As with all my other thought experiments, there is no right or wrong answer here. It is meant to spark discussion about a topic. Please keep it clean and have fun! ----------- THOUGHT EXPERIMENT 6: Good God!
And the Lord spoke unto the philosopher, "I am the Lord they God, and I am the source of all that is good. Why does they secular moral philosophy ignore me?" And the philosopher spoke unto the Lord, "To answer I must first ask you some questions, dude. You command us to do what is good, but is it good because you command it, or do you command it because it is good?" (This is known as the Euthyphro question) "Uhh..." said the Lord. "It's good because I command it...?" "The wrong answer, surely, your mightiness! If the good is only good because you say it is so, then you could, if you wished, make it so that torturing infants was good. But that would be absurd, wouldn't it?" "Of course!" replieth the Lord. "I tested thee and thou hast made me pleased. What was the other choice again?" "You choose what is good because it is good. But that shows quite clearly that goodness does not depend on you at all. So we don't need to study God to study the good." "Even so," spoke the Lord, " you've got to admit I've written some pretty good textbooks on the subject..." ----------
DISCUSSION
The idea that God is good, however, is ambiguous. It could mean that God is good int he same way that chocolate is good, or Billy Bob is good. In these cases, "is" functions to attribute a quality or property to something, such as goodness or blueness. Equally, however, "God is good" could be a sentence like "Water is H2O." Here, "is" indicates an identity between the two terms: the one thing is identical to the other. In the hymns that Christians sing at church, the "is" seemed to be one of identity, not attribution. God is not loving, but love; not beautiful but beauty. God doesn't just have the qualities, he IS them. hence, "God is good" implies that the notions of God and goodness are inextricably linked, that the essence of the good is God. So, it is no wonder that many believe that there can be no morality without God. If goodness and Godness cannot be separated, secular morality is a contradiction in terms. However, that pseudo-conversation I wrote talking to God seems to demonstrate very clearly and simply that this cannot be so. If God is good, it is because God is and chooses to do what is ALREADY good. God doesn't make something good by choosing it; he chooses it because it is good. Now, some might protest that this argument works only because it separates what cannot be separated. If God really is good, then it doesn't make sense to pose a dilemma in which the good and God are separated. But since it seems to make perfect sense to ask whether the good is good because God commands it, or God commands it because it is good, this objection simply begs the questions. Even if God and the good really were one, it would still be reasonable to ask what makes this identity true. The answer would surely be that we know what good is and it is this which would enable us to say truly that God is good. If God advocated pointless torture, we would know that he was not good. This shows that we can understand the nature of goodness independently of God. And that shows that a godless morality is not an oxymoron.
So, what do you guys think? Are there holes in this argument? Can we truly know what goodness is separated from God if there was no God in the beginning? Could pointless torture have been good pre-God?
I'm going to stir the pot with some Bible quotations.
who's to say that if God had said "kill infants"
While not exactly an infant, let's have a look at this story...
"Some time later, God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!" "Here I am," he replied. Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about."
(Genesis 22:1-2, NIV)
Now, I know that the point of this story is definitely not "it's good to kill your kids". I think it is pretty obvious to us that we should expect Abraham to go "wh-wh-whut? Are you crazy or what!?" But no. God told him to do it, and he had faith, so he went to do it, which supports the point that the interpretation that all God says is good, regardless of our understanding of it, is the reading one ought to take.
This does come down to an attitude, taken in conjunction with the difficulty in discerning whether a word was in fact divine inspiration or the work of the devil. It's a grand mess, or ultimately enlightening, depending on how you look at it.
Even to suggest that he got it wrong to start with seems like blasphemy within religious circles!
Well...let's see. There's the story of Noah's ark...
"The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth- men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air- for I am grieved that I have made them."
