Skip, I think that you're missing my point.
Maybe I've not fully expanded on the "Something more," theory of things. The point that I want to make is that not all things are reducible, and that the things that are, lose something in the reduction (where reduction is a process in which things are broken down into component parts to be examined an understood how they work). When you reduce a love relationship into merely a biological imperative, you've lost the subtlety of the multitudinous forms of love. Not all love (and this a problem with an English definition) is biological. What about the love of a parent, or of a friend? The former could be explained, but what about the love of an adoptive parent? The adoptive parent isn't loving a child that is biologically theirs, in point of fact, most adoptive parents are likely to be more loving than the average biological parent, who include within their population those who abandon their children, or have no choice but to do so. The love towards a friend could also be reduced in an anthropological sense, where it is a relationship between tribe or clan members, where working together would allow for the survival of said tribe, but if you examine the mythology of tribes, friendship is something that exists as a further bond, a further relationship beyond that of normal tribe ties.
What I'm trying to point out is that cold rationalism, materialism, and reductionism, in the name of definition, in the name of the compulsive need to explain everything, has slain the anima of the thing they wish to describe. Science, and specifically scientism has a tendency to attempt to explain everything, contain it within a box of words and rules, to observe it and understand it. The last two points are fine, but, the problem is that the way in which we experience life is much more than a set of processes.
Especially when it come to things that as individuals we experience which are hard to explain. An epiphany, a spiritual experience, a moment of transcendent peace, a reallly good Metallica concert, or the look of acceptance and unconditional love in the eye of a lover. These are things that refuse to be quantified. Instead we understand them implicitly as a kind of qualia in our world. These are things that we apprehend, instead of comprehend, something that we percieve in a direct and immediate way. We touch upon something, perhaps tangentially, but we touch upon something that is more, and in a spiritual way, we find ourselves in the mysterium tremendum. We find ourselves in a place where we touch the numinous, the powerful sensation of unconsciously understanding that there is something present that can't be seen. We are confronted with Mystery. It was a wise man that said that is foolishness not to believe in the possibility that there is something (or many things) beyond the limits of your imagination. Simply because they haven't been discovered or quantified doesn't mean that they don't exist. Not merely that, it could be in our rush to explain every little piece of the universe, we miss out on the larger picture, a picture that can be intuited, a picture that, stepping back, may come into focus.
There are scientists who are enraptured by this notion, they make theories that change the world. The theory of gravity, or of relativity. There are scientists who embrace the mystery and set out to explore it with open eyes, and open hearts. They have stumbled upon something that people have sought and pursued for a long time; the wonder of mystery.
It is important to note that we humans are fragile instruments. Our minds are not perfect, nor are our ideas. We've tried to abstractize, or externalize our knowledge and thinking in order to fix our incapability to get things right through our minds, but all to often we forget how fallible we are, how beholden we are to a set of ideas or beliefs about the world. And once we come across something that explains the world in manner that is consistent and logical we forget that still this reasoning is human. Thinkers become caught up in their own ideas, they ossify themselves into rigid stances of thought, and they refuse to accept the notion that they could be wrong. They lack self-reflection, they are caught in the honey-pot of their own ideas. It seems that the more they are challenged, the more they retreat into reinforcing their thinking about the world, instead of considering that someone else might have something to say, and that what they say could be valuable too.
There is more than meets the eye, to quote Transformers.
Wednesday
Tuesday
Abstraction and Evolution
Indy you may need to rein yourself in. This notion you have of the something more, of abstraction of a variety of things can easily be explained within the materialistic world. This explanation doesn't kill the value of the things you talked about, but rather it classifies them, makes them easier to understand.
Take the mind, for example. In recent research it is found to be consistently synonymous with the brain, take piece out of the brain and directly observe how the mind changes. These things that you speak of so glowingly have their place within theory. The value we place on personhood can be related to the social understanding that their survival helps my survival, especially if they are of my tribe. The search for the other is our innate curiosity that allows members of our species the drive to discover new and valuable things for the rest of us.
