Small Group & Euthyphro

Well, I almost left the small group early Wednesday night. A neighbor of the girl whose house we meet at showed up drunk, so we spent the first 30 to 45 minutes trying to argue with a drunk guy. This brought back memories from college when everybody gets drunk and talks about religion, nobody makes any sense, and nobody is worried about speaking coherently... So I kept asking myself, why am I wasting my time listening to the leader of the small group trying to reason with a drunk guy.

Another observation to make: why do we give up so much ground trying to placate non-believers? I really don't care the guy showed up drunk, I mean of all the sins, drunkenness is not one that I'm worried about, I'm more worried about divorce/adultery than I am drunkenness. But, the whole small group revolved around trying to understand this drunk guys conception of God. He kept saying, "God is a dead-beat dad," and alternated that with, "God is my best friend," and occasionally he'd tell us, "God and I don't get along." So, it sucked.

Here's my point of the post, maybe I'm arrogant, I don't know, but if I am just tell me so, and pray for me. But I feel like the leader of the group is just questioning everything because he left the Southern Baptist Convention, but journey church (where we go now) is a SBC church for seekers - IT'S THE SAME - the only difference I can detect is the preaching is more entertainment and the music is better, and the service more organized than your typical country baptist church. Regardless, the leader always seems to think that by questioning things he can show us where we are wrong. So, I believe that good is based upon God, here's a premise:

(1) God is good.

God is identical with good, and God is good. So, the leader asked me, "Is it good because God says it's good?" What do you think my response was, "God is good." Here's the leader's next question, "So, how do you define good?" My response: "God is the criterion for good." Here's the leader's follow up question: "So, is it good because God says it's good?" Ok, at this point in time he is trying to trap me in the Euthyphro dilemma, but he doesn't know enough about it to understand that I've already avoided it. Here's the Euthyphro dilemma as broadly construed:

(2) Good exists.
(3) God exists.
(4) Is it good because God tells us it's good?
(5) Or, does God tell us X is good because X is good?

Here's the difference between (4) and (5), on (4) good is arbitrary, if God tells us to rape, murder, or steal, then those actions are good because God commands us to do them. For, (5) good is an entity that exists apart from God, and in many ways, exists as God's equal. How do I escape (4) and (5), with (1):

(1) God is good.

Since God is good, every action that He commits is consitent with His nature, which is goodness. We know right actions from wrong actions from observing God's behavior. This also prevents the question of why can't God sin, because sin is inconsistent with His nature and sin is a lack of good, whereas sin is a lack of strength, and good is a strength as broadly construed.

Nevertheless, I was frustrated with the leader's line of question because he was trying to trick me, but I was so far ahead of him and he didn't even realize it. Furthermore I even explained to the leader a further thing about (1) which I'll call:

(1') God is necessarily good.

This means that in all possible worlds that could have occurred or existed, God is good. So, there is no way that the Euthyphro dilemma applies to (1'). Now, there are some difficulties for this position, namely that of whether God has a nature, but I'll save that for a different post

Hope that I'm not arrogant, but if I am, I'll work on it and pray for humility.