Introduction
One of the hidden drivers in our public debates about homosexual lust and practice is that a widespread and presupposed Pelagianism has riddled the church. I am happy to explain myself here, but I would like to ask you to walk with me for a piece.
Ability and Obligation
Pelagianism holds, among other things, that a man cannot be blamed for what cannot be helped. In this system, sin is defined in accordance with our ability to meet the standard. If we cannot meet the standard, then it would obviously be unjust to hold us to the standard. Ability limits obligation. If I have no ability to jump over the ocean to Hawaii, then clearly I can have no moral obligation to do so. Makes sense, right?
Except that this muddles the difference between natural inability and moral inability. Natural inability answers every moral accusation that might be brought against a man. I can have no moral obligation to pick up rocks in my driveway and bounce them off the moon, because I have absolutely no physical ability to do so. This kind of inability really does limit obligation. I do not feel guilty for my inability to fly like a bird, or swim like a dolphin, or burrow like a mole. Neither do I feel guilty over my inability to publish in staid and responsible journals. The metaphorical adjectives have to go somewhere, and I can’t just keep them in my head. They just crowd in. Where was I?
But if my inability is a moral inability, then that inability excuses nothing. In fact, this kind of inability compounds the sin, making it worse. The Lord does not call the Pharisees a nest of vipers, but then go on to make the crucial point that vipers can’t help being what they are, having been “born that way” to viper parents. Not at all. Nor did the Lord hasten to add that we should be building bridges not walls. Little narrow snake bridges. See what I mean?
A man can have the natural ability to do something that he has no moral ability to do. For example, I have the physical ability to walk down to our main city square, and to stand on a bench, and yell slanderous and malicious accusations about my deceased mother. I have the feet, I have the lungs, I know the words, and no one has a gun pointed at me to prevent this from happening. But while I have the natural ability to do it, I do not have the moral capacity to do it. My point is considerably stronger than I would rather not. My point is that I couldn’t. Natural ability to do “this or that” and moral ability to do “this or that” are clearly two different things.
Sin According to Scripture
Now all this is because sin is defined by Scripture, and not by our inability to do what Scripture requires. The fact that we have no moral ability to do what God requires of us compounds our guilt, and does not remove it. We have the natural ability to do what God requires—a true statement does not require more of us physically than a lie—but we do not have the moral desire. Our hearts do not desire holiness. This kind of inability, created by the shackles of what sinners want, cannot be compared to an innocent inability.
Consider this short litany. Before conversion, we are all objects of wrath by nature (Eph. 2:3). We were dead in our trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1). We were slaves to sin (Rom. 6:6). Slaves can’t run free, dead men can’t go their own way, and the one central thing that not one of us can run away from is our own nature. All of this language demonstrates a radical inability, and all of it points to blame resting on the one exhibiting that inability.
So Scripture has the authority to wrap personal responsibility around our dirty necks, and the world has sought to fight this authority by resorting to the language of “disease” or “addiction” or “genetic programming.” Those are the spoken words, but the Pelagian confusion is lurking in the background. If alcoholism is a disease instead of being the habit of drunkenness, which is a behavior, then we shouldn’t blame anyone for it. We don’t blame them for catching other diseases, do we? And if addiction zeros out ability, then it also zeros out obligation, which means that someone who kicks their habit can be treated as some kind of paragon. Moral philosophers of previous ages who watched any of the ticker tape parades we give to celebrate the heroism involved in breaking a vile habit would be, to use a favorite term of theirs, bumfuzzled.
Make no mistake: there is an important place for celebration over repentance. See the prodigal son (Luke 15:22-24). See the Lord’s statement about joy in Heaven over one sinner who repents (Luke 15:7). But celebrating repentance is a very different thing from celebrating the innate goodness of someone who had a really tough time making it back into common decency. There are two mistakes to avoid here. One is that of the older brother, who wasn’t going to celebrate anything. The other is the mistake of the libertines back at the tavern who aren’t going to celebrate anything either, now that they had to pay for the hookers and drinks with their own money.
The Nature of Scriptural Blame
When speaking of the sexual sin that characterized false teachers, writers of the New Testament compared them to rutting animals who do what they do by instinct. Does this justify their behavior? Not even a little bit.
“But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction” (2 Peter 2:12, ESV).
“But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively” (Jude 10, ESV).
So then, the hunt for a “gay gene” was a hunt for a Pelagian get-out-of-jail free card. That is because, if they ever found it, they could wave it under the nose of the modern evangelical church, which is chockablock with Pelagianism and not-so-semi-Pelagianism, and they would all say, “Whoa. Can’t argue with the science.”
Right. Suppose the science to be good, for the sake of discussion. We can still argue with the implicit Pelagian assumption that moral inability limits obligation because it is just like natural inability, which, of course, it isn’t. Sin is defined by the God who made us, and not by our rationalizations, which have unmade us.
Because I am loath to leave any ambiguity, this is because Scripture does not just fault us for what we do. It faults us for what we are. The corrupt fruit we produce is blameworthy, and God will judge us for such filthy deeds. But the fruit reveals the nature of the tree, and a corrupt tree can do nothing but produce corrupt fruit.
“O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things” (Matt. 12:34–35).
How can you, being evil, speak good? The answer is that you can’t. The words that come from the mouth reveal the nature of the heart’s abundance.
Scientists Find the Viper Gene
So suppose that after dint of much federal funding, our scientists finally found “the viper gene.” This is the gene that makes us love ourselves, hate our neighbors, despise God, and cultivate our precious lusts. There it is, under the microscope. There, that little twisted black one.
If we are thinking biblically, we would not capitulate to this evidence on the basis of a shared Pelagianism. We would never say, “Well, then I guess that you all can’t help being vipers.” No. What we would actually say is something like, “Look at that! Proof that the Bible is correct! We are sinful by nature!”
Why would finding a genetic basis for homosexual lust ever excuse anybody? We know that heterosexual lust has a genetic basis, and Scripture still condemns it. A young boy is enjoying life, and all his waking thoughts are occupied with cultivating an honest work ethic by means of his paper route, and enjoying the simple pleasures of his baseball card collection. Then one day his body floods with testosterone—which he did not in any way request or ask for—and blam. Breasts and legs everywhere.
