@DM: I see what you did there! ;) No one knows what it means to be godlike, but everyone understands the concepts of fate, predestination and free will because we seem to have control over our own lives and decisions. You can't compare the two, IMO.

Regardless, you are not advocating the traditional Reformed position. Traditional five or four-point Calvinism argues that God chooses who he will and will not save and that the sinner cannot resist God's call. There is no choice involved on the part of the sinner. His election has been decided for him and nothing he can do can change that.

Interestingly, even most pastors who claim to be Reformed still practice Arminianism in principle. There is no need to hold an alter call imploring people to make decisions for Christ if God's will cannot be thwarted and if He has already decided our fate for us.

I'm with Jeremy on the Frame quote. Most philosophers of religion think the contents of God’s character are logically prior to the contents of his word. If it weren’t, then the contents of God’s word would be arbitrary. Besides, claiming that both God’s word and God’s character *determine* his goodness seems to be a case of overdetermination: why posit two answers when only one will do?

Paul wrote: "Indeed, a more sophisticated DCT applies to *obligations* but bases *goodness* in the nature of God."

But there is a problem with this. Nicholas Wolterstorff thinks we have a good reason to believe that a moral obligation exists apart from God’s commands. Since God has a *standing* right to our obedience by virtue of the power and authority that inheres in the worth of his (loving) being, we have a *standing* correlative obligation to obey God regardless of whether he commands us to do something or not (Justice, 2008: 274). Yet this standing obligation is not itself generated by the God’s commands. Therefore, God’s inherent rights, not his commands, are the ultimate grounds for moral obligation.

Adam: “I say there is a problem with that too and cited Wolterstorff’s argument. What’s the problem? Aren’t we are talking *about* the *truth* of DCT?”

Paul: Here’s the problem, you were talking about something I said. So what I intended to communicate takes priority. I intended to communicate this: “You (critic) say that DCT is committed to Y, and this brings up problem P. I say sophisticated DCTs say DCT is only committed to X, and the specific problem you raise—though there may be other ones!—does not apply to X.” Maybe this analogy will help: Suppose, I raise a criticism against foreknowledge and libertarian freedom that goes like this: “If God believes in the past, at t, that Sam will buy a Twinkie at t3, then at t2 Sam is not free to refrain from buying a Twinkie. This argument shows that libertarian freedom and foreknowledge are incompatible.” Now, suppose some, Bo, comes along and says, “Your argument begs the question against the timelessness view, it has as a premise that God is in time. On the timelessness view, God is not in time and, literally, doesn’t *fore*know anything.” Now, I happen to think that Boethianism does not solve the problem, but that doesn’t mean I can ignore the distinction just because I think Boethianism is *false*! Lastly, you will note that I sketched a response to the objection from Wolterstorff, but my first point was that a conceptual distinction *does* matter if you’re trying to show that one objection was aimed at a wrong conception! When you say “does not matter” you can’t leave it unqualified; we must ask, “Does not matter, *for what*?”

Adam: “Now I think *that* begs the question.”

Paul: I was explaining there, not arguing.

Adam: So if God is the sort of being that has rights (and I take it he is), then God has a right against us to obey his commands if and only if we have an obligation towards God to obey his commands.

Paul: I think this is confused: We agree this is true: If God commands us to do X, we have an obligation to do X. But *that* isn’t an ‘obligation.’ It may be a *moral reason*, but moral reasons to X don’t necessitate an obligation to X. Moral reasons may be a necessary condition for an obligation to obtain, but it’s not sufficient. Just as it may always be true that it is *good* that we obey God if he commands us to, but that doesn’t demand that this is an *obligation*.

Aside from that, granting we always do have a standing obligation of this sort: “One ought to obey God if he commands X,” then you’d have to prove this isn’t a divine command. You can’t, of course, *define* yourself into the winner’s circle by saying, “We have an obligation to obey God whether he commands it or not.” Of course, if we can disobey God (at all times), then it makes sense we always have this obligation—for that’s when they arise, I say. I’m not sure what sense it would make to say that we have a standing obligation to obey God if it were *metaphysically impossible* that we could disobey God. I won’t discuss this point as this is a blog comment and time’s short, but that’s my view. Obligations for S to X make no sense if it is *metaphysically impossible* for S to not-X; which is why, I say, *God* has no moral obligations. Just think of the oddness of telling someone, Bob, who works under you, and for who it is *impossible* for them to ever show up late to work, when you seem him in the halls, “Remember, Bob, you *ought* to show up at work on time.” Bob would look at you strangely. He would be befuddled. I say this oddness is explained by the fact that Bob wouldn’t have an *obligation* in this case, for an obligation presupposes the ability to *fail* to keep it. But I’ve already said more than I should, for I probably raise more questions than answered and will only have *more* to type out in response.