Processes, especially complex ones, obtain a kind of critical mass, and a kind of resiliency that allow them to continue and develop. There is room within chaos theory to explain how the complex process of mutation, genetics and evolution arise. And these are things that can be measured, things that can be examined, that can be taken on trust, instead of on evidence of something that is conspicuously absent.
That is the power of materialism. Things are explainable, and things that aren't are just waiting their turn.
Take the mind, for example. In recent research it is found to be consistently synonymous with the brain, take piece out of the brain and directly observe how the mind changes. These things that you speak of so glowingly have their place within theory. The value we place on personhood can be related to the social understanding that their survival helps my survival, especially if they are of my tribe. The search for the other is our innate curiosity that allows members of our species the drive to discover new and valuable things for the rest of us.
Processes, especially complex ones, obtain a kind of critical mass, and a kind of resiliency that allow them to continue and develop. There is room within chaos theory to explain how the complex process of mutation, genetics and evolution arise. And these are things that can be measured, things that can be examined, that can be taken on trust, instead of on evidence of something that is conspicuously absent.
That is the power of materialism. Things are explainable, and things that aren't are just waiting their turn.
Love and the Immediate
Ah, Skip, it is so easy to let words run away from us, become things that are alive in their own right, and so easily injurious. A fascinating concept, Love. So hard to define, hard to capture, hard to chase, hard to hold on to, yet the object of so many people.
If we are to take the materialist's perspective, particularly the physicalist's perspective, love is nothing than chemicals. Love is a biological imperative, the name that our brain gives to label the impulse to pass on our genes. Love is nothing more than chemicals. Materialism only allows for the matter to exist, and hard physcialism is hard determinism too, we are nothing more than the means to the end of some random, incredibly lucky, configuration of billions upon billions of atoms. We are cosmic accidents in their eyes. Can't you see that there must be something more?
We see love as something that we are attached to that is bigger than ourselves, it exists, but according to the physicalist, on in the waves of hormones produced by our amygdalas. To them we are small, we are finite, we are reducible. We are the corpse on their autopsy table of scientism, slain by the axe of reason. Indeed valuable information is gleaned from the corpse, how the innards work, the shape and structure of the brain, the processes are discovered, the blood is analyzed. But is not life. The brain is not alive by its chemicals, but by its mind. The heart is not alive by its pump, but by its feelings, the body is the house of a person. These mortal coils are exactly that, coils that contain personhood, a container that must contain something, call it a soul, call it a mind, but it is so easy to intuit. Perhaps that is why it is so hard for us to prove, because it requires a lateral kind of thinking, instead of linear one, perhaps our understanding of God is also in this way.
The conception of something more is what all of this is predicated upon. The more leads to the ultimate, the ultimate lends us the notion of a God.
Think on the concept of the person. If we are nothing more than matter, than how should be recognize the value of other human beings, or even simply recognize people as people? We should, instead, according to the physicalist, the materialist, simply see them as walking meat popsicles, meatbags full of chemical reactions, animated by the process of a lucky series of mutations.
Think on the concept of self-reflection. What is the use of self-reflection to a materialist? We should all live life as immediately as possible, as close to evolutionary forces as possible, spreading our genes as far and wide as we can, and protecting that gene pool as much as we can. We are subsumed by the necessity of the propagation of our species, we are beast, we are nothing more than flesh. Self-reflection belies this, as does the concept of the mind, as does the concept of the something more, or the concept of the Other. Self-reflection presupposes an existence of the mind, and an understanding of time and causality and morality. Self-relfection allows us to see ourselves as both subject and object, instead of an ever-present subject of nascent impulses.
If we are to take the materialist's perspective, particularly the physicalist's perspective, love is nothing than chemicals. Love is a biological imperative, the name that our brain gives to label the impulse to pass on our genes. Love is nothing more than chemicals. Materialism only allows for the matter to exist, and hard physcialism is hard determinism too, we are nothing more than the means to the end of some random, incredibly lucky, configuration of billions upon billions of atoms. We are cosmic accidents in their eyes. Can't you see that there must be something more?
