Is the Golden Rule a Foundational Moral Principle or A Rule of Thumb?

[Roscoe_Turner]

I’d like to add that I don’t mean to be dismissive saying that the story shows that YHWH is conceptual. If our concept of God is “what is the best thing we can imagine” being guided by “what is the best thing we can imagine” is a Good. Capital G.

As a side note it also ties into idolatry - fodder for another thread. Tearing down idols is a sure way to show that a god has no real power. If your god has no idol, there is nothing to tear down. You have to deal with a concept which can be fluid.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I’d like to add that I don’t mean to be dismissive saying that the story shows that YHWH is conceptual. If **our concept of God is “what is the best thing we can imagine” **being guided by “what is the best thing we can imagine” is a Good. Capital G.

I would suggest that the phrase in your post that I have underlined is precisely why you have the issue you do.

If God is nothing but “the best thing we can imagine” then the implicit assumption coloring your views about God is that God is comprehensible or, at least, imaginable by you.

That is precisely the premise that I am challenging and an attitude of mind that God was indirectly targeting by his commands in the OT.

His will is not accountable to our wills. He is not liable to our judgements.

To claim that God is “the best we can imagine” is making a profound error about God, setting the bar far short of the reality.

By thinking we can imagine him or conceive of him, we suppose some kind of parity with him or even worse, a capacity to evaluate him, when really what we are assessing and finding to be wanting is the audacious ego that we have projected in our conceptions about him.

He has nothing to do with what we can imagine, he is beyond all our imaginings.

Part of the reason Jewish believers do not write or speak God’s name is because of an underlying belief that naming a thing symbolizes some kind of power or control over it.

I would suggest that an attitude of mind that believes it can “conceive” of God is susceptible to the errant belief that this conception puts God within our power to conceive and hence, in our power. Similarly, a belief that God is somehow at moral parity with us must be based upon the assumption that God is within our power to conceive and therefore we can judge his actions.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I think also it may be showing that YHWH is conceptual. It needs people to propagate it. That is why god didn’t desomate the Canaanites himself.

The problem with this is if the Israelites had simply “conceived” of God and promoted him as superior to the other gods in the neighborhood, their writings would have a very different set of themes and event narratives.

One thing is very clear, the people do not portray themselves as superior and their God does not endorse them as a worthy and powerful nation of conquerers. The superiority of the people would be, at least, an unstated theme that would be a natural corollary to having a better god. Why would a cultural group promote their god as better than the gods of the other cultures if, they as a people, did not believe themselves superior to the other groups around them. That wouldn’t make sense.

In fact, this is one reason that the Old Testament has a ring of truth about it. It makes no attempt to smooth or gloss over problematic aspects and events in the narratives. The people are called to task and their every fault is aired and raised as an issue. The writings are deeply reflective and touch on all the “big” moral and spiritual issues. Nothing is left out and nothing is buried or hidden. That is precisely why so many seemingly unresolvable and problematic issues can be found in the writings.

The so called “conceptual” God of the Old Testament is not that at all. The conceptual gap between the ideas of the people and the presence of this God who breaks into their history is immeasurable. There is no way this God was merely a “conception.” A conceptual god as a projection of their own ideals would not act as their critical mentor and guide, but rather as a mirror for their imagined strengths. No way this is a “conceptual god” and no one who has engaged with the writings of the Old Testament could possibly come away with that conclusion, a far too superficial one that just doesn’t ring true.

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

I would suggest that the phrase in your post that I have underlined is precisely why you have the issue you do.

If God is nothing but “the best thing we can imagine” then the implicit assumption coloring your views about God is that God is comprehensible or, at least, imaginable by you.

That is precisely the premise that I am challenging and an attitude of mind that God was indirectly targeting by his commands in the OT.

His will is not accountable to our wills. He is not liable to our judgements.

To claim that God is “the best we can imagine” is making a profound error about God, setting the bar far short of the reality.

By thinking we can imagine him or conceive of him, we suppose some kind of parity with him or even worse, a capacity to evaluate him, when really what we are assessing and finding to be wanting is the audacious ego that we have projected in our conceptions about him.

