The Euthyphro dilemma is found in Plato's dialogue Euthyphro, in which Socrates asks Euthyphro: "Is the pious (τὸ ὅσιον) loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?" (10a)

In monotheistic terms, this is usually transformed into: "Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God?" The dilemma has continued to present a problem for theists since Plato presented it and is still the object of theological and philosophical debate. God is the principal or sole Deity in Religions and other belief systems that worship one deity. Deism is the belief that a supreme God exists and created the physical universe and that religious truths can be arrived at by the application of reason alone without dependence on revelation Henotheism ( Greek heis theos "one god" is a term coined by Max Müller, to mean devotion to a Single god while accepting For the Celtic Frost album see Monotheist (album In Theology, monotheism (from Greek grc [[wiktμόνος μόνος]] Panentheism (from Greek (pân "all" (en "in" and (Theós "God" "all-in-God" is a belief system Pantheism ( Greek: πάν ( 'pan') = all and θεός ( 'theos') = God it literally means " God is All Monolatrism or monolatry ( Greek: μόνος ( monos) = single and λατρεία ( latreia) = Worship) is the recognition of the existence See also God Conceptions of God can vary widely despite the use of the same term for them all The English word god continues the Old English ang god ( got-Latn guþ gudis in Gothic, gem gud in modern Arguments for and against the existence of God have been proposed by philosophers theologians and others The gender of God can be viewed as either a literal or an allegorical aspect of a deity A creator deity is a Deity in a Creation myth responsible for the creation of the World (or Universe) The Great Architect of the Universe (also Grand Architect of the Universe or Supreme Architect of the Universe) is a conception of God discussed by many Demiurge (the Latinized form of Greek demiourgos, δημιουργός, literally "public or skilled worker" from demos God the Sustainer is a theological term referring to the concept of a God who sustains and upholds everything in existence God is the principal or sole Deity in Religions and other belief systems that worship one deity. In many religions the supreme Deity ( God) is given the title and attributions of Father. Monad (from Greek μονάς monas, "unit" monos, "alone" which according to the Pythagoreans, was a term for God Oneness is a spiritual term referring to the 'experience' of the absence of egoic identity boundaries and according to some traditions the perception of an absolute The term Supreme Being is often defined simply as " God " and it is used with this meaning by theologians of many religious faiths including but not limited to The All (also called The One The Absolute, The Great One The Creator The Supreme Mind The Supreme Good The The expression Personal God, refers to the belief that God is - and can be related to as - a Person. Unitarianism as a theology is the belief in the single personality of God in contrast to the doctrine of the Trinity (three persons in one God Dualism denotes a state of two parts The word's origin is the Latin duo, "two". SSC RF "Troitsk Institute of Innovative and Termonuclear Research" or TRINITY for shprt Троицкий Институт инновационных и термоядерных Omniscience (ɒm'nɪsɪəns (or Omniscient Point-of-View in writing is the capacity to know everything infinitely or at least everything that can be known about a character Omnipotence ( Omni Potens: "all Power " is unlimited power Omnipresence is the ability to be present in every place at any and/or every time unbounded or universal presence Omnibenevolence is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "unlimited or infinite Benevolence " Bahá'ís believe in a single, imperishable God, the creator of all things including all the creatures and forces in the universe Since the time of the Buddha the refutation of the existence of a creator has been seen as a key point in distinguishing Buddhist from non-Buddhist views The term "Godhead" The term Godhead is a term denoting deity or divinity In Hinduism the concept of God is complex and depends on a particular tradition In Islam, God is believed to be the only real supreme being all-powerful and all knowing Creator Sustainer Ordainer and Judge of the universe Islam puts a heavy emphasis The conception of God in Judaism is Monotheistic. The God of Israel was known by two principal names in the Bible The fundamental belief of Sikhism is that God exists not merely as an idea or concept but as a Real Entity indescribable yet knowable and perceivable to anyone who is prepared to dedicate Faith is a Belief in the trustworthiness of an Idea. 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SOCRATES is the European Community action programme in the field of Education. Pietas redirects here See Pietas (goddess for the divine personification of this virtue See also List of deities A deity is a Postulated Preternatural or Supernatural Being, who is always Stephanus pagination is the system of reference and organization used in modern editions and translations of Plato (and less famously Plutarch) For the Celtic Frost album see Monotheist (album In Theology, monotheism (from Greek grc [[wiktμόνος μόνος]] In Religion, Ethics, and Philosophy, the phrase good and evil refers to the location of objects desires and Behaviors on a two-way God is the principal or sole Deity in Religions and other belief systems that worship one deity.

