Very sensible post. I've recently had a similar but kind of reversed question about classical theism (which I've been exposed to a lot at Notre Dame and the Catholic-dominated programs I've been at over the past few years). Since classical theism has it that God and the good are identical, and I believe in the good (I'm a moral realist), it seems at least possible that classical theism should have it that I'm already a theist, and only sort of mistakenly take myself to be an agnostic.
Some respond that an all-good, all-loving being like God would not or could not command such an action.[10] But that is likely to again reject DCT in favor of thinking that some actions are just wrong, pretty much no matter what: that’s why God could not or would not command them.[11]
Some deeper questions: why would God have a loving character rather than a “hating” character? Why would a loving being command some actions and not others? Again:
either there are reasons or not.[12]
If there are no reasons, then God’s being loving is arbitrary—God could have had an evil character. To many, this isn’t plausible.
But if there are reasons, is it because it is just good to be loving—perhaps because being loving promotes happiness, respect, and fairness? If so, then some things are good and bad, or right and wrong independently of God’s commands: so DCT is false.
Thanks for the engagement! I used to see this as you do and totally dismissed DCT. It now seems clear to me that was because I just didn’t understand the classical model of God, on which God is necessary. If God is necessary, then his nature is necessary: he couldn’t be hateful and unloving any more than a triangle could have four sides — and he couldn’t issue commands contrary to his own nature. You can talk about morality with talking about God, of course — just as you can talk about water without talking about H20.
The Euthyphro Dilemma has bite only if one presupposes that God is contingent, or has a contingent nature at least. But there are excellent reasons not to think about God in that way.
I don't see how metaphysical necessity helps. We can talk about water without talking about H2O only because they're associated with different reference-fixing descriptive properties. (See also my point about Clark Kent and Superman.) But any reference-fixing property essentially associated with a moral concept must, on pain of vacuity, be an irreducibly normative property. But then there are normative properties that exist independently of God.
“Smuggling” is a pretty standard turn of phrase in these contexts — I meant no offense, just that I didn’t see the bridge between the semantic point and the metaphysical conclusion you need — and I still don’t. Sure, we know a priori that enjoying undeserved suffering is bad. Why does our ability to know that independently of God do anything at all to show that its metaphysical ground is independent of God? Of course you won’t think that God grounds morality as an atheist! But I see no reason why a classical theist shouldn’t, which was my only point here — the Eythyphro Dilemma is no dilemma at all for a classical theist.
I explained the bridge: "We need enough properties to make sense of all the different ideas we can meaningfully talk about." These (distinct reference-fixing descriptions) are clearly present in uncontroversial examples of the necessary a posteriori. But the general principle places meaningful discipline on reductionist metaphysical posits. (It's the same principle why we should be suspicious of materialist reductions of consciousness: it doesn't leave us with enough distinct properties to explain the epistemic and explanatory gaps.)
> Why does our ability to know that [undeserved suffering is bad] independently of God do anything at all to show that its metaphysical ground is independent of God?
Epistemic closure principles. If the moral truth was explanatorily downstream of God's nature, and placed no constraints on the latter, then for all we know a priori, God's nature (and hence goodness) could be anything. But goodness can't, for all we know a priori, be anything. So it can't be explanatorily downstream of and unconstraining of God's nature.
I’m not proposing a reductive analysis of the concept of goodness in non-normative terms, just as I wouldn’t analyze consciousness in terms of non-conscious properties. I can grant that “good” is irreducibly normative and places substantive a priori constraints on its referent — and still hold that God/God’s nature satisfies those constraints.
I understand that the proposed reduction is metaphysical, not conceptual. Type-B materialists make a similar move, and I think it should provoke similar doubts.
Let's try a different tack: What do you see as the difference between the classical view that *identifies* goodness with God's nature and the view that God's nature *exemplifies* perfect goodness?
I've explained what I see as the advantages of the latter view, and how I distinguish it from the former. How do you distinguish them, and what advantage do you see to the identity view?
The version of the classical view that most completely shuts down the Euthyphro Dilemma holds that God just is the maximally perfect attributes, not that he instantiates certain attributes that are in some way distinct from him. That view gives us the simplest ontology — God grounds *everything*. It also honors and makes sense of a widespread intuition that objective morality is in some essential way connected up with God. There’s something really weird about atheistic non-naturalist normative realism, where there just these irreducibly normative reasons “floating around”, untethered to any mind. That was my view for many years, and it always seemed weird to me, too! And finally, the divine command theorist has a ready account of the authoritativeness of morality: morality flows from the ultimate authority.