Bottom line: We are to submit ourselves to the standard set by Scripture. We are not to concoct some tomfool standard, assembled from the shards of our own moral helplessness. Otherwise, what is a gospel for?
Strange Vanities
Now as Van Til noted, unbelief oscillates between rationalism and irrationalism. A great deal of the groundwork for the homosex revolution was laid in a rationalistic application of the principles of this Pelagianism. If a man or woman “was born this way,” then it would be obviously unjust to blame them for what they could not help. So the argument has gone, and it has been pretty effective on Christians who have, unbeknownst to themselves, been quietly assuming a Pelagian rationalism that made them vulnerable to the argument.
But once the church was cowed by this Pelagian rationalism, once we were frozen in place by it, the world meantime has raucously careened over to the irrational end of the pendulum swing, now telling us that gender orientation is a social construct.
The world has given us an argument which, given our assumptions, “should hold us for a while,” and they have scampered off to find more genders than will ever be found under anyone’s microscope. The source for all these is not in the DNA, but rather in the fevered imaginations of our horny seers. Good luck cataloging the genome of the pornified mind—57 genders and counting.
But—and I shouldn’t have to go over this—if it is a social construct, then it is not a genetic construct. And if it is a genetic construct, then it isn’t a social construct. If it is a social construct, then you weren’t born this way because you weren’t born any way. And if it is a genetic construct, then the rebels are still constrained by the limits of a world God “tyrannically” imposed on them.
Instead of answering this conundrum, the revolutionaries have settled for telling us ignorant haters to shut up. “If you can’t tell the difference between sex and gender, there is no sense talking to you bigots.”
“They hold fast deceit, they refuse to return” (Jer 8:5).
“Why have they provoked me to anger with their graven images, and with strange vanities?” (Jer. 8:19).
I strenuously disagree. No way was anybody making gluten-free wedding cakes in the 1950s.
Also, http://grammarist.com/spelling/loath-loathe-loth.
I am loathe to admit you are right, but thanks.
Loath not correction.
The page on “averse” and “adverse” was somewhat helpful.
Bethyada, my beloved Fowler always insisted that one say averse from, not averse to. But I have never met anyone who does this. Do they in New Zealand? My Snowflake is back. She fell madly in love with an Israeli soldier who returned her affections. But, alas, they were doomed to be parted, the Snowflake possibly being repelled by the prospect of compulsory military service if she stayed. She said the most moving part of her trip was the Children’s Memorial at the Holocaust Museum. It is a dark room lit with candles and mirrors to give the effect of… Read more »
Not that I have ever seen a Gal Gadot movie, but she apparently was in the IDF.
Perhaps the snowflake would consider a stint on the IDF as a good resume’ move! (?)
Perhaps there is a place in the world for a hello kitty uzi?????
Never heard that rule. Mind you my grammar education was lacking.
Good to hear your daughter had fun and is safe. I haven’t prevented my children from this kind of information. One could go overboard perhaps, but I have found kids can usually handle things well. They are sad but not emotionally scarred. My kids can watch The Passion. My wife can’t.
I can’t watch it either.
I am not sure what I will do when I attend “Hamilton” this fall. I haven’t been able to listen to the second act where his son is killed in a duel. Anything involving the death of a child sends me over the edge.
I didn’t think it was the cake being reference there, though. Am I wrong?
Jane, in which paragraph is the cake reference? I can’t find it and am feeling stupid.
There’s a pic of a cake in the meme. Taking, humorously, the caption to be referring to the whole image, I protested the gluten-free claim. But nothing like an explanation to kill a joke. ;^)
Thank you! I read the text far too many times looking for a cake. I ought to train myself to look for pictures now and then!
Don’t feel bad, Jill. I CRTL-F searched “cake,” and then “gluten,” and then furrowed my little brow for quite a while, before I decided to just start rereading really slowly — and then I noticed the image. :D
“Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I DWELL IN THE MIDST OF A PEOPLE OF UNCLEAN LIPS: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” (Isaiah 6:5, capitals added for emphasis) We are not only sinners, but we are part of the only sinful race (the human race), and this – rather than excusing us – makes us even more guilty.
Pelagianism, fascinating. I quite agree with this post. That fits well with my constant questioning, why does it seem like everyone suddenly thinks they’re good? Drunks are just addicts suffering from a disease, homosexuals are born that way, those people don’t know any better because they just weren’t raised right, and so it goes until we’ve got more excuses for sin than Carter has pills. We’re just innately good people who sometimes do bad things due to circumstances totally beyond our control. And terrorists just need more job training….. So as crazy as it sounds, I have been really blessed… Read more »
Actually, the NIH and other leading researchers estimate that alcoholism has an identifiable genetic basis in about fifty to sixty percent of alcoholics. Although the network of genes is too complex to summarize here, there is support for the hypothesis that an impaired gene does not metabolize ethanol in a normal manner. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t people who simply drink too much without any genetic impairment at all. And it also doesn’t mean that people who have the faulty genes don’t have a responsibility to control their drinking. It may be like the migraine gene–it is there, but… Read more »
What is exceedingly apparent in my mind, musing as I was over what you’ve written here, Pastor Wilson, is the simple, foolish-to-the-world’s-eyes usefulness of presuppositionalism in undermining the basis for all of the arguments of the God-haters. The Pelagians, endearing themselves to humanity in the false hope that, no, the image of God in Adam’s sons can’t really be as marred as scripture says it is, have become the “useful idiots” of the God-haters who, in “suppressing the truth in unrighteousness” claw and scratch, like a blubbering idiot in an asylum, at every attempt at rationalizing away the truths of… Read more »
The following sentence has a typo
But—and I shouldn’t have to go over this—if is a social construct
I think it should be “if it is a social construct”
Greetings! I’ve often heard in my Christian recovery meetings that addictions are our efforts to fill the Jesus-sized hole in our hearts with something else. Certainly sex and alcohol were my fillers, just as I suspect homosexuality, drug use, and even religion have been for others. Admitting my powerlessness over sin did not excuse my behavior, but it did point to and prove my need for a Savior. I don’t see many pharisees (or homosexuals for that matter), sharing that they are powerless over sin. They demonstrate the ‘giving over’ that God has done in Romans 1:24-32. It seems to… Read more »
The worldview of the Pelegians also tends to increase suffering, but especially on the afflicted. They create an oppression narrative wherein they move the problem to their ‘oppressors’ and the oppressed, whether really afflicted or just the new group de jour, don’t have to become better people until they’re the ever-shifting definition of equal – never. So no one ever is supposed to become stronger, or more moral, but is supposed to notice ‘oppression’ more acutely, down to the micro level. So no log is ever removed from their own eyes and they just walk around feeling the weight of… Read more »
If an omnipotent being wants to create people with a sin nature and then punish them for the sin nature he created them with, who can stop him? The benefit of being omnipotent is that you can do whatever you want. But by what bizarre definition of the word would you call such a being moral? No wonder Katecho gets such a case of the vapors whenever someone (usually me) invokes a non-theistic approach to morality; the God you describe is about as immoral an actor as one can imagine. If you believe that God exists, fine. But don’t insult… Read more »
So, Krychek, are you saying that an omnipotent deity who had created a race of robots incapable of disobedience would have been morally superior?