Well strop, god doesnt kill off 2 year olds for the fun of it. If you read the rest,the lord sneds him a ram and tells him to sacrifice it before he kills his son. And also, noahs ark wasnt an "oops", he meant to do what he did, which is why he sent 2 of each animal and Noahs family to rebuild the earth. God can do almost anything, except he cant control mans free will. He cant just say, do this, and they will. Its definitely within his power, But he JUST WON'T DO IT. coz hes GOD =]
i dont really KNOW the mind opf God, but i know some things about him, hes real, hes omnipotent, hes omnipresent and cant screw around with free will. Think about it, if he COULD, then everybody would be a Christian. The only other explanation is if hes not real, which ill refuse to believe no matter what you say
Well, I certainly accept that traditional interpretations of Christian theology insist that God does not interfere with the free-will of people. But because I am also aware that we do not possess a perfect understanding of God's will, despite assuming that "all God does is good", I cannot know whether I can even support the claim that "if God could control free will, he would make everybody a Christian".
God could be a complete brainwashing tyrant or what have you and it'd still all be good. Objections to the things that I have quoted demonstrate that we are subject to projecting our understanding upon God's will, but in the spirit of the original post, is this valid?
Let's look at the flip side for religious folks, then: it is because of this belief that Charles Templeton's manifesto for atheism- based on the cruelty and suffering in the world, is a weak one.
Garifu wrote:
Is this social evolution, manifest in great improvements in civilized society?
Well, how are we determining improvements? We have such measurable outcomes as quality of life and life expectancy, but with it we notice a new raft of problems, such as, uhm, "spiritual ennui" :P
To say God is good is underrepresentation of God. The word is can be used to say anything is something. He is the one who created the world and life. If He wanted torture to be good He would have, but that is not Gods way.
Another topic related to this is of the world love. You can say I love God. Then you can turn around and say I love cake. Is it the same kind of love? No.
Just look at this passage of the Bible. John 21:15-17 15When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?" "Yes, Lord," he said, "you know that I love you." Jesus said, "Feed my lambs." 16Again Jesus said, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me?" He answered, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you." Jesus said, "Take care of my sheep."
17 The third time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, "Do you love me?" He said, "Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you."
Jesus said, "Feed my sheep.
This is because of the world love. Simon used the greek word for brotherly love(there are about 10 other forms). When Jesus was looking for unconditional love. In the end of this the English language just does not cut it when it comes to words like is and love, words just so general that you could get many meanings out of them.
Nah, I'm a firefighter, I think I can handle him... somehow. xP
Also, Strop, I don't think you can throw the story in from Abraham. If it is such that a divine force is speaking to you out of no where. I have a REALLY big inclination that you should do what it says. Dunno, sounds akward. Also, Its weird, because, if you've practiced a religion, or even helped start one as Abraham, you cannot say that this person would go "wha Wha WHAZ?" or whatever to God, since this person is his servant to spread God's message.
Also, I can't go into the discussion about the revising of the Catholic Church, Am Muslim. ^^ [No organized religion. Besides Religous laws. XD]
Strop, you gotsa understand that 1) God is beyond imagination, throughout Holy Books we know that he loves what he's made [Us. :P] and that he does right for us. He's merciful and all that. So you can't say he's NOT good to us, as he's made us. He wouldn't be a brainwashingerz tyrant because we wouldn't have free will. You can't just say "All God Does is Good". We're saying what he asks us to do is good. I don't know what it is about God being good, we really dunno what he does. We have free-will, and because of the "Adam + Eve" stuff we have we've been allowed to suffer in the world. To that, we have a problem, as all people aren't great. And the ones that REALLY Suck are screwing it up. So, when you act righteous in the name of God, you are doing what he wants, and, in reality, thats good.
Also, Garifu, your post was Awesome. [Though, have never read the bible, but still, awesome. ]
Um, I don't know if you really mean me or the guy above (blackops); same avatar...?
To respond to improvements, I was referring to practices which in the past have been universally accepted, and as we evolve socially within the boundaries of civilization (I say it like that because some practices may still exist outside of developed nations), we decide as global body that they are no longer acceptable. The examples I proposed were human sacrifice and slavery. At one time, both of these were commonplace, but we have come to value human life far more than we used to.
yes.. i am beginning to think that this site is too intelligent for me. So now it is my official goal to get banned. Not really ^_^. and yes garifu youre right, even though some people still practice those.
