The_Ist

PHILOSOFT -

I'm going to try to categorize the main points of our discussion.

1) Do not get me wrong, I am not attempting to negate the common definition of omnipotence, which is "all-powerful." I am simply trying to further explain what "all-powerful" entails, as such phraseology is ambiguous. I consider the terms "omnipotent" and "all-powerful" to be synonymous; any further explanation I give is simply meant to clarify the conception of this attribute.

2) Your main point, I think, is that there is seemingly no reason why omnipotence should include being morally superior, or have anything to do with morality. Is this correct? The rest of my response will be tailored to this point, so hopefully I'm interpreting you correctly.

A being can be either moral or amoral. If it is the former, it can be perfectly good, or not. You seem to be saying that there is no reason why a being's morality or amorality should be relevant to its omnipotence. However, it seems obvious to me that a being that is amoral cannot be all-powerful, because it does not have the power to act morally. (This would coincide with my description of an omnipotent being as one who can do anything any hypothetical being could want to do, insofar as this act doesn't contradict his other positive attributes. It is possible for some hypothetical being to act morally; since an amoral being cannot, and the fact that he cannot doesn't contradict one of its other positive attributes, it cannot be omnipotent.) So an omnipotent being must be a moral being. Now the question is whether a perfectly moral being is more powerful than one who is not, i.e., one that is at least somewhat immoral. And this is where I see some relevance from the Koukl article. Let me quote:

"It sees evil as a positive additional attribute rather than a lack or a privation of good, as Augustine argued, and Aquinas after him, and others have argued in this fashion. Many do nowadays as well. I mentioned Doug Geivett's book as an excellent example of that."

The point is that evil (immorality), or the ability to do evil, is not some extra positive attribute with which a being can be more powerful, but that it is simply, as Koukl puts it, "a lack or a privation of good," in the same way that darkness is but the privation of light. He then goes on to give the glass of water analogy to illustrate his point.

So a being that is morally perfect is more powerful than one who is not, because the latter lacks something substantive that the former possesses (i.e., some of the good of the former). As Koukl points out, the fact that a being that is not morally perfect can do things (i.e., act immorally) that a morally perfect being cannot do has no bearing on the relative power of the two. A distinction needs to be made between quantitative and qualitative omnipotence, the latter of which is discussed in this article:

http://sguthrie.net/qualitative_omnipotence.htm

(There has been a thread started discussing this article, BTW.)

I would also point out that Plato's philosophical argument in The Republic, according to which it is better to always be just than not, is not with respect to only heads-of-state, but to moral beings (and, as such, those with the ability to act justly/unjustly) in general. His conception of the Just City is only an illustration to convey this point. So I think it is relevant to the discussion at hand.

All that being said, it seems to me as though omnipotence entails moral perfection.

3) My point regarding the burden of proof was based on a misunderstanding of your basic argument. I thought you were arguing that a being that can perform evil is more powerful than one who cannot; as such, you would need to adequately prove that claim. But I think your main point is simply that there is no reason to consider moral status when determining omnipotence, in which case I do have the burden of proof to show why it should.

Worship implies an object of worship. In order for there to be an object of worship, some conception of this object must be possessed.

My argument is simply that if a God exists who wants to be worshipped, he would give us the capabilities to form a conception of him, because without such an understanding there can be no object of worship, and thus no worship.

This is irrelevant to the issue at hand. My argument is a response to those that claim that if God exists, he is completely unknowable, This is the viewpoint you seemed to be advocating in your previous post. This discussion doesn't hinge on whether this God actually exists, because it is based on the conditional ("if") that he does.

I am not going to debate this point with you, as I do not think that God does not ever hate. I think it is pretty clear that the Christian God hates sin, and it is that concpetion of God I'm interested in defending. My apologies if my previous words led you to think I was advocating a personal view that God cannot hate.

I do, however, think that omnipotence entails moral perfection (see my discussion with Philosoft).

Yes, you understand it correctly. There is a distinction between quantitative and qualitative omnipotence, as is discussed in the link posted above.

Nowhere357

Actually, you can only know something, if you believe that knowing something means that you know something.

IMO Knowledge requires belief. Not the other way around. There is no knowledge that does not require preconceptions.

So one can say "I know".

Zero evidence is not evidence of zero. Maybe there are unicorns on some other planet?

Epistemologically speaking, I suppose we do need to figure out what we mean by 'knowing'. Mostly though, I think using logic to figure out logic is like using a hammer to hammer a hammer.

Philosoft

OK.

Pretty much.

Bifurcation fallacy. There are many more possible states-of-affairs than just "perfectly moral" and "amoral." In any case, it doesn't seem meaningful to call God "perfectly moral" unless there is some external moral standard that he always adheres to.

Be careful you don't equivocate; a "moral being" is only one that can make moral choices, perfection has nothing to do with it.

Well, darkness is a physical absence of photons. It's not clear why "good" would consist of something that "evil" lacks.

I'll have to consider this when I get some more time.

Maybe, but this whole thing about "moral perfection" seems like something these arguments are incapable of dealing with.

Dr. Retard

And how is moral perfection a "positive attribute"? Looks negative to me: the absence of any moral flaws.

The_Ist

No, you misunderstood that paragraph. The first sentence divides beings into two categories: those that are moral (i.e., that make moral choices), and those that are amoral. The second sentence divides the "moral" category into two subcategories: those beings that are morally perfect, and those who aren't. These two divisions cover all possibilities.

This issue is definitely off-topic, but I will say that calling God "perfectly moral" isn't meaningless if this morality is grounded in God's nature.

All I was implying with this statement was that such a being can make moral choices.

