The Euthyphro Dilemma, and a tentative approach...

[2ndRateMind]

So, I'm new around here, so please be gentle!

Anyway, the most potent formulation of Plato's conundrum seems to be:

Does God will the good, because it is good, or is the good, good, because God wills it?

If the former, God is not supreme, but subject to some external moral law. We could justifiably dispense with God, and pledge our allegiance directly to the good.

If the latter, then God is supreme, but morality is arbitrary. God could will anything, even genocide, and it would be good.

So, for the Christian, neither of these options are exactly desirable. Most Christians would want a reconciliation that leaves both God supreme, and morality systematic, comprehensible and accountable, as opposed to a mere matter of whim, however divine that whim might be.

I'm thinking aloud here. Maybe morality exists because God exists. Maybe God's morality, objective ethics, total righteousness, perfect goodness, exist all only because God exists, and would not exist if God did not exist, in the same way as your morality (assuming we all have subtly or substantially different moralities) would not exist if you did not exist. God's will though, absolute virtue, is perfect because He is, and He, being God, gets to disseminate it world-wide.

Or is morality, for you, simply a matter of social consensus?

Just trying to gauge the temper of the forum. All responses welcome and valued.

Best wishes, 2RM

[agnosticatheist]

[Replying to post 18 by agnosticatheist]

Truth as I’m using it here is taken from Aquinas’ citation of Avicenna in the Summa, that, "The truth of each thing is a property of the essence which is immutably attached to it."

Working outward—assuming truth inheres everything essentially—and that truth inheres some things immutably (i.e., natural laws) and others mutably (e.g., souls, “assigned� value as in currency, various values of minerals, oil, laws, etc.). In this view, a thing is good to the degree it’s true—or conversely, not good to the degree it’s falsified. Truth requires a perceiving creator, the creator sets standards of value. Even if there existed an uncreated material universe it could contain no value if there were no perceivers present.

For example a house can be said to be true to the degree it meets its design standards for comfort, safety, provides shelter from the elements, etc. A house that falls into a state of disrepair is thus falsified—eventually to the point of unlivability.

One more distinction is important, two kinds of truth,1) descriptive, pertaining to facts, is static and inheres non-organic matter; 2) prescriptive or normative, pertaining to animation (what Christians typically term “spirit�) in organics. The falsification of descriptive truth produces a mild, virtually inert ‘tension’ (e.g., 3 + 3 = 5) while falsified prescriptive truth presents a much more powerful ‘resistance’ (the torture of innocents is wrong). Reality [from the perspective of a perceiver] consists in a fluid complex of static (descriptive) and potent (prescriptive) currents.

For the record, in this view “morality� takes on a technical meaning as a measure of the degree prescriptive truth in a set of circumstances or entity is falsified. Higher degrees of falsification produce stronger moral pressure in the mind.

From this, a moral action is good to the degree the prescriptive value involved in the state of affairs defining the action or series of actions is true.

The amoral derives from a purely static (inorganic) state of affairs. Because most circumstances on earth involve degrees of organic-inorganic interactions, there are probably few actual amoral circumstances.

The immoral is (conversely to A) a judgment of the degree a prescriptive state of affairs is falsified. To this degree it’s less good or immoral to various degrees.

Thus, D almost always equals varying measures of A, B and C.

So, a given action is inherently moral, amoral, or immoral?

To cut off a woman’s hand would never be ordered by God because the loss of a hand would falsify the health, functionality and well being of the woman, parameters of her design.

According to the bible, God commanded that if a woman grabbed a man by his genitals, her hand was to be cut off.

[bluethread]

By definition, not even a rapist wants to be raped. It's impossible.
By definition, not even a murderer wants to be murdered.
By definition, not even a slave owner wants to be a slave.
Because of these things, I believe that "Universally accepted subjective beliefs" should be considered as important as "objective truths".

Basing morality on what one wants is pure hedonism. By definition, a sadomasochist wants to harm and be harmed. There are rapists that fully expect to be raped in circumstances similar to those in which they commit rape. Murder by definition is UNLAWFUL killing. Many murders fully expect to be killed under circumstances that the law calls murder. They just have a different standard of what should and should not be lawful. It is also true that a slave owner does not want to be a slave. However, many would choose slavery over starving to death. The point is that there are no "Universally accepted subjective beliefs". There are personal beliefs and socially accepted beliefs, but when one is talking about subjective beliefs, if any are universal, there is no need to even mention them, because none would oppose them.

