This is a continuation of the discussion from the previous post, "Is God Evil?"
There is a lot to discuss under this question. It seems to me that it is a good idea to take things one step at a time and focus first on where right is right and wrong is wrong simply because God says this is right and that is wrong (a.k.a. "The Divine Command Theory").
In discussing this question, Rodak has touched on a number of important points, all of which I would like to discuss. The topic of God's omniscience seems to be a favorite under the previous post, so under the comments to this post I hope to discuss The Divine Command Theory further.
As of uploading this post I am still getting a grip on Rodak's thinking. Rodak asked me to play Socrates. I must say, I'm feeling an awful lot like Socrates must have felt when he talked to Euthyphro--if we take his words at face value. Nevertheless Rodak, unlike Euthyphro, has thought through what he says.
Let me start with this statement of Rodak in response to my question "You say a thing is right because it is good. So then, you would say that God says that Y is immoral because it is immoral?"
"I would say that any act involving a moral choice (i.e. not undertaken out of necessity) is moral if motivated by truth, goodness, and love, all of which are aspects of the One, which alone is Good."
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This is an excellent answer. I need to clarify something though. Are you saying the motive rather than the means or the end justify an action?
Civis--
I am saying that if one if moved to act by love, then one will choose means which do not violate that love. The end is always in question.
Was it St. Augustine who said words to the effect of: "Only love, and do what you will."
So a moral action is one that does not violate love?
"So a moral action is one that does not violate love?"
Yes, I think we can safely say that.
And what is love?
God is Love. Love on the human level is a pale reflection of Divine Love. Love, Truth, Beauty, and Reality are all different aspects of the One, or God, which is the Ground of All Being, and our goal and *raison d'etre*.
When we speak of The Way, whether we speak as Christians, or as Taoists, or as any other kind of pilgrim, we are speaking of the straight and narrow path that leads to the One.
My friend Thomas Aquinas was telling me something abou this late last night. He had an interesting may of putting things. I may talk to him again tonight before responding further.
Aside: I'm enjoying the hell out of "playing Socrates". I guess you get a turn eventually :(.
It's funny though, a dialog is a good way to learn. I was bored to tears by Philosophy 101 my freshman year. In my Sophmore year, in another professor's class, the Socratic dialog was used and no matter what you said the professor would take a different position and probe and debate. We all learned a lot from him and suddenly the importance of philosophy became apparent--not to mention interesting.
Civis--
You can play Socrates in perpetuity, if you enjoy the role. I *like* being the foil.
It is, without a doubt, the Socratic Dialogue that makes Plato--as opposed to many, if not most, other philosophers, a pleasure to read.
What do you think about the theory behind Socractes refusal to write? Is he right?
"What do you think about the theory behind Socractes refusal to write? Is he right?"
That's an interesting question. It seems patent to me that it was right for him. Jesus didn't write, either. Nor did Jesus go around with a scribe, assigned to record his teachings.
St. Francis, at least initially, did not allow his Francisca friars books.
There is something to be said for the idea that the oeuvre of Socrates was written on the hearts of those individuals capable of receiving it.
I have personally, more than once, felt a medium-strong urge to drive out to WalMart to purchase a shredder, for the purpose of destroying everything that I have written and saved over the years.
I'm certainly not comparing myself to Socrates, or Jesus. I'm just saying...
Well, I held up the conversation for nothing. I can never find the same pasage in the Summa twice. Oh well, Socrates would sometimes go back to something previously said, so if I find it again I guess I could come back to it.
Okay, next question is, God=love?
God = Love, yes. But that does not exhaust the attributes assigned to God by humans trying to wrap our little minds around something too big to be comprehended. God also = Truth, Goodness, Reality, Beauty and all other positive values.
God is infinitely "greater" than the earthly manifestations of any of these things, of course. But, it is important to note that the earthly manifestations of these things are the doors which open for us at the beginning of our seeking. That is why we are taught that if we knock, it shall be opened for us, and if we seek, we shall find.
All of that said, love is the "medium of exchange" between God and Man, which is why love was so stressed by Jesus.