We see love as something that we are attached to that is bigger than ourselves, it exists, but according to the physicalist, on in the waves of hormones produced by our amygdalas. To them we are small, we are finite, we are reducible. We are the corpse on their autopsy table of scientism, slain by the axe of reason. Indeed valuable information is gleaned from the corpse, how the innards work, the shape and structure of the brain, the processes are discovered, the blood is analyzed. But is not life. The brain is not alive by its chemicals, but by its mind. The heart is not alive by its pump, but by its feelings, the body is the house of a person. These mortal coils are exactly that, coils that contain personhood, a container that must contain something, call it a soul, call it a mind, but it is so easy to intuit. Perhaps that is why it is so hard for us to prove, because it requires a lateral kind of thinking, instead of linear one, perhaps our understanding of God is also in this way.
The conception of something more is what all of this is predicated upon. The more leads to the ultimate, the ultimate lends us the notion of a God.
Think on the concept of the person. If we are nothing more than matter, than how should be recognize the value of other human beings, or even simply recognize people as people? We should, instead, according to the physicalist, the materialist, simply see them as walking meat popsicles, meatbags full of chemical reactions, animated by the process of a lucky series of mutations.
Think on the concept of self-reflection. What is the use of self-reflection to a materialist? We should all live life as immediately as possible, as close to evolutionary forces as possible, spreading our genes as far and wide as we can, and protecting that gene pool as much as we can. We are subsumed by the necessity of the propagation of our species, we are beast, we are nothing more than flesh. Self-reflection belies this, as does the concept of the mind, as does the concept of the something more, or the concept of the Other. Self-reflection presupposes an existence of the mind, and an understanding of time and causality and morality. Self-relfection allows us to see ourselves as both subject and object, instead of an ever-present subject of nascent impulses.
Inhumanity is a Dangerous Word to Swing
I must admit, that your implication of dealing with life in a pragmatic and real sense leads to inhumanity. If anything it is the opposite. I would argue that it is religion that causes a great deal of the pain and suffering in the world by creating unrealistic expectations of the world. You spoke earlier of the betrayal of expectation, I would say that the selfsame expectations are foisted upon impressionable people and serve to keep them subservient to nothing more than dogma, withered old white men, and trapped in cycle of thought that isn't logical and punishes people inordinately to the degree of their imagined and real wrongs.
Religion simplifies things to the point of being crass. It makes people swallow pablum about the world, and often opium to dull them to the suffering of others. Man's inhumanity to man has only recently been predicated by people without an expressed religious intent. For most of human history, the atrocities have been committed in the name of God. The Crusades, the Inquisition, Ireland, Bosnia, the Armenian Genocide.
To attribute the non-belief of god with the non-morality of the adherents of the non-belief, is also false. Non-belief of God allows for us to take this world that much more seriously, it could be all we have. Things become that much more valuable, life becomes that much more precious than with some heavenly safety net to catch people with after they knock off. Atheist experience love just as keenly as the rest of you, if not more. They see life in a realistic sense, with measurable means and ends, within a framework of reason that is not held captive by superstition or misplaced beliefs. To imply that this is lesser or inhumane is to call the kettle black.
Religion simplifies things to the point of being crass. It makes people swallow pablum about the world, and often opium to dull them to the suffering of others. Man's inhumanity to man has only recently been predicated by people without an expressed religious intent. For most of human history, the atrocities have been committed in the name of God. The Crusades, the Inquisition, Ireland, Bosnia, the Armenian Genocide.
To attribute the non-belief of god with the non-morality of the adherents of the non-belief, is also false. Non-belief of God allows for us to take this world that much more seriously, it could be all we have. Things become that much more valuable, life becomes that much more precious than with some heavenly safety net to catch people with after they knock off. Atheist experience love just as keenly as the rest of you, if not more. They see life in a realistic sense, with measurable means and ends, within a framework of reason that is not held captive by superstition or misplaced beliefs. To imply that this is lesser or inhumane is to call the kettle black.
