Why is God ethical?
Ian | 19 July, 2007 | 18:45In response to why are atheists ethical I had the thought this morning:
If there is a God to derive all absolute ethics from, where does He derive His ethics from?
Now the only argument I can think to this is that the first basic assumptions of religion are:
- God exists
- God is good
But what if number 2 is wrong? Or what does God use to reference his goodness to? You can say he’s innately good, but without a reference that is meaningless (what does innately tall mean without someone short to compare too?). You may compare God to Satan and say He is better, but God created Satan, so He could be screwing with you and really be just as bad (but only a little bit better).
I still don’t quite get it. It just doesn’t seem like there is a good explanation for what God based His morals on.
So I’m going to stick with my ethics that came about from natural selection (read my last post), and perhaps someone can solve this conundrum I have.
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Firstly, if absolute ethics are derived from God, we don’t need to know where he got his ethics. Then they would be relative ethics, and that’s not what religious people like.
Second, presumably whatever God says would be good. If you want to understand how religious reasoning works (a monstrous task, because first you have to sift through all the non-reasoning) in this regard, think of it this way: whatever God is, He is good, hence His word should be followed. Even if He says to rape and murder, that would be good, because God is good.
As much as that defies sense, that is how an absolute system of ethics has to work. When it comes down to it, there can’t be any absolute ethics because “good” and “evil” are just terms for what is socially accepted and what isn’t, respectively. If God said to rape and murder, then the society forming around His word would believe the two to be good, assuming they believe God is good. But another society, with another God (false or not), that said the two were evil, would believe otherwise. God doesn’t need a basis for his morals because he defines what is good; this is how it works, in my opinion.
Any discussion on ethics has to appeal to an ultimate authority. And any “proof” of an ultimate authority _must_ be circular.
For instance, from reading Adit’s comments I see that his ultimate authority is logic and reason. He says that his morals arise from logic and reason. Why? Because it’s logical for him to think that. It’s reasonable. That’s a circular argument!
So for me to believe that God is good because he says he is good is circular, yes, but so is your belief system. They all are.
Even to say “there is no ultimate authority” is circular. A person would believe there is no ultimate authority only because they have seen no ultimate authority.
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