Mightily_Oats

Accepting that "moral law" comes from God is perhaps easier having accpeted that the entire universe comes from him.

I'm not quite sure I understand the objection that a God-Based morality would be "arbitrary." That would be to say "God could have made it otherwise." Surely the nature of God is, for the theist, the foundational unchanging premise from which the entire universe is derived? How then could he have done what he has done otherwise?

case

Easily. If he is all powerful, he could easily have done otherwise. If he couldn't, I don't think he measures up to the common concept of a god. If god's nature is unchanging, then why is it so? Why can't it change? Why can't god say, "Oh, screw it, I think I'll let them eat pork", or, "You know, I really don't care if people worship me. So long as they treat their fellow man decently"? Falling back on the argument that this is god's will doesn't resolve anything.

advocate_11

Certainly the question of whether God is arbitrary is not limited to morality.

It is very difficult to accept that this was the only universe that God was capable of creating. So it also is very difficult to accept that the morality currently represented to be Gods was the only morality possible.

We could plug many other questions of God's nature and functioning into this formula as well.

Must it be said that morality came before the Creator?

It seems plausible to me that the theist could say simply that the nature of reality is and always has been that there is a God with certain moral beliefs.

This is not a matter of proof you see; it is not clear to me why being arbitrary should itself be deemed unacceptable for any other reason than that you may not find it emotionally satisfying.

case

I'm not sure if it would be a matter of being unacceptable. I couldn't care less; but what meaning do love, suffering, and pain take on with an arbitrary morality? It's a bit like arbitrarily picking the end of the year: it's not really the end of the year, because there really isn't a year. It only takes on the meaning that humans give it. It would seem that, if god had picked a particular morality, he had done so without taking human emotion or desire into consideration, or at least that's the way it seems. We desire the flesh of more that one person, but god wants us only to be with one. And yet, god created us, and our desire. Why would he stack the deck this way? What sort of message would he be sending? If god had not arbitrarily picked this morality, why would he pick the one he did? He must have known, being omniscient, what would happen. So why do it? Of course, one could always fall back on the ever popular, "You don't understand the nature of God" argument, but you're not really arguing anything. Your just left with a badly repaired foundation.

excreationist

Well he does take human emotion into consideration every now and then but on the whole God puts his own needs (to feel superior/perfect, etc) above those of others.

The Other Michael

Hi Case,

I think you are butting your head into presuppositionalism - you might want to take a look at this thread:

<a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=56&t=000169" target="_blank">What's the deal with presuppositionalism?</a>

It will help if you are a big fan of tautologies.

cheers,
Michael

advocate_11

If there was a both a time when no one except for God existed, and a time when God had not yet created everything and it was not at that time necessary for him to create, then yes, I believe that this is absolutely the case.

The theist does not wish to deny that God could have chosen not to create, and neither do they wish to deny that God at one time existed by himself. I think that it is important to realize this aspect of God's nature when questioning such aspects of the belief that might not intuitively seem to be something that ought to be taken as true.

A very large part of the belief is simply, "it is and always has been the nature of reality that these things are so."

case

Thanks Michael. It looks like an interesting thread, but I'm less than a week away from vacation, and right now I wouldn't come near it with a ten foot pole. Get back to me in, oh, about a month.

advocate, I'm not sure exactly what it is you're trying to state. If you're mearly stating that Christians believe that the nature of god is and always was, that's fine, but it doesn't really answer anything.

[ June 22, 2002: Message edited by: case ]</p>

advocate_11

I am attempting to offer an alternative to a divine command theory for morality. God did not "get" his morality; God is a being of the sort which by its nature possesses a morality. This does not at all imply that morality came before the Creator, nor that its origin is external to the creator.

Given the current situation, God can not require any morality other than the one which he currently requires.

I shall expound:
"God" is a being of the sort whose functioning is dictated by the net requirement of his desire for emotional satisfaction, the specifics of which are enumerated in his "nature". This "nature" may be represented as a set of rules, the cardinality of which increases over time (at a rate modeled by what I can not say), and from which it can be derived, given a current state of reality, S, and an emotional state of God, E, that God will take action(s) (or inaction) X_0,... .

One of these actions is to enact the current moral requirements. God has taken this action because he finds it (or, "anticipates that he will find it," depending upon your view of foreknowledge), to put it simply, more emotionally satisfying to do so than to not do so.

I like vanilla ice-cream more than chocolate ice-cream.

[ June 22, 2002: Message edited by: advocate_11 ]</p>

case

advocate,

I don't see how this is an alternative to DCT. If I understand your argument, then God made this morality because he wanted to. But it still comes from God. This is one of the chief problems with DCT.

Let us assume that God just happened to have his morality. It didn't come from anywhere, it just was. So, later on, when God created humanity, he imposed a morality on us. If he wanted to impose this morality on us, why? Because he liked it? This would imply a very emotional god at the least. This brings back the age old problem with DCT, namely that this makes morality arbitrary. What if God wanted us to slaughter innocent children, or perform countless other atrocities? Morality becomes worthless.

But let us assume that he had no choice. God gave us this morality because he had to, because he was just basing our morality on his. Then he ceases to be all powerful, and isn't very God-like at all.

I don't see how this is an alternative to DCT. Any morality that came from God would have to be a DCT, regardless of its implications. But I don't see how it could be, unless we conclude that morality didn't come from God. Or am I missing something.

And by the way, strawberry beats vanilla and chocolate, hands down.