Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community (https://thetfp.com/tfp/)
-   Tilted Philosophy (https://thetfp.com/tfp/tilted-philosophy/)
-   -   Question about God (https://thetfp.com/tfp/tilted-philosophy/96018-question-about-god.html)

RedbeardUH 10-11-2005 03:11 PM

Question about God
 
Here is a famous question posed by Plato:

Are things morally just because God willed it?

OR

Did God will it because they're morally just?

Coppertop 10-11-2005 03:58 PM

It has been a long time since I've taken any classes, but doesn't it go something like:

Quote:

I am holding a pen in my hand.

Am I holding it because it is in my hand, or is it in my hand because I am holding it?
It is not in my hand because it is held, it is held because it is in my hand.

At least that's how I remember it. Was it from The Republic? Like I said, it has been quite some time since I've read it.

asaris 10-11-2005 06:27 PM

Well, my answer to this is almost certainly the most controversial, and likely the most complex. Because an internet forum lends itself to oversimplification, let me just note that my position is largely the same as that of John Duns Scotus, so if it seems interesting to you, but overly simple, I assure you that its oversimplification is because of the medium (not to mention my own inadequacies next to the Subtle Doctor), not because the view itself is overly simple.

The view is this: God, being free, did not have to create. But given that he chose to create, he had to create beings that had their end (telos, not eschaton) in him. So, while he was free to choose whatever system of morality he liked, he had to choose a system whose goal was union with him. To put it another way, any system of morality that met these conditions was going to be one that revealed God's own attributes. But He had the choice as to which attributes of his he chose to reveal. So while the system of morality was up to God, he had to will a just system as opposed to an unjust system.

To put it another way, there's both an ontological claim and an epistemological claim here. The ontological claim is that some commands of morality could have been otherwise. There's a pretty clear analogy here; within the system of particular morality, we have traffic laws which are binding, but obviously could have been otherwise without being unjust (speed limits, what side of the road we drive on, etc.) The epistemological claim is that we don't know that morality couldn't have been different.

But note that none of this should be taken to mean that we can in fact act in a way otherwise than what was in fact commanded. That's why He's God.

RedbeardUH 10-11-2005 07:57 PM

God may have freely chose to create, but his act of creation was not free. Some power for it to be that he "had to create beings that had their own telos in him." (Plus, if you want to talk about telos, then you allow for Hume's argument that "can doesn't imply ought").
In other words, he is forced to create beings in a "just system," which implies that there is a higher morality than God. Or if he creates the system then all morality is arbitrary.


There has been one argument that, in a sense, works: God is both the system and commander. Having just written this, it seems to me that perhaps that is what John Scotus is arguing and what you wrote; I confess I'm not entirely positive as I know nothing about Scotus and his apologetics.

hrandani 10-11-2005 08:06 PM

I don't believe in God.

Or morals.

So I'm going to have to completely object to this question.

RedbeardUH 10-11-2005 08:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hrandani
I don't believe in God.

Or morals.

So I'm going to have to completely object to this question.

Thus the other/neither option.

Plus if you don't believe in morals, why do you pay your bills to use the internet/wear clothes/etc etc.

asaris 10-12-2005 05:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RedbeardUH
Thus the other/neither option.

Plus if you don't believe in morals, why do you pay your bills to use the internet/wear clothes/etc etc.

Probably because if he doesn't, he'll get into trouble.

I disagree with some of what you say in your first post, but I think some of that is just our ways of putting things, so I won't linger on that. But you talk about Hume's argument that you can't derive an ought from an is, and that's as good a place as any. Simply put, I think Hume was both right and wrong. You can't derive the right from what is, just because what is doesn't entail anything specific about what is good for us. But he's wrong in that you can say that what is good is grounded in what is.

Let me put this another way. Essentially the position boils down to "good is good because God says so". But this seems entirely arbitrary, and we like to think that to some extent good is good just because. So Scotus wants to ground morality in human nature, while still also grounding it in God. That is to say, Scotus's system has the advantage that Thomas's system has of making the good something grounded in what is (and so not based on God's mere whim like later divine command theories), while also having the advantage of grounding morality in God's will.

