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Author Topic:   Euthypro Dilemna
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7799
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 106 of 181 (538906)
12-11-2009 1:09 PM
Reply to: Message 104 by iano
12-11-2009 9:09 AM


For example, one can hold up a concoction of ingredients and say that this concoction is also known as Coca-Cola. Similarily, God holds up Gods motivations, actions, nature, etc. and says these are also known as 'good'.
It's also a word used to describe actions of those of us who act in accord with Gods will (as as result of Gods influence). 'Good' produced under licence, as it were, by those made in the image and likeness of God.
Assuming that everything that Good is in accord with Gods Will and that everything that is accordance with Gods Will is Good then you haven't escaped the conundrum, just reworded it. It still means the same thing as 'that which is good is good' or 'That which is Gods will is Gods Will'.
It would be like saying 'This is Coke' and someone asking 'What is?', "This collection of Chumbra, Rhumbra and Chrumba I hold in my hand". 'What on earth is Chumbra, Rhumbra and Chrumba?', comes the reply. "Coke', the answer. So 'this thing that is Coke is Coke'? Thanks, great work there.
I'd like to know, what motivates god to do as he does? Are we agreed that he doesn't do things because they are the right thing to do?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 104 by iano, posted 12-11-2009 9:09 AM iano has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 107 by iano, posted 12-11-2009 3:11 PM Modulous has replied

  
iano
Member (Idle past 1931 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 107 of 181 (538925)
12-11-2009 3:11 PM
Reply to: Message 106 by Modulous
12-11-2009 1:09 PM


Modulous writes:
Assuming that everything that Good is in accord with Gods Will and that everything that is accordance with Gods Will is Good then you haven't escaped the conundrum, just reworded it. It still means the same thing as 'that which is good is good' or 'That which is Gods will is Gods Will'.
I thought I had escaped the condundrum by inserting the notion "aka". The original conundrum asks "how do you know what God does is good?". The answer is; "what God does" is aka "good". That's how I know.
It would be like saying 'This is Coke' and someone asking 'What is?', "This collection of Chumbra, Rhumbra and Chrumba I hold in my hand". 'What on earth is Chumbra, Rhumbra and Chrumba?', comes the reply. "Coke', the answer. So 'this thing that is Coke is Coke'? Thanks, great work there.
But we're not dealing with Chumbra, Rhumbra or even Chrumba. We're dealing with eg: God (a person) expressing (a concept we all understand) wrath (another concept we understand) against (in opposition to, contra) evil (evil=that which opposes God's will).
Those ingredients, not at all Mumbo Chumbro, are aka 'good'
-
I'd like to know, what motivates god to do as he does?
His nature, I am supposing. His nature seems to oppose that which is contra his nature. Like a positive wave tending to cancel a negative one. Our own idea of good seems to follow suit. Because we love children we hate that which is anti-loving children. We hate paedophilia thus. What motivates our doing as we do regarding paedophilia? Our natures, it seems (in the case we hate paedophilia)
-
Are we agreed that he doesn't do things because they are the right thing to do?
By 'right' you presumably mean 'good'. But if we insert good as an 'aka' then we are left with "God does thing because they are the things he does". Which I suppose is the case - but it doesn't tell us anything useful.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 106 by Modulous, posted 12-11-2009 1:09 PM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 108 by DevilsAdvocate, posted 12-11-2009 4:07 PM iano has replied
 Message 110 by Modulous, posted 12-11-2009 6:47 PM iano has replied

  
DevilsAdvocate
Member (Idle past 3091 days)
Posts: 1548
Joined: 06-05-2008


Message 108 of 181 (538937)
12-11-2009 4:07 PM
Reply to: Message 107 by iano
12-11-2009 3:11 PM


I thought I had escaped the condundrum by inserting the notion "aka". The original conundrum asks "how do you know what God does is good?". The answer is; "what God does" is aka "good". That's how I know.
That is not an answer. That is like saying how do I know the Easter Bunny is good? Because good is what the Easter Bunny does? You can plug anything you want into this logical fallacy and it would still make absolutely no sense and be a logical fallacy of arguing using circular reasoning.
But we're not dealing with Chumbra, Rhumbra or even Chrumba. We're dealing with eg: God (a person) expressing (a concept we all understand) wrath (another concept we understand) against (in opposition to, contra) evil (evil=that which opposes God's will).
Those ingredients, not at all Mumbo Chumbro, are aka 'good'
Why?
His nature, I am supposing. His nature seems to oppose that which is contra his nature. Like a positive wave tending to cancel a negative one. Our own idea of good seems to follow suit. Because we love children we hate that which is anti-loving children. We hate paedophilia thus. What motivates our doing as we do regarding paedophilia? Our natures, it seems (in the case we hate paedophilia)
Ahh, there is the crux. We can speak of our nature because we know our own nature. However, you have no method for determining much less judging God's nature because he is an absolute and is supposedly not subject to our morals or our concept of goodness. Like I said before if he told you to wear pink underwear and jump off a bridge, or murder your own children, or anything else you as a human would think is immoral or wrong, as a Christian you would have no leg to stand on to question him.
By 'right' you presumably mean 'good'. But if we insert good as an 'aka' then we are left with "God does thing because they are the things he does". Which I suppose is the case - but it doesn't tell us anything useful.
Than why do you and all the religious people call your God's behavior good? The concept of 'good' definately means something apart from God to Christians, otherwise you would not be calling God's actions good. Again why is God's behavior good?
Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection
"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

This message is a reply to:
 Message 107 by iano, posted 12-11-2009 3:11 PM iano has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 109 by New Cat's Eye, posted 12-11-2009 4:20 PM DevilsAdvocate has replied
 Message 113 by iano, posted 12-13-2009 2:16 PM DevilsAdvocate has replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 109 of 181 (538939)
12-11-2009 4:20 PM
Reply to: Message 108 by DevilsAdvocate
12-11-2009 4:07 PM


Than why do you and all the religious people call your God's behavior good?
Catholics don't say that god is omnibenevolent.
We are taught that he is Just.
just sayin'....FYI

This message is a reply to:
 Message 108 by DevilsAdvocate, posted 12-11-2009 4:07 PM DevilsAdvocate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 147 by DevilsAdvocate, posted 12-31-2009 3:44 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7799
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 110 of 181 (538951)
12-11-2009 6:47 PM
Reply to: Message 107 by iano
12-11-2009 3:11 PM


