I've been pretty bad about being "active" in having counter apologetic discussions online (Twitter, commenting in other blogs, etc) and not actually blogging here. Time to rectify this, by laying out a substantive exchange I've had with Randal Rauser on his blog last week.
Randal was very kind in asking me to write up why I don't believe for a segment over on his blog, which started a pretty interesting discussion that centered around the problem of Christian's calling things related to morality "good" that at the same time cannot be a part of their god's "necessary nature".
The problem for the Christian in this case is that they end up having to give up the moral argument for god's existence, since they have to ground moral "goodness" in their god's "necessary nature" in order to avoid the Euthyphro Dilemma.
This problem becomes particularly acute when we consider the problem of evil, the problem of hell, and the existence of heaven. Since being morally free to commit sin is something that absolutely cannot be a part of god's necessary nature, such a moral ability is not "good" on the Christian's own set of definitions.
Now for what it's worth, Randal is to be commended for trying to actually engage this very tough issue. I've not seen a substantive engagement on this point before, so while I think he's wrong, you've got to give the man some props for trying.
This led to a discussion on Randal's blog that spanned three different posts by Randal replying to issues myself and Jason Thibodeau were bringing up as he tried to come up with answers to problems related to the core issue outlined above.
Randal avoids the problem of hell since he advocates for a version of universalism, but that position raises the problem of why we weren't just created morally perfect in heaven, where we won't be able to sin anyway.
To solve this issue, Randal came up with the Value Achievement Thesis (VAT) where he proposes that for any two people that exemplify moral perfection:
Tom was created by god to perfectly exemplify all moral attributes.
Scott was created by god as a finite being that had flaws but through redemption came to perfectly exemplify all moral attributes.
Despite the fact that the two people both perfectly exemplify moral values in the end, Randal's VAT says that god has reasons to value Scott over Tom. But this is problematic because to value something over another is to introduce a level of "goodness" in Scott over Tom, and if all moral "goodness" is grounded in god's nature - then VAT is a "groundless good" in Randal's theology/metaphysics.
The problem is with calling "Value Acquisition" something "good"
(or great, or valuable) since Randal admits it can't be part of his god's nature.
The problem creates a dilemma:
A.) Either "goodness" is grounded in god's necessary nature, so "value acquisition" is "not good".
or
B.) "Value acquisition" is good, but since it's not part of god's
nature, then "goodness" can't be defined by god's necessary nature.
The problem with
the dilemma is that on A, you can't have god value something that's "not
good", so VAT is false.
Or on B you have to give up the moral argument for the Christian god because you're admitting that there are some "moral goods" that don't exist in god's necessary nature.
In the back and forth on his blog, Randal and other theists seem to take this to mean that I'm pointing out that their god is somehow deficient, but that doesn't follow from this problem. Note that going with option B does not mean that god isn't morally perfect, it just means that god's nature can't be used to ground moral goodness.
The dilemma isn't necessarily forcing you to abandon belief in god, but rather you have to give up the moral argument for god's existence and have to rework parts of Christian theology.
I'd be interested to see if Randal or other theists could try and respond to this dilemma.
God is not good or bad. Good is subjective what you call good may not be the same as the next person.
ReplyDeleteYou can take that position, but then you're being a moral relativist - or at least you're not holding that god grounds all goodness with his nature, which means you can't use a moral argument.
DeleteCA,
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting argument and quite compelling. In a more general form the argument points to values or virtues (that are widely recognized as such) and claims that these values/virtues cannot be exemplified by God. Then we get the dilemma for the moral argument that you nicely set out. Courage is an example of another virtue that might work here. As many have noted, courage is not the absence of fear but the ability to endure it and continue to do what must be done. If this is the correct analysis of courage, then it is pretty obvious that God cannot exemplify courage since, being omnipotent and omniscient, it is nonsensical to suppose that he might be afraid. So, we can run the same dilemma with courage that you ran with value acquisition.
I'm not sure how successful the argument is. I think we need to explore it more. What might a defender of the moral argument say? One thing that immediately comes to mind is that he could lean on the fact that "grounded in God's nature" is a bit vague. Here are a few different things it might mean:
1. A value or virtue is grounded in God's nature just in case it is an aspect of God's nature.
2. A value or virtue is grounded in God's nature just in case God's nature is such that he approves of it.
3. A value or virtue is grounded in God's nature just in case it is either an aspect of God's nature or it is such that a being who exemplifies it will develop a moral character that is closer to God's nature.
We might think that while God cannot exemplify things like courage and value acquisition, which limited being can exemplify, nonetheless there are virtues that God has that are analogous to these virtues that only limited beings can possess. If that makes sense, then we have,
4. A value or virtue is grounded in God's nature just in case either it is an aspect of God's nature or it is analogous to an aspect of God's nature.
Now, I think that your objection depends upon the first interpretation of 'grounded in God's nature.' So long as the other three (and maybe more) interpretations are open, I'm not sure if the argument is successful.
Still, I like the argument. Maybe with a few changes you can make is stronger. I am going to keep thinking about it.
Jason,
DeleteI appreciate the feedback, especially in ways the argument could be avoided. I do think it’s strong and can be made into a heavy counter to the moral argument, but like you said it can use some thought to push it over the edge.
As far as leaning on the phrase “grounded in god’s necessary nature”, I’m not sure how much that can save the theist from just more problems. Still, it’d be nice to force them to have to define things more stringently with this. FWIW, I’d always taken the phrase to mean your first statement:
“1. A value or virtue is grounded in God's nature just in case it is an aspect of God's nature.”
That interpretation of it is what lets the theist say that morality exists as an objective thing, but brings us right into my argument.
The other interpretations do offer up a few things though:
“2. A value or virtue is grounded in God's nature just in case God's nature is such that he approves of it.”
I’m not sure how this does anything other than take one of the horns of the original Euthyphro dilemma; it makes moral goods subjective, being determined arbitrarily by god.
“3. A value or virtue is grounded in God's nature just in case it is either an aspect of God's nature or it is such that a being who exemplifies it will develop a moral character that is closer to God's nature.”
Now this is interesting! The main issue I’d have is you’re effectively adding things outside of god’s nature to ground goodness. While this may solve the problem it removes the simple definition of the original phrase and to be honest is rather ad-hoc (ie. I can’t see any external reason to believe that this would be the case).
Still in terms of just squaring the circle to get a theodicy to be coherent, this could work out. I’d be happy enough to force an apologist to have to take this track in a debate, since I think the ultimate defeater of the moral argument is to compare definitions between the two worldviews and make an inference to the best explanation. That’s something I’m working on right now for my next video though.
“4. A value or virtue is grounded in God's nature just in case either it is an aspect of God's nature or it is analogous to an aspect of God's nature.”
This I’m not sure works for VAT, because how is acquisition in any way analogous to anything in god’s nature? If anything, being created already-perfect would be far more analogous to god’s nature.
That’s my initial thoughts, but if you can come up with other ways to work the argument I’d love to hear them!