Capndweeb,re-read Doug’s post; he comes very close (if he doesn’t actually cross the line) of arguing that God created a race of robots incapable of *obedience* who will be made to suffer for their inability to do as God commands. If that’s the alternative, then yes, I think it would have been hugely morally superior to create the robots to do the right thing rather than the wrong thing. P.S. I don’t believe in free will, and I would assume most of the Calvinists here don’t either. The difference between their world view and mine on that issue is that… Read more »
Could you explain for me what you mean by not believing in free will? Does this mean that the individual really cannot conform his conduct to the standards of his particular group and that his compliance or noncompliance is accidental depending on what is being required of him? Do you believe this in the literary sense as in Oedipus making the prophecy come true by seeking to avoid it? Or in the biological sense that our DNA is our destiny? Or in the environmental sense in that, brought up as I was, I cannot help being what I am? How… Read more »
Jill, you have the power to do what you want, but you don’t have the power to choose, change or determine what it is that you want, and what you want is entirely outside your volitional control. If I offer my cat a choice between tuna or broccoli, it looks like she’s making a choice, but in reality her feline nature makes the choice for her. So any notion of choice is basically an optical illusion, just like the optical illusion that the sun revolves around the earth. Likewise, if your child is in physical danger, and you have the… Read more »
Krychek_2 wrote:
Speaking of optical illusions, why does a materialist like Krychek_2 still cling to the notion of volition at all? Does he still suppose that atoms can be stacked in a careful arrangement such that they cease to react to their prior state and begin to volunteer for desired motions?
He’s already given up the reality of choice, and seems headed for the nihilistic event horizon where everything becomes an illusion.
Show me where I said I believe in volition. Since I’ve already disavowed free will, I really don’t see how you could conclude that I believe in volition. You really need to learn to read carefully; it’s a terribly useful skill to have.
The logical fallacy you’ve fallen into is “If something is outside X, then X must exist.” Nope.
Krychek_2 wrote: Show me where I said I believe in volition. Since I’ve already disavowed free will, I really don’t see how you could conclude that I believe in volition. I’m tempted to believe that Krychek_2 really does lack volition, but it’s not the case, he’s only saying this because he lacks the volition to say anything else. How did this lack of volition result? Philosophical zombification is an inescapable side effect of materialism, and the nature of pure material reaction. Krychek_2 didn’t even see it coming, and there was nothing he could choose to do about it even if… Read more »
And when I am offered a choice between a chocolate bar and loathsome broccoli, I may choose the broccoli because, unlike the cat, I can consider many more factors than what I naturally prefer. I may think of my nutritional wellbeing, my mounting dental bills, the fact that it is the middle of Lent, or the example I am setting to a young person whose diet I supervise. I can choose to forego immediate pleasure for a greater good. I can do this even when nobody is watching. It is true that I am biologically driven to choose even a… Read more »
If I am on a diet, and you offer me a chocolate bar, I am immediately conflicted by two impulses: The desire to lose weight, and the desire to eat the chocolate bar. Which one wins simply depends on which one is the stronger at that moment, which may not be the same one a moment later. But the choice will be made by whichever desire is stronger and not by my own free will. Which is the same with the person running into the burning building. If he is a hero, it’s because his desire to do the right… Read more »
Maternal instincts lead women to abortion clinics all the time. Maternal instincts lead many women to leave their children at home alone while they drink and party. Maternal instincts lead many women to not bother to feed breakfast to their children since they know the school will do it for them. Fraternal instincts cause men to walk away from their children all the time and to make more children with other women while caring for none of them.
Krychek_2 wrote: And there’s also the minor detail that in my world view, nobody goes to hell for stuff they really had no control over. In the Christian worldview, Krychek_2’s act of apostasy and unbelief is invested with eternal import, meaning and significance. Apart from repentance, he goes to Hell for eternity, to be apart from God, just as he wished. On the other hand, in Krychek_2’s accidental, purposeless, reactionary worldview, there is no intentionality, and Krychek_2’s act of apostasy and unbelief is just another happenstance occurring in the space between his ears. There is no meaning or significance to… Read more »
Krychek_2 wrote: I don’t believe in free will, and I would assume most of the Calvinists here don’t either. Krychek_2’s materialism doesn’t permit intentionality, let alone free will, but somehow that doesn’t stop Krychek_2 from attempting to persuade us to change. The irony. Regarding Calvinists, I’ve personally corrected that error from Krychek_2 in the past. Here’s something I wrote recently in response to Jill Smith under another thread: Krychek_2 believes in an impersonal, mechanistic, materialistic, reactionary, determinism, without any goal or purpose, let alone any culmination in justice. I believe in a personal, purposeful, and sovereign determining/ordaining God who works… Read more »
First, Katecho, I don’t recall ever trying to persuade anyone here to change anything. When have I ever told people here to abandon their Christian faith and become atheists? You’ve stated your opinions; I’ve stated mine; and that’s that.
