On Hell and Forgiveness

[SteveII]

Category error. We are talking about properties of a single being. 


Category error. We are talking about properties of a single being.


Neither. A proper understanding of your position in relation to everything else in the universe is greater. 


There are definitely more category errors...


1. This is not math. The concept of 'greater than' is entirely coherent when discussing attributes of a conscious being. You have failed to give an example of a single attribute that we cannot postulate a 'greater than'. BTW, there is a whole world outside of math.

2. Something you assert and have not even given good reasons to believe even might be true. 

3. I rely on revealed theology for a start. The rest is systematic theology/philosophy of religion--2 topics that are not *math*.

Well, relying on 'revealed theology' is the first, most basic mistake. There is no such thing. Just claims made by people to get power over others.

Ouch...the old "well...I can't defend my point...but, but...your Bible isn't true...so there!"

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So if I'm understanding you correctly, you are saying that the concept of greater can be relative.  Ok, I could agree with that.  In this instance, you are talking about being greater in a different way.   This doesn't make for a contradiction, or incoherence.   That you are determining what is greater at all, seems to make your argument lesser!

Yes, it does make for incoherence: you are making a claim that there is *one* concept of greater that applies to all virtues. Instead, you have a concept of greater for each individual virtue but no consistent way to merge them.

Once again, ask yourself the question: what is the largest pair (x,y) such that x>=0, y>=0 and x+y<=100?

The largest possible value of x is 100. The largest possible value of y is also 100. But you cannot have both x=100 and y=100 at the same time.

This is an analogy to the issue you have with competing virtues: each one individually *may* have a maximum, but there is no *single* combination that maximizes all.

Regarding your last sentence, why do you need to assign 'greater than' to combinations? Why not stick just with 'greater than' in individual attributes? Nearly all of God's attributes have no conflict with each other so the rare instance where there is a conflict where it is not possible to have a greatest X *and* a greatest Y then it is resolved on a case by case basis. Again, we don't even need to know how it get's resolved--only that it must be resolved. As RR said, you need examples to rescue your objection--because it seems to everyone that you have just misapplied math again.