"Is something good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good?"?

Question

This question is raised by Socrates in one of Plato's famous "Dialogues". It is a question for Ethics, regarding the nature or origin of goodness. For Christians, there is a clear distinction between what is good and what is not good. Does this goodness lie in the fact that God commanded something or did God command it because it is good?

If it is considered as good because God has commanded it, then the goodness as such lies in God - in other words, God is then the source of that commandment's goodness. If, on the other hand, it's goodness lies in the fact that God commanded something because it is good, then goodness is something outside of God - in other words, God cannot be considered as the source of goodness.

So, which (from these two) is the correct notion of goodness? Does God command something because it is good, or is something good because God has commanded it?

Answer 1

Arguably this is a false dilemma. The intriguing third way of dealing with this question is that God is logically equivalent to goodness ie what we call goodness IS God and what we call God IS goodness.

PS Hate to be really anally retentive over this but I think the question's actually in Kant's Groundwork

PPS With respect to all those who've gone along the 'God is dead' track, the question is actually about the inherent nature and source of moral value, not about the existence of God

Answer 2

There is "good" which is a moral sense of the word and "good" which is virtuous. Which one do you mean?

Furthermore, Plato and Socrates are not Christian and did not believe in a God like Christians. They were not Christian.

Also, your question presupposes the existence ofd a god and implies that anyone who answers it must only choose one or the other of your suggestions.

In addition the questions suffers from an anachronistic error. You imply that the question Plato asks is in reference to a Christian god when in fact Christianity did not exist at the time this question was asked. As such, Plato did not and could not have meant what you mean.

It is also possible that neither notion of godness is correct and you do not take into consideration this possiblity. Moreover, anybody who happens to have a notion of goodness which is not based on a montheistic notion of god is left out.

So to answer your question, I would say that the questions begs of itself and is riddled with fallacious reasoning. Therefore the question can not be answered because it is illogical.

The definition of the word "goodness" does not boil down to one of your choices. It can be something else and most certainly has been considered as such historically.

Lastly, atheists, agnostics, any religious person who does not believe in "one" god can not answer your question. This implies that these people can't think properly.

Answer 3

What's with all these round about answers? In any religion "God" is considered to be an originator and superviser of sorts, in the least. That being said, God commands things because they are good. God is not going to command anything that will destroy or stunt his own creation. If you made something, created it, in benevolence, would you command it to do things that would not be good for it and allow it to continue to exist? Commands are the means to positive control and propogation of species. Continuation of will. A god that does not command because it is good is not only tyrannical (in the case of making something good because he commands it to be so), but flawed in strategy. A god such as that will be quickly deposed.

Answer 4

God is the source of all goodness if not by command then by creation there is nothing created that God did no have a hand in.
This being said leaves the floor open for the statement, but God created Evil too, this is not true, Evil is to Good what darkness is to light, it is merely the absence or the rejection of goodness.
Satan rejected God, therefore he removed himself from God making himsel evil, much like if I remove myself from the sun I am in the dark.
Clear as mud right
Ultimately all things good come from God and apart from God there is nothing that is good

Answer 5

God is good. Not in the way that a child may be good or pizza is good. But rather, God is the state of goodness. Without God, nothing is good. Outside of God, there is no goodness. So the answer to your question is that things are good because God commands them.

Answer 6

From the very beginning, the Creator was called the Good! There was a typo error when Guttenberg used his typeset. Gut in German means good and Got-means God. All Good things come from the Father of Light, it is written! Now whether we receive good or not good depends on the choices we make in life. We all travel on the Wheel of Life and we all reap what we sew. When you show selflessness and giving, good returns to you. It doesn't matter what you give away, GOOD comes back to you not in always the same manner. This is what is referred to as Universal Law. Contrary, is the fact that many people have wrong intent instead of honorable and are selfish and greedy and it also comes back to bite them as well. All things in Creation are good, even the darkness which gives form to the light!

Answer 7

Neither! The argument it itself is just incorrect.
1. you have no proof of the existence of God
2. even if you did, good and bad don't depend on what God thinks, its depends on what each indivudual thinks.

But to answer the question I'd pick that something is good because God has commanded it. (But then again doesn't he command bad stuff too.?)

Ok heres the problem with good/bad and God:
Think about the prostitues of brazillian slums. They practice reproduction alot and therefore get pregnant alot, but because they are so poor and can't even feed themselves (hey they get stiffed alot on payment), the babies always come out malnourished, so then the mothers say "ohh it's an angel from GOD" and stick it in the corner to die. (it's a angel, you see, it belongs in heaven) Christians in america might look at this killing of innocent babies as bad, but the brazillian slum prostitues think of this as good (and yes they feel they have God's support in that goodness)

Answer 8

Allow me to suggest a third alternative.

God commands different things of different believers: for example, God commands Jews not to eat pork, but does not command Christians to do so (in fact, Easter dinner is often ham!). So clearly what God commands is not necessarily "good" in the ideal sense of the term (as in Platonic ideals), but it is part of a particular covenant that God makes with a particular group.

Thus, commandments are "proper" for a particular group because God commands them to be. Some commandments may be universally "good" (Thou shalt not murder), but not all commandments are universally "good."

Answer 9

Well, that depends on your belief of either Divine Command theory 1 or DC theory 2- they are both (as you might speculate) related to God. However, divine command theory (1) is dependent on God's will, meaning God creates goodness because he (or she, it) is the source of goodness; with Gods existence comes goodness. The second theory is objective as well, except goodness (morality, if you will) is logically independent of God's will. This (in its utmost basic form, forgive me) means it is the rational beings duty to find out what is morally right/ not right. DV2 is more popular among contemporary ethicist because it allows ethics to be objective without a touch of God.

Answer 10

Wiggenstein, the past-master of 20th century philosophy put it very aptly that ethics is a condition of the world (as logic is). Accordingly, something is good independent of God's command.
That is, God commands something because something is good.
This does not, to be sure, tell upon God's omnipotence at all.