And second, “the action of creaturely will is simply subject to His guiding and overruling determination at all times” is simply a weak attempt to square the circle and reconcile the irreconcilable. You can have Divine sovereignty or you can have free human will, but the two are in hopeless conflict with each other. So pick.
Krychek_2 wrote: First, Katecho, I don’t recall ever trying to persuade anyone here to change anything. When have I ever told people here to abandon their Christian faith and become atheists? You’ve stated your opinions; I’ve stated mine; and that’s that. It’s mighty magnanimous of someone who believes in a purposeless, accidental universe, without any expectations of any kind, to acknowledge that he isn’t trying to persuade anyone to change anything. What a shocker. Who could have seen that coming? Is it any surprise that the one who doesn’t believe in choices in the first place is now claiming that… Read more »
Katecho, what’s not magnanimous is to impute to me positions I haven’t taken, views I don’t hold, and actions I haven’t taken. In fact, it’s dishonest if you’re doing it on purpose, and sloppy if you’re not.
Krychek_2 wrote: Katecho, what’s not magnanimous is to impute to me positions I haven’t taken, views I don’t hold, and actions I haven’t taken. In fact, it’s dishonest if you’re doing it on purpose, and sloppy if you’re not. Krychek also wrote: First, Katecho, I don’t recall ever trying to persuade anyone here to change anything. Isn’t Krychek_2 just now trying to persuade me and others that I’ve been dishonest? What happened to: You’ve stated your opinions; I’ve stated mine; and that’s that. Why is Krychek_2 so vested in being right all of a sudden? Am I not entitled to… Read more »
You’re entitled to your opinions; you’re not entitled to impute opinions to me that I don’t hold. And this post is a perfect example of why I normally don’t respond to you.
Krychek_2 wrote: You can have Divine sovereignty or you can have free human will, but the two are in hopeless conflict with each other. So pick. I’m not advocating for any notion of unbounded, libertine free will. However, there’s nothing inherently irreconcilable about real creaturely choices, and real sovereignty. Even if we ignored God’s direct intervention and interaction in history, He could successfully ordain and declare the end from the beginning based on His perfect foreknowledge of our choices alone. Fortunately, foreknowledge of an act does not necessitate that God be the agent who performs it. God has made other… Read more »
Nope, Katecho, the two are irreconcilable for the simple reason that if only one choice can be made, then there is only one entity that can make it. If God’s sovereignty can override my free will, then I don’t have free will. If my free will can override God’s sovereignty, then he isn’t sovereign. It would appear I hold your views more consistently than you do.
Krychek_2 wrote: If God’s sovereignty can override my free will, then I don’t have free will. How does that follow? If a child chooses to disobey by wandering out into the street, and his father pulls him back inside the gate and locks it, does that mean the child didn’t make a choice? (Notice how sin can lead to a punitive reduction in choices from what were originally available to us. Before the gate was locked, the child could have chosen to walk over to his friend’s house next door, but because of the choice of disobedience, that option is… Read more »
If there is no free will, then what of love? Can real love exist in the absence of free will?
Capndweeb, yes. Could you by act of your will choose to stop loving your spouse or your children? Probably not; your nature compels you do.
So, you are saying that a robot can love you?
These days, robots can be programmed to do pretty much anything you can do. It’s going to be a huge wind out of lots of people’s sails when science confirms that we’re not special.
Krychek_2 wrote: These days, robots can be programmed to do pretty much anything you can do. It’s going to be a huge wind out of lots of people’s sails when science confirms that we’re not special. Krychek_2 is a true believer. It’s astounding to behold his credulity. He thinks we are talking about a simple matter of programming. Clearly he has no concept of the difference between syntax and semantics. I wonder if Krychek_2 believes that an encyclopedia set knows something. Surely it contains a lot of knowledge, right? A robot participates in loving in the same way that an… Read more »
Actually, people can and do chose to stop loving their spouse and children every darn day. So our nature alone does not compel us to love at all.
Not everyone has the same natural inclinations as everybody else.
I think ‘check is saying that if a robot was created that would do nothing but make him twinkies, he would find that laudable and praiseworthy!????
Man does not live by twinkies alone. (Yes, I realize the level of heresy in that statement.)
You laud the homo debaucheries and the leftist violence, um, I mean speech, yet are insulted when we bristle against your fictitious, rationally indefensible approach to make-believe morality? You know a tree by its fruits.
Eric, if God exists and is the only independent, immediate, and self-existent thing or being, how are you going to come with some idea of morality to which to hold Him accountable?
If God is God, then He is not subject to you or your standards. You simply do what He says or suffer the consequences.
The God of Scripture could simply act that way, but He instead graciously condescends and doesn’t just annihilate from a distance.
I’m taking a break at work so I’ll need to respond to everyone else later tonight, but just quickly, and just to be clear: wtrsims, is it your position that if God told us to torture puppies, or rape elderly women, or practice pedophilia, that those acts would then suddenly become moral simply because God told us to do them? That there is no such thing as an act which is moral or immoral on its own, but rather is moral or immoral because God told us to do it or not do it?
“If all the Jews were killing and eating the infants and young children of the Germans, wouldn’t Hitler have been right to send them off to concentration camps and gas them?” “Well…. perhaps… but the Jews weren’t killing and eating German infants and young German children….. sooooo….. ???” That’s a fun game to play. You’re still trying, as a derivative being, to come at a self-existent being with a standard that has to be defined somewhere and by something (someone). Within the context of Scripture, and the God presented therein, you have a record of historical actions that were actually… Read more »
wtrsims, if you read the Old Testament, you find lots of stuff God told people to do that is on the same moral plane as torturing puppies, so there’s no need for me to traffic in fictional what-ifs. If Joshua were alive today, he’d be on trial for war crimes.
So back to my original question: Is there such a thing as an atrocity so grotesque that it would remain an atrocity even if God told people to do it?
you find lots of stuff God told people to do that is on the same moral plane as torturing puppies
Or perhaps there is not… because judgment for sin is not equivalent to random torture for pleasure.