A meta-point here: we could go back and forth about this all day about DCT any other normative or metaethical theory; puzzles abound for all of them. The only point I’m really committed to: it’s a bad mistake, and one that I made for about a decade, to dismiss DCT right off the bat because of the Euthyphro Dilemma.
I think you’re trying to smuggle a metaphysical conclusion out of what’s fundamentally a semantic point — all the divine command theorist needs to insist is that there are no irreducibly normative reasons metaphysically distinct from God. Put another way, given a classical model of God, all irreducibly normative reasons just are aspects of the divine nature; there aren’t possible worlds where they come apart from God — where you have reasons but no God.
I think I'm arguing rather than smuggling? We need enough properties to make sense of all the different ideas we can meaningfully talk about.
Given that the number 7 exists necessarily, there also aren't any possible worlds where you have reasons but no number 7. But that hardly suffices to show that morality is grounded in the number 7.
Classical theism at least adds the closer connection that God *instantiates* the property of moral perfection. It is an "aspect of the divine nature". But how do you determine, in a principled way, which is explanatorily prior?
Here's my test: If God's nature is explanatorily prior to goodness, then attributing goodness to God is epistemically vacuous: it places no qualitative constraints on what God is actually like. For all we know a priori, God could enjoy suffering and that would then be what constitutes goodness (as a matter of metaphysical necessity).
There's no possible world where God has a different nature than his actual one, of course, just as there's no possible world where water is other than H2O. But there are epistemically coherent scenarios, which, if we consider them "as actual", we would take water to (necessarily) be XYZ, and -- if God's nature determines goodness -- we would take the enjoyment of suffering to be good.
On the other hand, if we think that it's a priori that enjoying suffering is NOT good, and to call God truly "good" rules out (epistemically, not just metaphysically) scenarios in which God enjoys seeing innocent people suffer, then we are taking the nature of goodness to be explanatorily prior to, and properly constraining of (i.e. informative about), God's nature.
The latter view seems obviously preferable to me, and I'm not sure why any theist would want to disagree. Is there some weird assumption in the background that if God's nature is informatively "constrained" by goodness then that takes away from his power, or something? If so, I'd recommend abandoning that assumption, in the same way that you (presumably) don't take him to be *problematically* "constrained" by his inability to do the logically impossible.
What's the problem with taking God to respond (perfectly, by nature) to *independent* reasons?
You are just presupposing that Thomism is false! If Thomism is right, then we can know a priori (via the De Ente argument and conceptual analysis) that God is necessarily non-vacuously good. Because He is existence itself and existence is convertible with Goodness. So no, the Euthyphro dilemma doesn't re-arise for the essence of God if classical theism is true - this is essentially uncontroversial among people informed on the topic.
God could be necessarily non-vacuously good if we have an independent grasp on the property of goodness. If there's no independent property, then I don't see how labeling the view "Thomism" or calling it "uncontroversial" addresses the argument I gave. What are you attributing that's different from self-identity?
Sorry, I assumed that a philosophy professor knew what Thomism entails. Apparently not, though - which, on second thought, isn't surprising.
If Thomism is correct, then "X is good for a creature of kind Y" is equivalent to "X actualises the creature qua Y-ness". You can a priori see what kind of creature He has made you, therefore you can a priori see what is good for you and what is good for you is independently rooted in Him. How on Earth is there supposed to be any dilemma? There is none, as essentially everyone well-read on the literature agrees.
I don't see how that connects up to anything I wrote. To be as explicit as possible:
1. Either God’s nature matches a standard of goodness that we can grasp independently of any commitment to theism, or God’s essential nature, whatever that turns out to be, provides the substantive content of “goodness”.
2. If the former, then morality isn't grounded in theism (though theism may still be independently true).
3. If the latter, then attributing "goodness" to God is vacuous: it rules out no conceivable scenarios about what God prefers.
Can you clarify which of these three claims you reject (and why)?
I reject 2 because atheists can know what kind of creature they are despite not being aware that He makes them the kind of creature they are, and this tells us nothing about the grounding of morality.
