Problems with the Principle of Sufficient Reason

[TheWhim]

I personally reject the notion that God’s will is by definition the Good. I believe this to be true for several reasons. I believe God to be a being of a perfect expression of free will. During Christs’ trials of Satan’s test of exercising his free will in the use of His Godly power for his own good vs. for the good of others. His response was clearly one of a response to a choice rather than a response he would give if his action determined the Good. After all, what difference would it have made to Christ as a trial which way he went if by definition that would have been good. There would be no test in this if Christ could have used his Godly power to aggrandize himself if that would have also been the ‘good’.

There’s confusion about the doctrine of Christ here. Well, at least according to the Catholic doctrine Christ was fully human and fully God. In other words, Christ had a human soul that could be tempted though his Godness, of course, couldn’t be tempted. Christ’s humanness suffered on the Cross, but, of course, his Godness didn’t. - This distinction answers your objection

I repeat again I think your argument falls flat once you accept that it is God who had set out the standard of what is good and evil and that good and evil are no pre-God standards, principles more eternal than God Himself. God has clearly set out for humans what is to be regarded as good and evil(ten commandments etc.) and has implanted in mankind the hazy notion of what good and evil might be in any action(conscience). - What God has willed to be regarded as good we hold for good. And we hold for good what God has willed.
(I’ve already said that this idea implies no Lutheran/Ockhamian voluntarism).

The objection that God is under the constraint that he can’t do evil has been addressed by Aquinas, as said.

Finally, punkforChrist has already pointed out that creating and not creating the world are equally good, or, if you like, equally maximally good given God’s self-sufficiency and given that what God, who is Goodness, wills, cannot be anything else but the Maximal Good - not because he is forced to act under the pre-God, pre-eternal principle of “maximal goodness”, but because we only know these principles because of God’s teaching(ten commandments etc.) and his giving us the idea of it(conscience).

 

[wussup]

There’s confusion about the doctrine of Christ here. Well, at least according to the Catholic doctrine Christ was fully human and fully God. In other words, Christ had a human soul that could be tempted though his Godness, of course, couldn’t be tempted. Christ’s humanness suffered on the Cross, but, of course, his Godness didn’t. - This distinction answers your objection

The Being God is, imo, beyond man’s ability to rationalize or logically explain. As human’s we are given the seed of faith as an infant, and it is ours to develop. While it is impossible to come to a precise and accurate understanding of the Being, there is enough information out there that we can at least accept the fact that, logically, there is a God we can pray to, who can answer our prayers, etc… That being said, there are certain consequences of arguments that should be understood so that we don’t get trapped into a Theological Doctrine based more on a logical argument than the testimony of the Holy Ghost. This is one of those points. Man, in his efforts to understand the nature of the Godhead, have created in the Trinity the Three, and in the Christ a further splitting, as you describe the duality of both Godhood and humanness. Jesus is the Christ, the Only Begotten Son of the Living God, Creator and Savior of the World. He was God, born of a mortal Mother, as a mortal being. Christ suffered for the sins of Mankind. His entire being suffered. There was no part of Him that was excluded from the agony he experienced. In my mind, suggesting otherwise diminishes the saving sacrifice the Christ made for us.

I repeat again I think your argument falls flat once you accept that it is God who had set out the standard of what is good and evil and that good and evil are no pre-God standards, principles more eternal than God Himself. God has clearly set out for humans what is to be regarded as good and evil(ten commandments etc.) and has implanted in mankind the hazy notion of what good and evil might be in any action(conscience). - What God has willed to be regarded as good we hold for good. And we hold for good what God has willed.(I’ve already said that this idea implies no Lutheran/Ockhamian voluntarism).

Aquinas described Good as, necessary and heritable attribute of God. much like property to us. Yet I think he missed the boat and poisoned his well of the TCA with this generic misunderstanding of the nature of God. He said, **
‘Reply to Objection 4. Mathematical entities do not subsist as realities; because they would be in some sort good if they subsisted; but they have only logical existence, inasmuch as they are abstracted from motion and matter; thus they cannot have the aspect of an end, which itself has the aspect of moving another. Nor is it repugnant that there should be in some logical entity neither goodness nor form of goodness; since the idea of being is prior to the idea of goodness, as was said in the preceding article.’**.
Aquinas makes a distinction between the abstract quality of math, but fails to see that it is not the abstractness of math that makes it neither goodness nor form of goodness. He saw that there was no way to argue that math is not an eternal principal. In our world, 2+2=4 (along a 1-dimensional line). It has always been so. Aquinas had to decide, did God, in his Omnipotence deem it so? He choose to evade the question by suggesting there exists ‘things’ for which Goodness does not apply because they are ‘abstract’ principles. Goodness is an attribute of God. It is part of his being. Yet, as G E Moore explains in his concept of The Naturalistic Fallacy, Goodness is not a heritable attribute, and not definable, but an inherent part of the pschye that overreaches logic. (I deeply paraphrase and make my own his much more detailed concepts). As God teaches of Goodness, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This appears to be, if not a definition, at least a guide line to goodness. Goodness is an eternal principal of mutual respect to one-anothers free will, while containing within it the force of love that motivates us to give of our free will to the assistance of another. This is what the Christ did for us in the Garden and later on the Cross. His perfect Goodness, as our God, compelled him to give his free will up to our service.

