Bertrand Russell

[Leela]

I think that’s because the question relies on an artificial distinction between God and goodness. If God is goodness (as well as morality, etc) in its purest form then the question dissovles entirely.

You’re asking if there is an objective standard of goodness outside of God, because if there were then God would be in trouble. We could start asking where this standard came from if it stands above and outside God – maybe another, greater God than God made it (and if so why don’t we just pray to him?) I think the world Phillip Pullman created for his His Dark Materials series works something like that.

Anyway, following Plato and Aquinas, there is no objective standard of goodness outside God, because God himself is the standard. Things are good in this universe because they reflect the Platonic form of goodness in a universe that transcends ours, which is another way of describing God.

I think you can if you believe that evil is not an active force (as the Manicheans believed) but rather the absence of God, and a by-product of our free will. Therefore it’s not God’s fault that we do evil things, but rather because of our fallen humanity. For God to do evil would be against his nature, as you stated.

I don’t know if your argument works for a god envisioned as a Platonic form or not, but that seems to me to be beside the point. The Christian god is not a Platonic form. God does stuff. He hardens Pharohs heart, answers prayers, makes something out of nothing, etc. Is God capable of doing anything evil or not? If he is incapable, he is not omnipotent. If God kills an innocent person for no good reason, that would be wrong, right? Does God choose not to do that or is he incapable of doing that?

 

[tomarin]

I don’t know if your argument works for a god envisioned as a Platonic form or not, but that seems to me to be beside the point. The Christian god is not a Platonic form. God does stuff. He hardens Pharohs heart, answers prayers, makes something out of nothing, etc.

Aquinas thought of God this way, and he wasn’t a Deist. I don’t see any contradiction between God as a Platonic form and the Christian God.

Is God capable of doing anything evil or not? If he is incapable, he is not omnipotent. If God kills an innocent person for no good reason, that would be wrong, right? Does God choose not to do that or is he incapable of doing that?

God is incapable of evil because evil is the absence of God.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Leela

*The problem is that you can’t have an omnipotent God who is unable to do evil. *

You seem here to confuse “unable” with “unwilling.” God is unwilling to do evil, and that is a sign of His power over evil.

Moreover, “able to do evil” would not be a sign of God’s power, just as it is not a sign of human power. Adolf Hitler was able to do evil, but it rendered him in the end not powerful, but on the ccontrary powerless to avoid his own destruction and the destruction of Nazi Germany.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

I am reminded of Russell’s childish logic opposing the Old Testament account of creation. Russell rather flippantly insists in “Why I Am Not a Christian” that an omnipotent and omniscient God after so many millions of years should have been able to produce something better than the Ku Klux Klan or the Fascists. The short answer to Russell’s argument is that the omnipotent and omniscient God did produce something vastly better: He produced Mozart, and Da Vinci, and Einstein, and Shakespeare … and even Bertrand Russell.

 

[Earnest_Bunbury]

From the “Handbook of Christian Apologetics” on Plato’s Divine Command Theory:

The only rationally acceptable answer to the question of the relation between God and morality is the biblical one; morality is based on God’s eternal nature. This is why morality is essentially unchangeable. “I am the Lord your God; sanctify yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy” (Lev 11:44). Our obligation to be just, kind, honest, loving, and righteous “goes all the way up” to ultimate reality, to the eternal nature of God, to what God is. That is why morality has absolute and unchangeable binding force on our conscience.

Pharaoh perhaps had his “heart hardened” to give greater glory to God, to show His works to the nation of Israel and thus to the rest of mankind. To darken one’s mind to Him Who made you is to be “led into temptation” in separating yourself from reality.
To judge God by our standards is to exemplify the arrogance that original sin is. Faith is the opposite, the humble ascent of our intellect and reason, what God’s image is in our souls, through the will, to ultimate reality, God. The first principle is that we are made, we didn’t make ourselves, so the ascent to that truth is the basis of the following, the search for the transcendent One Who is our Father. The Church, the foundation of Truth, is the visible manifestation of that search, through the revelations He Who also searches for us, gives us. Darkening our minds to what reality is, God, leads us to perdition by our own path.

 

[Leela]

Leela

The problem is that you can’t have an omnipotent God who is unable to do evil.

You seem here to confuse “unable” with “unwilling.” God is unwilling to do evil, and that is a sign of His power over evil.

Your argument is with Tomarin since that is exactly the point I’ve been trying to make. Tomarin wants to say that God is incapable of doing evil.

 

[Leela]

From the “Handbook of Christian Apologetics” on Plato’s Divine Command Theory:

Pharaoh perhaps had his “heart hardened” to give greater glory to God, to show His works to the nation of Israel and thus to the rest of mankind. To darken one’s mind to Him Who made you is to be “led into temptation” in separating yourself from reality.
To judge God by our standards is to exemplify the arrogance that original sin is.