Socrates and Euthyphro are discussing the nature of piety in Euthyphro. Euthyphro proposes (6e) that the pious (τὸ ὅσιον) is the same thing as what is loved by the gods (τὸ θεοφιλές), but Socrates finds a problem with this proposal, since the gods may disagree among themselves (7e). Euthyphro then restricts his definition to include only as pious what is loved by all gods unanimously (9e).

But we cannot likewise say that the reason why the pious is pious is that the gods love it. For, as Socrates presumes and Euthyphro agrees, the gods love the pious because it is pious (both parties agree on this, the first horn of the dilemma). And we cannot say that the gods love the pious because it is pious, and then add that the pious is pious because the gods love it, for this would be circular reasoning and create a chicken-and-egg problem. In Logic, begging the question has traditionally described a type of Logical fallacy (also called petitio principii) in which the proposition

So, since what makes the god-loved god-loved is not what makes the pious pious, it follows that the god-loved and the pious are not the same thing — they do not have the same nature (10e). Piety belongs to those actions we call "just" (τὸ δίκαιον "observant of custom or social rule, lawful, just, right"), but the pious is not identical with the just, since an action may be just without necessarily being pious (12d). The problem is thus reduced to pinpointing the quality of piety between the god-loved and the just, and Euthypro suggests that it is as it were the conjunction of the two, the part of the just which does service (θεραπεία) to the gods (12e), in the sense of commerce or barter with the gods, benefitting them by giving them honour (τιμή), esteem (γέρας) and gratification (χάρις) (15a), and, Euthyphro has to agree, what is gratifying to the gods is necessarily also what they love. In Logic and/or Mathematics, logical conjunction or and is a two-place Logical operation that results in a value of true if both of The two philosophers recognize that this is in contradiction to what they had agreed upon before, but they break off the argument because Euthyphro is in a hurry.

To understand the difficulties the philosophers experience to come to terms with the adjective "ὅσιος", it is important to note that it carries a double meaning of "hallowed" and "profane": "hallowed" in the sense that what is "ὅσιος" is dependent on the divine, as opposed to "δίκαιος", which is justice as promulgated by human lawmakers, and "profane" in the sense that what is "ὅσιος" are actions which take place in the sphere of human relations, as opposed to "ἱερός", which refers anything religiously dedicated to the gods. Thus, the very term "ὅσιος" embodies the crux of the dilemma, viz. , the attempt to separate "piety" from the divine sphere as something that can stand on its own in the human sphere.

In monotheism

The monotheistic version of the dilemma, replacing τὸ ὅσιον with "moral" or "good", and οἵ θεοί with "God" is still the object of theological and philosophical debate. For the Celtic Frost album see Monotheist (album In Theology, monotheism (from Greek grc [[wiktμόνος μόνος]] In Religion, Ethics, and Philosophy, the phrase good and evil refers to the location of objects desires and Behaviors on a two-way God is the principal or sole Deity in Religions and other belief systems that worship one deity.

Explanation of the dilemma

Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God? The first horn of the dilemma (i. e. that which is moral is commanded by God because it is moral) implies that morality is independent of God and, indeed, that God is bound by morality just as his creatures are. God then becomes little more than a passer-on of moral knowledge.