I thought I had escaped the condundrum by inserting the notion "aka". The original conundrum asks "how do you know what God does is good?". The answer is; "what God does" is aka "good". That's how I know.
No. AKA doesn't change anything. It's the same thing using different words.
But we're not dealing with Chumbra, Rhumbra or even Chrumba. We're dealing with eg: God (a person) expressing (a concept we all understand) wrath (another concept we understand) against (in opposition to, contra) evil (evil=that which opposes God's will).
Right, and in Coke we are talking about Coke also being known as 'Chumbra, Rhumbra and Chrumba' because those are the names for the ingredients that the CEO of Coke has come up with.
Coke = God's will.
Chumbra, Rhumbra and Chrumba = good.
If you want you could also add 'Krfumpa' and define it as everything that doesn't go into Coke. It doesn't change things I'm afraid.
I'd like to know, what motivates god to do as he does?
His nature, I am supposing.
So he does the things he does because he wants to do the things he does?
Sounds useless to me.
The definition of 'nature' here is probably important, and I think you show the flaws in your definition:
Our own idea of good seems to follow suit. Because we love children we hate that which is anti-loving children. We hate paedophilia thus. What motivates our doing as we do regarding paedophilia? Our natures, it seems (in the case we hate paedophilia)
Well, technical point I don't hate paedophilia. I do hate child abuse, so I'll roll with that instead.
What motivates my actions and reactions to child abuse? The fact that I consider it morally wrong.
This is not an answer, as I think you agree, that God can give.
Are we agreed that he doesn't do things because they are the right thing to do?
By 'right' you presumably mean 'good'. But if we insert good as an 'aka' then we are left with "God does thing because they are the things he does". Which I suppose is the case - but it doesn't tell us anything useful.
So we're agreed on that much. So he doesn't do it because it's what he does (or at least, that means nothing so we ignore that). He doesn't do it because it is morally right. So why does he do it?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 107 by iano, posted 12-11-2009 3:11 PM iano has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 112 by iano, posted 12-13-2009 11:31 AM Modulous has replied

  
Otto Tellick
Member (Idle past 2320 days)
Posts: 288
From: PA, USA
Joined: 02-17-2008


Message 111 of 181 (539087)
12-13-2009 12:57 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Teapots&unicorns
11-28-2009 2:50 PM


I would have responded sooner, but it took a while for me to organize my thoughts on this. Some of the content on this thread has been helpful in that regard, although a fair bit of it strikes me as missing something important about the OP's original question:
"Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God?"
As I understand it, this can be paraphrased as: Do we assert that a deity is the primary and sole source for creating / defining / authorizing "what is moral?" Or is there instead some independent source of morality, in terms of logical necessity, natural entailment or whatever, such that any deity, properly receiving our worship and devotion, would inescapably express support for some particular set of human behaviors, and/or express firm disfavor for certain other behaviors?
Most of the discussion seems to circle around the relationship between the deity and morality, but I think this evades a more important aspect of Socrates' initial query. His question was posed to a person who was about to pursue a course of action on the basis of some moral criterion, so the force of the question, it seems to me, was: How do you, Euthyphro, declare and confirm your pursuit to be a morally correct one?
This fellow is about to plead his case before a tribunal, seeking a particular outcome -- that his own father be convicted of manslaughter, because the father, in effect, killed someone without justification -- and in order to get this outcome, Euthyphro must convince other people (the judges) that his cause is right.
At this point we leave the original Greek story, because we're talking now about how morality relates to a monotheistic deity -- or, more to the point, how believers in such a deity establish their basis for moral behavior.
The key problem for the believers, as I see it, is the very property that they themselves attribute so routinely to the deity: no matter what else we may know about God, He is unknowable.
Of course, believers can (and generally do) claim that they know enough to base their moral code on what God has revealed in one way or another. Still, the crux of the problem is in how they know these things -- how they actually figure out what the "truth" is. In a nutshell, the possibilities are:
  • Personal revelation: a single believer has a sense of personal communication with or from God. This is the most problematic, both for the individual and for the society within which s/he behaves, when the personal commitment to "obeying God" runs counter to the dominant religious or political rules currently in effect. Is the resulting conflict a matter of personal insanity or societal injustice? There can be no absolute religious basis for resolving the matter, because there is no shared religious experience between the individual and the larger group.
  • Group consensus: whether through egalitarian discussion or general agreement with a leader's proposal, a group of like-minded believers accepts a position based on whatever factors they consider necessary and/or sufficient. The factors may include scripture (N.B.: as interpreted by this group), someone's recent dream, some seemingly relevant "omen", etc, taken alone or in combination. No problem here, until this group comes into conflict with some other group (or individual) that has taken an incompatible position, at which point there is generally no common religious basis for resolving a dispute.
  • Hierarchical authority over a group: regardless of possibly differing opinions or inequitable effects among a governed population, some autocratic body (individual or committee) is able to claim and exercise the authority to interpret and enforce God's moral code. As with group consensus, the basis for a given decision may be the "resident interpretation" of scripture, dreams, omens, etc. However, the conflation of "moral" authority with the economic and political power wielded by this same body cannot be ignored as a possible (in fact frequent) corrupting factor, when it comes to establishing a "religious" basis for a chosen "moral code."
We can describe it as a problem of communication, where the decisive party in the exchange is immaterial, leaving no overt evidence of a message available to anyone who was not directly involved in the exchange. Each of the alternatives above is susceptible to the kinds of scenarios discussed earlier in this thread -- such as this one from Arphy's Message 33:
Arphy writes:
If God tells you to kill something then this is not incorrect because everything belongs to God therefore he is the appropriate authourity who can give and take away as he sees fit.
and this one from iano's Message 52:
iano writes:
What is moral is linked to what is good. If the definition of good is "that which God does (which stems from God's attributes/nature)" then rape and murder (were it that he approved of those things), would be morally okay too.
Does it come as any sort of surprise that divine authority has been invoked in various cases by individuals, consenting groups and autocracies, for rape and murder?
Believers can say whatever they want about the "constancy" of God as moral foundation. The limits of this "constancy" are amply revealed in the profusion of sectarian differences about what "the one true God" commands people to do or not do.
In fact, when you look at the overall situation in an objective way, it turns out that the "constancy" of any religious foundation for morality is effectively limited to the set of "morals" that all religions and sects seem to agree on -- that is, the set for which there must be some objective basis that extends across all human cultures, the set that are commonly associated with religious doctrine simply because they are intrinsic to the human condition.
To cite just this commonality as "proof" of the existence of a Creator, who also happens to reveal his active interest and intent for mankind through revelation, is a specious argument, unless you further assert that this Creator is really "agnostic" about how It should be worshipped by the people It created. Hindu? Buddhist? Jew? Muslim? Catholic? Baptist? Mormon? 7th Day Adventist? Makes no difference, so long as you follow the Golden Rule. {AbE: -- Oh yeah, and don't forget: This Creator really does care equally and personally about all of you, even when one of you prays for, or carries out, the elimination of another. If that seems crazy or meaningless, well now, you just don't really know much about this Creator, do you?} That would be a very interesting deity, indeed.
Edited by Otto Tellick, : added to last paragraph, as indicated

autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Teapots&unicorns, posted 11-28-2009 2:50 PM Teapots&unicorns has not replied

  
iano
Member (Idle past 1931 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 112 of 181 (539155)
12-13-2009 11:31 AM
Reply to: Message 110 by Modulous
12-11-2009 6:47 PM


