Circular Reasoning

[AttentionKMartShoppers]

I was reading an article about whether morality without God is possible, and it was from a Christian's vantage point, and the guy pointed out that it's circular reasoning to say that God decides right and wrong....and that God is good because He only does things that which is good. Also makes morality arbitrary, because God could have made adultery moral if He felt like it...and I didn't get anything else the guy said, which is where the answer MIGHT have been. So, my answer is how do you go about saying God is good without running into problems, as well as showing that God's decisions on right and wrong are not arbitrary. I don't think they are, but I cannot develop a good enough answer to keep me happy.

[Prodigal Son]

c.s. lewis explains alot of this in mere christianity. it really does all fit together. it can't be arbitrary and all fit together so well. if you step out of line (on adultery) for example, there are negative results; negative results which exist independently of learning. and they are negative even independent of being defined as such--the entire human system is effected in a manner which inhibits its function (heart rate, blood pressure, brain waves, etc.,...all affected by the actions we take). so, i think that God made adultary immoral because it was bad in and of itself somehow; it wasn't just a whim of his. do i make any sense? sorry. maybe someone else can explain it better.

another cool thing which might be able to be tied into all this is how the universe is defined by math...everything...music is math, there is even a formula to determine beauty. i wonder if there's a formula for morality? or a mathematical manner to judge right and wrong. has to be, right?

[Kurieuo]

I was reading an article about whether morality without God is possible, and it was from a Christian's vantage point, and the guy pointed out that it's circular reasoning to say that God decides right and wrong....and that God is good because He only does things that which is good.

Morality without God is indeed possible, but it actually becomes relative and therefore meaningless. Yet, we all have an intuition that some things really are good, and some things really are bad for everyone no matter what they might otherwise think. And to there is one thing that exists which is either right or all "for all", one needs to appeal to moral standard that exist above us all. This moral standard Christians believe is rooted in God.

Now the article you read setup a strawman, that is, an argument not sensibly held to with Christianity but rather one devised for an easy knock down. For if the author read apologetic responses to the question asked, "is God good because He is God, or good because He is good?" then he would see the response often is that God is good because good is apart of who He is. God is righteousness. God is love. So God does not decide what is right or wrong, but rather since God is righteousness, something wrong is considered to therefore be against God's righteous nature.

An article you mind find of interest reading is Who says God Is Good?

Kurieuo.

[AttentionKMartShoppers]

*Dink dink dink* The author was actually paraphrasing some secular arguments....and that's the one I could get around. And it's also amusing that I've read Mere Christianity twice...didn't remember anything though about this topic

[AttentionKMartShoppers]

I have no address at the moment, could you copy/paste Kurieuo? I have to register to get in that area.

[Kurieuo]

I think registration is free, but I've sent you a private message regarding the article.

Kurieuo.

[Prodigal Son]

it's also amusing that i read mere christianity twice...didn't remember anything though about this topic.

you're right, that is awfully amusing. maybe you should read it again? maybe you'll recall lewis' discussions on the nature of God vs. satan, good vs. evil, love, etc. true, it never dealt with your questions directly, but it did deal with them indirectly; definately gives you enough information about God to help you answer the questions you're asking. but, some people like answers to be given to them...they don't want to search themselves. i guess that's okay. but be careful, many people will give you the wrong answers (foolish answers); not the whole truth...it's not very amusing to find yourself believing a fool.

[AttentionKMartShoppers]

Hey don't call me lazy

[Grace isn't enough...]

Circular reasoning....

Two words, *carbon* *dating*

date fossils by layers of soil and layers of soil by fossils.

but since this has next to nothing to do with what anybody has been saying, I'll just leave it at that.


Situational ethics are alwasy going to be relative, differentiating, thus non-sensical. k bye lol
eep

[Calvin]

Isnt this just the euthyphro dilemma? Or is there something I am missing?

[BGoodForGoodSake]

Isnt this just the euthyphro dilemma? Or is there something I am missing?

That's exactly what I was thinking.

[Canuckster1127]

Isnt this just the euthyphro dilemma? Or is there something I am missing?

That's exactly what I was thinking.

You can build a system of morality without God. The questions that arise is if there is no God, no absolute morality beyond that which society dictates, then what rational reason is there to sacrifice personal pleasure for societal good if you have grounds to believe you can get away with it?

