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a_theist
"Thy will be done."
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 286
| Posted 3/2/2003 6:13 PM (GMT -6) |   | A friend of mine on Live Journal stated in one of his journal entries that he was going to argue against omnibenevolence in a study group at school. I would like to know if anyone who has a background in logic or analytic philosophy (because that is the angle he is coming from) could show how his logic is faulty, if at all, and if you could show me how to get around this argument.
Taken from lilwilly's Journal,
My objection is strictly logical and derived mainly from Plato's Euthyphro, David Hume's is-ought gap, and A.J. Ayer's logical analysis. And by denying God the predicate of "goodness" you cut out a lot of other theistic arguments which rely on God's all-goodness.
The argument, in short, goes as follows. If God is the source of goodness, then goodness must follow from God's nature. However, this amounts to basically saying that God's goodness consists in his divinity and power. Therefore, no matter what God did, he would be good. Hence, by this argument an entirely diabolical being, should it gain as much power as God, be consider just as good as God by virtue of the fact that goodness is identical to omnipotence. If the theist resists this conclusion he denies the original premise that God is the source of all goodness and must admit that the criteria of goodness is anterior to God. There are more details and further points in the argument, but that's the gist of it.
Click here for the original posting
Blessings,
Paulp
"The 'sovereignty' of God is not, I suggest, a very biblical idea, especially if one has a low opinion of the respect of sovereigns for the freedom of their subjects."
~Charles Hartshorne | | Back to Top | | |
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Alan Rhoda
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 680
| Posted 3/3/2003 2:13 PM (GMT -6) | | Paul, any chance you can post his entire argument? When I clicked on the link it said I couldn't view it until I signed into Live Journal. I'd rather not sign onto anything I don't have to. Thanks.
quote:
The argument, in short, goes as follows. If God is the source of goodness, then goodness must follow from God's nature. However, this amounts to basically saying that God's goodness consists in his divinity and power. Therefore, no matter what God did, he would be good. Hence, by this argument an entirely diabolical being, should it gain as much power as God, be consider just as good as God by virtue of the fact that goodness is identical to omnipotence. If the theist resists this conclusion he denies the original premise that God is the source of all goodness and must admit that the criteria of goodness is anterior to God.
Assuming your summary of the argument is accurate, Paul, I'm not impressed with it. In order to work the argument has to establish that God's goodness is identical to (or rather follows from) his omnipotence. In short, might makes right. But his argument for that claim is just a non sequitur. As I read, the argument runs as follows:
(1) God is the source of goodness. (assumption)
(2) If God is the source of goodness then goodness follows from God's nature. (assumption)
(3) Therefore, goodness follows from God's nature. (by 1 and 2)
(4) God's nature consists solely in his power. (assumption)
(5) Therefore, goodness follows solely from God's power. (by 3 and 4)
(6) Therefore, any being with divine power would be good no matter what. (by 5)
(7) An omnipotent diabolic being would clearly not be good. (assumption)
(8) Therefore, (6) is false. (by 6 and 7)
(9) Therefore, (1) is false, God is not the source of goodness.
The argument is a non sequitur because (9) does not follow from (8). Given (8) it follows that at least one of the assumptions in the argument must be false, but it does not follow that (1) is false.
So which premise should we reject? The most obvious candidate is not (1) but (4). Why should we accept that God's nature consists solely in his power? As Christians we believe that God nature consists in much more--God is intrinsically good and loving as well as omnipotent, omniscient, holy, just, etc. God's goodness isn't grounded in his other attributes, rather, all of God's attributes are grounded in his nature as the most perfect being.
Premises (1) and (2) are problematic as well, however, and they don't accurately reflect what Christians believe. Strictly speaking, God is not the source of goodness, but the source of all good things (Jas 1:17). To say as in (1) that God is the source of goodness is already to posit a gap between God and his goodness. The rest of the argument needs this gap to work, for if God and his goodness are really distinct, then his goodness is not a fundamental aspect of his nature and must therefore be grounded in, and ontologically dependent upon, other divine attributes, such as omnipotence. But this is a complete distortion of the Christian position. We hold that God's goodness is a fundamental aspect of his nature. It does not depend on or "follow from" his other attributes. The phrase "follow from" harbors a crucial ambiguity. In the sense in which Christians would accept that goodness "follows from" God's nature, the sense of the phrase is strictly logical--that is, given that God is the most perfect being it follows (logically) that he is perfectly good. But the argument requires us to take God's goodness to "follow from" his nature in an ontological sense. In misrepresenting the Christian position as it does, the argument is only attacking a straw man.
Hope that helps, Paul.
Alan | | Back to Top | | |
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