I am an orthodox Christian, ask me a question!

[Jon Paul]

But there is still both 1. Evidence and 2. Subjective morality.

I was not talking about either evidence or morality in the paragraph you quoted, but about the epistemic presuppositions concerning objective logical truth. Not moral truth, that was in the other post.

And no evidence for any objective morality. It's not like being an atheist means there's not evidence for anything, or that subjective moral can't be moral. Truth doesn't have to be absolute and absolutely objective. There is evidence for many things, not for God. So no reason to believe he exists. Unless you can enlighten me.

It's not about the evidence for or against. It's about the characteristics of the presupposition of an epistemic structure concerning the nature of epistemic objectivity, regardless of what truth or evidence there really is. To have truth or evidence, first you need the presumption that truth even exists (in the metaphysical sense).

Oh, ok...but my question of is whether you believe you have any evidence for his existence or whether you take it on faith alone. So the question was about his existence :S

You asked me to clarify that paragraph. It was not about whether or not God exists.

You seem to have answered my question for me in response to Kyu though! Seems you believe there is evidence in metaphysics! In which case my second question would be: What evidence; and how is it evidence?

Metaphysics is a convenient way to dismiss it. But (meta)physics, in my definition, only means starting with empirical reality, and recognising patterns at the foundation of it. Causality is an example of a metaphysical concept. Time is a metaphysical concept. Space is a metaphysical concept. Yet these things surely are part of reality. Metaphysics means understanding reality. Metaphysics is refined understanding of the basic patterns and mechanics of reality as they attest through empirical observation.

You ask me what evidence there is. I will give you an answer, but it's a long one. So don't ask such questions if you don't want long answers

Monotheism is not supposed to be proposed, and then evidenced. It is supposed to be the key which fits into the lock of reality. It is reality in its basic nature (temporality, causality, movement, impure actuality, order, telos, finity, contingency, consciousness) which makes it necessary to propose monotheism in the first run. And with an evidentialist approach, they are the evidences. But I prefer to call them the foundations of the proper basicality of transcendental monotheology.

Impure actuality is the phenomenon you really need to understand. In a way, it's another way to describe causality, but it's not entirely the same. It is basically the recognition of the fact that in reality, potentials (things that might have been, but aren't actual) rely on actualities outside of themselves for their own actuality, before they can become actual.

For instance, your parents procreated you. Therefore you exist. This procreation was the actualisation of the potential that you are. But you did not give yourself your own actuality - you rely on your actuality from outside of yourself. In this example, you rely on your parents actuality for your actuality. On a causal antecedent, in more familiar terms. We can see that our reality consists of impure actuality - not pure actuality. Pure actuality would imply that our reality is based on immediate actuality, with no outside or antecedent or transcendent actuality which puts it into being, such as we see in causality/time. In other words, causality is the essence of the potentiality of our reality. Spacetime can be understood as causality/impure actuality as well, time being the distance between causal events or the actualisations of potentials, and space being the distance between causal effects. Simply different dimensions of causality.

This impure actuality, and actualisation of potentials from outside of themselves, keeps happening all the time. It relies on the first actuality of potential - or in other words, the actuality of causality. Causality is a potentiality, because it is really just the process/mechanics of the actualisation of potentials from outside themselves - impure actuality.

My contention then is that since the actuality of causality is itself contingent upon its own actuality, it doesn't account for its own actuality, because that would be a circuar argument and infinite regress. We cannot account for the actuality of causality by invoking an actualised potentiality (such as the actuality of causality itself), because actualised potentiality implies causality. Actualised potentiality implies the actualisation of potential, and that is the impure actuality which is the foundation of causality. So it is necessary for causality to be actual, that it derives it actuality from something that has nothing of potentiality (that is, that it derives its actuality not just from another actualised potential, since that would be causality again).

This is where pure actuality comes in. Pure actuality is that which has nothing of potential, as opposed to impure actuality/causality, which is the continuous actualisation of potentials contingent upon a chain of actualisations as we see it in our reality. Pure actuality is that which is not contingent upon an actuality outside of itself for its own actuality, but is purely actual in and of itself. That is the only possible reason for the actuality of causality that we can show if we are to remain coherent with empirical reality, without reading fallacious circular concepts into it. Pure actuality, or actus purus, is the word that St. Thomas used for God. I will show why so. It is because of the very nature of pure actuality.