He has nothing to do with what we can imagine, he is beyond all our imaginings.

Part of the reason Jewish believers do not write or speak God’s name is because of an underlying belief that naming a thing symbolizes some kind of power or control over it.

I would suggest that an attitude of mind that believes it can “conceive” of God is susceptible to the errant belief that this conception puts God within our power to conceive and hence, in our power. Similarly, a belief that God is somehow at moral parity with us must be based upon the assumption that God is within our power to conceive and therefore we can judge his actions.

What is greater than God Peter? Can you conceive anything greater? A being so great we can’t even imagine how great he is? We are bound by our mortal coils, chained with language to form our thoughts.

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

The problem with this is if the Israelites had simply “conceived” of God and promoted him as superior to the other gods in the neighborhood, their writings would have a very different set of themes and event narratives.

One thing is very clear, the people do not portray themselves as superior and their God does not endorse them as a worthy and powerful nation of conquerers. The superiority of the people would be, at least, an unstated theme that would be a natural corollary to having a better god. Why would a cultural group promote their god as better than the gods of the other cultures if, they as a people, did not believe themselves superior to the other groups around them. That wouldn’t make sense.

In fact, this is one reason that the Old Testament has a ring of truth about it. It makes no attempt to smooth or gloss over problematic aspects and events in the narratives. The people are called to task and their every fault is aired and raised as an issue. The writings are deeply reflective and touch on all the “big” moral and spiritual issues. Nothing is left out and nothing is buried or hidden. That is precisely why so many seemingly unresolvable and problematic issues can be found in the writings.

The so called “conceptual” God of the Old Testament is not that at all. The conceptual gap between the ideas of the people and the presence of this God who breaks into their history is immeasurable. There is no way this God was merely a “conception.” A conceptual god as a projection of their own ideals would not act as their critical mentor and guide, but rather as a mirror for their imagined strengths. No way this is a “conceptual god” and no one who has engaged with the writings of the Old Testament could possibly come away with that conclusion, a far too superficial one that just doesn’t ring true.

Because we never of fall short of our ideals, and we don’t keep trying despite the knowledge of our inevitable failure. No, that’s not the story of humanity.

 

[Peter_Plato]

It is essentially two religions battling for the supremacy of their concept of the divine. We can leave baby killing out of it entirely. We can leave any killing out. We can see it as a culture war.

Again, this doesn’t make sense.

If the Israelites were engaged in a culture war battling the evil Canaanites, then they would have portrayed themselves as righteous and just warriors. They would have left out the “baby killing.” They would have painted a far different picture of the battle. There would have been no hesitation, no questioning of God, no reprimands of their actions by God and no butchering of babies. That entry would make them no better than the evil Canaanites. Worse, in fact, because baby killing was precisely the evil that justified their attack and there was no need for them to engage in such barbarity against babies, in particular when portraying it in writing or oral tradition.

For the same reason you want to leave it out, the Israelites could have, as well. Only they didn’t. Why not?

I would suggest that God did command it and they knew God had. Their accounts were candid and authentic because things happened just the way they were reported. They couldn’t justify it for exactly the same reason we can’t today. It was just as incomprehensible to them as it is to us. Which is why I think God did command it and they could not do anything but follow the command because they had absolute certainty it was God who directed them to do it. Why, baffled them as much as it does us. And leaves us wondering who God is and what is his power and authority in creation.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Because we never of fall short of our ideals, and we don’t keep trying despite the knowledge of our inevitable failure. No, that’s not the story of humanity.

I have no idea how this relates to anything I’ve said.

 

[Peter_Plato]

What is greater than God Peter? Can you conceive anything greater? A being so great we can’t even imagine how great he is? We are bound by our mortal coils, chained with language to form our thoughts.

That is the issue. God has nothing to do with my conceptions of him. Nor is he bound by them. My posture is to allow God to reveal himself, not to actively “picture” or imagine him. I have no idea what “greater” means as it relates to God. I can understand what it means for me to be better or to “be good” but those concepts apply to me, not to God.

