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Tom
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 12/3/2010 9:40 PM (GMT -6)

Pretty cool...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6WDVQ2EUko

Tom

KIXYTΘEMTA

Similitude
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968

Posted 12/4/2010 12:24 PM (GMT -6)

I don't see how good or evil exist in the sense that God "exists." When we say God exists, we mean He is (present tense) a being. But "good" and "evil" are not beings.

But in the non-literal sense in which we say good "exists," so does evil. But God didn't create evil or good in the sense that they are beings. When God said OF creation that it was very good, He had to be saying something about how it made Him, at least, feel, if not how creatures, themselves, felt. And that feeling was caused by the divine prehension of the specific ways that created beings were related to one another and to God. God's prehension of these relations are what naturally affect God's sympathy and aesthetic sensibilities.

But those relations change. Consequently, so does the resulting sympathetic and aesthetic effects upon God's sentient states.

Tom
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 12/4/2010 1:49 PM (GMT -6)

Even so, Jeff, I think 'good' obtains in a sense 'evil' cannot obtain, since good is attributed to postively existing states while 'evil' is a description of some privation of existing states. In other words, evil is a failure to exist as one might while good is existing as one might. It predates Einstein actually. It's just the patristic view of evil as privation and good as substantial.

Tom

KIXYTΘEMTA

Similitude
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968

Posted 12/4/2010 2:10 PM (GMT -6)

I would agree, if by privation we mean the falling short of one's intended mark/goal. The goal of the chooser is to maximally love oneself. To hit that mark, we have to do the golden rule. To the extent that we fail, then that can be because of one of multiple conceivable cases:

1) Some good resulted from the volitional action, but less than could have been.

2) The voltional actions end up resulting in a wash--no net positive or negative feelings resulting that wouldn't have occurred anyway (this is probably very rare).

3) Unnecessary suffering (i.e., postive evil) results from the volitional action.

But even with 3), "evil" is not a being. But it is unnecessary suffering whose cause was ULTIMATELY volitional, however many natural causes mediated the effect of that unnecessary suffering.

Post Edited (Similitude) : 12/4/2010 1:17:58 PM (GMT-6)

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