Prescience, Time, and the limitation of God
I have to say Skip, that you have a contrastingly negative view of people, dangerous even. I think that in order to allow hope to even exist in this post Pandoran world we must hold on to it, and protect it from a systematic understanding of the world that ever assaults the hope of something better. It is a choice that people make, an attitude of an open hand instead of a closed fist. If we are so quick to dismiss people's potential for good, we becoming willing to label them, we are inured to their injuries, we become in danger of thinking them as lesser. If we think lesser of them we are able to justify all measure of inhumanity against them.
Here's something different to think about, why are we so eager to give God all the omni traits? This All powerful being is not exactly the God of traditional Abrahamic religions, which is the target of the arrows cast with omni bow. God, perhaps, abdicates some of his power in order to allow us choice. In order for Him to be good, he must let us chose to reject a morality based on the good cast by Him or accept it. This is a limitation on His power. This isn't however a limitation on His sovereignty. If anything it demonstrates an organic, dynamic, living God where He reacts to our choices, where were are in dialogue with Him through how we choose. He is aware of the outcome of our choices, the thread of our lives, the warp and woof, how that thread gets tangled. He acts, maybe, in how we are aware of the gradations of our choices, how moral it is that we chose.
Testament of his direct action as are understood in the Old Testament Bible, or in the Torah, could be interepreted in a more sympathic version than pure revulsion at the destruction of whole peoples. I agree these are not easy things to disconjure, or explain away. People have tried, and I would say it's worth listening to them, but I find myself uncomfortable with a God that destroys cities based on the sexual choice of the inhabitants (or perhaps they truly were evil cities), or whole nations that happen to choose the wrong God to follow, especially as Abraham's God seemed to be one in a host of gods at the time.
There seems to be a fine line that can be walked between determinism and free will, a sense of free choice bracketed by causality, and situation. There's room for God in there.
Here's something different to think about, why are we so eager to give God all the omni traits? This All powerful being is not exactly the God of traditional Abrahamic religions, which is the target of the arrows cast with omni bow. God, perhaps, abdicates some of his power in order to allow us choice. In order for Him to be good, he must let us chose to reject a morality based on the good cast by Him or accept it. This is a limitation on His power. This isn't however a limitation on His sovereignty. If anything it demonstrates an organic, dynamic, living God where He reacts to our choices, where were are in dialogue with Him through how we choose. He is aware of the outcome of our choices, the thread of our lives, the warp and woof, how that thread gets tangled. He acts, maybe, in how we are aware of the gradations of our choices, how moral it is that we chose.
Testament of his direct action as are understood in the Old Testament Bible, or in the Torah, could be interepreted in a more sympathic version than pure revulsion at the destruction of whole peoples. I agree these are not easy things to disconjure, or explain away. People have tried, and I would say it's worth listening to them, but I find myself uncomfortable with a God that destroys cities based on the sexual choice of the inhabitants (or perhaps they truly were evil cities), or whole nations that happen to choose the wrong God to follow, especially as Abraham's God seemed to be one in a host of gods at the time.
There seems to be a fine line that can be walked between determinism and free will, a sense of free choice bracketed by causality, and situation. There's room for God in there.
Prescience and God
Indy, you seem to have a terribly optimistic view of people. People's desires aren't always focused on that something more, but mostly on how to get through the next day, satisfy their desires, and to get their comeuppance, or how to reinforce their jaded cynicism about the world. Perhaps you have a point in your kind of prelapsarian view of people, and whether one should revert to it in order to make metaphysical judgments. Or maybe you should just take your head out of the clouds and deal with life.
The biggest issue with a good god and free choice, as you put it, is the issue of prescience. I articulated in the first post on free will, but perhaps I need to expand it. God's pre-existent knowledge of a person's actions, whether they chose good or bad, say, in the killing of a child, implicates him in that killing, especially if he has the power to change that situation.