The argument is incredibly confused because it mixes metaphysics and epistemology: Even if it were true that you could only know what is good for you if you are a theist, then NOTHING WHATSOEVER would follow from it when it comes to the grounding of what is in fact good for you. Again, this is an utterly trivial point.
Thanks for clarifying your view! I do explain a bit in footnote 1 (and the links provided therein) why I think there are important connections between metaphysics and epistemology. But it doesn't sound like you're enjoying the conversation much so I'm happy to leave it there.
I believe in such a thing as suffering and such a thing as wellbeing. I know both exist because I experience those things directly. One is a valenced preference, a revulsion or aversion, a conscious and intentional tending away, a longing to NOT, and with an awareness of what is the offending issue and knowing one wants it to not be or be less. I don’t think what makes ME suffering makes YOU suffering, but I do think the valenced wanting to not have something that is the case NOT be the case for reasons of extreme aversion, is what suffering is.
What’s tricky about experienced valence is sometimes it pays to put up with some “pain” to have more wellbeing, delayed wellbeing, etc. And some pleasure can lead to suffering. So we all try to balance our tradeoffs to reduce unnecessary suffering and increase wellbeing, as best we can, and as wisely as possible all things considered.
Thus, when I think of “God is good” it just the assertion that there is, in fact, a “best path” by my own standards, with regard to my own wellbeing and suffering. I just don’t know precisely what that path is. The assumption is God does know, and even that I’m already on it and just can’t see it, which itself is part of the best possible path for now.
God is the best possible interpretation for that which happens, and if we can see everything in that light that’s the best possible outcome.
Determinism is what it is, and all we have left is to also be determined to establish a God from whose perspective we can divine a kind of “good” framing that makes us feel ok about things.
That’s not trivial. That process IS ITSELF God in the realest and most consequential sense imaginable.
Yeah I guess I was kinda vague. I mean something like a theistic neo-Aristotelian/Thomist metaethics that sees morality as based on true claims about human nature and flourishing, but attribute this to God's design.
As an analogy, it's wrong to put diesel in my Hyundai, not just because Hyundai says so in the owners manual, but Hyundai is the author of the command and the designer of the car, so it's describing what is good for the car. I think this avoids the problem of the vacuous God=good self-identical attribution. But it might not avoid the substantive question argument.
(1) Is "human nature and flourishing" determined by our current intrinsic properties (i.e. independent of the historical supposition that God designed or created humanity)? If so, then I'd consider that a view on which the fundamental moral truths are independent of God, even if it's true that God's design was historically or causally responsible for our having the particular nature that we have. God could tell us the independent moral truths, and they'd still be independent in the relevant (metaphysical) sense.
If, on the other hand, God's *historical intentions* play an ineliminable role in determining our nature/flourishing, then I'd worry about arbitrariness worries arising again. (Could he intend for us to suffer, for example, and thereby make that a component of human "flourishing"?)
(2) On any descriptive characterization of a creature's "nature", it does seem an open question whether acting on that nature is actually good. For example, if humans had evolved (or were designed to possess) scorpion-like tails with which to poison our rivals, I don't think that would suffice to make poisoning our rivals a good thing.
(3) What content does this account give to 'goodness' when attributed to God himself? If it's just saying that he acts according to his nature, then that still sounds pretty vacuous to me.
P.S. You might also find Dominik's comments of interest — he's very confident that the concerns I'm raising don't apply to Thomism, though I wasn't personally convinced by his comments.
Many theists seem to want to say this, but I still haven't heard any explain what they are attributing to God when they call him "good". How is it different from attributing "his own nature (whatever that may be)"?
Historical commitments aside, I don't see why theists shouldn't prefer to embrace a God who meets *independent* objective standards of moral goodness/perfection.
Seems like Aquinas (and his followers) will have trouble thinking clearly then. The questions I'm asking are clearly meaningful ones. If you can't say anything informative about *what* you're attributing to God when you call him 'good', that seems like a problem! I recommend theists embrace my framework instead :-)
Very sensible post. I've recently had a similar but kind of reversed question about classical theism (which I've been exposed to a lot at Notre Dame and the Catholic-dominated programs I've been at over the past few years). Since classical theism has it that God and the good are identical, and I believe in the good (I'm a moral realist), it seems at least possible that classical theism should have it that I'm already a theist, and only sort of mistakenly take myself to be an agnostic.
