ecause it is a loved thing. It is a loved thing because people love it. Quickly, ‘holy’ or ‘good’ can become detached from ‘god-loved’. If ‘god-loved’ (or ‘god- willed’) were to mean exactly the same thing as ‘good’ then it would follow that if God wills something because it is good, then He must also will it because it is god-willed. Yet, as we’ve established that second statement is incongruous with the other types of action we’ve discussed (carrying seeing, etc.). By contrast, if what’s god-willed is merely god-willed because God wills it, then what’s good should also be good merely because god wills it. This second statement, again, seems out of touch with our common intuitions. Hence we arrive at the titular problem, ‘Is something good because God wills it, or does He will it because it is good?’. There are defendants of both possibilities and this essay will demonstrate the problems of each. The first horn, that something is good because God wills it, is open to a number of objections. First, there is the ‘anything goes’ argument. That is, if God so wills it, anything can become good. Torture is the classic example. If overnight God decided so, then conceivably torture could be decreed as good and thus encouraged. In fact, it could become morally wrong for us to do anything but go around torturing strangers. Such a possibility seems heavily counterintuitive. A theist might naturally say that God would never do such a thing, yet, simply the unlikelihood of such a state of affairs materialising seems a fairly unconvincing retort. Of course, one could point to an omnipotent God as responsible for those intuitions and accordingly, we could assume that were he to take such a course of action he must be doing it for some higher purpose beyond our comprehension. It’s important to note here that God’s benevolence and omniscience must be our motives for following him. As Williams notes, “if it is his power, or the mere fact that he created us, analogies with human kings or fathers […] leave us with the recognition that there are many kings and fathers who ought not to be obeyed”3 (Morality – An Introduction to Ethics, B. Williams, Chapter 8, p. 63). Indeed, an all-powerful ruler who created everything is not necessarily more worthy of obedience but simply harder to disobey. This benevolence, stemming from God’s omniscience, presents a pitfall for the first hornist. For, while God’s willing of acts making them moral maintains his omnipotence, it removes the sense of compassion, care and love that God has thus limiting him in another way. If whatever is willed is good, then God’s goodness is determined by his own submission to his will. However, this undermines the good of God himself, his nature. Having a will that arbitrarily legislates things as universally good seems more like the profile of a tyrant rather than a