[Anomaly]

[Replying to post 20 by agnosticatheist]

So, a given action is inherently moral, amoral, or immoral?

Yes, inherent in the person and external circumstances constituting the state of affairs of that action. Human behavior in this view is mostly value-driven. It’s dependent on the agent’s direction toward a presumably good [true] end within the myriad true-false forces in both agent and exterior objects and events.

Quote:
To cut off a woman’s hand would never be ordered by God because the loss of a hand would falsify the health, functionality and well being of the woman, parameters of her design.

According to the bible, God commanded that if a woman grabbed a man by his genitals, her hand was to be cut off.

On God commanding evil, virtually all the commands of God in the OT and many of Jesus’ in the NT are metaphors. They follow a parallel, unified, complimentary and logical structure.

The metaphoric framework reveals what I call the “spiritual mechanics� of God’s plan to save (restore) souls. God’s command to completely destroy all Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, etc. in Deut 20:16-17 is explained in v. 18, to prevent sin in Israel. This all reduces to value elements, true and false. The Bible’s metaphors always point up spiritual and moral principles and laws. In the bigger picture God uses the nation of Israel to represent a whole made up of many parts to reveal a spiritual reduction of sorts. Canaanites represent false elements. God’s command is not to hurt or kill individual people, but to destroy the false so that it not be allowed to infect the whole (Israel). His commands have a dual organization: they are both moral exhortations to individuals and simultaneously declarations of intent and demonstrations of how He performs His work in human souls.

Offering this metaphor alone at face value, this view carries no weight and sounds contrived—until the same patterns are shown to emerge from within text in many books in both Testaments.

Another example is the exodus where again Israel represents a whole made up of many value components. The false elements in Israel caused him to not have faith he could take the promised land. (Num 13) God sent Israel back into the wilderness where, through certain hardships and over time, the offending false elements were destroyed and replaced with true parts which caused faith in Israel after 40 years to take the promised land. [Note the relationship between suffering and value destruction in the soul.] I’ve seen no stronger metaphor for God’s work in human souls than the exodus account.

In the NT God (in the form of matter as Jesus) teaches (Mat 25) that goats and sheep are separated, the goats to eternal punishment [destruction; eternality applies to duration of their removal, not to length of punishment] and sheep to reward. Again in Mat 13 tares are collected and burned up, wheat gathered into the barn. True and false elements, same metaphoric structure begun in OT carried forth into new. This explains how Paul in Rom 11 is able to speak both of a separate class—saved and unsaved—and yet declare the mystery that all Israel [and correspondingly all humans] will be saved.
Jesus also spoke a metaphoric declaration (disguised as a literal exhortation) when He said be perfect even as your Father in Heaven is perfect, and a prophecy in stating destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. Taken literally as an exhortation the Christian will begin to strive to be saved, demolishing grace by the contradiction of works. The literal leads to tripping up (as my atheist brethren are well aware when they use it vigorously against Christians who know no better) but does no harm to the spiritual truth the literal merely points to as Swedenborg noted.

So, my comment that God would never command the falsification of another remains true. He commands the destruction of healing in love. For those who take Him literally and kill, stone or cut off hands, this evil can’t be charged to Him when in the big picture all killing does is manipulate matter such that it loses animation, while behind the scene God cloaks the physical suffering of the person in His cleansing destruction of rebirth in the midst of her suffering. All affliction in this life is directly associated with the spiritual cleansing of death and destruction of the soul’s value components in the spiritual. For every death, a rebirth (Jn 12:24). Thus, for every evil, a good arises because the false is removed in the process and replaced with true in a restoration. God is again acquitted by working good (salvation) from within a supposed evil.

The Christian can be content in his faith given that it is quite obviously impossible for a human to weave a systematic plan of salvation hidden in metaphor through various books in both Testaments of the Bible and in a variety of authors from all walks of life separated by culture and circumstances over centuries of time.

[agnosticatheist]

[Replying to post 20 by agnosticatheist]

So, a given action is inherently moral, amoral, or immoral?

Yes, inherent in the person and external circumstances constituting the state of affairs of that action. Human behavior in this view is mostly value-driven. It’s dependent on the agent’s direction toward a presumably good [true] end within the myriad true-false forces in both agent and exterior objects and events.

