Where does "good" come from?

[Honorentheos]

The interesting thing that has not been questioned here is the nature of the "Good", independant of God. Because in a sense, Mudcat is saying the good and God are synonymous and the thing called God is just that which is worshipped. Otherwise, the two seem to be two names for the same thing.

So how do we define "good"?

[Mudcat]

Exactly.

Precisely.

[BCSpace]

He doesn't exist.

Siddhartha Gautama is generally accepted as a real historical figure.

What I mean by that is there is no such person who has achieved "enlightenment" by sitting under a tree until he found it. And that was AFTER he had discovered the "middle way" in which one was to avoid the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification.

[BCSpace]

If such is the case and God does have an existential standard he must meet, then I would be better served worshiping the standard than him, because God's merit of Godliness is based upon his observance of it, not him.

God is trying to reveal it to us and when we accept and understand it, then we worship (or rather, imho, live by it) it.

[Honorentheos]

And that was AFTER he had discovered the "middle way" in which one was to avoid the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification.

It was? I'm not sure that is how the story goes. But you have a source that says otherwise?

[Honorentheos]

God is trying to reveal it to us and when we accept and understand it, then we worship (or rather, imho, live by it) it.

Like Buddha.

[Jason]

It seems to me if God really loved you, he would have killed you before you were 8 years old. Now that's a shortcut.

God didn't kill me when I was 8 precisely because He loves me, and knows that to progress I needed to learn lessons in mortality that I couldn't learn in eight years.

[Thorkyll]

"Does God command the good because it is good, or is it good because it is commanded by God?"

The dichotomy is neutralized by pointing out that God is good.

"Good" is not something that exists outside of God, or else "Good" would be a God in and of itself.

Yet we are told, "beside Him there is no other".

God is Judge, there is no Judge (good) which sits in judgement of God.

Even the evil inclination is a tool for good.

Good flows from God. God is hiding in the world, as is good.

We let the presence of God be known through our actions.

Hope that makes sense.

[Thorkyll]

Siddhartha Gautama is generally accepted as a real historical figure.

So is the talking snake in the Garden of Eden. What does that tell you?

According to a 2008 Gallup poll, 44 % of Americans believe "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so." 36 % believe the world IS old but God guided evolution. 14 % believe in old world and no involvement by God.

Source: Richard Dawkins' new book, "The Greatest? Show on Earth - The Evidence for Evolution".

[Jason]

Let's assume the opposite for a moment. Essentially that "Good's nature is God."

Think about it, Good would be God and the only God that could actually be God would be that he was consistent with Good's nature.

But "good" is not an intelligent being. It's not even a measurable force. Good is an adjective that in this context is concerned with describing the morality of the actions of intelligent beings.

Without intelligent beings there would be no good, but what is good and what is evil is independent of the desires or opinions of intelligent beings. It's simply the way the universe operates.

If God has to be sanctioned by Good, for God to be God. Then I think we could safely assume that God's authority is given by Good.

"Good" cannot sanction anything because again, "good" is not a being who can provide sanction, but a description of God's actions.

This statement is fairly problematic... Good actually asserts authority over God in such a case. So God isn't really omni-anything. God's authority hangs upon his agreement with Good.

If God were to disagree with Good, well he would lose such priveledge of being God. Because Good is God.

If God were no longer good He would cease to be God because being good is a requirement for being God.

Just like if you cut the corners off of a square it is no longer a square. Not because some force then decides that it is no longer a square, but because being called a square in the first place requires having four corners, and an object without them is simply not a square.

You asked me how I would know the difference. The difference would be that I worship a God who is good, because that is what he is. Rather than a God who has to be good to be God. IMO, the God that has to meet a standard to be God.. falls a bit short.

If such is the case and God does have an existential standard he must meet, then I would be better served worshiping the standard than him, because God's merit of Godliness is based upon his observance of it, not him.

If you find this a reasonable argument, then I doubt you understand what worship really means in the first place. Worshipping an existential standard like "good" would be like worshipping gravity, or the speed of light.

It would be pagan.