I know he is. In fact, I am absolutely certain of that. But what he is is not in my view. I have an inkling of what he wants me to be at this moment, but even that says nothing about what he is. I can only measure my nearness to God by who and what I am becoming, not by my conceptions about him. Those “concepts” disappeared a long time ago.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Indeed. But I also thought that doing evil so that good may come of it was wrong. I guess there are exceptions.

I would be very careful about applying this idea, because taken at face value it would imply that a surgeon cutting into a patient is also “doing evil so that good may come of it.”

But I just have to say, this part of the discussion has a distinct aroma of Python about it. One soldier holding back a screaming mother and telling here: ‘Well, it’s for your own good. And anyway, it’s a lesson to everyone that they shouldn’t treat babies so badly’. All while his buddy is hacking, chopping and slicing away at her children.

All this is certainly true of some forms of abortion both in terms of procedure and justification which is that it is justified because the baby would end up being “treated badly” or being unwanted after birth.

Do you think they herded them all together to make it easier or just killed them where they were found? Did they enjoy it? Did they think they were going God’s work? Do you think they raped the women before killing them? Probably. I believe that it was allowed in other circumstances.

But do you think that someone might just have said to the guy next to him at some point: Hey, I don’t care who says we have to do this – it’s just plain wrong.

My position exactly vis a vis abortion, (regard me as "your buddy standing next to you) but it doesn’t seem to have affected your position. Does it really make a difference whether “they” are herded into abortion clinics or in a back alley before the baby is killed?

So are you changing your views on abortion?

I’d guess a lot of them were just following orders. It’s happened before. And as we know, that’s no excuse at all.

I don’t believe it is in the same vein because of where the orders came from. The case is not “We are just following the orders from some fallible human in an office in Berlin,” it is a case of, “We are following the orders of the Creator of the entire universe whose knowledge and power are infinite and who has the power to bring good out of all evil.” The lesson is one of having absolute faith BECAUSE the object of that faith has absolute power, infinite knowledge and perfect goodness.

You keep glossing over that as if it is an unimportant or irrelevant point. It isn’t. It is the crucial factor.

And THE factor that is missing with regard to condoning abortion.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Special pleading for God’s morality only gets you so far. **It still seems ham handed that the only way to save people is to kill them. **The only way to fix the radio is to smash it.

No more “ham-handed” than to say the only way to save a life is to amputate the leg.

Remember that my analogy was that God has a purview regarding the body of humanity that a surgeon has regarding one human body. To save humanity as a process of living entities enduring through time, God’s authority and responsibility for “superintending” the process gives him the right to remove cancerous growths, just as a surgeon has a “right” (by the nature of his expertise) to remove a leg to stop cancer.

You might argue that a surgeon must ask the permission of the patient. True, but he doesn’t have to ask permission of the leg or the cancer, which is the parallel feature in the analogy. Think about it.

To follow the analogy, you might insist that God would have to ask “humanity at large” as his patient. I am not sure a surgeon would have to ask a comatose war causality for permission. The question of competency to make the decision comes into play and God, by default, would have that. Also, the surgeon did not “create” the patient to begin with, so the two cases are not quite the same RE: Permission, responsibility and authority.

Remember I am arguing “in principle” not “in fact.” We have insufficient evidence to say the Israelites were “in fact” justified, but if, indeed, it was the determination of omniscience and omnibenevolence then it had to be “in principle” the correct determination. Any other determination could only be supported by insufficient knowledge or goodness, since, by definition the most complete and, therefore, best judgement has to come from omnipotence and omnibenevolence.

It’s not simply that they died. We all die. It was that they were order to be killed by other humans. God has the power to destroy them without using other humans.

Whether an expert surgeon removes the cancer himself or merely instructs a colleague on how, when and where it needs to be done makes no difference as to whether it needs to be done. Your point is moot.

Remember this is an “in principle” determination. If omnibenevolence and omniscience determined what had to be, the instrument that carried out the determination would be irrelevant. In fact, if the instrument itself was determined by omnibenevolence and omnipotence, then, by that fact, it would have had to have been the correct instrument as well.

