Reading Plato’s Euthyphro raises the question of tradition and what’s new. Euthyphro and Socrates both have something new about them. Through these two characters Plato seems to purposely juxtapose as similar and different philosophy and what in today’s terms would be called a religious man. Euthyphro is a diviner. The Greek word would not be “religious” but pious, holy, or righteous. So I ask again, what is piety? What is philosophy? Are they the same?
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Paul, your post or rather what it refers to is interesting and thanks for it but I think it would be more helpful to go more step by step through the arguments.
1. Everyone knows that any believers in the God of the Bible be they Christian, Jew, or Islam would not accept any authority above God for determining what is good.
2. Jesus saying he is right is hardly a way to determine if he was or not, even if he is part of the trinity. Or as you write, "Christ states that His own claim is not sufficiently credible to persuade the thinking man apart from other testimony." You begin inside the same dilemma about the truth of the bible trying to quote it as proof of anything but the dilemma in this case is from hermeneutics.
3. This points to the related and interesting question of what is the relationship of reason to faith, which in the long run is in my opinion what Plato is pointing at through the Euthyphro but in the Greek context is reason and poetry.
You really need to reconsider my question of this blog in the context that Socrates is trying to stop Euthyphro from making a mistake. Be careful how you separate Plato's dialog from the context it presents. You say, "Socrates barely touched upon the two questions he raised with Euthyphro. Instead the philosopher satisfied himself by demonstrating that this man, who claimed "exact knowledge" of religion and piety, was thoroughly confused about such matters. Euthyphro, who was a symbol of the masses devoted to Zeus, et al., could hardly understand, let alone address, the dilemma." If Socrates' own interest was in showing that Euthyphro did not know what he claimed to know and that was it, philosophy would not me piety. If Socrates was showing care for Euthyphro trying to stop him from prosecuting his father for murder under such dubious circumstances, five years after the fact, then philosophy may be piety after all. You seem to only have taken from the dialog the logical dilemma. My point would be that Plato may have found a way to answer the dilemma through other means than logical wrangling. You seem unaware that Plato's answer might be "justice as a good thing, as care" and not as merely victory.
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