Hey all,

I haven’t been around the board for a while, and I think that I missed a conversation that I would have really enjoyed. I have been thinking about the topic of God’s omnibenevolence for the past several days. I got on the board to see if I could find something in the archives about the subject, and I see that on there was an in depth discussion of whether God is essentially good or good by choice. I think that the thread was “an invitation to Tom for a dogfight” or something like that.

There was a lot of good stuff said in the discussion, but I think that there are some things that I am still wondering about. So I hope to renew the discussion on this thread. Let me kick things off with a scenario that got me into thinking this through….

So we all die and stand before the throne of God. God says, “All that stuff I said in the Bible; I was just setting you all up for a big practical joke. I did a really good job of selling you on the idea that I love you, didn’t I? Actually, I’m going to torture everyone who I ever created in a real lake of fire. I mean, I’m God, and I can do whatever I want, can’t I?”

From the previous discussion, I think that those who hold that God is “good by choice” (John, Laika, Mark, etc.) would say that this is a possibility (although not very likely). Conversely, those who hold that God is “essentially good” (Alan, Tom, VFG, Meph, etc.) would say, “This type of scenario is exactly why we must believe that God is essentially good.”

I have questions for both sides. For those who hold to “good by choice” I would ask

1) Is the above scenario a possibility?

2) If the above scenario occurred, would God be doing evil (wrong)?

3) If you deem this action wrong, what is the standard for judging it so?

For those who hold to “essential goodness” I would ask

2) Pointing out that a scenario like the one above is “not something we would like” is not an actual argument for God’s essential goodness. So what are the philosophic arguments for the essential goodness position? (I’m not looking for biblical arguments because the goodness of God is what we’re discussing, so He can’t be taken at his word without showing me why I should take him at his word)

Please know that I’m not trying to be hurtful to the character of God. I want to know that God is trustworthy…. But I think that there should be reasons why we believe something to be true.

Thanks for the help,

Ross

2) Pointing out that a scenario like the one above is “not something we would like” is not an actual argument for God’s essential goodness. So what are the philosophic arguments for the essential goodness position? (I’m not looking for biblical arguments because the goodness of God is what we’re discussing, so He can’t be taken at his word without showing me why I should take him at his word)

Jeff:  Ross, I would say that, fundamentally, our very trust in our intuitions and inductive axioms indicates that we are virtually designed to believe that at least our DRIVE to understand and know is INTENDED and PROVIDED for.  This implies something like an intuitive trust in a kind of benevolence.  Lewis made that argument a lot better, but I can't remember where.  I think it was in "God in the Dock."  The bottom line is, if we can't trust that there is some correspondence of our impulses to reality, then the same would follow for our impulses to KNOW--which means the very fact that we're debating proves we fundamentally trust in SOME level of benevolence.  Descartes talked about that, too.

In short, I don't think our trust in benevolence can be proven by deductive argument.  It can only be shown that without that trust, we can't rule out, with any degree of certainty, that all is illusion.

Post Edited (JEE) : 9/4/2005 8:32:05 PM (GMT-5)

Thinking back over this whole discussion, the thing that stands out in my mind is...

I and everybody who agreed with me WON and others who disagreed LOST!

$&#@%# LOSERS!

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 9/4/2005 11:43:10 PM (GMT-5)

Allrighty,

These thoughts may be a little incoherent, but I want to see if I can move the discussion forward by making some comments and asking some more questions.

Alan, you have done a great job of breaking the issue down into a way that is easily understood. Your last paragraph makes the argument for God’s essential goodness on our intuition of what maximal greatness entails. This is how I have always argued for God’s goodness—there just seems to be something evil about this God who would play such a horrible practical joke on us (referring back to my initial situation)

But I’m not sure if this argument works in this situation. It seems like in appealing to moral intuitions, we are assuming that God is good in trying to show that God is good.  We’re saying that we are created by God with a reliable standard for judging goodness, and by this we can judge that God is essentially good. But the god of my example could very well have created us with those intuitions about maximal greatness to make his practical joke more convincing.

