God & Objective Morals

[FallentoReason]

What's the "WWJD"?

It stands for "What Would Jesus Do". A few years back WWJD was a fad within Christian circles. You would see WWJD engraved on pendants and molded into plastic bracelets, etc. The idea was this. When confronted with tough situation (like a person in need or opportunities) you take a moment to reflect on how Jesus would have responded to your circumstances. It came from some recently rediscovered book.

Ah I see. Thanks for clarifying.

I feel like there would be a plethora of contradictory situations if we say "objective morality" is such that:

I) P is acting morally right if P sincerely believes acting out x is good.
II) P's action must be reflective of Jesus' nature such that x reflects the perfected love of Jesus.

This is in fact a hybrid mechanism for morality where (I) is a general statement reflecting [secular] subjective morality and (II) is the objective standard that anchors (I) to a particular religion.

I get your concern about evaluating an action according to two sets of norms, which could conceivably be at odds with one another. One possible way to reconcile the two norms would involve a kind of verbal algebra that defines one word in terms of another. Also you must account for errors of human judgement resulting from ignorance, self-deception, and out-right denial. Perhaps something like this:

I) P [believes he] is acting morally right if P sincerely believes acting out x is [reflective of Jesus's love].
II) [For] P's action [to actually be moral it] must be reflective of Jesus' nature such that x reflects the perfected love of Jesus.

The biblical text doesn't say anything about 'Goodness Itself' or use any of the abstract philosophical language that normally seduces pseudo-intellectuals like me. Scripture describes Jesus as the Righteous Judge. So while we may attempt to justify our actions with human reasoning, all our errors will be exposed in the final analysis, i.e. Judgement Day. So the so-called 'good' that supremely evil people like AH, JS, and PP pursued will ultimately be revealed to them as the evil (or rather complete lack of humanity) that it is.

I still think AH would be considered a morally good person even after the revision of (I) & (II):

Objections to (I) revised:

1. It's still intrinsically subjective. Therefore, AH thinking he was reflecting the work of Jesus means he believed he was acting morally right. --Tick.

Objections to (II) revised:

1. It seems like the addition of "...to actually be moral..." makes (II) override any meaning (I) carried i.e. we can almost dismiss (I) entirely.

2. Continuing from (1), I still find myself unable to wrap my head around (I) & (II) when put together, because I still see contradiction between them. Something I didn't mention before is that (II) is actually fundamentally subjective as the objective standard in (II) comes from a text that needs to be interpreted. Therefore, while our revised (II) might now be altogether dismissing (I), it still requires (I) in order to make (II) practical in reality. To illustrate this more precisely, AH had to identify what the objective standard was in (II) so that he was able to believe he was acting morally good according to (I). Therefore, according to (I) & (II), AH was morally good. --Tick.

I think what is happening here is something kind of like what happens to +ve and -ve numbers, where a +ve number represents objectivity and a -ve subjectivity. We are "multiplying" something objective and something subjective to get something subjective (+ve x -ve = -ve). It seems like as soon as we chuck something subjective into the mix of objectivity, the outcome is something subjective.

EDIT: I think the contradiction is that in (I), "Jesus' love" is being subject to a subjective context whereas in (II) it is being subject to an objective context, meaning that one is not equal to the other i.e. "Jesus' love" in (I) is different to "Jesus' love" in (II) and hence the conflict between (I) & (II) as you want me to understand them.

(BTW one of the interesting wrinkles of Swedenborg is the idea that only Jesus Christ is the one truly and fully human being, kinda like a Platonic idea. All the rest of us are finite in the sense that we lack some essential quality of humanity that prevents even the saved from full union with the Godhead)

An interesting side note. Some good food for thought there.