Modulous writes:
No. AKA doesn't change anything. It's the same thing using different words.
Which leaves us with a different dilemma.
The word good is meaningless outside the meaning attached to the words used to describe and define "good". Good becomes a shorthand symbol for that longer definition. But all the words used to describe and define good are themselves only shorthand symbols for longer definitions made up of yet more words. As far as language goes then, it’s either turtles all the way down without end. Or we end up with self-referencing definitions. Or we realise that words are elements of language that have no meaning - outside the physical/spiritual occurances to which they are attached.
So at some point, there wasn’t a word for the physical occurance whereby a tear drop ran down a face (or a word for teardrop or a word for face). And at some subsequent point, the word crying was attached to that physical occurance. Crying has no meaning outside the physical occurance and it’s prime meaning isn’t the other words used to define it, the prime meaning is the physical occurance itself.
Similarily, we are supposing, the word ‘good’ was attached to the flavour associated with Gods’ actions, with the physical occurance and flavour of Gods actions being the primary means of attaching meaning to the word ‘good’ - not other words such as "action" and "flavour".
AKA "good" should be seen in that light.
-
So he does the things he does because he wants to do the things he does? Sounds useless to me.
That wasn’t really what I meant (although wanting to do things strikes me as the only reason anyone does anything at root - whatever the source of their want happens to be)
I said that he is motivated by his nature. Well, if an aspect of God’s nature is love then that will form motivation for what he does - given that the nature of a nature tends towards self expression.
Outside of that, you only appear to be asking why is God the way God is.
-
The definition of 'nature' here is probably important, and I think you show the flaws in your definition:
Gods definition seems a good one. I am what I am. We can go on to apply more words to expand on this but you can’t get more succinct than this when dealing with the source of everything.
-
Well, technical point I don't hate paedophilia. I do hate child abuse, so I'll roll with that instead. What motivates my actions and reactions to child abuse? The fact that I consider it morally wrong. This is not an answer, as I think you agree, that God can give.
Morally wrong is merely another way of describing ‘evil’ (from my perspective). God doesn’t hate evil because it’s evil (which would be circular). He hates evil because it is his nature to hate that which is contra-Gods will.
There is a "because" involved in your case due to the fact that your position is a derivative of his. You hate because God hates. That this connection goes through various currency exhanges which appear to dissociate you from God doesn't alter that being the case.
God hates because that is his nature. You share his nature. Therefore you hate. And you call the reason "morally wrong". But the title change doesn't alter the source of your hatred.
-
So we're agreed on that much. So he doesn't do it because it's what he does (or at least, that means nothing so we ignore that). He doesn't do it because it is morally right. So why does he do it?
Because, like I say, it is his nature. God is love and loves because of that. God is wrath against that which is contra-God. And so he expresses wrath. God is creative, and so he creates. He says of himself I am that which I am
Which doesn’t leave a whole lot to say about that which might lie upstream of that statement. Which is what you’d expect when you arrive at the source.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 110 by Modulous, posted 12-11-2009 6:47 PM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 114 by Modulous, posted 12-13-2009 2:41 PM iano has replied

  
iano
Member (Idle past 1931 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 113 of 181 (539180)
12-13-2009 2:16 PM
Reply to: Message 108 by DevilsAdvocate
12-11-2009 4:07 PM


Devils Advocate writes:
That is not an answer. That is like saying how do I know the Easter Bunny is good? Because good is what the Easter Bunny does? You can plug anything you want into this logical fallacy and it would still make absolutely no sense and be a logical fallacy of arguing using circular reasoning.
The top of the previous post to Modulous above should address this. If "the flavour of Gods doings" is defined by the word "good" then the problem lies in your dilemmas set up (which doesn't accept this definition: a problem for you, not me.)
Indeed, there is a certain flaw pervading all your posting in this matter - having to do with insisting on your definition of good as a way of countering mine. Watch for it here.
-
We're dealing with eg: God (a person) expressing (a concept we all understand) wrath (another concept we understand) against (in opposition to, contra) evil (evil = that which opposes God's will).
Those ingredients, not at all Mumbo Chumbro, are aka 'good'
Why?
According to the general flow of language, there appears to be no objecting to the notion that some word or other is inserted as a shorter way of expressing that made up by a longer string of words. "good" as a way of expressing the action of God above was Gods choice, it seems.
It wouldn't matter if he had chosen 'zog' instead of 'good'. In that case, God expressing wrath again evil would be a "zog" thing to do.
-
Ahh, there is the crux. We can speak of our nature because we know our own nature. However, you have no method for determining much less judging God's nature because he is an absolute and is supposedly not subject to our morals or our concept of goodness.
Who am I to judge God? And would my deciding to erect a standard against which to judge him matter a jot? I'm subject to him. Not him to me.
And given that he is the source of everthing (even evil, in the once step removed manner of creating a free will) how could we manage to erect a standard to judge other than he would judge himself. Without being mistaken I mean?
-
Like I said before if he told you to wear pink underwear and jump off a bridge, or murder your own children, or anything else you as a human would think is immoral or wrong, as a Christian you would have no leg to stand on to question him.
Remember that what I think of as moral doesn't differ with what God says is moral. There is no me as a human/me as a Christian divide. Whilst you are correct to say that I am confined to doing as God says (assuming it is him doing the telling) you are free to do whatever you like whilst calling it moral. Which extends to eating your children if you like..
Who's to argue with you - other folk who happen to disagree with your view on morality. I think not.
-
Than why do you and all the religious people call your God's behavior good? The concept of 'good' definately means something apart from God to Christians, otherwise you would not be calling God's actions good. Again why is God's behavior good?
Good has taken on a meaning equating to words like "positive", "beneficial", "feels nice" etc. In other words, "goodness" is something experienced along the lines indicated by those words. And so we say what God does is good because we experience his actions in that way - even if at times the goodness of his actions is masked by apparent unpleasantness (in the case of his disciplining us)
Edited by iano, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 108 by DevilsAdvocate, posted 12-11-2009 4:07 PM DevilsAdvocate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 115 by DevilsAdvocate, posted 12-13-2009 3:48 PM iano has not replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7799
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 114 of 181 (539184)
12-13-2009 2:41 PM
Reply to: Message 112 by iano
12-13-2009 11:31 AM


