What is "Right" and/or "Good"?
In Plato's' Euthyphro, Plato asks, "Do the Gods love piety because it is pious, or is
it pious because the Gods love it?" This can be restated by asking, "Is that which is good
good independent of God's will, and that he loves it because it is good, or is that which is
good good dependent on what God wishes to be good?"
The common perception of God is that He is (a) all-powerful, (b) all-knowing, (c)
all-good, and (d) the creator of everything out of nothing. This definition of God is fine
for the standard worshipper, because it creates an easy to understand, defined supreme
being. It is a simple enough definition until one confronts the problem of evil.
Evil, according to traditional beliefs, is separated into two areas: moral evil, which
is the evil one man does to another, and natural evil, bad events of nature which cause
death, injury, and other things humans dislike.
Now, the problem comes when one compares the traditional beliefs of God to the
traditional definition of evil. If God is all-powerful and all-knowing, then there should be
no moral evil, because God would know what evil was going to take place, and then use
his omnipotence to intervene and stop the evil from happening. Then, there would be no
evil; however, there is still evil, so that does not work. Also, if God is all-powerful and
the creator of everything ex nihilo, then God would have created evil, and since we state
that God is also all-good, then God would be a hypocrite.
Many philosophers over the centuries have offered possible solutions to this
problem. The first is to state that there is no evil. This concept reveals that evil is only a
perception of the human mind, that evil things happen because we perceive them as evil.
This philosophy would justify crimes against humanity, such as murder and rape, because
it was never truly wrong to hurt the other person, just perceived as wrong. Fortunately,
not many people outside of prison or asylum walls subscribe to this notion.
Second is the concept of Satan. As the tempter, Satan is the one who causes evil
things to happen to people, and is as such blamed. However, a problem arises when we
begin to blame all evil on the devil. Satan exists either as a (a) contingent, or created,
being, or (b) a necessary being, such as God. As a contingent being, Satan had to have
been created at some time. Most of the mono-theodic religions in the world subscribe to
this belief. However, if God is the creator of everything out of nothing, then He would
have created Satan, and being all-good, God could not have created something evil. Also,
if he did create Satan, then while we are blaming Satan for all evil, we also curse He who
created Satan, God.
As a necessary being, Satan would be God's dark twin, like Yang to Yin. As such,
Satan would be (a) all powerful over evil, (b) all knowing of evil, (c) all evil, and (d)
creator of all things evil out of nothing. This is incompatible with the traditional concept of
God, because if the above about Satan were true, then God would be (a) all-powerful over
only good, (b) all-knowing only of good, (c) all-good, and (d) the creator of everything
good out of nothing, and as such would lose power and be limited. Since the two concepts
of Satan both contradict the common beliefs of God, then Satan is not the solution of evil.
The third solution to the problem of evil, as proposed by Hick, is that everyone and
everything is free. This being the case, everyone makes their own decisions and if one
man does evil to another, it is by his own free will and choice. However, if God is
all-knowing, then he is aware of what decisions we will make. Thus, he knows what we
will do. Since we are bound by this knowledge of what we will do, we are not free to
chose, because the choice has already been made. Because we will always make the same
choice, given the same amount of experience and the same emotional status at the time of
the decision, all the other options supposedly available to us are not, and we are not free to
chose them, because we simply would not. Thus, we are not free, and this solution does
not work.
Finally, there is Plato's solution. Long before physicist discovered that neither
matter nor energy are ever created or destroyed, Plato argued that this world has always
existed. Since it has always existed, the world is necessary. Plato also argued that people,
mainly their souls, have always existed, and are therefore necessary. This now discounts
the total absolute power of God, because now he is not the creator of everything ex nihilo,
and since he cannot create anything out of nothing, is not all powerful, and since he does
not know how to create anything from nothing, is not all knowing. This also answers the
initial question poised by Plato, "Does God love piety because it is pious, or is it pious
because God loves it?", because now we can say that piety, goodness, is independent of
God, and he loves goodness because he is still "all-good".
This also solves the problem of evil. Since all that is good is independent of God,
God is still all-good, and God did not create ex nihilo, then evil is independent of God.
Since we are all necessary beings with free will (since God is no longer all-knowing), the
evil which occurs in the world is done by individuals who are free who chose to do evil.
Also with natural evil, if a tree falls on a man, killing him, it was the tree which killed the
man. The earthquake is what destroyed the home, and is to blame for it.
It is this final solution of Plato's which I agree with. In the past few of years,
mathematics have developed the new study of fratcal geometry, in which certain shapes are
the same no matter what the size or scale is. To clarify, a head of cauliflower looks nearly
the same as one tiny piece of the same cauliflower. Through this theory we learn that larger
things are almost identical to their smaller counterpart, and vice-versa. In the
Old-Testament, a book regarded as true by Christians, Jews and Muslims alike, there is a
motif that we are the children of God. Now, to look at the development of our children,
we conceive and bear them, protect them and nurture them until they are ready to go into
the world to be tested, and eventually become like the adult which spawned them, and they
in turn bear children, and the cycle continues. Perhaps, as children of God, we have the
ability to grow into Gods ourselves, and that God indeed is a "Heavenly Father". Perhaps
the commandments given by God are not rules made up by God, but merely eternal laws
which are related to us, like earthly parents relate laws of the land to their children, and that
by obeying these laws, we are able to succeed, both spiritually and temporally,
respectively.
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