Well, from at least the Christian perspective, evil is just a lack of good. Philosophical arguments regarding such have been made by Aquinas and others, though I admittedly don't know enough about their arguments to paraphrase them. But within Christian theology, such a view seems evident: there is the original creation, according to which everything was, at first good; there is also the verse (forget the reference) that says that "all things work together for good," or something close to that. Anyway, the point is that from the specific theistic viewpoint I'm defending, evil is a privation of good. And insofar as we are discussing the attributes of a supposed being within this viewpoint, it seems like we need to take into consideration other ideas of that worldview which may bear on those attributes. We have to do this or we won't be able to tell if this viewpoint is internally consistent or not. Accordingly, it would seem that with respect to the argument at hand, we need to assume that evil is the lack of good, even if this can't be proven. If we don't, I think we're just going to be talking past each other. But then again, maybe this is the point at which our discussion will fizzle out.

I'm not sure about that. If Plato's conclusions are valid, it is better for any moral being to never act unjustly. Therefore, it is better for any moral being to never perform evil, because an act of evil is always unjust (in the sense that Plato uses the word, "justice" is pretty much synonymous with "doing good"). Thus, since it is better for a being to never perform evil, the best kind of moral being is one that is morally perfect.

Two points:

1) I wasn't implying that moral perfection was a positive attribute. The positive attribute that would describe God's moral perfection would be something like "goodness." What I mean by "attribute" is something that describes the fundamental nature of a being, i.e., a being's essence. So if God's essence includes "goodness," he cannot perform evil; a being cannot act in disaccord with his very nature.

2) "Moral perfection" and "the absence of any moral flaws" are not synonymous terms. The latter could refer to an amoral being. Therefore, I don't think you can use the two interchangeably.

Philosoft

Okay.

I don't think you can escape a tautology here, but I'll leave this for another thread, should we decide to pursue it.

There is no such thing as an evident theodicy with respect to the Bible. There are numerous points within the Bible that indicate God considers "evil" an entity unto itself, perhaps the most infamous being, "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things." (Isaiah 45:7)

With all due respect, I don't think assuming the truth of an indeterminate Christian theodicy is going to do either of us any good. If your argument rests on the assumption of part of what you're trying to prove, you've got a non-starter on your hands.

If God's moral perfection is merely the set of all actions God does, there is no possibility for God to do a morally imperfect act. Hence, Plato's musings are meaningless.

The_Ist

Agreed.

Without getting into the obvious corollary issue of this controversial passage, I don't see how it proves your point at all. If evil is the privation of good, then to take away some bit of good is to create evil. Similarly, if I block out a light I create darkness. There is nothing wrong with such terminology. This verse doesn't seem to clearly indicate that evil is something substantive.

What I'm trying to prove is that omnipotence entails moral perfection. The supposed assumption that evil is a lack of good doesn't seem to be part of that, but a separate issue.

1. According to Plato, a morally perfect being is better off than one who is not.

2. God is a morally perfect being (though you obviously have qualms on this point).

3. Therefore, according to Plato, God is better off than beings who are not morally perfect.

You may disagree with this argument, but it does seem to show that Plato's arguments could bear SOME importance on this issue.

Philosoft

I don't need to show that my interpretation is correct, only that yours isn't. I think there's quite enough ambiguity in the Bible about the good/evil dichotomy that at least reasonable doubt exists.

"Omnipotence entails moral perfection" seems antithetical to actual morality. You are essentially making the superlative "might makes right" argument.

If God is both the source of morality and the judge of his own moral character, morality has no independent meaning; it is simply "what God does." And it is, thus, a priori inapplicable to non-God beings.

I believe this requires a standard independent of the things being judged.
I don't necessarily disagree with Plato, but I think God is present within too many variables of the equation to make Plato applicable.

The_Ist

I don’t really know how to respond, other than to say that I simply disagree. I think it is evident that the Bible treats evil as a privation of good, and I do not think the verse you cited does anything to argue against this viewpoint.

When I said “omnipotence entails moral perfection,” what I meant was “if a being is omnipotent, it will also necessarily be morally perfect.” I don’t see how this view is comparable to me arguing that “might makes right,” as you imply. A being could hypothetically be morally perfect, while not being omnipotent; however, a being that is omnipotent needs to be morally perfect, IMO.

My view is that objective morality is rooted in God’s perfect nature.

1. God is a perfect being.
2. God has a moral nature.
3. Therefore, God’s moral nature is perfect.

Morality is not simply “what God does”; however, what God does will always be perfectly moral, due to his nature.

If the standard is God’s perfect moral nature, then his moral acts and those of beings who are not morally perfect can be judged in accordance with that moral nature. Of course, God’s moral acts will always be perfectly moral, since they flow from that nature. But this does not relegate morality to simply “what God does,” as I’ve explained.

See above.

Philosoft

With respect to morality, for any omnipotent being, there appears to be two mutually exclusive scenarios:

1. The being itself is the source of morality. This is discussed further below.

2. There exists a standard of morality independent of the being. There is obviously no prima facie unity of unlimited power and perfect morality.

Inasmuch as we have no way of objectively identifying a "perfect nature," this is the same as saying, "morality is what God says it is."

(1) is untenable. If "perfect" is an attribute, we must have an independent standard by which to judge God. Otherwise, "perfect" means nothing more than "like God" or "identical to God" and the statement reduces to "God is a being like God."

1. God is the source of morality.
2. Every moral action is do-able by God.
3. There is a possible world in which God does every moral action.
4. Therefore, morality is identical to "what God does."

Pardon, but I haven't seen an explanation for your assertion.