Adam: I don’t doubt that you have a nice theory worked out, but I think Wolterstorff has a point worth taking seriously–that the structure of morality is such that all obligations are grounded in God’s inherent rights.

Paul: As expressed so far, the view presented either begs the question or I can fit it into DCT. To say that there are obligations we have that are not commanded, such as the obligation to obey God even if he doesn’t command it, clearly begs the question or trades on some rigid understanding of ‘command.’ Notice, you simply *stipulated* that we have an obligation to obey God whether he commands it or not. This was a “standing obligation.” But if granted, there’s no reason there couldn’t be a “standing command.’

But all this is rather a digression. The debate about DCT is *live*, and I don’t propose to settle it here. My main reason for commenting is that DCT was getting short shrift above. And if I ought to take Wolterstorff “seriously,” then others ought to repay the favor to DCT. It’s not as simple to “refute” as some of the above commenters may have suggested.

Not a concession. This is not a contest. I just choose to ignore you because of your combative and rude nature. But congrats on your victory.

How can you say Jesus was human if he was entirely and completely divine?

"Why can’t God sovereignly ordain all of history, and yet humans still choose to reject him?"

Because there is no choosing when God has already ordained the choice for you. How is that free in any sense of the word?

Why not both? Why can't God sovereignly ordain all of history, and yet humans still choose to reject him? We don't completely understand that, but the Bible uses the language of both. Kind of like we don't completely understand how Jesus could be 100% God and 100% man, yet we affirm that truth because the Bible teaches it. It is denial to somehow disregard all of the language of God's foreknowledge and sovereignty (and predestination)--which exists in varying levels of explicitness throughout the entire Bible.

Paul: "A conceptual distinction clearly matters if a position says that it’s about *just* X and some critic says it’s about X *and* Y. I’m not sure why you don’t think this is relevant. Not only that, I’m not sure why you can’t tell a difference between whether a position is *about* X and whether X itself is *true*."

Adam: I don't know what you are getting at here, but you seem to be quite frustrated with me! I see it like this. Person A claims morality is not generated by God's commands. Person B says we have to distinguish between moral goodness (which is not generated by God's commands) and moral obligation (which is). I say there is a problem with that too and cited Wolterstorff's argument. What's the problem? Aren't we are talking *about* the *truth* of DCT?

Paul: "If God issues a command, we have an obligation to obey it. If moral obligations *just are* divine commands, then it *makes no sense* to speak of obligations apart from commands."

Adam: Now I think *that* begs the question. The form of the argument I am deploying goes like this: (1) If DCT is true, then all moral obligations are generated by God's commands; (2) there is a moral obligation that is not generated by God's commands; (3) Therefore, DCT isn't true.

Paul: On ‘rights’ and ‘obligations,’ there’s some confusion here. There’s a distinction between ‘rights’ and something *being* ‘right.’ If I do a morally right action, that has nothing to do with a theory of ‘rights.’ Likewise, in theories of ‘rights,’ it is not the case that if S in “within her rights” to phi, that S does the *morally* right thing if she phi-s. On the understanding of ‘moral right,’ yes, I correlate that with obligation—and that’s *standard* ethical theory 101.

Adam: Great, we agree. So if God is the sort of being that has rights (and I take it he is), then God has a right against us to obey his commands if and only if we have an obligation towards God to obey his commands. And these correlative rights and duties stand apart from there being any specific commands. If God commands me to fly to Grand Rapids to take you out for a beer, then I have an obligation to obey him. That is, I have a standing obligation to obey God, and it is one that is not generated by God's commands.

Paul: The DCT view I defend and that I have put together from philosophers like Alston, Baggett, Walls, T.V. Morris, W.L. Craig, C. S. Evans, Bas van Fraassen, Quinn, Wierenga, etc. If you want to dismiss them with a wave of your hand, then I say, and perhaps quite ironically and hypocritically, so much the worse for your open mindedness on this issue!

Adam: I don't doubt that you have a nice theory worked out, but I think Wolterstorff has a point worth taking seriously--that the structure of morality is such that all obligations are grounded in God's inherent rights. I think that if you investigate his view more you will see that he can account for the all virtues we look for in DCT in a deeper way.

"Calvinists, of course, would not take that position."

They may not take that position, but I fail to see how they cannot other than outright denial. If man does not have free will (i.e. if all his actions are predetermined so that he cannot do anything other than what God wills, and if men are sinners, then how is man responsible for his own sin? God made him without the ability to do anything other than sin? How can man be responsible for being exactly what God created him to be?