If the moral value of an action is inherent, then that means there exists an objective moral standard which is independent of God. That means you are taking the first horn of the dilemma. God commands what is good because it is good.

On God commanding evil, virtually all the commands of God in the OT and many of Jesus’ in the NT are metaphors. They follow a parallel, unified, complimentary and logical structure.

Starting in Deuteronomy 6, and going to at least Deuteronomy 25:11-12, Moses is talking about commands that God handed down.

Deuteronomy 6:1-25 makes it clear that the instruction God gave is to be followed.

“Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules[a]—that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, 2 that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son's son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. 3 Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

10 “And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, 11 and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, 12 then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 13 It is the Lord your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. 14 You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you— 15 for the Lord your God in your midst is a jealous God—lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth.

16 “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah. 17 You shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and his testimonies and his statutes, which he has commanded you. 18 And you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may go well with you, and that you may go in and take possession of the good land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers 19 by thrusting out all your enemies from before you, as the Lord has promised.

20 “When your son asks you in time to come, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you?’ 21 then you shall say to your son, ‘We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 22 And the Lord showed signs and wonders, great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household, before our eyes. 23 And he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers. 24 And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are this day. 25 And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us.'"

The metaphoric framework reveals what I call the “spiritual mechanics� of God’s plan to save (restore) souls. God’s command to completely destroy all Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, etc. in Deut 20:16-17 is explained in v. 18, to prevent sin in Israel. This all reduces to value elements, true and false. The Bible’s metaphors always point up spiritual and moral principles and laws. In the bigger picture God uses the nation of Israel to represent a whole made up of many parts to reveal a spiritual reduction of sorts. Canaanites represent false elements. God’s command is not to hurt or kill individual people, but to destroy the false so that it not be allowed to infect the whole (Israel). His commands have a dual organization: they are both moral exhortations to individuals and simultaneously declarations of intent and demonstrations of how He performs His work in human souls.

Offering this metaphor alone at face value, this view carries no weight and sounds contrived—until the same patterns are shown to emerge from within text in many books in both Testaments.

Another example is the exodus where again Israel represents a whole made up of many value components. The false elements in Israel caused him to not have faith he could take the promised land. (Num 13) God sent Israel back into the wilderness where, through certain hardships and over time, the offending false elements were destroyed and replaced with true parts which caused faith in Israel after 40 years to take the promised land. [Note the relationship between suffering and value destruction in the soul.] I’ve seen no stronger metaphor for God’s work in human souls than the exodus account.

In the NT God (in the form of matter as Jesus) teaches (Mat 25) that goats and sheep are separated, the goats to eternal punishment [destruction; eternality applies to duration of their removal, not to length of punishment] and sheep to reward. Again in Mat 13 tares are collected and burned up, wheat gathered into the barn. True and false elements, same metaphoric structure begun in OT carried forth into new. This explains how Paul in Rom 11 is able to speak both of a separate class—saved and unsaved—and yet declare the mystery that all Israel [and correspondingly all humans] will be saved.
Jesus also spoke a metaphoric declaration (disguised as a literal exhortation) when He said be perfect even as your Father in Heaven is perfect, and a prophecy in stating destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. Taken literally as an exhortation the Christian will begin to strive to be saved, demolishing grace by the contradiction of works. The literal leads to tripping up (as my atheist brethren are well aware when they use it vigorously against Christians who know no better) but does no harm to the spiritual truth the literal merely points to as Swedenborg noted.

So, my comment that God would never command the falsification of another remains true. He commands the destruction of healing in love. For those who take Him literally and kill, stone or cut off hands, this evil can’t be charged to Him when in the big picture all killing does is manipulate matter such that it loses animation, while behind the scene God cloaks the physical suffering of the person in His cleansing destruction of rebirth in the midst of her suffering. All affliction in this life is directly associated with the spiritual cleansing of death and destruction of the soul’s value components in the spiritual. For every death, a rebirth (Jn 12:24). Thus, for every evil, a good arises because the false is removed in the process and replaced with true in a restoration. God is again acquitted by working good (salvation) from within a supposed evil.

You are engaging in eisegesis. You are reading into the text. You are claiming something is a metaphor when the clear context and content of the text is that of instruction. You are claiming something is a metaphor when normally the content in question would be claimed to be instruction.

