(December 5, 2013 at 1:55 pm)Drich Wrote: According to His expressed will.
That's not answering the question because that's true and trivial of ALL sentient things. What directs what God chooses to do? I already know the answer, but I'm waiting for you to give it.
Quote:no. Actually it is not a yes or no matter. Because what is 'good' Describes what God does. Being the alpha and Omega means He is the standard in which all things are measured. That means there is not a standard in which to measure God against that means anything other than What He Himself does.
Er, no. 'Doing good' is YOUR description of what God does. Being the 'Alpha and Omega' has no bearing on this (aside from being a bare assertion) because then God is just doing things based on HIS preferences and values. And there's nothing wrong with that in principle, because it's true of EVERYTHING that has consciousness, including God (if he exists). Reason alone has no emotive power, this has been known for centuries, thanks to David Hume. What you do necessarily will depend on what you are and what you value, and reason comes in as a way of determining how best to. To say otherwise is incoherent. It's like saying you can have an opinion without having preferences.
Quote:ah, no. God's 'Morality' is based off of His unchanging Will for us. Which means God's 'morality' is different from yours because yours changes.
So you've basically just agreed with me unwittingly, or tried to throw up a smokescreen to disguise that. You just said that God's morality is based off of his unchanging will (which are his actions founded in his values, like us), only with the irrelevant caveat that they don't change. Big woop. Values are by definition subjective, regardless of it they're God's values.
Quote:God is the defination of 'good' because This is His creation and He set the standard.Again, YOU'RE definition of good, not mine (for example).
Creating something doesn't make you the decidor of if it is or becomes the standard. Acceptance of the 'standard' can never be binding, because it's an OPINION. Does a yard have to be what it is? Did God HAVE to think that he was the standard of goodness? No on both accounts and for the same reason: value judgements and arbitrariness.
Quote:Ah, i see your problem. Please answer my questions. If God is not an absolute standard of good, then what is that standard? Standard as being defined as: something set up and established by authority as a rule for the measure of quantity, weight, extent, value, or quality.
There is no 'absolute standard' of good, necessarily. And the reason for that has already been laid out: That all standards are predicated on one's values and choices, and could never be rooted in reason alone.
And you're contradicting yourself here. Your own definition refers to a standard being something set up, hence assuming (correctly) that the standard didn't exist before it was setup, and was therefore created. Under your own view of God as timeless and changeless, he could never have set himself up as the standard of goodness because he always existed, so the word can't even apply to him. Please, get your theology straight.
Quote:For in order to judge something good or not good one must have a system of rule or measure to weigh the variable against. So again what standard can one use to judge God?
One must have a standard yes, but standards - much less moral ones, or ones relating to goodness - can never be 'absolute'. And one can measure their own standard of gooodness against God. Heh, you've already admitted that God essentially does the exact same thing to us, so your preference for God's is nothing more than - another- value judgment, hence subjective.
Quote:Now keep in mind a standard is meaningless unles those who use it have the ablity to stand behind it and enforce it.. So again how can you without an enfoceable standard determine whether or not God is good or bad?
Standards are meaningful so long as people hold to them, not all standards need 'enforcement'. That's hardly coherent when dealing with non-moral standards. Do the standards of temperature need to be enforeced? Is that even intelligible?
Again, if under my standard God (assuming he exists) is evil/immoral, then that's what he is. You're not even applying your own definitons correctly.