Eh, sorry if I'm confusing and you're trying to read the posts- being one of the old(er) farts (won't mention other names here!) on the forum, what I write is often the result of several years of thought and research which I may or may not have found a way to break down...as for words, you could always bookmark dictionary.com. Some people make fun of those who use it but eh, nuts to them :P
Armed: We need to sort out why we're at an impasse...actually anybody who comes to the table to talk religion/religious philosophy needs to do this otherwise the only thing that happens is people talking across each other. Is this useful? Didn't think so.
Strop, you gotsa understand that 1) God is beyond imagination, throughout Holy Books we know that he loves what he's made
Well, I recall your asking me what my views are on theism, so I guess here's a good place to start. First, I don't know to what extent the Islamic doctrines parallel the Christian ones and vice-versa, but my commentary is directed at the latter as that's the one I have knowledge in.
I'm hardly a strict reductionist, but I do find attributing the qualities of being and encompassing to an entity so very metaphysically cumbersome. Hence, despite appreciating the spiritual significance of blackop's post, I personally would prefer to do such to an outlook or a way of life (for example the Zen Buddhist school of thought), rather than to something we call a being (God).
So when I'm presented with phrases like "God is beyond our comprehension", I am often frustrated because while a very important phrase, it is also a very slippery phrase, and commonly used as a catch-all. Particularly, I must stress that I'm not trying to claim that God is anything but good (whatever this means is the subject of our present discussion, not whether God is good)- I'm trying to discuss how the Holy doctrines could/should be interpreted.
The original post posited that it is moot to debate about how "God is good" because this is God by definition. If we go from this, then the free will argument doesn't matter, as this too was given to us.
So then why did I bring up the story of Abraham? I wanted people to think about exactly what having faith entails- for example I do not recognise any divine authority, so your saying "you'll know when God speaks to you" (like my mother does all the time), really doesn't mean anything to me. We also need to think carefully about how we define "good" and our attitude to what is good, and what exactly entails "divine inspiration"- for example, if George Bush was serious about reasons for going to war, then his decision to start one was a God-ordained directive. How would you judge this, and what reasons would you have for doing so? Coming back to Abraham, I think the entire point of the story is that if it were somebody one did not assume was a divine command, it would sound pretty crazy to ask you to kill your own son (whom you love very much)! As verse one states, God decided to test Abraham's faith, so I think this is evidence that we should read the story as if God knew that the command given to Abraham was an unusual one.
Thus I am able to cite the story with Abraham (also Job, where God allowed Satan to put Job through a series of harsh trials to test his faith) without believing that it contradicts the statement that "God is good". You would agree that it isn't unfair of me to do that if this condition is satisfied, right?
Why did I do it anyway? Too often I see people relating their state of being now to their faith in God- that prosperity, for example, is a sign of one's blessedness, and, to extrapolate, if one is poor or one has illness, either they are prone to blame it on God or they have sinned, causing God to lose favor (again, see Job 3-37 for a discussion of this nature). It is also, as I said before, this basis that allowed Charles Templeton to be so influential in turning people away from God on the basis that if so much suffering is permitted to go on in the world, then God cannot be good, or, if one insists that God is good, God cannot be real.
This kind of thought pattern is destructive to those of Christian faith, and is often exploited by detractors. What I've done here is provided a means of freeing one from apparently contradictory facets of the faith, as opposed to criticise it.
In the end, this remains: "So, when you act righteous in the name of God, you are doing what he wants, and, in reality, thats good."
We still have not discovered, nor will we ever truly know, what acting righteous in the name of God, or doing good in the eyes of God, really is.
@ Gafiru, I accept the universality of these things and thus the basis of calling them improvements (I think I said above that they were based on the most prevalent measurable outcomes determining quality of life). I just like to keep that mite of skepticism about them as there is berth for discussing (on these forums, too), how our focus on these outcomes may prove to be problematic elsewhere.
Fair enough. As to your post above, I was wondering how you were going to manage that post by Armed, it was a bit "across" the topic, as you pointed out.