Luckily, free will does exist as evidenced by 2 Peter 3:9.

"The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."

If it is God's will that all should come to repentance and salvation, and God alone is responsible for salvation, and we agree that not all will be saved, then something is thwarting God's will. The only thing that can possibly do that is if God has given man the power to reject Him.

Adam, not sure what you're referring to when you say "you can assume that if you like."

A conceptual distinction clearly matters if a position says that it's about *just* X and some critic says it's about X *and* Y. I'm not sure why you don't think this is relevant. Not only that, I'm not sure why you can't tell a difference between whether a position is *about* X and whether X itself is *true*.

If God issues a command, we have an obligation to obey it. If moral obligations *just are* divine commands, then it *makes no sense* to speak of obligations apart from commands. All worlds where God commands us to do X are worlds we have an obligation to do X. Now, I can see why you might think it sounds so absurd, and that's probably based on some kind of rigid or woodenly literal rendering of 'command.'

On 'rights' and 'obligations,' there's some confusion here. There's a distinction between 'rights' and something *being* 'right.' If I do a morally right action, that has nothing to do with a theory of 'rights.' Likewise, in theories of 'rights,' it is not the case that if S in "within her rights" to phi, that S does the *morally* right thing if she phi-s. On the understanding of 'moral right,' yes, I correlate that with obligation—and that's *standard* ethical theory 101.

I'm not impressed by "so much the worse for your view" rhetoric (considered as a persuasive device in public discourse). Lewisian incredulous stares don't cause me to tremble, and that's aside from my rather pessimistic view of a positive truth-apt role appeals to intuitions play—though I grant that appeals to them are in some sense indispensable, whether as starting off points for our philosophizing, or aesthetic preferences, or etc. The DCT view I defend and that I have put together from philosophers like Alston, Baggett, Walls, T.V. Morris, W.L. Craig, C. S. Evans, Bas van Fraassen, Quinn, Wierenga, etc. If you want to dismiss them with a wave of your hand, then I say, and perhaps quite ironically and hypocritically, so much the worse for your open mindedness on this issue! :-P

The view I defend is compatible with most epistemic and ontic natural law theories, with theories like C.S. Lewis' and Koukl's above, where God is the ultimate good, the ground of good, goodness itself, etc.. There's a lot of other virtues it has, and I think it accounts for a lot of ostensibly disparate moral intuitions. I think it handles certain problems that come up in deontic logic. And more than I'm going to go into here.

Slow down, Robert. You're tilting at windmills. I'm not defending DCT over non-DCT (as if there were only two positions to choose from!). I'm simply observing that the moral force of some biblical commands can't be explained purely by appealing to God's character; they're more analogous to what jurists call "positive laws" (as contrasted with "natural laws").

I'm not claiming that such laws don't need to be consistent with God's nature (which would be absurd) or that such laws don't "involve God's character" (whatever exactly that comes to) or that God doesn't have "good and moral reasons" for those laws.

What I am denying is that these laws are entailed by God's character in the technical logical sense of the term 'entail'; that's to say, they don't follow by sheer logical necessity from God's character alone. If the command to baptize were entailed by God's character then it would be logically impossible for God to have chosen some other rite for the same purpose; that's not only implausible but an affront to divine freedom. If the OT ceremonial laws are entailed by God's character then they couldn't be abrogated (unless God's character were to change, which is impossible).

So you're imputing to me positions that I don't hold and that don't follow from anything I've claimed.

Moreover, I'm afraid it clarifies nothing to insist that these biblical commands "flow out of" God's perfect moral character. What exactly is that metaphorical phrase supposed to mean? It can't mean 'entail', for the reasons I've given. If it means only that these laws are consistent with, and partly (even largely) explained by, God's perfect moral character, then I agree. If it means that these laws are particularly fitting given God's perfect moral character, then I agree. But both of these interpretations are entirely consistent with my claim that these laws aren't entailed by God's character.

Fair enough, Paul. You can assume that if you like. I was making the point that a conceptual distinction between goodness and obligation does not matter, because there is a good reason think DCT generates neither. I mean how is it that “God can have a standing right to our obedience such that in all worlds where he commands us to X, he has a right to our obedience” but that we fail to have a *standing* correlative obligation to obey God regardless of whether he commands us to X? I beg the question here only if you think it is wrong to assume rights correlate with obligations. My reply: if that is something a DC theorist must be committed to, to save the theory, then so much the worse for DCT!