You mean judgment for sin that the individuals involved had no real control over. Which I’m pretty sure was Doug’s central point: That God does punish people for things they had no real control over. Try, just for one minute, to put the shoe on the other foot. Suppose you die and find that the God of Islam is the true God after all, and you are going to be sent to hell for getting it wrong. Well, why did you get it wrong? Because you believed what you had been taught since early childhood, same as Muslims do, and… Read more »
I don’t think all Muslims go to Hell. Nor do I hold to Doug’s Calvinism.
But you have shifted the goal posts. Genocide is not judgment.
Genocide most certainly is judgment when God tells Joshua to perform genocide as a judgment on the unbelieving Canaanites.
Krychek_2 wrote:
Atheists love to use emotionally loaded words like “genocide” because it sounds like arbitrary racial malice, rather than true justice and deserved punishment.
However, the Canaanite tribes were judged righteously, for actual wickedness, and it had nothing to do with their race. They weren’t a different race than the tribe of Israel. Some repented and were welcomed into the people of Israel, and even into the lineage of Christ Himself, such as Rahab.
Silly silly silly. No you don’t.
I’d like for you to provide an example.
To answer your question, the creator of the game gets to make the rules, and beings who are dependent upon Him for existence and who depend upon him for definition cannot logically step outside of His reign to claim His rules are against the rules.
Yes, he gets to set the rules. The question is whether those rules are moral. It’s not that they’re against the rules; he gets to set the rules. It’s whether those rules fit within the definition of morality.
I m trying very hard to wrap my head around this. Are you asking if the god whom you think is a figment of our imaginations gets to set the rules, and if so, do these rules have to comport with morality as defined by both believers and nonbelievers? If people have gone to the trouble of inventing a god and a detailed theology of his nature, is it not reasonable that they would give this imaginary deity the power of inventing moral rules and penalties for breaking them? And, from your viewpoint, isn’t this a bit like your protesting… Read more »
Krychek_2 is busy importing his unbelief into our worldview, as though it should amount to a robust refutation of something.
If the God whom I believe to be a figment of your imaginations exists, I will concede that he gets to make the rules whether I think they’re just or not. And I also accept that you believe he does exist. What I’m not conceding is the objective justice of the rules. Ultimately, at the end of the day, none of this really matters because I don’t think he exists, so whether the God that doesn’t exist is more like the Calvinist God, the Unitarian God, or the Mormon God is an academic point. And the reason I keep showing… Read more »
Krychek_2 wrote:
Krychek_2 conceded objective justice when he adopted materialism. He conceded all expectations, let alone just ones.
Krychek_2 wrote:
You heard it here first. Because Krychek_2 doesn’t think God exists, “none of this really matters”. Indeed. We’ve been trying to warn Krychek_2 for years.
Katecho, are you really incapable of reading words in their context? The “this” I was referring to was the specific question of the attributes of God; not a general “this entire universe.”
Krychek_2 wrote:
I don’t think I’m any less capable of reading his words in their context than Krychek_2 is at reading my sarcasm. Detecting my sarcasm is an open question, however.
You’re questioning whether His rules can be against the rules or not. That doesn’t make any sense. You’re currently being dogpiled and I don’t have much interest in doing that to you. However, the point is that you cannot take Christianity seriously and honestly if you think it makes any logical sense to call the God of Christianity “immoral,” because the God of Christianity is the One who gets to define morality and does so in accordance with His character, so it’s a case of “A” not being able to simultaneously be “Not A.” Taking Christianity seriously means that you… Read more »
wtrsims, it is possible to say both that the rules are the rules AND ALSO that the rules are unjust and should be changed. That’s basically my view of the last presidential election: Under our Constitution, we have an electoral college, which Donald Trump won, but the electoral college has outlived its usefulness and needs to go the way of the dodo and passenger pigeon.
Yes, God gets to make the rules and those are the rules, but that’s a separate question from whether the rules are just.
God gets to make the rules and those are the rules, but that’s a separate question from whether the rules are just.
But you admitted that morality is not about justice but about maximising welfare in the community.
Advancing justice *does* maximize welfare in the community.
It may do, but you are appealing to maximising welfare not appealing to justice. Why should unjust situations that happen to maximise welfare be morally opposed?
Because most of the time unjust situations don’t maximize welfare in the community, and allowing them to happen on the rare occasions that they do makes it easier for them to take hold and become the norm. If I set my mind to it, I could probably come up with some weird scenario in which it would be a good idea to allow a convicted rapist to be in charge of a girl’s dormitory, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good general practice, or that even allowing it that one time might not set a bad precedent for later.
You’re still undershooting the target. God, if He be God, gets to be God. That includes defining morality, the rules, justice, codes of conduct, table manners, gets to overrule Emily Post and Amy Vanderbilt, tells Robert what order really means, and determines if ending a sentence with a preposition is a thing we should worry about. Whatever that standard, the standard has to come from somewhere. If you have a standard that overarches God, then is God *actually* God? I’m saying no, which means that you aren’t really taking Him seriously. If the God of Scripture is true–indeed, Truth–and He… Read more »
So then, back to my earlier question: If God tells you to torture puppies, does it then become a moral act because he told you to?
If torturing puppies accorded with God’s character, then as a matter of definition, it would be moral. How would it not be? Christianity defines morality as being that which accords with and is defined by God’s character.
You’re doing to Christianity what you claim Katecho does with your atheistic materialism.
You claim that he doesn’t take it seriously and honestly all while you do the same with Christianity.
You’re trying to poison the well with absurdities like torturing puppies and raping elderly women, but you’d be ticked if Katecho tried the same nonsense with you.
Krychek_2 wrote:
“Grotesque” reveals the inherently sentimental nature of Krychek_2’s line of argument. It’s about the feels.
In any case, “grotesque” already assumes an independent and universal framework for our moral instincts. Where does Krychek_2 suppose that framework would have to come from in order to be authoritative? Oops.
Wait, how can you even ask that question if you believe that the one committing the “atrocity so grotesque” has no free will to not commit it. Kind of judgmental of you isn’t it? If your worldview were consistent, you would remember that whether it be puppies or Canaanites, they have absolutely the same intrinsic value whether dead or alive, tortured or expiring of old age (Hint: the value would be zero).