Does this mean the Israelites were right? No, because that can only be determined by the facts. But if God (defined as omnibenevolence and omniscience) directly ordered the action it logically had to have been the morally correct action. Any alternative would had to have been inferior, simply because it was not endorsed by omnipotence and omniscience.

I don’t understand why this is even in dispute.

To insulate our selves from judgement we only have to claim divine order and say that miracles support our claim. Never mind that neither are verifiable. We are not to be judged.

So any religious practice no matter how vile can’t be brought to task? What were the Israelites doing judging the Canaanites? Or who are we to judge the aforementioned Aztecs?

This is a ridiculous implication. Our claims about divine sanction do not entail that we actually do have divine sanction.

But if divine sanction (in the sense of omniscience and omnibenevolence) is present then there can be no other judgement, in principle.

You keep kicking out that part of the argument.

I am NOT arguing that divine sanction was indeed present - that is an entirely different question. I AM arguing that IF it was, the action was the right one, by definition.

Yes, I am aware of the Euthyphro dilemma, but that is not insurmountable either. If Being and Goodness are transferable (Being is Goodness and Goodness is Being), the dilemma has no legs.

 

[Bradski]

My position exactly vis a vis abortion, (regard me as "your buddy standing next to you) but it doesn’t seem to have affected your position. Does it really make a difference whether “they” are herded into abortion clinics or in a back alley before the baby is killed?

If I had taken a different path in my career I might have been a doctor. I might have been a doctor that performed abortions. You might have been a doctor as well and we might be having a forum discussion. I say that I don’t have a moral problem in performing abortions. You say that it’s evil and you wouldn’t do them under any circumstance.

Now you’re my buddy standing next to me in a room full of screaming children. I say that what we have been asked to do is evil and I wouldn’t do it under any circumstance.

What do you say?

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

No more “ham-handed” than to say the only way to save a life is to amputate the leg.

Remember that my analogy was that God has a purview regarding the body of humanity that a surgeon has regarding one human body. To save humanity as a process of living entities enduring through time, God’s authority and responsibility for “superintending” the process gives him the right to remove cancerous growths, just as a surgeon has a “right” (by the nature of his expertise) to remove a leg to stop cancer.

You might argue that a surgeon must ask the permission of the patient. True, but he doesn’t have to ask permission of the leg or the cancer, which is the parallel feature in the analogy. Think about it.

To follow the analogy, you might insist that God would have to ask “humanity at large” as his patient. I am not sure a surgeon would have to ask a comatose war causality for permission. The question of competency to make the decision comes into play and God, by default, would have that. Also, the surgeon did not “create” the patient to begin with, so the two cases are not quite the same RE: Permission, responsibility and authority.

Remember I am arguing “in principle” not “in fact.” We have insufficient evidence to say the Israelites were “in fact” justified, but if, indeed, it was the determination of omniscience and omnibenevolence then it had to be “in principle” the correct determination. Any other determination could only be supported by insufficient knowledge or goodness, since, by definition the most complete and, therefore, best judgement has to come from omnipotence and omnibenevolence.

Whether an expert surgeon removes the cancer himself or merely instructs a colleague on how, when and where it needs to be done makes no difference as to whether it needs to be done. Your point is moot.

Remember this is an “in principle” determination. If omnibenevolence and omniscience determined what had to be, the instrument that carried out the determination would be irrelevant. In fact, if the instrument itself was determined by omnibenevolence and omnipotence, then, by that fact, it would have had to have been the correct instrument as well.

Does this mean the Israelites were right? No, because that can only be determined by the facts. But if God (defined as omnibenevolence and omniscience) directly ordered the action it logically had to have been the morally correct action. Any alternative would had to have been inferior, simply because it was not endorsed by omnipotence and omniscience.

I don’t understand why this is even in dispute.

This is a ridiculous implication. Our claims about divine sanction do not entail that we actually do have divine sanction.

But if divine sanction (in the sense of omniscience and omnibenevolence) is present then there can be no other judgement, in principle.

You keep kicking out that part of the argument.

I am NOT arguing that divine sanction was indeed present - that is an entirely different question. I AM arguing that IF it was, the action was the right one, by definition.