Jeremy,

I think there's a more charitable reading of Frame's statement. I believe he's only claiming that God's goodness and God's revelation (which, in context, he's equating with God's self-expression, not his commands per se) are necessarily correlative and equally ultimate, not that they're mutually explanatory. He doesn't use the language of explanation and his 'determines' doesn't mean 'explains' here.

By way of analogy, consider the properties of being three-sided and being three-angled. You would understand me, I think, if I were to state that a shape's 'three-sided-ness' determines its 'three-angled-ness' and also that its 'three-angled-ness' determines its 'three-sided-ness'. The two properties are necessarily correlative and equally ultimate, but they don't explain each other.

I concede, however, that Frame doesn't express his point very well here. Still, if you read the whole article, I think you'll see that his position is much the same as Koukl's. IIRC, his treatment of the Euthyphro Dilemma in The Doctrine of the Christian Life is much better.

clarify: 'wooden picture' of what a *command* of God must be.

Robert,

You should probably read Arminians like Baggett and Walls in Good God, for virtually all your misunderstandings and straw men regarding DCT are burned therein.

"So no matter what command you want to point to, God had good and moral reasons for giving these commands. And these good and moral reasons flow out of his morally perfect character."

Of course, Baggett and Walls, Alston, Evans, Moreland and Craig, etc., say this very thing. Moreover, "good" and "moral" do not imply *obligatory*. For a quick example, supererogatory actions are *good* but not *obligatory*, or perhaps I should have said, ******obligatory******. ;-)

"There’s goodness and badness in the world that is explanatorily prior to why murder is wrong."

Of course, Alston says as much.

Jeremy,

"It doesn’t state merely that God’s commands carry with them moral force. It says that the very meaning of our moral terms is explained purely by the fact that God commands the things that are morally right and forbids the things that are morally wrong. What it means to be morally right is to be commanded by God."

This semantic DCT has been repudiated by almost all contemporary DCT theorists. Some locate the semantics in *social relationships*. Some, think that a moral obligation *essential is* a divine command, but pull from semantic analyses of natural kinds. So, while water *is* H20, it does not necessarily *mean* H20 when someone utters a sentence with the word 'water' in it.

Adam, first, even if there's a problematic consequence with what I said, what I said is simply a conceptual distinction meant to mark of different DCT views. So the point was that the above criticism I responded to presented an objection to DCT that at least appeared to be an objection to DCT *per se*, and my marking off the conceptual territory cannot be defeated by pointing out that a philosopher has a problem with that position. The point still stands that the position I listed claims DCT applies to obligations.

But on to your comment: I'm not sure why Wolterstorff's name was dropped. I can cite philosophers too who have problems with non-DCT accounts. More importantly, Wolterstorff's position, as you quote him, simply begs the question against many if not most of the obligation-only views. On their view, obligations only arise where people can fail to keep them. So in worlds where no one can fail to honor and love God, there's simply no *obligation* to do so—even though it is good, fitting, proper, etc., to do so. Third, God can have a standing right to our obedience such that in all worlds where he commands us to X, he has a right to our obedience. Fourth, to say we have an "obligation to obey God whether he commands us to or not" clearly begs the question against the DCT theorist; and I am also assuming that a sort of rigid or woodenly literal *picture* of God's command is had in order for this objection to get off the ground.

James Rednour May 24, 2012 at 4:27 pm

"@steve hays: If TGC had a kill file, you would be the first and only person I would add to it."

Since you can't rebut my statements, the best you can do is to suppress them. I appreciate your candid concession speech.

"Do you have anything substantive to add to the discussion?"

I did.

But Frame wrote an entire book on his view of "the word of God," and it can't be dismissed by an appeal to what "most philosophers" think, especially as they aren't commenting on Frame's rather idiosyncratic (not meant to be pejorative) view.

@steve hays: If TGC had a kill file, you would be the first and only person I would add to it. Do you have anything substantive to add to the discussion?

How does a debate about the Euthyphro dilemma suddenly turn into a debate about Calvinism? The Euthyphro dilemma doesn't single out Calvinism. It's just as much or little a problem for Arminianism, Molinism, Lutheranism, open theism, &c. as it is for Calvinism.

James Rednour May 24, 2012 at 3:37 pm

"Impossible to say whether God has preordained all of history. I find myself most in agreement with Boethius in that God’s foreknowledge of all events is a characteristic of his eternal being. In other words, God is not constrained by time as we are but sees all events past, present and future as occurring in a simultaneous fashion."

The Boethian solution has been roundly criticized by many philosophers who have no particular sympathy for Calvinism.

"...thus, God’s divine foreknowledge does not determine our actions."

A straw man.

