On Hell and Forgiveness

[SteveII]

'Greater than' has an objective basis. It is a greater characteristic of a conscious being to be infinite than to be finite, to be omniscient that to have limited knowledge. That concept is all that is needed because a series of 'greater thans' can get you to greatest possible--given all the merging of the characteristics. Regarding the more difficult characteristics like Love, if a characteristic is not perfect, it has an imperfection and by definition it is not the greatest possible. We don't need to know what constitutes an imperfection--only that they exist.

And might justice have such imperfections? How about goodness? maybe being infinite is a type of imperfection iin a different way.

Once again, you are assuming all the different types of 'greater' actually agree with each other. But they are on distinct scales, judged differently, and often are at odds with each other, at least potentially (goodness and justice? knowledge and goodness?). It is *precisely* this merging that is problematic. There are many ways to do such merging for partial orders and they give different answers depending on the specific merging technique used.

So, no, 'greater' isn't an objective thing: it strongly depends on the quantity being measured and how it is measure Even in the case of goodness, it is far from clear that the different *types* of goodness can be reconciled in a consistent manner.

So, yes, indeed, we very much *do* need to know what constitutes a perfection, or an imperfection. We most definitely *do* need to know how the merging of different types of greatness is to be done. And we still need to have an argument why there has to be a 'greatest' in *any* of those characteristics, let alone for *all* of them at the same time.

Basic logic shows the weakness of your claims. Even very simple questions about how to go about making your ordering have been avoided. Until that issue is dealt with, there really isn't anything to argue.

You continue to confusing ontology with epistemology. I *don't* have to be able to figure it out! I *don't* need to know the answers to all your questions. I *don't* need to know how to order them. It is not necessary to the concept. All that is necessary is that there is a greatest possible combination of all those characteristics.