God’s Role in a Morality Which He Doesn’t Define
Marco, at El Blog de Marcos (via Philosophers’ Carnival), entertains the possibility of God-dependant morality while avoiding the Euthyphro dilemma. (I don’t really like Wikipedia’s summary but it’ll suffice for now. I’ve also written on the topic here and here. Even better, read the dialogue and decide for yourself.) Here’s Marco’s suggestion:
[W]hat if we see God as decreeing the particular laws he does for non-moral reasons (i.e. reasons other than those like ‘… is wrong)? This avoids the dispensability-of-God problem as well as the arbitrariness problem.
In fact, it avoids neither problem because it fails to account for God’s motivation for “decreeing the particular laws [H]e does for non-moral reasons”. Let’s say God decrees a law for non-moral reasond r. Did God choose non-moral reason r by throwing dice or is there a deeper motivation? If the former, arbitrariness stares us in the face. If the latter, non-moral reason r becomes irrelavent and the original dilemma returns.
Marco, however, offers another reason why the suggested solution fails.
[T]he only proper way to conceive of the demandingness of morality is as consisting in the fact that all humans rationally ought to be susceptible to moral motivation - and it seems this account gets the phenomenology of goodness wrong. It looks like moral motivation would have to be just a case of being motivated to do whatever God decrees, read de dicto (i.e. motivated to act merely because God decrees it).
This touches on what I find to be a common mistake in understanding genuine religious motivation. One can be (and, I would argue, should be) motivated both by loyalty to God’s authoritative word and a morality independent of that word simultaneously. Engaging in an intimate relationship with God is a good in and of itself. If a given activity brings one closer to God, even if only because God requires it, then that activity’s goodness is independent of the divine command per se. It is dependent, rather, on the moral value of acheiving closeness to God.
The Euthyphro demonstrates that morality cannot be definitionally dependent on God’s word. In other words, defining morality as that which God desires or commands does indeed entail the contradiction that Plato so brilliantly illustrates. What I’ve suggested here, however, is an indirect dependence by which an activity is good because of the particular God-Man relationship it creates and cultivates.
“Moral or arbitrary” is a false choice.
Perhaps it’s because I spent eight years immersed entirely in theatre that I am not troubled by this. My intuition is emphatic to me on this point: God can decree “r” for non-moral reasons and still not be arbitrary. Because God is an artist. The Artist. And art is not arbitrary.
Comment by Seth Chalmer — July 3, 2006 @ 11:22 pm
I’m not sure I follow. Of course art isn’t arbitrary. So what?
Comment by sagoboulevard — July 4, 2006 @ 12:06 am
My point is that one can avoid the dilemma by assuming that some of God’s commands are designed to command us morally (thou shalt not murder), and others are artistic (t’fillin).
I’m not equating t’fillin with human fingerpainting, because God’s art is as important as anything else important in God’s world. But the point is, the way I understand morality, laying t’fillin does nothing morally. It does, however, have some kind of an effect on the universe by virtue of being a two-way communication between the human and the Divine. It may have effects deeply woven into the universe in mysterious ways I can’t contemplate. But mysteries such as these are best understood by the human brain as art. All art is mystery. Why should a series of notes be music, or a property of light be a beautiful color?
You ask, “Did God choose non-moral reason r by throwing dice or is there a deeper motivation? If the former, arbitrariness stares us in the face. If the latter, non-moral reason r becomes irrelavent and the original dilemma returns.”
WHY is non-moral reason r necessarily irrevalent if it isn’t arbitrary? What if r is an artistic reason — it isn’t a toss of the dice, or a moral necessity, but rather an artistic necessity? What if morality is God-dependant and necessary for the world’s existence, and yet what if moral imperatives coexists with divine artistic imperatives too?
What I’m saying is that respect for art (and ultimate respect for specifically Divine Art) leaves the dilemma toothless for me. To believe that God sets both moral AND artistic imperatives leaves no problem with believing that laying t’fillin is an important mitzvah while still believing it’s not a moral imperative.
The answer to the dilemma can be: morals are moral only because God commands, but not every command of God is a moral command. It’s like believing, as I do, that the laws of physics only exist because God decrees, but not every Divine decree is a law of physics.
We humans seem to have a sense that moral justice is an ideal as separate from God’s will. Abraham seemed to think so when he argued for Sodom and Gomhorra. This isn’t to say that God is subservient to any law, but rather that it appears that God WANTS us to make a distinction between some aspects of His will and others. That’s why She wanted Abraham to argue, right?
Comment by Seth Chalmer — July 4, 2006 @ 11:53 am
I think you’re using the term “moral” too narrowly (or perhaps I should choose a different word, maybe “virtuous”).
My point is that the two-way communication you refer to is in fact a moral activity insofar as is fosters a relationship between Man and the perfectly good being who is God. Tefillen, to use your example, becomes an indirectly moral imperative in that way.
That’s a loaded comparison that I don’t have the time to fully take apart right now. If “morals are moral only because God commands”, then we cannot account for God’s motivation. (i.e. Why would God command x is x’s value is merely a function of that very command?!) Laws of physics, by contrast, serve no motivational function and thus, are not relevant here.
I wrote my undergrad thesis on exactly this topic. If you’d like a copy, e-mail me.
Comment by sagoboulevard — July 4, 2006 @ 7:58 pm
Hello. I just thought you might like to read this article: “A Christian Answer to the Euthyphro Dilemma”
http://www.theologyonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47024
Comment by Sam Riggio — March 14, 2008 @ 4:03 pm