We seem to have removed a layer of abstraction without answering the question at hand. If good is bounded by love, and love = God, then we have the same basic problem. Is God the embodiment of love, or is he the definition of love? If (hypothetically) God changed in some way, would love also change, or would God subtly cease to fully embody love?
I guess that my answer would be that if God could change, God would not be God and love would not be love, as understood in "God = Love".
What we know of profane love, that it is transitory and mutable, and based on attraction to objects which are similarly transitory and mutable, would also be attributable to God's love: it would be neither perfect, nor eternal.
This should pretty much settle the question:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28151?utm_source=reddit_1
Paul's last question is a good way to put the question and anticipates where I was going.
Rodak, it seems to me that you are saying that X is not good or Evil simply because God says so. Like I said a moment ago, I can never find somethin in the Summa twice. Somewhere Aquinas solved the dillemma by saying that good is distict from God's will, but is not distinct from him. [If either of you know where he said that, please let me know. I have driven myself crazy lookign for it several times. The last time I found it was about three freaken years ago and never found it again.]
So would you agree, God does not simply make up moral rules?
Rodak,
You brought back memories there. The Onion was at it's finest just after 911. My favorite was the hijaker being sodomized by a demon with a barbed wire penis. I don't cherish anyone suffering eternally and for all I know the terrorists each had a clear (though mistaken) conscience, but it was funny nonetheless.
Civis--
Right. God does not make up anything. God IS; what is called Natural Law is intrinsic to what God IS; men make decisions on right and wrong, based on their understanding of Natural Law.
So the rules of the Natural Law would not be analogous to a situation where "you were teaching your son chess, and every time he made an illegal rule you stabbed him in the arm." Wouldn't you agree?
Paul, IFF you believed what Rodak believes would you agree?
Aside #1, RE Natural Law. The traditional natural law theorists apparently think the existence of God is the lynchpin of the theory. I've haven't figured out exactly why. It seems to me you could have a natural law with God, but I'm just an amatuer.
Aside #2, in mass yesterday the Gospel was about "The Rich Man and Lazarus." In the course of the homily it struck me that in the examples I can think of of someone going to an unhappy place (the Rich man, the sheep and the goats, the Rich young ruler) it was not what he did (saying "shit", smoking cigarettes, and dirnking Whiskey), it was what he didn't do (help his neighbor, feed the hungry etc.). IMHO people think to much about the negative aspect of the moral law ("Thou shalt not....") but ignore the positive side which my all appearances is more important.
Natural Law would be more like my son stabbing *himself* in the arm when he made a bad chess move.
The positive side of moral law is, I think without exception, the expression of love. Certainly it was the positive side that Jesus stressed.
It might be argued that there would be "laws of nature" without God, but I think Natural Law is something a bit different than that. Natural Law does posit values, while the laws of nature do not.
An argument I've had with Zippy, for instance, revolves around why mechanical forms of birth control are banned by the Church. Zippy tells me it's because bc is against Natural Law. I say "How so?" and he says that there is a teleology of sex that is interferred with if mechanical forms of birth control are used. I say, "Who cares?" And he says, "God." Clearly that is different than mere "laws of nature" which are indifferent to the results of any human act.
So what is the law of nature if it is different from natural law?
Where did you have that conversation with Zippy? Sounds interesting. If you have represented Zippy correctly, it sounds like he may have misrepresented the teaching on contraception.
It's more likely that I misrepresented what he said.
What is the law of nature if it is different from natural law?
Rodak,
If "Natural Law would be more like my son stabbing *himself* in the arm when he made a bad chess move." then wouldn't you agree that this is not an arbitrary "game" God has made up, but that evil is something we do to ourselves through misuse of our free will, and thus the evil is directly attributable to us and not to God?
I think that I'm going to get boring here by harping on about omnipotence...
I think (as in, I'm not sure, but this is how it appears to me right now) that if I agreed with what rodak said, then yes, I would agree about your point on Natural Law.
Fortunately I don't agree! First, God created the world to align with Natural Law, knowing what the consequences of that would be, so he's still culpable. Second, I don't understand the idea that God 'just is'; God is omnipotent, he can choose to be however he wishes. And given that he is outside of time, he can be as many things as he wishes to be, even what to us would appear contradictory of exclusive things, without at any point changing.