I find that God is more worthy of worship precisely because He could have been other than He is, but chose not to be.

[soren]

God became a God by choosing good over evil. Therefore, neither concept of good or evil originate from God. Good and evil (results) themselves come, imho, simply as the result of our choices. In that senario, notice that much good comes from God because of His choices, surpassing by far all the good that comes from our choices. Nevertheless, it is a sign that, as per Gen 3:22 and Ps 82:6, we too are gods.

Of course the rules for identifying what is good and what is evil had to come from somewhere. I say they evolved over time; the process of finding out what works and what doesn't. Viola! I think I have solved or at least significantly mitigated the infinite regression of Gods problem without resorting to pleading the fifth because we don't know.

Claiming that good and evil come from choices makes the will of the individual the determinant for good and evil, yet the will is judged as good or evil depending on whether it conforms to the good; that implies that a standard of good exists prior to individual decisions. It must be rooted in some reality that is not purely volitional.

The second part of your response misses the point of the Euthyphro question by a mile. You are talking about how to identify individual goods, whereas the dilemma is about goodness itself, as one univocal reality: Where do you get the idea of good from? Finding out "what works and what doesn't" is a utilitarian reduction that does not begin to consider Plato's question, and which Socrates could refute offhand: when you say something works, then you mean it works for some good end. It is in virtue of the goodness of that end that the thing that achieves the end is called good, derivatively. Hence, if you say that something is good because it works, you assume that the end it serves is good. If you say the end is good because it works, you launch yourself into an infinite regress. For anything to be good in its functions, something else has to be good in itself, and you need a different standard in order to undestand what that is.

[BCSpace]

Claiming that good and evil come from choices makes the will of the individual the determinant for good and evil, yet the will is judged as good or evil depending on whether it conforms to the good; that implies that a standard of good exists prior to individual decisions. It must be rooted in some reality that is not purely volitional.

Well I haven't thought much about such things until this thread so I'm still sorting out what I might like or believe on this issue. It may be true that for Gods being created now, standards already exist. But what I may be proposing is a possible solution to the conundrum of who was the first God and what makes Him a God. We know that matter/energy and intelligence have always existed. So I propose that the Gods evolved from this and it's their(the original God or Gods) evolution, their choices and discovery, that have created these standards. This raises the possibility that in other universes (depending on whether or not not things are divided up this way), the standards of good and evil might be different because the evolution and choices were different.

The second part of your response misses the point of the Euthyphro question by a mile. You are talking about how to identify individual goods, whereas the dilemma is about goodness itself, as one univocal reality: Where do you get the idea of good from? Finding out "what works and what doesn't" is a utilitarian reduction that does not begin to consider Plato's question, and which Socrates could refute offhand: when you say something works, then you mean it works for some good end. It is in virtue of the goodness of that end that the thing that achieves the end is called good, derivatively. Hence, if you say that something is good because it works, you assume that the end it serves is good. If you say the end is good because it works, you launch yourself into an infinite regress. For anything to be good in its functions, something else has to be good in itself, and you need a different standard in order to undestand what that is.

I do think I have addressed this. Outside our sphere of existence there is no unifying principle of good and evil. However, because we exist and are what we are, we have the unifying principle(s)to live by. I wouldn't so lightly cast aside "utilitarian reduction". Because of it, everything can be black and white as the gospel proposes itself to be.

[Jason]

This raises the possibility that in other universes (depending on whether or not not things are divided up this way), the standards of good and evil might be different because the evolution and choices were different.

I disagree. I don't think good and evil could be anything but what they are, regardless of how things might work in another universe.

[BCSpace]

This raises the possibility that in other universes (depending on whether or not not things are divided up this way), the standards of good and evil might be different because the evolution and choices were different.

I disagree. I don't think good and evil could be anything but what they are, regardless of how things might work in another universe.

If you have the original evolution of Gods as being the source of all universes, sure. In that case, it seems likely to me that all universes have similar properties. But if they don't (String Theory), then I can see what's good and what's evil as being different. Would be hard to describe since I don't know what it's like to live in a universe with different properties (and constants). I don't think you could describe it at all in terms of alcohol being allowed under the Word of Wisdom or adultery being allowed under the Law of Chastity. In fact, in a universe with differing properties, such laws might not be necessary or applicable. And then of course we can say "there are universes many, but to us, there is one universe with which we have to do".

