The Euthyphro Dilemma and the Sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham

[tonyrey]

That is why we defer to the Magisterium. However, in this case, scripture spells out that it was a test and that it was credited to Abraham as righteousness that he did not withhold even his own son.

Where does it spell out that Abraham was not mistaken?

 

[Filthy_Tugboat]

How would one explain Abraham’s sacrifice and intentions of taking the life of his son, in obedience to God’s command?

A atheist/agnostic will sometimes see that normally immoral acts when commanded by God or carried out in the name of god are still immoral. They see the divine command theory (in the sense of God’s order as always morally right) as dangerous because it gives people a motive to do evil and not even recognize it as evil. (Islamic suicide attacks in the name of religion).

God clearly has domain over life and death, and Abraham’s obedience to God’s command is commendable, not his intention of taking the life of Isaac (which some would deem murder since Isaac’s life is innocent).

I agree so far with what you have written.

I understand the source of our societies’ sense of morality is based on Christian principles which originate in God

This I doubt. Both about the Christian principles and about their origin in God.

the God that may act in ways that are beyond our ability to understand and judge as right or wrong

This I also doubt, why would a God that is perfect, omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent create beings incapable of understanding whether something is right or wrong?

although we should have an innate conception of God’s moral order through our conscience.

This appears doubtful as many disagree on what is moral and immoral, and the opinions vary massively.

 

[Filthy_Tugboat]

In Genesis 1, God speaks the universe into existence, and then evaluates it: “It is good.” There is no evaluation without a standard, so God is saying that creation is good with reference to some standard. Is creation good by God’s fiat? If so, then anything God commands is right, simply because God commands it.

But that can’t be right, for the reasons you imply. God’s commands are right because God recognizes what is good, not because he arbitrarily calls things good.

So what constitutes good? Does it exist separate to God?

In the Abraham and Isaac story, we are clearly supposed to draw out from the story that (1) Abraham had faith, and (2) Abraham obeyed God. I am not sure, however, whether Abraham “did the right thing”. The story clearly implies that Abraham valued his son as his own possession – thus God mentions that Abraham “has not withheld his only son” from Him – but it is unclear whether Abraham truly respected Isaac’s dignity. Perhaps here, as elsewhere in the Bible, God used a person’s imperfection and sinfulness to make a larger point. (In this case, a point in which Isaac prefigured Christ).

Why would God use someone in this manner to make a point that he could have made any other way? Why does God need to make a point? Why aren’t his intentions with us known to us without reading the Bible?

But why would God tell someone to do something wrong? Two answers: (1) God stopped Abraham from doing the wrong. If he hadn’t, then we would have some even more serious interpretative problems. (2) The Bible isn’t mostly concerned with morality. God cares more about faith than righteousness, on the Christian view. Indeed, consider Paul on this point: perhaps Abraham did everything wrong except having faith, but God credited Abraham with righteousness for his faith. (See Romans 4).

Why is faith more important than morality? Why is faith in God the most important kind of faith?

 

[Filthy_Tugboat]

Are you applying human reasoning to God’s actions? We must attempt to look at this from God’s viewpoint, rather than from man’s.

How is that possible? The Bible itself says that “God’s thoughts are higher than mans thoughts,” does this not mean that we are incapable of looking at this from God’s viewpoint?

God credited this obedience to Abraham as righteousness, since the event was a foreshadowing of the sacrifice of Christ.

Why should we recognize something as righteous just because God credits something with righteousness? Why should we trust that God recognizes goodness better than we do?

In spite of human reasoning we may apply to it, the event remains beyond human reasoning or understanding. Was God immoral or abusive to send Jesus to die for us?

I would say yes but many disagree.

 

[Filthy_Tugboat]

To be clear, you seem to be saying that the Bible is wrong, not Abraham. For the Bible does not tell us that Abraham *thought *that God said this, but rather that “God said to Abraham…”. Now, surely the authors of Scripture are susceptible to error, but isn’t this a rather major error? Or should we take Genesis, as some interpreters do, as only an inferior and primitive picture of the truth about God?

I would suggest that you should, it doesn’t appear to be anything more than a mythical tale generally derived from the Sumerian/Mesopotamian religion culture and tradition.

