between choice. His will empowering one direction (whenever our will remains in neutral/unexpressed on the issue) or our will empowering the other.- Has the point up top clarified this? The constraint of conscience intact means he cannot instruct us to hate our neighbour - the conscience and the instruction are one and the same thing.- Would it help if we used the analogy of the good involved in letting a child learn to eat. It is not willed that food end up all over the floor - indeed the parent wishes that it didn't. But that un-want is considered a necessary evil in the context of the greater want: the child learning to eat.- God willed to create a being with free will. That is good (clearly). But creating the potential for evil isn't creating evil anymore than placing a rock at a high place creates kinetic energy. The being created evil in the very choosing against God's will (clearly). There is no basis for saying it was God's will that a being choose against God's will. All we can say it it was God's will that the being was able to chose against God's will)- Hopefully this will be now clearer: balance of influence means opposing influences love vs. hate neighbour. Your suggestion hate neighbour (via God power) vs. hate neighbour (via sinful nature power) isn't, you'll surely agree, a choice.- God can't not be God, true. But I'm not sure how you arrive at the second statement given that goodness is merely the flavour of God. Without God there is no God flavour surely?- Hopefully much has been clarified. If not then by all means probe.-* One doesn't choose for God as such. As pointed out, a move in the direction of God's will is a function of God's power drawing + your silent not activating against. You will activates in only one direction - away from God.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Fair enough.- There are various angles to this attribute ' good', various ways in which we can examine it. In this case, the statement "God is good" would be addressing mankind, who understand (and to large degree, agree on what globally constitutes..) the notion of "goodness". This statement tells them that the centrepoint of this general notion - from which the myriad of man-opinionated goodnesses derive .. is God. That all their subjective paths regarding goodness devlolve from one objective summit.You are incorrect in saying that goodness has no substantive meaning. The working definition of good used of late (looking at another angle of goodness being sourced in God) has been "the flavour of God's doings". A flavour is a substantive thing. Ask the Midianites.- How so, given that we can expand on what this flavour looks (I mean tastes ) like? Indeed, I've gone so far as to give a key ingredient of it to Modulous. The flavour of agape love-driven kindness, generousity, patience, etc. are substantive things - perhaps not always easy to identify as applying in the individual case - but no matter, it's not vital that we can prove that the love behind the action is agape.- Ockams Razor?Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

That kind of nature isn't the nature Adam plumped for with his free-willed choice (with that nature being passed on down to his offspring). The sin captive, contra-God nature arises naturally from a freewilled contra-God choice. Choose death and death you shall have.Interestingly, in the very fruit of his falling (and loosing free-willed choice), is contained the means whereby choice of a slightly different construction is rendered to Adam (and us). Eating of the fruit lost him his free nature - but gained him conscience. Which puts Adam in precisely the same position as all his offspring - in need of salvation and equipped to choose "yea or nay".Salvation being by sacrifice-powered grace alone gives a number of arguable benefits:- it clears the way for man to love God totally, no holds barred. Man's love cannot be diluted by his having done something to merit the benefits of salvation. By grace alone "so that none can boast" as Paul puts it.- it permits saved man to be content in whatever position God finds fit for man, eternally. Man has nothing but wrath to look forward to - anything better than that is a bonus. That this position is as elevated as it is (adopted) sons of God is astounding. Yet that position sees God in his rightful place before man: Sovereign.- All that matters to God is your hearts motivation in the matter. He knows the equipping you've had to evaluate according to his measure. And he'll take note of whatever answer your heart gives in the matter whilst taking all other influences into account. All the rest is noise.One thing is sure: you will make a decision one way or the other and you will have a motivation(s) for making the one you make. And God will see.- As I'm sure I've said at some point in this discussion; the mechanism of your salvation/damnation doesn't require that you even believe in God's existance prior to your salvation. Still less does it matter that you can't ascertain God's will in this matter.You'll make the choice according to God-powered, sin-dulled conscience, influenced by a sinful nature that is geared to seek it's own interests first (whatever you believe). And that choice will be entered into the mechanism. And the salvation/damnation mechanism will roll onwards.Remember I said that sin is utilised by God in his atttempt to save a person? It's not that choosing anti-God is necessarily terminal in the case of your granny - indeed, it may well be your sinning here is the sin that breaks the camels back of your rebellion against God. And so you will be saved.Sin Saves!(an analogy occurs to me which deals with this. Consider yourself in rebellion as a wooden fence post stuck well into the ground. The farmer who wants to free the post utilises a rocking back and forth motion. Likewise, the mechanism of salvation utilises your following consience (good) and your not doing so (evil, sin) as a rocking back and forth motion aimed at releasing you from your captivity.)- Fair enough. But such a notion lies outside the scope of this discussion I think.- Doing that willingly so (to dot an 'i').- God created beings (Adam and Eve) with potential to create evil. Providing them that potential was good (by definition). But it doesn't follow that the product created by Adam was good. We need to differentiate between what's good and what's necessary.That post-Adamic mankind will surely sin is merely a consequence of Adams choice delivered upon by God - as promised.Adam wasn't sure to sin -the rock was left perfectly balanced for Adams own will to freely decide which way to topple it. No over-balancing need apply.- But ice-cream that has never seen strawberries isn't strawberry flavoured Mod. It's something-else masquerading as strawberries flavoured. Similarily, without God there can be no God flavour.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Okay. Suppose you are a sinner on whom God visits his wrath after Judgement. The "flavour of his doings" will in the first instance be experienced as negative, unpleasant. This doesn't alter it being good however. There will also be the sense of harmoniousness about your suffering - because installed in you (by God) is a mechaniism which finds it harmonious that evil-doing attract punishment.Unpleasant/harmonious - the flavour of God's doings.Another example involves the believer who might be going about his daily business when God reveals his glory ever so slightly. It might be revealing how it is that he has worked for the benefit of the believer in a way hithertoe unrealised by the believer, or it might be an strong sense of his presence. These things are experienced as joy and peace by the believer: "God is there, is on my side, will never leave me - no matter what"Peace/joy - the flavour attached to God's doings.