I think we are just trying to tell whether God is acting according to what we think are his OWN standards with regards to Pharaoh. Based on much of the OT, deliberately making Pharaoh refuse to let the Israelites go and then punishing him by killing his son for doing what he made him do sounds about par for the course to me. And what ever happened to free will?

 

[PaulAndrew83]

There are a number of problems here that are not being understood here.

Evil is the privation or lack of goodness.
Omnipotence is not the power to do everything but the power to do everything possible or all that which is not intrinsically impossible.

Therefore for God to do evil would be to accuse God of failure to do something Good.
Therefore God is actually incapable of Evil. Correspondingly God is therefore Good.
OP:

If it is due to God’s fiat, then for God himself there is no difference between right and wrong, and it is no longer a significant statement to say that God is good.

This is Bertrands problem. This is actually a contradiction. It is not possible for there to be no difference between good and privation of good. Therefore because bertrands reasoning is actually based on a faulty premise so his conclusion that “it is not a significant statement to say that God is good” is faulty also.

Paul

 

[Leela]

Aquinas thought of God this way, and he wasn’t a Deist. I don’t see any contradiction between God as a Platonic form and the Christian God.

Platonic forms don’t act volitionally in the world. They aren’t to be prayed to and worshipped.

God is incapable of evil because evil is the absence of God.

If God is not merely unwilling but actually unable to do certain things, then he is not omnipotent.

 

[PaulAndrew83]

Platonic forms don’t act volitionally in the world. They aren’t to be prayed to and worshipped.

Tomarin is wrong on this one point.

If God is not merely unwilling but actually unable to do certain things, then he is not omnipotent.

This is wrong as well.

God is not able to “not be”. This however does not make him not omnipotent.

Paul

 

[Leela]

God is not able to “not be”. This however does not make him not omnipotent.

So, assumoing it is wrong to kill innocents, would you say that God is incapable of killing innocents or unwilling?

You to define good as whatever God does which makes it meaningless to say that God is good. It would just be to say that God does what God does.

 

[PaulAndrew83]

So, assumoing it is wrong to kill innocents, would you say that God is incapable of killing innocents or unwilling?

You to define good as whatever God does which makes it meaningless to say that God is good. It would just be to say that God does what God does.

It seems to me when atheists ask such questions (i underlined for emphasis on which part of your post i am discussing first) it is often without consideration of the existence of the afterlife.

It might be a more appropriate question is it wrong to destroy ones existence entirely? I would answer that yes it is and God is therefore incapable of doing this. Again I will state what I said in an earlier post. God is incapable of an evil because failure to do good is incompatible with omnipotence.

Secondly you need to re-read and rethink what I said in my first post in this thread.

Paul

 

[Shike]

So, assuming it is wrong to kill innocents, would you say that God is incapable of killing innocents or unwilling?

He’s slightly beating around the bush as to the answer (forgive me if I didn’t see the word contradiction) so I will just spit it out for him: “God killing an innocent (ie. murder)” is a contradiction. “It is possible for God to kill an innocent” is also a contradiction.

Just stay with me for a moment…
Since it’s a contradiction, volition categorically does not apply; so we cannot say he is unwilling (or even willing for that matter). And since it’s a contradiction, a qualified “incapable” is needed; the same incapable that refers to making a square circle or any such contradiction a reality.

Now if you have questions as to why such statements are contradictions (the next logical step), we could go there if you want.

 

[Leela]

He’s slightly beating around the bush as to the answer (forgive me if I didn’t see the word contradiction) so I will just spit it out for him: “God killing an innocent (ie. murder)” is a contradiction. “It is possible for God to kill an innocent” is also a contradiction.

Just stay with me for a moment…
Since it’s a contradiction, volition categorically does not apply; so we cannot say he is unwilling (or even willing for that matter). And since it’s a contradiction, a qualified “incapable” is needed; the same incapable that refers to making a square circle or any such contradiction a reality.

Now if you have questions as to why such statements are contradictions (the next logical step), we could go there if you want.

If you are going to call it a contradiction then you are making “good” synonymous with God and rendering it a tautology rather than a description of God to say that God is good.

When Christians say that God is good, they do not just mean that God acts according to God’s nature. “God is good” is not supposed to be used to equate God and good as in the tautology “all bachelors are unmarried.” Goodness is supposed to add some information about what God is like. Good is supposed to be an essential charachetristic of God, not another word for God. Otherwise, as Russell says, “it is no longer a significant statement to say that God is good.”

 

[PaulAndrew83]

LEELA:

Good is supposed to be an essential charachetristic of God, not another word for God. Otherwise, as Russell says, “it is no longer a significant statement to say that God is good.”

That is terrible logic.

Infinity is an essential characteristic of God. This does not mean it is meaningless to say that God is infinite.

Paul

 

[Leela]

That is terrible logic.

Infinity is an essential characteristic of God. This does not mean it is meaningless to say that God is infinite.

Paul

You aren’t following me. Infinity is not another word for God. It is a description of God. To say that God is infinite presupposes a concept of infinity that we can then apply to God as a description. To say “God is good” and mean it as a description rather than as a tautology then we need to have an idea of what good means.

