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But will it help the concerned theist to deny, as Hasker suggests, that God is obligated to attempt to maximize everyone's quality of life? This does provide another possible explanation for the seemingly unnecessary natural evil that we experience, namely, that God is under no obligation to remove such evil even if he can. But what does such a response say about God's moral integrity? I agree with George Schlesinger's contention that we should "apply as far as possible human ethical standards in our appraisal of Divine conduct" since "we have no other notions of good and bad except those appertaining to human situations." And it seems clear to me that we as humans generally do believe that we should do what we can to maximize the quality of life of others, especially when those "others" are children whom we have brought into existence. Accordingly, my question for those who would have the theist deny (M4) is, "Why should anyone desire to worship or expect nontheists to respect the concept of a being who appears not to be obligated to act as morally as some humans?

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First of all, let me say that I'm not taking this as the MAIN open view position because open view theists vary with this. But I would like to highlight Basinger's position here. Basically what I hear him saying is kinda what I've heard Doc say in the past. God's "goodness" has to be in SOME MEANINGFUL way similar to what we would consider "good" or "moral" In other words, we can only deem God's actions good IF we can honestly do so from our vantagepoint. To say that God has a different standard of morality than we do just because he is God seems problematic, AT BEST, to many open view theists. Too reminiscent of nominalistic or Clarking thinking (God's acts are all good, by definition of them being God's acts) And following this, some would say, saying that God is good either becomes tautological...or the word "good" is equivocal and has no real meaning for our purposes anymore.

Now, the implication is that we can reasonably say what is "good" and "evil"...AND we can judge certain actions as being either one. This goes with justice and fairness, too. What this logically means is that for some act of speech of God to be "just" or "fair" for us, we have to reasonably be able to say that those same acts or speech exhibit some core morality that could be judged as "good" or "evil" to RATIONAL, NORMAL human beings. In other words, for us to judge divine acts or words as being good, we would have to ask ourselves this question:

"If we contextualize this situation analogically for a human being, would we say that a human being that did or said what God did was showing core morality (ie goodness, justice, fairness...)

THIS, my friend, is where my question comes from. It seems to me that anyone who wants to affirm Basinger's idea would have to say the following:

"God's justice and fairness can NOT be fundamentally different from ours. Of course, there may be other unknown factors to be considered, but in it's FUNDAMENTAL FORM, God's justice and fairness much be in line with our core morality conception"

So, when I ask my question, I'm basically asking this. And the reason is simple. For any person who asserts Basinger's position to answer that God's acts did NOT conform in any meaningful sense to human core morality, they would have to say that God was immoral in those acts. For example, if I say that God causing bears to maul 42 YOUTHS just for calling Elisha a name was analogous to a judge ordering death by testicular torture for JAYWALKING...and it was NOT in any meaningful sense, a moral act humanly speaking...then I would have reason to say that God's act was UNjust and thus IMmoral. Sure, I could try to justify it. I could say that mocking the man of God by calling him a "baldhead" is JUSTLY PUNISHED by being mauled by a bear. (Remember we don't even know if they KNEW that he was a prophet. I guess we could ASSUME that) But I would have to ask myself if this would cohere with any sense of core morality of human beings. And this is exactly what I'm doing. These are the questions I'm asking.

Hopefully, this will give you some perspective on what I'm doing, Rob. Putting God on trial is not really my purpose. Personally, I believe God can do whatever He wants. What I DO note is that other people, especially atheists, look at these things in the Bible and wants justification. MOREOVER, many of these people think JUST LIKE Basinger does. Saying God has a different standard just won't cut it. I just want us to THINK about these things, not only for our own sakes, but for the sake of the intelligent people we come across.

Meph

Love God. Love People. Love Truth. Dedicate your all to that which you love.

Edited by - Mephi2K on 07/01/2001 9:32:39 PM