What is your criteria for determing what in the book of Deuteronomy is metaphor and what is literal? It's so convenient and beneficial for your belief system that a part of the text that is highly problematic is "metaphor." Lol

The Christian can be content in his faith given that it is quite obviously impossible for a human to weave a systematic plan of salvation hidden in metaphor through various books in both Testaments of the Bible and in a variety of authors from all walks of life separated by culture and circumstances over centuries of time.

You think there is a hidden plan woven in the text. I am waiting to see what your justification and criteria for that is. Most Christians would disagree with you.

[Anomaly]

[Replying to post 23 by agnosticatheist]

You are engaging in eisegesis. You are reading into the text. You are claiming something is a metaphor when the clear context and content of the text is that of instruction. You are claiming something is a metaphor when normally the content in question would be claimed to be instruction.

What basis do you have for declaring that I'm engaging in eisegesis? Or like my Christian brethren do you play the eisegesis card when you hear ideas that don't agree with yours? And I'm not merely claiming that "something" is a metaphor...I'm claiming the entire Bible, both Testaments, is shot through with unified metaphoric patterns that repeatedly build on the same salvific principles. That "...the content in question would be claimed to be instruction" is irrelevant; metaphor uses the literal elements of language to formulate a [typically] different context. Reference again one of the best metaphors used by Jesus for teaching: Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. Semantic content is changed. Destroy becomes kill, temple becomes human body and so forth. Original context of literal wording is irrelevant and defers to the more powerful and important meaning of the metaphor.

What is your criteria for determing what in the book of Deuteronomy is metaphor and what is literal?

Short answer given in last post and above; unified patterns drawn from many books of both Testaments, unified theme: the spiritual principles of salvation by God's work in the human soul; unified structure using analogy of the "one and many" principle. Theology board venue doesn't lend itself to explanatory extravagance but I think I provided a short but reasonable basis for claims of Scriptural unity.

Explanation in somewhat more detail here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/elmerfud551/videos

It's so convenient and beneficial for your belief system that a part of the text that is highly problematic is "metaphor." Lol

It's equally convenient to post a superficial critique by which one pretends that a position one dislikes is "highly problematic". All the same, thanks for your input.

[Anomaly]

[Replying to post 23 by agnosticatheist]

Missed your first point...

If the moral value of an action is inherent, then that means there exists an objective moral standard which is independent of God. That means you are taking the first horn of the dilemma. God commands what is good because it is good.

No, moral standards aren't independent of God. Moral standards exist because God endued creation with truth in the essence of things. There's a natural attraction and union of truth in being (instantiated in intellectual operation) with truth in external things, propositions and various states of affairs. Value requires a creator. Either God sets the standard for value (moral/prescriptive and factual/descriptive) or humans do. All philosophies that have anything to do with value, directly or indirectly, fall on one side of this divide or the other.

Moral law exists because at base establishing beliefs boils down to two choices, true or false. All goods, moral or material, derive naturally from the true. Those who insist they are the arbiter of their own value nonetheless strive in prescriptive matters to provide true propositions to justify "truth" of their belief.

[agnosticatheist]

What basis do you have for declaring that I'm engaging in eisegesis?

You are imposing an idea that you have onto the text.

And I'm not merely claiming that "something" is a metaphor...I'm claiming the entire Bible, both Testaments, is shot through with unified metaphoric patterns that repeatedly build on the same salvific principles. That "...the content in question would be claimed to be instruction" is irrelevant; metaphor uses the literal elements of language to formulate a [typically] different context. Reference again one of the best metaphors used by Jesus for teaching: Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. Semantic content is changed. Destroy becomes kill, temple becomes human body and so forth. Original context of literal wording is irrelevant and defers to the more powerful and important meaning of the metaphor.

If it's unclear what the context is, then MAYBE you can say it's metaphor. But, the context of Deuteronomy 6-25:11-12 is cearly is that of instruction. In chapter 6, Moses said "God gave me these laws-follow them."

Short answer given in last post and above; unified patterns drawn from many books of both Testaments, unified theme: the spiritual principles of salvation by God's work in the human soul; unified structure using analogy of the "one and many" principle. Theology board venue doesn't lend itself to explanatory extravagance but I think I provided a short but reasonable basis for claims of Scriptural unity.

