For my first philosophy class, our teacher asked us to read a dialogue between Socrates and a friend of his named Euthyphro. It's a little dry and repetitive at first, but when you get down to the basic premises that it's built on, you get to some interesting questions. Here they are:
Is the pious pious because the gods love it? Or do the gods love it because it's pious?
For my sake and the argument's, for the rest of this post I will be replacing 'gods' with 'God' and 'pious' with 'good.' Now let's get to the good stuff.
My teacher, after boiling the argument down to these two basic questions, then introduced us to the two concepts of Voluntarism and Rationalism. Voluntarism, when applied to this situation, would essentially agree with the first question and try to convince you that God sprinkles “goodness dust” on anything that makes him happy, therefore making it good. According to this ideology, he could therefore make anything and everything he wanted to good, including suicide bombing, crusading, and any other horrible/inhumane/irrational thing he jolly well pleases. Obviously, everyone knows how ridiculous something like that would be—there are some things that just aren't good, and never will/should be good, right? ...so that gets thrown out the window almost immediately.
On to Rationalism. This ideology seems the sensible route to most people, because in a way it flatters our already overblown egos. I'll explain. This one goes the way of the second question, arguing that a 'goodness standard' has already been established, and since God is a rational, logical being like us, obviously he judges by that standard just like us. *snort* I've driven on the highway, folks. Don't try to convince me we're a rational race. Besides, our definitions of 'good' and 'rational' have changed and evolved constantly since man started walking this earth. It's a scary thing to think that all of a sudden we have a fixed standard, know it, and think that the One who's calling all the shots is going by that standard as well. That's a heavy duty responsibility that I don't think we're up for.
So... where does that leave us? Are these our only two options?
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"A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels." Proverbs 1:5
"How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!" Psalm 119:103
I can't wait to hear what you have to say to me, whether it be words of wisdom or some sweet honey of encouragement. But if it isn't either of those, please be respectful and keep your thoughts to yourself.