Presence

We're going to have several posts from The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten; I'm only a few pages in and it is already one of my favorite books of all time.

Question #8 is what's known as the Euthyphro Dilemma, found in Plato's Euthyphro:

Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it's commanded by God?

It may seem like just a bunch of tricksy double-talk, but the difference between the two statements is really quite stark. There's a few ways to try to explain, the best I can do without a whole set of qualifications is that the latter opinion would mean that, if God commanded it, an act such as killing an innocent child would be considered moral (or good). According to the former opinion, some knowable, reasoned moral standard exists and is independent of God; we may receive this moral standard from him, but we are also able, through the power of our own reason, to discern it for ourselves.

I don't want to get into the ins and outs of the dilemma; instead, I'd like to suggest using it as a model for understanding Genesis 2. Man, before eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, related to God as the good. There was no notion of seperating out Good from God. Upon partaking of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, however, Man was now able to discern and reason the Good on his own (astute students of Genesis 2-3 will recall both the snake's and God's statements that, after eating from the Tree, Man was "like Elohim." It is not coincidental, I think, that Elohim is the name used in Genesis 1 to describe the creative/judgemental nature of godliness, seeing that things are "good," etc.).

I haven't had much time to digest the further ramifications of this interpretation; first things first, of course, is to posit it against Maimonides interpretation in the beginning of the Guide. I'm pretty sure they are quite contradictory, Maimonides characterizing pre-Lapsarian Man as the rationalist par-excellance. I do know that the topic of the Rav's thesis was that Maimonides was really a Platonist, not an Aristotilean; those familiar with Maimonides discussion of the three opinions on the creation of the world in time might also notice a similarity between the Platonic existence of matter and the Platonic existence of a moral standard independent of God (I really, really haven't thought this last one through at all).

Posted by Greg at July 19, 2006 9:42 AM in Philosophy, Torah | TrackBack