I say or suggest the same thing here:
4. God’s Character
Some respond that an all-good, all-loving being like God would not or could not command such an action.[10] But that is likely to again reject DCT in favor of thinking that some actions are just wrong, pretty much no matter what: that’s why God could not or would not command them.[11]
Some deeper questions: why would God have a loving character rather than a “hating” character? Why would a loving being command some actions and not others? Again:
either there are reasons or not.[12]
If there are no reasons, then God’s being loving is arbitrary—God could have had an evil character. To many, this isn’t plausible.
But if there are reasons, is it because it is just good to be loving—perhaps because being loving promotes happiness, respect, and fairness? If so, then some things are good and bad, or right and wrong independently of God’s commands: so DCT is false.
https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2025/11/22/divine-command-theory/
Thanks for the engagement! I used to see this as you do and totally dismissed DCT. It now seems clear to me that was because I just didn’t understand the classical model of God, on which God is necessary. If God is necessary, then his nature is necessary: he couldn’t be hateful and unloving any more than a triangle could have four sides — and he couldn’t issue commands contrary to his own nature. You can talk about morality with talking about God, of course — just as you can talk about water without talking about H20.
The Euthyphro Dilemma has bite only if one presupposes that God is contingent, or has a contingent nature at least. But there are excellent reasons not to think about God in that way.
I don't see how metaphysical necessity helps. We can talk about water without talking about H2O only because they're associated with different reference-fixing descriptive properties. (See also my point about Clark Kent and Superman.) But any reference-fixing property essentially associated with a moral concept must, on pain of vacuity, be an irreducibly normative property. But then there are normative properties that exist independently of God.
“Smuggling” is a pretty standard turn of phrase in these contexts — I meant no offense, just that I didn’t see the bridge between the semantic point and the metaphysical conclusion you need — and I still don’t. Sure, we know a priori that enjoying undeserved suffering is bad. Why does our ability to know that independently of God do anything at all to show that its metaphysical ground is independent of God? Of course you won’t think that God grounds morality as an atheist! But I see no reason why a classical theist shouldn’t, which was my only point here — the Eythyphro Dilemma is no dilemma at all for a classical theist.
I explained the bridge: "We need enough properties to make sense of all the different ideas we can meaningfully talk about." These (distinct reference-fixing descriptions) are clearly present in uncontroversial examples of the necessary a posteriori. But the general principle places meaningful discipline on reductionist metaphysical posits. (It's the same principle why we should be suspicious of materialist reductions of consciousness: it doesn't leave us with enough distinct properties to explain the epistemic and explanatory gaps.)
> Why does our ability to know that [undeserved suffering is bad] independently of God do anything at all to show that its metaphysical ground is independent of God?
Epistemic closure principles. If the moral truth was explanatorily downstream of God's nature, and placed no constraints on the latter, then for all we know a priori, God's nature (and hence goodness) could be anything. But goodness can't, for all we know a priori, be anything. So it can't be explanatorily downstream of and unconstraining of God's nature.
I’m not proposing a reductive analysis of the concept of goodness in non-normative terms, just as I wouldn’t analyze consciousness in terms of non-conscious properties. I can grant that “good” is irreducibly normative and places substantive a priori constraints on its referent — and still hold that God/God’s nature satisfies those constraints.
I understand that the proposed reduction is metaphysical, not conceptual. Type-B materialists make a similar move, and I think it should provoke similar doubts.
Let's try a different tack: What do you see as the difference between the classical view that *identifies* goodness with God's nature and the view that God's nature *exemplifies* perfect goodness?
I've explained what I see as the advantages of the latter view, and how I distinguish it from the former. How do you distinguish them, and what advantage do you see to the identity view?
The version of the classical view that most completely shuts down the Euthyphro Dilemma holds that God just is the maximally perfect attributes, not that he instantiates certain attributes that are in some way distinct from him. That view gives us the simplest ontology — God grounds *everything*. It also honors and makes sense of a widespread intuition that objective morality is in some essential way connected up with God. There’s something really weird about atheistic non-naturalist normative realism, where there just these irreducibly normative reasons “floating around”, untethered to any mind. That was my view for many years, and it always seemed weird to me, too! And finally, the divine command theorist has a ready account of the authoritativeness of morality: morality flows from the ultimate authority.
