God and Morality

[bilop]

If evil is the absence of good, and God created good, then before the beginning of creation all was without good, and hence evil. What does that say about the nature of God who was before creation?

I think you need to re-examine your logic here.

rossum

No, before God created anything, there was only good. When he created creatures with free will, but lacking the perfection of God, evil began. The first evidence we have of evil is the revolt of Lucifer and the fallen angels.

God Bless

 

[tonyrey]

Why? Why not “It is neither good nor bad to exist”?

Thomas Nagel, an atheist, has pointed out that existence is a source of opportunities.

He cannot be the source of “all” existence, if He himself actually exists. He did not create himself, unless you believe in a created God.

You have overlooked “He Who Is”…

 

[Bahman]

I have a problem with your first stage. Cause and effect cannot operate in a timeless environment because the cause must come before the effect, and in a timeless environment there is no “before”. Since God must have changed from “I am not creating” to “I am creating” then there is change, and hence time must be present. In a timeless environment there is no change. Change is difference over time, and it cannot exist in the absence of time.

At the first shoot, creation, cause and effect coexist together and that is the definition of state of timeless. Once the creation is created then it evolve by time, so there are two options available for God, either stay with state of creation and interact with it or leave. In the first case God has to be in state of time as you mentioned since cause comes before effect, so called giving fate, and in the second case God does not interact with creation anymore since the creation is perfect.

It is indeed complex, but it is the subject of this thread.

I will try to provide an answer for this in early future.

 

[rossum]

**rossum

Since the universe is infinite in time, it has no beginning and hence no need for a cause/builder.**

Is this something you believe, or do you have scientific proof that the universe always existed?

I define the universe as “all that exists”. If you believe in an eternal existing God, then you also accept that “all that exists” is eternal, without a beginning.

I include both spiritual and material elements in “all that exists”. The material element may include the Multiverse that some scientists propose. That also may be ‘eternal’ in some sense, depending on how time is measured in such a construct.

Buddhist scripture indicates that the universe has no beginning:

At Savatthi. There the Blessed One said: "From an inconstruable beginning comes transmigration. A beginning point is not evident, though beings hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving are transmigrating and wandering on.

– Assu sutta, Samyutta Nikaya 15.3

rossum

 

[rossum]

No, before God created anything, there was only good.

Then God did not create good. Anything “before creation” cannot have been created. Created things can only exist after creation.

If God did not create good, then what was the origin of good?

rossum

 

[rossum]

Thomas Nagel, an atheist, has pointed out that existence is a source of opportunities.

Not all opportunities are good, “The guard’s back is turned. I have an opportunity to steal this diamond ring.”

You have overlooked “He Who Is”…

No I have not. If God is the source of all existence, and God “is”, i.e. He exists, then He is the source of Himself, which makes Him yet another creation of God.

You are effectively saying that god is just another created being, since He created Himself.

rossum

 

[rossum]

At the first shoot, creation, cause and effect coexist together and that is the definition of state of timeless.

I cannot accept this. Time must come before creation, otherwise it impossible to say whether the creator or the created came first. How do you determine “first” without time to measure against?

rossum

 

[Bahman]

I cannot accept this. Time must come before creation, otherwise it impossible to say whether the creator or the created came first. How do you determine “first” without time to measure against?

rossum

Time simply is the rate a which things change, so existence of time and things should have happened at the same time.

 

[inocente]

You are assuming an Abrahamic solution. I assume a Dharmic solution: cause and effect. All our actions cause results. There is no god running it, and more than there is a god running gravity. Karma is like gravity, it is part of the universe.

Except where it’s not.

We know that Godwin’s Law, like gravity, is universal. As proof there’s no empirical evidence that Hitler, Stalin and all manner of other nasties ever got close to the amount of bad karma they deserved. So doesn’t your system of cosmic justice need an unseen and unseeable mechanism just like an Abrahamic solution?

Put another way, does a diphtheria bacterium get bad karma for killing its victim in agony, good karma for doing what it’s supposed to, or no karma as it’s not human?

