Resolving Euthyphro Dilemma

The Euthyphro dillemma is found in the Plato's diologue with Euthyphro. In the dialogue Socrates asked Euthyphro " Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?"
Or if I may put it differently "Is the good act loved by gods because it is good or is it good because god so ordained it?" 

God is intrinsically good and holy. And God is the source of all that is good and pure. And since God is intrinsically good, he can never will (or love) what is wicked or evil. Just as God cannot non-exist, divine fiat cannot include wicked act. God's omnipotence does not mean that God can do logically impossible feats. Just as God cannot exist now and non-exist later, God cannot pronounce necessary moral truth now which is according to his nature, and later pronounce exactly opposite to his divine nature. So, is the good good because God so pronounced it according to his nature? Yes...and God cannot but pronounce it so because to pronounce otherwise is logically impossible.

But what moral reason is there to obey God's command?

We are to obey God's command because he is the giver of life. He brings me forth into existence. We are also to obey God's command because it is good. God will not issue command arbitrarily; rather he issues command according to his divine nature.

Of course, this assumes that God is necessarily good and so he will issue fiats only that which is good. The Abraham-Isaac story will nullify the assumption had Isaac really been sacrificed. But a believer will respond that because God is necessarily good, he will not issue command which will be truly wicked . A command may appear to be wicked, but in the grand scheme of things any command of God will result in the well being of the person if obediently carried out. But to see and experience that faith is required!

Arguments for God's Existence

I am putting forth the argument for God's existence here syllogistically.

A.
1. Every entity that begins to exist has a  cause.

2. The universe began to exist.

3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

4. The universe that contains energy and mind is best explained to have caused by God who is powerful and has  mind.

B.
1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity or design.

2. It is not due to physical necessity.

3. Therefore, it is due to design.

4. Being designed implies a Designer

C.
1. If God did not exist, categorical moral laws would not exist.

2. Categorical moral laws exist.

3. Therefore, God exists.

Defect in Immanuel Kant's idea of Rights

There is a tendency to attribute so much of importance to Kant's contribution to the idea of universal human right. No doubt Kant did contribute to the idea of human right, but I do think there is an history that goes beyond Kant why the concept of universal human right so emerged. I shall, however, not delve into that part for now. Kant believes that every human person is worthy of respect. His idea of worth of a person is derived from the fact that we human are rational beings. 

Jeremy Bentham argued that pleasure and pain are our sovereign masters. And so in Bentham's moral philosophy, what ought to be done is governed by this preference for pleasure and our dislike for pain. Bentham thus considered the idea of natural right as 'nonsense upon stilts'. Kant disagreed. Kant argued that we like pleasure and dislike pain, yet we are also governed by reason.And this capacity to reason gives an individual that worth, and so the right. Kant's ground for right thus is grounded on individual's capacity to reason.

But is Kant's idea well grounded for human right? I don't think so. If an individual's worth is based on her rational faculty then those individual's whose minds are blank have to be considered as devoid of any worth. This would leave out children who are not yet able to think rationally think or those aged human persons whose mind is now vegetable or even those who are in coma. Kant did give so much of respect for a human person. He went to the extent of arguing that we are to treat human person as end in themselves, and never as a mean to some end. However, had he provided a more sturdy grounding for the worth of a human person that can include all human beings, his overall argument about the idea of right would have gained more coherency. 

John Stott is dead, and so is Sai Baba; and so will you, and I too.

John Stott ( 1921 - 2011) who is one of the most respected clergymen in the world is no more. He passed away on 27^th July. The kind of influence that he had among Christians may be similar to the kind of influence that Sathya Sai Baba (1926-2011) had among Hindus. Stott was educated in Cambridge University, and he rose to become a prolific teacher and writer. And until his death he remained a celibate.

Whether one is rich or poor, black or white, male or female, all will die one day. That is an appointment we all cannot evade. Proud men and women, they too will die. Death indeed is the greatest leveller. The money we have earned working day and night will be left behind, and somebody else will enjoy this fruit of our hard labour. If this person is wise, thank God, the fruit of our labour will not be in vain. But if it is otherwise, I won't want to know how the money would be utilised!

The person you love the most will die as well. Your parents, your spouse, your siblings or your children. This is reality. And once a person is dead, nothing can be done about him or her. All prayers and rituals can do nothing good for that person. Sympathy and tears are all for the living ones. The dead simply remains dead, unmoved and untouched. So take time to think about your life NOW!

Is dead THE END? What is the PURPOSE of your life? What are you doing to FULFILL that purpose?

We have a fear for death. For the unknown. There is one person who have faced death, but return to life. It's not some kind of resuscitation. But it is returning to life after having really faced death. My guru or your guru will all die. But this person is different. And he is Jesus Christ. He died on 7^th April, 30 A.D, and came to life on the third day. On 19^th May, he ascended to heaven. He says that for those who accept him as Lord and God, death is NOT the end; death for such person is just a gateway to the other side of life and BEYOND.

John Stott is one person I admire and he has influenced my life so much through his writings. I know that dead is not the END for him. I have never seen him here, but I shall see him one day. And it is because Jesus Christ, my Lord and my God, is risen from the dead. That is the hope I have. 

What kind of HOPE do you have and what is it BUILT upon?

ON KNOWING

I don’t think ‘knowing’ is always a blessing. If you are ignorant, you don’t have responsibility. But if you know, you can’t shy away from shouldering responsibility. And if you shy away from responsibility knowing fully well that you have to be there, guilt will come trying to strangle your mind to insanity. Sometime, therefore, I wonder if it’s even more blessed to be insane. Because if one is insane one never knows the ‘painful’ side of life… that suffering which comes through responsibility. A person who is insane never knows suffering nor joy. For him life just is.

