Some things are just wrong. Euthyphro, Divine Command Theory, and the Binding of Isaac
- John Rozean
- Jul 5, 2019
- 3 min read
Ethically speaking, the Biblical story of the Binding of Isaac brings attention to a few key concepts, that is the questions asked by Plato in “The Euthyphro,” considered to be part of secular ethics, and the problems associated with the Divine Command Theory – a theory based more on the absolute interpretation of the Biblical text as God’s law.
The primary question in “The Euthyphro”, derived through dialogue between Socrates and Euthyphro written down by Plato, is what is piousness? It is concluded by Euthyphro that to be pious, a thing must be loved by the gods.
MIT Professor Julia Markovits states that in the “The Euthyphro” Plato has a problem with this answer. She paraphrases Plato’s questioning of this answer, “Are pious things loved by the gods because they are pious, or are they pious because they are loved by the gods?” In other words, is there a standing guidance on goodness in which God references, or does He himself create this rulebook through his commands. This begs the question, can we not conclude good things on our humanly own, or must we always consult God to determine goodness. Can’t things be right or wrong even without God’s command. In “Religulous” comedian Bill Marr asks this question.
[insert Bill Marr]
Is something good because it is inherently good or is it only good because God said it was good? This is the Euthyphro Problem. There are several underlying issues, but two are the most important to our considerations. The first is the idea of the Divine Command Theory, which states that morally good actions are good because God states them to be good. But why does God select certain things to be good while others are not good? If they are already good, shouldn’t we as human beings be able to tell that they are good without God telling us they are (Bill Marr’s point). Markovits also brings up the issue of possible abhorrent commands. What if God tells us to rape, murder and pillage? Those things don’t seem to be very good, but by the Divine Command Theory they must be if God commands them – bringing us back to the issue of the Binding of Isaac. Was the action of murdering his son Isaac good simply because it was commanded by God?
A very scary issue with this is the fact that on some occasions adults have claimed to have received similar commands from God to kill children and have actually gone through with the act. But we must remember that in the Bible story God does eventually stop Isaac from going through with the act. The unfortunate dilemma is that the issues with the Binding of Isaac story cannot be solved from a secular point of view. Without Faith both Isaac and God appear to be quite evil for even playing around with the idea of murdering a child. But with Faith, solutions can be offered. My favorite faith based solution is that Abraham had faith that God would provide a resolution that would allow Isaac to live through the command. It can be argued that this is evidenced by Genesis 22:5 where it is written, “Abraham said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will walk up there, worship, and then come back to you.”” The verse seems to imply that Abraham intended to return with his son – as there is an implied “we” in the statement of intent.
Never the less, the point of this exercise was to use the Binding of Isaac story to enable the audience to consider the questions associated with the Euthyphro Problem and the Divine Command Theory. But with faith we can find meaning in the Binding of Isaac story, but this meaning does not imply that we should ever consider the murder of a child to be a morally correct action. This is an area of right vs. wrong in which we should know inherently in our individual hearts and minds. While there are Godly commands, it is still up to us individually to understand, interpret and apply them without violating the morality of what is good whether that be in the eyes of God or our own.
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