God is not supposed to be good in the same way that a bachelor is an unmarried male. When you say God is good, you are supposed to be giving additional information, namely that God has a certain quality. God is not the very same thing as goodness. Goodness is supposed to be an essential characteristic of God, so that there will be no tautology.

But if goodness is a characteristic of God, a word we’d like to use to describe God, then we need to know what goodness is independently of referring to God so that we can know what it means when we apply the term to God. You want to say that goodness is just God-ness, but that puts you back into the tautology where goodness gives you no information about what God is like. If goodness is God-ness then you aren’t saying anything non-tautological when you say that God is good

.

 

[tomarin]

When Christians say that God is good, they do not just mean that God acts according to God’s nature. “God is good” is not supposed to be used to equate God and good as in the tautology “all bachelors are unmarried.” Goodness is supposed to add some information about what God is like. Good is supposed to be an essential charachetristic of God, not another word for God. Otherwise, as Russell says, “it is no longer a significant statement to say that God is good.”

I think what you’re missing is that traditional Christian theology also says that there is no distinction between God’s essence and God’s existence. This is why I brought up Plato’s forms as a model of understanding how God can be the source of all goodness here on earth (much like the sun is the source of all sunlight here on earth). It seems to me your (and Russel’s) objection works only for people who do not understand or do not accept that for God, existence and essence are one and the same thing.

 

[Leela]

I think what you’re missing is that traditional Christian theology also says that there is no distinction between God’s essence and God’s existence. This is why I brought up Plato’s forms as a model of understanding how God can be the source of all goodness here on earth (much like the sun is the source of all sunlight here on earth). It seems to me your (and Russel’s) objection works only for people who do not understand or do not accept that for God, existence and essence are one and the same thing.

I’m not sure what you mean by “existence and essence are the same thing.” Isn’t that just the traditional view of essences?

The problem is not in asserting God as the source of all good. I don’t buy into that claim, but making it is not where you run into any problems (other than the question of whether that claim is justified). The point is that a person must be able to recognize good without having any special relationship with God to begin with for it to mean anything to say that God is good. As Russell said, goodness must have some meaning independent of God for it to make sense to call God good. Believers like to claim that they are in some priveledged position to recognize good because they have a realtionship with God (whatever that is supposed to mean). It’s one thing to say that God is how you make sense of the good that all nonbelievers and believers alike can recognize, but another to say that only by believing in God can we recognize the good since goodness is just Godness. We must be able to recognize goodness independently of conceiving of God. You can say that it is only God exists that morality exists for humans to recognize, but if you argue that humans need to first believe in God before they can recognize good, and it is only in knowing God that we can know goodness, then it is meaningless to say that God is good.

 

[PaulAndrew83]

The point is that a person must be able to recognize good without having any special relationship with God to begin with for it to mean anything to say that God is good. As Russell said, goodness must have some meaning independent of God for it to make sense to call God good.

Yet again you are missing the entire point.

In ideas goodness, infinity, simplicity and so on are separate from the idea of God.

But we are not just simply talking about ideas. We are talking about what is real. Concepts or ideas which by definition are different from just the pure idea of God are in reality part of what is essential for God to be God.

The contrary statement God is not good is the same as saying that God is not God.

So in saying that God is good does not have meaning is faulty reasoning and thinking

Paul

 

[Leela]

The contrary statement God is not good is the same as saying that God is not God.

So in saying that God is good does not have meaning is faulty reasoning and thinking

These last two statements contradict one another. If saying God is good is saying no more than God is God, then to say God is good adds nothing as a description of God.

Maybe it will help to hear the same argument from a Christian point of view:
str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5236

"The answer to this problem hinges on the philosophical notion of identity, expressed symbolically as A = A. When one thing is identical to another (in the way I’m using the term), there are not two things, but one.[10] For example, the president of Stand to Reason (Gregory Koukl) is identical to the author of this article. Everything that’s true of the one is true of the other.[11] …

According to Christian teaching, God is not good in the same way that a bachelor is an unmarried male. When we say God is good, we are giving additional information, namely that God has a certain quality. God is not the very same thing as goodness (identical to it)…

A proper understanding of Christian teaching on God removes one problem, yet we still face another: What is “good”? How can we know goodness if we don’t define it first?

The way Abraham responded when he first learned of God’s intention to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah gives us a clue to the answer:

Far be it from Thee to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from Thee! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly? (Genesis 18:25)
Here’s the question. How did Abraham know justice required that God not treat the wicked and the righteous alike? As of yet, no commandments had been handed down.

Abraham knew goodness not by prior definition or by some decree of God, but through moral intuition. He didn’t need God to define justice (divine command). He knew it directly. His moral knowledge was built in.[13]

Even the atheist understands what moral terms mean. He doesn’t need God in order to recognize morality. He needs God to make sense of what he recognizes. "