(February 20, 2015 at 4:23 pm)The Reality Salesman Wrote: Does God recognize things as right or wrong based on some other form of criteria? (Your turn to think...)
I've been having this conversation with Surgenator over in "Religiosity, Spirituality and the Moral". I'll repeat my last post to him here:...
Ok, as I understand the philosophical definitions... well... first let me make a comment about the eternal moral law. As I said before that is a mystery to me. As far as I can determine from scripture, the eternally objective moral law is as eternal as God. In other words, there is no beginning to it. (So God Himself abides the law) However, that does not apply to the following:
All temporal laws extant on this earth are either subjective or relative because they originate from either an individual (subjective) or from a culture (relative). These are definitions from philosophy. Ideas or laws aren't floating around in the air, they come from people. By observation, formulation or whatever... however laws or standards are derived in the mind of men, those laws or standards come from either a person or a convention of people. I understand what you are saying about how cause and effect behave... but... Mere empirical observation of cause and effect is not the defining factor here... cognation and evaluation are; at least as far as philosophical definitions are concerned. Cognation and evaluation have their source in the minds of a person or persons. If the source is a single person, it is subjective. If it is a culture, then it is referred to as relative.
It is because people have different ideas about how things "ought" to be done, this is the reason for the disparity of legal systems in the world. You and I may be comfortable with observation of cause and effect, but others are not. This is why I pointed out Sharia law as an example. That system does not observe cause and effect in the same way as you or I might. Please believe me, I do understand why a scientific mind would consider cause and effect as the best source of moral law... I get it. But it is still subjective because it is filtered through a mind.
For the same reason, this is why there are so many religious denominations, even within Christianity.
I agree with what you say about the way the laws of thermodynamics work as opposed to that of the objective moral law. As I indicated, there is a lot of mystery about it and its application. I understand however, according to scripture, that on judgment day, we will be judged according to that law. This law (or as much of it as is expedient for us to know) has been revealed to us through the prophets. Keep in mind that some laws given by God are for our temporal welfare while we are on earth and do not carry eternal significance. Nevertheless...
LDS theology describes three possible states of existence after judgment day. The highest, or "Celestial Kingdom" is where it will not be in the nature of people to break any law. I believe the other two kingdoms, the Terrestrial and Telestial will have similar feelings. I think people will be content, peaceful and happy there and will not be inclined to break any law. I "imagine", as pure supposition, that if someone were to break any law within the kingdom they were in, they might get demoted to a lower one until at last they arrived at outer darkness where there is no light or knowledge. But the question is, why, if we know and understand the rules of whatever kingdom we are in, would we be interested in breaking them? There would be no reason. Once the penalty (if any) is paid, there will be no misery or fear.
Now, these three are described as kingdoms of glory, but there are also kingdoms which have no glory. And also there is "Perdition" or "Outer Darkness". to help you understand the relative nature of these places/states/conditions, the word 'glory' has to do with a level of intelligence/knowledge/understanding. The scriptures say that the Glory of God is Intelligence (He is all knowing... I don't like the word 'omniscient', it carries with it I think some incorrect connotations)and of course there are different levels of intelligence.
