I am an orthodox Christian, ask me a question!

[Purple Rabbit]

You write god with capital 'G', known to be the name of the christian god. For this you give no reason.

In that particular post, no, because then I will be repeating the same things in every post where I even mention God. I prefer the way I did it, which was to start with giving some of my foundations for my worldview, and then presuppose that as part of the debate. I already explained why I believe in the God of Christianity, that is, a transcendental and one God who created the universe and everything in it. I defined God as "pure actuality", which is the only concept necessary to know to understand God logically.

Why cannot Hindu be the noncontingent actuality that embodies absolute morality?

What do you mean "Hindu"? That simply makes no sense. If what you are asking is "Can the Hindu god or gods be the noncontingent actuality that embodies absolute morality?", then you should not ask me, but a Hindu, since the question depends entirely on whether that Hindu god even is held to be noncontingent and pure actuality. Since that is (as far as I know) not the case, Hinduism is simply irrelevant.

Well, what I meant with 'Hindu', was a Hundu god and you grasped that idea pretty well I think. But come to think of it, I could have said "vacuum cleaner" for I define my vacuum cleaner to be nothing less than non-contingent actuality (thanx LEDO). And don't ask me to show that my vacuum cleaner is indeed noncontingent actuality, it is so by definition and that it manifests itself also as my vacuum cleaner has nothing to do with the fact that it is non-contingent actuality.

The question you are asking is though, how we know what absolute morality the noncontingent God I am speaking of does embody, and why we can't just choose an arbitrary belief as to what that is.

There are several answers to this. One is, of course, the only relevant one to what I was originally speaking about. Which was that without an absolute/objective morality as properly basic to your epistemic structure, there is no way to make moral judgements on others behalf, or in other words, there is no transcendental morality to begin with.

This is plain false or badly stated. In social groups unknowing of the christian god it is perfectly possible to make moral judgements on others behalf. In ancient Rome before the influence of christians there was moral as testified by roman legislature. In ancient Greece before the christians there was moral, in every tribe that never before had contact with the 'civilized world' moral has been found. So to have moral in society you don't need a transcendental morality. This is amply testified by non-christian human history. Moral judgement is everywhere and has been everywhere. So, if you assert that in order to have moral judgement a transcendental moral is a necessary prerequisite you have to give proof for this, because it is in flagrant contradiction with the body of evidence from human history. What are your arguments for that?

That is simply an analysis of a Christian versus a non-Christian worldview, or more specifically, atheist or non-monotheist. However, what you are getting into is something completely different, as always in these kinds of debates.

We're investigating the christian moral concepts here, so it seems reasonable to me to investigate some of the characteristics of it. Or are there things about it you rather kept hidden?

If we want to get into how we can know which morality is embodied by Gods transcendent being, the short and logical answer is really that of Godlikeness. Since God is the creator of everything, including nature as we know it, and maintains us in existence as free charity, our goal is really just to accept that, by acting in accord to his will. It's only a short preamble to the many conclusions that follow. It's a matter of seeing the absolute end, both by direct and more apophatic means, that is, as it reflects in nature. Which is where the precepts of natural law come in, and the reflection of the morality embodied in God by recognising his will as it manifests in nature. By this, what we can do is really to follow Gods end which also means following Gods being.

You're much too hasty my friend. You claim that your god created everything including nature (what is your evidence?), that he maintains us in existence as free charity (what is your evidence?), and that our goal is to accept that (you're wrong there, it definitely is not my goal). And that is only a short preamble. Man have you some serious homework to substantiate this! Furthermore, shouldn't people with a goal know about that goal themselves?

Since your god created everything, he must have created kid cancer. I reckon that must have been a lot of fun for the transcendent being to give existence to kid cancer as free charity. And our medical scientists would of course be out of work if he would have neglected to give us the whole plethora of grueling diseases. And now, you suggest, we can learn a moral lesson from this fact by just following him obediently without questions as interpreted by roman catholic dogma.