This point seems to push me to want to ground the standard of what is good in something that could not be conceivably different. This takes us back to the Euthyphro dilemma….

John, I appreciate you responding to my thoughts on your position with some words of clarification. But I’m still not completely following. I do like some aspects of your position. It seems that your understanding of what is good is fixed, and not dependent on the will of God. I too think that if god was just playing a big practical joke on us that he would be doing evil.

John: My view (and the view of Laika and Mark, I'm sure) is that "God cannot do evil BECAUSE He WILL not." His mind, will, and emotions, are ABSOLUTELY opposed to evil in every way. So no, I would not ever say, as you said above, that "this is a possibility (although not very likely)." I wouldn't say that at all. I would say it's a LOGICAL possibility that God could sin, but a MORAL impossibility for Him to do so, given his CHARACTER.

Here is where I have trouble following you. Your statements here sound like the same thing that I affirm, even though I hold to God’s essential goodness. You are affirming that it is an impossibility for God to sin. This is what Tom and Alan affirm. Is it an issue of semantics?

I further don’t understand the difference between a logical possibility and a moral possibility. Perhaps that is where I am loosing you.

Most importantly, your last statement seems to be where the whole debate lies. What is your understanding of God’s character? Has God’s character always been ABSOLUTELY opposed to evil? If so, this seems to me to be the same as my saying that God’s nature (character) is essentially good. Or did God “set” his character at some point to be toward the good? If he did “set” His character, how did he make the choice?

In response to my 3^rd question (If you deem this action wrong, what is the standard for judging it so?), John replied

The moral law, which God holds himself to (as well as everyone else).

I again have to say that I see the appeal of having the moral law separate from God. But the logical questions that follow this have to be

• what is this moral law?
• Where does it exit?
• How is it binding on God, if He is to be God?
• Is the moral law “above” Him?

Tom, thanks for jumping in here with the argument for God’s essential goodness. I have always been in your corner on this subject, and I admire your standing firm on God’s essential omnibenevolence. On to your argument.

Tom:

• If the consequences of God's sinning are unacceptable, then so is the possibility of his sinning.
• When I ask what the consequences would be if God were to fail to keep this "objective moral standard" that supposedly exists "out there" outside of God and which God obeys and submits to (hurts to even say the words), I get various answers: God would die, he'd explode, he'd cease to be God, and the like.
• But if God exists necessarily, it's logically impossible for him to die or otherwise will himself out of existence.
• So if the consequences are God's sinning are logically impossible, so must God's sinning be logically impossible.

Doesn’t this argument only hold for those who hold to an “objective moral standard” that exists outside of God? My major struggle is with those divine command theorists (like Luther and Calvin) who put God’s will as the source of the moral law. (I think that the theological term is “Divine Voluntarism”) This position for me leads logically to the possibility of my initial hypothetical situation.

It seems the more that I think about it, this is where the trouble lies for me. I want to say that the standard of goodness comes from God (because I have no answer to the questions about where the moral law would come from otherwise) but I don’t want to make it dependent on the way that God happens to be (whatever God wills is what is “right”).

I think that the answer lies somewhere in understanding that the “good” is what is “reasonable to do.” God, not being able to be deceived, would have to know the 1^st principles (to borrow a concept from the Aristotelian tradition) of action and would naturally do what is right. Alan, maybe you know a little more about how Aquinas fleshed this out (I’m sure that St. Thomas thought through this issue)

Looking forward to the continued discussion,

Ross

rossfadeinout said...

John, I appreciate you responding to my thoughts on your position with some words of clarification. But I’m still not completely following. I do like some aspects of your position. It seems that your understanding of what is good is fixed, and not dependent on the will of God. 

Yes, I deny altogether the idea that what is good is something arbitrarily determined by God, that the foundation of moral obligation is the will of God, that good is good because God says it is.

<portion snipped to get at what I think is the core issue>

I further don’t understand the difference between a logical possibility and a moral possibility. Perhaps that is where I am loosing you.