The biggest issue with a good god and free choice, as you put it, is the issue of prescience. I articulated in the first post on free will, but perhaps I need to expand it. God's pre-existent knowledge of a person's actions, whether they chose good or bad, say, in the killing of a child, implicates him in that killing, especially if he has the power to change that situation.
Free Will, Power and Powerlessness
Skip, the fascinating thing about this point about free will and the debate around it is that it engenders a great deal of emotion for many people, on both sides.
Could it be that people who are so vociferous in their repulsion of a God that they wish for a good God to be true, but are disappointed when they discover, in their perception, that it is but myth to them? This is an issue that creates feelings and engenders passions because it can strike a personal loss, or a the trauma of a people, as in the God is Dead theology of Rubenstein in reaction to Auschwitz. I mention these with a sense of reverence, because this is something where we must, instead of blithe debate, walk carefully on the dreams and the corpses of dreams. I shall try to tread softly.
People, I would argue, have a notion of the perfect that seems to be embedded in our collective psyche. We know that there can be something more, that what we see is either, not as it should be, or incomplete. We manifest this knowledge in our ambitions, our drive for happiness and solace, and escape. We are aware at some level that there is some kind of ideal, that there could possibly be more than we imagine. This is expressed in science fiction, in our fascination with extraterrestials, with the manifold incarnations of religion. So we are disappointed and deeply so when our expectations for the ideal are betrayed. I would posit that there are two kinds of atheist, one that grows up born skeptical, and another that has lost their faith in some fashion or another. This may be a generalization, but perhaps a safe one. This loss of faith touches at some point on the monolithic issue that is free will.
Pure free will seems to be illusive. It's philosophic creation, and in a very pragmatic sense, we don't posess it entirely. Here's what I mean. If a person were to have pure free will, they would be an entirely unrestricted agent. They could, for example kill any person they desire, but would be constrained with the resultant consequences. They would go to jail, and their ability to chose most things would be taken from them. Free will may be a misnomer in a world of causality, but a perhaps free choice would be a better name for it, or "free act." This would be a choice that is bracketed by the cause of the choice or act and its results. This still pegs responsibility on the agent doing the act, but that agent isn't entirely free, their range of choices has been determined by events previous to that particular act.
Within this context, a God can exist, His power can be compatible with our ability to choose. This is necessary building block on the notion of a compassionate God. In order for God to be good He must allow us the room to chose between bad and good, Himself and selfish acts, or helping others versus hurting others or ignoring them.
Could it be that people who are so vociferous in their repulsion of a God that they wish for a good God to be true, but are disappointed when they discover, in their perception, that it is but myth to them? This is an issue that creates feelings and engenders passions because it can strike a personal loss, or a the trauma of a people, as in the God is Dead theology of Rubenstein in reaction to Auschwitz. I mention these with a sense of reverence, because this is something where we must, instead of blithe debate, walk carefully on the dreams and the corpses of dreams. I shall try to tread softly.
People, I would argue, have a notion of the perfect that seems to be embedded in our collective psyche. We know that there can be something more, that what we see is either, not as it should be, or incomplete. We manifest this knowledge in our ambitions, our drive for happiness and solace, and escape. We are aware at some level that there is some kind of ideal, that there could possibly be more than we imagine. This is expressed in science fiction, in our fascination with extraterrestials, with the manifold incarnations of religion. So we are disappointed and deeply so when our expectations for the ideal are betrayed. I would posit that there are two kinds of atheist, one that grows up born skeptical, and another that has lost their faith in some fashion or another. This may be a generalization, but perhaps a safe one. This loss of faith touches at some point on the monolithic issue that is free will.