[Jason]

If you have the original evolution of Gods as being the source of all universes, sure. In that case, it seems likely to me that all universes have similar properties.

That would seem to accept the idea that what is good and what is evil was at some point arbitrarily decided by "the Gods" or some other power. I don't feel that this is the case.

To my mind, what is good and what is evil is as eternal as matter and spirit. No one ever decided which was which any more than anyone first created matter.

As for other universes, if there is no way to get there or for them to interact with us then there is really no point in talking about them.

[Mudcat]

oops... double post.

[Mudcat]

But "good" is not an intelligent being. It's not even a measurable force.

Obviously I would argue against this. If God is Good, then Good would be actually be intelligent. In a sense, we will be judged by our goodness, or the goodness that is imputed to us by God, so I would say that it is measurable.

Good is an adjective that in this context is concerned with describing the morality of the actions of intelligent beings.

Without intelligent beings there would be no good, but what is good and what is evil is independent of the desires or opinions of intelligent beings. It's simply the way the universe operates.

Bold mine, you seem to be arguing against yourself here Jason, but I want to be certain of that. You seem to be saying in your post that if God isn't good, then God isn't God. So God's existence as God depends upon his relation to an unintelligent something that isn't even a measureable force.

Furthermore you distinctly imply in the bolded statement that good can't exist without intelligent beings. So "good" is this standard that God must meet to be God, doesn't even exist of its own. So if "good" is dependent on intellegent forces other than God for it to be a standard. Then would it be fair to say that you think that God is God because he meets the standard of Godliness that have been determined by other intelligences? If not, what exactly do you mean when you say something like "if God were no longer good... he would cease to be God"?

"Good" cannot sanction anything because again, "good" is not a being who can provide sanction, but a description of God's actions.

If God were no longer good He would cease to be God because being good is a requirement for being God.

These two statements are self contradictory. In the first one you say that "good" doesn't give sanction to God. In fact good is simply a description of God's actions.

In the second statement, you seem to say that God is required to be good, in order that he be God. But if God did something that wasn't good, how could say that it wasn't good, in light of your first statement that "good" is simply what God does?

Either I am misunderstanding you, or you have a offered a self contradiction.

Just like if you cut the corners off of a square it is no longer a square. Not because some force then decides that it is no longer a square, but because being called a square in the first place requires having four corners, and an object without them is simply not a square.

You'll have to clarify on my previous comment for me to understand what you are saying here.

If you find this a reasonable argument, then I doubt you understand what worship really means in the first place. Worshipping an existential standard like "good" would be like worshipping gravity, or the speed of light.

It would be pagan.

I think you are missing the point. The point was that if God must appeal to something outside of himself for his existence as God, then he isn't all powerful. Rather his power is bound up in a relation to a standard of goodness that exists apart from himself. You may be comfortable with that.

I find that God is more worthy of worship precisely because He could have been other than He is, but chose not to be.

Well this is just a statement of preference and doesn't really address the truth of the position other than you feel is "is more worthy". I could assert the opposite, that I find an unchanging God who is good and all goodness that is, flows necessarily from his divine nature is more worthy of worship. However, neither assertion does anything to further establish the truth of a view.

Regards,

Mudcat

[Lightbearer]

Another interesting scripture that may have some bearing on your discussion here:

(Matthew 19:16-17) "And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments."

Interesting statement to say the least. Perhaps one must be resurrected and glorified to be termed truly good? It also gets a little problematic if one considers Jesus and His Father one and the same being.

[Jason]

Obviously I would argue against this. If God is Good, then Good would be actually be intelligent.

You've only changed what the word "good" means by equating it with God.

In a sense, we will be judged by our goodness, or the goodness that is imputed to us by God, so I would say that it is measurable.

Our actions are measurable, and can be described as good or evil. Our "goodness" is merely our propensity for performing good actions. If we were unable to act we could not be accurately described as good.