Moses said in chapter 6 that God gave him the laws. How are you getting a metaphor from that?

It's equally convenient to post a superficial critique by which one pretends that a position one dislikes is "highly problematic". All the same, thanks for your input.

Even if what you said is true, you aren't off the hook. It's still convenient...give me an example of a law in Deuteronomy that you think is metaphor and yet isn't abhorrent.

I said it's problematic for your belief system because the hand cutting law is evil, God is supposed to be good (you do believe God is good, don't you?), and yet God gave the hand cutting law to Moses.

[agnosticatheist]

Either God sets the standard for value (moral/prescriptive and factual/descriptive) or humans do. All philosophies that have anything to do with value, directly or indirectly, fall on one side of this divide or the other.

If you believe that God sets the standard, and considering what you said above, then that means you are taking the second horn of the euthyphro dilemma. What is good, is good because God says it is good.

Moral law exists because at base establishing beliefs boils down to two choices, true or false. All goods, moral or material, derive naturally from the true. Those who insist they are the arbiter of their own value nonetheless strive in prescriptive matters to provide true propositions to justify "truth" of their belief.

Why is it true that a given action is moral, amoral, or immoral?

For example, let's say you think extramarital affairs are immoral.

1. You think it is true that extramarital affairs are immoral

2. Why is it true that extramarital affairs are immoral?

[Anomaly]

[Replying to post 26 by agnosticatheist]

You are imposing an idea that you have onto the text.

I’m aware of the definition of eisegesis. My question remains: what basis do you have to support the charge that I’m “imposing an idea� I have on the text as opposed to my claim that I’m finding the interpretation I’m defending within the text? What evidence do you have that I’m engaging in eisegesis?

If it's unclear what the context is, then MAYBE you can say it's metaphor. But, the context of Deuteronomy 6-25:11-12 is cearly is that of instruction. In chapter 6, Moses said "God gave me these laws-follow them."

You seem to be imposing your own rules by which a text can be claimed to be metaphor. I see no reason to abide by your definitions, especially since they appear to be designed on the spur of the moment merely to dispute a point of view you find distasteful.

Lakoff and Johnson’s approach to metaphor (1980) seems to be widely held today as a standard for understanding metaphor. In his Contemporary Theory of Metaphor (1992) George Lakoff asks,

“What are the generalizations governing the linguistic expressions referred to classically as poetic metaphors? When this question is answered rigorously…the generalizations governing poetic metaphorical expressions are not in language, but in thought: They are general mappings across conceptual domains. Moreover, these general principles which take the form of conceptual mappings, apply not just to novel poetic expressions, but to much of ordinary everyday language. In short, the locus of metaphor is not in language at all, but in the way we conceptualize one mental domain in terms of another.�
The notion of conceptualizing one mental domain in terms of another eliminates restrictive rules like yours, that meaning MUST remain within the literal domain. I used the example of Jn 2:19 to show how domains are crossed in metaphor. Any reasonable person can see the normalcy and suitability of the use of metaphor in language to transform context.

But don’t take my word for it. Lakoff, using the metaphor “Our relationship has hit a dead-end
Street� points out, “The metaphor involves understanding one domain of experience, love, in terms of a very different domain of experience, journeys. More technically, the metaphor can be understood as a mapping (in the mathematical sense) from a source domain (in this case, journeys) to a target domain (in this case, love). The mapping is tightly structured.�

http://comphacker.org/comp/engl338/file ... 9R913D.pdf

I argue for essentially this and show evidence that just this sort of structure permeates Scripture in multiple authors across centuries of time, eliminating any possibility that the allegorical manifestation that rises from this consistent metaphoric structure could be produced by humans.

Moses said in chapter 6 that God gave him the laws. How are you getting a metaphor from that?

Your question is a non sequitur. As I noted in my last post, I'm claiming the entire Bible, both Testaments, is shot through with unified metaphoric patterns that repeatedly build the same salvific principles. The giving of laws by God to Moses is not disputed. I believe that what God actually commands is in dispute by a misconstrual of the semantic domain God intended the commands to be understood.

Even if what you said is true, you aren't off the hook. It's still convenient...give me an example of a law in Deuteronomy that you think is metaphor and yet isn't abhorrent.

