Well, the requirement to respond is not directly related to the time and effort you put in writing a post. I’ve quickly read through the thread to get up to speed and I definitely skip those that have chunks of scripture cut ‘n’ pasted and I’ll often bypass those that are longer that a paragraph or two. Which included yours.
I’m not so much asking you to read it full stop so much as saying if you have further questions about the term “good” based on me bringing it up as a case of analogical language, or were going to revisit Fred’s objections based on me using the term, please read that first. Otherwise, I have no expectations.Wesrock:
Well, the requirement to respond is not directly related to the time and effort you put in writing a post. I’ve quickly read through the thread to get up to speed and I definitely skip those that have chunks of scripture cut ‘n’ pasted and I’ll often bypass those that are longer that a paragraph or two. Which included yours.
But I have some time before the local bars are open so I’ll ensure that you posting it wasn’t a complete waste of time by reading it.
Your post has me concerned, as it seems to have missed that I did say it can be applied in a meaningful way through analogous language but not in a univocal way.
Amen! I’ve been saying this for years. You can’t at one point define God’s attributes and then turn around and say "well but some of them are unknowable or incomprehensive to humans.
As in analogous to the way that we would use it in the context in which it is being discussed. I have no problem with that. We know what it is to act in a just way. So we use the word in that sense to apply to God.Bradskii:
Your post has me concerned, as it seems to have missed that I did say it can be applied in a meaningful way through analogous language but not in a univocal way.
It’s equivocal language which would provide no basis to draw out meaning.
OK. Read it. Nothing to add that hasn’t already been discussed.
We can use human justness as a reference point as to what we mean.Wesrock:
As in analogous to the way that we would use it in the context in which it is being discussed. I have no problem with that. We know what it is to act in a just way. So we use the word in that sense to apply to God.Bradskii:
Your post has me concerned, as it seems to have missed that I did say it can be applied in a meaningful way through analogous language but not in a univocal way.
It’s equivocal language which would provide no basis to draw out meaning.
How else can we describe that attribute which everyone says God posesses? If we can’t we’re back to Spock.
From a human perspective – in which murder is just about the worst possible thing out there – I think the obvious answer is “try and prevent it, by any reasonable means possible.”
Ding ding ding! Give that man a prize!
No, I don’t think so. We can talk about it – as long as we realize that we can’t conclusively and precisely describe His nature. That much really is beyond us, as humans…
What we invariably get is this:Bradskii:
Ding ding ding! Give that man a prize!
In fact, in Christian philosophy, we say precisely that. Well… wait a minute. We say almost that. What we do say (h/t Thomas Aquinas) is that we can’t precisely describe God, but we can talk about Him in an analogous way. (Other philosophers would say that, although we can’t say what He is, we can certainly describe what He is not.)
No, I don’t think so. We can talk about it – as long as we realize that we can’t conclusively and precisely describe His nature. That much really is beyond us, as humans…
We can understand God as love, though, in ways that parallel how humans love (specifcally: willed actions, not feelings, for God can be said to have the former but not the latter according to his Divine Nature), but not with the same moral obligations humans have according to their nature.Gorgias:
What we invariably get is this:Bradskii:
Ding ding ding! Give that man a prize!
In fact, in Christian philosophy, we say precisely that. Well… wait a minute. We say almost that. What we do say (h/t Thomas Aquinas) is that we can’t precisely describe God, but we can talk about Him in an analogous way. (Other philosophers would say that, although we can’t say what He is, we can certainly describe what He is not.)
No, I don’t think so. We can talk about it – as long as we realize that we can’t conclusively and precisely describe His nature. That much really is beyond us, as humans…
C: God loves us all.
B: But God does not appear to love us all because X.
C: No (plaintively). You are using the term ‘love’ in the wrong way!
When in actuality we are not using the term in any way other than the given Christian is using it. In fact, we haven’t brought the term to the discussion in the first instance. We are simply refuting what the Christian has said using the terminology that be has decided best describes the concept.
So what the reply effectively means is: ‘You don’t understand me because I have used a term which describes God’s feeling for us when used in a positive way but which means something else entirely if you use it in an argument against my position’.
Words like just and merciful and vengeful and loving are all terms we are familiar with. We all know to what they refer. If they don’t apply to God then don’t use them.
Who is asking you to anaylize it from God’s perspective? A more impossible task is difficult to imagine. What we are asking for is your personal take on it.
I’m afraid that you have just kicked the can a bit further down the road. If the term ‘love’ can equally apply to us and God and is aplicable in both directions then we seem to have solved one part of the problem.
There is a huge difference between wanting children and loving them if you do have them. I didn’t want children. My wife did. She had (and this is a truism) a biological need. Some women give other reasons as well. But they are in addition to that biological need.
Is that the God who wanted Martin Bryant as well? I’ll pass on any relationship in that case.
This thread you started got me curios.
Well, how do we define moral? Rational actors voluntarily acting in accordance with their nature? We probably should refine that further, but off the cuff that reasonably applies to both (there is a parallel) without resulting in the same expectations. Human moral goodness is analogous, or bears similitude, to the goodness of God with this understanding.Wesrock:
I’m afraid that you have just kicked the can a bit further down the road. If the term ‘love’ can equally apply to us and God and is aplicable in both directions then we seem to have solved one part of the problem.
But now we simply move the goalposts over there to where the term ‘moral’ can be found. And declare that THAT term applies to us but not to God!
So the definition of moral now doesn’t apply to God. So we cannot describe Him as being virtuous, noble and upstanding because He doesn’t have the same moral obligations as us. And those are terms we use to describe US if we have moral obligations.
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