In “Confessions of an Ex-Moralist” Joel Marks, an ethicist writing in the New York Times, argues that although it may appear to us that they exist, morals are a complete fiction. He motivates his objection to morality with the Euthyphro. As he explains, this Platonic dialogue challenges us with the dilemma, “Do the gods approve of something because it is pious, or is something pious because the gods approve it?”
This question exposes the fabric of morality and ethics. If we suppose that piety is higher than the gods (however many there may be), then we are forced to admit that there is some greater authority than the divine. Hence, the gods themselves would be superfluous to questions of morality. Any divine revelation would be mere divine opinion. On the other hand, if the gods are the sole author of our morals, then morality is a puppet of the gods. Morality itself would be arbitrary and merely compulsory. At the command of Zeus we could be in a world in which murder, abuse, and lying are blessed acts. That is a frightening world. Hence, the Euthyphro dilemma forces us to choose between a morality in which the gods are superfluous or one in which they are our capricious tormentors. We react to the gods with apathy or dread.
Prof. Marks tells us that these innate reactions are important. “We have an intuitive sense of right and wrong that trumps even the commands of God,” he assures us. In other words, we can judge the gods, and in that way Prof. Marks chooses the apathetic view. Yet if gods are not needed for morality, then atheism seems a logical next step. And, as I have previously written, Marks argument is that if there is no divine, then there can be no place for morality to exist either.
Is dread of the gods a better choice? Plato does not think it is logical. In his dialogue Socrates challenges the young Euthyphro, who on his way to condemn his father, with the above dilemma. Out of respect for the gods, Euthyphro chooses the view that piety must be what the gods approve. But Socrates shows that a thing that is pious cannot be pious merely because it is approved by the gods: an approval is passive in nature but piety is an active property of a thing itself, so, Socrates argues, piety cannot be the result of any approval. By the end of the dialogue, Euthyphro is made a fool by Socrates, who shows him that if he cannot point to the true essence of piety, he has no basis for his supposed piousness.
Consider, though, the nature of the gods in Plato’s cosmos. The gods inhabit a divine realm that is little different from the realm of the mortals. They are ‘higher’ than humanity only in the sense that they have complete dominion over the earth. The gods bicker between themselves and disagree violently. Zeus, their leader, is only first among equals. Hence piety cannot have its source in any one god. This is why Euthyphro must suppose pious things are approved by all the gods.
Plato, for all his wisdom, was unaware of Jewish theology, that the divine is one omnipotent, omniscient God who is the source of all things, unique in His supreme unity. God Himself is one, rather than divided among gods. God’s will is perfect rather than fickle. Moreover, this God is not a being; He is being itself. He creates ex nihilo and exists outside time. The God of the Jews shares his godliness with the Greek gods only in the faint sense that He is above humanity.
Returning to the dilemma, we find that in His unity, this Jewish God presents an alternative solution for Euthyphro: God simply is piety. This is to say that God is the complete and total source of piety. God and piety are two words for the same thing under different facets. And if we examine the dilemma more closely, we see that piety is not unique. Socrates could have challenged Euthyphro with similar questions about the source of truth, love, justice, goodness, or morality itself. And in a similar way, we would find that God is truth, that God is love, etc.
Of course this idea is not new; it is orthodox Christianity. In the Gospel of John, we find that Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life” (14:6). John speaks in his first epistle that, “He who does not love does not know God; for God is love” (4:8). This language fills the Bible. Yet these concepts are more than just biblical axioms. St. Thomas Aquinas, in his fourth way of rationally knowing God, appeals to the good, true and noble in humanity and shows that they must flow from a source that holds their perfection. And this source can only be what we call God.
Examining again the problem of Euthyphro in the light of the alternative Christian understanding of the divine nature, we see that the perceived dilemma vanishes. We find a problem only when we anthropomorphize God into another being or disconnect morality from its source. Marks’ search for morality is really a search for God. His innate rejection of a capricious God is misplaced, because his intuitive sense of morality can only have its source in God himself.
Moreover, the above solution to Euthyphro’s dilemma has a corollary that confirms our common sense: love is divine; morality, how we love, is divine; justice, the application of love, is divine; piety, the love of God, is divine. In a word, to love is to taste God. Love is, literally, a miracle. This is why we seek to experience true love. If we have considered the full theological implications of God being love, then when we tell someone we love her, we are telling her that we meet God in her presence.
This is the common sense notion that an atheist must deny. Marks denies it by supposing God is another being whom he can judge. Other atheists deny it by supposing that love has a meaning in a purely material universe. This brings us to the irony of atheistic ethics. The atheist denies the existence of God but must appeal to love in order to motivate his ethics. This love can ultimately never inspire us, however, because it lacks the divine substance that makes it real. So an atheistic ethics borrows inspiration from the true sense of love that resides in God, completing the irony.
Of course Marks, and likeminded atheists, are sincere. They see no evidence for God, but wish to establish a reasoning for being good without Him. Yet, returning to St. Thomas, in the exercise of establishing a universal ethics, the atheist finds his evidence for God. The atheist tastes God in his love of the good and just. This is not scientific evidence, but evidence that is even more powerful because it reaches into the heart.
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