 

[Filthy_Tugboat]

So, do you mean to imply that Abraham should have said “Are you crazy? I’m not going to even think about hurting my son!”?

I certainly do.

The lesson in this is extremely simple: Obedience to God is righteousness and will bring blessing. Conversely, the message throughout scripture is that disobedience to God will ultimately bring His justice. And, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Hebrews 10:31).

So should we act against our own morals out of fear? Should we betray ourselves and what we know to be right because a being who instructs us on what is righteous tells us to do so?

It is not what man, with strictly human thoughts, logic and morals, perceives here. This is a revelation of what God does and how He does it. If something appears amiss in this scripture story, we have two choices: God is wrong, or we are. We complicate truth when we insert human opinions, desires or preferences into the purity of revelation.

This only comes after one assumes that the Bible is a revelation and I don’t understand why. It also seems apparent that once one does believe it is revelation they stop questioning it’s moral implications and just claim that it must be moral because it’s from God. I personally don’t act this way because I find it is counterproductive to finding truth.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

… it must be moral because it’s from God…

Divine command defines what is moral. Apart from it the word morality has no meaning.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

So what constitutes good? Does it exist separate to God?

Good question. I think that, in a sense at least, good does exist separate to God – good is not simply “God’s preference”. Some things are not merely desired, but desirable. For example, it is desirable that – if God were to create mankind – God also provide mankind the means of salvation. And it is desirable that small babies not experience intense pain. These things would not stop being desirable if God, per impossible, suddenly stopped desiring them.

Why would God use someone in this manner to make a point that he could have made any other way? Why does God need to make a point? Why aren’t his intentions with us known to us without reading the Bible?

Would you prefer a universe devoid of communication? If it is good for people to converse with and inform other people, why wouldn’t it be good for God to converse with and inform those He has created? Do you think our being able to read God’s mind would make the universe better in some way?

Why is faith more important than morality? Why is faith in God the most important kind of faith?

Morality is a set of rules. I am a father, and I often speak to my children about what they should and should not do, and why. But this is clearly not the center of my relationship with my children. The center of that relationship is trust and love.

Perhaps you are being misled by a prominent misunderstanding of the Christian concept of faith. Faith is not simply belief. Abraham believing that God existed, and that God was good, did not play any real role in his actions. What mattered was that Abraham trusted God to be good to him, even though Abraham knew that he did not deserve children as countless as grains on the sand, etc.

Don’t you think trust, and love, are more important than rule-following?

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Do you interpret every statement in Genesis as **literally **true?

No. But I do think that Genesis is inspired. And I find it very hard to explain how an inspired work would say that “God said x” if God didn’t – and never would – say anything like x.

Still, I’m simply trying to point out a tension, not solve a problem. If we come to Biblical interpretation with a fixed idea of God – and reject as error anything that doesn’t fit that fixed idea – we cannot be taught by Scripture. We “have already received our reward”. Thus, when some Scripture “rubs us the wrong way”, we ought not immediately interpret the offending passage away.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

So, do you mean to imply that Abraham should have said “Are you crazy? I’m not going to even think about hurting my son!”?

Not really. Personally, I have a son named (not coincidentally) Isaac. What strikes me is that I always should act out of love for Isaac. This does not conflict with acting out of love for God – nor, according to the New Testament, can it conflict. But I do question how Abraham could have been acting out of love for his son Isaac when he went to sacrifice him.

I do admit that I’m hesitating here. I do not hold my position dogmatically, and I’m willing to listen to explanations of how Abraham might let a knife descend upon his son out of love. Perhaps pain was not considered so serious in Biblical times. Paul clearly mentions that Abraham had faith that God could raise Isaac from the dead, so it wasn’t the killing that was the problem (in a sense).

Obedience to God is righteousness and will bring blessing.

Paul would say that faith, not obedience, is righteousness. This may not be important, however, since many of the obedient are also faithful – although some obey merely out of fear.

 

[ddarko]

Interesting question. Here is my view on this.

I think many here are missing an important point here.

As far as Abraham is concerned, there is no revelation for him or anything that would state that offering Isaac is immoral. Child sacrifices were common place where Abraham was from. Abraham had a sexual union with someone other than his wife resulting in the birth of Ishmael at one point. God does not condemn Abraham simply because Abraham has no reason to consider it immoral. So Abraham, was judged only with respect to whether he was willing to do the will of God as revealed to him.