 

[rossum]

Time simply is the rate a which things change,

There can be no change in the absence of time, so time is a requirement for any creator th change from not-creating to creating. Without change the creator cannot change to initiate creation. Creation cannot have started unless time was already in existence.

rossum

 

[tonyrey]

Not all opportunities are good, “The guard’s back is turned. I have an opportunity to steal this diamond ring.”

The abuse of opportunities should not be confused with the opportunities themselves. You would soon complain if you were deprived of them!

If God is the source of all existence, and God “is”, i.e. He exists, then He is the source of Himself, which makes Him yet another creation of God.

All terms which describe Ultimate Reality are analogical.

You are effectively saying that god is just another created being, since He created Himself.

Non sequitur. It is unreasonable to put Ultimate Reality into a human category.

 

[rossum]

All terms which describe Ultimate Reality are analogical.

Non sequitur. It is unreasonable to put Ultimate Reality into a human category.

See my sig.

rossum

 

[tonyrey]

See my sig.

rossum

So

 

[Bahman]

There can be no change in the absence of time, so time is a requirement for any creator th change from not-creating to creating. Without change the creator cannot change to initiate creation. Creation cannot have started unless time was already in existence.
rossum

Time cannot be created. Things can be created, once the are free then they change. Time then can be define as rate of change when there is conscious being that can observe changes.

 

[rossum]

Time cannot be created.

That makes two things that God didn’t create: Himself and time.

Given that modern physics treats space-time as a single four-dimensional manifold, then it is also possible that God did not create space either.

rossum

 

[Bahman]

That makes two things that God didn’t create: Himself and time.

Given that modern physics treats space-time as a single four-dimensional manifold, then it is also possible that God did not create space either.

rossum

But time appear as imaginary part of space -time continuum which means it is not real.

 

[rossum]

But time appear as imaginary part of space -time continuum which means it is not real.

In this case, “real” and “imaginary” have very specific technical meanings in mathematics, not to be confused with their ordinary meaning in normal speech.

It would be the logical error of equivocation to confuse the two very different meanings.

rossum

 

[Charlemagne_II]

**rossum

Given that modern physics treats space-time as a single four-dimensional manifold, then it is also possible that God did not create space either.**

By your own logic Buddhism is not the ultimate truth because, as you have said, “The ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth.”

 

[rossum]

By your own logic Buddhism is not the ultimate truth because, as you have said, “The ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth.”

You are not the first to notice my sig. The original source is Mark Siderits, “Thinking on Empty: Madhyamika Anti-Realism and Canons of Rationality” in S Biderman and B.A. Schaufstein, eds, Rationality In Question (1989). Dordrecht: Brill.

I have not read Siderits but saw the quote in a piece on Nagarjuna. The “Madhyamika” in Siderits’ title refers to the religious and philosophical school of Buddhism that Nagarjuna founded. I have seen the same quote again in other places in reference to the Madhyamika and Nagarjuna - it seems quite popular. The quote is intentionally paradoxical; paradox is necessary to remind us that words are insufficient when trying to describe the fundamental nature of reality.

For a philosophical discussion of Nagarjuna and reality see the web article Nagarjuna and the Limits of Thought. The Siderits quote is at the end of section four of the article:

There is, then, no escape. Nagarjuna’s view is contradictory. The contradiction is, clearly a paradox of expressibility. Nagarjuna succeeds in saying the unsayable, just as much as the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus. We can think (and characterize) reality only subject to language, which is conventional, so the ontology of that reality is all conventional. It follows that the conventional objects of reality do not ultimately (non-conventionally) exist. It also follows that nothing we say of them is ultimately true. That is, all things are empty of ultimate existence; and this is their ultimate nature, and is an ultimate truth about them. They hence cannot be thought to have that nature; nor can we say that they do. But we have just done so. As Mark Siderits (1989) has put it, “the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth.”

rossum

 

[tonyrey]

  			Originally Posted by **rossum**

No response!