Socrates encounters Euthyphro near the agora before his trial. Euthyphro is going to court to bring charges against his father, who he claims is guilty of the murder of a servant, who was himself guilty of murder. Euthyphro’s father left the servant bound in a ditch while he left to seek advice from the authorities, and the servant had died by the time he returned. Euthyphro is confident that his father is guilty of murder and must be brought to justice. Socrates is surprised at Euthyphro’s confidence, and maybe a bit scandalized at Euthyphro’s eagerness to condemn his own father. Euthyphro explains that he, like Socrates, bears the jealousy of others as a consequence of his ability to know the will of the gods. Socrates questions Euthyphro’s knowledge of the gods’ preferences, and this questioning forms the bulk of the dialogue.

Euthyphro argues that it is pious to prosecute the wrongdoer. When questioned how he defines piety, he explains that piety is to do what the gods themselves would do. Socrates points out that the gods are capricious and war with each other, which indicates that they have differences of opinion about right and wrong, and hence cannot be firm standards for right conduct. Socrates suggests that piety and impiety have no firm standard upon which to rest–in this way they are unlike weights and measures, which can be tested against a known standard and known objectively. Euthyphro says that the standard is obvious: people who commit murder should be punished–all of the gods would agree with this. Socrates agrees, but points out that defendants do not defend themselves by arguing that murder should go unpunished; rather, they agree that murder should be punished, but that they themselves ought to be found innocent.

Next, Socrates catches Euthyphro in a trap of causation. Euthyphro says that something is pious because it is loved by the gods. Socrates asks if the piousness of an action comes from its being loved by the gods, or if the gods love an action because of its piousness: “It is being loved then because it is pious, but it is not pious because it is being loved? … And yet it is something loved and god-loved because it is being loved by the gods? … Then the god-loved is not the same as the pious, Euthyphro, or the pious the same as the god-loved, as you say it is, but one differs from the other” (10). Is the pious pious because it is being loved, or is the pious being loved because it is pious? This is the contradiction at issue here.

Euthyphro gets frustrated and accuses Socrates of being tricky and twisting his words. Socrates gives a seeming diversion to explore a common sentiment that “where there is fear there is also shame.” Socrates disagrees and explains that some people feel fear of things that are not shameful. In short, he’s explaining a basic composition fallacy. How does this connect to the question of piety? He goes on to say that piety is part of justice. But which part? Euthyphro maintains that the pious part of justice is that which is concerned with care of the gods, while the remaining part of justice is concerned with care of men. Socrates asks him to define his terms–what is meant by “care”? That word probably changes meaning when it is pointed at the gods vs pointed at men. Using some animal examples, Socrates gets Euthyphro to agree that care means aiming at the good of the object for the object’s benefit. But then he trips up Euthyphro by asking him how our “care” could possibly benefit the gods. Euthyphro tries to wiggle out and say that he meant something different in using the word “care.” Socrates leads him through a final leg of the journey, confirming with Euthyphro that prayer is begging from the gods and sacrifice is making a gift to the gods, and that perhaps piety is the knowledge of how to do these things. He says, sounding to my ear like contemporary atheists, “Piety would then be a sort of trading skill between gods and men?” Euthyphro concedes, and says that honor and reverence please the gods, though they do not need such things, at which point Socrates informs him that he has arrived back at the definition of piety as “what is dear to the gods.”

Euthyphro is frustrated, and Socrates tries to engage him for further exploration of the topic, but Euthyphro has had enough.

The dialogue Euthyphro, like the other Socratic dialogues, is delightful to read mainly because of Socrates’ comical handling of his interlocutor. He reminds me a bit of Detective Columbo, who seems to be a clueless bungler, but who turns out in the end to have been on the right trail the entire time–an outcome constantly hinted at through the pointed questions aimed at the defendant. There’s something pleasing about this sort of exchange. Apart from the humorous dialogue and the satisfying outlining of a couple of logical fallacies, Euthyphro offers also some food for thought about religious matters. In particular, it raises questions about the interactions between gods (God, in our case) and man. In the Catholic Church, we offer our thanksgiving to God in the Eucharist, and so would maybe be vulnerable to Socrates’ observation that giving something to the gods, who themselves need nothing, seems absurd. But Catholic teaching anticipates this objection–we start from the premise that God needs nothing from us. Rather, his nature is wholly good and defined by love. No caprice in his nature (as long as you selectively ignore sections of the old testament). Further, there’s a strange sort of dynamic at work in the act of giving to God in the Eucharist. First, the Eucharist is God himself. So we’re basically offering back to God the gift he gave us, which is himself (God the Son). Secondly, the next thing that happens after the priest at the mass offers the Eucharist to God (while we all affirm that making the offering is “truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give thanks” to God) is that we receive the Eucharist ourselves. We return the gift that God gave us, and he returns it back to us again. Such a strange dynamic, but this is the nature of a loving relationship–a constant giving and receiving in love, while the gift itself becomes amplified by the exchange.

Far from logically coherent, this sort of exchange between man and God is truly best conceptualized as “the mystery of faith.” But are we fortunate enough to avoid the missteps taken by Euthyphro? That depends on denomination and catechesis, I expect. I’ve heard many different understandings of the meaning and purpose of sacrificing to the Christian God. Protestants, for example, have no Eucharist, so that certainly changes their understanding of sacrifice. And there are Catholics who have all sorts of different views on the “economy” of faith. I have a suspicion that the big-hitter theologians like Von Balthasar and Ratzinger have outlined this idea in its most developed form, but I’m new to the faith and haven’t had time to dive into those deep pools yet. My suspicion hinges on their having read widely and deeply in philosophy, such that they would be knowledgeable and alert to logical missteps. But then again, Euthyphro knew a thing or two about Socrates, and his estimation of his own understanding and logical support was overstated. So the best I can do is to slowly encounter these arguments and try to make some sense of them. And while I do so, I will continue, like Socrates and Euthyphro both, to have faith in the Truth. I pray that I will have the ability to follow it faithfully.