Morality and Subjectivity

Firstly, I don't know why you keep phrasing your argument as one of evolution's compatibility with Christiaity when evolution per se has no real relevance to the argumetn. Even appealing to YEC views (because OEC views have the smae poblems) only solves part of the problem - and creates many more.(As an aside the IDist William Dembski has recently published a theodicy which attempts to deal with the very problem of animal pain prior to human existence. If he could rationally get rid of the problem by rejecting evolution even more firmly than he already does I am sure that he would love to do so).

quote:

---

But to say that God is cruel is another way of saying that God does not exist. At any rate, that’s what people generally mean when they say that

---

It is a way of saying that the Christian God does not exist because the Christian God is not cruel. It is not an argument agaisnt a more generic "God" wo migh be cruel.

quote:

---

We can only judge God’s morality if he exists, not if he doesn’t exist

---

You don't have to go into the question of whether morality can be objective without God to establish this. It is trivial that if God does not exist then God cannot in reality be moral or immoral.Logically it is not a problem if the argument only works if God exists. We may trivially save the argument by adding "God exists" as a premise. (e.g. "If God exists, then He is cruel" does not require us to assume that we can make moral objective judgements in the case that God does not exist). Thus this point is not a significant flaw in the argument.

Your argument was phrased in terms of animal suffering, prior to the existence of humans. Even christians who believe in evolution could expain human suffering in terms of the Fall. And I certainly wasn't thinking of the general problems of the Fall doctrine - more the huge weight of scientific evidence against a young Earth.I would aslo add that even if nobody beleived in a cruel God, it would not make it impossible that such a God existed. Any general argument against the existence of A God has to deal with any Gods that could exist, not only Gods that are believed in.

quote:

---

This seems a little unclear to me. The "moral argument" against God is an argument about whether or not the (Judeo-Islamic-Christian) God exists. He doesn't exist because if He did,he would be cruel, and this God is not cruel. But our ideas about what's cruel are subjective, so they can't serve as evidence.

​

Perhaps I didn't understand your point.

---

My point is simple. According to you our ideas of morality are subjective only IF God does not exist. However if it is accepted that God does not exist then no further argument is needed (a God that does not exist cannot be cruel in reality). So, the argument is not hurt by modifying it to include the assumption that God does exist, which removes the problem. It's really a simple application of logic.(I would further add that we do not need objectivity, only intersubjectivity. If we are agreed on what we mean by cruel and we agree that God cannot be cruel (as we mean it) it does not matter that the judgement of cruelty is not objective. It is only if "cruel" is so subjective that we cannot agree on these points that it would affect the argument).

I am not aware of any definition of "god" that rules out cruelty. Gods are often depicted as acting in ways which are cruel (even in the Bible)

quote:

---

I think my point would be that our ideas of morality MIGHT be objective if there is a God

---

There are a number of things to say to this.Firstly I have seen no convincing argument linking an objective morality to the existence of a God. (Divine Command Theory assumes subjective morality)Secondly, I responded to your objection as written "If there is no God then our morality is subjective..."Thirdly it seems that you are finally beginning to appreciate the difficulties of providing a fully logical proof, so you deserve some credit there, at least.

quote:

---

I don't see why it wouldn't matter that the judgement is subjective. We might agree about the judgement, and we might both be wrong.

---

The point is that it negates your problem of a subjective morality by using agreed definitions. If God would not do something (which we happen to refer to with the label "cruel"), and if it is shown that if God exists then He must have done that thing then it logically follows that God does not exist.

No, there is no problem with the meaning of "subjective" and "objective". My point is that even if morality is subjective, so long as it is intersubjective we can meaningfully discuss it - and that permits arguments of this sort to work successfully.If morality is intersubjective then the statement "God would not perform an immoral act" refers to our intersubjective ideas of morality (or it is meaningless). Thus if it could be proven that were God to exist He must have performed an act that was immoral by those intersubjective standards we would have to conclude that God did not exist (or reject the premises - but that applies to any logical argument).In short it would be worse for your argument if morality were objective for then it would be possible to be wrong about it. Whereas if morality is intersubjective saying that we were wrong would be exactly like saying that the accepted definition of a word was wrong.

Well if you don't think that words have meanings then there's no point in trying to discuss things. If on the other hand you do then an intersubjective morality works in exactly the same way. It is agreed to affix the label "moral" to a set of behaviours and "immoral" to another and that is what those words mean. T