The word good is meaningless outside the meaning attached to the words used to describe and define "good". Good becomes a shorthand symbol for that longer definition. But all the words used to describe and define good are themselves only shorthand symbols for longer definitions made up of yet more words. As far as language goes then, it’s either turtles all the way down without end. Or we end up with self-referencing definitions. Or we realise that words are elements of language that have no meaning - outside the physical/spiritual occurances to which they are attached.
OK - I agree that ultimately all language is somewhat circular - but there are some definitions which, as you agreed are 'nonsensical'.
A more useful definition would be something that wasn't just examples. A more general principle so that a novel situation can be analysed so that we can decide if an action is good or not based on some overarching principle or criteria.
Perhaps an example will show you.
It can be argued that God killed people and that we should be cool with this because it was toward some end (he caused Jesus to die to relieve suffering or to pay a ransom or whatever). So it is moral to kill someone toward some end (since it God did it it must be good). But not all ends.
So to which ends?
If Jesus died to relieve the suffering of all of mankind by providing salvation, does that mean it is morally good to kill someone to relieve the suffering of one person? Or does it have to be two people? What if the suffering person is the one that is killed? What if it was to relieve the suffering of a million people?
One method might be to put yourself in the shoes of every person affected by the decision and see if in that position you would still be happy with the consequences. If you were one of those that had to die, would you agree with the decision? If it were a loved one that had to die? A sort of categorical imperative as it were.
Now, even if we regard 'good' as being 'God's will' or not - this gives us a way of knowing what it actually is. It gives us something to go on as to what in this world is 'good'.
A more Christian example might underscore the point, and you might argue it is a Christian phrasing of the same imperative outlined above.
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Extrapolating your position here is how I see you arguing:
quote:
It is God's will that thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself - therefore it is good. Which is what I've been saying all along.
But I remind you that this is nonsense. It is fine to say
quote:
It is God's will that thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself
and
quote:
It is good to love thy neighbour as thyself
OK.
So we can define a certain moral philosophy as being 'God's will' and we can define God's will to be 'good'.
Somebody presents this moral philosophy and I ask "Why should I love my neighbour as myself?"
You would have to answer, ultimately,
"The reason is because if you don't follow it there will be negative consequences after you die."
Now - this strikes at a certain grammatical ambiguity surrounding 'why'. There are at least two ways to answer this question:
Motivation: What is my motivation for doing that? (Oh yeah? Why should I?)
Justification: What is the purpose for or reasoning behind that? (Why is that the way things are?)
I'm really asking the latter. So what is the justification for imploring us to loving our neighbours? Why is this something god saw fit to instruct us to do? To what end?
I said that he is motivated by his nature. Well, if an aspect of God’s nature is love then that will form motivation for what he does - given that the nature of a nature tends towards self expression.
Outside of that, you only appear to be asking why is God the way God is.
But I don't know what you mean by 'nature'. If you say that an aspect of God's nature is love then I have to ask, love of what? It sounds like you are going to end up saying that God loves God's actions.
Yes - why is God the way God is. Exactly. Is there some principle he is drawing upon or is it ultimately without reason?
Gods definition seems a good one. I am what I am. We can go on to apply more words to expand on this but you can’t get more succinct than this when dealing with the source of everything.
Yeah - I don't think answering me with another meaningless tautology is going to help, I'm afraid. If I asked a man why he killed another man and he says 'I wanted to'
and I ask 'Why?',
'Because it's my nature to want to'
'And what is that nature?'
'I am what I am'
I've not learned any information surrounding why he killed another man.
Morally wrong is merely another way of describing ‘evil’ (from my perspective). God doesn’t hate evil because it’s evil (which would be circular). He hates evil because it is his nature to hate that which is contra-Gods will.
No. I was using it specifically to separate it from your concept of 'evil'. 'Evil' is that which god finds abhorrent. Morally Wrong are the the things I find abhorrent. And I can provide justifications as to why I feel they are abhorrent. Can God?
And what about his nature means he hates when things don't go his way? I'm assuming it isn't 'pettiness'.
God hates because that is his nature. You share his nature. Therefore you hate. And you call the reason "morally wrong". But the title change doesn't alter the source of your hatred.
Maybe so - but the reason I separated it out is because I can give justification for hating it. I'm asking if we know if God can justify hating it.
Which doesn’t leave a whole lot to say about that which might lie upstream of that statement. Which is what you’d expect when you arrive at the source.
So ultimately none of it has any meaning? There is no rhyme or reason that exists for doing good things? Ultimately the answer to question to
"What is a good way to live?"
is
"To do what is in our nature."
And in a nutshell that's the problem. The question is 'what is good' doesn't really get answered, we never find out what the point of goodness is. Trying to understand the nature of good, you just replace it with the question of trying to understand the nature of god and then traditionally there follows gesticulating and spooky noises or a proverbial finger wagging.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 112 by iano, posted 12-13-2009 11:31 AM iano has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 116 by iano, posted 12-14-2009 3:35 PM Modulous has replied

  
DevilsAdvocate
Member (Idle past 3091 days)
Posts: 1548
Joined: 06-05-2008


Message 115 of 181 (539193)
12-13-2009 3:48 PM
Reply to: Message 113 by iano
12-13-2009 2:16 PM


Iano writes:
The top of the previous post to Modulous above should address this. If "the flavour of Gods doings" is defined by the word "good" then the problem lies in your dilemmas set up (which doesn't accept this definition: a problem for you, not me.)
I didn't set up the dilemma, Plato did. And in fact the dilemma was not even set up with your god in mind but for all the gods of the Greek pantheon. In otherwords it was conjured up as a fictional dialog to discuss the justification of calling these god's actions and behavior good or moral. A dilemma is an two-sided argument in which both outcomes are logically, socially, and/or morally unacceptable.
Why is this dilemma unacceptable in this case? Because one results in a moral standard above these supernatural being's control or influence by which they themselves are subject to and the other results in a situation in which these supernatural beings can capriciously do anything considered dispecable and abhorrant by most if almost all humans and there is no choice but to call these actions/behaviors good and moral. This same logic applies to any being which is considered to have supernatural and limitless (or near limitless) power and influence over our world, in this case the God of the Bible.
So this dilemma is directly tied to the moral standards of humans apart from that of the supernatural and the obvious conflict that it results in.
Indeed, there is a certain flaw pervading all your posting in this matter - having to do with insisting on your definition of good as a way of countering mine.
I have to admit that your and my concepts of goodness are probably not all that different (I am sure there are some differences but I would venture much of it is identical i.e. we both abhor child molesters, theft, compulsive liars, murderers, etc). The difference between us has more to do with where we infer that our morality originates from, either God (or substitute any other supernatural being) or from our own human evolution.
According to the general flow of language, there appears to be no objecting to the notion that some word or other is inserted as a shorter way of expressing that made up by a longer string of words. "good" as a way of expressing the action of God above was Gods choice, it seems.
The issue here has more to do with you using circular reasoning to describe why you believe God is good. If you said "I believe God is good because his behavior/actions match my innate moral compass of what I consider good" this would be a little less circular than just saying because good is what he does. However, this just begs the question of why you think your innate moral compass is really aligned to what is good.
These are deep, philosophical questions that short little quips/answers cannot in any way satisfy. Rather they require deep analysis and digging to figure out (if that is possible at all).
Who am I to judge God? And would my deciding to erect a standard against which to judge him matter a jot? I'm subject to him. Not him to me.
This of course begs the question of why? You keep making all these baseless assertions about God which you do not try to answer. Why is God above our scrutiny? I know there is a religious command of not questioning God but why would God make such a trivial command? If God is infinite in power and knowledge what can hurt for our scrutinizing and analyzing his moral propensity?
And given that he is the source of everthing (even evil, in the once step removed manner of creating a free will) how could we manage to erect a standard to judge other than he would judge himself. Without being mistaken I mean?
If he is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-benevolent the answer is that we probably could not create a standard to judge him. However, you would think that the standard God would use against us is the same one he should be consistent in, but after analyzing the Bible many of us find this not to be the case. We are told by Christians that slavery is wrong, but we find that God does not hold to this standard and even condones and commands this to occur several times in the Bible. We are told it is good to love your neighbor and treat them with kindness, yet we find a God who orders the ethnicide and infanticide of entire villages and civilizations (and even everyone on Earth) in the Bible. We are told by Christians to forgive, yet God states that he is unwilling to forgive us if we choose not to follow him and then will judge and sentance us to go to hell for eternity. There is an obvious and blatant moral disconnect between the God Christians promote and talk about and the God that we read about in the Bible.
Remember that what I think of as moral doesn't differ with what God says is moral. There is no me as a human/me as a Christian divide. Whilst you are correct to say that I am confined to doing as God says (assuming it is him doing the telling) you are free to do whatever you like whilst calling it moral. Which extends to eating your children if you like..
You are right that many (but not all) non-religious people subsrcibe to a form of moral relativism. However, what many of us do accept is moral universalism in which there are certain inalienable rights that should apply to all human beings. Therefore, for me and others like me, we accept that human beings have a right to live in freedom and a right for happiness and other qualities of life as long as they don't interfere with the rights of others. If you want to know the reasons why we ascribe to this moral standard, I have described some of them in another post on another thread ('The difference between a human and a rock') found here: Message 19
Who's to argue with you - other folk who happen to disagree with your view on morality. I think not.
The question isn't right or wrong because one cannot debate the rightness and wrongness of what we consider right and wrong. The answer lies in what is the most beneficial to humanity's survival both as individuals, small and large groups, and as a whole. This is what we can agree on collectively in order to survive as a species and is what supports our moral framework.
Good has taken on a meaning equating to words like "positive", "beneficial", "feels nice" etc. In other words, "goodness" is something experienced along the lines indicated by those words. And so we say what God does is good because we experience his actions in that way - even if at times the goodness of his actions is masked by apparent unpleasantness (in the case of his disciplining us)
As described above the moral disconnect with the god of the Bible is more than just "masked apparant unpleasantness" but has to do with an inconsistent (some would say hypocritical) moral standard as shown in the stories of the Bible.
Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.
Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection
"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