Didn’t realize I was “on� the hook. Given your approach to the issue I’m pretty sure that getting into proof texting about the Bible’s metaphoric content would be unproductive. I also don’t pretend to know all the proper metaphoric context of the entire Mosaic Law. I paint what I see, but like all humans I only see through a fragmentally falsified conception…or as Paul put it, we “see in a mirror dimly“ (NASB).

I said it's problematic for your belief system because the hand cutting law is evil, God is supposed to be good (you do believe God is good, don't you?), and yet God gave the hand cutting law to Moses.

The hand cutting law is only evil if understood and performed in its literal sense. In its metaphoric sense hand cutting is transferred to spiritual cleansing and becomes wisdom and the wonderful language of salvation.

The proper argument imo should be, ‘If God knew Israel would in some measure [they often did not perform the laws they were supposed to] understand and obey the law literally, wouldn’t He be at fault for not explaining that He was speaking metaphorically and allowing these sorts of acts?

My answer to this, as noted in a previous post, is that God is not guilty by virtue of His design that all suffering and affliction experienced in material realm circumstances results in the destruction of falsity in essence (spirit) wherein the afflicted are simultaneously cleansed in some measure.

For example when the arrogant man is humiliated in public while acting arrogantly, he suffers a range of afflictions—anger, shame, humiliation etc.—yet the next time he finds himself in circumstances in which he would have typically acted arrogantly in the past he thinks twice about being arrogant. Something inside was changed, something modified his disposition to be arrogant. This is a common outcome in any number of life’s circumstances. We intuitively recognize some connection between affliction and change, that in suffering we are taken—anywhere between reluctantly and kicking and screaming—in directions we deem to be toward the better.

If you believe that God sets the standard, and considering what you said above, then that means you are taking the second horn of the euthyphro dilemma. What is good, is good because God says it is good.

No, my point in posting was to present a different perspective. In my theology the “what is good is good because God says it’s good� is muddled, as is the version in the op: “Does God will the good, because it is good, or is the good, good, because God wills it?� God doesn’t will good, good is a byproduct of truth. God desires that His creation be one or in unity with Truth. When this is accomplished, only good prevails. Good is an effect, truth is the cause and highest order quality and value. To say good is good because God wills it doesn’t make sense. He could will none other than that all things aspire to the true. For God to will and command good is like saying He wills that we breathe. Breathing isn’t important qua breathing; its value exists insofar as the good of breathing sustains life and life is good only insofar as all things that produce and sustain life are pure, true and free of falsity.

Why is it true that a given action is moral, amoral, or immoral?

For example, let's say you think extramarital affairs are immoral.

1. You think it is true that extramarital affairs are immoral

2. Why is it true that extramarital affairs are immoral?

My approach would be:

1. Value requires creation through a perceiving agent.
2. Value is all around and within us.
3. Value has only two denominations, true or false.
4. Reality appears to be constituted of value in essence that impart to created things being that is fundamentally true but fragmentally falsified such that corruption and error exists in most realms of existence.
5. The Bible testifies to just this sort of reality. It identifies an agent seemingly capable of creating a physical/essential universe and enduing it with truth as the guiding value toward which the truth-bearingness of created things—especially intellectual agents—are naturally attracted. The fall describes well the falsification of creation, the OT depicts the result of falsification in mankind, the NT the final piece of revelation of God’s plan to repair the problem. Since we often refuse to unite with truth in our fragmentally falsified state, moral pressure—caused by the natural antipathy between true and false—is generated and the call by God to cohere with truth becomes in the hearing of the intellectual agent, the harshness of command.
6. The law is ultimately a call to remain united (or become reinstated) with truth.
7. Marriage with procreation was instituted for man and woman by the Creator and fidelity to the marriage contract identified as a pure and proper standard. There is in all forms of adherence to truth a purity and holiness which is violated [often by degree] in resistance to prescriptive truth, which produces degrees of falsification in human spirit.
8. Extramarital affairs are immoral because they violate the Creator’s design as a holy contract between man and woman. Adherence to truth is the proper and good end of every thought and act in God’s design. Thus, purity or holiness (full union of a created agent with prescriptive, absolute truth) is falsified on several levels (violation of Creator’s design, violation of marriage contract with spouse, etc.) and is immoral.
9. Essence appropriately falsified [and intellect causally in direct proportion] is altered to an increasing propensity to resist prescriptive truth, adopt falsehoods and defend them as true. This violation is testified to in Isa 5:20: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!� In other words, woe to those who substitute truth with falsity and vice versa. The extramarital affair was established in the falsification of the minds of its participants prior to engagement. Justification for violating the spiritual marriage contract—assigning truth to reasons why extramarital activity is a good, or a greater good, than integrity to the truth of commitment to prescriptive statutes pertaining to marriage—is the byproduct of the falsified mind overriding (uniting with the false) truth.

