1. What can you remember?
Outline at least one problem with the definition of Omnipotence simply being “Can do anything”.
Summarise the Paradox of the Stone.
Give at least one response to the Paradox of the Stone.
Do you think this solves the issue?

2. Task:
TASK: In pairs make a list of 10 actions, 5 of them should be ‘right’, 5 should be ‘wrong’
DISCUSS: What is it that makes these things right or wrong?
The law says so is one option but if we keep asking ‘but why?’, what is the end result?
What would a theist say in response to the question “Where does good come from?”

3. Pious = Devoutly Religious
Socrates’ Question
In Plato’s dialogue, the Euthyphro, Socrates asks Euthyphro about piety and the gods.
Which follows on from which?
Do the gods make piety, or fit in with it?
“Is what is pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved?” (Euthyphro 10 A-B)
Modern philosophers of religion have rephrased this as a dilemma in religion and morality: ‘Does God command what is good because it is good, or is the good, good because God has commanded it?’
Pious = Devoutly Religious

5. The God-Centered Answer
The first option assumes that God is the source and standard of all moral goodness, and that whatever he commands will automatically be good. But this presents some issues:
God could command us to do some entirely trivial things (like don’t step on cracks) and they would suddenly become morally good. Intuitively we would seem to disagree with this.
Similarly God could take some fairly horrific acts and by his command could make them morally good (in fact the Old Testament is full of these – Abraham, the 10 plagues etc.) Again something that seems counter-intuitive.
Morality becomes arbitrary- it could change randomly at a moment’s notice depending on what mood God is in.

6. The God-Centered Answer
If goodness simply means “whatever God wills,” then saying “God is good” is the same as saying “God does whatever God himself wills”, which seems to empty the concept of goodness of any meaning.

7. “What is morally right is not necessarily always pious.”
Socrates’ Answer
Socrates’ Answer
Doing the right thing is different from doing what the gods approve of.
“What is morally right is not necessarily always pious.”
Important Point: Socrates’ main argument in favor of his view is that the Greek gods (like Zeus) have set a bad example in stories of their rivalry.
It is a critique of religion and morality.
Could we say something similar of the Bible?
Socrates gives an ethics-centred answer to his dilemma. He argues that morality is something independent of the divine and in no way reliant upon God.
Instead God simply issues commands based on a moral code that lies beyond God.
Morality is objectively separate from God.

8. The Issue:
Objective morality does not need God – We can bypass God to find morality if we wish. What is the point in worshipping God then?
Objective morality seems to limit God’s power. If it exists independently of God then God cannot change this and determine for himself what is good and bad. His omnipotence is weakened.
Surely if morality is separate to God then it is those moral standards that are supremely good and not God?
God’s very power is being called into question here. If morality exists separately to him and he has to follow the rules the same as us - is he worthy of being called God?

10. Kierkegaard ( ) takes this option and is quite happy to accept the consequences. He argues that whilst morality should be held in high esteem, there is a higher set of values – the ones prescribed by God.
We must accept God’s will if he commands us to perform a certain act.

11. But do either of these arguments really defeat the dilemma?
A Further Response:
Could we not imagine a God that is “perfectly good” i.e. a God that cannot command certain actions to be morally right, not because it is outside of his ability (i.e. moral standards apply independent of God) but because it is not in his nature. He prescribes what is good because he is goodness?
Robert Adams states that “it is logically possible that God should command cruelty for its own sake… but unthinkable that God should do so.”
When believers say that ‘God is good’, they mean that ‘God is kind’. Therefore, cruel actions would conflict with what believers assume about God and so for those of faith are not a genuine possibility for God.
But do either of these arguments really defeat the dilemma?

12. Task:
Create your own version of this dilemma outline to help you remember the problem highlighted by the Euthyphro dilemma. Include responses if you can.