Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?Ever since Socrates' conversation with Euthyphro, this little riddle has produced oceans of ink about the nature of morality. In its modern form, the dilemma asks, "Is the good good because God commands so, or does God say it is good because it is good?"
If you agree to the first proposition, then you run into the horn of arbitrariness: if God commanded the murder of an innocent child, it would be good and indeed obligatory. It would also seem that moral propositions do not express objective truths about the world around us. Finally, it would render the expression "God is good" somewhat incoherent, as "good" is merely shorthand for "whatever God commands." If you agree to the second proposition, however you run into another horn: that morality is independent of God's commands. Unless you're ready to give up the Torah in exchange for the Tao, this is not a palatable option.
One effective response by philosopher Steve Lovell is that morality is rooted in God's nature, not his commands. Thus, moral principles derive their validity ultimately not from God's commands, but his loving and just nature. The good is good because it is derived from God's unchanging character. God commands us to love because we're made in his image, and God is love. There have been some objections to Divine Nature Theory ("DNT") but for now it seems to be the strongest response to the dilemma.
The critical assumption underlying the DNT is that God only commands what he actually wants people to do. A command is only good insofar as it reflects God's actual desires, and thus if God issued a command he secretly did not want fulfilled, DNT would not apply. So for a command to reflect his nature, it reflects his desires.
Can Calvinists avail themselves of DNT? I argue they cannot. Calvinists believe God may command X but in fact strongly desire Y. This is so because God is the cause of every event, including every violation of his commands. Sometimes referred to as the "two wills of God", it has been a sore point in debates between Arminians and Calvinists. Jonathan Edwards:
The Arminians ridicule the distinction between the secret and revealed will of God, or, more properly expressed, the distinction between the decree and the law of God; because we say he may decree one thing, and command another. And so, they argue, we hold a contrariety in God, as if one will of his contradicted another.Edwards then argues there is no contradiction between God's commanding one thing and desiring another, since where the two wills diverge, God does not actually desire that the command be followed. Since the two wills are defined differently, and only the secret will reflects God's actual desires, their divergence does not imply contradiction. I agree with Edwards here. The two wills doctrine as crafted by Calvinists is not contradictory.
Nevertheless, by divorcing God's commands from his desires, Edwards exposes his theology to the horns of the dilemma. God's commands do not reflect his desires in every instance those commands are not followed (which is nearly all the time!). As such, Calvinists cannot benefit from DNT. They can't reasonably claim God's moral commands reflect his actual desires for human beings, when most of the time they do not. And since they do not reflect his actual desires, they are not rooted in his nature (since his desires express his nature).
So then, it seems Calvinists face three choices: give up a coherent morality. Give up God's sovereignty. Or, propose their own solution to the Euthyphro dilemma. I'm all ears for another way out.