Anyway, having said all this, I do not give to ‘goodness’ a property that was antecedant of the Father. I reject the concept of ‘before’ and ‘after’, the concepts of ‘causality’ as it relates to the Divine. The Father is eternal. His attributes are also eternal.

Finally, punkforChrist has already pointed out that creating and not creating the world are equally good, or, if you like, equally maximally good given God’s self-sufficiency and given that what God, who is Goodness, wills, cannot be anything else but the Maximal Good - not because he is forced to act under the pre-God, pre-eternal principle of “maximal goodness”, but because we only know these principles because of God’s teaching(ten commandments etc.) and his giving us the idea of it(conscience).

If I gave the impression that goodness was an attribute the pre-dated God in a ‘pre-God’ fashion, my apologies. I reiterate, I believe time is an integral aspect of God he experiences in a radically different way than we. I say this with reservation. In math we see the postulated existence of 5-, 6- ,7-, etc dimensions of our universe. What would the attributes of a 7-dimensional world have? It is impossible for our minds to grasp this. In the same manner though, it is possible for the Omniscience of God to do so, as well as for Him to grasp the impossible concept of living in all-time.

 

[jake23]

lets talk about the lack of reason when it come to the occult! Please watch the DVD’s ‘the book of mormon vs. DNA’ and ‘the book of mormon vs. the Bible’ you can also pull it up on youtube!

As far as agnostic poeple are concerned, there is no proof that there is no God, therefore nothing for you to argue against!

 

[JDaniel]

For those concerned with the foregoing argument thread, the following is the “official word” of the Catholic Church concerning God’s free will and the Good as object where God is concerned:

"Volition is spiritual will whereby value is appreciated and loved. It is devotion to being under the aspect of goodness, the counterpart of the same consciousness wherein the meaning of being is understood. Volition and intelligence are the complementary activities distinctive of personality and self-realisation.

Thus the principles of explanation employed in the section on Intelligence are applicable generally to the immanence, completeness, and independence of spiritual volition. Likewise those facts of nature which reveal intelligence in the Divine Cause imply also the presence of his perfect will: (a) in the institution of the orderly system of nature whereby the components mutually contribute to the common purpose of all; (b) in the gift to finite man of a nature inherently tending to goodness; and (c) in the fact that partial values are real only as implications of absolute Value in the ultimate being upon which all depend, just as partial truth depends on absolute truth for its final validity.

From such considerations we know that supreme volition is enshrined within the very life of the three Persons who are one Spirit, so that Deity is its own purpose of subsistent value, its own personal appreciation in supreme mutual love.

In human volition there are two forms, namely, desire and delight. Desire is the imperfect or unfulfilled state of will, wherein is sought that which is beneficial and advantageous. Delight is the superior state of will realized and fulfilled in the actual possession or attainment of its object. Divine Volition, however, involves no imperfection, and is therefore supreme delight, the significance of which we can only contemplate by analogy. Lacking nothing and possessing all, the triune perfection knows no desire. Divine volition is perfect because will and object are one in the fullest realisation of subsistent life. The intrinsic might of triune sanctity embraces within itself an infinite appreciation of perfect being. God loves all being by being All, not by composition but by the very excellence of reality, truth, and value.

In this identification of will with perfect being consists God’s merit and goodness, both relative and absolute. God is sanctity in virtue of his immanent love of the most sacred perfection of his own nature as manifested in the triune life and in its benevolence to creatures. “He that is mighty hath done great things to me, and holy is his name.” [SUP]1[/SUP] In itself the Divine will thus possesses its infinitely adequate object, for love and being are identified.

The complaisance of power whereby God loves himself supremely is according to the very meaning of ultimate and subsistent being. There can be no error or disproportion in God’s eternal activity. Therefore, in Deity, self-love is necessarily infinite. It is impossible that it should be otherwise. God’s will is naturally identified with the perfection of his being. There is no selfishness in the Blessed Trinity, for selfishness is an inordinate self-aggrandisement which despises others and unjustly withholds from them their rights and esteem. Self-seeking in men or angels is doubly false in that it imputes undue importance to oneself whilst undervaluing God and one’s neighbor. But proportionate self-love in all is both necessary and praiseworthy, and the absence of self-esteem would be incongruous and unnatural. God’s gift of being to creatures is liberality, the opposite of selfishness, and shows that his self-love embraces all things. The reason of love is the goodness involved in rational beings, as well as,secondarily, their value to ourselves, and the Divine Exemplar of being is honoured in all respect shown to finite perfections. True love for the lesser good can therefore only exist as involved in devotion to the highest Good.

