Hence the kind of analytic theology you seem to rely on, is foly. God is not bound by human logic. — Olivier5

If you are suggesting that we cannot provide reasonable answers to what God does or allows to happen, then I agree. But a great deal of theology does just that. In addition, all kinds of wonderful things are attributed to God. It is one thing to believe them as a matter of faith, it is quite another to make them the foundation of logical arguments attempting to defend those beliefs.

You can't really assert that without giving an alternate account. — frank

By Socrates' argument and your own example we can say what it is not. That is an important starting point for further inquiry into what it might be. The Socratic dialogues do not give us answers, they help guide us in asking questions.

If he didn't know, then he couldn't rule out that it's what the gods love. — frank

Once again:

If Jesus is correct then piety is not a sufficient guide to doing what is right.
— Fooloso4

And since God or the gods, if good, do not love what is wrong, then:

... piety does not equal what is loved by God.
— Fooloso4 — Fooloso4

Or do you think God or the gods love what is wrong?

I think you're skirting the issue. — frank

I think you still do not understand what is at issue.

Since you approved of Jesus' impiety (which was pervasive), think about his solution. — frank

It has nothing to do with my approval of Jesus' impiety. The issue of the Euthyphro is the question of what piety is and what follows from his claim that piety is what the gods love. Despite his claims, he does not know what the gods love and is unable to say why he thinks the gods love what he thinks they love.

As I said:

If Jesus is correct then piety is not a sufficient guide to doing what is right. — Fooloso4

And since God or the gods, if good, do not love what is wrong, then:

... piety does not equal what is loved by God. — Fooloso4

Then from whence the just, noble, and good? — frank

Socrates was a zetetic skeptic. Because he knew that he did not know the just, noble, and good he spent his life inquiring about them, trying to determine what is best and avoid doing what is unjust.

Socrates steps outside the circle and in order to bring in the just, noble, and good.
— Fooloso4

As a higher law? — frank

Unlike Euthyphro Socrates knows he does not know. If there is a higher law he does not know what it is. Socrates focus remains on the human things.

The Book of Job — Olivier5

This and Ecclesiastes have always been problematic. They do not give us the kind of answers we want. Instead they say that such things are beyond the limits of our understanding. We cannot understand why God would allow the Adversary to do all these things to Job simply to prove that Job is only righteous because his circumstances allow him to be.

The problem with Job's friends is that they insist that he is to blame, but, as the author says, Job is blameless.

We might read this as merely symbolism, that the author is pointing to what happens in life, that we do not always get what we deserve. That righteousness is tested against adversity. But the story says more than that. God does not defend the idea that he is just. He has no defense against Job's accusations.

The truth of the matter is Job is never fully restored. He endured terrible suffering. His children were killed. No happy ending, which some scholars think was a later addition, can fix that.

Jesus' condemnation of the piety of the Pharisees is like Socrates' criticism of Euthyphro.

If Jesus is correct then piety is not a sufficient guide to doing what is right. And so piety does not equal what is loved by God.

One might say that their's is a false piety, but this gets us back to the beginning with the question "what is piety?" What Socrates was trying to get Euthyphro to see is that it is not enough to say that it is what the gods love. We must consider what it is that the gods love. To say they love piety is circular. Socrates steps outside the circle and in order to bring in the just, noble, and good.

If you are good with that we can leave it there but I suspect you really do not know how it is that you made my point.

I think the distinguishing mark of modern philosophy is the mathematical concept of reason. Descartes' mathematical method for solving any unknown, however powerful at its inception, has not been able to do what was hoped for. The alternative is not to abandon reason but to hold to a more modest view of reason and the limits of what it is capable of.

In what famous speech did Jesus condemn the piety of the Pharisees? — frank

You make my point for me.

Do you understand that the Hebrew laws about rape weren't about piety? — frank

Piety is about obedience to the Law. The Law frequently deals with purity. The Jewish Law was mentioned for several reasons. If piety is obedience to the Law of God then it requires doing things we consider unjust. It is, to use Plato's terminology, questions of the just, noble (beautiful), and good that have prevented us from injustice in the name of piety. Euthyphro is prosecuting his father because it is a necessary purification. The Greek words for purification is related to the word for piety.

Edit: I am not making a direct connection between Euthyphro and Deuteronomy. The question is, what does it mean to be pious? In order to answer this question we need to look not only at the dialogue but at Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. What we find here is that pious obedience must be tempered to avoid injustice.

As you correctly pointed out and as Fooloso4 was forced to admit, "pious" = "loved by the Gods". — Apollodorus

It is clear that you have not read the dialogue or the OP. It is not something I was forced to admit, it is the premise of the dialogue. It is what Euthyphro says piety is. Socrates shows him and us why it is problematic.

Thus pointing at situations where piety may be detrimental to being good. E.g. human sacrifices. — Olivier5

Right.