Bold mine, you seem to be arguing against yourself here Jason, but I want to be certain of that. You seem to be saying in your post that if God isn't good, then God isn't God.

Correct. A being that is not good cannot also be God (although it might be described as a god).

So God's existence as God depends upon his relation to an unintelligent something that isn't even a measureable force.

In the same way that God's existence depends on His existence, if you want to view the trait of "existence" as an "unintelligent something that isn't even a measurable force."

Furthermore you distinctly imply in the bolded statement that good can't exist without intelligent beings.

Actually I wasn't implying anything - I said it outright.

Good in the moral sense can only be used to describe the actions of intelligent beings or, more indirectly, the intelligent beings themselves (as a description of their propensity to perform good or evil actions).

So "good" is this standard that God must meet to be God, doesn't even exist of its own.

It's a descriptive term. It can't exist if the only things it can be used to describe don't exist.

You can't see the color orange if there are no objects present to reflect that color back to your eyes.

So if "good" is dependent on intellegent forces other than God for it to be a standard.

You've ascribed a different sort of meaning to "dependent" than I meant.

Good is not dependent on intelligent forces for its existence in the sense that intelligent forces somewhere decided what is good and what is bad and that somehow became the law for everyone else. Good is only dependent on intelligent forces in that, in the moral sense, it can only be used to describe the actions of intelligent forces, and therefore wouldn't exist without the actions of intelligent forces to describe.

Then would it be fair to say that you think that God is God because he meets the standard of Godliness that have been determined by other intelligences?

No. No intelligence determined any standards of Godliness.

If not, what exactly do you mean when you say something like "if God were no longer good... he would cease to be God"?

Simply that if God were no longer good, He could no longer operate as God.

Effectively, being good is what gives God his power. Not becuase some higher power grants it to him, but because the universe as a whole responds positively to someone as good as He is, acting for good.

No one decided that this is how things would work, it simply is the way things work.

These two statements are self contradictory. In the first one you say that "good" doesn't give sanction to God. In fact good is simply a description of God's actions.

In the second statement, you seem to say that God is required to be good, in order that he be God. But if God did something that wasn't good, how could say that it wasn't good, in light of your first statement that "good" is simply what God does?

Good and evil are universal and independent of opinion. It doesn't matter how many people believe something is good if it is evil. Likewise, it doesn't matter who believes something evil is good, even God.

You might see the fact that God can't make good be whatever He wants it to be as a limitation on His power. I see it as no different than being unable to create a rock too big for Him to lift, or being unable to create a square circle. That is, omnipotence doesn't include the ability to do what is logically impossible. Redifining good or evil is in my view logically impossible.

I think you are missing the point. The point was that if God must appeal to something outside of himself for his existence as God, then he isn't all powerful. Rather his power is bound up in a relation to a standard of goodness that exists apart from himself.

No, I believe I understand that argument.

What I am saying is that the "something" independent of God's existence is not itself another God, it is simply the basic nature of the universe, and therefore is not a valid subject of worship.

To the question, "why not worship 'goodness' instead of God, since it is independent of Him" my answer is: goodness is an existential concept, is not intelligent, and can't hear you or act on your behalf. Worshipping "goodness" would be like worshipping gravity or the speed of light or the color orange. Worshipping any of those things is senseless, and would be a misunderstanding of the concept of what "worship" is and what or who is a valid subject of the same.

Well this is just a statement of preference and doesn't really address the truth of the position other than you feel is "is more worthy". I could assert the opposite, that I find an unchanging God who is good and all goodness that is, flows necessarily from his divine nature is more worthy of worship. However, neither assertion does anything to further establish the truth of a view.

Yep, basically that was just my opinion. Much like most of my posts, really.

[Uncertain]

From my evangelical perspective, goodness is ultimately rooted in the divine nature of God.

So when I say something like, "God is good". I mean that "good" is actually grounded in God and without God then there would be nothing good.

From past discussions with LDS about "evil". From what I have gathered LDS seem to think that "evil" exists independently of God. Something like evil just exists and will always exist and is part of reason we have free will and so forth.