So the dilemma Abraham faced was never about doing what is Moral vs. doing what God asked. The question Abraham faced was his love for his son vs. love for God. Him siding with God, shows that he trusts in God completely and is ready to do his will, even if it means to sacrifice the very child God promised him.

Therefore in this sense, there is really no problem with Morality vs. God for Abraham.

Paul would say that faith, not obedience, is righteousness. This may not be important, however, since many of the obedient are also faithful – although some obey merely out of fear.

I believe this is incorrect.

Faith without works is dead. This is why it was not enough for Abraham to simply “make up his mind” that he will offer Isaac and that was enough. Abraham had to DO the will of God.

Doing the will of God is what leads to salvation. Not mere faith. Now even if one does the will of God out of fear of God, that is still worthy of salvation.

What St. Paul condemns is people obeying a law and then thinking God OWES them salvation as a result of satisfying the law. St. Paul merely reminds us that we are called to do the WILL of the father, not follow a LAW. To think that the LAW is what saves is sort of like falling to the trap of the Euthyphro dilemma i.e. Morality is outside of God and if we follow it, God has no choice but to save us. On the contrary, salvation is offered to all. God has claimed everyone as his family through baptism. But, we are free to act contrary to his will at which point we loose salvation. Doing the will of the father is PLEASING to the father.

And Abraham my friend, pleased the father very much by his obedience to God’s will

God Bless

 

[tonyrey]

No. But I do think that Genesis is inspired. And I find it very hard to explain how an inspired work would say that “God said x” if God didn’t – and never would – say anything like x.

Although Genesis is inspired it was written by primitive people who cannot be expected to be infallible in every aspect of their interpretation of God’s message.

Still, I’m simply trying to point out a tension, not solve a problem. If we come to Biblical interpretation with a fixed idea of God – and reject as error anything that doesn’t fit that fixed idea – we cannot be taught by Scripture. We “have already received our reward”. Thus, when some Scripture “rubs us the wrong way”, we ought not immediately interpret the offending passage away.

That is true but once we admit that every statement need not be interpreted literally we have to apply Christ’s teaching that God is a loving Father to everything in Scripture. How could a loving Father command any father to kill his own son and deceive him into thinking it is His Will? It is absurd to believe God is entitled to kill and torture us unnecessarily. By creating us He has voluntarily imposed obligations on Himself and duties of care towards us. That fact is a proof of His infinite love for us. Jesus quoted Hosea: “I desire mercy not sacrifice”. Love does not demand sacrifice but self-sacrifice…

 

[tonyrey]

And Abraham my friend, pleased the father very much by his obedience to God’s will

Abraham pleased God very much by his obedience to what he **believed **was God’s Will…

 

[tonyrey]

It also seems apparent that once one does believe it is revelation they stop questioning its moral implications and just claim that it must be moral because it’s from God.

Do you question moral implications when they are based on the command to love others?

 

[ddarko]

Abraham pleased God very much by his obedience to what he **believed **was God’s Will…

Um no. I think your view is here is rather incorrect and unnecessary.

Do you think God’s promise to give Abraham a son was Abraham’s imagination? That it was not God’s will but what Abraham merely thought of as being God’s will? I would say no as I hope you do too.

So just as we consider Abraham to have gotten that right and God in his divine Providence to have revealed it sufficiently such that Abraham understands, there is no reason to doubt the command on Isaac as Abraham being fooled.

In fact, God’s words right after don’t make much sense in light of your view

“By myself I have sworn, says the Lord: Because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of their enemies, and by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessing for themselves, because you have obeyed my voice” (Genesis 22:16-18 NRSV).

According to you, all Abraham has done was do his OWN misunderstanding of God’s will. If what you are saying is true, I would assume God would go, “YOU FOOOL, What are you doing? I gave you a son and now you are going to cut him up???. Don’t ever do something stupid like this.”

But that’s not what he says. He says ‘I will bless you for “you have obeyed my voice”’.

Something that might be confusing you is that you might be thinking that I am saying God’s will was for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. That is NOT my position. I am saying God’s will was for Abraham to do what he did i.e. Choose to obey God’s voice over his love for Isaac.