The partial revelation of the mystery of the Blessed Trinity helps us to appreciate the meaning of eternal love. God’s love is necessary and changeless, yet voluntary and free. It is the exemplary originating source of all affection, fervour, enthusiasm, and worship in his creatures. In the mutual self-realisation of the three Persons is embraced the divine love of creatures: as expressed in the natural Son of God: “I in them, and thou (Father) in me: that they may be made perfect in one; and the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou also hast loved me.” [SUP]2[/SUP]

[SUP]1[/SUP] Our Lady’s words in the *Magnificat* (Luke I 49).
[SUP]2[/SUP] John xvii 23.

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[JDaniel]

In Deity there is the highest recognition of human and angelic worth. It may be that this will not be evident to the whole universe until the era of judgement, but meanwhile, with that faith which is appropriate to our state, there can be no real doubt of the Divine concern for creatural benefit. Suffering, calamity, bereavement in peace and war: these are the obscurities attending the overture of immortality. “The sufferings of this present life are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come.” [SUP]1[/SUP] Exemption from pain is not the ideal of happiness or the emblem of success. Pain and death are natural to sensitive human and animal nature, and the body can only be rendered immune from them by a preternatural gift which no man can claim as a right. Death and its attendant distresses are an appropriate tribute to the eternal sanctity in view of the sin of the race. In that mystery of sacrifice lies the means of redemption, and the more innocent the sufferer the greater benefaction he brings to mankind. "Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. [SUP] 2[/SUP] Thus can be paid the debt of temporal punishment for corporate transgression.

The “problem” of evil is the problem of angelic and human selfishness, and the “origin” of evil is nothing else than the origin of pride. God constitutes free creatures in being and co-operates with their actions. Guilt lies in just that deliberate relation of acts to motives in which the distinct activity of men and angels consists. Evil is a relation of disproportion within the creature’s volition, for which he alone is responsible.[SUP]3[/SUP]

Pain, death, and other physical calamities are called “evil” only by analogy. In themselves they are appropriate in the circumstances, and God is their primary author. God is said to cause physical evil in the sense that he creates things which are good in themselves, and yet incidentally capable of causing harm to others. “Good things and evil, life and death, poverty and riches, are from God. Wisdom and discipline, and knowledge of the law are with God. Love and the ways of good things are with him. [SUP] 4[/SUP] Hereby the sacred writer precludes the error of those who suppose two primitive principles, good and evil.

The will of God is a will to holiness, not to the mere prosperity of man. That saving will is shown by the gift of sufficient grace to all, along with the gift of freedom. God’s will is absolute, using no means, but directly willing all events in the one infinitude of power which is essential holiness. [SUP]5[/SUP] Nothing can resist that will. Man’s being and destiny are willed as one in God’s timeless volition, and what we call predestination and reprobation are but aspects to our minds of that total productivity of creation in regard to responsible creatures.

[SUP]1[/SUP] Rom. viii 18.
[SUP]2[/SUP] Gal. vi 2.
[SUP]3[/SUP] Our difficulty in understanding God’s co-operation with his creature’s activities is due to our inability to form a positive conception of action which is creative.
[SUP]4[/SUP] Ecclus. xi 14-15.
[SUP]5[/SUP] Terms such as “overruling,” “tolerating,” “overlooking,” and “anger,” are metaphors, contrasting with opposing wickedness the divine activity of which we have only analogical knowledge.

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[JDaniel]

God created man’s being as possessed of certain powers and the ability to act freely. God’s concurrence with man’s deliberate acts does not diminish their freedom but maintains it. Man’s purpose is the fulfillment of the Divine purpose in the manifestation of the Divine power and sanctity. “We can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth, [SUP]1[/SUP] and all human acts inevitably fulfill that purpose. Thus “in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth: and every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father.” [SUP]2[/SUP]

Creation thus expresses God’s delight in the sanctity of his own Deity, as including his imitability on creatural planes. God who is being in the highest degree is himself the sole principle and reason of all lesser modes of being. Composite natures have not of themselves the reason of their being; their very possibility arises from the fact that they are known and purposed by God in imitation of his own perfection. Their type of being is such that they could not exist unless they were created. They are by nature dependent; that expresses both their frailty and their charm.