Civis--
Man is responsible only for moral evil. Man did not cause the AIDS virus to come into existence. Man does not cause earthquakes that bury sometimes thousands of people under rubble, etc.
Even if we tap dance away from the issue of God's omniscience precluding human free will (since if God *knows* I am going to sin, it is inevitable that I am going to sin), it is these naturally-occurring evils that seem to contradict the idea of God's omnipotence and omnibenevolence coexisting. This is the problem of evil with which Christian philosophers must struggle.
Paul,
You are not going to get boring, trust me. I get more irked with having conversations where we just skim the surface and talk past each other. I would far rather that we get to the root of our disagreement and see where we part ways and appreciate one another's reasoning. I think it would be beneficial if we could trace back our differences. I think that what you believe hinges on a number of assumptions. My position likewise depends on a number of assumptions as well. I think it would be interesting to try to isolate them. I may be better at spotting your assumptions and you may be teer at spotting my assumptions. After identifying the assumptions we can consider what proof their is for our assumptions. If there is proof, one of us can convince the other. If there is no proof we can consider whose assumptions are more reasonable and which are more of a stretch.
I suppose this would get into metaphysics, which I will admit I know little about. Aquinas said a man is not ready to study metaphysics until he is 50. He died at 49 BTW. Ha.
RE the nature of reality. There has to be some things that are impossible due to the nature of reality. Again, a square circle is incompresensible. If you think that everything is an illusion, what is your proof? It seems to me it is an assumption or a belief. It is a big "IF". I think my assumption is far more reasonable, but I think we can at least agree that your disagreement (on this point) is based on an assumption and my position is not unreasonable.
RE Natural Law: Can you admit that if we are creatures and there is a creator that we would not be able to understand him fully and that his reasoning may not be plain to us? Your assumption here, or we might say, using the word the ancient Greeks would use to describe what you are doing, your hubris, is that you expect to be able to understand something that is or may be beyond the capacity of a finite mind. I think you will agree that you do not understand me, a thing. I think you will also agree that you do not understand yourself, another thing. How is it then that you could understand all things or the reasoning behind the origin of the universe, even IF Gd does not exist.
I think we must follow the maxim: "Know that you know not." We don't know everything.
BUT, lets we what we can agree we do know and see where it goes.
Rodak,
I agree that there is more we have to talk about. However, with respect to the "game", and the statement that "God set the game up in the first place. Why create a creature with the capacity--in fact with the *propensity* to fail--and then condemn that creature to eternal suffering when it, predicatably, fails?" I think we come to an explanation, or at least made some headway. There is another part of the problem of evil that we have to discuss. If you can formulate the problem, I'll post it and we can begin to discuss that one.
As far as I am concerned, the whole Problem of Evil consists in the question: If God is all-powerful, all-good, and all-knowing, how can evil exist in a world He created?
The problem of human moral evil is understandable in terms of a supposed necessity for free will. But this is where it becomes a "game": God sets up a set of very difficult circumstances and then sits back and watches how well each of us deals with those circumstances. Not a completely satisfactiry explanation, but one that can be worked with.
That said, if God is not all-good, there is no problem. If God is not all-knowing, there is no problem. If God is not all-powerful, there is no problem. But, if God has *either* of the attributes, all-powerful and all-knowing, then evil necessarily exists with God's compliance. How then is God all-good?
Rodak,
Alrighty. I will to post the following statement/question: "If God is all-powerful, all-good, and all-knowing, how can evil exist in a world He created?" but exclude evil directly resulting from human moral evil which we have explained via free will.
I would suggest that we continue to discuss the human evil/free will issues here until we either 1) come to an agreement 2) see that the question needs to be refined and/or divided into underlying assumptions or 3) agree to diagree, continue our friendship, and go out for a cold one if we are ever in the same city and both have free time.
On second thought, that is more than one question. It seems you are asking about how the idea of God's goodness can fit fit the fact that he is all powerful and that he is all knowing. Thus I'm going to pose two questions. Let's begin withthe following:
"If God is all-good and all-knowing, how can evil exist in a world He created?"
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