There is no reason for us to think God WILLED Isaac to be sacrificed and I don’t think anyone here is claiming as such.

God Bless

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Interesting question. Here is my view on this.

I think many here are missing an important point here.

As far as Abraham is concerned, there is no revelation for him or anything that would state that offering Isaac is immoral. Child sacrifices were common place where Abraham was from. Abraham had a sexual union with someone other than his wife resulting in the birth of Ishmael at one point. God does not condemn Abraham simply because Abraham has no reason to consider it immoral. So Abraham, was judged only with respect to whether he was willing to do the will of God as revealed to him.

So the dilemma Abraham faced was never about doing what is Moral vs. doing what God asked. The question Abraham faced was his love for his son vs. love for God. Him siding with God, shows that he trusts in God completely and is ready to do his will, even if it means to sacrifice the very child God promised him.

What you have written here, friend, is wise. There is no law without a lawgiver, and no law had been given to Abraham – thus, not even the Ten Commandments bound him. However, many Christians believe in natural law, and this is where the interpretation gets more dicey. If we can know the good (imperfectly) without revelation – as Aquinas taught – then Abraham would have access to that imperfect idea of right and wrong. One moral concept that Abraham had access to was love, and it is hard to see how he could consider the action God proposes to him an act of love to Isaac.

So I’m still inclined to say that the battle was between love for **self **and love for God, not between love for Isaac and love for God. My feeling is that God used Abraham’s imperfections to work perfection in Abraham. Loving your son is not an imperfection, and I cannot think of any scriptures in which a parent is told by God to choose loving God instead of choosing to love his or her child. (I’m certainly open to correction, however.) We are told to “hate” mother, father, wife, child, etc, but this is (I think) only because these people can lead us astray if we love them more than God.

Perhaps I am begging the question, however, since loving your son more than God is an imperfection.

I believe this is incorrect.

Faith without works is dead. This is why it was not enough for Abraham to simply “make up his mind” that he will offer Isaac and that was enough. Abraham had to DO the will of God.

I think we actually agree here. “Faith” without works is not actually faith. Action – or at least attempted action – is an essential component of faith. Obedience proceeds from trust.

But, once again, mere obedience, I hope you’ll agree, is not enough. Obedience must be accompanied by a relationship.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Although Genesis is inspired it was written by primitive people who cannot be expected to be infallible in every aspect of their interpretation of God’s message.

People are people. Why demean their real contributions by calling them “primitive”? And, even if it were written by slugs, the fact that it is inspired must count for something.

That is true but once we admit that every statement need not be interpreted literally we have to apply Christ’s teaching that God is a loving Father to everything in Scripture.

But **many, many people **claim to have seen a way that a loving Father might indeed tell Abraham to sacrifice his son. I myself am unsure of their explanations, but I at least ought to listen and discern. Perhaps God’s idea of love is different from – and better than! – the idea of love that we modern Christians have. How would we ever discover this if we systematically “prune” the word of the Old Testament?

By creating us He has voluntarily imposed obligations on Himself and duties of care towards us.

Absolutely. But how does telling Abraham to kill Isaac – only to take it back – violate these obligations?

 

[ddarko]

One moral concept that Abraham had access to was love, and it is hard to see how he could consider the action God proposes to him an act of love to Isaac.

I am not sure about this. Most of the time, people think they love the other. They definitely know that they must love but they would not know how to love. Hence why things like same-sex marriage or euthanasia can seem like acts of love.

But that is not really the topic of discussion here. To get back on topic,

In the case of Abraham, he does not even know that one is called to love. One must realize that at this point in history, there is no revelation available to Abraham. His morality is just simply what ever works for the tribe or household. So Abraham has no reason to consider that to LOVE is indeed what he should pursue.

So it is at this time that God chooses to enter in to relationship with him and set about the salvation plan in to gear. So here, Abraham has no access to a moral code. He only has God’s guiding voice. God also knows that at times, his actions and commands would not be immediately clear. He did not want a person who was wise and would do what they think is best like Adam, Eve or Cain but a person who would trust in him completely.

At this point for Abraham to even insist with God that he cannot do what he asks because he is first and foremost called to love Isaac does not make logical sense. Abraham only has a best guess at what he might be called to do in life.

