RE: General question about the possibility of objective moral truth
September 14, 2015 at 6:55 pm
(September 14, 2015 at 2:01 pm)Nestor Wrote: If God is the essence of the Good, that excludes the possibility of God doing wrong. That eliminates his freedom of the will, as all his actions would proceed on account of necessity (given his inability to do less than what he might otherwise choose to do) and lack the essential moral quality that the Good as embodied in willful action requires.
I see your point and do not see much of a problem. Thinking about humans' and other sentient beings' (if there are any) free will revolves around the question of whether someone could do otherwise than did. To my mind, the question in not whether God could do otherwise; but rather why would He?
The 'free' part of free will concerns whether or not the chooser is constrained by outside circumstances and/or compelled by external forces outside the chooser's control. The 'will' part of free will concerns whether the chooser is acting with real intention; as opposed to a mindless causal series. A prisoner may have the will to roam but freedom. A fire may have freedom to spread without the will to do so. In the case of God, He would have complete freedom to act (who could oppose Him) in accordance with His Will. And since He is the highest Good that which He wills is the best of all possible outcomes.