The question was:

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So why couldn't..

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The command/influence 'hate thy neighbour' (as written in conscience) acts as a balance/counter to the sinful nature of man which commands/influences man to "love thy neighbour'. Influences in both directions (God drawing us in one direction / our natures drawing us in the other) means you now have the set up of choice.

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A nature that influences man to love his neighbour isn't a sinful nature, it's a godly (god-aligned) nature. And the reason man has an ungodly nature arose out of the first man choosing that nature. That's why it couldn't..- I can hone my knowledge .. I'm a believer and have an workshop manual on the subject. You're in a slightly different position but by no means helpless.You appear to be conflating two things: knowing what is the case and proving what is the case (to even yourself). But you don't have to "determine" what good is - what good is, is installed in you and operates in your decision making process. We're calling that knowledge-reporting device conscience in this discussion. I've already described how different viewpoints on 'good' arise from apparently different consciences (the original, God-supplied conscience is the same in all cases but suppression of conscience results in variation of outlook developing - kind of like variation in species developing from a common ancestor ).That there is no way to objectivize what is good is, isn't relevant to anything important that I can think of. Perhaps you could suggest where objective knowledge would be essential in a way that matters to your salvation/damnation (the first critical issue facing you outside of which nothing else much matters)- The point above indicates why I don't agree. We have the knowledge of what is good or not. We just can't objectivize it.- He didn't create them. They created themselves through exercise of their free will. God, as I say, created potential. That potential chose to bring about the rest.There is what God wills and there is what is necessary to bring about his will. Creating the potential for choosing against God is a necessity if it is God's will to create people with the potential to choose for God.- Yes. God delivering up on promised consequences and enabling those consequences to be played out is good. Wrathful expression against evildoing is good. Even we (most of us) agree with that principle.- Then by all means call it like strawberry flavoured ice-cream."They have become like us - knowing good from evil". Man like God isn't man the same as God.- Sure you could approximate strawberries to a good degree. "Like" isn't "same" however.I'm not sure what point that makes though? Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Sure.- In so far as the "basic set" matches the set established in advance by God, yes.- Sounds reasonable enough.- The first one seems to fit reasonably well

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1. Of or relating to a material object, actual existence or reality.