Being subsistent and infinitely perfect, God has no need of creatures, nor can they add to his beatitude or involve change in his activity. Whatever is related to his eternal life is related to is related to the indivisible whole of that eternity. To be Creator is God’s eternal state, though finite creatures are naturally of limited duration, and are thus conditioned by time. Eternally Creator, he knows and wills all always. The production of creatures is not a subsequent fulfillment of an antecedent “desire,” but has place in the eternal realization of his omnipotent life.

By creating the universe God therefore acquired no additional glory, but manifested it to rational beings who, in Christ the Universal King, are the central feature of that creation. To finite minds that manifestation is known in time, while to God himself it is known and possessed in his eternity. God is his own purpose. His own excellence, self-manifested and made known to creatures is the complete object of his of his infinite volition. His glory is no other than his than his own intrinsic perfection, and this is the motive of his works.

God’s ultimate reason in creating the finite is thus identical with his very being. He is the Alpha and the Omega. The purposive or “Final Cause“ of creatures is therefore God himself.

In considering the ultimate reason why God created the world we must distinguish the two very different meanings of the word creation. The term “creation” is used to denote: (1)the Divine activity as creative, and (2) the finite universe as the product of creation. The reason of the omnipotent act itself is one with God’s essential delight in his perfection and power as possessing that exemplary excellence whereby all else must depend creatively upon himself. The sufficient reason of the creative act as such is thus totally immanent to the Divine Cause. But the finite universe, considered in itself as the product of omnipotence, contributes nothing to the Divine reason or motive in creating. Finite things cannot contain within themselves the ultimate reason of their nature or existence. They are not purposed for their own sakes, but because they represent the glorious nature of their triune Maker.

It follows that Deity is under no obligation to create finite entities, and is perfectly free in conceiving their possibility no less than in giving them actual existence. Even the human will cannot be compelled to act by a finite object, still less the Divine.

Creation, then, has its complete and eternal reason in the Divine Perfection which is the Glory of God, and the manifestation of God in the universe is evidence of the freedom of Divine love. During the current preparatory stage of our existence that glory of God is seen but indistinctly. The fuller manifestation of the glory of the Blessed Trinity and the meaning of creation is attainable only in that experience which makes heaven what it is, namely, the supernatural intuitive vision of the perfection of Deity.

[SUP]1[/SUP] 2 Cor. Xiii 8.
[SUP]2[/SUP] Phil. Ii 10-11.

From The Teaching of the Catholic Church, The Macmillan Company, 1962, New York, Vol. I, Ch. III, The One God, by Rev. A. L. Reys, Sect. X , pp. 105 - 109:

I did not feel compelled to paraphrase it as each paragraph was pregnant with meaning and considerably concise in its own right. Sorry for the length of it.

jd

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[wussup]

Well, that’s a mouthful. It will take a while to absorb it. Have to get back at you…My first glance I don’t see a lot to argue with. Some brief comments:

RE: Likewise those facts of nature which reveal intelligence in the Divine Cause imply also the presence of his perfect will: (a) in the institution of the orderly system of nature whereby the components mutually contribute to the common purpose of all; (b) in the gift to finite man of a nature inherently tending to goodness; and (c) in the fact that partial values are real only as implications of absolute Value in the ultimate being upon which all depend, just as partial truth depends on absolute truth for its final validity.

This is writing so clear and concise as to be poetry in prose. Gosh I wish I could write like that.

I suspect the piece will get a lot of criticism for the unique definitions (such as ‘human volition’, ‘divine volition’, ‘desire’, ‘delight’, etc…). Do you know if these definitions are in common use in the Catholic Faith? Please, I understand it is important to identify these concepts in words commonly used for the sake of easy discussion.

In Deity there is the highest recognition of human and angelic worth. It may be that this will not be evident to the whole universe until the era of judgement, but meanwhile, with that faith which is appropriate to our state, there can be no real doubt of the Divine concern for creatural benefit.

wow, another amazingly beautiful statement. This book is on my hot list to read, thanks Dude. This is the reason I come to this forum. Those two statements alone are worth the price of admission!

 

[JDaniel]

Well, that’s a mouthful. It will take a while to absorb it. Have to get back at you…My first glance I don’t see a lot to argue with. Some brief comments:

This is writing so clear and concise as to be poetry in prose. Gosh I wish I could write like that.

I suspect the piece will get a lot of criticism for the unique definitions (such as ‘human volition’, ‘divine volition’, ‘desire’, ‘delight’, etc…). Do you know if these definitions are in common use in the Catholic Faith? Please, I understand it is important to identify these concepts in words commonly used for the sake of easy discussion.

wow, another amazingly beautiful statement. This book is on my hot list to read, thanks Dude. This is the reason I come to this forum. Those two statements alone are worth the price of admission!

Wassup:

I could not agree with you more. It was a two-volume set when I bought mine, so I assume it still is. Let me know what you think.

jd

 

[Matthias123]

removed