Yes, I am aware of the Euthyphro dilemma, but that is not insurmountable either. If Being and Goodness are transferable (Being is Goodness and Goodness is Being), the dilemma has no legs.

I guess I’ll have to repeat myself.

A surgeon is limited, finite. God is not. All options are open to him. When god cures someone of cancer do we find the tumor on the floor by his bedside? Does god use the same method as a surgeon? No.

You keep stressing omnibenevolence and omniscience and excluding omnipotency. Why do you keep that out? It’s an equal quality of God that factors into the determination of a correct judgement. If a surgeon could wave a wand and cure the cancer, what justification would he have in removing a limb?

Also you reference the Euthyphro dilemma. The dilemma does factor. If God has forbidden the killing of Babies and then orders the killing of babies, even if you feel it is justified and it is a “good” because commanded by God, it still causes confusion.

“Are we to kill babies - no! Well… only when God says too.”

Confusion isn’t a good. The one that causes the most confusion we call the Father of Lies. Not Good. How can we ascribe omnibenevolence to someone that deliberately confuses people by giving contrary instructions.

What would you say to God if he commanded abortions?

 

[Peter_Plato]

I guess I’ll have to repeat myself.

A surgeon is limited, finite. God is not. All options are open to him.

If that were true then we wouldn’t need surgeons, would we?

Whether all options are open and whether he chooses to make use of those options are two very different questions.

If “all options are open to him” in the way you seem to think, the incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection would not have been necessary.

 

[Peter_Plato]

What would you say to God if he commanded abortions?

You agree that abortions are wrong, then?

 

[Peter_Plato]

“Are we to kill babies - no! Well… only when God says too.”

Confusion isn’t a good. The one that causes the most confusion we call the Father of Lies. Not Good. How can we ascribe omnibenevolence to someone that deliberately confuses people by giving contrary instructions.

What would you say to God if he commanded abortions?

Does he? Has he ever?

So, your argument amounts to: “Ethics and life should be black and white.” Anyone who cuts into people with a knife is doing wrong - surgery is immoral. Clear is clear and allowing some people to cut up other people is going to send mixed signals and ”deliberately confuse people" because you are unable to decipher any discrepancies or make subtle distinctions so God should simply make all cutting up of people for any reason whatsoever WRONG because we (including God) are never justified and never can be justified (according to your KISS theory of ethics) in cutting up another person or removing their limbs.

That is what your “argument” amounts to.

Whether YOU get confused easily about such things is neither here nor there concerning what actions God should take as the ultimate ground and source of all reality.

 

[meltzerboy]

I guess I’ll have to repeat myself.

A surgeon is limited, finite. God is not. All options are open to him. When god cures someone of cancer do we find the tumor on the floor by his bedside? Does god use the same method as a surgeon? No.

You keep stressing omnibenevolence and omniscience and excluding omnipotency. Why do you keep that out? It’s an equal quality of God that factors into the determination of a correct judgement. If a surgeon could wave a wand and cure the cancer, what justification would he have in removing a limb?

Also you reference the Euthyphro dilemma. The dilemma does factor. If God has forbidden the killing of Babies and then orders the killing of babies, even if you feel it is justified and it is a “good” because commanded by God, it still causes confusion.

“Are we to kill babies - no! Well… only when God says too.”

Confusion isn’t a good. The one that causes the most confusion we call the Father of Lies. Not Good. How can we ascribe omnibenevolence to someone that deliberately confuses people by giving contrary instructions.

What would you say to God if he commanded abortions?

G-d’s being omnipotent does not necessarily mean that He uses His omnipotence in every situation. He also gives us the opportunity and challenge, all for our own good, to figure out things using our own mind and to overcome temptations using our own willpower. Although only an analogy, think of G-d as the CEO of the universe, who delegates power to other members of the company.

 

[meltzerboy]

Does he? Has he ever?

So, your argument amounts to: “Ethics and life should be black and white.” Anyone who cuts into people with a knife is doing wrong - surgery is immoral. Clear is clear and allowing some people to cut up other people is going to send mixed signals and ”deliberately confuse people" because you are unable to decipher any discrepancies or make subtle distinctions so God should simply make all cutting up of people for any reason whatsoever WRONG because we (including God) are never justified and never can be justified (according to your KISS theory of ethics) in cutting up another person or removing their limbs.