This message is a reply to:
 Message 113 by iano, posted 12-13-2009 2:16 PM iano has not replied

  
iano
Member (Idle past 1931 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 116 of 181 (539276)
12-14-2009 3:35 PM
Reply to: Message 114 by Modulous
12-13-2009 2:41 PM


Modulous writes:
OK - I agree that ultimately all language is somewhat circular - but there are some definitions which, as you agreed are 'nonsensical'.
Because language is completely circular - you only have to follow it along long enough to find yourself back where you started - it became necessary to step outside it in order to convey my position. I'll post the core of my last post here as a reminder of what we're working off.
quote:
Similarily, we are supposing, the word ‘good’ was attached to the flavour associated with Gods’ actions, with the physical occurance and flavour of Gods actions being the primary means of attaching meaning to the word ‘good’ - not other words such as "action" and "flavour".
AKA "good" should be seen in that light.
-
A more useful definition would be something that wasn't just examples. A more general principle so that a novel situation can be analysed so that we can decide if an action is good or not based on some overarching principle or criteria.
Perhaps an example will show you.
Okay, but we already have an overarching principle derived from the above 'aka'. We might describe it as "the flavour of that which God does or approves of when it's us doing it". No comment necessary at this stage, I'm just bearing what has already been said in mind.
-
It can be argued that God killed people and that we should be cool with this because it was toward some end (he caused Jesus to die to relieve suffering or to pay a ransom or whatever). So it is moral to kill someone toward some end (since it God did it it must be good). But not all ends.
So to which ends?
If Jesus died to relieve the suffering of all of mankind by providing salvation, does that mean it is morally good to kill someone to relieve the suffering of one person? Or does it have to be two people? What if the suffering person is the one that is killed? What if it was to relieve the suffering of a million people?
One method might be to put yourself in the shoes of every person affected by the decision and see if in that position you would still be happy with the consequences. If you were one of those that had to die, would you agree with the decision? If it were a loved one that had to die? A sort of categorical imperative as it were.
Now, even if we regard 'good' as being 'God's will' or not - this gives us a way of knowing what it actually is. It gives us something to go on as to what in this world is 'good'.
But aren't we just in the same position as we were with language? Good derived this way is (without Gods imprimateur) ultimately circular or else turtles all the way down. There are all these loose ends too: what makes people happy is a measure of goodness - whereas we recognise that very often what's good for us might not make us happy at that moment.
And it's not that we haven't an adequate working basis for deciding on good anyway - the aka above being relatively clear and simple. My head isn't as clear as I'd like it to be so forgive me if I'm not seeing your point outright.
-
A more Christian example might underscore the point, and you might argue it is a Christian phrasing of the same imperative outlined above.
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Extrapolating your position here is how I see you arguing:
quote:
It is God's will that thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself - therefore it is good. Which is what I've been saying all along.
But I remind you that this is nonsense.
But that isn't my argument — at least, one could easily misconstrue my argument from that set up. My argument is founded upon the notion that good is aka God's will. And so loving your neighbour is good — simply due to good aka Gods will.
I think much of the problem in understanding what I’m saying arises from the fact that the word good is automatically tied to connotations - connotations much philosophised over to boot. If you do free the word from all those connotations however (and merely see it as a symbol representing something else), then you'll see no flaw in the "argument" at the start of the paragraph. It's not even an argument to be honest - it's simply English.
-
It is fine to say
quote:
It is God's will that thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself
and
quote:
It is good to love thy neighbour as thyself
OK. So we can define a certain moral philosophy as being 'God's will' and we can define God's will to be 'good'. Somebody presents this moral philosophy and I ask "Why should I love my neighbour as myself?" You would have to answer, ultimately, "The reason is because if you don't follow it there will be negative consequences after you die."
You might be striking out here without me, Mod. I’ve simply gotten to the point where we have a tag which attaches to what Gods will/what the flavour of God/what the motivation of God is. And that tag is good. It jumps the gun a bit to rush straight to moral philosophies and the like. For example:
To the question why should you love your neighbour? I would first attach a rider: are you a believer or are you an unbeliever. The answer to each kind of person would be dramatically different. Clearly the believers sense of good stems from their accepting the Father definition so why they should love their neighbour is clear enough. For the unbeliever though? Well, I wouldn’t say they should love their neighbour or not love their neighbour. I would say they should do as they feel fit — whatever they do is entered into the mix determining whether or not they are saved. If they love their neighbour - yet are damned — their good won’t count for anything. If they do evil — yet are saved — their evil won’t count for anything.
You can see that good fits into a larger piece of machinery which isn’t necessarily connected to moral philosophy. And certainly I wouldn’t say you should love your neighbour because otherwise negative consequences will occur. Everybody is born hell bound — loving their neighbour or no.
So what is the justification for imploring us to loving our neighbours? Why is this something god saw fit to instruct us to do? To what end?
In the case of sinners? But one central reason: to enable them to conclude for themselves that they cannot love their neighbours. Not all of the time. And because man has been programmed with a sense of what’s right and what’s wrong (again, just words — to which attach yet more words - which connect finally, to real, physical/spiritual occurances: guilt, shame, clear conscience, peace, etc), his lawbreaking will induce pain. And pain is God’s way of telling man that there is something up with him. Something amiss. Something not quite right. That pain is utilised in bringing a man back to God. It's an aid to his salvation
As to justification? God is our creator, he is entitled to our obedience. That he gave us the choice not to be obedient doesn't alter our obligation in that regard.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 114 by Modulous, posted 12-13-2009 2:41 PM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 117 by Modulous, posted 12-14-2009 7:17 PM iano has replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7799
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