10-12-2005 06:35 AM

I don't believe in God or morals either (because as concepts, they throw out obviously erroneous consequences such as the need to ask this question), but I pay my bills because if I don't they will cut off my electricity. It's nothing more than common sense.

A system has rules, whether they are the laws of physics, a set of mathematical axioms, or the social etiquette conducted whilst having tea with the Queen. The rules are what make a system work, they define it, and the interactions that occur within it.

One thing that the rules have to do is not contradict one another. When rules contradict, we have a paradox. To solve the paradox, we have to either find a new rule, or reappraise our understanding of the rules. A paradox is the point at which a system fails to operate, the point at which it shrugs and starts hinting at infinities, or asks us mysteriously how many angels might dance on the head of a pin. If a system has too many of these paradoxes, it can be deemed to be false. Or rather, the premises on which the system is based can be deemed to be false.

The problem with this question as posed is that it helps prove the non existence of God. It creates a paradox. Did God create Morality, or is Morality something higher than God? Is Morality one of Plato's 'Forms'?

I'd argue for none of the above. Instead, morality (small m) can be best described as a set of behaviours and attitudes that allows a person to function within a society with the optimum ratio of success to effort, and individual vs societical gains. It is a construct of inter-personal interactions that simply did not exist before we did.

Poof. The contradictions disappear.

politicophile 10-12-2005 09:07 AM

If God said that torturing small children for the fun of it was morally acceptable, he would clearly be wrong. I can't really offer any arguments as to why this is true, but it certainly seems to be from my perspective.

Two further points:

The discussion of morality and God occurs in Plato's dialogue Meno. The question is actually about "the pious", but Socrates uses this word to mean "loved by the gods", so this discussion is in the Platonic spirit.

Morality most certainly is one of Plato's Forms: it is called "the Good".

Lebell 10-12-2005 09:09 AM

I don't accept either as a premise.

IMO, morality is a part of what God is. In otherwords, God's actions are inherently moral, being in the best intentions for His creation.

That is not to say that God could not choose to do something not in the best interest of His creation, but that He won't.

1010011010 10-12-2005 11:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zen_tom
morality (small m) can be best described as a set of behaviours and attitudes that allows a person to function within a society with the optimum ratio of success to effort, and individual vs societical gains. It is a construct of inter-personal interactions that simply did not exist before we did.

That works as a good explanation for why enduring sustainable societies share what have been called "universal moral laws" (e.g. don't steal, don't murder, etc). It's not because of any inherent Rightness or Goodness to such rules... merely that societies that do not have such rules tend to fail (through asimillation, destruction, or instability).

Nimetic 10-13-2005 10:02 AM

Neither. If there is a god - he/she is not giving us clear instructions or generally being helpful on a day-to-day and year-to-year basis.

We've got to decide for ourselves.

In a nutshell, for me a moral decisions is one that is consistent with living in a community in which people help each other, or failing that - are able to trust each other and work together without external safegaurds/enforcement.

Some people choose to play the game of life by another set of rules.

adysav 10-14-2005 06:32 AM

If morals are universal and determined by God, it's odd that he set different moral standards for different religions and different parts of the world.

Lebell 10-14-2005 06:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nimetic
Neither. If there is a god - he/she is not giving us clear instructions or generally being helpful on a day-to-day and year-to-year basis.

That depends on your point of view.

If you are a Christian, Jesus' instructions were actually pretty clear.

pig 10-14-2005 06:44 AM

I'm going with the position, if you accept the confinement of talking in terms of personified dieties, that it is a false contradiction. I do not see that the positions are necessarily mutually exclusive. I think it's an academically interesting thought experiment, but I fail to find that the points are actually divergent or distinct.

mrklixx 10-14-2005 07:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lebell
If you are a Christian, Jesus' instructions were actually pretty clear.

Really? Curious then why there are so many different denominations teaching different versions of those instructions. Also curious why Jesus never actually wrote any instructions at all.


All times are GMT -8. The time now is 08:25 AM.

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2025, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Search Engine Optimization by vBSEO 3.6.0 PL2
© 2002-2012 Tilted Forum Project


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360