From the Euthyphro to Theodicy: The Problem of Language and God

Beginning with the Euthyphro and continuing with reference to the Cratylus, Plato’s Socrates introduces and repeatedly confronts the problem of defining terms that humans—specifically, his fellow Athenians—use every day, without considering what the terms really mean. The aporetic outcome of the Cratylus underscores the abiding problematic of language as an instrument for the dialogue necessary to philosophy. The particular focus of the Euthyphro, on piety/ holiness (hosiotes) and its definitionally desperate connection to divinity, offers a turn from philosophy to theology and carries the discussion from Plato to the text of Ex 3:14 and the problematic of God’s name. In turn this leads to the discussion by Levinas in his essay “God and Philosophy” of the juxtaposition and hierarchy of philosophy and theology—by way of the question of whether human language can ever function as well as we hope or imagine it might or does in conveying what the sort of God in which the Abrahamic faiths believe is, and whether It can ever be effectively expressed or understood. This also leads down a path parallel to that of Socrates by way of Genesis 6 (the problem of evil and thus of divinely-ordained ethics) and all the way to Job and the problem of theodicy (why the innocent suffer in a world made by such a God)—and to the challenge and obligation to ask questions, even—especially—those without answers.