"You cannot force someone to love you and you cannot express love by way of force."

Another straw man.

"It is a mystery that God sovereignly orders the universe and ordained all of history from the beginning (certainly you believe that God pre-ordained redemptive history, no?), and yet, man is responsible for his own sin."

Impossible to say whether God has preordained all of history. I find myself most in agreement with Boethius in that God's foreknowledge of all events is a characteristic of his eternal being. In other words, God is not constrained by time as we are but sees all events past, present and future as occurring in a simultaneous fashion; thus, God's divine foreknowledge does not determine our actions. Man must have a sort of free will because true love is impossible without it. Much of God's revelation is a mystery, but if He was to make anything clear to us it would be the idea of true love. I can't believe that God has a completely different definition of love than the one he has revealed to us. You cannot force someone to love you and you cannot express love by way of force.

James wrote:

“You seem to suggest that DCT is entirely misguided. I agree that an unqualified DCT is inadequate. But don’t we need something like a DCT for some biblical laws?”

Why?

It seems to me that the non-DCT position makes more sense (i.e. every choice that God makes flows out of his perfect moral character, or put another way everything he does involves his perfect moral character, he makes no choices issues no commands that do not flow from his perfect moral character).

James attempts to give an example of a command from God that can be divorced from his character:

“Take the command to be baptized. Presumably that command isn’t entailed by God’s character; God could have freely chosen some other physical rite for the same purpose.”

Now that is an interesting comment. Apparently James thinks there can be commands from God that are **not** “entailed by God’s character”. Baptism being an example of such a command according to James.

Note that James also says that perhaps some other physical rite could have been chosen for the same purpose. James is failing to distinguish between God having differing options to accomplish a particulur purpose with God’s choices not involving God’s character (or to use his words “isn’t entailed by God’s character”). They are not the same thing at all. Say God has a purpose in mind (e.g. creating the universe) and that there is more than one available choice (i.e. different ways the world could be) that would accomplish that purpose. Just because there are different choices or means to that end/purpose, does not mean that the same end/purpose does not involve God’s character. No matter which kind of universe God decides to create, his choice will necessarily involve his character. It seems clear to me that God does absolutely nothing that does not involve his character. He always chooses and acts in line with his character (which is exactly what we would expect from a morally perfect being). So he never arbitrarily makes a choice divorced from his character.

“(No doubt baptism is more fitting than many other possible rites, but it would be tough to argue that it’s the only fitting rite consistent with God’s character.)”

This is a surprising statement because on the one hand, James seems to be arguing for or attempting to justify the DCT (or some qualified DCT). But that last phrase “the only fitting rite consistent with God’s character” is precisely the point that those who reject DCT emphasize. The non-DCT proponents instead say that everything God does (including his commands **is** consistent with his character and flows out of his character). To affirm DCT and simultaneously affirm that God only does things that are consistent with God’s character seems contradictory (or like having your cake/DCT and eating it too/adding the element that God always acts in line with his character). That is one of the points of difference, the DCT proponent claims that God does command things that are divorced from his character, that he can and does command some things simply because he is God. But again, the deniers of DCT claim that everything God does flows from his character. This is one of the reasons we can trust his promises, because of his character. This is one of the reasons in the NT the apostle says that God’s commands are not burdensome. They are not burdensome because just as we trust his promises due to his character. We can also trust his commands to be good because of the character of the one issuing the commands. In the Psalms the writers speak of delighting in God’s law, this delight comes not from an arbitrary command. But because the Psalmist recognizes that God’s law comes from God’s character. So if you delight in one you will delight in the other.

“Yet we have a moral obligation to be baptized. What grounds that moral obligation, if not the fact that God has commanded it?”

What grounds that moral obligation (like all moral obligations) is the character of the God who issues the command.

“Isn’t baptism right simply because it has been divinely commanded?”

No, if it is right simply because it is commanded we swallow DCT.
It is right because God has good reasons for giving every command that he gives (including baptism). God as a personal agent always acts for reasons. And these reasons again flow out of his perfect moral character.

“If you don’t like the baptism example, substitute one of the Old Testament ceremonial laws instead, or the Sabbath commandment.”

The same goes for all of the ceremonial laws as well. All of them flow out of God’s morally perfect character. The ceremonial laws were meant to instruct (a good purpose) and why were they meant to instruct? Because God is a God of truth and in giving the ceremonial laws was preparing his people (and the world) for the coming Messiah (again a good purpose). So no matter what command you want to point to, God had good and moral reasons for giving these commands. And these good and moral reasons flow out of his morally perfect character.

Robert

"[E]veryone understands the concepts of fate, predestination and free will..."

