On Hell and Forgiveness

[polymath257]

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!"

Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were the only one allowed to use that ploy. Isn't 'revealed theology' just a restatement of 'I can't defend my point, but the Bible is true...so there!'?

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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.[\quote]

And why *must* it be resolved? it is perfectly consistent that there is no resolution and therefore there is no God. So you cannot make this argument as a proof of the existence of God.

I can assure you the math isn't being misapplied. It just doesn't lead to the conclusion you want.