Hey Krychek_2, I don’t want to speak for wtrsims, but this question assumes in it something that the church historically has not taught, and the bible doesn’t support. The morality of the universe is not established by Divine Mandate, rather by Divine Design. God created this world consistent with His nature, and the morality of the universe is established by His Character, out of which the world was made. To state it another way, the design of the universe and the morality in it are reflections of God’s Nature. Now, God obviously does say things, but His speech is merely… Read more »
Kilgore, how is torturing puppies, raping elderly women or practicing pedophiia less consistent with the God of the Old Testament than genocide, killing thousands of innocent Israelis because their king ordered a census, or being angry at Saul for not being sufficiently bloody enough when he killed off the Amalekites? Or wiping out small babies in Noah’s flood? You sure have a selective notion about what God is and is not capable of doing consistent with his nature. You’re mistaken that molecules in motion is all the universe consists of, and you’re also mistaken that secularists have nothing more to… Read more »
Krycheck, Your argument fails at a number of points. I recommend a more careful/thoughtful reading of the OT. So: 1. Torture, rape and pedophilia are all contrary to God’s law; i.e. inconsistent with God. 2. God never commanded nor committed genocide; the purpose was not to eliminate a certain kind of person because of their ethnicity, but to judge people who had ignored God’s command for right behavior for centuries at least. Genocide and judgment for sin are different things; a dictionary would help you here. 3. David’s judgment for the census was partly the pain of seeing how his… Read more »
Great response by Dave W.
Krychek_2 suffers from the need to import his external unbelieving paradigm into the Scriptural account. We’ve cautioned him on this error before. He needs to be able to provide an internal critique of the account that doesn’t depend on his personal unbelief.
And Dave, you’ve missed my main point, which is this: In order for punishment to be just, the punishee must have had fair opportunity to avoid it. The Canaanites didn’t, and neither did the Israelites who were killed for David’s census. It’s not even clear to me from the story that David himself knew it was wrong to take the census; I don’t recall anything in the passage where God explicitly told him not to do it. But even if my memory is mistaken on that point, what you have is a parent telling one son, “What you did was… Read more »
Krychek_2 wrote: And Dave, you’ve missed my main point, which is this: In order for punishment to be just, the punishee must have had fair opportunity to avoid it. Krychek_2 is arguing as if his view of morality was suddenly based on virtue rather than pragmatic expediency. He’s quite the moving target. Be that as it may, Krychek_2 is simply reasserting his rejection of the principle of representational justice. Odd that we didn’t hear Krychek_2 complaining about this structural injustice when Obama was making decisions, on our collective behalf, as the federal head of the nation. Where was Krychek_2 to… Read more »
You do have fair opportunity to avoid governmental policies you don’t like; you can move to a country with policies more to your liking. I don’t have the option of moving to another universe with a different God more to my liking, however.
But your analogies are inapt anyway. A government policy you disagree with is not punishment like going to hell is; someone who goes to hell is going to hell because he’s been adjudged guilty of something.
Krychek_2 wrote: You do have fair opportunity to avoid governmental policies you don’t like; you can move to a country with policies more to your liking. Clearly Krychek_2 and I have a different understanding of what a fair opportunity is. His concept of fairness seems to include the idea that if a citizen doesn’t like something, they can just tear up their roots and leave. Krychek_2 wrote: But your analogies are inapt anyway. A government policy you disagree with is not punishment like going to hell is … I wasn’t trying to compare the degree of consequence. (Not much can… Read more »
Krycheck, 1. The punishee’s did have a fair chance; all those being punished for sin were given Creation, Conscience, and Providential Blessing in their lives, all of which provide adequate testimony that God exists, and that he should be obeyed and worshiped rightly. 2. God tells Abraham He is waiting until the iniquity of the Amorites is full, i.e., they were getting more time to repent of their sins before Joshua’s conquest. During that time they had testimony of Creation, Conscience and Providential blessing, which obligated them to repent. They refused. 3. David knew he was doing wrong; Joab rebuked… Read more »
Dave, neither creation, conscience, nor providential blessing will provide a clear explanation that the God of the Bible is the true God and the God of the Book of Mormon is not. Even if I accepted that premise in general, and even if I expected people to think about such things without being prompted, all they’re really going to tell me is that there’s something out there. Do you really think that if you had never been presented with a clear Gospel, that creation, conscience and providential blessing would have given you enough information that you would have discovered God… Read more »
Krychek, I suppose if you wanted to eliminate the three principles I gave it would change very little, since you and I both agree that history shows man as almost completely religious from earliest times and without geographical exception. Pure atheism has always been an impressive minority. What I think this should force you to admit is that with very little exception, man has historically believed exactly what I said above he has believed: God or gods exist. Secondly, we would both agree that finding a group of people, wherever in history, who not only denied the reality of moral… Read more »
Dave, God did not merely make room for David to make decisions that result in pain for others; that plague that killed thousands of Israelites was not a natural or necessary consequence of the census. The plague happened because God actively made it happen. And, as I’ve already pointed out, religion has always used force and terror to stay in power, so it’s not surprising that most cultures have been religious. Take a look around you and see how many Americans ceased to be religious as soon as there was no coercion for them to be religious. Sure, they still… Read more »
Krychek_2 wrote:
Molecules in motion assumes a space-time environment for them to move in. But what else has Krychek_2 got? Did he suddenly forget that he was a materialist? Or has he finally recanted materialism?
OK, so Katecho still doesnT’t understand the boundaries of materialism. I’m shocked.
Under your caricature of materialism, life itself would be impossible since the universe is nothing more than dancing molecules. But we know that life does exist, so perhaps you should re-examine your caricature.