I am wondering what is the LDS perspective on God and his relation to "good"?

There is something called a Euthyphro dillema, that Plato posited at one point. Put in more modern terms the dillema is something to this effect.

"Does God command the good because it is good, or is it good because it is commanded by God?"

I would like to know what LDS think about this sort of thing.

Regards,

Mudcat

Hi Mudcat,

Excellent question personally I think neither traditional Christianity or Mormonism has a good solution. A traditional Christian would argue something is good because it is commanded by God and Gods nature is good. Of course this leads to the problem of arbitrariness. Why should Gods nature be taken as the standard of "good" why not your nature or my nature? Is it because God is all powerful? Does he who has the most power then determine what is "good"? What if it was Gods nature to torture infants given Gods nature is by definition good would it not then be good to torture infants? And all who refuse to torture infants would be committing a sin?

Now most LDS would probably select the other horn of Euthyphro dilemma something is good not because God commanded it but because it is good independent of God. What is good is defined by eternal law that God did not create neither can he break and remain good. God is God in part because he understands and is obedient to these laws. The problem with this as has already been pointed out is this means there is something more powerful than God and to which God is subordinate. Why shouldn't we all then worship these laws instead of God? Also stating laws are eternal and unchanging does not avoid the arbitrary issue. Why these laws and not some other laws? If indeed they are eternal then no intelligent agent made these laws they just exist. Why are these laws the way they are and not some other way who or what decided on them?

Another issue is if indeed no intelligent agent sympathetic to us made these laws why should theses laws follow what we would view as fair? For example suppose it was an eternal and unchanging law that only people who died before age 60 made it to heaven and everyone else is condemned to eternal hellfire. By definition the eternal laws define what is good so if indeed this was a law by definition it would be good and God would be forced to follow this law or he would cease to be God. Given these eternal laws just "are" and no intelligent agent sympathetic to us or with our sense of fair play invented these laws why in the world should these laws conform in any sense to what we would regard as fair and just?

I am a theist but frankly this is a thorny issue I am not at all sure what is a proper basis for what is "good". I take consolation in the fact that I have yet to hear a good atheist answer to this question . So at least everyone is in the same boat together.

All the Best,

Uncertain

[soren]

Well I haven't thought much about such things until this thread so I'm still sorting out what I might like or believe on this issue. It may be true that for Gods being created now, standards already exist. But what I may be proposing is a possible solution to the conundrum of who was the first God and what makes Him a God. We know that matter/energy and intelligence have always existed. So I propose that the Gods evolved from this and it's their(the original God or Gods) evolution, their choices and discovery, that have created these standards. This raises the possibility that in other universes (depending on whether or not not things are divided up this way), the standards of good and evil might be different because the evolution and choices were different.

I do think I have addressed this. Outside our sphere of existence there is no unifying principle of good and evil. However, because we exist and are what we are, we have the unifying principle(s)to live by.

Evolution is mindless, ruthless, and indifferent. It creates by destroying. It does not reward justice. It just rewards winning, and selfishness is the only virtue that it allows to thrive. Even wonderful things like love and apparent self-sacrifice survive evolution because they happen to earn a self-serving payoff. There is a reason why scientists who really understand evolution never want to look to it as a source for morals. Doing that turns you into Nietzsche.

I wouldn't so lightly cast aside "utilitarian reduction". Because of it, everything can be black and white as the gospel proposes itself to be.

I am not casting utilitarianism aside lightly. I am tossing it on the fire in earnest. It is an intrinsically godless philosophy, although a lot of Christians naively buy into it, so deep is its hold on our culture. There is absolutely no utilitarian standard that can provide objective guidelines for human behavior. Here are two of many reasons:

First: Utility provides no criterion by which to judge the ends for which utility exists. With no criterion to determine right ends, ends are arbitrary. Because the ends are arbitrary, the rightness of the means we use to achieve them also reduces to an arbitrary principle. All morality is therefore arbitrary and non-objective. QED.

