Put briefly, either of the two sides of the dilemma as popularly (and originally) suggested are untenable. If God has to obey some larger, superior standard of morality outside himself to which he is subject, then we have to ask what that standard is, how it exists independently of God, etc. essentially, if God is “subject” to anything else, he is less than the “supreme” being, subject as he is to a law more supreme than himself.
On the other side, If something is moral simply because God commands it, then his commands are completely arbitrary, and God could command all manner of horrific or nonsensical things, and they would “become” moral for no other reason than that God commanded it. I think you can see how problematic this would be.
So, God neither commands something because it is good, nor is something good merely because God commands it. The traditional Christian answer is to observe that a third option is forgotten… that good is defined by God’s very own unchanging and perfect character. God could no more command me to torture a child or commit adultery than he could choose to cease existing. It this isn’t because he is obeying some “higher law”, but rather that he cannot be anything but who he is.
In short, God is good. Moral good is not arbitrary nor shifting, it is as timeless and permanent as God’s own nature, but neither does it in any sense exist independently from him. It is a category mistake to separate ultimate moral goodness from the character of a God and ask, “which came first?” God, or goodness. One might as well ask who came first, God the Father or God the Son.
And, as always, I defer to Lewis’s wisdom, to which I am always indebted…
But how is the relation between God and the moral law to be represented? To say that the moral law is God’s law is no final solution. Are these things right because God commands them or does God command them because they are right? If the first, if good is to be defined as what God commands, then the goodness of God Himself is emptied of meaning and the commands of an omnipotent fiend would have the same claim on us as those of the ‘righteous Lord’. If the second, then we seem to be admitting a cosmic dyarchy, or even making God Himself the mere executor of a law somehow external and antecedent to His own being. Both views are intolerable…
When we attempt to think of a person and a law, we are compelled to think of this person either as obeying the law or as making it. And when we think of Him as making it we are compelled to think of Him either as making it in conformity to some yet more ultimate pattern of goodness (in which case that pattern, and not He, would be supreme) or else as making it arbitrarily by a sic volo, sic jubeo (in which case He would be neither good nor wise). But it is probably just here that our categories betray us. It would be idle, with our merely mortal resources, to attempt a positive correction of our categories—ambulavi in mirabilibus supra me. But it might be permissible to lay down two negations: that God neither obeys nor creates the moral law. The good is uncreated; it never could have been otherwise; … we, favoured beyond the wisest pagans, know what lies beyond existence, what admits no contingency, what lends divinity to all else, what is the ground of all existence, is not simply a law but also a begetting love, a love begotten, and the love which, being between these two, is also imminent in all those who are caught up to share the unity of their self-caused life. God is not merely good, but goodness; goodness is not merely divine, but God.
(From “The Poison of Subjectivism,” in Christian Reflections)
I appreciate these last posts. Please bear with me as some crises have arisen and it may be a couple of weeks till I can effectively comment on the book “Knowing God.” I enjoy his style and comparisons. I find it helpful that he argues against emotional response as the sole indicator of knowledge. Thanks.
I just started listening to “Knowing God” on audible again myself. I forgot how much I liked it. Packer is one of the few Evangelicals who believe largely the same as me that still doesn’t annoy me… he is careful, gracious, winsome, balanced, and humble, all while remaining uncompromising in his doctrine and teaching, a rare gem.
I’ll be posting my series of “books” before too long, as promised, but please don’t feel any pressure to respond to any immediately. Just food for thought st your convenience.
I just noticed your question about the Epicurean dilemma. Adding a few thoughts…
I add that morality is inherently personal, inherently relational. There is no sense of speaking of morality in a universe devoid of anything that could be described as a “person.”
That dilemma is solved by recognizing that there are certain “higher goods” that can only be accomplished along with the risk, or actual presence, of evil/suffering. E.g.,
there is the free will defense… I find this unconvincing and problematic, but it at least tried to recognize that God allowed evil in order to allow a greater food that would not have existed without the possibility of evil.
I think other “higher good” answers more consistent. There are all manner of very good and wonderful things we experience that could not exist in a world devoid of sin and suffering. If God wanted us to experience the depth of love from him that we could only experience by receiving his undeserved forgiveness… this experience simply cannot happen in a world devoid of evil.
This hardly answers every problem, especially the more earthy and real examples of real suffering, but it is a philosophical start.
I haven’t been able to listen last night or so to “Knowing God,” but plan to do so tonight. I want to add, though, that I agree that we tend to form our own egocentric ideas of what is right or wrong with disastrous results in many ways. The purity culture was an example. I do believe that in most cases, following purity leads us to happiness–my own wife and I followed the rules strictly, and have always been grateful for them. We didn’t even sit in the same room alone (that may be a bit strict). There’s something very special about saving everything for marriage.
Having said that, it’s not because of our happiness that we can quantify that we do this–we have to trust that the rule is right. It leads to more happiness for our children than for us, for example; and even more, for society in terms of stability; this plays out in evolutionary advantages, for example, as children need constant care till they are mature in brain function, etc. But again, we can’t measure the benefit in that way. We have to trust that it’s the right thing to do to do what God wants. That goes back to the original “thou shalt not eat of the tree” in the Garden. Whether it’s allegory or not, the principle is the same.
It would warrant a new discussion to go into depth, but I was unfamiliar with the purity culture in all it apparently is/was. I remember reading josh’s “kissed dating goodbye” book decades ago in passing, but remember little, and had been taught basic biblical abstinence/purity principles (which I also followed to I think tremendous benefit.) at the time I never noticed any kind of automatic or guaranteed blessings, though I was a teenager at the time, if I recall.
But from reading what others have noted about it recently, (something I had missed at the time) was that there seemed to be some kind of purity culture “prosperity gospel”… save yourself, be pure, and automatically, God will bless you with certain guaranteed outcomes.
I have major problems with any kind of prosperity Gospel. While it is absolutely true, from reading Proverbs and Deuteronomy and other parts, that there are general principles that certain blessings really do follow from godly behavior and wise choices… But any kind of prosperity gospel (purity culture, it seems, included) that guarantees any particular blessings based on certain behavior reduces God to being more of a genie than being God, or of reducing Christian faith to essentially witchcraft.
And ultimately, the reason we obey any of God’s commands is because they are commands, and we owe God our obedience, regardless of whether said obedience will or will not lead to “prosperity,” worldly speaking. I love Kierkegaard’s Sentiment in this regard: “ Whether it is a help or a torment, I want only one thing, I want to belong to Christ, I want to be a Christian.”
I am also quite a few years out from reading it I don’t, therefore, recall all of it -but I am not sure that he was that definite about a prosperity gospel. I think it’s more of our own fault–as Americans, and those who live in a democracy, we seem to think it’s ok to decide morality based on what makes us feel good. In order to make Christianity palatable, we use lines like “God loves you, and has a plan for your life.” While this is true, it’s not the most important part. It’s like telling someone with an incurable disease that they should go to the doctor because she’s nice and the experience will be fun.
We try to make God in our own image. It seems that we substitute pet whims and idealistic causes for God. However, none of it satisfies our need for Him–and as a result, our hearts cry out for Him, though we don’t know it.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
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Inerrancy and mass slaughter are ultimately the by products of our hard wired evolved morality, our righteous minds. Neither have anything to do with a purposeful ground of being.