The second horn of the dilemma (i. e. that which is moral is moral because it is commanded by God, known as divine command theory) runs into three main problems. Divine command theory is the meta-ethical view which claims that Ethical sentences express Propositions Those propositions are about the First, it implies that what is good is arbitrary, based merely upon God's whim; if God had created the world to include the values that rape, murder, and torture were virtues, while mercy and charity were vices, then they would have been. Rape, also referred to as Sexual assault, is an Assault by a person involving Sexual intercourse with or Sexual penetration of another person Murder is the unlawful killing of another human person with Malice aforethought, as defined in Common Law countries Torture, according to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, is "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental is intentionally Mercy ( Middle English, from Anglo-French merci, from Medieval Latin merced-, merces, from Latin, "price Etymology The word "charity" entered the English language through the Old French word " charité " which was derived from the Secondly, it implies that calling God good makes no non-tautological sense (or, at best, that one is simply saying that God is consistent and not hypocritical). Thirdly, it involves a form of reasoning that G.E. Moore classified as a naturalistic fallacy; to explain the claim that murder is wrong (or the prescription that one should not commit murder), in terms of what God has or hasn't said is to argue from what Moore classified as a putative fact about the world to what Moore classified as a value (see is-ought problem). "GE Moore" redirects here For the cofounder of Intel see Gordon Moore. The naturalistic fallacy is often claimed to be a Formal fallacy. In Meta-ethics, the is-ought problem was raised by David Hume ( Scottish Philosopher and Historian, 1711 &ndash

Attempts to resolve the dilemma

The Euthyphro dilemma has troubled philosophers and theologians ever since Plato first propounded it. While both horns (and their aforesaid consequences) have had their adherents, the Natural Law Theory probably being the more popular, some philosophers have tried to find a middle ground and, in doing so, maintained a non-arbitrariness to a nonetheless religious morality. Natural law or the law of nature ( Latin: lex naturalis) is a theory that posits the existence of a law whose content is set by Nature and that

False-dilemma response

Some followers of this approach, following Aquinas and earlier readers of Plato such as Plotinus, say that "God" is in whole or part the definition of goodness itself. Plotinus ( Greek:) (ca AD 204–270 was a major philosopher of the ancient world who is widely considered the founder of Neoplatonism (along with his John Frame and others say this avoids the naturalistic fallacy because the source of God's whims or commands is in some way the definition of good for everybody. John M Frame (born 1939 Pittsburgh PA) is an American Philosopher and Calvinist theologian especially noted for his work in The naturalistic fallacy is often claimed to be a Formal fallacy. This view led Anselm of Canterbury to say that God exists outside of all motion or change and does not really feel passions such as love. Saint Anselm of Canterbury (1033 &ndash April 21, 1109) was an Italian medieval Philosopher, theologian, and church official It only seems that way to our finite minds. Aristotle had proposed in his Metaphysics a similar view of Gods who feel no emotion towards the world or their worshipers, but inspire imitation. Aristotle (Greek Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC was a Greek philosopher a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great.

Gnosticism and other dualistic schools similarly postulate that God is identical with goodness, which turns the dilemma into a tautology. Gnosticism (γνώσις gnōsis, Knowledge) refers to a diverse Syncretistic Religious movement consisting of various Belief systems Dualism denotes a state of two parts The word's origin is the Latin duo, "two". Summum bonum ( Latin for the highest good) is an expression used in Philosophy, particularly in Medieval philosophy, to describe the Ultimate Equating the God of the universe and creation as the demiurge and the gnostic God as the true God or God of Good. Demiurge (the Latinized form of Greek demiourgos, δημιουργός, literally "public or skilled worker" from demos

Necessary and contingent moral values?

