Posted on 02/27/2011 12:52:38 PM PST by SeanG200
My son (a believer) and one of his childhood friends (an atheist and extreme liberal) are taking a philosophy 101 class at the local college here in town and they are debating the Euthyphro Dilemma. There are two audio files in this post that DESTROY the atheists argument in regards to this position, not to mention that this is in fact NOT a dilemma: [QUOTE] ...While Plato was dealing with polytheism and a form of monism, this argument as dealt with herein is response to the challenges presented to theism. However, his use of a third option is what we present here as well… making this dilemma mute. What was Plato’s solution?
“You split the horns of the dilemmas by formulating a third alternative, namely, God is the good. The good is the moral nature of God Himself. That is to say, God is necessarily holy, loving, kind, just, and so on. These attributes of God comprise the good. God’s moral character expresses itself toward us in the form of certain commandments, which became for us our moral duties.
Hence, God’s commandments are not arbitrary but necessarily flow from His own nature. They are necessary expression of the way God is.One of the most important notes to mention is that once there is a third alternative, there is no longer a dilemma. [/QUOTE]
Just like yourself, atheists will believe what they want to believe.
Euthyphro is one of my favorites, and easy to read. Rather than waste your time on this guy's postmortem “dissection,” go read the lively and living original. Great intro to Plato, IMO.
Why do you say necessarily? The conception of God as an omnipotent creator and ruler of the universe doesn't seem to include this condition, and Biblically the commands to obey Him, that is to be "good", were predicated entirely on recognition of His all encompassing and irresistible power. It seems to me Socrates' argument in the Euthyphro is entirely apropos.
... and "mute" s/b "moot" !
And, being good, He commands all those that believe upon Him to smite the evil nonbelievers and He promises to cast them into a fiery pit of damnation for all eternity.
Yes, real nice. Thanks.
We are the pure and chosen few, and all the rest are damned.
There’s room enough in hell for you—we don’t want heaven crammed.
LOL! :)
Maybe so, but I have to admit I get tongue-tied trying to repeat it.
Soc. In like manner, I want you to tell me what part of justice is piety or holiness, that I may be able to tell Meletus not to do me injustice, or indict me for impiety, as I am now adequately instructed by you in the nature of piety or holiness, and their opposites.
Well Geez, man, get yourself a decent translation!
I find the best translations in Plato Complete Works, Edited by Jonh M. Cooper, published 1997 by Hacket Press, in which G. M. A. Grube translates Euthyphro, as well as Apology, Crito and Phaedro. The same excerpt from that translation - quite intelligible - is found below:
Socrates: Try in this way to tell me what part of the just the pious is, in order to tell Meletus not to wrong us any more and not to indict me for ungodliness, since I have learned from you sufficiently what is godly and pious, and what is not.
I tend to agree with Socrates because of the situation in Genesis with Adam. The only “sin” that existed in the Garden of Eden was the command to not partake of the fruit. There was no other “sin”, no other laws. As far as I can tell, Adam was in complete control and could have done anything he wanted, and I mean anything. God is the ultimate arbiter of what is sin and what is not.
On the question of "this condition," Socrates/Plato regarded the One God Beyond the Cosmos as Absolute Good, Truth, Beauty, Justice, and Love. And all this, roughly 400 years before the Incarnation of Jesus Christ.
The Euthyphro is not an attack on the One God of the Beyond: It is a monumental indictment of classical Greek polytheism.
The Olympian gods, like man, were created beings; unlike man, they were immortal. Socrates/Plato sees them as if they were "man writ large," what with all their quarrels and jealousies amongst themselves. He hardly found them to be good "models" for just, upright, truthful human living. In effect, Socrates died because of this insight....
Dr_lew, with all respect, I don't think you have completely grasped what the Euthyphro is saying. My conjecture is you are looking at the dialogue through the lens of a 21st-century atheist. In the process, you are anachronistically "backloading" a whole lot of contemporary "crappy thinking" regarding the divine onto Plato's work that probably would have appalled Plato.
The divine appeal to man is couched in the language of love.... Man responds accordingly — or not, as the case may be. But to suggest that man "complies" with God because he fears God's power is a slander against both God and man.
Or so it seems to me. FWIW.
At the end of the dialogue, Euthyphro withdraws in frustration, and Socrates' question has not been answered: "How do you even know what 'right' is?"
Socrates' observation goes to the problem of how one can discern what "right" and "wrong" are if the divine standard and measure of morality is a multiplicity of gods who are clearly immoral in their behavior, toward one another and toward man. This almost seems to suggest that a man — Socrates — is the measure, which would validate Protagoras' position. Which Socrates detested.