I did not ask you what we mortals can do according to RC-tradition, but I asked you to substantiate the claim that your god holds absolute moral. So far you have managed to present me a circular definition that I can plug my vacuum cleaner into, but you haven't been able to bring forward any substantive arguments. And it is not a reason for me at all to follow my vacuum cleaner obediently in every direction it takes me, although I must confess it looks that way when observing my vacuum cleaning activities from a distance.

But of course, that entirely entails that God exists to begin with on the grounds I have given. If not, there is no objective reason to follow any will except your own.

Now we're talking. Bring on the arguments, I say.

In this sense, man in his natural state did not need revelation to do something good; nor is revelation necessary to know basic moral directives, or rather, the ends manifest in nature.

As I argumented in the above.

What revelation is necessary for, or let's rather say, why revelation is even relevant, is due to the nature of man. Man is, even if we don't want to admit it, the highest natural being, one of the very ends of anything. Man is the very natural being who can say: I am here. And we are. The point is really that man is like God more than anything else God has created: man has mind and intellect, man has knowledge, man has great power, man can kill himself or make himself something nearer to immortal than a mere beast can make itself,...

We have some abilities, yes, please proceed to lead me to a staggering profound argument that proofs your god holds absolute moral. Also this triggers another question. Is man the only animal that needs moral? Why should bonobos have social behaviour with elements like punishment and reward, them being only wild beasts that only want to tear the whole place down, just like atheists? BTW, my vacuum cleaner remains indifferent to your argumentation so far.

...man has moral understanding as a result of his natural intellect,...

OK, is this a conclusion from thorough antropological research or just a hunch you have? And if man has that, why would he need a transcendental moral?

...and therefore has the abillity to receive on a higher plane than anything in existence, understanding and relationship to God - by being more like God. Man can thus have conscious, intellectual and knowing sympathy and communication with God, in a sense that no beast has the faculties to do so.

OK, so catholicism is a bit like feeling you're god yourself, on your high level plane where you can have rational discourse with the big boss himself. Can we disagree with the boss then? I ask because in similar situations at work objectivity is easily jeopardized, and hell, although supplied free of charity, does not seem a fun place to be.

How we can know when God has revealed himself and when he has not? We can know it by the already existing ends and facts of human nature and nature of reality in general - and the consonance between the proposed revelation and the truth we can naturally and indirectly know of what God has to be like.

So we have to be in tune with nature and cosmos, that sounds awfully like the sisxties, I'd say. Is god a hippie? Like in that song 'Eclipse' by Pink Floyd: "....And everything under the sun is in tune, But the sun is eclipsed by the moon." A real bummer that last sentence.

And since we can establish what God has to be like by the means he himself has provided, aside from any revelation,..

Can we? What part of this course did I miss? From which means do you conclude what?

...this means we can evaluate revelations with a firm starting ground. This means that for instance, Hinduism is excluded as a possibility.

Missed that argument again. Can you repeat for me why exactly Hinduism disqualifies for the task?

But the more important fact is that we are basically open to God by recognising his existence, and thus we are also open to personal revelation - which is possible if God exists - since with God, all things are possible, but there would be no reason for the God we can know aside from his revelations to reveal himself personally to some being that he maintains in existence who has no and desires no and blocks every connection to God.

Well I have put this to the test when I was young. Didn't work for me. I badly needed to believe like my parents, although they were not forcing anything upon me really. I never heard god speak to me, not silently inside my head, not aloud from a burning bush. Nothing at all. There was only absolute silence. What would you conclude from that?

With enough logically necessary criteria and enough natural reason applied, we as Christians can thus be justified in our evaluations as to Gods revelation - as to what is, and what is not, as to what can be, and what cannot, based on the moral content and its consonance or nonconsonance to Gods being as it is attested aside from revelation, and through the openness which opens the door to personal guidances. But the discussion, down into details, is much longer and I can only very simplistically lay out some basics here as I've done.

Very entertaining and all, like Grimm, Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter (don't laugh) but not something like an argument that sticks. Maybe stick to the question asked next time?