Paradox

192 A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE PARADOXare rationalizations for propositions that must stand on faith.The light of logic exposes cracks in the foundations andreveals how much of Christianity rests on the grace of God.Intellectual pride prejudices theologians into acceptingflawed formulations of the problems they “solve.” Forinstance, Ockham thought Aquinas merely exploited formulationsof the problem of foreknowledge that make timeimportant. The real challenge lies in the fact that God’sabsolute power is determining our actions to the same degreethat it determines any other event.God’s omnipotence is not entirely bad news on theproblem-solving front. Ockham thinks God’s absolute powerexplains why God is not to blame for the evil in the world(since God knowingly and voluntarily created the world).Ockham accepts the divine command theory of ethics: Anaction owes its rightness solely to the fact that God approvesof it. An act owes its wrongness solely to the fact that Goddisapproves of it. Since God does exactly what he wills, hecannot do anything blameworthy. If God made a world worsethan the actual world, that gratuitous inferiority could not bethe basis for reproaching him.Although the divine command theory is so popular withlaymen that it tends to be presupposed rather than asserted,theologians are impressed with an objection Socrates mustersin the Euthyphro. Is an act pious because it pleases the gods orare the gods pleased because it is pious? If the gods approved ofcruelty would that make cruelty right? The divine commandtheorist cannot answer by saying that God would neverapprove of cruelty because cruelty is wrong. For under theirtheory, God’s approval of something makes it right.Instead of rushing to answer the Euthyphro dilemma,Ockham calmly pushes the dilemma to a logical extreme.