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The context of the use of "objective" involves a discussion in which God is presumed to exist for the sake of argument (see the set up of the Eutypro Dilemma: "But if God is good then..." necessitating God's existance for the sake of discussion). And so the assertion is made that mens subjective moralities (which share areas of agreement leading to the basic - though by no means universal - set) are various paths which have devolved (degraded) from a single objective reality, to whit; God.- Hopefully, the above has cleared things up a little. In case not, read what I say again - with my clarifying comment:

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There are various angles to this attribute ' good', various ways in which we can examine it. In this case, the statement "God is good" would be addressing mankind, who understand (and to large degree, agree on what globally constitutes..) the notion of "goodness". This statement tells them that the centrepoint of this general notion - from which the myriad of man-opinionated goodnesses derive .. is God. That all their subjective paths regarding goodness devolve from one objective summit.

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..that's what the message "God is good" intends to convey to man. Which is not to say men will believe that message. Unbelievers, who have no route to God's reality certaintly won't.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Have those competant speakers of English had God turn up 'at their door'. And if so, how do they figure to use one of his inventions to deny him a place in his reality? Perhaps you mean that English has become the preserve of that philosophical view which supposes reality limited to the empirically demonstratable (whether in fact or in principle)? In which case, there is no reason to agree to differ - we can simply cite non-aligning worldviews. Neither demonstrable.- Granted. And my use of the word 'objective' found it's place between those parenthesis. Once something is presumed to exist for the sake of argument, it is presumed objective for the sake of argument too. No?Mind that 'presuming for the sake of argument' whilst not qualifying, doesn't disqualify the objectivity of the thing presumed. The position taken is neutral on both sides.- I'm not sure I'd agree. Is it possible that the square root of negative one exists? Is God the same as something that demonstrably doesn't exist (like the pillars of the earth?)- Granted. Hopefully clarified.- I suppose I do. There's no way that I know of whereby I can certify the objectiveness of any of the external-to-me reality I assume is out there: not this screen in front of me, nor that God 'above' me. Objectiveness, like goodness is, ultimately, but a flavour. And God 'tastes' as real to me as this computer screen.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

- Correct Effectively, yes. With the end goal of us deciding whether we want to enter relationship with God and what he represents. Or whether we prefer to reject that.- Minor detail. Adam and Eve were equipped with free will as you suggest.Mankind in general is fallen and hasn't got that kind of will. But this skewed situation of mans evil-tendency is counter-balanced by the effort of God (execised in us by our consciences). And so we are returned to the situation of having the equivilent of a free-will.- I'm tending towards the view that Christ was capable of sinning but didn't. In which case you've essentially the same position for everyone born as the one Christ faced.Note that there is nothing problematic about people being condemned from God's point of view. It is as good that the damned be separated from the life of God and be punished for their evil as it is that those who choose for God spend eternity with him in his love.God is satisfied whichever way we choose.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Good that this answers your query.I'd merely note that I see God's activity and desire as operating in various tiers (just as ours does). God's primary want is that all get to choose (love demands that we can). His being love wants that all would choose him (this being a secondary want). His being wrath is justified in it's expression that those who choose against also have wilful sin on their account.- Although not a Calvinist (and rather detesting their Predestination doctrine) I am with them when they say that scripture points to the evil, sin-enslaved will of man. A will that by itself, is anything but free. The Reformed church is rather a large section of the total non-Roman church.Their opposite number in the protestant camp, the Arminians, seem to pull a thing called 'prevenient grace' out of the ether in order to make possible a just, fair God (according to the almost universal sense of fairness that mankind shares).In my own experience, the rest of the church seems to assume a freewill for the same reason of supposing a just God without having a clear scriptural reason for supposing so. Or they simply don't consider the question at all.Me? I arrive at a just, fair God (ie: a justness that which would cause men to nod in agreement) by slightly different means. Man's will enslaved and leaning always towards sin - if left to it's own devices. But it not left so. A balance is applied via the God-sustained force of conscience so as to arrive us at a as-good-as free will. Such a will differs not in essence from a commoner-garden freewill other than at a singular point: with a standard, Adamic free will, the credit for a mans salvation rests with himself - he wilfully chose for God. With this post-fall free will, the credit for a mans salvation goes to God - for God is the drawing force (conscience) which results in a man arriving at His shore - if it that he arrives there.It's an important detail (which is vital in all kinds of important ways) but not one that need deflect us too much from the notion of us having a free will. For all intents and purposes, we have.- Let us indeed. I like discussions which progress along those lines - This is true and from my perspective it matters little. I am saved by grace (something which all my protestant brethern are all agreed upon) not by my doctrine. After that, there is the matter of our interest in the way Goddidit.I wouldn't agree with you that a particular theology can't be assessed for accuracy. The way I see it, the theology improves as the number of appeals to mystery/scripturally baseless assumptions approaches zero. To think of an obvious example:Calvinism's famous TULIP tells us that the basis for God applying salvation to a person is Unconditional on anything that person does/wills/says. But they neither tell us what God's criterion for selecting a person actually is. Nor can they exclude all possible conditions a person might possibly meet. And so the U part of TULIP, Unconditional Election, relies on a scripturally-baseless assumption. I can see the problem. It seems to me though that there are only two possibilities.1) God is just in a sense which makes sense - in which case, you don't have to worry about a thing. The mechanism of salvation is his and he will ensure you are exposed to it as fairly and squarely as any other person2) God isn't just in a sense which makes sense. In which case you're in the same boat as everyone else: you're at the mercy of a capricious (should I say Calvinist?) God. There's little to be done about it.Although I'm supposing the first, and would suggest that if interested you follow the path that resolves whatever objections to God you may have - given that arrival at God would naturally result in all objections nullified, I'm not of the opinion an understanding of the correct mechanism of salvation is necessary in order that you be saved. And in this I think my brethern of all shades would agree. I suppose the dissolution of more of your objections than any other theology would be one way in which you might find satisfaction. Not, I repeat, that you are saved or damned by your attaching yourself to this, that or the other theology (according to my theology at least). Might it be that this very last sentence resolves at least one of the objections you might have ("what about the sheepherder up the side of a mountain in Tibet who never heard and will never hear of Jesus Christ")?

