God & Objective Morals

[Tex]

First, I'm just nit picky, but a priori means able to reason, yes, but it specifically is talking about ontological reasoning. You don't need any sense organs to experience anything, just the ability to have rational thoughts. On contrast, a posteriori is the ability to reason if there is experience. However, you're still correct in word choice through the dialogue. And sorry for the critique!

No, please, tell me these things; I'm here to learn

I thought "a priori" meant that we could literally sit on a couch and come to the conclusion that something must be true? Seems to me we can do that with morality and moral problems.

That's basically what it means. You can do the same with math problems without actually ever seeing 2 apples removed from the basket of 5. However, if you're on the couch trying to figure out why birds can fly, you're using the concept "bird" achieved from knowing what a bird is, so the logic takes place posterior to the experience, rather than prior.

I'll try and explain myself some more: could it have been possible for a world to exist where burning puppies is the morally right thing to do? If yes, then apparently morality is arbitrary because although we can say that's horrible, our feelings toward that action mean nothing whatsoever. It also means God's nature is arbitrary. If you say no, it was necessary for God to be the way he is, then that begs the question.

I used the example of my car. The engine is necessary to the car *only* when I want to drive. It's not necessary if I want to jump up and down on my car. It's not necessary when I want to vacuum my car. Therefore, it means that for something to be *necessary*, there must be an external condition. Well, then, if God's nature is necessarily the way it is, then what's the *external* thing controlling this necessity?

I'll leave it there and wait for your response.

No possible world exists where burning puppies is ok, I'll address the second objection, "...it was necessary for God to be the way he is...".

The response to this is the relationship between those weird transcendentals I bring up sometimes (if you look, you may use the morality version of this and replace it with existence very easily). Basically, if God is not internally infinitely Good, he doesn't exist in the first place. Good and Being can't be split, since you need a person to first exist to do Good and once the person is Existing, he/she has the ability to be moral. So, the reason he must exist as infinitely Good is because he exists.