Precisely, Euthyphro's dilemma is about what constitutes good and bad. Is it Divine command or is it not? — TheMadFool

The Euthyphro dilemma is not found in the dialogue. The dialogue says nothing about divine command. Euthyphro is not doing what he was commanded to do, but what he thinks the gods would want. Divine command cannot be read into the text. It is a different problem. The only thing it has in common with the dialogue is the name Euthyphro.

Please remember, if your daughter isn't a virgin on her wedding night, she is to be stonned to death on her father's porch. I've always considered this especially pious advice. — Tom Storm

Right. I quoted a passage along with a couple of others from Deuteronomy. Another is:

Suppose a man meets a young woman, a virgin who is engaged to be married, and he has sexual intercourse with her. If this happens within a town, you must take both of them to the gates of that town and stone them to death. The woman is guilty because she did not scream for help. The man must die because he violated another man’s wife. In this way, you will purge this evil from among you.

She is raped but stoned to death as a matter of purity/piety. The evil must be purged "from among you". If instead of this happening in the town it happens in the country:

But if out in the country a man happens to meet a girl pledged to be married and rapes her, only the man who has done this shall die. Do nothing to the girl; she has committed no sin deserving death. (22:25-26)

I assume that Socrates' stand is that one must be just in order to be pious. So one part of piety is being just. The other part? unjust. Just like in the parallel example Socrates gave the parallel between odd and even numbers. — god must be atheist

Euthyphro first makes the mistake of saying that number is part of odd. By his actions he makes the same mistake, making the just part of piety. In that case the other side of piety would be, as you say, unjust.

One part of being just is piety, the other is impiety. One part of number is odd, the other is even. The observe is not true.

Would a virtuous person do what Euthyphro was going to do?

Euthyphro claims that what he is doing is a necessary purification (4b). The Greek term for purification is related to the Greek term for 'pious'

Purity was and in some cases is still a major religious concern.

From Deuteronomy:

But suppose the man’s accusations are true, and he can show that she was not a virgin. 21 The woman must be taken to the door of her father’s home, and there the men of the town must stone her to death, for she has committed a disgraceful crime in Israel by being promiscuous while living in her parents’ home. In this way, you will purge this evil from among you.

“If a man is discovered committing adultery, both he and the woman must die. In this way, you will purge Israel of such evil.

“Suppose a man meets a young woman, a virgin who is engaged to be married, and he has sexual intercourse with her. If this happens within a town, you must take both of them to the gates of that town and stone them to death. The woman is guilty because she did not scream for help. The man must die because he violated another man’s wife. In this way, you will purge this evil from among you. (22:20-25)

As a matter of piety one should do what the Law of God commands, majority of the pious today would not kill someone under such circumstances. It is not piety that leads us to see that this as wrong.

It is not so simple. It is not a matter of ethical principles but of whether particular acts are just or unjust. In a healthy society it is not enough that a sufficient number, (what number?),do something in order for it to be permissible. If we agree that murder is wrong, are we then wrong or is it both right and wrong if some group shouts "death to the infidels" and starts killing people? They consider themselves to be pious followers doing the will of their god, for which they will be rewarded.

Socrates' education of Euthyphro begins when he points beyond Euthyphro's circular claim. He replaces the idea that what is loved by the gods is what is pious with the idea that the pious is what is just. (11e)

Socrates is right to criticize Euthyphro iff what is beloved of God can be impious but that would be a contradictio in terminis; after all, beloved of God = pious. — TheMadFool

Socrates argument is as follows: The pious is part of the just. If it were the other way around and the just is part of the pious then as the odd is part of number and the other part of number is its opposite, the even, the other part of the pious would be the unjust. If instead the pious is part of the just then the other part would be the impious. Socrates was accused of impiety, by questioning the justice of the gods he is impious.

If instead of gods we consider God then the question is whether something is beloved of God because it is just or just because it is beloved? In terms of piety the question would be: is it pious because it just or just because it is pious? If God loves the just and hates the unjust then what is pious, as what is loved by God, would be what is just. If someone like Euthyphro claims he is pious because he is doing what is beloved of God and what he does is unjust then either the unjust is beloved by God or he is not pious. In other words, the equation beloved of God = pious is insufficient without the possession of knowledge of God.

In all this talk about God and the powers that we have attributed to him, the problem of the Euthyphro has been lost. Whether it is one God, many gods, or no gods we remain human beings. What is at issue is what we do and why. Appeals to God or gods are problematic.

The central question of the dialogue is about men not gods. What should guide Euthyphro’s actions, and how are we to judge Socrates’? Is piety simply a matter of doing what we are told a god or gods want from us, or is it part of the larger question of the just, noble, and good? Although it may seem that with monotheism there is no problem of conflict between gods; but the problem remains with the conflicting claims, laws, interpretations, and practices of the monotheistic religions.

I prefer the Socratic approach: the good is what we seek. It puts the question of the good in human terms.