That is what your “argument” amounts to.

Whether YOU get confused easily about such things is neither here nor there concerning what actions God should take as the ultimate ground and source of all reality.

I agree with you here, Peter, but one can also think of abortion as not black and white. According to Jewish Law, for example, abortion is required (not merely permissible) when the mother’s life is in danger. There are also leniencies regarding the mental health of the mother as well as instances of rape, incest, severe congenital issues involving the unborn child, and when not aborting one unborn child means the sure death of the other child as well who is healthy. These instances are not taken lightly within Jewish Law and there is ample reason for them based on moral values.

 

[PRmerger]

I agree with you here, Peter, but one can also think of abortion as not black and white. According to Jewish Law, for example, abortion is required (not merely permissible) when the mother’s life is in danger.

Can you give an example in which a mother’s life would be in danger from continuing the pregnancy, in which inducing birth would not be the option?

 

[Peter_Plato]

I guess I’ll have to repeat myself.

A surgeon is limited, finite. God is not. All options are open to him. When god cures someone of cancer do we find the tumor on the floor by his bedside? Does god use the same method as a surgeon? No.

You don’t seem to realize the implications of your own words. For you, “all options are open to him” entails essentially a judgement on God because, while you hold him to have all options open to him you must believe that he, therefore, can be held to the same ethical standards as you are. You think that is a knock-down argument against God because it leads inevitably to the problem of evil. He has the power to do otherwise, he doesn’t, therefore he has done wrong.

Let me take you to what must be your point.

I was watching news coverage of the Philippines where it showed a man beyond himself with grief. He had learned of the loss of his family and lost it completely. He was punching concrete walls and swinging wildly at the air. Others around him were trying their best to console him to no avail.

The Philippines is largely a Catholic country. The people should have, given your “cultural gods” or “personal god” view, some assurance that their “Catholic god” will look after them, yet the typhoon brought utter devastation to the country. If you think “moral confusion” is an issue, then the position these people are in is a state of confusion far beyond that - complete existential confusion. Every certainty about anything they ever had has been torn apart along with their homes and lives, including, I would suppose, their faith in the “god” of Catholicism.

Given your view of omnipotence, the inevitable conclusion from it must be that God could have done something about it but didn’t. He is omnipotent. He could have waylaid the storm, but he didn’t. Therefore, he is uncaring, he isn’t omnipotent or, worst of all, he did it intentionally. Those are the implications that a “moral” person must draw according to your assumptions.

A believer in cultural gods, like you, will make the case that this Catholic “god” did not protect the people, therefore, it would be better to find another god, a more powerful one to look after us. We don’t want that to happen to us. This is also the atheist’s conclusion, but s/he simply turns away from all gods altogether.

What happens when God does the morally incomprehensible like allowing a devastating storm to be unleashed on defenseless people who, worst of all, have faith that THAT god is the god who will protect them? They might lose faith completely, or they might be tempted to deep despair that God must hate them and did this because of something about them. They were not good “enough” or did not believe “enough.”

Have I sufficiently made the point that you kept dancing around?

But any of those conclusions would involve a great error. The error that God is merely “a conceptual” god and all OUR thoughts about him ARE what make him important to us and give meaning to our lives. A god WE can control with OUR prayers and supplications.

Yet, the lesson to be learned in all of this is that GOD isn’t THAT kind of god at all.

The problematic OT narratives address this point precisely.

You keep stressing omnibenevolence and omniscience and excluding omnipotency. Why do you keep that out? It’s an equal quality of God that factors into the determination of a correct judgement. If a surgeon could wave a wand and cure the cancer, what justification would he have in removing a limb?

God’s ways are not our ways. He means what he says and what he says is what reality is.

