(October 17, 2017 at 12:32 pm)Khemikal Wrote: Fine, fine..Igno, I see no reason to bicker. Goodness is created. Option 2. [1]
"I am curious... "what", exactly, is being-good in regard to a non-existing thing?"
Depends on who you ask, I suppose. [2]
If there -is- a "goodness itself", it's a version of option 1. [3]
If goodness isn't arbitrarily defined, if there is a goodness itself, then the creation of some thing does not..in any meaningful sense, impart it with goodness or create goodness. It creates a thing that is good. We're simply describing a creative act in conformity to that standard. Option 1. [4]
Anything that conforms to that standard would be a good thing. It needn't proceed from your god to be so, and your god is itself only a good thing if it conforms to that standard. [5]
If your god was otherwise it would not be good, [6] and creating things that participate in his him-ness would not be good.
If instead, you insist that it must proceed from your god and that the creative act of your god (or anyone, really) creates "goodness"...then goodness has been arbitrarily defined as whatever proceeds form your god and is in conformity with it's nature. Option 2. [7]
The problem with theological nominalist ethics in christianity has always been it's allegiance to modified forms of voluntarism, and it's adherents dissatisfaction with the same. [8]
Starting with #8) I AM NEITHER NOMINALIST NOR VOLUNTARIST. What makes you think that I am either?
1) Lol, yes, created goodness is created. Nice work. It's only option 2 if created goodness is arbitrary and unrelated to goodness itself. I repeat my position: created goodness is directly related to uncreated goodness itself.
2) Ya, I'm sure it is, but I am asking you. I was hoping to get the answer which directly depends on the way you understand reality.
3) Well it isn't, really. Both options regard the source of the created things' goodness (i.e. is it in the thing or is it in the creator?). The third option is that the source of goodness is concurrently in both the creator and the created thing in different manners: in the creator subsistently, and in the created through participation. This third option is the classical, pre-voluntarist/nominalist account of creator-created relation. The creator is essentially good through his own essence, the created is essentially good through its participation in the creator's nature.
4) Suppose that x is good. I ask, how is x being-good? You say, what-x-is is [the-cause-of-x's-goodness], and nothing else whatsoever. I ask, how is x being-what-x-is at all? You say (presuming the creative premises in the dilemma) that god causes x-being-what-x-is. I ask:
If god causes (x-being-{what-x-is}), and {what-x-is} is [the-cause-of-x's-goodness] can we say, then, that god causes (x-being-[the-cause-of-x's-goodness])?
If we can, then both god and x are causing x's goodness in two different but no less meaningful ways (i.e. concurrently). Both are sources of x's goodness, with god being the more/most fundamental source. As the most fundamental source, he IS the standard of goodness.
5) Which is like saying god is only god if he conforms to himself. It isn't false, but it isn't really saying anything at all.
6) If my god were otherwise, he would be neither good nor god. Lol.
7) I have never said that goodness "must" proceed from my god, only that things which DO participate in god's essence actually communicate/exhibit god's goodness in ways particular to what-they-are. I have only said that this particular goodness comes from BOTH the thing itself and from goodness itself (i.e. god) according to different manners. I have only said that this particular goodness is not arbitrary, but rather, directly related to the nature of the goodness (i.e. god) in which it participates.
That is not arbitrary definition. If (describing things as "good" because it directly relates to "goodness" in some way) is arbitrarily defining goodness, then I don't know what arbitrary means.
