Many people think morality exists independently of humans, and most of these people think it is in turn entirely dependent on God. This is a logical fallacy.
If you believe that morality, more specifically goodness, is entirely dependent on God, you believe first that God is good. You also believe that whatever God wills is good. This is circular reasoning, for God can only be called good if he wills for us to do whatever is truly right, and how can we be sure that what he wants is truly the right thing? "Because he is good." How can we be sure he is good? "Because he wills what is good." In this way, what God wills is entirely dependent on God's being good, but God's goodness is entirely dependent on what he wills. Whatever God commands is automatically right by definition, even if it is surely wrong in most human eyes. It becomes necessary that some other factor be involved - some outside source of moral reasoning to break the cycle. This is where human reasoning must come into play. All I'm saying is that any ruler can not call himself good by definition, but must be judged to be good by his people. Otherwise, all sorts of bad things could happen and still be called good.
One is left with two options, to believe that morality is dependent on both God and humans, or that morality is entirely dependent on humans. Of course one could believe that God placed a moral law within each of us, but we each still have to decide for ourselves which religion's god did so, and this leaves a large amount of dependency on humans. That's enough for one post. Here I come, extra credit.
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i agree with you. God chooses to be good, and therefore cannot make a mistake. according to the argument you are disproving, if the devil and God's position was reversed, watever the devil said would be good. however, a ruler's goodness does not depend on what his people think of him. The German people loved Hitler and thought he was good when he was bad (according to God's commands) If people can falsely think that a bad ruler is good, why not falsely think a good ruler is bad? the more powerful person does always define the truth of things over the less powerful. for instance, if i have a gun and you a knife, and we are both equally able to fight eachother, my truth (that i will win)would prevail over yours (you will win), because i have the power. you could think that i was going to lose all you wanted, but the greater power wins. lucky for us, the good guy has the gun.
ReplyDeleteone last thing. if the most powerful, all knowing, omnipresent God of the universe knows, (not chooses arbitrarily to believe, but knows beyond any human doubt,) that good = right and tells us the same, then what evidence do we have othrwise. it is impossible for him to make an illogical choice, and he chose good.
how do you know the good guy has the gun? Isn't there just as much, if not more, evil in this world than good? Wouldn't it be the other way around if the good guy had the gun?
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