WOTM: God's Nature

[00:00:04][music] >> Make believers who imagine an objective morality are often confronted with the ancient argument put forth in the dialogues of Plato.

[00:00:18]The Euthyphro dilemma.

[00:00:20]Simply stated, the question is, do the gods love good action because it is good or is good action good because it is loved by the gods?

[00:00:30]If good action is loved because it is good, then goodness is independent of the gods.

[00:00:37]If good action is good because it is loved by the gods, then goodness is arbitrary and subjective. For a while now, Christians have rejected the idea that this is a genuine dilemma, saying that there is a third option.

[00:00:52]Christian excusatory Paul Ryan Excuse me, Ryan Paulie put it this way.

[00:00:59]>> And the Euthyphro [clears throat] dilemma has historically been split to say this is a false dilemma. It's not an either or, right? A false dilemma is saying, well, did he walk to the store or did he ride his bike to the store?

[00:01:08]And it's like, well, neither one, he drove a car to the store. And the question is, is there a third option here? And so, I would split the Euthyphro dilemma and say, um God commands something because he is good. He his nature is the standard for goodness.

[00:01:22]>> So, God's nature is the standard of goodness.

[00:01:26]Interesting.

[00:01:28]As you know, I'm no professional philosophizer, but it seems to me that appealing to God's nature sends things right back to camp arbitrary.

[00:01:37]God's nature just is what it is, right? Why presume God's nature is good?

[00:01:44]Did he freely choose his nature and choose it to be good? If so, what was the criteria he used?

[00:01:52]Whatever criteria would be independent of him, right? Have I missed something here? Let me know in the comments. The real problem for this claim is an empirical one.

[00:02:03]The Christian holy book is filled with story after story, law after law, act upon act, giving us nearly endless demonstrations of which actions and values clearly fit within God's nature.

[00:02:20]Those stories, laws, and actions give us a way to examine God's nature, to see if it is indeed good, and [snorts] whether any of us would want to use God's nature as the standard for our moral convictions. And here, let's start off right from the beginning.

[00:02:37]According to modern evangelicals, the Christian God is omniscient and omnipotent.

[00:02:44]We won't say omnibenevolent yet because that's what we're examining here. That's the claim.

[00:02:50]>> [clears throat] >> Having said that, God created a world that he knew with absolute certainty would be filled with evil and suffering.

[00:02:59]Then God forced sentient beings able to suffer into that world without their consent.

[00:03:05]This is all within God's nature.

[00:03:08]Make-believers will tell you that God made the world perfect or at least good, and that humans are the ones who caused it to be filled with evil and suffering via their actions in the garden.

[00:03:21]Of course, it's clear from the text that God engineered all of that.

[00:03:26]First, he picked two knuckleheads who he knew would mess things up.

[00:03:31]And worse, he allowed someone into the garden who he knew would guarantee the result he clearly wanted, a world filled with evil and suffering. So, that too is all within God's nature.

[00:03:44]As is a complete disregard for justice.

[00:03:47]On many, many occasions, God does things which clearly fit the definition of injustice.

[00:03:55]He causes people to suffer undue harm.

[00:03:58]He punishes people with improper consequences for their actions, and sometimes punishes people for the actions of others.

[00:04:08]Over and over, God shows no interest in individuals getting what they are inherently due.

[00:04:16]Again, this is all within God's nature, as is a tolerance for owning other human beings as property, ordaining that half the population would be subservient to the other, condemning a particular group of people to death for the sexual orientation he created them with, etc. These stories, laws, and acts in God's holy word show us a God whose nature is filled with ignorance of our world, contempt for empathy, compassion, understanding, and an utter disregard for his creation.

[00:04:49]Even worse, the Christian holy book makes it clear that God's nature is inconceivably violent and retributive.

[00:04:57]He is a being who loves violence so much, he'll be using violence on sentient beings to make them suffer horribly for all eternity.

[00:05:08]God, throughout all the rest of time, will never not be violent.

[00:05:13]And he'll call that love.

[00:05:16]If you want to know how Christians have done the terrible things they've done to people all over the world, look no farther than God's nature.

[00:05:26]Once again, I'm me.

[00:05:29]Thanks for watching.

[00:05:30]>> [music]