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Full Idea
Those who maintain that God acts in all things with a view of promoting what is good are very far from the truth. For they seem to set up something beyond God, which does not depend on God, but which God looks to as an exemplar or goal.
Gist of Idea
To say that God promotes what is good is false, as it sets up a goal beyond God
Source
Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], I Pr 33)
Book Ref
Spinoza,Benedict de: 'Ethics, Improvement of Understanding, Letters', ed/tr. Elwes,R [Dover 1955], p.74
A Reaction
That is, Spinoza agrees with Euthyphro, and disagrees with Socrates (see Idea 337). Personally I agree with Socrates, but then I am not 'intoxicated with God' as Spinoza was. If God isn't good, why worship Him?
Related Idea
Idea 337 It seems that the gods love things because they are pious, rather than making them pious by loving them [Plato]
| 1662 | A new concept of God as unswerving goodness emerges from Socrates' commitment to virtue [Vlastos on Socrates] |
| 2058 | God must be the epitome of goodness, and we can only approach a divine state by being as good as possible [Plato] |
| 6291 | No one is good except God [Jesus] |
| 8140 | God is love [John] |
| 8141 | He that does evil has not seen God [John] |
| 5757 | God is the supreme good, so no source of goodness could take precedence over God [Boethius] |
| 5758 | God is the good [Boethius] |
| 4825 | To say that God promotes what is good is false, as it sets up a goal beyond God [Spinoza] |
| 6250 | We say God is good if we think everything he does aims at the happiness of his creatures [Hutcheson] |
| 8105 | We can't exactly conceive virtue without the idea of God [Joubert] |
| 23816 | Attention to a transcendent reality motivates a duty to foster the good of humanity [Weil] |
| 23754 | The only choice is between supernatural good, or evil [Weil] |
| 22345 | Moral philosophy needs a central concept with all the traditional attributes of God [Murdoch] |
| 20702 | The goodness of God may be a higher form than the goodness of moral agents [Davies,B] |