In the book, "The pig that wants to be eaten," the Euthyphro dilemma is posed this way:
And the Lord spake unto the philosopher, "I am the Lord thy God and I am the source of all that is good. Why does thy secular moral philosophy ignore me?"
And the philosopher spake unto the Lord, 'To answer I must first ask you some questions. You command us to do what is good. But is it good because you command it, or do you command it because it is good?"
"Ur", said the Lord, "It's good because I command it?"
"The wrong answer, surely, your mightiness! If the good is only good because you say it is so, then you could, if you wished, make it so that torturing infants was good. But that would be absurd, wouldn't it?"
"Of course!" replieth the Lord. "I tested thee and thou hast made me pleased. What was the other choice again?"
"You choose what is good because it is good. BUt that shows quite clearly that goodness does not depend on you at all. So we don't need to study God to study the good."
"Even so," spake the Lord, "you've got to admit I've written some pretty good textbooks on the subject..."
Source: Euthyphro by Plato (380 bce)
The author here is trying to make a point that "good" and "God" are not synonymous, and that "secular morality" exists-- i.e. there exists a universal definition of "good" and "evil" in which God is not involved. However, the argument presented is flawed and a contradiction by nature ... it's analogous to questions like, "Can God create a rock so heavy that he himself can't lift it?" or "If God is good, then how come there are hungry children who are dying every day?"
The argument is started with the assumption that torturing infants is not good. This is a clever mechanism of identifying with the reader's most fundamental instinct-- i.e. infants are innocent--- and turning this assumption into an axiom. But the problem with the argument is that it has no foundations to stand on. If the argument supposes that God is "good," and that torturing infants is "evil," then the question of God turning the definition of "evil" into "good" is a contradiction... in other words, the philosopher is theorizing the possibility that God would turn into an evil person, which is a contradiction of the initial assumption that God is "good."
On the other hand, if the argument supposes that secular morality exists, and that there is a universal definition of "good" and "evil", where did this definition come from? Did it come from God? Or was this definition somehow dropped into the primordial goo millions of years ago that eventually evolved into our DNA? If you're an atheist, probably the latter. My point is that the initial argument neither proves the existence of secular morality nor clarify its definition.
Lets take the supposition that torturing infants is "evil"... but what if that infant is Adolf Hitler? Would killing Adolf Hitler the infant be an "evil" act? or a "good" act? Of course, philosophers don't have the power of prophecy, so it's easy for them to say torturing infants are evil. God does have the power of prophecy.
In fact, the definition of "good" has already been shown in the Bible when God commanded Abraham to kill his son Isaac. It is good because God commanded it. What Abraham thinks of "good" and "evil" is irrelevant.