Pure free will seems to be illusive. It's philosophic creation, and in a very pragmatic sense, we don't posess it entirely. Here's what I mean. If a person were to have pure free will, they would be an entirely unrestricted agent. They could, for example kill any person they desire, but would be constrained with the resultant consequences. They would go to jail, and their ability to chose most things would be taken from them. Free will may be a misnomer in a world of causality, but a perhaps free choice would be a better name for it, or "free act." This would be a choice that is bracketed by the cause of the choice or act and its results. This still pegs responsibility on the agent doing the act, but that agent isn't entirely free, their range of choices has been determined by events previous to that particular act.
Within this context, a God can exist, His power can be compatible with our ability to choose. This is necessary building block on the notion of a compassionate God. In order for God to be good He must allow us the room to chose between bad and good, Himself and selfish acts, or helping others versus hurting others or ignoring them.
Free Will: Fire at Will!
Indy, all I think you've done is simply further refine the dilemma instead of conclusively putting it to rest.
You've left me with veritable barn-sides to aim at. The notion of free-will and an all powerful God for example. If indeed we have free-will, and it shall be safe to assume that we both agree with the notion, it is very hard to reconcile that with an all-powerful being, especially a historical one, say from the Bible. A god that works in such a way that he destroys Canaanite cities at whim, or hardens hearts of tyrants against whole peoples seems to be in direct contradiction. Where is the choice of the people Sodom and Gomorrah? Where is the choice of Pharaoh in letting the people of Israel go? He paid the price of his inability to choose with the life of his son, slain by a cruel agent of a cruel God.
And, how do we explain a God that is good in the light of the suffering that exists today? If this God has the power to stop senseless random suffering, why doesn't he? You speak of a common and understandable morality, and it is easy to recognize that if a person has the power to stop a person from killing a child, (and even do it in such a way that protects the life of the offender) and yet allows that killing to happen, that person is responsible in some measure for the death of that child. We call it manslaughter in our legal system, but the legal idea is based on an moral idea that God seems to fall short on.
Either God is powerful and cruel, or God is powerless, good perhaps, but pathetic.
Or a third option. He isn't there. This is much simpler to conceive in this case, and much more powerful in light of Occam's Razor
You've left me with veritable barn-sides to aim at. The notion of free-will and an all powerful God for example. If indeed we have free-will, and it shall be safe to assume that we both agree with the notion, it is very hard to reconcile that with an all-powerful being, especially a historical one, say from the Bible. A god that works in such a way that he destroys Canaanite cities at whim, or hardens hearts of tyrants against whole peoples seems to be in direct contradiction. Where is the choice of the people Sodom and Gomorrah? Where is the choice of Pharaoh in letting the people of Israel go? He paid the price of his inability to choose with the life of his son, slain by a cruel agent of a cruel God.
And, how do we explain a God that is good in the light of the suffering that exists today? If this God has the power to stop senseless random suffering, why doesn't he? You speak of a common and understandable morality, and it is easy to recognize that if a person has the power to stop a person from killing a child, (and even do it in such a way that protects the life of the offender) and yet allows that killing to happen, that person is responsible in some measure for the death of that child. We call it manslaughter in our legal system, but the legal idea is based on an moral idea that God seems to fall short on.
Either God is powerful and cruel, or God is powerless, good perhaps, but pathetic.
Or a third option. He isn't there. This is much simpler to conceive in this case, and much more powerful in light of Occam's Razor
Euthyphro: it's a Row!
Skip, I'll choose to ignore your non-baiting baiting.
Drowning kittens is at the very least a reprehensible activity, I'll agree with you there. The realization of the morality of that decision is within the moral frame of reference that we exist in now. If that frame of reference were to change, would we notice? I would wager not. The way that we view what is right and what is wrong seems to be generally common, and one could argue that it derives from an outside source, which is where we do agree (in the context of this issue, good and bad are not relativistic in the quotidian sense here). This standard that we inherently recognize, this moral standard, would come from God, in that by being good, all good is a reflection of His actions and nature.
Does it matter whether or not we would notice if this frame of reference were to change? Perhaps it does, but in order to realize good and bad, we must predicate it with some other underlying assumptions that I am sure will bring us into further debate. For example, we must needs have the assumption of free will, and that good is good and bad is bad through choices that people make. Things can get complicated in specific cases such as criminal insanity, but generally I think that with regards to Euthyphro, this is a safe assumption to make.
