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Originally Posted by zumby
I'm not familiar with this counter. I also don't see that it works to reject the dilemma. Do you have a direct quote of this argument?
I can't find the page where I originally saw this, but this letter/answer on WLC's site is pretty much the same thing.
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/euthyphro-dilemma
He defends that premise by saying that "God is the greatest conceivable being, and it is greater to be the paradigm of goodness than to conform to it."
Quote:
Originally Posted by zumby
That appears to be an explicit premise of the argument ("god is 'by nature' good") rather than an assumption.
Yes it is a premise, but I'm saying that it's an assumption, not only because it's truth value can't practically be ascertained but because it may not be logically possible to support that claim. And that's my question, why do we assume that being 'good' is characteristic that a maximal being would have?
Quote:
Originally Posted by zumby
Why is that assumed in the argument you presented? I mean, I'm sure pretty much all theists believe that god is maximally good, but I don't see that it has bearing on challenging the Euthyphro dilemma.
It's relevant because if god is 'good by nature' then he can't say that something is bad when it isn't, so his moral pronouncements are not a reference to an external source, not or they arbitrary.
Quote:
Originally Posted by zumby
I'm with neeeel on this. I think the straightforward meaning of 'good' entails that it is better than 'bad'.
I don't think that 'good' means 'whatever characteristic it is best to have', I would use the word 'desirable' to describe that. And what is desirable, is to be good. That's what I'm questioning, how did we decide that 'good' is the most desirable characteristic?