Was it not because Alyosha had ‘known’ so much that the Father said he would never be a happy man? ( in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Karamazov Brothers) It’s not just with great power that great responsibility comes, but it’s with great knowledge too that great responsibility comes. And somehow, I fear, that the challenge that comes from within is greater than the challenge that comes from without. The angst that impinges upon one’s soul as one ‘knows’ the reality in greater precision. Ah! But the angst within swells because of the pressure applied from without.

Had I been a Martin Heidegger I would have patted my own back, told myself to be strong, and move to and face death head on. Had I been a Carl Sagan I might have looked up to the stars to send aliens to come and metamorphose me to be able to face the future. But I am more like Immanuel Kant… more like Socrates… more like Paul. Oh yes, I know Jesus, yet I must say I ‘know’ him not. When I KNOW Him I shall never be fearful of being responsible. Till then I pray and wait.

Karl Popper on theory of evolution

Karl Popper (1902-1994): Karl Popper is generally regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century. His parents, who were of Jewish origin, brought him up in an atmosphere which he was later to describe as ‘decidedly bookish’. Popper obtained a primary school teaching diploma in 1925, took a Ph.D. in philosophy in 1928, and qualified to teach mathematics and physics in secondary school in 1929. In 1946 he moved to England to teach at the London School of Economics, and became professor of logic and scientific method at the University of London in 1949. He was knighted in 1965, and retired from the University of London in 1969, though he remained active as a writer, broadcaster and lecturer until his death in 1994. (Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

Today is Charles Darwin 200th birth anniversary, perhaps the most controversial scientist ever lived. When only 16 his father sent him and his brother to Edinburgh for the best medical education Great Britain had to offer.When he finally broke the news of his distaste for medicine to his father, he was enrolled to take a degree in Divinity at Christ College, Cambridge University, from which he graduated. However, he became an agnostic in the later part of his life and died as one, contrary to the report that he died as a convert having recanted his theory. Dawin was a mild English gentleman who was disturbed when his scientific theory aroused much controversy specially as people misused his theory to support various causes he would not even dream of. He died on April 18, 1882.

Trying to define Science is as slippery as trying to define Religion. For both enterprises definition that would satisfy all has been elusive. American Physical Society defines Science as “ the systematic enterprise of gathering knowledge about the universe and organizing and condensing that knowledge into testable laws and theories.” Though this is a widely accepted definition it is not free from being problematic because the definition allows even Social Science enterprises like Sociology, Economics and Psychology to fit into the definition. And no wonder some people argue that these disciplines should be included in Science. After all if study of animals and plants are part of Science why not study of human being? Though the argument seems valid we are not quite convinced that these academic disciplines should be part of Science. Philosopher of Science has widely accepted three parameters for a theory to be called a scientific theory. One, the theory should be falsifiable; two, it should be able to explain the observed data; three, it should have predictability strength. Sometimes one might also like to include elegance, coherence etc. But the first three are very essential.

Karl Popper initially rejected theory of evolution as a scientific theory. Popper understood evolutionary biologists to say that their theory predicts that natural selection allows only the fittest organisms to survive; and he countered saying that the ‘fittest’ organisms are defined as those who survive, but that makes the argument tautological. ( tautological means that the truth of the predicate is present in the subject itself) Later on, Popper recanted what he had said. But why the change? Because there are independent parameters for determining which members of species are ‘fittest’. “ Biologists employ optimisation analyses to predict which combination of morphological, behavioral, or physiological traits are more likely to be advantageous in the range of environments actually encountered by a given living form. They then sample natural population of organisms, determine in which they actually live, measure those traits they hypothesize are more likely to make a difference, and obtain statistical predictions on where natural selection should push the population next. Finally, biologists wait until the next generation of organisms come out and measure their characteristics again." So theory of evolution is testable, in the sense that using the theory they predict the outcome of the research. It is also falsifiable in the sense that if human being is found alonside dinasaur, in the absence of alternative explanation, we might have to discard the theory or make some drastic refinement. One reason why Intelligent Design theory is considered invalid is because it is not falsifiable. How can one emperically falsify that God is not behind that 'irreducible complexity'? One can never do that emperically, and so ID theory cannot be scientific.

Theory of evolution meets the criteria to be a scientific theory more or less like Big Bang theory meets the criteria. In fact, Big Bang theory has more rival theories than theory of evolution. Theory of evolution has been the reigning champion for some 150 odd years now, though with some refinement like neo-darwinism emerging to give a more explanatory power of the observed data. Intellectual honesty and responsibility requires that until a better rival theory emerges we use the available theory, however weak it is. Suppose we expel theory of evolution from Science which academic discipline takes up the study? Humanities or Social Science? Both cannot do justice to the issue at hand because the nature of the subject requires study of various branch of Science. This is also one reason why definition of Science should not be too narrow. Study of continental shift, Big Bang, evolution etc have met essential parameters for a theory to be called a scientific theory. Since theory of evolution is falsifiable, as a believer in Jesus Christ who is the source of all truth, I am not afraid of the truth. If it is wrong Science will disprove it. If it is right, how much ever attack it receives from its critic, it will remain firm.

This issue has been very divisive among evangelical Christians, should I say along with issues like role of women in the church and charismatic gifts. The latter two is confined within ourselves. Theory of evolution, however, takes the debate outside of the Church. And if we are not careful it’s going to harm the cause of Christ.My humble suggestion is that those of us who are keen to have a say in the matter need to read up theologians who interpret the Bible, philosophers who provides the framework of the debate and scientist who engages in empirical research. Should I also include historians who provide detail how various schools emerged and how different individuals have participated in the debate! This does not mean I have also done sufficient reading... But I am trying to. God bless.