Socrates: Why Abraham what business brings you out to
the
Abraham: My dear Socrates, I am worshiping my
God. That is what business brings me to
this land. What is it you are doing in
such a remote place?
Socrates: I am traveling and questioning those whom my
path crosses. I see that you have wood
for a sacrifice yet I see no lamb. Is it
not customary to offer a burnt lamb to your God? If it not be customary than by which new
offering do you give to him?
Abraham: Yes, Socrates it is normally customary to
present a lamb as a sacrifice to the Lord.
However, I am not here for an ordinary sacrifice.
Socrates: But then what kind of sacrifice do you offer
in return? How do you know that your Lord
shall look favorably upon this new sacrifice you present him?
Abraham: I have traveled here under the command of my
Lord Socrates. Several nights ago he
spoke to me and said, “Abraham! Take
your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the
Socrates: But Abraham, do you not love your son very
much? And if you do, how could you even
consider doing such a thing?
Abraham: Yes, I do love my son very much, and that is
the reason why I will do what my Lord commanded me to do. I have faith that that what my Lord asks of
me is moral, so I have the strength to do what he asks of me.
Socrates: Well, you say you have faith to do as your
Lord commands, and you say this faith is what makes your God’s commands
moral. So I must now ask the question of
what is faith my good sir?
Abraham: I see faith as the confidence I have in the
truth and morality of God Socrates. So
my faith reaffirms the morality of the task God has put before me.
Socrates: Well yes Abraham, I see where that could be
applied. Yet, I ask you this: Could faith not be the belief of the
unseen? You tell me that your faith
reaffirms the morality of God’s commands, yet I see you with your son about to
sacrifice him because God told you to.
It seems to me that no matter how you look upon this task, it cannot be
moral. You say your faith reaffirms that
which is moral about God, so then what is the root of God’s morality if your
faith only reaffirms this notion?
Abraham: Yes, Socrates, for the most part faith is the
belief in which you cannot see, but I believe that faith is what reaffirms all
that is good about God to us. To you
Socrates it would seem that my sacrifice of my son to appease God would be
immoral. God has not spoken to you yet;
you do not see the inherent good in what he says.
Socrates: So you are saying that because God
commands you to sacrifice your only son, Isaac, you must do it?
Abraham: Yes, that is what I am saying. It is God’s commands that we must follow.
Socrates: Then what if God commands us to do something,
which we know is against all rational morality?
Abraham: God would not do that, and if I entertain
your notion and for arguments sake, agree that it could happen then this is
what I propose: If something God decreed
came across as against our morals, then our morals must not be correct. For God is all loving, he would not command
us to do immoral things.
Socrates: So then is God’s command to be obeyed because
he commanded it or are we to obey it because it is moral? To me it seems, as you have not answered this
question clearly, you seem to be using both as a plausible explanation to the
morality of your God.
Abraham: Well obviously this matter is a little over
my head. I am not as skilled a
philosopher as you are Socrates. I just
know that what God asks me to do is the right thing.
Socrates: Abraham, you cannot expect me, a man of
philosophy as you have just mentioned then to accept you claim on what you feel
to be correct. Even you in your blinded
stage of faith must see the fallacies in your argument for the root of God’s
morality. You cannot pinpoint where his
morality comes from, whether it is because what he says is moral, or whether it
is moral because he says it. Let us not
even talk about the concept of God. For
if you have failed, as I believe you have, in trying
to show me where God’s morality comes from, I do not believe you could even
begin to fathom where to start in explaining to me the existence of God.
Abraham: Socrates, I think you are wrong, I believe
that by tackling the proof of God’s existence I might be better equipped to
explain the origin of God’s morality. I
shall try and explain God’s existence to you by an analogy: If you were to come across a house, would you
believe it to have been built by a carpenter or to have just randomly arranged
itself in order?
Socrates: I would most definitely believe the house to
have been built by a carpenter.
Abraham: Good, we are getting somewhere now. So we can agree that some creator must create
a complex object, correct?
Socrates: Indeed, we may.
Abraham: Well then Socrates, I know even you would not
argue the complexity of the human being with me, so by our analogy we may infer
that humans were created, by God.
Socrates: Very good Abraham. Yet, I feel you have overlooked a key point
in your analogy. By your reasoning God
must be more complex than us, so then he must also have a creator, and thus
this cycle goes on forever. Yet, if you
claim that God has always existed, then your analogy has become null because it
is just as feasible that the world has always existed without the creation by
God. Not to mention, I find no way in
which your analogy proved God’s morality.
If anything it just clouded the issue more.
Abraham: Socrates, you must be a heretic, for you do
not believe in God’s ultimate morality, and are unwilling to even accept
it. I pray to the Lord that you may be
saved and see his wisdom, but now I must go and do as the Lord bade me to do.
Socrates: Very well Abraham, do as you wish. But I do not believe it necessary for one to
call me such harsh words unfounded and just because I happen to disagree with
your present view on things.
© Dan Watson, 2001