God <–?–> good
Is there philosophy in the Bible? A parallel between a Platonic dialogue and two Biblical stories will shed light on this question.
Plato’s dialogue Euthyphro is named for a brash young man who thinks he has all the answers, and that the gods agree with him. He has decided to prosecute his father for murder. His father had shackled a laborer who in a drunken rage had slit a domestic’s throat; while he went to inquire what to do with him, the laborer died in the shackles. The son, ignoring the extenuating circumstances—as well as the honor he owes his father—is bringing murder charges against his father. His kin tell him that to prosecute his father in this case (maybe in any case) is unholy. How little do they know about what is holy, Euthyphro protests!
Socrates asks him: What, then, is holy? Euthyphro answers: The holy is what the gods desire. Socrates and Euthyphro go on to debate the merits of two opposing positions: (1) X is holy because the gods desire it, or (2) The gods desire X because it is holy in and of itself. Socrates’ view prevails: the good or holy is an independent variable, independent of the desire of the gods, and the gods love it because it is good or holy.
Two stories of Genesis seem to present the two sides of the argument of the Euthyphro. In the story of Abraham arguing before God about the fate of Sodom and Gommorah, Abraham proposes that God should spare the cities if there are fifty—or forty-five, forty, thirty…even ten righteous in the city. “Shall the judge of the earth not do justice?” Yet a few chapters later, God commands Abraham: “Take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to Mount Moriah and offer him as a sacrifice on one of the hills that I shall show you.”
In the first case, Abraham points out the good to God and says, “See, that is the good! You, God, are bound by it!” In the second case, God says to Abraham: “I’ll show you what’s good—it’s whatever I ask of you!”
In comparing Plato and Genesis, we notice similarities and differences. Each is concerned about God, the good, and the relation between them. What is God? What is the good? Which drives which?
But there is a difference in the method of treatment. The conceptual tool-kit of Plato’s Euthyphro is predominantly left-brain: definitions, abstractions, deductions, long trains of arguments striving for consistency. The conceptual tool-kit of the Genesis stories (and of the Bible generally) is predominantly right-brain: narrative (in which the universal ideas are implicit), poetry, illuminations of insight in which the logical preparation (if any) remains hidden from view.
There is also a difference in the final stated (or implied) position. In Euthyphro (and in philosophy generally), reason is the arbiter: we know the good from reason, and even a purported “word of God” that tells us differently is regarded with suspicion. In the Bible, obedience to the “word of God” predominates. Yet there are important passages (such as Abraham’s colloquy with God before Sodom) where the human ability to perceive the good independently of God’s word is given significant weight.
Are the Bible and philosophy in conflict, or complementary? As a great deal of Western thought springs from the extended conversation between these two, a lot hinges on how we perceive the answer to this question.
(To be continued)
"Are the Bible and philosophy in conflict, or complementary?"
ReplyDeleteSocrates adopted both right-brain and left-brain approaches. He has "daemon" as well as reason, mystic vision as well as definition (e.g. of love in the Symposium.) But I believe Plato would have thought them in conflict. If I remember correctly, "Theatetus," "Sophist," and "Statesman" are all later dialogues, and they move philosophy away from the right brain.
As to the point is "good" independent of "God" (or the gods)? Reading Platonic dialogue, one sees they are well on their way to monotheism, an implicit argument that "the gods" and "good" are the same. That is to say, "the gods" have evolved from a bunch of super-humans who can be bought off with sacrifices to a group whose signal characteristic is that they all know what "the good" is. They are thus equivalent to each other and to "the good."
As for God, I am tempted to start talking about Kierkegaard, who I think mistaken in his notion that man's ethics and God's good can be essentially opposed. Think, maybe, Newtonian and quantum physics instead.
But mainly, whenever I try to comment on any philosophical question, this time being no exception, the question itself seems to divide endlessly. Are we talking about right-brain vs. left-brain approach? Are we talking about *position* (is God the same as/separate from the good?); or about *process* (does God drive/is God driven by the good?) Are we talking about points of agreement and points of conflict between approaches, positions and processes?
I always come back to the same fundamental, which is that there is only one way to treat another person. In other words, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, thyself behaving well or ill. In other words, there is no essential difference between thyself and thy nighbor. In other words, there is no essential difference between God and the good. But maybe that's off the topic which was, after all, what Biblical Jews and ancient Greeks thought about God/good, not what I think!