I would argue that no one understands all of that--at least not fully. We know what the Bible says, but to paraphrase Calvin, the finite cannot grasp the infinite. It is a mystery that God sovereignly orders the universe and ordained all of history from the beginning (certainly you believe that God pre-ordained redemptive history, no?), and yet, man is responsible for his own sin.

Also, I do embrace the Reformed position. I accept the notion of irresistible grace. But while the grace is irresistible, the sinner still must respond to the call. Admittedly, this is all very baffling, circular logic to the human mind, but I don't see how it is any more circular than accepting that Jesus is both God and man.

Finally, to your last point... there is a common saying that goes like this: "Think like a Calvinist; live like an Arminian." Tongue-in-cheek, perhaps, but the point is that we have to persevere in the faith and preach the gospel even though we believe that God is sovereign over all of it.

Justin,
The apologist who questions the theistic is Ravi Zacharias who often narrates the encounter/debate between Russell and Coplestone. Coplestone asked Russell how he distinguished between good and evil, to which Russell replied, "Based on how I feel, what else?"

Dr. Zacharias quips that Coplestone should have asked him a further question - "in some cultures people love their neighbors and in others they eat their neighbors, both based on feelings. Do you have a preference?"

[...] Justin Taylor provides a response from John Frame on the matter: God’s Word and God’s goodness are equally ultimate aspects of his character. . . [C]ontrary to Euthyphro, neither Word nor goodness comes before the other; the two are correlative. There is nothing in God’s nature which His Word does not express; and there is nothing in His Word which lacks truth. So: God’s goodness determines God’s revelation, and God’s revelation determines His goodness. [...]

"The third option is that an objective standard exists (this avoids the first horn of the dilemma). However, the standard is not external to God, but internal (avoiding the second horn). Morality is grounded in the immutable character of God, who is perfectly good. His commands are not whims, but rooted in His holiness."

I'm not sure at all how this gets you out of the first part of the dilemma - i.e. that something is good simply because God does it. In fact, it seems that Reformed theology embraces the idea that because God is sovereign that whatever He does is good by definition. There are many places in the Bible where God commands something that seems to be not good to us (e.g. the total destruction Canaanite cities and the massacre of all their inhabitants, wiping out humanity by way of a worldwide flood or eternal punishment for people who are simply born in a place where they will never have the opportunity to hear the Gospel). The answer to these queries is always an appeal to God's sovereignty and His right to do whatever He wishes with the vessels He has created. The idea that God has granted humans free will gets you out of this a bit in that God has allowed men to reject Him and continue in their sinful ways thus absolving God from responsibility from man's sinful ways, but Calvinists reject the idea of human free will so that ultimately leads to the conclusion that God has willed all that has happened in history as well as all its tragedies. I don't see how anyone can view God as good in this regard other than to say that God is good be definition (i.e. God = good and good = God).

I think the only way out of this conundrum is to say that we don't really know the answer because we are not God. That is not particularly satisfying and it won't convince a skeptic, but there are many things about God which don't make sense when viewed through human eyes.

[...] Justin Taylor provides a response from John Frame on the matter: God’s Word and God’s goodness are equally ultimate aspects of his character. . . [C]ontrary to Euthyphro, neither Word nor goodness comes before the other; the two are correlative. There is nothing in God’s nature which His Word does not express; and there is nothing in His Word which lacks truth. So: God’s goodness determines God’s revelation, and God’s revelation determines His goodness. [...]

Fascinating post. I've come upon this problem when studying biblical law and reading explanations and defenses of the "moral law." I have a question, though. What is lost by saying that definitions of right and wrong are due to God's fiat, if we acknowledge that these commands are given out of God's knowledge of what is best for us? In other words, God's commands don't serve arbitrary purposes, but exist to make our lives better. This may just be semantically different from Frame and Koukl's arguments, I'm not sure.

"The idea that God has granted humans free will gets you out of this a bit in that God has allowed men to reject Him and continue in their sinful ways thus absolving God from responsibility from man’s sinful ways, but Calvinists reject the idea of human free will so that ultimately leads to the conclusion that God has willed all that has happened in history as well as all its tragedies."

Well, Calvinists certainly acknowledge God's sovereignty over all of human history, but they also acknowledge man's responsibility for sin. This is not explicitly contrary to anything that you said, but you seemed to suggest that the Calvinist view inevitably attributes responsibility for sin to God. Calvinists, of course, would not take that position.