Notice that Krychek_2 didn’t answer my question about what else he’s got besides molecules in motion. He was completely silent about that. Makes one wonder what he is hiding (or not hiding, as the case may be). Krychek_2 wrote: Under your caricature of materialism, life itself would be impossible since the universe is nothing more than dancing molecules. But we know that life does exist, so perhaps you should re-examine your caricature. Krychek_2 seems to have skipped some steps here. As with morality, consciousness, and intentionality, the existence of life doesn’t demonstrate that I have misrepresented materialism. If I have… Read more »
But you don’t accurately represent materialism; your comments about it are caricatures. Morality, consciousness and intentionality, while they are material phenomena, are also entities unto themselves that follow different rules than individual molecules. But we’ve been over this before.
Krychek_2 wrote: But you don’t accurately represent materialism; your comments about it are caricatures. So Krychek_2 asserts. But where are the specifics to back up the claim that I’ve misrepresented materialism? Krychek_2 wrote: Morality, consciousness and intentionality, while they are material phenomena, are also entities unto themselves that follow different rules than individual molecules. What material phenomena does morality correspond to? Krychek_2 needs to give some specifics for this claim. Is there a chemical formula, or a pattern of neural firings that are to be regarded as moral? What material property is morality attached to? How does an abstract entity… Read more »
Well, you’ve given us a pretty good example of your misrepresentation of materialism with your claim that the universe is nothing more than molecules in motion. That’s like arguing that the Bible — or Hamlet — is nothing more than ink blots on paper. And yes, if I thought I could see intentionality in a material chain reaction, that would be ironic, but since that’s not my position it’s a moot point. And it is not inconsistent with the laws of physics that morality, consciousness and intentionality exist; given what we know of biochemistry (which is really a specialized subset… Read more »
Krychek_2 wrote: If you take hydrogen and oxygen and combine it, you’ll get something completely new … But what you won’t get is something that moves with regard to abstractions, such as desire, purpose, meaning, goals, intent, morality. You’ll still have a material reaction, with motion that can be completely described by laws of physics. This is the case with all reactionary matter, regardless of how you arrange it. It continues to be reactive, rather than proactive. There is no soul to quicken it. We’ve been over this extensively with Krychek_2 before. There is no self or consciousness that activates… Read more »
By definition, reactionary matter is reacting, but that doesn’t mean that all matter does nothing but react all the time, or that it doesn’t become proactive when combined in the right way. And no, you don’t know about the nature of matter and physical reactions or you wouldn’t be spouting the arrant nonsense about it that you do.
My point is not that the God of Scripture rules capriciously as if he were Islamic, but that an omnipotent being who is not dependent upon anything gor his existence has a tight to do whatever he pleases; however, the God presented in Scripture is gracious and His personality coincides with what we conceive of as rationality and reason because those are themselves defined by His character.
Not being Reform, the dogma I hold may be a bit different from that held by some others here. I believe, first, that it is often difficult to judge an act as moral or immoral if it is completely stripped from context. I am sure there are exceptions, but even the morality of the act of killing someone must be judged in context. That being said, I think it possible for a rational person to judge an act as moral or immoral without conscious reference to God. I believe that because I think we are created in the divine image,… Read more »
Krychek_2 wrote: … is it your position that if God told us to torture puppies, or rape elderly women, or practice pedophilia, that those acts would then suddenly become moral simply because God told us to do them? Krychek_2 is attempting the classic Euthyphro dilemma. Unfortunately, it’s a false dilemma that, as is Krychek_2’s pattern, devolves into an unsustainable sentimental appeal (complete with tortured puppies). A major problem with the argument is that it requires Krychek_2 to assume that his (and our) own perception of the wrongness of things like rape and torture of the innocent isn’t already a reflection… Read more »
Greetings Krychek_2, we’ve not interacted before – but I’ll take a stab. Colossians 1:16 says, “All things were created by Him and for Him.” Based on your comment, I expect that means something different to both of us. Similarly, your commenting on a Christian theology blog means something different to both of us. Thank you for encouraging me to search out the answer for myself. Though I do it imperfectly, I believe my purpose is to glorify God. What is the purpose of your definition of morality or the root of concern that your intelligence is being insulted? When that… Read more »
John, I’ll respond to the purpose of morality below when I respond to Katecho.
“If an omnipotent being wants to create people with a sin nature and then punish them for the sin nature he created them with, who can stop him? ” Somewhat funny, I had a 13 year who once said those same kind of words to me. “You made me!” I certainly did not, that child sprung forth from a cabbage patch. Pain the in the neck that she is, my behavior in having plucked her from the cabbage patch was both laudable and praiseworthy, as have been my efforts to teach her not to jump off cliffs or run into… Read more »
Krychek_2 write: If an omnipotent being wants to create people with a sin nature and then punish them for the sin nature he created them with, who can stop him? God didn’t originally create man with a sin nature though. We are the fallout of Adam and Eve’s accountable rebellion. Krychek_2 can’t just leave out that part of the history of broken relationship. What God did was righteously judge mankind representationally, through Adam and Eve, such that all mankind is born in the darkened hole that our first parents fell into. God withdrew His light, leaving mankind disposed to even… Read more »
Katecho, first, congratulations on finally having a thread on which my world view is actually relevant to the conversation, which means this time you get more than your usual brush-off. I’m sure you’ll enjoy that while it lasts. However, it probably won’t be anything I haven’t already said, and I’m sure next week you’ll be pretending all over again that I didn’t say it. The basis for morality is that it is impossible for humans to live without it. You could equally as well ask about the foundation for a digestive system or a circulatory system. If we don’t have… Read more »
Krycheck, You missed Katecho’s point, and you are conveniently using a definition of morality which is not morality. He is saying you have no basis for moral condemnation; then you respond that you do believe in morality, but what you seem to mean is that you believe moral standards of some kind are useful. These are two very different things. Whether a belief is useful says nothing about whether it is true. If I believe getting drunk will make me liable to the Bogey Man, this belief may be useful, since it keeps me from harmful behavior, but it is… Read more »
Yes, true and useful are two different concepts, and it may surprise you to find out that I think religion (at least some permutations of it) has its uses even though I don’t think it’s true. That said, I think you are using a definition of morality that is far too cramped. It’s a definition that is basically designed to require a God for its existence.
And I suppose that as you define morality, maybe it does require God for its existence, but please understand that yours is a definition probably not shared by many people outside your theological circles.