So I’m still inclined to say that the battle was between love for **self **and love for God, not between love for Isaac and love for God.

I think it would be more correct to say, Isaac was the object of Abraham’s affections. Just as we wouldn’t say the parent who looses their child at a young age mourns because of a love for themselves, I think we can’t say that about Abraham’s choice. I am sure you agree that the grief the parents feel is still as a result of love for the child.

It is important to note that God’s will here was not that Isaac be sacrificed. It was only that Abraham obey his voice. So in this sense tonyrey is somewhat correct that Abraham merely perceived God wanted Isaac sacrificed. But it is not a mistake on Abraham’s part but something already anticipated by divine providence and is how it was meant to be understood by Abraham till the moment of sacrifice.

As an aside, I think this shows why doing God’s will is indeed love for the other when it might not be so clear to us at first. By seeing Abraham obeying God’s voice and doing what he did, Isaac no doubt got a lesson in faith from his father that day.

God Bless

 

[Luke_K]

How would one explain Abraham’s sacrifice and intentions of taking the life of his son, in obedience to God’s command?

A atheist/agnostic will sometimes see that normally immoral acts when commanded by God or carried out in the name of god are still immoral. They see the divine command theory (in the sense of God’s order as always morally right) as dangerous because it gives people a motive to do evil and not even recognize it as evil. (Islamic suicide attacks in the name of religion).

God clearly has domain over life and death, and Abraham’s obedience to God’s command is commendable, not his intention of taking the life of Isaac (which some would deem murder since Isaac’s life is innocent). I understand the source of our societies’ sense of morality is based on Christian principles which originate in God, the God that may act in ways that are beyond our ability to understand and judge as right or wrong, although we should have an innate conception of God’s moral order through our conscience.

The Judaic religion’s sense of God as having just wrath and the Christian understanding of God as fully merciful also seem to clash in the minds of some disbelievers and I struggle to clarify and explain the Catholic teaching in this area to them.

Any articulations and explanations of this scenario and the “dilemma” would be most appreciated.

This is actually a simple issue. Abraham’s test was to see if he would trust in God’s promise to bring forth descendants through Isaac. Now that could not happen if Isaac was dead, so God was seeing if Abraham really believed in their covenant. Abraham only went through with it because he trusted that God would tell him to stop or somehow prevent Isaac from dying. We can see this when Isaac asks Abraham where the sheep for the holocaust was, and Abraham replies, “God himself will provide the sheep for the holocaust.” Abraham knew that God was going to switch Isaac with the sheep (which is also a foreshadowing of God sending his own Son to be the sacrificial lamb).

So there’s no moral issue here, because Abraham’s test was to see whether he had faith in God’s promise.

EDIT: On second thought, the angel said “[God] now knows how devoted you are to God, since you did not withhold from me your own beloved son.” So perhaps this negates my interpretation?..I don’t know. :ehh:

 

[ddarko]

This is actually a simple issue. Abraham’s test was to see if he would trust in God’s promise to bring forth descendants through Isaac. Now that could not happen if Isaac was dead, so God was seeing if Abraham really believed in their covenant. Abraham only went through with it because he trusted that God would tell him to stop or somehow prevent Isaac from dying. We can see this when Isaac asks Abraham where the sheep for the holocaust was, and Abraham replies, “God himself will provide the sheep for the holocaust.” Abraham knew that God was going to switch Isaac with the sheep (which is also a foreshadowing of God sending his own Son to be the sacrificial lamb).

So there’s no moral issue here, because Abraham’s test was to see whether he had faith in God’s promise.

EDIT: On second thought, the angel said “[God] now knows how devoted you are to God, since you did not withhold from me your own beloved son.” So perhaps this negates my interpretation?..I don’t know. :ehh:

I think what you mean to say is that the test is on how much Abraham is willing to trust in the lord. He has promised him so much and he has given him Isaac. Is Abraham willing to throw it all away just because God says so (which would show that he believes that the obedience to the will of God is what matters) or will he hold tight to what he thinks is the best way to go from then on.

In this sense, it is also a matter of whether Abraham believed God would deliver on his initial promise. Note: Christian faith is defined as belief in God’s revelation which includes promises. So by doing God’s will and believing that God will somehow still honor his promise, he shows he has faith.

God Bless