tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1433428682510068517.post2492458298276752707..comments2024-02-29T19:21:32.831-05:00Comments on Possible Worlds: What if God commanded murder?Randy Everisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06870605678781409126noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1433428682510068517.post-47491528641530022742013-08-19T19:26:44.531-04:002013-08-19T19:26:44.531-04:00Hi Teri, thanks for your comments. So sorry it too...Hi Teri, thanks for your comments. So sorry it took me so long to reply! I will say that the Christian position should be that God is the foundation for moral values and duties. Because he is that foundation, God can and will only command things that are consistent with his own good nature. So, if God commanded Abraham to kill Abraham's child, it would not be wrong for him to do so. But, how can we call that good? Well, first, God holds the lives of every single person, and he does not owe anyone continued existence. Thus, God has authority over our lives. Second, we ask: how do we work this out in our lives? If we hear voices, should we kill our children? I would answer that Abraham's situation was humanly unique, even for the Bible, and the likelihood God would ask us to do this would be incredibly low. Finally, we must point out that, in fact, Abraham did not kill Isaac, as God commanded him not to. God knew what was going to happen the entire time. I hope that helps! :)Randy Everisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06870605678781409126noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1433428682510068517.post-73190060611165638632013-07-13T16:06:01.724-04:002013-07-13T16:06:01.724-04:00Could you explain this argument in terms that are ...Could you explain this argument in terms that are not so academic? I truly want to understand but am having difficulty.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1433428682510068517.post-74861542665625039022011-11-24T10:04:26.919-05:002011-11-24T10:04:26.919-05:00Daniel, great points! In fact, most of what you sa...Daniel, great points! In fact, most of what you say was the driving reason behind my critique. I found some of article's explanation of the trilemma to be ambiguous (including the question in the first place), but I tried to be as charitable as possible once I read the entire thing. That's the same reason why I pointed out saying things like "God has commanded murder" just presupposes that what has been commanded is evil, which is the point of the question, and hence is question-begging. I think the theist can indeed introduce a moral argument, but that may take one far afield. It's up to preference. I see no problems with taking the objectivity of morality to be found within God's necessary nature. <br /><br />He really does not even attempt to give an argument. His treatment of that part is exactly one sentence: the claim itself. He uses it as a springboard for the argument that one of the things God cannot do is command moral atrocities, but the Abrahamic God has commanded moral atrocities. Of course, if one does not already agree with this, he won't agree with the second premise! In fairness, he may not have been saying we need to know <i>all</i> such things God cannot do, but at least one such thing. But I don't think that's quite true either. We may explicate the truth of something and know that whatever is not that truth is false, even if we do not know what exactly that is. For instance, we know that love is good, but suppose we really didn't know what not-love entails. But we know God can't do that (even if it is a non-explanation) precisely because we know that God is love. Hence, rather than what God cannot do informing what he can do, it is really the reverse.<br /><br />The author actually comments on this blog from time to time: Aaron. :)Randy Everisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06870605678781409126noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1433428682510068517.post-6277098682148800912011-11-24T08:59:19.422-05:002011-11-24T08:59:19.422-05:00“If what is good is that which God commands, then,...“If what is good is that which God commands, then, presumably, He may command and perform any act which, ex hypothesi, must be good, in which case morality may be said to be arbitrary and capricious; entirely contingent upon what God may at any time decree.”<br /><br />Suppose he’s correct. What is good is that which God may at any time decree. Doesn’t he assume that the decrees themselves do not derive from some non-arbitrary source, like an unchanging necessarily existent being? Or is he suggesting a scenario in which, in the absence of a divine command, there literally is no good and no evil?<br /> <br />Another question which might be raised (and which has famously been raised by William Lane Craig) is what circumstances serve to justify killing. Murder is the unjustified taking of the life of another person, but suppose the killing were justified. Then it is not murder, right? In fact, it would be morally permissible if it were justified. So the atheist question concerns whether you would be justified in killing your child if God commanded you to; one may answer “yes” without committing oneself to ethical voluntarism if one thinks that the presence of a divine command itself serves as moral justification. The atheist would have to show that, necessarily, a divine command is insufficient moral justification, would he not?<br /><br />“ However, (3), properly understood, should reverse the causal direction: X is good, God commands X.[2]”<br /><br />Does one leave unaddressed the question of why X is good in the first place? One may answer either “yes” or “no” to the atheist’s question. If yes, then God’s benevolence does not appear to be challenged. But “no” assumes objective moral values. Could not the theist divert the force of the question by illustrating that the question is based on premises which assume theism to begin with (via a moral argument)?<br /><br />““To say God is by necessity ‘good,’ and for such a pronouncement to be meaningful, the theist must be able to delimit actions that God cannot perform because they are bad.” <br /><br />I enjoyed your treatment of this. To be able to provide an exhaustive list of all actions God could not perform would require a perfect knowledge of moral values. Not only this, it would require knowledge of all future contingencies (some of which might cause an action which would have been morally neutral to become good). To propose that the theist needs to know all this in order to know that God is necessarily good seems incredible. Does he give any argument for this?Daniel Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01204413547765314287noreply@blogger.com