(1)
Message 117 of 181 (539299)
12-14-2009 7:17 PM
Reply to: Message 116 by iano
12-14-2009 3:35 PM


Okay, but we already have an overarching principle derived from the above 'aka'.
That's not the kind of thing I was talking about. I can't apply the aka argument in practical everyday situations, can I?
But aren't we just in the same position as we were with language? Good derived this way is (without Gods imprimateur) ultimately circular or else turtles all the way down. There are all these loose ends too: what makes people happy is a measure of goodness - whereas we recognise that very often what's good for us might not make us happy at that moment.
But it helps us to understand the essence of goodness. We can determine whether or not an action is good based on it. We cannot determine whether or not an action is good based on your argument because it is immediately circular it provides us with nothing.
Unless you want to argue that it is impossible to convey information using language?
And it's not that we haven't an adequate working basis for deciding on good anyway - the aka above being relatively clear and simple. My head isn't as clear as I'd like it to be so forgive me if I'm not seeing your point outright.
I keep giving an example that you keep ignoring, perhaps for perfectly valid reasons. Might I suggest we explore it though, since it might make my point clearer.
If I am deciding whether or not euthanising an elderly relative how do I decide if it is a good thing to do?
Whether or not it is gods will!
How can we know what god's will is?
Because god's will has a 'good' flavour to it.
And how do I know what a good flavour is?
Whatever is God's Will has a good flavour.
You see how it proves difficult to go anywhere here?
To put it in Socrates' terms, you have just given me an attribute of 'good' (that it is also known as God's will) but you haven't given me the essence of the term itself. As a direct paraphrase
quote:
Thus you appear to me, iano, when I ask you what is the essence of goodness, to offer an attribute only, and not the essence-the attribute of being also known as God's Will. But you still refuse to explain to me the nature of goodness. And therefore, if you please, I will ask you not to hide your treasure, but to tell me once more what 'good' really is, whether or not it is also known as God's will.
I think much of the problem in understanding what I’m saying arises from the fact that the word good is automatically tied to connotations - connotations much philosophised over to boot. If you do free the word from all those connotations however (and merely see it as a symbol representing something else), then you'll see no flaw in the "argument" at the start of the paragraph. It's not even an argument to be honest - it's simply English.
I truly understand what you are saying. I'm just saying that it doesn't tell us anything useful and therefore doesn't answer the actual question, but answers a different question.
You are answering the question 'What else can we call 'good'?'. I'm not worried about that, since it is just a word. I'm asking to understand what the word means.
You might be striking out here without me, Mod. I’ve simply gotten to the point where we have a tag which attaches to what Gods will/what the flavour of God/what the motivation of God is. And that tag is good. It jumps the gun a bit to rush straight to moral philosophies and the like.
I'm trying to anticipate what I think is your best argument here. I'm trying to figure out if an action is good. Simply saying that there other words we can use in place of the word 'good' doesn't tell us what 'good' actually is.
To the question why should you love your neighbour? I would first attach a rider: are you a believer or are you an unbeliever. The answer to each kind of person would be dramatically different.
The correct moral justification for loving your neighbour depends on your metaphysical beliefs? That's a remarkable thing to claim.
Clearly the believers sense of good stems from their accepting the Father definition so why they should love their neighbour is clear enough.
It's not clear to me. Explain. Why should a believer love their neighbour?
You can see that good fits into a larger piece of machinery which isn’t necessarily connected to moral philosophy.
I'm afraid that statement is a statement of a moral philosophy.
In the case of sinners? But one central reason: to enable them to conclude for themselves that they cannot love their neighbours. Not all of the time. And because man has been programmed with a sense of what’s right and what’s wrong (again, just words — to which attach yet more words - which connect finally, to real, physical/spiritual occurances: guilt, shame, clear conscience, peace, etc), his lawbreaking will induce pain. And pain is God’s way of telling man that there is something up with him. Something amiss. Something not quite right. That pain is utilised in bringing a man back to God. It's an aid to his salvation
So they should (try to) love their neighbours to prove they can't perfectly do so. But why 'love their neighbours'? Ultimately because that's what God does, or wills or whatever. But why does God will 'love one's neighbours'? Is there some property in loving one's neighbours that God uses to determine that is something he wants us to do? Or is it just happenstance?
As to justification? God is our creator, he is entitled to our obedience. That he gave us the choice not to be obedient doesn't alter our obligation in that regard.
That isn't justification for loving neighbours. That's motivation. Our motivation is our sense of obedience to the Creator that he is entitled to (I've already commented on my problems with the 'obligation theory' so I'll refrain from going there again). But why 'love thy neighbour' and not 'build a house made of seashells'? What is it about neighbour loving that makes God Will it and why does God not Will that we build marinelife based abodes?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 116 by iano, posted 12-14-2009 3:35 PM iano has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 118 by iano, posted 12-15-2009 6:03 AM Modulous has replied

  
iano
Member (Idle past 1931 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 118 of 181 (539332)
12-15-2009 6:03 AM
Reply to: Message 117 by Modulous
12-14-2009 7:17 PM


