This is a concept that I feel the majority of Christianity would consent to. Especailly, considering that God has comanded X and thus we better follow X or we are going to be in a whole lot of hell. If it is true that God has commanded X and that X must be followed by all mandkind, then I think that there is a problem with our conception of God’s omnibenevolance. While, I do agree that God has encated certain comandments that act as “covering commandments” like: Lying, Adultery, Stealing, etc, I do not agree, however, that ALL of God’s commandments are objectively based. The reason I state this is that if God were to demand that all creatures follow X regardless of their values, cultural teachings, mental limitations, or spiritual preparedness, then it follows that God is not acting benevolently. The reason for thins, is that God–being a benevolent God– would not desire that there exist misunderstanding, incomparability, or problems with keeping his commandments do to any relativistic situations. He would, thus, have to command X according to what the person can understand via an individual basis.
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January 23, 2008 at 11:59 am
Opus
“if God were to demand that all creatures follow X regardless of their values, cultural teachings, mental limitations, or spiritual preparedness, then it follows that God is not acting benevolently”
Non sequitur.
January 31, 2008 at 4:22 am
john
Opus,
Thank you for the insight. Yes, it seems, as stated it is a non sequitur. Here is a reformulation to fill in the blanks that make the premises follow:
1 Due to cultural limitations, metal limitations, and social limitations, men often are unable to fulfill God’s commandments.
2. God being omniscient knows that this is the case
3. God being omni benevolent, would desire that men are able to comply with his commandments is ways that they can comprehend.
5. Thus, if God commands X without considering 1, the God is not acting in accordance with 2 and 3.
6. If he is not acting in accordance with 2 and 3, then he either does not know that men possess 1 or he is not a being that is benevolent.
February 1, 2008 at 11:16 am
Opus
I am still trying to understand your proposition and what you are driving at. Is it that God does not impose all of His commandments (the 614 as Jews count them) on all men? This, I think, goes without saying. Is it that God has different standards by which He judges men—a sort of individualized measuring stick? While I think this is true, we must be very careful how we state it because we do not want to fall into the traps of relativism or universalism.
There is a line of reasoning that says that the de-Judaizing of Christianity that occurred in stages from the first to the fourth centuries stripped it of all its Jewish elements leaving a form and substance that was culturally neutral. This having been accomplished, the whole nature of the religion had changed from obedience to the commandments of an external law to submission to the Spirit of God as an internal presence. This principle certainly exists in the teachings of Paul, but the outward trappings of Jewish culture persisted until the fourth century when they were stripped away by Constantine.
That being the case, the question of God’s moral objectivism becomes moot. Christianity itself is the answer. Commandments, per se, are subordinated to an inner guidance which is customized, so to speak, to the individual. No one is judged by comparison to 1) an impossible ideal, or 2) anyone else that lives or has lived. A person is measured only against his realizable potential. C. S. Lewis—I believe in Mere Christianity—employed an analogy to factories. Two factories, one excellent, efficient, and productive and one old, decrepit, and not very productive represent two particular believers. God does not judge, Lewis argues, between the factories or either factory to some objective standard, but instead each factory’s output is measured against its potential. By this standard, he said that the worse factory could come out better in God’s judgment than the better one. Given its very poor condition, it might be a wonder that the lesser factory produced anything at all, and it might be a further wonder, given its much better condition, that the better factory did not produce a great deal more. In this way, one could see how that a man who only won two souls to Christ in his lifetime could have accomplished more in God’s judgment than one who had harvested thousands.
In this way, the subjectivism of God’s moral judgment becomes patently obvious. So much so that it is like something camouflaged that, at first, you cannot see no matter how hard you look, and then once you do see it, you can’t NOT see it no matter how hard you try.
March 26, 2008 at 2:33 am
Steve
opus a d john,
I think that you both have given some very good arguments for the positions that you hold. However, the problem with both you claims is that you are avoiding relitivism. This is something that is not needed. God, for be to be fair, must posses a relitivistic view-point. To attept to claim otherwise is a pathetic atempt to hold on to somthing that has no apparent importance . God is a realitivist he has given commandments in the form of covering rules.
March 30, 2008 at 11:50 pm
oohlah
John, are you still blogging? It’s a great exercise for your philosophical ideas… I forgot how good it was until I’ve started doing so again…
May 1, 2008 at 8:35 pm
john
I am going to get into it again. I have just had a heck of a semester! (Market trouble). Yea I will be back this summer with posts every other day. I would like to disscuss some ideas about freedom and god some more. I also want to start learning modal logic and really get agressive with that.
(even though they are all agressive)…
So, make shure that you check up on me and shoot some argument down. Especially, since you are now Dr. Joe….i will anticipate some more agressive arguments
Thanks for you help these last 2 years joe! your advice has kept me in this disipline.
John