A Quick Euthyphro Dilemma Reply to Craig's Argument Against Atheistic Significance, Meaning, and Purpose
1. Either (a) the purposes God sets for our lives are significant because God wills them, or (b) God wills them because they're significant.2. If (a), then what counts as a significant life is arbitrary.3. If (b), then what counts as a significant life is independent of God---------------4. Therefore, what counts as a significant life is either arbitrary or independent of God.
That’s a false dilemma. For instance, what makes the life of a dolphin significant isn’t interchangeable with what makes the life of a man significant. That’s because a dolphin is a different kind of creature, with a different habitat.
The respective significance of their lives isn’t simply due to God’s sheer will, but to God’s design. On the one hand, that’s not arbitrary. Rather, that’s grounded in the nature of the creature, as well as the nature of world to which the creature is preadapted. On the other hand, that’s not independent of God.
Exbrainer hasn’t made any intellectual progress since I first debated him, years ago. He’s not smart enough to be an atheist. No one is.
I'd add that God is that which is ultimately and illimitably significant, and that our relation to Him is what gives us our genuine and transcendent significance. Imagine a painting done by Joe "Nobody" Schmoe and comparing it with Rembrandt van Rijn's "Aristotle Contemplating a Bust of Homer". It's the mere fact that the latter is created by an acknowledged artistic genius that makes that painting of greater significance than the one done by Mr. Schomoe.
ReplyDeleteWell, God isn't a finite, time bound, and contingent being like Rembrandt. God is eternally and necessarily the ultimately significant Being.
God has, with His exhaustive omniscience, omnisapience, eternally appreciated Himself as the highest Great One (the perfect being in all His manifold excellencies). Each person of the Trinity has eternally appreciated the glory of the other two.
When God choose to create the world, it was that very fact of creation BY SUCH a Creator that made it significant. Within that creation, God created human beings and angels with even more significance and dignity (one or both species being made in God's image). And within that group, God has elected some to adoption as His sons, and so gave to them the highest significance that creatures could be bestowed.
What ex-apologist fails to consider in his syllogism is the nature and character of God and how God's creation in varying (and increasing) degrees reflects God's own glory and significance.
Given atheism, men would be insignificant regardless of what they may do or make.
Given theism, God has eternally been significant (just by being God) irrespective of whether God choose to create or not.