Second: It is not coincidental that utilitarian philosophers from Descartes to Mill to Singer are all hedonists. It is a natural consequence of what utilitarianism does to the soul. As its very name suggests, it is a philosophy of power, not of justice, not of right, just power. This is opposed, of course, to the wisdom of Socrates and (better yet) of Jesus, which views human life in relation to an ultimate good, which is other than man, for which man exists, and in which man can rest. Power-based philosophies have no such sapiential orientation. Because utilitarianism proposes to order human life by a rationale that is not dependent on any ultimate wisdom, it takes no account for the ordering of man to truth that distinguishes him for animal. This reduces man to an animal level, so the end that people inevitably choose to serve is an animal's end: pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain. And that is the definition of hedonism.

Any philosophies that treat goodness as a product of human will lead to similar consequences.

[Mudcat]

You've only changed what the word "good" means by equating it with God.

No I don't think I have, but that is rather the point. You have equated God with good, so I don't know that I see your point fully. You seem to just view "good" as something that exists apart from God. From what I can gather, "good" would do well enough on it's own, as "good" has no real need for God. As you say, "good" doesn't really need God, however it does need some sort of intelligence apart from God to exist. Out of curiosity, does it matter what sort of intelligence exists?

From what I can perceive it's the other way round actually. God, as you posit, seems to need "good" so that he can be God.

I have a bit of trouble here. It seems you think God is actually dependent upon the existence of other intelligences and "good"(henceforth G for the sake of discussion) to be God. What I am uncertain about is what connection these other intelligences and G have to make God. In short, if God exists, other than the choices he made to make him God, it is other intelligences that actually determine if he is God, because G depends upon the existence of other intelligences.

But if God is the greatest this, that and the other thing, then why would his existence as God depend upon the views of other intelligences(henceforth OI) that were lesser?

This is actually a fairly large hangup in your philosophy. God appeals to G to be God, but G appeals to OI to exist. Therefore God is God because of OI + his choices. So God is only God because OI say he is God. He is subordinate to OI.

Now if you believe that it's okay for God to subordinate, there isn't much else I can say on the matter.

Our actions are measurable, and can be described as good or evil. Our "goodness" is merely our propensity for performing good actions. If we were unable to act we could not be accurately described as good.

Yes actions are measurable, but base on your prior statement about G being an unmeasurable force then I don't think it follows that actions could be equated with G. Do you still hold that position?

Correct. A being that is not good cannot also be God (although it might be described as a god).

In the same way that God's existence depends on His existence, if you want to view the trait of "existence" as an "unintelligent something that isn't even a measurable force."

But if G is determined by OI, then it seems that you are really saying that God can't exist unless he meets the approval of OI. IOW, God would not exist without the existence of OI and there approval that he is God.

Actually I wasn't implying anything - I said it outright.

Good in the moral sense can only be used to describe the actions of intelligent beings or, more indirectly, the intelligent beings themselves (as a description of their propensity to perform good or evil actions).

Your position on G seems very relative to existence. Let me ask you this as a hypothetical. If only one intelligence existed, would G exist? I am trying to get a better scope on what you believe is required for G to exist.

It's a descriptive term. It can't exist if the only things it can be used to describe don't exist.

You can't see the color orange if there are no objects present to reflect that color back to your eyes.

This is reminiscent of the tree falling in the woods making a sound. Let me be a bit more direct. If you Jason did not exist, would G exist?

You've ascribed a different sort of meaning to "dependent" than I meant.

Good is not dependent on intelligent forces for its existence in the sense that intelligent forces somewhere decided what is good and what is bad and that somehow became the law for everyone else. Good is only dependent on intelligent forces in that, in the moral sense, it can only be used to describe the actions of intelligent forces, and therefore wouldn't exist without the actions of intelligent forces to describe.

This seems to be a shift from your original position. Are you saying that G is like gravity, it works if you are present or are not present, but if an observer was not there to see it work it would be meaningless if it worked or not?

No. No intelligence determined any standards of Godliness.

Simply that if God were no longer good, He could no longer operate as God.

