My views on objective morality

[LadyForCamus]

You basically confirmed what I said, L4C. I do not understand why you think your post goes against my position, especially when it includes this quote:

“Classical Judaeo-Christian theism, however, rejects such a view as inconsistent with God's omnipotence, which requires that God and what he has made is all that there is."The classical tradition," Rogers notes, "also steers clear of the other horn of the Euthyphro dilemma, divine command theory." From a classical theistic perspective, therefore, the Euthyphro dilemma is false. As Rogers puts it, Anselm, like Augustine before him and Aquinas later, rejects both horns of the Euthyphro dilemma. God neither conforms to nor invents the moral order. Rather His very nature is the standard for value."

God's supposed omnipotence (not to mention omniscience) is inconsistent throughout the entire paradigm of Christianity itself if we are following the bible as the word of God. And saying that the dilemma fails because god's nature is inherently good still leaves us with the problem of evil. And the problem of the OT.

First, what you just did here is avoid dealing with the ineffectiveness of the dilemma with respect to a particular moral theory (virtue ethics) and shifted to a different objection, namely theodicy.

Second, biblical morality is grounded in virtue ethics as seen in both the OT (Leviticus 19:2) and NT (Matthew 5:48). The idea here is that since Man was created in the image of God, the better someone conforms to his innate human nature the more perfectly he conforms to the nature of the Maximally Great Being which is God.

My point being, that just because some philosophers rejected the idea on certain grounds (grounds that don't exactly make sense IMO), that doesn't mean that the discussion is over, or that you "won" and everyone should feel stupid.

What I see is the ineffectiveness of the refutation. How does virtue theory; God existing as the very essence of morality; get him out of this dilemma? He's good, because he's good, because he's good, regardless of actions or consequences? Because he's good? Because we say so?

And you still haven't explained to the difference between God being the moral standard and God commanding it, which I think RedBeard did a nice job of explaining.

[Neo-Scholastic]

If God is omniscient, then does She know that there is nothing She does not know

That is another interesting paradox, but not exactly germane to the discussion at hand. While I am not in a position to present an exhaustive reply, I can give you some indication of how I would approach the issue. The God of Classical Monotheism is fully in act and thus exhausts all potentials as demonstrated by Thomas Aquinas’s First Way, the Argument from Motion. If there is an object of knowledge that a god could potentially know but does not, then that deity is not fully in act and thus would not be the same God identified in the First Way.

[LadyForCamus]

This last point is telling, because if it is answered, as Chad might, with an arbitrary declaration that, "She just does." then the law of non-contradiction is abrogated.  God now knows the things that She does not know.  All rational bets are now taken by the house and further discussion is fruitless.


How does God know She does not reside in an infinite area of order within a larger infinity of random stuff?
A fiat declaration that "She just does, does not satisfy."

Yeah, I would say rationality packed up his toys and left the house a long time ago in regards to this particular thread. [emoji13]

[LadyForCamus]

I don't accept that God's essence is good and virtuous. I have no idea how anyone could even determine such a thing, so instead it is just declared by fiat. Further, I have only ever seen evidence to its contrary. Arguing against divine command using virtue theory is meaningless, because you literally have no evidence to support the claim that God is goodness by nature.

[robvalue]

How do you tell the difference between an actually good and actually evil being, if all you assess them by is what they are like in comparison to themselves?

Everything passes the test of being like itself. It doesn't demonstrate anything.

It just shows that either this "morality" doesn't mean anything in regard to positive human behaviour; or else the theist is equivocating and pretending that it does.

[JuliaL]

If God is omniscient, then does She know that there is nothing She does not know

That is another interesting paradox, but not exactly germane to the discussion at hand. While I am not in a position to present an exhaustive reply, I can give you some indication of how I would approach the issue. The God of Classical Monotheism is fully in act and thus exhausts all potentials as demonstrated by Thomas Aquinas’s First Way, the Argument from Motion. If there is an object of knowledge that a god could potentially know but does not, then that deity is not fully in act and thus would not be the same God identified in the First Way.

MYBOLD

This is a verbose equivalent to "She just does."


I can grant EVERYTHING you've said about your God of Classical Monotheism (GCM) and you have no way to counter the following:

Breaks into his best Ron Popeil impression...
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE.

GCM was created after a night of heavy drinking by the first meta-God: Larry.
GCM is unaware of this and all statements about GCM (particularly those gained via divine revelation from GCM) are limited by this fact.
I have this by means of divine revelation from Larry of whom GCM is unaware.
Larry has also clued me in regarding a Get Out of Hell Free card available in many fine local retail shops.

[Neo-Scholastic]

This is a verbose equivalent to "She just does."

Not at all. You ignored the part about "as demonstrated by..." You'll need to work a little harder than your unsupported assertions and deal with the demonstration provided by Aquinas without resorting to the typical straw men presented by every single atheist on AF who has attempted to refute it.

[LadyForCamus]

Your objection is based on the irrational idea that God could act contrary to His nature. The only thing arbitrary is the personal choice of whether or not to accept God's Nature as the object of moral reasoning. Virtue ethics argues that it is both wise and praiseworthy to do so.

Again, all you're saying here is that god's nature is "good" because it is, and because he is "good", then he can't act "bad," so therefore divine command is not an issue for God within this dilemma. You haven't demonstrated anything.. It's just a massive assumption.

[bennyboy]

Your objection is based on the irrational idea that God could act contrary to His nature. The only thing arbitrary is the personal choice of whether or not to accept God's Nature as the object of moral reasoning. Virtue ethics argues that it is both wise and praiseworthy to do so.

Again, all you're saying here is that god's nature is "good" because it is, and because he is "good", then he can't act "bad," so therefore divine command is not an issue for God within this dilemma.  You haven't demonstrated anything.. It's just a massive assumption.

It's really not even an assumption.  It's a definition: God is good by definition, and morals, coming from God, must also be good by definition.

The problem is that this God is not real, that there is therefore no objective good, and that people are living in delusion rather than taking responsibility for their own feelings and the actions that arise from them.

[JuliaL]

This is a verbose equivalent to "She just does."

Not at all. You ignored the part about "as demonstrated by..." You'll need to work a little harder than your unsupported assertions and deal with the demonstration provided by Aquinas without resorting to the typical straw men presented by every single atheist on AF who has attempted to refute it.

My point is that Larry, as you claim without evidence is the straw man, has every bit as much basis as the first mover argument.
He is just the first mover for GCM.
Please show otherwise.