Some modern philosophers have also attempted to find a compromise. For example, Richard Swinburne has argued that moral values fall into two categories: the necessary and the contingent. Richard G Swinburne (born December 26, 1934) is an eminent British Professor and Philosopher primarily interested in the God can decide to create the world in many different ways, each of which grounds a particular set of contingent values; with regard to these, then, the divine command theory is the correct explanation. Certain values, however, such as the immorality of rape, murder, and torture, hold in all possible worlds, so it makes no sense to say that God could have created them differently; with regard to these values, the first horn of the dilemma is the best explanation.

Swinburne's account depends upon a clear distinction between necessary and contingent moral values — however, it's not clear that such a distinction can be maintained. Certainly it is implied by, e. g. , the Old Testament, in which the Hebrews are commanded by God in the Torah to follow certain political laws that clearly were only appropriate for that race at that time, rather than everyone at all times. In Western Christianity, the Old Testament refers to the books that form the first of the two-part Christian Biblical canon. Hebrews (or Hebertes, Eberites, Hebreians, " Habiru " or " Habiri " Hebrew: עברים term " Torah " ( Hebrew: תּוֹרָה "teaching" or "instruction" sometimes translated as "Law" most commonly refers to The Ten Commandments, on the other hand, are interpreted by many as having universal and necessary application. The Ten Commandments, or Decalogue, are a list of religious and moral imperatives that according to Judeo-Christian tradition were authored by God and given

Different meanings of "moral"

In developing what he calls a "modified divine-command theory", R.M. Adams distinguishes between two meanings of ethical terms like "right" and "wrong":

1. the meaning that atheists conceive (which in fact Adams explains in roughly emotivist terms)
2. the meaning that has its place in religious discourse (that is, commanded or forbidden by God). For other persons named Robert Adams see Robert Adams (disambiguation Robert Merrihew Adams ( Bob Adams; born 1937 is an American Emotivism (also known as the hurrah/boo theory) is the meta-ethical view which claims that Ethical sentences do not express Propositions

Because God is benevolent, the two meanings coincide; God is, however, free to command other than he has done, and if he had chosen to command, for example, that murder was morally right, then the two meanings would break apart, effectively choosing the second horn of the dilemma: God just happens to command what would be good in any case ("eutheism"), but allowing for a hypothetical scenario where God decides to become malevolent ("dystheism"). Omnibenevolence is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "unlimited or infinite Benevolence " Misotheism is the "hatred of God " or "hatred of the Gods " (from the Greek adjective μισόθεος "hating the gods" a compound of

Sources and references

• Robert Merrihew Adams Finite and Infinite Goods: A Framework for Ethics (2002: New York, Oxford University Press) ISBN 0-19-515371-5
• Jan Aertsen Medieval philosophy and the transcendentals: the case of Thomas Aquinas (2004: New York, Brill) ISBN 90-04-10585-9
• John M. Frame Euthyphro, Hume, and the Biblical God retrieved February 13, 2007 from http://www.frame-poythress.org/frame_articles/1993Euthyphro.htm
• Plato Euthyphro (any edition; the Penguin version can be found in The Last Days of Socrates ISBN 0-14-044037-2) or
• Euthyphro by Plato from Project Gutenberg
• Paul Helm [ed. John M Frame (born 1939 Pittsburgh PA) is an American Philosopher and Calvinist theologian especially noted for his work in ] Divine Commands and Morality (1981: Oxford, Oxford University Press) ISBN 0-19-875049-8
• Peter J. King, Morality & religion I (PDF file)
• Greg Koukl, Euthyphro's Dilemma, Stand to Reason commentary, 2002
• Norman Kretzmann “Abraham, Isaac, and Euthyphro: God and the basis of morality” (in Eleonore Stump & Michael J. Murray [edd] Philosophy of Religion: The Big Questions (1999: Oxford: Blackwell) ISBN 0-631-20604-3
• Steve Lovell, C.S. Lewis and the Euthyphro Dilemma, 2002.
• God and Morality - An analysis of the Euthyphro dilemma
• A Christian Answer to the Euthyphro Dilemma - by Pastor Bob Enyart, Denver Bible Church, 2008