Keith Russell

ManM said:
"Only a person who knows the greater good with certainty has the moral sanction to act in a utilitarian manner. God has perfect foresight--"

--This is a claim, offered with no evidence, it is said as if it were self-evident, but it is--of course--nothing of the kind.

ManM continued:
"--and so He should always be expected to act as a utilitarian."

--While this may seem 'logical' given your other premises, you've offered no evidence to support your earlier claims. To be considered 'rational', a claim must be supported by evidence. To be considered 'valid', a chain of reasoning must be comprised only of rational claims, based on rational claims. If any claim in the 'chain' is not supported by evidence--including one's intial premise, the chain cannot be considered 'valid'.

ManM concludes:
"We do not have perfect foresight, and so we do not share the same moral sanction as God. There is your rational basis."

--Making arbitrary, unsupported claims about 'God's' existence, and then 'God's' nature, has nothing at all to do with reason. The above is in no way a 'rational basis' for anything.

Keith.

ManM

Hmm, I see we've dug this topic out of the grave.

tergiversant,
I don't make the distinction between nature and supernature. Instead I differentiate between God and creation. That being said, nature is not 'outside' of God. God is the source of life, and anything outside of Him would be nonexistent. So quite literally, nothing is outside of God. Given that logic, enclosing God in some sort of 'supernature' would be complete nonsense.

You also do not have evidence for God, and yet you are granting His existence for the sake of the argument. If you want to make a theological argument relevant to Christianity, you likewise should admit the theology about Christ into the discussion.

Evil exists, and so we can deduce that God does not currently prevent all evil. However, it is not sound to say that evil exists, and thus God does not prevent any evil. Actually, we have no reference to determine exactly what quantity of evil God allows or prevents.

Life is my evidence. The world is my evidence. The red sunset over the Gulf of Mexico is my evidence.

Or maybe we are experiencing growing pains...

No, were you to have the knowledge and power of God, I suspect you would do the very same thing He does.

Thomas Metcalf,
What could be a greater good than the end of evil? Sure, some evils may be necessary to bring about this goal, but we shouldn't think that corrective evils are a good in themselves.

HRG,
In other words, a person's desire to do evil might conflict with God's desire for goodness. Paradise may very well be hell for those people.

ManM

Keith Russell,
If you wish, consider this thread to be a matter of theological speculation. Perhaps you should be addressing your critique to Tergiversant's original argument instead?

K

ManM:

If you want to define God as life, the world, and a red sunset, I have no problem agreeing that God exists. I would be hard pressed to see how that god could be considered morally perfert - or moral at all.

Keith Russell

ManM, you said:
"Keith Russell,
If you wish, consider this thread to be a matter of theological speculation. Perhaps you should be addressing your critique to Tergiversant's original argument instead?"

ManM, I don't understand. Are you unwilling to stand behind what you said; unwilling to address my challenges to your words?

I was unaware of any rule in effect here that asks forum participants to comment only on the initial posts in a given thread, but to allow subsequently posted opinions to go unchallenged.

If you are aware of such guidelines, please direct me to them; I am relatively new here, and may have missed them.

Keith.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by ManM:

"What could be a greater good than the end of evil? Sure, some evils may be necessary to bring about this goal, but we shouldn't think that corrective evils are a good in themselves."

Either there are some evils that are necessary for greater goods, or there are not. If there aren't, then God should remove all evil, if He is morally perfect. He has not, so He does not exist. If there are, then God will allow all these to exist, so every evil I commit that He allows to exist must produce a greater good.

ManM

K,
Those are things I take as evidence of God, not the definition of God.

Keith Russell,
This thread has a specific topic: Tergiversant is making an argument relating God to morality. Usually I try to keep things on topic, but since you insist I suppose we will fork this discussion.

My first claim about utilitarian sanction is a matter of common sense. We lack perfect prediction, therefore we cannot be certain if our actions will achieve our desired goal. If we are not certain of the outcome, we should not harm others and say it is 'for the greater good'. We really don't know if it is for the greater good. Quite a few atrocities in human history have been committed in the name of a greater good of some sort. When are we going to learn that we shouldn't act that way?

My second claim was a matter of theology. I see no problem making theological claims in a theological argument.

This line of reasoning means that the initial argument in this thread is not valid. That is why I suggested you direct it at Tergiversant. Now you seem to believe there exists evidence that is free of our interpretation. What is your evidence of this?

There is no rule saying that threads should remain on topic. I just look at it as a courtesy to both posters and readers.

Thomas Metcalf,
We've been around that circle before, and I have addressed your argument. What is your response to my doctor analogy?

Thomas Metcalf

I was just trying to make sure you were saying what I think you were saying. Here is your doctor analogy:

"Maybe an analogy will help. If you get sick, you know a doctor will fix you up. Your claim is that we should inject ourselves with the flu so that the doctor can make us well. Why would I do that when I could reach the same state of health without the flu? Furthermore, why would I stand and watch someone else inject themselves with the flu? I know the doctor will make them well, but why let them do go through the flu when there is an easier path?"

This will prove to be a very uncomfortable position for you to take. If you claim that God does not need to use instrumental suffering, then all suffering is unnecessary. God is therefore morally imperfect, because He allows plenty of intense needless suffering, and therefore, God does not exist. It is morally better to prevent needless suffering than to allow it.

HRG

No, a person's desire to do good as humans understand it, might conflict with God's desire for good as he understands it. If I want to become a painter, who has the gall to claim that he knows better than me what is good for me ?

As Sverker Johannson's sig puts it:

"Humans breed pigs for a purpose -- making bacon.
Does that make a pig's life meaningful for the pig ?"

Or - what the pig regards as good for itself and what humans regard as good for pigs may be quite different.

Regards,
HRG.

ManM

Thomas Metcalf,
The key is that we have the potential to choose either sickness or health. In choosing sickness we expose a deeper problem. By allowing the sickness before a cure, the doctor aims to heal both the deeper problem and the sickness. But the sickness and cure are both unnecessary unless we choose to become sick.

I think you pulled a fast one here. All suffering is unnecessary in the sense that we don't have to choose sickness. But given our choice of sickness, suffering is necessary for our healing. Your argument above would imply that God was morally imperfect for allowing us to choose sickness. Yet, freedom is morally neutral as it can be used for both good and evil. How can anyone say that the creation of morally free beings is intrinsically immoral?

In summary, it is not necessary for you to choose evil to bring on the greater good. Your attempt to use God's goodness to justify evil does not work. You can also claim that your actions are of no importance because there will be happy ending. This fails because they are of grave importance in the here and now. Sickness is still undesirable, even if you know it will only be temporary. The existence of a doctor does not mean we should purposely become ill.

HRG,
He created you. Wouldn't you think He knows what is good for you? And have you considered the extreme cases of your example? If I want to infect myself with Ebola, who has the gall to claim that he knows better than me what is good for me? If I want to drink myself into a stupor every night, who has the gall to claim that he knows better than me what is good for me? What is wrong with those two positions?