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Roseeurekacross
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@LateCatholic, I guess my questions are in the too hard basket eh ?
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Gorgias
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My take on Euthyphro is that it’s a false dilemma.
Point 1 is based on false premises: “God is not all-powerful”; “there is a higher authority to which God answers”. It’s the whole point of the dilemma, of course, and the reason that it’s so attractive to atheists – it posits that God is not God.
Point 2 seems like a reasonable alternative, though. Yet it, too, rests on a false premise: what is ‘good’ is not good in itself – it is only ‘good’ by virtue of its connection to God. I would assert that this, too, is false.
It is true that we say that absolute goodness is part of God’s nature. However, that does not mean either that God is constrained nor that goodness is arbitrary. Do we learn goodness from God? Yes. Is there any other source of goodness that does not, ultimately, flow from God? No. Does that mean that goodness is arbitrary? No. If you want to make the point that goodness is arbitrary, you’re gonna have to actually argue the point, and not just imply it.
We could have an interesting discussion about these assertions. Whom has God killed? Whom has he tortured? Did genocide actually occur, and was it directly ordered, and if so, why?
A “subjective morality” is no morality at all. If it’s evil for me to do but good for you to do, then we really can’t lay claim to calling any of it “morality” – without changing the definition of ‘morality’ to “each one does what is right in his own eyes.” (That’s a quote from the Bible, by the way. Look it up and see how awesomely that approach worked for its adherents. Little spoiler for ya: it didn’t.)
Sigh. Examples, please?
Yes, and I’m guessing far more than you.
(p.s., my take is #4 is what you’ll experience: God says to you, “I gave you all the tools with which to understand my will for you – parents who taught you the faith, environments in which you could learn the faith – and you still refused to accept my will for you. Why, oh why, @LateCatholic?”)
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Gorgias
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Yeah. The numbers lead to a conclusion that no fewer than a few thousand hominins were the smallest bottleneck in history.
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Vico
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TULIPed
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God’s killed a bunch of people - and they all - we all - deserve it. Thank God for his grace and mercy in the person of Jesus.
I do kinda feel a little bad about poor Uzzah though.
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LateCatholic
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Have your read the Bible? Consensus estimate is that according to the Bible, God has directly or indirectly killed 37 million people. 35 million in the flood, but 2 million elsewhere. Just read the Bible. It’s all in there.
If you want to argue it’s justified to kill babies if you are God, go ahead. That’s what this discussion is about. But don’t hide your head in the sand. Read the Bible.
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Gorgias
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C’mon, man. There are so many unreasonable assumptions in that statement that it’s getting difficult to take you seriously anymore. Let’s look at them:
- Is the Bible really describing a flood that was global, as opposed to a regional (or super-regional) flood that was perceived as global?
- Is the Bible really telling the story of a literal flood, or telling a didactic tale with a moral?
- Is the Bible really saying that God literally “regretted” creating humans, as if He didn’t already know all things about the past, present, and future? Or, is this – yet again – just a figure of speech? And if a figure of speech, then doesn’t that undercut your assertion of the flood as a scientific, historic account?
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mcq72
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Ok…so do species appear simultaneously…can there not be a first in linear time ? Are there not some scientists who see evidence pointing to a real McCoy Adam and Eve?
Can you get all variations within any species from a single parent’s pair?
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mcq72
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Even moreso, which theologians and which scientists do you harmonize? Just as he likes questioning religious leaders (or staus quo, the majority rule), so also should one be discerning scientists.
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Gorgias
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The problem in our discussion is that you’re positing two changes – creation of human-like hominin from more ape-like hominin, and God’s creation of a soul.
Are you talking about Young Earth Creationism ‘scientists’?
No. That’s the whole point. They can see evidence of multiple familial lines from current DNA.
Well, from my perspective, I’m using Catholic theological viewpoints, and looking at scientists’ data (more than the scientists’ conclusions themselves).
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mcq72
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But isn’t there usially more than one change from going from one species to next from evolutionary point of view?..not sure why that is problem from scientific or theological points…you don’t think Adam was different than closest “animal” in more than one way?
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mcq72
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Yes, I was pointing to scientists conclusions that differ from reigning status quo…I also prefer data more often than conclusions some derive from them…man is gifted with ability to make observations, but questionably gifted in what to make of them.
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mcq72
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Yes, and some who come just short of that.
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mcq72
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Ok…as I said earlier I thought I saw study that showed one line…perhaps I misunderstood…they also pointed to one geographical area of our beginning.
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Gorgias
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Notice, however, that ensoulment doesn’t create a distinct biological species, which is all that scientists can posit.
I can’t say that I respect YEC ‘scientists’ and their assertions. They seem to me to be more theology in search of science.
It would be interesting to see that study.
Note that the “Out of Africa” theory used to be the dominant theory of human development. These days, theories of multiregional development are gaining traction.
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mcq72
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Yes, can happen, just as some scientists are bent on opposite, to disestablish religion.
Yet fear of God is the beginning of any knowledge, and wisdom is needed not to bend either the science or theology.
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mcq72
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“Shejire DNA…The Journey of Man”…you tube has it…study by Spencer Wells might be the program I was talking about. He believes a small group of folks, as little as ten people, migrated from Africa and populate all continents…my thought is we really have two starts (of dna pool and location), one in a garden, the other in a mountain top (Noah).
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Lucretius
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Even though it is true that there is one reason for the life, death, resurrection of Jesus, which is to destroy the opposition between God and man, human life is multi-faced, and so it makes sense that our atonement would have indefinite depths to correspond to the indefinite depths of human life. The moral influence theory is true, but so is the random theory. Both consider a mystery of human life (morality and our relationship to death and the devil), and how Christ illuminates and fulfills that mystery.
I believe each theory’s popularity has more to due with culture than anything else. The key is to realize that each is an reflection on the complex meaning behind the revelation of Christ’s redemption. We know by faith that Christ redeems us, how he does so still requires much contemplation. If we don’t know how fetus form in the womb, does that mean fetus don’t form in the womb? Just because the revelation has been given to us completely, doesn’t mean we completely understand it. We’ve had our body’s for thousands of years yet we still are beginning to understand them. Even if all the theories have so far are incomplete and have problems, this doesn’t mean that some theory isn’t complete and flawless, more does it mean the direction that each theory is working in is itself wrongheaded, even if we haven’t solved all the problems with it yet, nor fleshed out all the complexity innate in the approach.
Despite what you have been told, Catholics don’t believe things without reflecting on them, nor do we believe we have absolute answers on every part of our theology without any need of further reflection and even revision. Quite the opposite!
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Lucretius
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How do the current theories about human orgins contract the idea that all men today descend from one man?
Our contemporary theories about human origins are not even close to certain. I’m not talking about the more general natural selection, but about our theories about the particulars of human evolution, which have already been revised over any over again and I expect will be revised again. The Church is being scientific in not asserting the current theories as certainly correct, especially because those who actually works in that area of study don’t assert the contemporary theories as absolutely and certainly true either.
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Lucretius
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Let’s take a look at some of these theories:
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Historically, the ransom theory hasn’t specified who the ransom was paid to. That said, I think the best understanding is that the debt of sin was paid off. This is a hard theory for modern people to understand, because we tend to see most justice as constructive rather than ontological. I admit I’m not very familiar with this theory.
One approach to this theory is that God as man does the work of atonement for the rest of us through charity despite profound suffering, and that we can share in his work on the Cross through our own sufferings as a member our his body. I think this post gives a great account of this theory: Desire, Deicide, and Atonement: René Girard and St. Thomas Aquinas | Sancrucensis
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