19 Mar
Is God Subject to a Moral Law? (Part 1)
Hi everyone! I reworked the earlier posting I wrote this past week–with numerous corrections and a few additional thoughts. The issue is a complicated one, and I realize some of you will may disagree with what I propose.
Euthyphro and Socrates on Morality
In Plato’s famous essay called “Euthyphro,” Plato narrates a conversation that took place between Socrates and a smug and self-righteous young man named Euthyphro.
Here is the background to our Socratic dialogue. One day, Socrates runs into Euthyphro outside the court of Athens. Socrates has been called to court on charges of impiety by Meletus, and Euthyphro has come to prosecute his own father who was charged with manslaughter for having unintentionally killed a murderous hired hand. Evidently, the criminal had died from hunger and exposure before the local judges could determine his fate (Euthyphro 3e–4d).
What made the case so unusual, it was the son who brought the murder charges against his own father! Socrates, obviously indifferent to his own fate, found the young man’s attitude interesting–even unusual.
Sarcastically, Socrates flatters Euthyphro, and says that he must be a great expert in religious matters, if he is willing to prosecute his own father on such a questionable charge! With a brashness typical of many young people, Euthyphro concurs that he does indeed know all there is to be known about what is holy. Socrates urges Euthyphro to instruct him and to teach him what holiness is, since Euthyphro’s teaching might help Socrates in his trial against Meletus.
After both of them agree that piety is ‘whatever is loved by the gods, but Socrates sets forth one of the most crucial questions ever raised in the history of Western ethics: Are pious things pious because they are loved by the gods or are they loved by the gods because they are pious?
“Does God Adhere to a Moral Code?
Put in different but religious terms, the question has critical importance: “Is an action morally good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is morally good?” When asked from a different perspective, “Does God adhere to a moral code? Can the Creator command someone to behave immorally in His Name?
It is ironic that Abraham is the first human being in the Tanakh to demand that God act morally toward His Creation. When God announces that He is about to destroy every person in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham is petrified by what he hears. He exclaims, חָלִלָה לְּךָ מֵעֲשֹׂת כַּדָּבָר הַזֶּה – “Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just” (Gen. 18:25).
The Midrash paraphrases this passage to mean: “How unbecoming of You! People will say, ‘That is what He usually busies Himself with; He destroys every one, righteous and wicked alike. That is exactly what You did to the generation of the Flood and to that of the dispersal of nations!’” Abraham argued that punishing the just along with the guilty is an inferior standard of justice that even the peoples of antiquity would never consider implementing. Note the tinge of sarcasm in Abraham’s retort, “Shall the ‘Judge’ of all the earth . . .”
Divine ruthless hardly befits a human potentate, let alone the Creator of the Universe to conduct Himself in such a manner. Such behavior is truly profane! Moses himself, will use many of the same arguments each time God blows a fuse, whenever His people give Him attitude.
Biblical Morality through a Modern Lens
A religious Kantian thinker could argue that since morality is universally moral, it is included in the Torah. Without certain innate precepts ordaining basic morality within the human conscience, humanity would never have evolved. The famous biblical verse, “You have been told, O man, what is good, and what the LORD requires of you: Only to do the right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8) reflects an ethos that is pre-Torah. Such laws are universal because without them, humanity would have perished in its infancy.
(To be continued)
Posted by Ron Krumpos on 19.03.10 at 2:38 am
In my book at http://www.suprarational.org I wrote a chapter about morality and conscience, called “Duel of the Dual.” Here is an excerpt:
“Conscience” is a misused and misunderstood word. “Have you no conscience?,” ask people of a person who does something which seems to them to be so obviously wrong. Each person has a dual conscience and, occasionally, these two sides do engage in a duel.
The Penguin Dictionary of Psychology defines conscience as “a reasonably coherent set of internalized moral principals that provides evaluations of right and wrong with regard to acts either performed or contemplated. Historically, theistic views aligned conscience with the voice of God and hence regarded it as innate. The contemporary view is that the prohibitions and obligations of conscience are learned…” Individual moral development is based on both.
Socrates said that conscience was the inner warning voice of God. Among Stoics it was a divine spark in man. Throughout the Middle Ages, conscience, synderesis in Greek, was universally binding rules of conduct. Religious interpretations later changed in psychiatry.
Sigmund Freud had coined a new term for conscience; he called it “superego.” This was self-imposed standards of behavior we learned from parents and our community, rather than from a divine source. People who transgressed those rules felt guilt. Carl Jung, Freud’s famous contemporary, said that conscience was an archetype of a “collective unconscious”; content from society is learned later. Most religions still view conscience as the foundation of morality.
Sri Aurobindo said “…true original Conscience in us [is] deeper than constructed and conventional conscience of the moralist, for it is this which points always towards Truth and Right and Beauty, towards Love and Harmony and all that is a divine possibility in us.” Perhaps conscience can be viewed as a double-pane window, with the self in between. On one side, it looks toward ego and free will to obey community’s laws. On the other side, it is toward the soul and divine will to follow universal law. They often converge to dictate the same, or a similar, course of conduct…and sometimes not.