Good Lord!

23 August 2015

[This entry is a reworking of a less carefully written entry that I posted to Facebook on 26 March.]

ἐννόησον γὰρ τὸ τοιόνδε· ἆρα τὸ ὅσιον ὅτι ὅσιόν ἐστιν φιλεῖται ὑπὸ τῶν θεῶν, ἢ ὅτι φιλεῖται ὅσιόν ἐστιν;[1]

Socrates
as related by Platon
in Εὐθύφρων [Euthyphro] 10a

A classic question is of whether goodness — in the sense of that which is moral or otherwise objectively to be desired — determines the will of G_d, or is determined by the will of G_d.[2]

The notion that whatever G_d wills is, ipso facto, good is called the Divine Command theory of goodness. A fair number of people profess to believe this theory, but few people actually do. One way of testing belief would be to ask, for various X, whether it would be bad for G_d to do X. For example, whether it would be bad for G_d to create innocent souls, and then, beginning immediately, to subject them to an eternity of unrelieved suffering. A person who reached for some theoretical greater good somehow achieved wouldn't be accepting that G_d's will were ipso facto good; a person who cried out that G_d would not do such a thing because it were evil wouldn't be accepting that G_d's will were ipso facto good. Only a person who could honestly declare that it would not be bad for G_d to do any X would accept the Divine Command theory.

Phil Robertson's infamous speech, in which he presents a hypothetical scenario within which ghastly things are done to an atheïst famly,[3] is an exemplar of an attempt to advance a Divine Command theory that violates the essential feature of that theory. Robertson presumes that atheïsm in turn implies moral nihilism. But he also presumes that none of the things done to the family could be good; that presumption implies that even G_d could not make them good. Robertson expects his audience — even the non-believers in his audience — to be able to see that these assaults are actively wrong. Indeed, he is apparently prepared to bet that, in spite of their unbelief, atheïsts undergoing such trials would form an opinion that something about this just ain’t right.

Well, if G_d cannot make a thing good merely by willing it to be good, then fundamental goodness is independent of the will of G_d. And if goodness is independent of the will of G_d, then the case for goodness is independent of the will of G_d. If G_d should not do things because they are evil, then men and women should not do them because they are evil, for pretty much the same reason as G_d should not, whatever that reason might be.

Possibly G_d might be more morally discerning than ordinary persons. But ordinary persons plainly have great difficulty recognizing whatever principles are communicated by G_d, which is why there is so much disagreement amongst theïsts about alleged communications. Faith is not a mechanism of discernment; it is guessing without the guidance of evidence, and a leap of Faith can carry one in any direction. If we are not to make uneducated guesses about morality, then we must hope that some human beings amongst us can make a case that does not itself rely in its foundations upon unproved assertions about what G_d declares — a case, thus, that can be made to atheïsts.

(Hypothetically, it might be proved that G_d were more morally discerning and had made some moral declaration the basis of which were not understood by other persons. Still, if that proof were not apprehensible to atheïsts, then it would not be a proof by which human beings could reasonably be guided. And I certainly haven't encountered such a proof.)[3.5]

That's not to say that the will of G_d would be irrelevant to a manifestation of ethical principles; the will of other persons can be important to such manifestations (as, for example, when I think myself morally required not to hurt the feelings of a child); and G_d would perhaps be the most important of persons. But the fundamentals would be prior to the desires of all persons.

Actually, those of us who believe that morals are prior to the will of anyone have a hard time seeing any real difference between taking morality to be no more than the commands of G_d and taking morality to be no more than the commands of some other powerful party of persons. For us, that looks like no morality at all, just the rule of a bully or of bullies.[4]

And, really, a belief in a morality greater than the demands of any person is what underlies the emotional commitment of so many atheïsts to their atheïsm. They believe that G_d would be good, and that G_d therefore could not cause nor allow certain things to happen; but they see those things happen, and so conclude that G_d is not there. It is an implicit and often unrecognized commitment to morality that makes these people atheïsts. (A potential counter-argument to this case for atheïsm might be found in claiming that some greater good were served by the ills observed.)


[1] For consider such as this: Is that which is hallowed loved by the gods because it is hallowed, or is it hallowed because it is loved by the gods?