It wouldn't be possible for me to write a personal theological guide given that God's dealing with each person (w.r.t. salvation and according to 'my' theology) deals with the individuality of personhood. Each persons path to him is tailor-made. Unique. That said, it is possible, I think, to provide satisfactory answers to your questions by outlining the global sequence of events in salvation w.r.t. recognition of the theology of God as true. That sequence would be common in (I think) all cases - even if the detail of each persons case is unique.I acknowledge the dilemma posed. You would indeed arrive at a dead end in the quest for truth via the route of an internally consistant theology - assuming you could afford the time and study required to safely conclude internal consistancy in as few as even two cases. Fortunately, in 'my' theology, the route to salvation - and subsequent arrival at the Truth - doesn't depend on your correctly evaluating competing theologies. Indeed, it doesn't depend upon your efforts at all. Rather, the general sequence of events involved in your arriving at the truth of God's theology is such that you would be;a) firstly saved by God - quite aside from what you know or don't about his theology.b) then you would have revealed to you, by God, the existance of God - resulting in your believing IN God. Thereafter, but not at all critical to your salvation, is your embarking down the path of discovering the theology of God (aided in your travels by God). This latter task with a view to building you up in faith and equipping you for the work God has in mind for you.A few things arise immediately from this in relation to your questions:

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I am now faced with two internally consistent belief systems. How do I go beyond this to the point of actually believing? How do I move beyond this acknowledgment of two sensible "meta-stories" into an acceptance of the truth of one of them?

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You don't. You are first saved - apart from such considerations, then you believe the truth of Christianity and the falsity of Islam because it is revealed to you that that is the case.

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Is this component faith? How do I justify this faith? And how do I know which one I should have faith in?

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Apart from the sequence above, the only faith that would be possible to express at this point would be blind, subjective faith. But according to the sequence above your faith is post-salvation, sighted, evidenced, objective - because God is doing the self-revealing and the pointing to the truth* of Christianity and falsehood of eg: Islam.It should be clear than there is no necessity that you be exposed to the theology of God in order that you be saved. This permits the salvation of those who have never and will never hear of God, Jesus Christ, the Bible, etc.On faith.There is the Dawkins & Co definition of faith (blind, unevidenced). And there is the biblical definition of faith. Hebrews 11:1 describes biblical faith as being synonymous with evidence."Faith, the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen". *It is important to note that whilst God does reveal his existance to the saved and that the Bible is his message/guide/instruction/explanation/theology, it is possible to navigate a myriad of paths through the Bible. That I may have a different interpretation than say jaywill doesn't preclude myself and jaywill recognising ourselves as brothers in Christ. Edited by iano, : No reason given.