A meta-point here: we could go back and forth about this all day about DCT any other normative or metaethical theory; puzzles abound for all of them. The only point I’m really committed to: it’s a bad mistake, and one that I made for about a decade, to dismiss DCT right off the bat because of the Euthyphro Dilemma.
I think you’re trying to smuggle a metaphysical conclusion out of what’s fundamentally a semantic point — all the divine command theorist needs to insist is that there are no irreducibly normative reasons metaphysically distinct from God. Put another way, given a classical model of God, all irreducibly normative reasons just are aspects of the divine nature; there aren’t possible worlds where they come apart from God — where you have reasons but no God.
I think I'm arguing rather than smuggling? We need enough properties to make sense of all the different ideas we can meaningfully talk about.
Given that the number 7 exists necessarily, there also aren't any possible worlds where you have reasons but no number 7. But that hardly suffices to show that morality is grounded in the number 7.
Classical theism at least adds the closer connection that God *instantiates* the property of moral perfection. It is an "aspect of the divine nature". But how do you determine, in a principled way, which is explanatorily prior?
Here's my test: If God's nature is explanatorily prior to goodness, then attributing goodness to God is epistemically vacuous: it places no qualitative constraints on what God is actually like. For all we know a priori, God could enjoy suffering and that would then be what constitutes goodness (as a matter of metaphysical necessity).
There's no possible world where God has a different nature than his actual one, of course, just as there's no possible world where water is other than H2O. But there are epistemically coherent scenarios, which, if we consider them "as actual", we would take water to (necessarily) be XYZ, and -- if God's nature determines goodness -- we would take the enjoyment of suffering to be good.
On the other hand, if we think that it's a priori that enjoying suffering is NOT good, and to call God truly "good" rules out (epistemically, not just metaphysically) scenarios in which God enjoys seeing innocent people suffer, then we are taking the nature of goodness to be explanatorily prior to, and properly constraining of (i.e. informative about), God's nature.
The latter view seems obviously preferable to me, and I'm not sure why any theist would want to disagree. Is there some weird assumption in the background that if God's nature is informatively "constrained" by goodness then that takes away from his power, or something? If so, I'd recommend abandoning that assumption, in the same way that you (presumably) don't take him to be *problematically* "constrained" by his inability to do the logically impossible.
What's the problem with taking God to respond (perfectly, by nature) to *independent* reasons?
You are just presupposing that Thomism is false! If Thomism is right, then we can know a priori (via the De Ente argument and conceptual analysis) that God is necessarily non-vacuously good. Because He is existence itself and existence is convertible with Goodness. So no, the Euthyphro dilemma doesn't re-arise for the essence of God if classical theism is true - this is essentially uncontroversial among people informed on the topic.
God could be necessarily non-vacuously good if we have an independent grasp on the property of goodness. If there's no independent property, then I don't see how labeling the view "Thomism" or calling it "uncontroversial" addresses the argument I gave. What are you attributing that's different from self-identity?
Sorry, I assumed that a philosophy professor knew what Thomism entails. Apparently not, though - which, on second thought, isn't surprising.
If Thomism is correct, then "X is good for a creature of kind Y" is equivalent to "X actualises the creature qua Y-ness". You can a priori see what kind of creature He has made you, therefore you can a priori see what is good for you and what is good for you is independently rooted in Him. How on Earth is there supposed to be any dilemma? There is none, as essentially everyone well-read on the literature agrees.
I don't see how that connects up to anything I wrote. To be as explicit as possible:
1. Either God’s nature matches a standard of goodness that we can grasp independently of any commitment to theism, or God’s essential nature, whatever that turns out to be, provides the substantive content of “goodness”.
2. If the former, then morality isn't grounded in theism (though theism may still be independently true).
3. If the latter, then attributing "goodness" to God is vacuous: it rules out no conceivable scenarios about what God prefers.
Can you clarify which of these three claims you reject (and why)?
I reject 2 because atheists can know what kind of creature they are despite not being aware that He makes them the kind of creature they are, and this tells us nothing about the grounding of morality.
The argument is incredibly confused because it mixes metaphysics and epistemology: Even if it were true that you could only know what is good for you if you are a theist, then NOTHING WHATSOEVER would follow from it when it comes to the grounding of what is in fact good for you. Again, this is an utterly trivial point.
