That way, if Meletus were to prosecute him, Socrates could say that he is now under the tutelage of Euthyphro, whose authority on these matters is unquestionable. If Meletus were to prosecute him even so, Socrates could point out that Euthyphro is in fact the one responsible for teaching him and that Meletus should prosecute Euthyphro instead. Euthyphro encourages this suggestion, pointing out that with his expertise in religious matters, Meletus' claims could not stand up long against Socrates in court. Then holiness takes a prominent position in the argument. Socrates insists that Euthyphro begin to instruct him regarding what is holy and what is unholy.
The Definitions of Piety Socrates meets with Euthyphro near the king-archon's court. Socrates explains that he is under indictment because he does not believe in the gods in whom the city does believe in and Euthyphro is present because he has come to persecute his own father for unintentionally killing a murderer. Socrates then flatter Euthyphro about his knowledge on holiness/piety. Out of curiosity Socrates questions Euthyphro about holiness. This leading into the definitions of piety.
Some philosophers such as Aquinas believe that it is possible to talk meaningfully, truthfully and factually about God whereas others like Ayer believe this to be impossible. Philosophers have suggested that there are four ways that religious language might make truth claims about the reality of God and whether it can succeed in doing this – Via Negativa, Analogy, and Myth. The ‘via negativa’ or negative way is an attempt to prevent people from misrepresenting God. It claims that the only way we can talk about God is by saying what God is not. God is so beyond our ability to understand that the only way of seeing the reality of God is to continue saying what God is not, God is more than anything we can say of him.
But also Absolutism does not take other situation into consideration, things change and people change, so should the rules change as well? Personally, I think that they need to be amended; this could cause even worse conflicts than they are in this day and age, although it might be necessary, Common sense isn’t that common. An example of the Absolute theory is the Divine law theory; this is all stated in the bible, it dictates what’s good and what’s bad, according to the will of God. Everything we do, has the question behind it: Does it follow the will of God? This is the question absolutes ask before making any decisions.
On one hand you have the philosophers who believe you can speak and write about God, because God is reality. On the other hand, are the Logical Positivists who claim that statements about God have no meaning because they don’t relate to anything that is real. There are a number of philosophers who claimed to have proven conclusively that religious language is meaningful, for example Aquinas’ theory of analogy. An analogy is an attempt to explain the meaning of something which is difficult to understand and forming relations through attributes or relations that are similar. Aquinas rejected univocal and equivocal language when talking about God.
Much of what Socrates uses to defend himself proves otherwise; this is proven in the story of the Oracle from Delphi. What does Socrates think of the gods? Socrates seems to contradict himself on several occasions on this issue. As Socrates defends his charge of atheism proposed by his accusers, he is able to prove to one of his accusers, Meletus, that he believes in the gods. In this essay I will prove that Socrates is in fact not a religious person, but he has had to act religious all his life as so he wouldn’t ever be accused for something such as this and uses this act to completely disprove the accusations made against him.
In Euthyphro, a short dialogue by Plato, the character of Euthryphro suggests that a person or action is pious or morally right if the Gods agree with it and love it. The character of Socrates then raises a critical question: “Do the Gods love what is morally right because it is morally right or is it morally right because the Gods love it?” This question can also be put as, “does God command something because it is already right or is it right only because God commands it?” What makes this question important is that for the Divine Command Theory to be true, one of the two parts to this question must be accepted. But if either options of this question are accepted, then the logical conclusions seem to clash with other views that Divine Command Theorists may have. The first option implies that God loves or commands something because it is morally right. This would mean that God did not create morality but on the other hand recognized that something was already morally good and
If God did create the difference between right and wrong then that means that for God, initially, there wasn’t a difference between to two. With that being said, it follows that it is not possible to say whether God is good or not. This is due to the fact that if right and wrong were God’s creation, then prior to his conception of the two ideas, they did not exist or apply to him. The writer then determines that it is unreasonable to assume that God has any relation to the creation of right and wrong while also saying that God is good. If God is assumed to be good, then all of his actions are good, and this would include the creation of right and wrong.
This argument is very important for religious believers, but has come under criticism from those who do not believe, who say that it is flawed. Gaunilo, and Immanuel Kant, feel that we will never have the answer to this question due to our human limitations, and reason. . St. Anselm’s first form of the argument is that God is “that than which none greater can be conceived”. This means that no one can think of anything that is greater than God.
17/09/14 - homework Explain the view that the conscience is the voice of God. In order to fully explain the view that the conscience is the voice of God one must first define what is meant by ‘voice of God’. It has been defined as the ‘heavenly or divine voice which proclaims God’s will or judgement’, however, in my opinion the ‘voice of God’ definition should also include divine guidance as the original definition leaves out the idea of God as a guide without his actual voice telling a person the idea. The argument of ‘is the conscience the voice of God?’ often runs into difficulties; this is due to the fact that if the conscience is not the voice of God then what is it? This may also be a problem for Christian thinkers as, if the conscience is not the voice of God it gives moral authority to something outside of God.