Why Should God Be the Moral Authority?

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Oreoracle said:
I’m curious: do you have a reason to make those assumptions? Also, when you say that God is good, do you mean that God equals good? Is he the incarnation of goodness?
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Yes. I think that knowing what God wants is critically important simply because this is the most pressing question in our day-to-day life. This is somewhat axiomic, but I am sure you would agree with me that this is a valid observation.

Many aspects of the nature of God (such as immutability, perfection, omniscience) can be established simply by examining the concept of God. In other words, the Supreme Being must have these traits by definition, or the deity is not the Supreme Being. Since we worship the Supreme Being, the deity we worship must have these traits. See:
newadvent.org/cathen/06612a.htm

Goodness is a little more tricky. The link above explains why God must be completely simple (not having any composition of different things). “Now it is clear that an infinite being cannot be substantially composite, for this would mean that infinity is made up of the union or addition of finite parts”

This means that God cannot be partly good and partly bad, or any similar combination. God needs to be either completely good or completely bad. I believe that God is completely good because I have observed much good and beauty in the world, and I think that goodness is the most probable explanation. God creating the world out of selfless love (since He needs nothing) seems more plausible to me than God creating the world out of pure hatred.

Do you want me to go into the existence of God?
Certainly. But I want you to know that when I say ethics are subjective, I’m not referring to subjectivism. Rather, I’m saying that God’s word may be objective, but “I should abide by God’s word” is subjective. The values required to come to that conclusion are not concrete.
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I am not sure exactly what you mean. We can discover God’s word and our obligations in regards to it as outlined in my previous posts.

Hope you feel better!
 
Why Should God Be the Moral Authority?

Because if He isn’t, the devil will be.
 
Hi All,

This thread reminds me of Plato’s Euthyphro dilemma. If God did not have good reasons for making some things right and others wrong, then we have no reason to do what he wants. And if God had good reasons for making somethings right and some things wrong, then we should be able to appeal to those reasons directly. So I agree with Plato that reason rather than God is the moral authority.

Best,
Leela
 
Leela said:
Hi All,

This thread reminds me of Plato’s Euthyphro dilemma. If God did not have good reasons for making some things right and others wrong, then we have no reason to do what he wants. And if God had good reasons for making somethings right and some things wrong, then we should be able to appeal to those reasons directly. So I agree with Plato that reason rather than God is the moral authority.

Best,
Leela
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But, as you presented above, Plato’s ability to appeal to reasons directly is premised on God having good reasons for making somethings right and some things wrong. Therefore, one who does not recognize the existence of God, has no right to appeal directly to reason.
 
Leela said:
Hi All,
This thread reminds me of Plato’s Euthyphro dilemma. If God did not have good reasons for making some things right and others wrong, then we have no reason to do what he wants. And if God had good reasons for making somethings right and some things wrong, then we should be able to appeal to those reasons directly. So I agree with Plato that reason rather than God is the moral authority.
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Those reasons are love, which is essentially God Himself.
 
agangbern said:
Did you ever question your own father why he exercised moral authority over you? Under what circumstance did you question him? And by what authority did you have to question your own father?
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Merely being a position of authority does not mean that you have the best interest of your subjects at heart. If a god exists, he may have the ability to insist upon our subservience, but that does not mean that his commands have our best interests at heart. One can possess legal authority via physical intimidate, but true moral authority lies behind the intent of its origin.
 
Genesis 1:26
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

This tells me that man is to rule here. Not God not Satan. Man.

Our first God or ruler was then a man and at end times, it will be a man again that will be God.

Regards
DL
 
severntofall said:
Merely being a position of authority does not mean that you have the best interest of your subjects at heart. If a god exists, he may have the ability to insist upon our subservience, but that does not mean that his commands have our best interests at heart. One can possess legal authority via physical intimidate, but true moral authority lies behind the intent of its origin.
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But to those who recognize that authority as their Father, to them, those doubts regarding best interests would be without place. Yet anyway, God is a love. Even those who refuse to recognize Him as Father and choose the devil instead, God would not “impose” his will upon them. Fellow children may speak to him of the unwiseness of his choice, inform him that what he is doing is rebellion. But only up to there. It is his choice and decision that shall prevail.
 
agangbern said:
But to those who recognize that authority as their Father, to them, those doubts regarding best interests would be without place. Yet anyway, God is a love. Even those who refuse to recognize Him as Father and choose the devil instead, God would not “impose” his will upon them. Fellow children may speak to him of the unwiseness of his choice, inform him that what he is doing is rebellion. But only up to there. It is his choice and decision that shall prevail.
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And by what standard do you claim that god is love?
 
Justafool said:
Noah’s genocidal flood perhaps.

Regards
DL
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…or the slaughter of all that lived in the city of Jericho (man, woman, child and animal). No…eternally torturing those who fail to worship him properly must be it.
 
severntofall said:
…or the slaughter of all that lived in the city of Jericho (man, woman, child and animal). No…eternally torturing those who fail to worship him properly must be it.
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Stop mumbling out insinuations that are simply products of your wild imaginations.
 
agangbern said:
Stop mumbling out insinuations that are simply products of your wild imaginations.
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Apparently the products of my “wild imagination” can be found in the bible.

*Johsua 5:20 When the trumpets sounded, the people shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the people gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so every man charged straight in, and they took the city. 21 **They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys. **
Johsua 5:24 Then they burned the whole city and everything in it, but they put the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron into the treasury of the LORD’s house. 25 But Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her, because she hid the men Joshua had sent as spies to Jericho—and she lives among the Israelites to this day.

26 At that time Joshua pronounced this solemn oath: "Cursed before the LORD is the man who undertakes to rebuild this city, Jericho:
“At the cost of his firstborn son
will he lay its foundations;
at the cost of his youngest
will he set up its gates.”

27 So the LORD was with Joshua, and his fame spread throughout the land.*

And as far as the eternal torture part, is that not essentially what hell is?
 
severntofall said:
Apparently the products of my “wild imagination” can be found in the bible.

*Johsua 5:20 When the trumpets sounded, the people shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the people gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so every man charged straight in, and they took the city. 21 **They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys. ***
Johsua 5:24 Then they burned the whole city and everything in it, but they put the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron into the treasury of the LORD’s house. 25 But Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her, because she hid the men Joshua had sent as spies to Jericho—and she lives among the Israelites to this day.
To relate that to the standard of Christ is what is wild imagination. How do you think is this related to “the standard of Christ”? Christ is perfectly pro-life!
severntofall;4969218:
And as far as the eternal torture part, is that not essentially what hell is?
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It may be. But the fact remains that there is no proof to your allegation that Jesus invented it.
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