[Complexity]

Cutting off a Hand (Deut 25:11-12)
These verses contain what first appears to be a very strange situation and very harsh reaction. It tells of two men fighting and the wife of one of the men steps in to help her husband who likely is getting beaten. She grabs the privates of the man hitting her husband. And the legal punishment is to cut off her (kaph) often translated “hand�. Here once again many translations do the world a serious disservice. "Kaph" refers to the concave form of a dish, spoon, arch of the foot, palm of the hand, a palm tree because of the dish-like leaves, human power we have with our hands, hand-shaped branches or leaves, hollow of a pouch of a sling, or pelvic area (as used in Gen 32:26,32, Song of Solomon 5:5 referring to genitals from 4:12). If the Bible wanted the woman’s hand cut off, it would have used the word “yad�, which clearly mean hand; and it would have used stronger verb form for “cut� that mean to physically sever. But the soft verb form of “cut� is used, which means clip, of shave hair (Jer 9:26; 25:23, 49:32). There is no linguistic reason to make the interpretation of amputation. That is an unnecessary and invalid leap to the very radical. The most plausible explanation is punishment by depilation (cutting off hair). Shaving the hair of head or pubic area was a punishment of that day. It humiliated the woman to have a neighbor shave her; which fit the crime of the humiliation she imposed upon the man (humiliation for humiliation). Examples of punishment by shaving the head, face, and legs can be found in 2 Sam 10:4-5 and Isa 7:20. This was a common punishment in Babylon. When Paris was liberated from Hitler, the ladies who were too friendly with the Germans had their head shaved.
Alternately we could interpret the words as trimming the woman’s palm tree, cutting her spoon in half, making a superficial cut on the hand or foot, cutting a hole in her sling-slot, or reducing her influence (power, reputation) by reporting what she did to the tribe. Some of those interpretations would not be a punishment, so should be excluded. The least linguistically accurate interpretation would be amputation. The interpretation most in context with the culture and Old Testament is cutting the hair off the legs, head, or pelvic area. Some of the subtleties of ancient Hebrew language and culture have been lost. This certainly is an example of lost meaning. Fortunately, the vast majority of the Bible is very clear. The principle of Biblical interpretation is to interpret the unclear in the light of the clear. And clearly there is far more evidence for cutting hair than amputation.
The Old Testament stands firmly against self-mutilation, legal mutilation of body parts, and punishment out of proportion to the crime and intent. There are numerous Old Testament verses opposing brutality in general and mutilation is particular. The Old Testament is clearly revolutionary in this area. Compare it to the Assyrian law of 1100 BC which punished a woman who injured a man’s testicles by gouging out her eyes. In the Babylon Hammurabi code some crimes were punished by cutting off the tongue, breast of a woman, hand, ear; or dragged a person around a field behind an ox or cow. There was an ancient cruelty of castration of a man for various reasons. The very popular myth of Osiris, which involving castration, must have had a powerful social influence; distorting social conscience.
If the man who was grabbed in the privates actually had bodily damage, that is another matter, likely deserving more severe punishment.
Much of the information for this topic comes from the great book: Is God a Moral Monster, by Paul Copan.
As a footnote, I have experience working with teenagers at church. In the last decade there has been an upswing in bad behavior with touching the privates of others. At camp we must tell the boys it isn’t funny to hit the privates of each other (in play and in anger). They see such things on TV as a test of manhood, a joke, and wild behavior. Typically a few wild kids will touch the privates of others, testing limits of authority, and maybe seeking sexual thrills. It is my experiences that unless this type of thing is stopped firmly and early, it tends to spread like a cancer. I have heard of a report of cross-gender touching in a local high school, in public. This type of behavior must have been a problem in the day of Moses to receive special mention. Privates must be private (a good name). They are off-limits, except for your spouse and doctor.