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Bahman
Guest
I agree.
How this is supposed to happen? To my understanding everything has to go through state of nature, experiencing good and devil to reach to higher stage of maturity.
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grannymh
Guest
This is very interesting especially the words “enables the conditions.”
Coming at this from a different angle, I consider the status of God as being different from the status of humans because God is a transcendent uncreated Pure Spirit and a human is an unique, created union of both the spiritual world and the material world. For me, the material/physical principle gives the human a different status from that of God. God as an uncreated Creator can be pure goodness because He is not limited by matter.
Please note that matter, in itself, is good. It is how we choose to use matter, including our own body, that results in good or bad actions.
The human is also spiritual in the image of God. Thus, there is a natural desire to seek pure goodness. i.e., God as He is. The word appetite comes to mind, although I am never quite sure what that word means in philosophy. It seems to me that both our rational intellect and will [freely] seeks goodness. The difficulty is that our material environment presents less effective good. God is beyond the limits of the material world; thus, His goodness is limitless or infinite. God is correctly known as supernatural.
God’s goodness is seen in the intelligible material creation and is seen in the human who basically has a choice to live in harmony with the spiritual God or to prefer her or his own desires over God’s goodness. This choice is the opportunity to share in the Divine life of God. Rocks and bacteria exist because God’s power as Creator sustains them in existence. God’s power as Creator sustains our being or nature within our material world. Because, we have a rational soul and thus can choose our actions, we have the freedom to use our existence as our means of living in accord with God or not.
Is the following a good example?
When we pick up a rock, it cannot overturn our action to use it to hit someone. Only a person who has the spiritual power of [free] will can decide in what manner the rock should be used, e.g., as a foundation for a home or as a killing weapon. Regardless of how the rock is used by independent humans, God’s creative power sustains the rock in existence and He also sustains the human in existence. But, a human is not a rock. While the human is not totally free from limitations, his anatomy decomposes, she or he can choose to live in friendship with the Creator – which means living in submission to God. Humans can choose their actions; however, that does not make them gods equal to the Creator. Choosing is part of the “existence” of human nature.
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tonyrey
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Peter_Plato
Guest
Not to put words in Bagheera’s mouth, but my impression is that something like the above is precisely what makes God culpable in Bagheera’s view. God has the power to prevent suffering and the power to turn the rock into a marshmallow after it is thrown with malicious intent so that the recipient is not harmed as a consequence. God could, in principle, prevent all such harm so he bears as much culpability for the damage caused by the rock as the agent who throws it.
The logical consequence of Bagheera’s view is that heroic action would simply be out of the question for human beings since it is not only evil intent that potentially causes pain and suffering, but just the opposite. Carrying out good actions out of love is frequently self-sacrificial and painful. God should, likewise, make love as painless and convenient as his omnipotent brain can accomplish. Rescuing a child from a vicious dog would likely mean sustaining a few bites oneself. That would be the cost of choosing good. In Bagheera’s view, God should also intervene and make the dog’s tearing of flesh a delightful experience. “Heroism” would be easy, convenient and without stress.
In the end, whether one chooses to do good or evil would not matter, if God lives up to Bagheera’s expectations, since the outcomes of either choice will be pleasurable and inconsequential. This view entails that God alone bears moral responsibility for all actions and choices. Humans ought to be able to do whatever they will with impunity because no matter what choices are made the consequences should be without discomfort and pain. The distinction between good and evil will simply collapse and become meaningless.
The problem, I propose, is with conflating evil with pain and good with pleasure as if painful is what evil essentially means and pleasurable is essentially what good means. Rather than pain and pleasure being indicative of good and evil, Bagheera’s world view is grounded in this confused notion of what good and evil essentially are.
A more robust view is that pain is a general “indicator” of hurt or harm and pleasure a general, but NOT INfallible, indicator of good. The critical idea, regarding good and evil, however, is to understand that evil takes away from the kind of being that you are, it makes you less than what you are. It is degenerative of WHO you are. Pains and pleasures are of different kinds and from different sources and should not be definitive in choices made. To carry out an act with good consequences MIGHT be painful and evil acts MIGHT be pleasurable in the short term, but in the aggregate evil will result in suffering and good in happiness, though the final cost or benefit may not make itself known until much later on. As Aristotle observed, “One swallow does not a summer make.”