Recall Jesus’ words:

“…those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?” (Luke 13:1-5)

The point Jesus is making is that the death sentence has already been pronounced on all of us. We all will die. The manner in which that happens is largely inconsequential when weighed against what death means. We had better take THAT idea seriously. Whether it is in a typhoon, a car accident or plane crash. Our lives will be taken and God does have the absolute right to do THAT precisely because HE is not a cultural god nor a conceptual god. He is the God who IS, who determines all that IS and who is not subordinate to our moral laws, but superordinate to all of them. He is the God who determines, not only when humans live or die, but also the nature of the morality that humans are to live by.

When your life is taken, you will not be accountable to “a morality,” you WILL be accountable to God, THE God who is, THE God who has absolute charge of all creation including the lives of all babies.

Thinking that “morality” is superior to God is another ploy to make ourselves and our own thinking superior to God. It is to hold God accountable under the mistaken belief that a moral code, or, specifically, MY moral code, will suffice to immunize me against any just or unjust consequences of my actions and thoughts that might come about. That pretense, too, will be washed away and we will be left standing naked with all our “real” motives and supposed righteousness tested by the REAL Lord of all, in whom all reality, including our thinking about reality, is grounded.

That was the lesson the Hebrews were supposed to learn. This was not merely another “cultural god” they should take up with because he was a little more powerful or a little more “right” in human terms than the other gods in the neighborhood. This is not THAT kind of “god” at all. This is God who is Goodness, who is Truth and who is Being itself. Goodness is what it is because it derives from God. And moral goodness is what it is because it, too, receives its reality from God.

Continued…

 

[Peter_Plato]

… From last

Also you reference the Euthyphro dilemma. The dilemma does factor. If God has forbidden the killing of Babies and then orders the killing of babies, even if you feel it is justified and it is a “good” because commanded by God, it still causes confusion.

“Are we to kill babies - no! Well… only when God says too.”

The Euthyphro dilemma only applies to gods, to superhuman deities, who make authoritative demands on human beings. They CAN rightfully be questioned about their authority or “right” to make such demands precisely because their mode of existence does not explain the authority they have assumed. Where is this right, this authority, that they have taken on, grounded? That is a very sensible question when it is applied to “gods,” just as it would be sensible to ask it of any “governing” body. Is this law good because the US government makes it a law or does the US government make it a law because it is good?

The problem with the Euthyphro dilemma is that it equivocates on the word “god” as if all “gods” are equal. However, the “buck has to stop” somewhere. For the “good” to have any meaning, for the “good” to BE anything, it must BE. The place where that buck stops, where the source of good is to be found is in God. The good is what it is because God, ultimately, determines what is.

The OT narratives are about God making a definitive statement about where the “buck stops.” He is challenging all the “neighborhood gods” who cannot make any such claim. Oh, they can compromise the good by commanding evil deeds like burning babies, but what they do not have the absolute power to do is bring about the existence of all that does exist, and by that power, the very nature of good and evil. The existence of all things, including Canaanite babies, is utterly in his hands. His “command” makes it so. That was the lesson.

Confusion isn’t a good. The one that causes the most confusion we call the Father of Lies. Not Good. How can we ascribe omnibenevolence to someone that deliberately confuses people by giving contrary instructions.

I am not clear where the confusion is. The implication is an absolute one that clarifies all confusion. God is Lord of all. Who and what he is, is what determines the good because he, ultimately, is the Ground of all existence, the ground of any good that could possibly exist.

If the OT narrative confuses your “sense” of morality perhaps it is meant to. Where is your good grounded? Is it in God or in your own conceptions? Will it stand when it is threatened by horrific events that will come?

The point is, if God is anything he must be beyond all those disturbing events, and has complete power over all of them, so if we have truly found him and trust him we will have the peace to know all our destiny, too, is in his hands, contrary to whatever makes us think our “technology” or our science or anything else about us, including our moral thinking, is going to make God subordinate to us.

What would you say to God if he commanded abortions?

What you mean is: “Does your “god” command abortions?” The only possible question is, “Does God?” If we think he does, as an implication of anything he has said or done, like the people under the tower of Siloam and like every one of us when we die, the time will inevitably come when we will have to answer for every errant idea we let ourselves be taken in by AND every nascent conception we denied and threw into the fire of Moloch.