Yes, I believe that is where the crucial distinction here lies--the difference between an action being LOGICALLY possible and it being MORALLY possible. For instance, if I were to say, "I would NEVER cheat on my wife," I am of course not meaning I lack the sheer physical ABILITY to do so. I am simply saying that, given my MORAL RESOLUTION to be faithful to her, along with my sensibilities, emotional attachment, sense of loyalty, sense of morality, etc., it would be morally impossible for me to be unfaithful to her while my moral resolution maintains, which in the case of God, maintains in perpetuity, due to His perfect knowledge and sensibilities concerning the nature of reality and relationships.  

Most importantly, your last statement seems to be where the whole debate lies. What is your understanding of God’s character? Has God’s character always been ABSOLUTELY opposed to evil?

Yes, certainly. My view (which is the view of what is known of as Moral Government Theology) is that God's goodness is voluntary though perfectly dependable, and that the moral law of God emanates from God's perfectly developed REASON. It would be the most illogical thing imaginable for God to sin--it would go against everything He knows to be right, good, holy, and BEST.  

In response to my 3^rd question (If you deem this action wrong, what is the standard for judging it so?), John replied

The moral law, which God holds himself to (as well as everyone else).

I again have to say that I see the appeal of having the moral law separate from God. But the logical questions that follow this have to be

The highest good of the universe of moral agents; namely, LOVE.

I think you meant to say "exist." The moral law emanates from God's perfect REASON/rationality, which necessarily includes His knowledge of the proper relationships of all moral agents in the universe. This propriety of relationship is summed up in one word, LOVE.

As I said earlier, it is a standard known to Him by direct intution, due to his knowledge of the proper relationship of all moral agents.

• Is the moral law “above” Him?

No. It proceeds from His knowledge and intuitive sense of reality and relationships.

For further understanding of the view which I hold, may I refer you to Finney? My view is essentially identical to his. The following are definitions taken directly from his Systematic Theology:

OBLIGATION: idea of obligation, or of oughtness, is an idea of the pure reason. It is a simple, rational conception, and, strictly speaking, does not admit of a definition, since there are no terms more simple by which it may be defined.

MORAL GOVERNMENT: the declaration and administration of moral law. It is the government of free will by motives as distinguished from the government of substance by force.

MORAL GOVERNMENT, GROUNDS OF: Moral government is indispensable to the highest well-being of the universe of moral agents. The universe is dependent upon this as a means of securing the highest good. This dependence is a good and sufficient reason for the existence of moral government.

MORAL GOVERNMENT, END OF: to promote the highest good, or blessedness of the universe.

MORAL LAW: that rule to which moral agents ought to conform all their voluntary actions, and is enforced by sanctions equal to the value of the precept.

The following is a link to a website of a good friend of mine, which is devoted entirely to Finney's writings. In the 1851 edition of Finney's Systematic Theology, he discusses the subjects of moral law, moral obligation, moral agency, etc., all in good detail.

http://charlesgfinney.com/1851Sys_Theo/index1851st.htm

Blessings,

John

Post Edited (JEE) : 9/7/2005 10:06:26 AM (GMT-5)

Starkman:

Here's the thread (In the Safe Haven category) http://www.opentheismboard.org/default.aspx?f=12&p=1&m=56684

Post Edited (sparknheart) : 9/8/2005 9:44:13 AM (GMT-5)

Then who decides what that “principle” is?  Who or what defines what “the law of love” is?  Who defines the moral law? 

If you say God defines it and it’s not essential to His character, then you get into the second problem I stated above: there is no objective goodness, it’s only what God decides is good, thus it’s subjective to God’s whims.  If you say it’s not subject to God’s whims, then either you say it’s an objective level of good that God has to adhere to or it’s intrinsic to his character.

If you say the level is “just there” and God knows it as such, then it’s either something God must adhere to or it is something intrinsic to His character.

There are only three options that I can think of (regarding the relationship of God and goodness):

1. God decides what is good (whims)
2. God conforms to/ adheres to an external objective goodness that is defined by who knows what.
3. God is good (inseparable from Him)

Let me know if there's an option I missed.

Post Edited (ThatDarnCat) : 9/8/2005 3:38:51 PM (GMT-5)