In order to recognize and to adhere or not to a standard, we must have the capacity to recognize, and the ability to adhere to morality. I think that is safe to say that most, if not all people are able to do both.
With the inherent contradictions of all-powerful God kowtowing to an outside morality, we are left with a God defined standard. In short, we are left with the question of the frame of reference (of morality) and the question of the awareness of the moral participant within the frame of reference and if the frame of reference were to change.
Euthryphro, What Now?!
My dear Indy, the assumption that the question isn't valid because it's framed in a way that makes you uncomfortable bears a little bit of examination, wouldn't you say? To blast away at the question without seeing its merits can lead to a kind of nihilistic, even Pyrrhic thinking, I might add.
But no more baiting, haha. You rightly exposed the weakness and contradictions inherent in the statement about God chooses to be good because it is good, especially when one brings along all the baggage regarding God that some people seem to have, perhaps one needs to let go of a handbag or two... or three. Yet, while you see this as an argument that supports a God that defines good through his choices it is so much easier to see that the notion of God, especially as the source of morality is called into question. God's good becomes arbitrary. God could decide, that drowning kittens was a good and moral choice. It's easy to realize that drowning cats is bad, especially for cat lovers, and it is in that realization we recognize that God would never choose this. And suddenly God doesn't determine right or wrong. He's not in charge of how we see things morally.
This is important to realize because it separates good and bad from God. Morality can be chosen outside of this God character being involved.
Euthyphro and How
I think I want to start this out with a clarifying point about the nature of the conversation. This is a discussion, primarily, something along the lines of a Socratic dialogue, which is very apt as we'll be discussing the Euthryphro Dilemma at this juncture. At times though, I think this will become more dialogical in nature, with both participants becoming willing to change or refine their viewpoints with regards to each others responses.
So, here goes. The heart of the question lies in the question posed by Socrates, in one of Plato's writings, to Euthyphro: Does God (or the gods in this context) choose what is good because it is good, or is the good good because God chooses it?. This is a significant question, for if in the latter, God's choice creates goodness, and in the former God chooses to be good because of an outside morality that He is subject to. The question is interesting, but I think that the way it is framed can be difficult in assailing the issue. I think that the question is inadequate because it leads towards a framework of thinking that is limiting in possibility.
Let's explore first the former choice: God chooses to be good because it is good. This presents us with a quandary: There is a God figure, who is supposedly eminently powerful, a Creator of the Universe, perhaps having the attributes of omniscient-present-puissant Being, and yet He ascribes to a outside morality, a morality that He is subject to. This is a bit of a contradiction in terms if He retains all of his omni labels. He would, by nature, have a more moral position than this outside standard, and furthermore, where would this standard come from? This standard would have to pre-exist God, and thus destroy a primary argument for the all-powerful God; His existence before all else.
The second choice, then, seems to be more reasonable. Good is good because God chooses it. God is the arbiter and definer of good, he is it's Merriam-Webster, it's dictionary. The standard that we spoke of comes from his nature and the shadow that is cast from our natures and choices in the light of his good.
So, here goes. The heart of the question lies in the question posed by Socrates, in one of Plato's writings, to Euthyphro: Does God (or the gods in this context) choose what is good because it is good, or is the good good because God chooses it?. This is a significant question, for if in the latter, God's choice creates goodness, and in the former God chooses to be good because of an outside morality that He is subject to. The question is interesting, but I think that the way it is framed can be difficult in assailing the issue. I think that the question is inadequate because it leads towards a framework of thinking that is limiting in possibility.
Let's explore first the former choice: God chooses to be good because it is good. This presents us with a quandary: There is a God figure, who is supposedly eminently powerful, a Creator of the Universe, perhaps having the attributes of omniscient-present-puissant Being, and yet He ascribes to a outside morality, a morality that He is subject to. This is a bit of a contradiction in terms if He retains all of his omni labels. He would, by nature, have a more moral position than this outside standard, and furthermore, where would this standard come from? This standard would have to pre-exist God, and thus destroy a primary argument for the all-powerful God; His existence before all else.