The reasons usually offered are altruistic and involve leaps to values that cannot be defended on a purely rational basis.

Pure rationalism usually reduces to nihilism at some point, or at least anarchy. Nevertheless there are agnostics and atheists, probably even a majority, who do make those leaps and endorse some form of morality.

On the other side, unfortunately, there have been Theists and Christians, at least in name, who when tempted with absolute power, show no true morality either.

[Calvin]

So, my answer is how do you go about saying God is good without running into problems, as well as showing that God's decisions on right and wrong are not arbitrary. I don't think they are, but I cannot develop a good enough answer to keep me happy.

I'm trying to figure out why you titled the thread as you did. Are you asking how does one state that God is good without first assuming that God is the scale on which to base what good is?

If so then I would say that I do not believe the nonbeliever escapes the problem of circular reasoning either. Why is there relative and subjective moral standard any less abitrary of a stopping point? Why is their good good? There has to be a stopping point otherwise we are left with a infinite regress of justification and we shall never get our feet off the ground with anything in life. My presupposition leaves us with an objective moral law that is grounded in the Triune God of the Bible, their presupposition leaves them with worthless moral subjectivism.

[B. W.]

I was reading an article about whether morality without God is possible, and it was from a Christian's vantage point, and the guy pointed out that it's circular reasoning to say that God decides right and wrong....and that God is good because He only does things that which is good. Also makes morality arbitrary, because God could have made adultery moral if He felt like it...and I didn't get anything else the guy said, which is where the answer MIGHT have been. So, my answer is how do you go about saying God is good without running into problems, as well as showing that God's decisions on right and wrong are not arbitrary. I don't think they are, but I cannot develop a good enough answer to keep me happy.

Well, God makes things simple and humankind makes complex.

For example, Hammurabi's Code to the current Prescription Drug plans the Senior citizens in the USA need decide before a deadline date that very few elderly can even figure out due to Government triple talk designed to combat potential fraud. Most seniors will miss the deadline and be penalized for it and payout the ol' wazoo because it is too complex to understand.

How about, The Social Security Act and amended laws made which make the mind spin in confusion? How about the USA Domain Law — city seizing your house and land to build a retail center? Or the Political Correctness movement codified in schools and media? What makes a Human Right — A Right? - whatever humans reason these to be, mean, define, and written into law.

Yes, you can build a code of morals without God but they become overly complex, penalizing, arbitrary, Quid pro quo, and when enforced by a devout bureaucrat — becomes tyrannical morality.

God gave 10 Commandments and then made it even easier — Love God with all your being and love your neighbor as yourself. That is why God is good. He has the sense to make it good and simple. However, I have noticed often the holy bureaucrats are busy at work making the simple complex.
-
-
-

[identity_in_development]

[quote="Kurieuo"]"is God good because He is God, or good because He is good?"

[/quote]

The original question that this stems from (and this is a bad copy), I would suppose, was by Socrates in a critical converstaion with an overly-confident young man who had condemned his father for being "unpious". Finding the young man perfectly certain of his own ethical rectitude even in the morally ambiguous situation of prosecuting his own father in court, Socrates asks him to define what "piety" (moral duty) really is. Socrates generates a formal dilemma from a (deceptively) simple question:

"Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?"

If right actions are pious only because the gods love them, then moral rightness is entirely arbitrary, depending only on the whims of the gods. If, on the other hand, the gods love right actions only because they are already right, then there must be some non-divine source of values, which we might come to know independently of their love.

In fact, this dilemma proposes a significant difficulty at the heart of any effort to define morality by reference to an external authority.

Consider, for example, parallel questions with a similar structure: "Do my parents approve of this action because it is right, or is it right because my parents approve of it?" or "Does the College forbid this activity because it is wrong, or is it wrong because the College forbids it?".

On the second alternative in each case, actions become right (or wrong) solely because of the authority's approval (or disapproval); its choice, then, has no rational foundation, and it is impossible to attribute laudable moral wisdom to the authority itself. So this horn is clearly unacceptable. But on the first alternative, the authority approves (or disapproves) of certain actions because they are already right (or wrong) independently of it, and whatever rational standard it employs as a criterion for making this decision must be accessible to us as well as to it. Hence, we are in principle capable of distinguishing right from wrong on our own.