[2] Of course, one may more generally write and speak in terms that allow for multiple gods (as did Platon). This allows for consideration of disagreement amongst gods, but otherwise adds nothing but verbal awkwardness and irrelevant discomfort for monotheïsts. Since I expect that a greater share of my readers will be monotheïsts rather than polytheïsts, I'll concern myself less with the discomfort of the latter.

[3] “I’ll make a bet with you. Two guys break into an atheist's home. He has a little atheist wife and two little atheist daughters. Two guys break into his home and tie him up in a chair and gag him. And then they take his two daughters in front of him and rape both of them and then shoot them and they take his wife and then decapitate her head off in front of him. And then they can look at him and say, ‘Isn't it great that I don't have to worry about being judged? Isn't it great that there's nothing wrong with this? There's no right or wrong, now is it dude?’

“Then you take a sharp knife and take his manhood and hold it in front of him and say, ‘Wouldn't it be something if this was something wrong with this? But you're the one who says there is no God, there's no right, there's no wrong, so we're just having fun. We're sick in the head, have a nice day.’

“If it happened to them, they probably would say, ‘something about this just ain't right.’”

[3.5] This parenthetic note was inserted on 31 August 2015.

[4] See my entry of 20 February 2008 for discussion of the notion that rights are creäted by powerful parties. It is unsurprising that the typical response of classical liberals and the typical response of conservatives to atheïsm should differ one from the other, given that classical liberals and conservatives have very different notions about a need for bullies in human society.

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2 Responses to Good Lord!

  • J_D_La_Rue_67 says:

    Very interesting. This reminds me of an old book I recently read:

    The Devil : Perceptions of evil from antiquity to primitive christianity / Jeffrey Burton Russell. - Ithaca ; London : Cornell University Press, 1982 [ISBN 0801409381]

    Myth creators have always tried to explain why evil (human or natural evil) is inevitable and even necessary in G_d's Plan (whatever that plan may be).
    In the end, they just can't cope with the problem, as any answer proves to be inadequate, incomplete or silly.
    That's why monism has to slowly transform itself into a more or less disguised form of dualism, since we can't accept that one single Principle, omnipresent, omnipotent and inerrable, elects goodness as "the right way" but has a use for evil (unless we resume the old, idiotic and unbearable explanation of a G_d who's actually "testing" his creatures).
    To poor ignorant me, one of the most interesting attempts to define evil is, according to the book, the platonic idea (adopted by Augustine and Aquinas) that evil has no real being at all, but consists of lack of perfection, or privation of G_d's will, like the holes in Emmental's cheese. So , ontologically speaking, evil doesn't exist since it's only a lack or defect. But we can define Emmental as a cheese only including its holes, so here we go again.
    Is Satan a servant of G_d and member of his court, as in Job, or the rebellious Lucifer? Even the original position of Zarathushtra is ambiguous, or at least the notion of two utterly different and opposite principles (Ahura Mazda - Angra Mainyu) coexists with the notion of one principle with two "personalities" (Ahura Mazda generates the twins Spenta Mainyu-good, and Angra Mainyu-evil).
    As I kept on reading I had the creepy feeling that all this G_d - good - evil problem, and trying to define an universe in religious terms, was just a way of projecting "outside" what lurks within us. After a couple of drinks, I was ready to think that Sigmund Freud is a modern Zarathushtra and G_d is man's greatest literary creation. Awful, awful thoughts.
    But evil does exist. Even this comment is evil, badly written as it is.

    • Daniel says:

      My favorite book on the myth of Lucifer is The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth (1987) by Neil Forsyth. However, a book more directly concerned with how Satan came to be identified with Lucifer and seen as the driving force behind evil in the world is The Origin of Satan by Elaine Pagels (ISBN: 978-0679731184).

      I quite agree that the struggle to explain evil, in the context of belief in a personal G_d, leads many to a dualism, perhaps unacknowledged. As a consequence of that, evil becomes more terrifying. It does not merely cause suffering, but plans for it and delights in it, and even G_d is unable to check it.

      As to the holes in cheese or in souls, I urge care with the concept of exceptions. Grammatically, voids are treated as something, but this is an artefact of language. And a cat that has no tail is most easily described thus than in terms of all the specific other attributes; similarly, it is easier to talk about where the cheese isn't and about what a person lacks.

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