The second choice, then, seems to be more reasonable. Good is good because God chooses it. God is the arbiter and definer of good, he is it's Merriam-Webster, it's dictionary. The standard that we spoke of comes from his nature and the shadow that is cast from our natures and choices in the light of his good.
An Introduction
This blog was started with the intention of becoming a project for my Religious Studies class in university. I envisioned two characters, Indy and Skip, two sides to a millennial debate, so to speak. Over the course of the semester, as I learned about the topics that were presented in the course, which was on atheism and theism, and primarily on atheism's reaction and existence and thinking as compared to theism, the urge to speak grew stronger and stronger.
To begin, I want to admit to a fairly strong bias. This project is composed of two voices, Indy, short for the Latin indagator or seeker, and Skip, which is simply short for skeptic. I wanted two opposing viewpoints, and I'll be speaking primarily with Indy in mind. Indy will be voicing my thoughts, opinions, conjectures and speculations, while Skip will be voicing my doubts and providing a critical foil with an intention of both clarifying my thought and to prevent it from becoming clouded with dogma. We shall see.
I've been anticipating this chance for a long while, and to be honest, I've procrastinated as well. Ever since I encountered Ayn Rand, the objectivist writer and philosopher premiere, and read Atlas Shrugged, I've struggled against the bold and at times harsh certitude that many atheist philosophers speak, and the point that they bring up are exactly that, pointed. When I was a teenager, Ayn Rand struck to the quick and exposed several flaws in the thinking that I had grown up with as a born-again Evangelical Christian. Time has tempered my opinions, but it hasn't lessened my love for my beliefs, my fellow Christians (most of them, that is, to be brutally honest. There are some that I know that I would hesitate to call Christians), and lastly, my God, whom I've experienced in a personal way that generally obliterates the strongest claim that Naturalism can swing against it.
The last point, the personal experiential view, will come up later in the project, but I wanted to start out with some standard positions and arguement and provide my own thoughts regarding them. I am not a philosopher by training, but I am an English student, and we English students are better than most and critiquing, reading deeply, and articulating our perspectives. I hope I am up to the challenge, and I hope that this provides interesting reading.
Phil Bird, Indagator Veritatis
To begin, I want to admit to a fairly strong bias. This project is composed of two voices, Indy, short for the Latin indagator or seeker, and Skip, which is simply short for skeptic. I wanted two opposing viewpoints, and I'll be speaking primarily with Indy in mind. Indy will be voicing my thoughts, opinions, conjectures and speculations, while Skip will be voicing my doubts and providing a critical foil with an intention of both clarifying my thought and to prevent it from becoming clouded with dogma. We shall see.
I've been anticipating this chance for a long while, and to be honest, I've procrastinated as well. Ever since I encountered Ayn Rand, the objectivist writer and philosopher premiere, and read Atlas Shrugged, I've struggled against the bold and at times harsh certitude that many atheist philosophers speak, and the point that they bring up are exactly that, pointed. When I was a teenager, Ayn Rand struck to the quick and exposed several flaws in the thinking that I had grown up with as a born-again Evangelical Christian. Time has tempered my opinions, but it hasn't lessened my love for my beliefs, my fellow Christians (most of them, that is, to be brutally honest. There are some that I know that I would hesitate to call Christians), and lastly, my God, whom I've experienced in a personal way that generally obliterates the strongest claim that Naturalism can swing against it.
The last point, the personal experiential view, will come up later in the project, but I wanted to start out with some standard positions and arguement and provide my own thoughts regarding them. I am not a philosopher by training, but I am an English student, and we English students are better than most and critiquing, reading deeply, and articulating our perspectives. I hope I am up to the challenge, and I hope that this provides interesting reading.
Phil Bird, Indagator Veritatis
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