#67: Is Something Good Because God Commands It? | Nicholas D. Smith on Plato's Euthyphro

For 2,400 years, one question has quietly sat underneath almost every religious and philosophical debate about right and wrong: does God command something because it's good — or is it good simply because God commands it?

Plato staged this question in the Euthyphro, a short dialogue written just before Socrates' trial for impiety. In this episode, Socrates scholar Nicholas D. Smith — James F. Miller Professor Emeritus of Humanities at Lewis & Clark College and co-author of some of the most cited modern studies of Socratic philosophy — joins The Prometheans to unpack the dilemma that still structures debates in Christian natural law theory, Islamic theology's Mu'tazila–Ash'ari dispute, Jewish ethical thought, and contemporary secular metaethics alike.

Whether you come to this question from a mosque, a church, a synagogue, or a philosophy seminar, the Euthyphro dilemma asks something that doesn't let anyone off the hook: is morality something God reveals, or something God creates?

In this episode:

The setup of Plato's Euthyphro and why Socrates chose this moment to ask it

The dilemma itself, in plain terms

How the Islamic Mu'tazila and Ash'ari schools independently arrived at strikingly similar territory

Whether Aquinas, Leibniz, and modern philosophers have actually solved the dilemma — or just relocated it

What's existentially at stake in choosing a side

About the guest:

Nicholas D. Smith is a leading scholar of Socratic and Platonic philosophy, past President of the American Philosophical Association (Pacific Division), and co-author of Plato's Socrates, The Trial and Execution of Socrates, and Plato and the Trial of Socrates.

About The Prometheans:

The Prometheans is a philosophy and interfaith dialogue series hosted by Ali Zaka (AZD), exploring the biggest questions across Islamic, Christian, Jewish, and secular philosophical traditions — with intellectual seriousness and without sensationalism.