Please don't blame Socrates and Plato for this. They were criticizing the idea that a bunch of polytheistic pseudo-divinities could explain morality. Plato's own explanation is in terms of the Form Goodness itself, which gets closer and closer to God as the idea gets more and more developed. By the time you get to the neo-Platonists, they were calling it God, and by the time you get to Augustine and Aquinas they were thinking that God plays the explanatory role that Plato thought he could have the Form Goodness play. At the very least, though, it never occurred to him to apply this argument to a monotheistic picture, and we can't really know if he'd see the way through the horns that most critics of the argument since Aquinas have seen or if he would have continued to endorse it against monotheism too.

I'm going just by what Justin quoted, in particular, this bit:

"God’s goodness determines God’s revelation, and God’s revelation determines His goodness."

The first half is one horn of the Euthyphro dilemma. The second half is the other. He's affirming both contradictories at once. It's a flatly circular explanation.

When God commands something upon a particular group of people at a particular spatiotemporal location, they acquire an obligation to do that. But that's not what DCT is about. It doesn't state merely that God's commands carry with them moral force. It says that the very meaning of our moral terms is explained purely by the fact that God commands the things that are morally right and forbids the things that are morally wrong. What it means to be morally right is to be commanded by God. You don't have to think that to think that God can give particular commands for a particular group at a particular time that are morally required among that for that time.

I would say that there are deeper moral truths than the fact that a being with power and authority commanded them that explain why God's commands (the ones not based in deeper moral principles themselves) will carry moral force. It's not wrong for me to murder someone just because the land in live in has a law making it illegal. There's a deeper moral principle. They made the law because of that. Similarly, God's command not to kill derives from the intrinsic value of human life, which derives from God's intent at creation, God's design for human beings, the purposes God built into us, and the fact that we're made in God's image (which may or may not be adding anything to the list, but it's explicit in at least one text explaining why murder is wrong, so I should mention it either way). There's goodness and badness in the world that is explanatorily prior to why murder is wrong. You do need to appeal to God to tell the whole story of why, but it's not just a matter of God arbitrarily deciding that killing people would be bad, which is what it would have to be if God's pure act of commanding were the only ground of morality. There has to be a reason why commanding that is good, or we'd never be able to mean something significant by praising God. Saying that God is good would be uttering a trivial truth, like saying that squares have four sides. There would be no point. But it doesn't have to be a reason independent of God (which is the mistake of those who apply the Euthyphro polytheistic argument to a single God, who doesn't have the problematic feature of being several beings often in conflict with each other). If God's metaphysical perfection explains why certain things are good and bad, that can lead to moral truths explaining why God would or would not do certain things as a perfect being, and that would explain why certain commands would be good or bad for a divine being to give. DCT can't do any of that, because it isn't about pure commands if it's coming from some deeper truths of God's nature.

Frame's response seems to me to be a circular explanation. Divine simplicity just makes all God's attributes be aspects of one central property. That wouldn't make a circular explanation non-circular. Some people think simplicity helps explain why God's nature can explain God's choices, but that's going between the horns. Frame affirms both horns.

I would say that people who think they hold to divine command theory but who do not think God could command torture-for-fun and thereby make it right do not in fact hold to divine command theory, at least as it's usually presented in most contemporary textbooks. Hardly anyone, in fact, has actually held to divine command theory. Ockham, Descartes, Locke are the only philosophers I'm aware of in the history of philosophy. One strain of presuppositionalism likes that approach as well and applies it even to the laws of logic (as Descartes had done). I think logic falls apart if you do that, though.

Yep. Thanks for linking to that. It got me thinking about it.

Presumably this post's genesis was in Ross Douthat's interaction with the (false) dilemma yesterday.

Jeremy,

1. I admit that what Frame says is a little confusing in a couple places, but he does seem to take Koukl's view.

2. Koukl "denies" a divine command theory that virtual all divine command theorists deny!

3. What you see as "the" problem of DCT is a virtue for me. I think DCT hits on intuitions constructivists, prescriptivists, and realists have. But this aside, DCT doesn't rest on a being "there's nothing special about other than it's all powerful." Indeed, the DCT of Alston, Adams, Baggett and Walls, W.L. Craig, and C. Stephen Evans note that it rests on an all *good* God. Moreover, it does not deny that there is anything "objectively good about those things" God commands us to do. Indeed, a more sophisticated DCT applies to *obligations* but bases *goodness* in the nature of God. But I assume you're familiar with this literature so I won't belabor the point.

Jeremy,

Where exactly does Frame say that God's choices are explained because they are good and that their goodness is explained because they are God's choices? Are you getting that from Justin's quotation or from somewhere else in his article?

Frame does say that God's character and commands are correlative, which is quite unobjectionable; but as far as I can see, he doesn't claim or imply that they explain each other. As I read him, he's saying nothing substantially different than Koukl. But perhaps I'm missing something.

