Plato’s first horn, which is ‘Does God command X because it is good?’ challenges ‘creator ex nihilo’ and God’s classical theistic characteristics. If God can no longer claim ultimate responsibility of control, his omnipotence is damaged because it means he is not ‘all’ powerful. Moreover, God depends on his goodness to the extent to which he conforms to an independent moral standard.
Plato’s second horn, ‘Is X good because God commands it?’ suggests that God becomes the sole arbiter of morality and he does not need to justify his demands because whatever he wills must become good. It presents a tautology, as ‘good’ is equated with ‘God’ and effectively argues that a moral law is made right by the virtue of divine command. Christians are reduced to acting out of fear of divine punishment in order to gain eschatological reward. This presents the question of whether their actions are truly moral, if their motives are tainted. D. Z Phillips said ‘To a Christian, to do one’s duty is to do the will of God.’ If God becomes the sole arbiter of morality, then there are no reasons for morality if no other moral standard is available other than God’s will. This means that God could command anything and it would be deemed moral. Furthermore, 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. ‘The good consists in always doing what God wills at any particular moment.’ Emil Brunner contemplated. This has the advantage of placing God clearly above morality - it is not an independent measure that exists separately of him, but it is under his control. However, it is perhaps the more problematic of the two positions, as suggested by famous biblical narratives such as God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. While Kierkegaard reached the conclusion that faith is the highest virtue, as exemplified in Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son for what must have seemed at best a capricious God, at worst a malevolent one, John Habgood exposed the ‘nagging doubt’ that remains: ‘if morality is supposed to be universal, can it really be discounted, even under such extreme pressure from God?
To what extent does this critique effectively undermine the link between religion and morality?
This critique undermines the link between religion and morality to a limited extent, as William Lane Craig has postulated, the Euthyphro Dilemma is a false dilemma because there is a third alternative. However, those such as Richard Dawkins have used the first horn to develop a straw man argument.
He says he is ‘astounded’ as to why Christians would support an evil monster, when God could demand men to do something considered immoral. For example, Abraham being asked to kill his own son, Abel. Dawkins talked to Michael Bray, a friend of Paul Hill, the American pastor idolised by the Army of God for his murder of an abortionist, who calmly suggested that it would not be against biblical principles if the state were to execute adulterers. In response, Dawkins quoted Stephen Weinberg: ‘Without religion you have good people doing good things, and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion.’ Leibniz is a supporter of Dawkins and asks ‘why praise God if he would be equally praiseworthy in doing exactly the contrary?’ This highlights once again the supposedly arbitrary basis of religious morality as reflected in Plato’s second horn. However, the Old Testament is open to interpretation and has been written by man, there may be errors and there is no means of verifying every story. On the one hand, there are documents in the Bible that contain profoundly sophisticated morals from the Decalogue, while on the other hand there are texts discussing self interested tribalism. Therefore, this cannot be used as a sole piece of evidence to determine whether God is independent from morality. Linda Zagzabski defines the relationship between religion and morality so that a positive link in the face of Plato’s criticisms. She bases the idea of religious morality being rooted in virtue ethics rather than deontological commands. This therefore counters the claim that God’s will is arbitrary as she argues that God can only command things of humanity which are reflective of his own virtues, such as charity. Although some may criticise the deontological aspect of God’s instructions, as they view the arbitrary nature and eschatological reward acts as a motive for morally good acts, thus diluting the goodness, it is important to take into account that we live in a multicultural world that is, in many ways, highly secular but religious morality is still endemic. For many believers the only good reason to perform a morally good action or to refrain from a morally wrong action is because it conforms to the will of God. However, this does not mean the morality of that action is reduced.
Others have argued that Plato’s first horn undermines the link between religion and morality. Clearly in this case, God is not the guarantor of moral goodness and in some way his nature is qualified. He cannot bring goodness into being apart from the goodness that he accesses from outside himself. Therefore, this is surely not the traditional God of classical theism. However, William Lane Craig dismisses this and claims ‘It’s not the case God wills something because it’s good nor it’s the case something is good because god wills it. God wills something because he is good. It is God’s own nature that determines what’s the good,’ This shows that the Euthyphro Dilemma does not undermine the link between religion and morality, as the dilemma itself is not fully developed.
To conclude, the Euthyphro Dilemma does not undermine the link between religion and morality. Despite Richard Dawkins criticising the link using the second horn of the Euthyphro Dilemma, he purposely focuses on certain parts of the Old Testament and uses them to change the definition of God. If the Old Testament is not entirely reliable and then the New Testament offers parables that society still bases moral standards on today, such as ‘love thy neighbour’. Furthermore, although many question Christian intent when performing moral acts, due to the possibility of an eschatological reward, this does not apply to all Christians, therefore generalisation should not be the basis to which this criticism focuses on.