To put it mildly, Socrates was at war with the idea of man being the measure of anything but chaos, if left to his own devices. He was at total war with the idea of "man is the measure of all things." Socrates/Plato knew the measure of truth and morality in the world of immanent nature could only be the transcendent God Beyond the Cosmos.
In other words, Socrates/Plato were inspired and motivated by the Idea of a divine measure that emanates from "beyond" the Cosmos, beyond the created world. The so-called "Euthyphro Dilemma" does not take this recognition into consideration at all. It functions at the level of polytheism exclusively. And thus it is "false."
For Plato, this God Beyond is Absolute Mind and Absolute Eternal Being. You need absolute being before you can derive, not only the truths of the moral order, but creaturely existence itself.
And this Absolute Being has the "nature" of: the Good, Truth, Beauty, Justice, and Love — all of which are the very foundations, not only of the laws of nature, but of the moral law as well.
Just my "take" on tis matter, FWIW.
James C. Bennett, thank you ever so much for posting these very helpful graphics!
If Plato had been a playwright early in life, it seems we do not have any of his plays extant today. I'm not aware there are any historical references to actual plays by Plato. And Socrates appears to have written exactly nothing.
Notwithstanding, your observation that Plato was a superb dramatic artist is absolutely, indubitably the case!
People reading the dialogues who are unaware of this dimension of Plato's work are probably missing so much of what is going on. You can't read Plato — IMHO — as a linear "back and forth" of correspondents engaged in a debate....
That would be to leave out scene, which he carefully constructs, including all the personnel on hand, whether they speak or not; the dynamical interplay of the diverse personalities of the participants in the dialogue; the building and releasing of emotional tension; the building to the crisis; and then, the denouement....
Perhaps people would get more out of Plato if they read his dialogues as "plays."
Thank you so much, dagog redux, for your wonderful observations — and for your appreciation of the beauty of Plato's work!
And this Absolute Being has the "nature" of: the Good, Truth, Beauty, Justice, and Love — all of which are the very foundations, not only of the laws of nature, but of the moral law as well.
Just my "take" on tis matter, FWIW.
Well, that is my take, too, so you must be right. :-)
"man is the measure of all things."
Man being the measure of all things is what brings us dilemmas which are not. This "man-made" dilemma is the same as that brought forth by atheists who claim there was (or was not) existence prior to existence (what came before the big bang?) but deny the obvious - there is but One Eternal Existence and that is God and all things are included therein. Instead, they want "proof" while clinging doggedly to unprovable doctrines of their own.
I am reminded of Shakespeare's suggestion of "suspension of disbelief."
That magnificent artist certainly depended on the willing "suspension of disbelief" in order to conduct his business as a dramatist.
Dramatists work in the medium of human imagination, not in the medium of "matter in its motions."
The great dramatists do not construct "second realities." Instead, they explore the dynamics of "first reality," which is where human beings actually live.
But they do so imaginatively. And that is why the audience has to be willing to "suspend its disbelief" in order to hear what the dramatist is saying, "in the duration" of his play. Later, of course, the person in the audience is perfectly free to form his own impressions of the performance he has seen.
It wasn't Shakespeare who first thunk up the requirement of the "willing suspension of disbelief" as necessary to the experience of a dramatic performance, though he mightily benefited from it.
That was Aristotle, in the Poetics. To my mind, the Poetics is the great homage of a student to his teacher and colleague of some 27 years: Aristotle learned practically everything he knew about "poetics" from the example and practice of Plato....
IMHO FWIW.
It seems to me atheists have a lot of "man-made dilemmas" on their hands which are unresolvable in principle, on the basis of their "principles."
They "live" in a flat, horizontal, linear world that moves inexorably and irreversibly from past to present to future — and then you die. All is nothing in the end. There is no meaning to existence. Unless you are a philosophical existentialist; and then you either have to cobble together a meaning of your own, or just plain commit suicide.
Yet what Socrates/Plato say is that man cannot "bootstrap himself" out of this problem by his own efforts. For man has a "vertical" extension, not just a "horizontal" one. The vertical extension moves in the eternal; the horizontal, in time....
Thus "man lives at the intersection of time and timelessness."
Progress along the horizontal does not yield meaning. It is mere plodding existence, available to any biological animal.
It is the vertical ascent which describes what makes man distinctive among all the other biological organisms. The vertical ascent is what is needed for human nature to express its full significance and meaning.
The atheists' problem is they rule out the "vertical ascent" as a matter of adamantine principle....
Well, just some stray thoughts, dear Mind-numbed Robot, my brother in Christ!
Thank you so very much for weighing in here....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.