You seem to suggest that DCT is entirely misguided. I agree that an unqualified DCT is inadequate. But don't we need something like a DCT for some biblical laws? Take the command to be baptized. Presumably that command isn't entailed by God's character; God could have freely chosen some other physical rite for the same purpose. (No doubt baptism is more fitting than many other possible rites, but it would be tough to argue that it's the only fitting rite consistent with God's character.) Yet we have a moral obligation to be baptized. What grounds that moral obligation, if not the fact that God has commanded it? Isn't baptism right simply because it has been divinely commanded?

If you don't like the baptism example, substitute one of the Old Testament ceremonial laws instead, or the Sabbath commandment.

I don't think any DCT advocate claims or assumes that might makes right. Moral obligations are grounded in divine authority rather than divine power. The obvious analogy here is parental authority. My kids have an obligation to do what I tell them not because I'm stronger than they are but because I have authority over them. Of course that's not the whole story, but surely it's an important part of it.

Jeremy,

You can run circles around me philosophically. So I'm relieved to hear you think the tu toque strategy is successful.

Let me ask two quick questions about other aspects of your response:

1) Would Frame's response be more palatable if one assumes divine simplicity?

2) Does divine command theory necessarily require the affirmation that God could command torture-for-fun as an ethical lifestyle and it would thereby be good? Aren't there divine command theorists who explicitly deny this? Or would you say they are simply inconsistent?

I always appreciate your comments and interaction.

Justin, that is a brilliant way of hanging Plato/Socrates and Russell by their own rope (Russell's own words and argumentation). I'm going to borrow that approach next time Russell is quoted to me.

William L. Craig has an informative, short Q&A on several of the weaknesses of the Euthyphro's (False) Dilemma at youtube.com/watch?v=OLYlxXJNQzg

More and more atheists and skeptics are giving up on nihilism/relativism/subjectivism (because of the moral bankruptcy, unwanted consequences, and inconsistencies of those positions, which are the 1st horn of E's False Dilemma) in favor of a form of moral objectivism where moral rules are supposedly independent of a personal, eternal creator by being abstract Platonic entities (the 2nd horn of E's False Dilemma). As Dr. Craig points out in the link, that 2nd nowadays more popular alternative is also insufficient because (1) abstract Platonic entities cannot be good themselves, and (2) abstract Platonic entities cannot carry any moral obligations, duties, "oughtness" to them whereby we are somehow obligated to abide by them.

I'm not sure you can say all the things in this post, because they seem like exclusive alternatives to me.

1. Frame's response is not really a response. It's a circular explanation and therefore not an explanation at all. It can't be both that God's choices are explained because they are good and that their goodness is explained because they are God's choices. Frame tries to get out of it by affirming the jointly-contradictory choices. Instead of going between the horns, he accepts both and thus accepts a contradiction.

2. Koukl's response really does go between the horns. He denies divine command theory altogether (i.e. the view that whatever God chooses or commands is merely for that reason good, so that if God had commanded torture-for-fun then it would be good). But he also denies that morality is grounded outside God. It's grounded in God's nature, which is eternal and metaphysically perfect. Morality is thus grounded in metaphysics. Not everyone likes this account, but it's not circular, it's not contradictory, and does avoid both horns of the dilemma.

3. The application of this problem to the relativist strikes me as apt. But it also reveals the problem with divine command theory. Divine command theory is basically a kind of subjectivism. Moral truths depend on the subjective choices of one being, and there's nothing special about that being except that it's all-powerful. Might makes right. (I say "it" because such a being would not be God, since God is intrinsically good. This being would be good by default, not because of anything about its nature.) Divine command theory is Nietzscheanism that accepts the existence of an all-powerful being who then can command us to do whatever it wants, and we have to comply or else, but it denies that there's anything really objectively good about those things this being arbitrarily seeks to have everyone do. Christians should certainly not identify such a being with God and therefore should not subscribe to divine command theory. There's a correct view, perhaps, in the neighborhood, explaining moral features in terms of God's nature, but that's not divine command theory.

This is typical of your chronic inability to accurately state the opposing position.

i) In Reformed theology, God is the Creator as well as the law-giver. Therefore, his commands are not arbitrary fiats. Rather, his commands are adapted to the nature of the creature, he has designed the creature.

ii) You also disregard the fact that humans are sinners.

iii) Also, you don't get to speak for others regarding what doesn't seem "good to us." There is no "us." Just you.

iv) Finally, you treat the Bible and Calvinism as interchangeable. That's fine with me.