Transcription
How could we argue that evils like genocide and slavery are wrong for everyone rather than just distasteful to us? That's a statement by Steven Pinker.
Well, oh, Socrates asked, uh, a priest, Uthifro, of the ancient Athenian religion, um, "Tell me, what is it that makes something good?" And Uthifro answered, "Um, that God, that God loves it. Uh, God, it's God's attitude, or the God's attitude, uh, that makes it good."
And Socrates asks, "Does God love the good because it's good? Or is his loving it what makes it good?" If it's the first, that God loves giving to the vulnerable, to the victims, to the orphan, to the widow, uh, because it's good, then there is something independent in virtue of which God loves these actions that makes them good, and that constitutes the reason, uh, for the goodness. If God hates genocide and loves, uh, charity, uh, then there is a reason in virtue of which God has these moral attitudes. And if God himself has no reason for it, if it's just whim, if it's caprice, then is that really satisfying our answer as to what makes good acts good and bad acts acts bad? That the addition of God doesn't ground things at all. It leaves it, it, it makes what seems to us mysterious and answers it with another mystery.
"Technically put, is the pious loved by God because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by God?" I hope that makes sense.
Let's let Dr. Craig answer this. I'm really surprised to hear you trot out the old Euthyphro dilemma, because this has been answered over and over again by contemporary Christian philosophers like Robert Adams, William Alston, and others. The Euthyphro dilemma is a false dilemma. It poses two non-mutually exhaustive choices. Either the gods love something because it is good, or, uh, uh, it is good and therefore they love it. The, theistic alternative to the Euthyphro dilemma is that something, um, is good because it is identical with God. God is the good. God is what Plato referred to as the Good. So that the reason God wills something is because he is good, and his moral commands to us reflect the goodness of his own intrinsic moral nature. God is by nature essentially kind, loving, compassionate, fair, and so forth. And this completely resolves the Euthyphro dilemma because it's a third alternative to the question. So, in other words, God's moral asks of us are not arbitrary. They're not capricious. They're not a whim, like she said. They're a direct byproduct of who he is, of his actual, unchangeable nature. Let's, let's continue.
I also had an answer to your question. I had a dream. I had a dream once, and I'm speaking psychologically here, not, not theologically. I had a dream once. I was in the cemetery of an old church, an old cathedral, um, surrounded by the graves. And there were indentations in the ground where all the graves were. And all of a sudden, the, the graves started to open. And it was a graveyard where great people, great men of the past had been buried. And so a grave opened, and an armed king stood up. And then another grave opened, and another armed king stood up. And this happened all around me. And these were very formidable figures, right? They were the great heroes of the past. And after a number of them appeared on the scene, they looked around and saw each other. And being warrior types, they immediately started to fight. And the question is, what stops the great kings of the past from fighting? And I had a revelation after the dream. I can't remember if it was part of it, but yes, it was part of the dream. They all bowed down to the figure of Christ. I thought, then I woke up and I thought, what in the world does that dream mean? What in the world could that possibly mean? And then I, I understood it. I understood that if you have 20 kings, let's say, and you took the thing that was most king-like about each of them, and then you combined it into a single figure, then you'd get a single figure of transcendent heroism, of transcendent good. And it's a tenant of the Union school of psychology, let's say, that that figure of transcendent good is symbolized by the image of Christ. And the purpose of that image is so that even the tyrannical king has someone to bend his knee to. And that's absolutely vital. I mean, it does, you don't have to approach it from a religious perspective, although you inevitably do because when you speak of things at this level, that's what happens. But you need an image of the transcendent embodied good to, to serve as something that unites the great tyrants of the past. It's something like that. It's an emergent, it's an emergent vision of embodied unity, and it's a psychological necessity. It's a sociological necessity, and I think it bears very strongly on your question about why it is that people matter. It's the, the classic Western answer to that, the Judeo-Christian answer to that, is because you have a spark of divinity within you, and that divinity is a reflection of this transcendent good. And it's obligatory for me to recognize that in you and vice versa, if we're going to inhabit the same territory without mayhem, peacefully, and with the ability to cooperate.
Now, you might say, well, the mere fact that a transcendent image is necessary as a uniting figure doesn't prove the reality of that image. But I would say, well, yes, but it doesn't disprove it. And it strongly hints at something more profound, especially when you also ally it with the observation that the encounter with something truly admirable produces the instinct of awe. And that's not a rational instinct. It's an irrational instinct, but it's a marker that you're in the presence of something greater than yourself. And it's not something that you have voluntary control over. It's something that overtakes you. And it could easily be a reflection of the truth. Now, you can make a biological, you can make a biologically reductionistic argument about that, but it starts to become extraordinarily difficult because you, you enter into the realm where these transcendent experiences of religious significance and awe are a phenomenological and psychological reality, and it's not easy to explain why that's the case.
I can see in Dr. Peterson the same curiosity and obsession with those archetypes and with the mythology that Lewis had in the years right before Lewis's conversion. So my prayer in Jesus' name is that, is that Peterson would come to Christ like Lewis did and have the same transformative impact on culture. Let's continue.
There is no reason to invest human morality with any more objective significance than that kind of behavior that evolution has programmed into other primate species because it's advantageous in the struggle for survival. It's just to hurt morality.
Yes. That is not how we progress. Moral, what, what civilization is. What moral progress is. Wait, where do you get the word progress? Oh, yes. On a naturalistic worldview, I think on a naturalistic worldview, you would be justified in talking about moral change. But the word progress smuggles in a standard.
You're talking now not just about what is, which is the question that evolution can answer, but now you're talking about what ought to be. And that's the question of progress. That's the question of good. Naturalism can't get you there. Let's hear what happens next.
But that's because you think, that's because you think on a naturalist, uh, basis, on a purely naturalist basis, uh, there is no way to justify, to ground objective morality. That's what. So since I don't buy that premise, uh, I do think that one could moral.
You do a quotation, and I want you to comment on it.
Sure.
"The scientific outlook has taught us that some parts of our subjective experience are products of our biological makeup and have no objective counterpart in the world. The tastiness of fruit and the foulness of carrion, the scariness of heights and the prettiness of flowers are features of our common nervous system. And if our species had evolved in a different ecosystem, or if we were missing a few genes, our reactions could go the other way. Now, if the distinction between right and wrong is also a product of brainwiring, why should we believe it any more real? And if it is just a collective hallucination, how could we argue that evils like genocide and slavery are wrong for everyone rather than just distasteful to us?" That's a statement by Steven Pinker.
Well, oh, speechless, as the title indicates, but it is such a compelling point to be made that if, I mean, exactly like Steven Pinker said, if everything that we perceive to be of a moral nature is really just of a biological nature, then how can you actually argue that rape, that child rape, that that genocide, pick, pick whatever it is that you find to be the most disgusting and heinous, on a naturalist view, you can really just say that that's your personal opinion. But you can't ground your objection against any action in anything transcendent because you don't believe in transcendence. It is heavy to acknowledge that, but that is simply the logical conclusion of a naturalist worldview, which should lead us to understand that that worldview is reductionistic. That atheism, naturalism, materialism, however you want to slice it, is simply not sufficient at explaining to us the real world that we live in, which we know is filled with rights and wrongs, not just with "ises," but also with. That being said, I hope you guys enjoyed this video. Like, subscribe, comment, all the things that tell YouTube that you do like it. I hope you did. And I'll see you guys in the next one. Peace. Bye.
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