Answering an Atheists' defense of the Euthyphro dilemma?

[Ben_Sinner]

I came across a comment from an atheist trying to defend the ED after he read Trent Horn trying to debunk it:

*It seems to me that, the way we normally talk, “good” (as applied to people) is always some kind of analysis of a person’s actions. Why we would call those actions good is debatable, but it is a person’s actions—and their consequences—that morality is concerned with. When we say that someone is a “good person,” we mean that their actions are good. To say that someone’s nature is good, apart from actions, seems like confusion. I’m not even sure how to make sense of that.

Maybe what Horn means is that, because God knows everything, and is maximally concerned with the well-being of humans, he would always know what is best for us and would always command good things (even if we couldn’t tell they were good at the time). But this would just mean that God is in a unique position to inform us of what is good, and then we’re back on the second horn of the dilemma.

Thoughts? Have you ever heard a theist give an intelligible explanation of how God’s “nature” could be good?*

What would be a good answer to this person to prove that the ED is false? And also on how God’s “nature” can be good?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Thoughts? Have you ever heard a theist give an intelligible explanation of how God’s “nature” could be good?

What would be a good answer to this person to prove that the ED is false? And also on how God’s “nature” can be good?

The subject of God’s goodness is too vast to discuss in a single thread.

I suppose God’s goodness is manifested most in the fact that life is good.

We treasure life to the hilt.

If God were not God in his essence, it might be possible to argue that God is really Satanic.

But if we believed that, we would live in constant terror of a monster waiting around the next corner.

As it is, God gives us the choice to reason our way to whether he is good or evil or amoral.

The person who reasons well comes to the conclusion that life is a mixture of good and evil, and the evil we mostly bring upon ourselves.

 

[Ben_Sinner]

Another questions that was asked is:

*Is God’s nature good because it just is, by definition, or is God’s nature good because we’ve evaluated it to be so using some outside criteria? *

 

[Ben_Sinner]

Another point that was given:

The point is, the “standard” has to be EXTERNAL to the deity, to apply to the deity, and that refutes the deity as creator of Reality. A deity can’t only exist in Reality, as as total required participant, if the deity is the creator of that very reality in which it is required to exist.

 

[tm21]

Evil is a privation of Good. All men everywhere, when honest with themselves, value the virtues of good…courage, self control, humility, etc. Conversely they are repelled by cowardice, selfishness, etc. If there is a God who created man, it would be logical to conclude from our observation of man that God is by nature good since man is naturally drawn to the good. Also, every single choice we make is for a perceived good. No one ever purposefully chooses that which is not good. That is not to say that we always choose the actual good… we often perceive something is good, when in fact it isn’t…and choose it in error. But in all cases our will chooses what we perceive as good. If God is by nature good, it would make sense that man’s will is oriented toward Him.

 

[tm21]

Another point that was given:

The point is, the “standard” has to be EXTERNAL to the deity, to apply to the deity, and that refutes the deity as creator of Reality. A deity can’t only exist in Reality, as as total required participant, if the deity is the creator of that very reality in which it is required to exist.

Our descriptions of God are analogical and not univocal. We can describe what God isn’t, but can’t describe him explicitly and completely in a univocal manner. That God is by nature “good” is a true but incomplete statement. When we say “God is good” we are really asserting that goodness exists in God in a higher way than it exists in us. We describe goodness as it is present in us as caused by God and apply it as a true but inadequate representation of how it exists in that first cause. In other words, we are applying “goodness” to God in an analogous manner. Hence, the “standard” is really not a standard at all, but merely the observation of the effect (us) extrapolated by analogy to the cause (God).
**

 

[Ben_Sinner]

I don’t understand how the “standard” HAS to be external and why can’t God exist in Reality as a “totally required participant” if he is the creator of that very reality?

I’m not really understanding that person’s argument. It sounds like he is saying God created himself?