Modulous writes:
That's not the kind of thing I was talking about. I can't apply the aka argument in practical everyday situations, can I?
Not if you stop right there you can't. But the intention wasn't that we stop there, it was to (begin to) indicate why there is no dilemma.
We have seen that the word "good" is considered, in the very first instance, to be a symbol attached by God to a particular flavour. To his flavour and his flavour only (a flavour appears to be the most useful device to go forth with, given that this is how people invariably experience the essence of goodness - the descriptive words defining goodness not being goodness itself).
As far as practical application goes? All that needs doing now (given the above) is to cite examples of what God finds good (ie: that to which his flavour attachs when he does it, or when that of him in us expresses itself in our actions). You now have your practical examples: the flavours we call kindness, selflessness, fairness, patience, love, etc. All 'good' - all of God.
-
But it helps us to understand the essence of goodness. We can determine whether or not an action is good based on it. We cannot determine whether or not an action is good based on your argument because it is immediately circular it provides us with nothing.
Unless you want to argue that it is impossible to convey information using language?
The argument isn't so much circular as it is terminal. Goodness (as we experience it) stems from Gods nature. That's the essence and it requires no explanation (eg: as to why God is the way he is). After that, there is only acceptance of that standard of good or no - if you want to tell whether an action is good or not. For the one who believes, there is clearly no dilemma - they have arrived at the terminus.
I expressed myself poorly when I said that good could not be arrived at through non-God-terminating philosophy. Clearly it can - it'd just wouldn't be the 'good' as defined by God.
-
I keep giving an example that you keep ignoring, perhaps for perfectly valid reasons. Might I suggest we explore it though, since it might make my point clearer.
Okay. Sorry. Let's have a look
-
If I am deciding whether or not euthanising an elderly relative how do I decide if it is a good thing to do?
Whether or not it is gods will!
How can we know what god's will is?
Because god's will has a 'good' flavour to it.
And how do I know what a good flavour is?
Whatever is God's Will has a good flavour.
You see how it proves difficult to go anywhere here?
The only dilemma I can see here (given the working basis of 'good' being applied) is; "what is Gods will on the matter?". If you knew that then you'd know what the good thing to do was. Now that might mean the patient suffering for a longer period than would be the case where euthanisia invoked. Suffering, it must be noted however, is a tool employed (though not necessarily powered) by God in the salvation of lost sinners, the sanctification of found sinners and the punishment/discipline of all sinners.
God permitting suffering shouldn't automatically be seen in as a negative thing.
For the believer there is a route to a decision (that is less complex than the heavy-gauge philosophical/emotional/legislative/medical/etc discussion that the secular world attaches to the issue of euthanasia) and so the dilemma can be resolved for the believer by seeking out God's will in the matter.
It's worth remembering too that God sees the heart and isn't at all a legalist in this (or any other) matter. An unbelievers heartfelt compassion for the suffering of a loved one - love that would perhaps risk jail - rather than let the suffering continue - is a different motivation to the cold calculating move to wrest an inheritance from a wealthy aunt. Indeed, God being the source of our loving is the driving force for our love-motivated action. He's hardly likely to consider that which he motivates and drives out of his goodness as anything but good.
-
To put it in Socrates' terms, you have just given me an attribute of 'good' (that it is also known as God's will) but you haven't given me the essence of the term itself. As a direct paraphrase
quote:
Thus you appear to me, iano, when I ask you what is the essence of goodness, to offer an attribute only, and not the essence-the attribute of being also known as God's Will. But you still refuse to explain to me the nature of goodness. And therefore, if you please, I will ask you not to hide your treasure, but to tell me once more what 'good' really is, whether or not it is also known as God's will.
Don't you understand that the essence is an attribute. And that that attribute of God has a particular flavour and that that flavour goes under a particular name. When there is no further distilling down possible, when all you're left with is an experiential flavour, then you have arrived as the essence. No?
Perhaps you could explain what problems cannot be solved from this starting point.
-
I'm trying to anticipate what I think is your best argument here. I'm trying to figure out if an action is good. Simply saying that there other words we can use in place of the word 'good' doesn't tell us what 'good' actually is.
We already have what good actually is, expressed in various ways: an attribute of God, the flavour of God's doings, the flavour of your doings when they are in alignment with Gods will and so forth. It's possible to pick one or other formulation to apply to the specific matter of whether or not a particular action is good. We do this by comparing to the standard. For example, we can reference the law of God (and the spirit in which it is given)
The only issue I can see is failure to accept 'good' in the manner defined. Which is a matter of belief - a separate thing.
-
The correct moral justification for loving your neighbour depends on your metaphysical beliefs? That's a remarkable thing to claim.
Better said: it depends on your position before God.
An unbeliever doing 'the morally correct thing' doesn't occur out of an act of his own will (I'd hold). And so no credit accrues to the unbeliever for doing so ("all your righteousness are as filthy rags" it is said of such 'work'). Instead, their will (considered to be capable of only that which offends God - if left only to it's own devices) remained silent in the face of Gods effort (expressed via the power of conscience) and so the morally correct thing was done via the unbeliever - by God's power/will.
The reason for the moral good is the same in both cases; God's will exercised through the person. Knowingly, in the case of the believer, unknowingly in the case of the unbeliever.
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It's not clear to me. Explain. Why should a believer love their neighbour?
Congruency? The believer has been translated from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God. And a war rages between those two kingdoms. It wouldn't strike me as congruent for a believer to wage war against his own side. No, to fight against one's own side would be illogical, irrational..
Stepping back a step: the believer has surrendered his will to the will of the father in the process of becoming a believer. And so God takes up residence within the believer "to will and to act according to His good (oops) purpose". This doesn't mean automaton-territory but it does mean an urging from God to progress in a certain direction with blessing possible and discipline possible. Harmony and peace come when your will is aligned with God as a believer. And these things are pleasant/positive. Discipline, on the other hand, isn't pleasant.
There are other things I can think of but I suppose the ultimate reason has to do with the believer partaking of the divine nature, i.e. becoming divine themselves (which is, incidently, God's loves goal w.r.t. humankind. His desire is to make us like-order with him, to make us his children). Because the believer has become divine-in-waiting and because his divinity infuses them, things shift with regards to your question. The shift tends away from a question: "why should I?". For that question suggests a looking to some or other external source for guidance/justification/rationale for our acting morally. Because the believer partakes of the divine, the should element of the question dissolves away and the answer becomes:
"I (also) AM - that's why I love my neighbour"
The moral realm is a Fall-based realm (morality; a knowledge of good and evil came in at that point), one in which the believer has no further citizenship (although they still reside here temporarily). There is no "should" about the reasons why the divine does good. Goodness is, as we have seen, part of the divine nature.
-
I'm afraid that statement is a statement of a moral philosophy.
. Then the above must be also. Oh well..
-
So they should (try to) love their neighbours to prove they can't perfectly do so. But why 'love their neighbours'? Ultimately because that's what God does, or wills or whatever. But why does God will 'love one's neighbours'? Is there some property in loving one's neighbours that God uses to determine that is something he wants us to do? Or is it just happenstance?
Folk have this drive installed in them - that is the why behind their trying - whenever they try. It's their failing that assists in their salvation (in the case they are saved) or their damnation (in the case they are lost. Their failure is the result of their own wills expressoion.
As to why such a thing is God's will? I can think of a few reasons having to do with Gods general providence and care, and in the larger scheme regarind his plan of salvation:
- God loves us - all of us - with a passion. Our not loving our neighbours hurts our neighbours and thus God('s love). And so God wills as he does.
- He wills it of us because that which is in alignment with God can have harmony with God and God's love wants that harmony to be established
- Ultimately? As mentioned already, he wills us to be like him, to be like order with him. Him as father, us as children (adopted). He is selfless and so wills that we be selfless as a reflection of that like-orderedness.
-
That isn't justification for loving neighbours. That's motivation. Our motivation is our sense of obedience to the Creator that he is entitled to (I've already commented on my problems with the 'obligation theory' so I'll refrain from going there again).
The original question had to do with God's justification for imploring us to love our neighbour.
There's a rationale (rather than justification) given above for him imploring so (having to do with a) what's appropriate for sons of God to be doing or b)bringing unbelievers to be sons of his). The justification for his demanding that we love our neighbours has to do with his being Sovereign, desiring things to be a certain way and having the right to demand that they be that way.
-
But why 'love thy neighbour' and not 'build a house made of seashells'? What is it about neighbour loving that makes God Will it and why does God not Will that we build marinelife based abodes?
God is inherently relational ("let us make man in our image and likeness") and by nature is selfless and meek (testified to by his dying for us). And selflessness is the very essence of love (agape). Whilst having no objection to our building a house of seashells, his purposes involving us have a high level. And that level has to do with, as I say, conversion from what we are now (sinners, imperfect, fallen) into holy, whole, pure sons of God - or not. His command issued to us isn't at all passive - it is issued with motive power that we experience as an aspiration, a drive, an urge ...to be good. And it's our failing to achieve that aspiration, our failure to respond to that urge that will hopefully lead us to the only solution God has for our dilemma.
"The law is a schoolteacher to lead you to Christ"
Why "love thy neighbour?" Because we can't love our neighbour. We can't because we are unholy (anti-the divine nature) and as long as we remain unholy we cannot be God's sons. And the offer: become a son of God (or not) is the object of God's plan regarding all of mankind. Instructing us to build houses of seashells couldn't possibly inform us that we are unholy. Instructing us to be holy can.
"The law (or more precisely, you're inability to obey it) is a schoolteacher to lead you to Christ"
Edited by iano, : No reason given.
Edited by iano, : No reason given.
Edited by iano, : No reason given.
Edited by iano, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 117 by Modulous, posted 12-14-2009 7:17 PM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 119 by greyseal, posted 12-18-2009 12:21 PM iano has replied
 Message 121 by Otto Tellick, posted 12-19-2009 3:31 AM iano has replied
 Message 122 by Modulous, posted 12-19-2009 8:33 AM iano has replied