Effectively, being good is what gives God his power. Not becuase some higher power grants it to him, but because the universe as a whole responds positively to someone as good as He is, acting for good.

No one decided that this is how things would work, it simply is the way things work.

Okay, so you think the standard of Godliness exists apart from any determination from OI. One of those standards being G.

So G does not need OI to exist. Have I got that right? It hasn't been when what you have said so far, so I am wondering.

Good and evil are universal and independent of opinion. It doesn't matter how many people believe something is good if it is evil. Likewise, it doesn't matter who believes something evil is good, even God.

So G actually doesn't require OI to exist? This is contrary to previous statements. Are you conceding the point here?

You might see the fact that God can't make good be whatever He wants it to be as a limitation on His power. I see it as no different than being unable to create a rock too big for Him to lift, or being unable to create a square circle. That is, omnipotence doesn't include the ability to do what is logically impossible. Redifining good or evil is in my view logically impossible.

Bold mine. I don't see this as a limitation of his power and I agree with you here.

However, italics mine. Your statement, begs the question of how logic is determined. Like your selection of G, the appeal to logic is either of God or exists apart from him. If God is not the locus of "logic" or "good" then you have to appeal to something other than God. This just pushes the argumentation back further, that there is another potential force that must be appealed to for God to be God.

I don't think we could safely say that "logic" is G. A healthy man who is the father of 5 children that rushes into a burning building to save a child, but to only have the building collapse on him. Well, his action might be percieved as G but I don't think logic would come in to play. Do you?

No, I believe I understand that argument.

What I am saying is that the "something" independent of God's existence is not itself another God, it is simply the basic nature of the universe, and therefore is not a valid subject of worship.

Well let me ask you then. Who created the universe and who/what determined it's nature?

To the question, "why not worship 'goodness' instead of God, since it is independent of Him" my answer is: goodness is an existential concept, is not intelligent, and can't hear you or act on your behalf. Worshipping "goodness" would be like worshipping gravity or the speed of light or the color orange. Worshipping any of those things is senseless, and would be a misunderstanding of the concept of what "worship" is and what or who is a valid subject of the same.

I think I am following you here. You don't feel that G is worthy of worship, because G is some unintelligent force, like gravity and so forth. It is just something that God has no control over, like gravity and the speed of light. Correct?

Yep, basically that was just my opinion. Much like most of my posts, really.

Mine too. And thanks for a well thought and articulated response Jason.

Respectfully,

Mudcat

[Ron Beron]

Then why do we need a God, let alone worship him?

If you meet the Buddha, kill him.

Killing the Buddha does not mean getting rid of religious figures. It does mean that we fill our minds with false perceptions of perfection and fulfillment of the same. The meaning goes if on your path to perfection if you see what is perfection (Buddha) then slay it and move on to what is not illusion.

[Jason]

No I don't think I have, but that is rather the point. You have equated God with good, so I don't know that I see your point fully. You seem to just view "good" as something that exists apart from God. From what I can gather, "good" would do well enough on it's own, as "good" has no real need for God. As you say, "good" doesn't really need God, however it does need some sort of intelligence apart from God to exist. Out of curiosity, does it matter what sort of intelligence exists?

You seemed to say that good and God were the same thing. I say that God is good without also saying that all good is God.

No, I don't suppose it would depend on what sort of intelligence exists, so long as that inetlligence is capable of taking moral or immoral actions.

From what I can perceive it's the other way round actually. God, as you posit, seems to need "good" so that he can be God.

I have a bit of trouble here. It seems you think God is actually dependent upon the existence of other intelligences and "good"(henceforth G for the sake of discussion) to be God.

No, that is not what I am saying.

God needs to be good in order to be God. Good is a descriptive term (like orange, salty, under, etc.), not an intelligence or many intelligences seperate from God.

Your examples which follow in your post are based on a misunderstanding of what I am saying, and do not follow from my premise.

Yes actions are measurable, but base on your prior statement about G being an unmeasurable force then I don't think it follows that actions could be equated with G. Do you still hold that position?

I said that good is not a measurable force, not that the actions of intelligent beings could not be measured as to how good they are.

