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| The '''Euthyphro dilemma''' is found in Plato's ''Euthyphro'', in which Socrates asks the question, "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?" In layman's terms this would be, "Is that which is good commanded by God ''because'' it's good, or is it good because God commands it?"
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| ==The dilemma==
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| Christians like to say that since God is [[omnibenevolent]] — whatever he commands is [[good]] by definition. They further state that things are good simply because God commands them. This is obviously [[circular reasoning]].
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| The Euthyphro dilemma can be seen as analogous to the question "[[Who created God?]]" In this case, we are told that morality is meaningless unless it is derived from an external source, such as God. Therefore, the counter-question is "Who made God moral?" Obviously under most descriptions of God, the answer is "nobody", which raises the very reasonable question of whether a god's moral decisions could be considered objective rather than arbitrary.
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| Does God freely decide what is good? There are two possible responses, and neither one really resolves the dilemma.
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| The first answer is: Yes, God is free to decide what is good, and it is good by virtue of his decree. If this is the case, then God has no higher standard to answer to, and therefore his will may be seen as genuinely arbitrary. Although God once decreed that murder and theft are morally wrong, he might have declared the opposite just as easily, so then murder and theft would be right.
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| The second answer is: No, God cannot change what is right and wrong. Killing and stealing are inherently bad, so God, being inherently good, cannot command them. Yet if right and wrong are inherent to the action, regardless of God's decree, then God has nothing to do with the process. God doesn't set moral standards; he follows them, and is therefore irrelevant to morality (except to the extent that he can tell us things which we could not figure out for ourselves.)
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| In summary, either such acts as murder are ''not'' inherently wrong (because God can set the rules whichever way he wants to) or God is powerless over the meaning of morality.
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| Much atheist literature has borrowed from the Euthyphro dilemma, even when not referring to it by name. For instance, [[Bertrand Russell]] wrote:
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| {{quote-source|The point I am concerned with is that, if you are quite sure there is a difference between right and wrong, then you are then in this situation: is that difference due to God's fiat or is it not? If it is due to God's fiat, then for God himself there is no difference between right and wrong, and it is no longer a significant statement to say that God is good.|''[[Why I Am Not a Christian]]''}}
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| ==Apologetics==
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| # Most Christians won't even bother with rationalizing the first part of the dilemma since they won't accept an outside source for God's morality. However, the second part will get some objections. Some Christians will say "God would never command rape or murder. An all-loving God would never command evil."
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| # One perceived way to get out of the dilemma is to say that, although God has the freedom to command immoral acts such as rape, he would never do such a thing because it goes against his "nature".
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| ==Counter Apologetics==
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| ===God would never command immoral acts===
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| Firstly, God ''does'' command rape and murder several times in the Old Testament. For example, in Numbers 31:1-54 God commands Moses and his army to "Kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves." The army comes back with 32,000 virgins after doing God's will.
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| Secondly, saying that God would never command evil in itself shows that God gets his morals from an outside source. If God would never command rape and murder because they're evil then where did he get the determination that they were evil?
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| ===God's nature===
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| The claim that God would not command evil because it goes against God's nature does not actually change the problem, but only reorganizes it. The question might then be reasonably asked: Where does God's nature come from? Did God create it himself? If so then God's whims are still behind what he considers right and wrong, and the dilemma still applies. If, on the other hand, God did not create his own nature, then either someone else created it (in which case the dilemma applies to the creator of God's nature) or the morality contained in God's nature is inherent in some way (in which case God is not truly the author of right and wrong).
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| ===Can you be good without God?===
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| The issue of [[secular morality]] is a complex topic and is further explored in the related article.
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| ==External Link==
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| * [http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/euthyfro.html Full text of the ''Euthyphro'' dialogue] by Plato
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| [[Category:Arguments]]
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| [[Category:Arguments against the existence of God]]
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| [[Category:Deductive arguments]]
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