If God acted according to Bagheera’s suggestion and completely masked suffering in human experience, the degenerative effects of evil would be without indication. There would be no guideposts by which to experience the negative effects of evil or the positive effects of good in order to positively identify the presence of either. Good would be no different than evil and evil no different than good because the effects of both would be identical.
By analogy, it would be like the practice of medicine concerning itself with masking symptoms of diseases or trauma rather than dealing with the disease or trauma itself. In other words, it wouldn’t matter in this view whether you were diseased or injured because there would be a drug to completely mask the discomforting symptoms until, of course, you died. At that time your surviving loved ones would take a pill to make them absolutely gleeful at the loss. No pain, no loss. Sounds like a lovely world.
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DanAl
Guest
There’s nothing morally self-evident about “creating something creates obligation.” (if I create an animal in a lab, am I morally bound to care for them?) Asserting so, does not make it so. Perhaps this is your awkward way of saying that we must protect helpless life. I’ll avoid problems with this unqualified conception of obligation since it is irrelevant to what I said. I want *an argument *as to how human obligation applies to God. You keep spinning your wheels about how creation creates obligation, but, I gave you arguments against It several times
If you’re going to use the thread as your personal soap box to assert things with an attitude and not engage what is being said, perhaps you’re not worth my time.
It is relevant. Humans have obligations ( something that is incoherent through your naturalist lenses, incidentally). Creatures have external obligations that they must obey, if you fail to meet, you cannot be good. Pretty simple, no?
I won’t waste my time reading something you hot-link. If you got an argument, post it.
Words have different meanings, a good car is not like a good person and I submit this is the same with God. Goodness in God is not identical to or reducible to human goodness. If you have a problem with that engage the arguments given.
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Take a cold shower, you’re angry because you’re aware that you’re failing to give a good argument, or because you want to belittle others to feel in control (“prop yourself up”) or because you’re projecting your undesirable traits on others. Anyway, get a grip of your emotional immaturity.
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Prodigal_Son
Guest
:ehh:
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PRmerger
Guest
This would be a valid conclusion if this earthly life were the only life the homeless man had.There is something that needs to be added.
Consider a homeless person. You are not responsible at all for his situation. If you have some extra money, you can decide to help him out with a few bucks, or you can just walk on. Giving those few bucks in no way would inconvenience you. If you give, you are decent person. If you do not, then you do not qualify to be called a “good” person. God has infinite resources. Giving some help in no way would “inconvenience” him.
So God cannot even be called a “decent” guy.
But if there is a God, then God could grant this homeless an eternal life of heavenly bliss.
So that would make this God infinitely more decent than the decent man who gave him $10 once.
Right?
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BellsMom
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Isn’t that how god created Adam and Eve though? If there was to be no suffering in the garden, and that was how god intended it to be, then clearly we don’t “need” evil and suffering to appreciate goodness and love.
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PRmerger
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Well, what Catholics profess is that this was a happy fault, because it created for us so great a Redeemer.
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grannymh
Guest
Correct.
However, Adam did understand the evil which would occur if he freely severed his relationship with his Creator. (Genesis 2: 15-17; CCC 374-379; CCC 396-400) As both the Old and New Testaments attest, Adam’s descendants kept alive human’s purpose to live in joy eternal with our Creator. Thus, the “memory” of being in the friendship of God became hope and faith in Our Savior.
Link to Catechism
scborromeo.org/ccc.htm
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PRmerger
Guest
Incidentally, because of the Fall we do “need” evil and suffering in order to appreciate goodness and love. Prior to that, we need not have suffered in order to appreciate goodness.
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Peter_Plato
Guest
I did not claim evil and suffering are logically necessary to appreciate goodness and love because I don’t think they are. However, it could still be true that suffering may, in fact, give us an appreciation for goodness and love, but it may also lead to despair, anger or hate.
My claim was that suffering is an indicator of evil done and happiness an indicator of good. Where no evil exists there would be no suffering, but where evil is present, suffering results.
Unfortunately, we live in a world where evil does exist, so suffering is a necessary result. For God to simply mask it and prevent the experience of it would do us no favors because evil would still be there. For morally obtuse beings, suffering might be the only way for God to make us aware of evil.
Where evil is present suffering is the indicator, but it is not logically identical to evil. In a world where evil is present, suffering might be a necessary consequent and enduring it might be a condition for overcoming evil.