Your position on G seems very relative to existence. Let me ask you this as a hypothetical. If only one intelligence existed, would G exist? I am trying to get a better scope on what you believe is required for G to exist.

If you mean Good for "G" here, the answer is yes. If one intelligence capable of moral action existed, then its actions would be good, evil, or morally neutral, regardless of whether there was another intelligence to interact with.

This is reminiscent of the tree falling in the woods making a sound. Let me be a bit more direct. If you Jason did not exist, would G exist?

My personal existence is not necessary in order for good to exist, but some intelligent agent must be present to have its actions measured as to whether they are good.

This seems to be a shift from your original position.

No, you misunderstood my position.

Are you saying that G is like gravity, it works if you are present or are not present, but if an observer was not there to see it work it would be meaningless if it worked or not?

I think you're beginning to understand.

Only to carry your analogy further, gravity is dependent on the presence of mass, not an observer. Gravity works just fine with no observer. If there is no mass, though, then gravity is not present in any sense. It would work if there were some mass present, but without any mass there is no gravity. Gravity can therefore be said to be dependent on mass.

In the same way, if there is no intelligence present, then there is no good present.

Okay, so you think the standard of Godliness exists apart from any determination from OI. One of those standards being G.

So G does not need OI to exist. Have I got that right? It hasn't been when what you have said so far, so I am wondering.

Yes, what is Godly behavior and what isn't was not determined by any intelligence. And yes, this is what I have been saying all along.

So G actually doesn't require OI to exist? This is contrary to previous statements. Are you conceding the point here?

No, you misunderstood my earlier argument. I have been saying all along that what is good is not determined by intelligences, therefore God is not subbordinate to any other being for his status as good.

However, italics mine. Your statement, begs the question of how logic is determined. Like your selection of G, the appeal to logic is either of God or exists apart from him. If God is not the locus of "logic" or "good" then you have to appeal to something other than God. This just pushes the argumentation back further, that there is another potential force that must be appealed to for God to be God.

Logic is simply how the universe works. No being determined it, and therefore God is not subordinate to another being because He must act within the bounds of logic.

I don't think we could safely say that "logic" is G.

Of course not.

Well let me ask you then. Who created the universe and who/what determined it's nature?

Nobody.

Matter and spirit are eternal, and were never created from nothing.

The universe simply is, and always was, and always will be.

The visible universe, on the other hand, was created by God in the sense that it was organized from the pre-existing matter and spirit.

I think I am following you here. You don't feel that G is worthy of worship, because G is some unintelligent force, like gravity and so forth. It is just something that God has no control over, like gravity and the speed of light. Correct?

If by "G" here you mean "Good", then yes, you are correct.

[Mudcat]

Hi Mudcat,

Excellent question personally I think neither traditional Christianity or Mormonism has a good solution. A traditional Christian would argue something is good because it is commanded by God and Gods nature is good. Of course this leads to the problem of arbitrariness. Why should Gods nature be taken as the standard of "good" why not your nature or my nature? Is it because God is all powerful? Does he who has the most power then determine what is "good"? What if it was Gods nature to torture infants given Gods nature is by definition good would it not then be good to torture infants? And all who refuse to torture infants would be committing a sin?

Hi Uncertain,

Welcome to the discussion. I bolded your bit about the problem of arbitrariness. The problem is only a problem if the scenario is unfair. In your case of torturing infants, then this would be unfair. However, God has not required us to do such so it is a non-sequitur. I don't think we are in a position to claim that God could have done X,Y or Z if any of those positions are inconsistent with what has been done.

IMO, such statements are logically inconsistent. It requires God to do something that is predetermined by God to wrong "torturing infants". I suppose you might have a point if you are saying that God gives people malaria and so forth. Is that where it's headed? If so let's just get there then.

I am a theist but frankly this is a thorny issue I am not at all sure what is a proper basis for what is "good". I take consolation in the fact that I have yet to hear a good atheist answer to this question . So at least everyone is in the same boat together.

Yes, I agree its a thorny issue. Seems there is no "good" way of being right.

Regards,

Mudcat