I am a Christian, and might be expected to agree with the aforementioned reasoning<\/a>. Yet I don\u2019t<\/a>, and it seemed it might be interesting to devote a separate post to explaining why<\/i>.<\/p>\n First, it seems to me that the existence of a personal God doesn\u2019t get one from \u201cis\u201d to \u201cought\u201d. If morality is defined as that which God considers right, are we not still dealing with an \u201cis\u201d scenario? Right and wrong have not been made objective<\/i>, but are, as it were, matters of \u2018divine opinion\u2019. We might choose to follow divine commands so as to avoid punishment, but that isn\u2019t usually what is meant by \u2018being good\u2019 except in the case of young children. (Of course, it may be that the approach to moral reasoning this standpoint adopts to be is in fact an immature one, but we\u2019ll set that issue aside for now).<\/p>\n It was also suggested that without God, anything goes. Potentially the reverse can also be said. If God wills Joshua and his armies to kill men, women and children \u2013 or kill the men but keep the women for themselves \u2013 then that is \u2018good\u2019. If you are commanded by God to sacrifice your child<\/a>, it is good to do so \u2013 however much you may hope an angel will stop you, you cannot presume that God would never demand something like that from you, because whatever God commands is good<\/i>.<\/p>\n Moreover, this identification of morality with \u201cwhatever God commands\u201d seems to empty terms words like good<\/i> of their normal meaning. Goodness in everyday parlance doesn\u2019t involve a child being tied up and threatened with a knife by his father. Most would say that avoiding war and unnecessary bloodshed<\/a> when possible is inherently good. But on the divine command logic that isn\u2019t the case. If God wills bloodshed in a particular instance, then avoiding<\/i> it becomes evil.<\/p>\n If the aforementioned approach doesn\u2019t solve the conundrum of what \u201cgood\u201d is, what alternatives are there? For one thing, morality seems to require persons<\/i>. This is true of \u2018natural evil\u2019: an earthquake on an uninhabited planet is merely a geological phenomenon; an earthquake in an inhabited region of our planet is potentially a tragedy. Likewise, human actions seem to take on moral value based on our intentions and on the effect(s) they have on human persons.<\/p>\n Perhaps morality only exists when persons exist that are capable of choosing between options, choosing to follow their instincts or not, choosing to treat others as they would themselves wanted to be treated, or not (cp. Job 35:4-8<\/a>). If one views God as incapable of acting otherwise than God does, then God\u2019s actions might in fact be beyond any sort of morality. Morality might be something restricted to the domain of personal agents of the sort that human beings are. And so then the key question would become whether God is more like a human person, or more like a \u201cforce of nature<\/a>\u201d that is \u201cbeyond good and evil<\/a>\u201d \u2013 while perhaps inevitably being beyond either sort of language. But if God is in fact personal, or tripersonal, or in some way analogous to human beings (or if, to not put the cart before the horse, if human personal existence is analogous to the divine), then wouldn\u2019t God\u2019s own morality itself have to follow the precept so many have concluded that God expects of us: \u201cDo unto others what you would have them do unto you\u201d? Is there any alternative to either suggesting that God is not ultimately like a human personal agent in fundamental ways, or concluding that a personal<\/a> God, in order to be moral, must follow the same precepts he is thought to have revealed to (and perhaps imposed upon) other persons made in the divine image?<\/p>\n In a recent discussion in the comments section of another post, the issue of morality and God came up. The argument was made that, unless there is a God who defines right and wrong, and unless God has made those standards known in his inerrantly-inspired word, then we can have no reason for judging one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7622297540113836091-585257284659697356?l=exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\")