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Bagheera
Guest
Since God is supposed to be able do everything, except the logically impossible, it could be done… just like “let there be light”.
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Bagheera
Guest
You shot yourself in the foot., since you failed to substantiate your assertion when you said:
… and the usage of three exclamation points does not help.
Next time you can try to use 17 of them, and see if it makes a difference.
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Bagheera
Guest
No, it is not that simple. You cannot pick and choose some “problems” to fix and not others - and still wish to be “good”. (For the sake of arguments I accept your assertion of heaven’s existence, even though there is no evidence that it exists, and that it is “desirable” state of affairs.) If I give a few bucks to a homeless, because that is all I can do, it is one thing. If I also could cure his frostbitten toes (by wishing them to be cured), and failed to do it - than the giving those few bucks would not be as “good” as performing BOTH acts.
Your use of counterfactuals (if there is a God… and if God would grant…) makes your argument unconvincing. Even if you could make it a positive statement (God WILL grant him…) it would be still incorrect, since there is nothing impossible for God to be caring and helpful in BOTH lives.
Don’t you agree?
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Bahman
Guest
Who said such a thing is logically possible. Simply the above statement means that there is a state of being of God and there is a state of being of God and light. I have no idea what light has to do with creation but the previous example put God in state of temporal which is logically wrong since God cannot be a part of its own creation which is time.Since God is supposed to be able do everything, except the logically impossible, it could be done… just like “let there be light”.
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PRmerger
Guest
This is begging the question though, Bagheera. You can’t know that God doesn’t fix all of this homeless man’s problems when he is granted eternal life.
In fact, He does. Infinitely better than you can.
And since you do not help every single bad that exists, where I’m sure you could, then by your own reasoning you are not a decent person. (If one is to subscribe to your argument).
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PRmerger
Guest
From our limited perspective it may appear as if God is standing by and allowing pain and suffering, but we don’t see the bigger picture.
Imagine if you were a 5 yr old child at the pediatrician’s office. Your father is standing by while 2 big ladies hold you down to give you 5 painful stabs with a sharp needle. From your perspective it appears as if your father is standing by doing nothing (in fact, he* is* standing by and permitting this suffering). But you don’t get it. Because you only see the world through your 5 yr old lenses. You are incapable of understanding the intricacies of immunology and B-cell generation and conjugate vaccines being superior to polysaccharide vaccines, etc etc etc.
You just see your father as a big meanie who is standing by doing nothing.
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PRmerger
Guest
This is a non-sequitur, Bagheera. And it is, again, begging the question. (You seem to do a lot of that. Have you ever taken a Philosophy course?)
When you are in a discussion on a Catholic Forum, you need to suspend your disbelief for the sake of your argument.
You understand that you are in discourse with Believers. We understand that we are in dialogue with a non-believer.
This is the platform that we begin discussion: we know that when you present your position that you don’t believe God exists, but that you say, “For the sake of argument, if God exists, why does he do A, B and C?”
Whenever I am in discussions with (typically) young atheists who are not well-versed in dialogue with Believers, it appears that when they are backed into an argument which limns their illogical position, they resort to, “Well, I don’t believe God exists anyway, so your point that God wouldn’t do this is moot.” End of dialogue. What a shame.
We understand, Bagheera, that you are not a believer, so you need not preface or end any of your arguments with, “But I don’t believe in God”.
We get that. Argue from the position, “IF God exists, then…”
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grannymh
Guest
Perhaps, it would be an interesting idea …
… that those persons who are looking at the workings of a material world, including our decomposing anatomy, from the point of view of our decomposing anatomy and fickle natural phenomena should stop for a few moments and look at human life from the point of view of a transcendent, i.e., a supernatural Creator.
If and when that interesting idea, mentioned in the very long yet very thoughtful statement beginning this post, ever becomes possible, may I thoughtfully suggest reading Romans 8: 31-39.
… that those persons who are looking at the workings of a material world, including our decomposing anatomy, from the point of view of our decomposing anatomy and fickle natural phenomena should stop for a few moments and look at human life from the point of view of a transcendent, i.e., a supernatural Creator.
If and when that interesting idea, mentioned in the very long yet very thoughtful statement beginning this post, ever becomes possible, may I thoughtfully suggest reading Romans 8: 31-39.
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