Thanks for clarifying your view! I do explain a bit in footnote 1 (and the links provided therein) why I think there are important connections between metaphysics and epistemology. But it doesn't sound like you're enjoying the conversation much so I'm happy to leave it there.
Footnote 1 addresses divine command theorists, which is the exact opposite of Thomistic natural law! But I am very happy to leave it here, too.
I believe in such a thing as suffering and such a thing as wellbeing. I know both exist because I experience those things directly. One is a valenced preference, a revulsion or aversion, a conscious and intentional tending away, a longing to NOT, and with an awareness of what is the offending issue and knowing one wants it to not be or be less. I don’t think what makes ME suffering makes YOU suffering, but I do think the valenced wanting to not have something that is the case NOT be the case for reasons of extreme aversion, is what suffering is.
What’s tricky about experienced valence is sometimes it pays to put up with some “pain” to have more wellbeing, delayed wellbeing, etc. And some pleasure can lead to suffering. So we all try to balance our tradeoffs to reduce unnecessary suffering and increase wellbeing, as best we can, and as wisely as possible all things considered.
Thus, when I think of “God is good” it just the assertion that there is, in fact, a “best path” by my own standards, with regard to my own wellbeing and suffering. I just don’t know precisely what that path is. The assumption is God does know, and even that I’m already on it and just can’t see it, which itself is part of the best possible path for now.
God is the best possible interpretation for that which happens, and if we can see everything in that light that’s the best possible outcome.
Determinism is what it is, and all we have left is to also be determined to establish a God from whose perspective we can divine a kind of “good” framing that makes us feel ok about things.
That’s not trivial. That process IS ITSELF God in the realest and most consequential sense imaginable.
Interesting post. How does this apply to theistic moral naturalism?
Sorry, you'll have to explain what you have in mind by "theistic moral naturalism"?
Yeah I guess I was kinda vague. I mean something like a theistic neo-Aristotelian/Thomist metaethics that sees morality as based on true claims about human nature and flourishing, but attribute this to God's design.
As an analogy, it's wrong to put diesel in my Hyundai, not just because Hyundai says so in the owners manual, but Hyundai is the author of the command and the designer of the car, so it's describing what is good for the car. I think this avoids the problem of the vacuous God=good self-identical attribution. But it might not avoid the substantive question argument.
It might depend on a few further questions:
(1) Is "human nature and flourishing" determined by our current intrinsic properties (i.e. independent of the historical supposition that God designed or created humanity)? If so, then I'd consider that a view on which the fundamental moral truths are independent of God, even if it's true that God's design was historically or causally responsible for our having the particular nature that we have. God could tell us the independent moral truths, and they'd still be independent in the relevant (metaphysical) sense.
If, on the other hand, God's *historical intentions* play an ineliminable role in determining our nature/flourishing, then I'd worry about arbitrariness worries arising again. (Could he intend for us to suffer, for example, and thereby make that a component of human "flourishing"?)
(2) On any descriptive characterization of a creature's "nature", it does seem an open question whether acting on that nature is actually good. For example, if humans had evolved (or were designed to possess) scorpion-like tails with which to poison our rivals, I don't think that would suffice to make poisoning our rivals a good thing.
(3) What content does this account give to 'goodness' when attributed to God himself? If it's just saying that he acts according to his nature, then that still sounds pretty vacuous to me.
P.S. You might also find Dominik's comments of interest — he's very confident that the concerns I'm raising don't apply to Thomism, though I wasn't personally convinced by his comments.
Thanks for the thoughtful response. Will check out Dominck's comments and the normative property dualism paper you suggest in the linked article.
Many theists seem to want to say this, but I still haven't heard any explain what they are attributing to God when they call him "good". How is it different from attributing "his own nature (whatever that may be)"?
Historical commitments aside, I don't see why theists shouldn't prefer to embrace a God who meets *independent* objective standards of moral goodness/perfection.
Seems like Aquinas (and his followers) will have trouble thinking clearly then. The questions I'm asking are clearly meaningful ones. If you can't say anything informative about *what* you're attributing to God when you call him 'good', that seems like a problem! I recommend theists embrace my framework instead :-)
Oh no, am I talking to AI again?
Why are you posting AI generated text?