  
greyseal
Member (Idle past 3852 days)
Posts: 464
Joined: 08-11-2009


Message 119 of 181 (539670)
12-18-2009 12:21 PM
Reply to: Message 118 by iano
12-15-2009 6:03 AM


you're off topic, iano - it's "what is good" as in the source and definition
iano writes:
Why "love thy neighbour?" Because we can't love our neighbour. We can't because we are unholy (anti-the divine nature) and as long as we remain unholy we cannot be God's sons.
this has nothing to do with why it is good to do as a god commands - it's arguably a "good" thing, but only by directly appealing to the result (i.e. "I would feel happy if my neighbour was nice to me, so it must be a good thing") - but that's a standard we can arrive at ourselves (indeed, the only way we can say "it is good" with ease is because we would like it ourselves).
You're not getting any further towards explaining if it's good because it's actually good, or if it's good because god says so - or indeed, if we should love our neighbour because god says we should and he can fuck you up good if you don't.
to re-iterate - if it is good because it is good, then we do not need god to tell us it is good.
If it is good because god tells us it is good, then it is an arbitrary standard that god has given to us, and it's reliability is circumspect.
The third example is "be good or else" - and that CAN'T be good.
If you say that items 2 and 3 on my admittedly short list are "obvious" because god is, as you say, the creator of everything and the be-all and end-all, then in my opinion we're at an impasse which negates your entire argument - first you must prove a whole host of things about god which are going to be very difficult, starting first and foremost with proving he exists and ending with proving he's got some sort of right to say "good is thus" - before you get right back to the start of trying to work out if it's good because he says so or because it is.
who am I to question god's authority? well...somebody has to. Granted, it didn't go so well for the last guy to stick his neck out, but look where it got us - free will. that's quite a good trick.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 118 by iano, posted 12-15-2009 6:03 AM iano has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 120 by iano, posted 12-18-2009 2:11 PM greyseal has replied

  
iano
Member (Idle past 1931 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 120 of 181 (539680)
12-18-2009 2:11 PM
Reply to: Message 119 by greyseal
12-18-2009 12:21 PM


Re: you're off topic, iano - it's "what is good" as in the source and definition
iano writes:
Why "love thy neighbour?" Because we can't love our neighbour. We can't because we are unholy (anti-the divine nature) and as long as we remain unholy we cannot be God's sons.
greyseal writes:
this has nothing to do with why it is good to do as a god commands
Unsurprisingly.
It wasn't given in an attempt to explain why it is good to do as God commands. It was given as part of the reason why God commands us to love our neighbour (in the context of explaining the mechanism of salvation).
-
- it's arguably a "good" thing, but only by directly appealing to the result (i.e. "I would feel happy if my neighbour was nice to me, so it must be a good thing") - but that's a standard we can arrive at ourselves (indeed, the only way we can say "it is good" with ease is because we would like it ourselves).
It is inarguably a good thing (at least, I've not seen any argument yet that circumvents it being a good thing) given that the definition of good being utilised by me is "the particular flavour eminating from that which God does, commands, thinks,..etc". By that definition, following Gods commands (which instruct goodness - by definition) cannot be anything but good.
You'll note that there is no reference anywhere in this definition to our opinion having anything to say on the issue.
-
You're not getting any further towards explaining if it's good because it's actually good, or if it's good because god says so - or indeed, if we should love our neighbour because god says we should and he can fuck you up good if you don't.
I seem to have circumvented the supposed dilemma through my choice of definition. "Good" is but the name given to a flavour and that flavour happens to eminate from God. By definition, it's good if God says so.
After that, I appear to be left only with objections from folk who have other definitions of good which disagree with this one. Or who pose non-sense questions (in the light of the definition above) such as "but how do you know it's good?"
-
If it is good because god tells us it is good, then it is an arbitrary standard that god has given to us, and it's reliability is circumspect.
God's view on what is good and evil doesn't appear to change. So I'm not inclined to suppose his standard arbitrary or unreliable. It is his standard however. And you are free to disagree with it and do what you find good (contrary to his labelling it otherwise)
-
The third example is "be good or else" - and that CAN'T be good.
I see no problem attaching particular consequences onto particular behaviours. If you are intent on having folk operate in fashion x then attaching negative consequences onto behaviour y strikes me as a reasonable thing to do.
-
If you say that items 2 and 3 on my admittedly short list are "obvious" because god is, as you say, the creator of everything and the be-all and end-all, then in my opinion we're at an impasse which negates your entire argument - first you must prove a whole host of things about god which are going to be very difficult, starting first and foremost with proving he exists and ending with proving he's got some sort of right to say "good is thus" - before you get right back to the start of trying to work out if it's good because he says so or because it is.
The issue of goodness is merely one of definition - with my definition releasing me from the clutches of the OP's supposed dilemma.
Proving things like Gods existance isn't on the agenda in this thread - we suppose God exists for the sake of argument.
As to his rights? Well, assuming for the sake of argument he exists, we can conclude we are his property. And unless he has given us some rights (which would allow us to do what we see fit - irrespective of what he says to the contrary) I can see no reason for supposing we have them. Talk of the "inalienable rights of sentient creatures" sounds very grand. But from whence did that mouthful come? And on which foundation is such a notion built. I can only see turtles the whole way down..
-
who am I to question god's authority? well...somebody has to. Granted, it didn't go so well for the last guy to stick his neck out, but look where it got us - free will. that's quite a good trick.
That's fightin' talk. Perhaps you could do a bit more reflection on your first question though - and come back with an answer that's other than fightin' talk? Something more rational perhaps?
Theologically speaking we haven't free will btw. Adam had and lost it when he fell. He became a captive, an addict, a slave to... sin. We sin because we are sinners - not because we have free will and chose to do so.
Edited by iano, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 119 by greyseal, posted 12-18-2009 12:21 PM greyseal has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 128 by greyseal, posted 12-20-2009 12:28 PM iano has not replied

  
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