“You’re insane.”
“Perhaps I am, but for other reasons.”I’d shrugged.“Besides, insane does not imply incorrect. Regardless, you will be more careful now, will you not?”
She had been. Grudgingly. But without evidence—without me somehow convincing a vampyre to bare fangs or a shifter to sprout fur—I couldn’t prove anything to her definitively. She relied on my word, which in itself felt significant given the fucked-up rebirth card she’d been dealt.
“Perhaps,” I whispered my reply, my breath moving the hairs near her neck, “Thornwood has had his own experiences with the supernatural world, and that is the reasonwhyhe has devoted his time to occult studies?”
She nodded, thoughtful as a flush crept on her face.
I looked around the room and assessed the class. Roughly one hundred fifty students, their heartbeats creating a symphony of rhythm around us. Steady pulses, normal respiration, the scent of caffeine, stress, and cheap body spray.
“Professor Wright should be here any minute. . .” someone said from a few rows down.
“You meanshort king?” Her friend giggled as she threw out an elbow teasingly.
As if summoned by his name, the door beside the podium burst open with dramatic flair.
A man strode in with a hop to his steps, all theatrical energy and barely contained enthusiasm. He was younger than I’d expected—maybe mid-forties—with round wire-frame glasses and a burgundy velvet blazer over plaid navy dress pants. He waved to the room with both hands, his grin wide and genuine. “Students! What a glorious day! Thank you to those of you who brought your partners as instructed.”
He dropped a battered leather briefcase on the desk with a heavy thud, pulled out his lecture notes, and turned to the chalkboard. His handwriting was surprisingly elegant as he wrote in large, sweeping letters:
Plato’s Euthyphro Dilemma
I shifted in my seat, unable to suppress a small smile. “Oh, this will be good.”
A favorite topic of Charlie’s and mine during long evenings when I was being homeschooled. I was curious to see how Professor Wright would approach it.
“What—” Violet started, but Professor Wright turned back to face the class and began speaking with the energy of someone who genuinely loved his subject.
“As you all know, philosophy and religion are often intertwined in fascinating, complicated ways. In keeping with this week’s theme of moral foundations, we are diving into Plato’s classical problem.” He tapped the chalkboard with his chalk, leaving small white marks. “So, students, here is your question: Is something good because God commands it, or does God command itbecauseit is good?”
Murmurs rippled through the classroom, students leaning towards their partners.
“And we needed to bring friends for this?” Violet asked, genuinely confused.
“I want you to turn to your partner,” Professor Wright continued, his voice carrying easily through the space, “and explore this question together. What better way to bond than to discover your fundamental differences or surprising similarities? Create a Venn diagram with your answers, see where you overlap and where you diverge.” Even from our distance, I could see Professor Wright waggle his eyebrows with theatrical mischief. “Let the philosophical chaos commence!”
Violet turned to me, clearly put out by the assignment. She pulled out a sheet of notebook paper and a pen, drawing two overlapping circles with quick, efficient strokes. I watched her work, noting the way her hair fell forward as she concentrated, the way light from the windows caught on her crimson streaks and turned them to fire. I fought the urge to brush her hair away from her face, to tuck it behind her ear just for an excuse to touch her.
“So. . .” She tapped her pen against the paper. “Thoughts?”
I crossed my arms over my chest, settling back in my seat, enjoying her discomfort with this assignment. “You tell me first.”
She rolled her eyes—a full, exaggerated rotation—and wrote next to the left circle two words in large bold letters.
No God.
“There is no God,” Violet said. “Therefore, by default, morality is not tied to some type of divine command. We create morality through social contracts and our shared survival needs.”
“Interesting.” I leaned forward, reading her neat handwriting. The letters were precise, controlled, each one perfectly formed. “And where does that leave room for absolute moral truths?”
“It doesn’t. Morality is relative to culture, time period, and circumstances. What’s ‘good’ in one context might be ‘evil’ in another.”
“Then explain this,” I said as I leaned forward. “If gods exist—and theydo, Violet—and they created the concept of morality to benefit themselves, then what is ‘good’ is defined by whoever holds the most power at any given time. Divine command theory, but applied to polytheistic reality where gods war with each other and use mortals as chess pieces.”
She stared at me, considering my words, her brow furrowing. “Okay. But if gods determine morality without any external standard of goodness, then how do we know their commands are inherently good? What if they’re just. . . powerful and wrong?”
I smiled, feeling the familiar thrill of intellectual sparring. “We do not know. That is precisely the problem. Does a god’s omnipotence mean His commandscreatemorality, making anything He decrees automatically good by definition? Or does His nature—His supposed goodness—mean He only commands whatis alreadygood by some external standard?” I paused to watch her process before I continued. “And which God are we even discussing? The Christian singular God? The Greek pantheon? The Norse? Egyptian? Hindu? Each tradition has different answers.”