...and yet in the process you and I have concluded that what is pious and what is beloved of god are distinct. Are we justified in this, if the end is inconclusive? — Banno

I think the conclusion is justified. What remains inconclusive is what piety is.

I was just trying to establish what that purpose might be, if there was something being specifically sought in this revisit to a classic. — DingoJones

In my opinion it is important to revisit the classics, they inform the whole of philosophy that follows. But the thread was started because Banno asked me to in response to the thread "Belief in god is necessary for being good" which veered widely off course of its original topic.

The theistic presumption is though, that there is just one God and that that God is omniscient and omnibenevolent. — Janus

That is a theistic presumption, not THE theistic presumption. It is difficult to square the idea of omnibenevolence with what the God of the Hebrew Bible does, or with a New Testament God who sacrifices his son.

I do not know when the notions of omniscience and omnibenevolence were introduced. It is often assumed they were there all along but where are they found in the Hebrew Bible or New Testament?

Euthyphro's dilemma is nowhere to be found in the dialogue. It is, however, something that has been discussed in the literature.

In my opinion, Craig attempts to avoid the appearance of an arbitrary divine will by arbitrarily positing God's nature, a God who is good. His sanitized God is at odds with what we see in the Bible and what we confront with the problem of evil. Craig, of course, has his responses.

Those are options yes, but not as expedient as just having the simple questions answered. — DingoJones

But the thing about Plato's dialogues is that it is not about providing answers to simple questions. As Banno noted the dialogue ends in aporia. Most of them do.

The whole thing in the Republic about the ascent from the cave to the sight of the Forms to Good itself. Socrates in telling it admits this these are not things he knows. He presents it as if the reader is being given access to something only the few know. It is easy to forget that Socrates wisdom was "human wisdom", knowledge of his ignorance. One who knows the Forms and has beheld the Good would have divine wisdom.

If instead of gods there is one god then whatever that god loved would be pious, but if instead of that god it was another god then whatever that god loved would be pious. In other words, unless it can be shown that what is loved is what is "best and most loved", it does not matter whether it is one god or many. Although there would not be disagreement it would still be a matter of the god's preference rather than what is good and right.

But we might take the point that what is right and what god wants are not the very same. — Banno

I would go further and say that if we do not simply accept what we have been told that god wants then in trying to determine what god wants we move in the direction of trying to determine what is right. Or we can forego the question of what god wants and go right to the problem of determining what is right.

But I think the question of what is right is best approached as part of the question of the good in the way that Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle pursued the question. And this should not be confused with Plato's mythology of the Good.

Anything specific or just the Euthyophro story? — DingoJones

The specifics of the dialogue, centering around the question of the relationship between piety and justice, or, based on the thread that led to this, belief in God and morality.

Done.

More on that soon.

We need more straight thinkers — Banno

I could do with less "straight thinkers". Euthyphro says that he is laughed at. This type is laughable but unfortunately it does not deter them. For them any attention is preferable to being ignored, but I prefer to ignore them.

I recall such straight thinkers — Banno

Are you making reference to the meaning of Euthyphro's name?

I am just about done. I added some things to tie in some things beyond the text, but I think it better to leave them for further discussion.

Perhaps a new thread, Fooloso4? It's a short dialogue... — Banno

Okay. I appreciate you asking.

There are obviously some here who are very much like Euthyphro. I am sure that they will stay true to form. What that means in the end will be given some attention.

If you read through the Wiki link Stevenson serious doubts have been raised about his work.

According to some sources, the total number of Christian victims under the Soviet regime has been estimated to range around 12 to 20 million.

If there's any truth to that it's far worse than any religious fanaticism I've ever heard of. — praxis

since you've already lost the argument — Apollodorus

To begin to assess this we need to look at who some of those sources are. "Some sources" according to the Wiki article this statement is taken from turns out to be two sources: James L. Nelson and Todd M. Johnson. Neither of them are experts on Soviet history. The problem is that these "sources" do not explain where the numbers come from. Why is it that only "some", meaning two, sources make these claims?

Believing something that is not true does not make a person a liar. — Athena

The claim was made that "the right of others to hold their own beliefs" is being denied. This is simply not true. The accusation is made here and elsewhere whenever the accuser's own views are challenged and cannot be adequately defended. As if to question with these views is to deny the right to hold them.

I won't speculate as to whether the accusations of persecution are actually believed or are merely rhetorical, but I think it should be viewed in light of the repeated claim here and elsewhere of having won the argument. It has not, the argument has been evaded and this is just another evasive tactic.

In other words, is the mind capable of self-refelction? — TheMadFool

This is a problem taken up by Plato and Hegel. For them it is not a question of whether we are capable of self-reflection, but of the otherness of what is thought to be a self-same unity. In taking itself as its subject matter it is both what thinks and is thought about, subject and object. But where Plato saw this as an aporia Hegel thought he had solved the problem.

Following Plato, Plotinus attempts to unify by dividing.