Now, since a pure actuality transcends everything of potentiality - that is, causality - it also transcends everything that comes with causality, including time and space (which, as I mentioned earlier, are connected with causality). The first consequence of this is that the pure actuality is unchangeable/immutable, since it transcends change itself (causality) and of course immortal because mortality is a part of causal and changing reality. It is also eternal, since if it transcends change and causality, it transcends time. It is also immaterial, since it transcends matter. It is also one, since the the principle of individuation, i.e., of numerical distinction of one individual from another with the same specific nature, is matter designated by quantity (and it transcends matter).

It is also omnipresent, since everywhere where there is something, potential has been actualised, ultimately by pure actuality. It is also omnipotent, since everything which is potential can be actualised by pure actuality. It is also omniscient, since pure actuality subsists every actualised potential, and every actualised potential in the universe is thus rooted in and contained by pure actuality, so there can be no knowledge which isn't already contained as actuality in pure actuality, since there is nothing actual that pure actuality isn't the actualising principle of, and hence contains and subsists.

Anything less than this pure actuality, we can see is only perfect in so far as it is actualised by pure actuality - because otherwise, it would not be anything at all. And we can see that pure actuality has the highest perfection, by its attributes which exceed anything which has anything of potentiality. We can also conclude that anything of potentiality owes its entire being to the pure actuality. It would not exist if it wasn't for it, and thus, by giving everything that exists everything it has, its very existence, we can define it also as omnibenevolent (since everything (omni) that exists, is granted its existence by pure actuality, thereby being the most fundamental expression of agape - pure charity, with no previous warrant or mandate).

I've got a question...

If god is omnipotent, omniscient, W/E, why did he allow hell to be created in the first place if he KNEW that some people--no matter how bad, because I KNOW that no one deserves any kind of everlasting torture of any kind--would be going there, and yet the Bible says, "God loves us!"

If God is "omnipotent, omniscient", that is simply the fallacy of arbitrary predication - making some predications and leaving out others for arbitrary reasons. From the perspective of divine simplicity, all attributes are an aspect of the same thing: transcendence. If you deny one attribute and acknowledge another, you are incoherent and inconsistent, according to divine simplicity. Since you have not predicated omnibenevolence, you could be speaking of some hypothetical evil God, and then the question poses no paradox.

If you do predicate all necessary attributes of a transcendent creator God, including omnibenevolence, and what you want is an explanation as to how hell could exist in the Christian perspective, I can tell you. Hell is, in a certain sense, mortality. It is in a certain sense, the ontological opposite of communion with God, who is immortality itself. Heaven is immortality. Immortality is an attribute that only God has by self-subsistent nature. By grace, he gives this to man by creating man as the one creation with a mind, which can actively choose between Godlikeness (immortality) or beast-likeness (mortality and death). So man himself chooses between accepting Gods grace of immortality (heaven) or rejecting it (hell) and being damned for eternity.

There is nothing in this which contradicts omnibenevolence. Since, what God does is merely respect mans free choice. If he forced man to go to heaven, heaven would not be heaven, but hell. And the argument is fundamentally flawed since, there is no way you can say that there is another, better way, for an omniscient being to practice its benevolence than that which it has done, since you cannot know more perfectly than an omniscient being which approach would be more omnibenevolent.

Jon Paul, first let me thank you for the oppotunity you offer to shed some light on the RC view.

Here's my question. In one of your postings you state that you believe in your god because you "don’t believe anything else is a possibility, without logical self-contradiction". This means logic is a prerequiite for your belief, which I think is a good thing to do. I reckon you are familiar with the Euthyphro dilemma that for me demonstrates the logical fallacy of the concept of absolute divine moral. In short 'Euthyphro' shows that it is a logical fallacy to accept divine moral as absolute moral. If there exists absolute moral it is not absolute because god says so, but it would be absolute independent of what god says about it and indeed of his existence. If absolute moral exists at all it is necessarily independent of god. If there is no absolute moral then it is a fallacy to claim divine origin for it. How do you cope with it?

Let's summarise Euthyphros dilemma: Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God?

The answer is that it's a false dilemma, in my conception of God. The moral precepts that Gods reveals to us are absolutely necessary because of Gods nature as an omnibenevolent being. Since God is not contingent (dependent) upon anything else, it would be absurd to say his absolute nature is contingent upon anything else. So therefore, the moral preceptives are not contingent upon God, or upon something outside of God, but absolutely necessary because of his absolute nature of omnibenevolence, necessity being the explicit antonym of contingency.

Regards,
JP