November 8, 2008

Layman & Euthyphro

Pulled from Atheism.org in their "Quotation of the Minute" box:
"[Given the legitimacy of purely hypothetical questions] . . . even if God would not approve of torture, it is still true, according to the divine command theory, that if He were to approve of torture, then torture would be right." (Layman, p. 38)
Layman has latched onto the Euthyphro dilemma, which has no compelling force against Christian theism. His statement is non-sequitur when contemplating a God who is (i) immutable and (ii) omnibenevolent, and a moral order that is (iii) grounded in the very nature of God. All three are hallmarks of Christian theology.

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Layman, C. Stephen. The Shape of the Good: Christian Reflections on the Foundation of Ethics. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame. (1991)

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