Krychek_2 wrote: Yes, true and useful are two different concepts, and it may surprise you to find out that I think religion (at least some permutations of it) has its uses even though I don’t think it’s true. That said, I think you are using a definition of morality that is far too cramped. Krychek_2’s notions of morality are based on utility and fitness, rather than virtue and truth. Under that view, he should be conceding that theism is even more moral than atheism, as judged by its historic survival utility over atheism. Why won’t Krychek_2 follow his own reasoning… Read more »
Utility *is* a virtue. Fitness *is* a virtue. As with all virtues, there are sometimes circumstances in which you have virtues in conflict, but they are virtues. As for theism’s historical survival, in much of the world today, and in most places in history, open atheism had harsh sanctions. Don’t say you’re an atheist in the Muslim world unless you’re looking to get killed, and, until fairly recently, that was true in much of the Christian world too. Scotland hanged someone for being an atheist as recently as 1706. So don’t tell me that religion’s success with fear, intimidation and… Read more »
Krychek_2 wrote: Utility *is* a virtue. Fitness *is* a virtue. So if someone is really efficient at skinning and gutting live babies, that’s a virtue? If the strain of ebola virus is really fit and strong, then it’s virtuous? Wouldn’t the virtue of utility toward some end depend on the virtue of the particular end itself? But how will Krychek_2 establish the virtue and value of the ends in a purposeless, accidental universe? He’s never been able to sustain a response to this dilemma. He likes to simply assume that human life, or human flourishing is a valuable end in… Read more »
Katecho, because the capacity to do something is a virtue, but that doesn’t mean every possible application of it is virtuous. It’s a good thing that I know how to drive a car, especially if I’m using that skill to do good works, but that doesn’t mean it’s still a good thing if I drive drunk and kill someone.
Krychek_2 wrote: Katecho, because the capacity to do something is a virtue … The capacity to choose to do something is volition, and Krychek_2 has recently rejected volition. If there is no volition, neither is their any virtue. There can be no virtue in doing something that one had no causal will in doing in the first place. Oops. Krychek_2 is making first order mistakes today. Once again, virtue eludes his utilitarian and materialistic worldview. Krychek_2 wrote: It’s a good thing that I know how to drive a car, especially if I’m using that skill to do good works, but… Read more »
I didn’t say a word about the capacity to choose to do something; I said the capacity to do something.
Krycheck, notice that when you want to condemn the OT God you use a definition of morality which involves objective right and wrong; then, when you have to establish a basis for your own moral philosophy, you switch to utility, since you know enough at that point to know you have nothing transcendent to ground your ethic. I am defining morality as an objective boundary line which, if crossed, results in objective guilt for the transgressor. Now, for you to suggest that definition is somehow limited to my theological group is unworthy of adult conversation. Let’s start with yourself: You… Read more »
Dave W wrote: Krycheck, notice that when you want to condemn the OT God you use a definition of morality which involves objective right and wrong; then, when you have to establish a basis for your own moral philosophy, you switch to utility, since you know enough at that point to know you have nothing transcendent to ground your ethic. Dave W nailed it with that observation. Trying to pin down Krychek_2 on the subject of morality is almost like talking to two different people. He is full of moral expectations one moment, and the next he’s explaining how choices… Read more »
I think I just responded above to most of your points. Utility is a necessary but not sufficient part of morality, so for you to claim there’s some sort of Chinese wall between them is simply misplaced. And yes, morality is objective; I’ve never claimed otherwise, nor do I travel in the garb of a moral relativist (at least as I think you mean the term). So taking it from the top: We agree that morality is objective; we agree that morality and utility are different things but I would add that they are normally found together. Our point of… Read more »
K2, that’s just it. Without a God of some kind – of course I don’t just believe in a God “of some kind” – then nothing is objectively right or wrong. If I weren’t a Christian I’d have to be a deist, at least. Or a nihilist.
The problem is that 2+2=4 has never and will never be right in front of your nose. Of course the marks we put on paper can be in front of your nose; the ideas represented by the marks cannot. Why? Because they are immaterial. No microscope or thermometer or other physical instrument will ever be able to find them. Morality requires a transcendental standard in order to satisfy the inevitable question: “Says Who?!” This question arises whenever someone makes a moral evaluation. So, if you think morality objective, then I assume you believe murder objectively wrong. But sans a transcendental… Read more »
Of course you’ll disagree with me, but here it is anyway. First of all, “who says” is founded on a flawed premise. Who says the sun is hot or Pluto is cold? Who says water is wet, or prime rib contains cholesterol, or that ingesting cyanide will kill you? Answer: Nobody “says” in the sense of being prescriptive; there is no cosmic legislature that passed laws declaring that henceforth the sun will be hot. Rather, people look at the reality and accept the results (or don’t accept them, but that doesn’t mean they go away). And since morality is objective,… Read more »
Krychek_2 wrote: Living in community requires that certain behaviors be encouraged and others be suppressed. What behaviors do mackerel encourage or suppress in their communal living? How about jellyfish? What does “the data” show? Krychek_2 hasn’t made the case that community life requires any moral awareness at all. In materialism, morality is just an arbitrary artifact of our species, just like communal life itself. So one happenstance can hardly lend necessity to the other. Krychek_2 wrote: I would argue that the humanism we’re now seeing take hold is on track to produce far better results than religion ever did. I… Read more »
Krychek_2 wrote: Since I need a community in order to survive, does Behavior X enhance that or detract from it? Leaving aside the dubiousness of his premises, what Krychek_2 is offering is utilitarianism, and expediency, not actual virtue. Krychek_2 may say that things like rape and torture of small children are inefficient, relative to an arbitrary goal of social order, but he can’t say that such actions are wicked. We continue to remind him that he has yet to establish any value for human community in the first place. His materialism lacks a framework for valuation. Everything is the product… Read more »
I most certainly can and do say that such actions are wicked, and would be even if in some strange circumstance they were also utilitarian. And I explained why in my response to Dave W. I’m not repeating myself. (Well, when I revert back to “you’re very silly,” which I’m on the verge of doing, I’ll repeat myself.)
Krychek_2 wrote: And yes, morality is objective; I’ve never claimed otherwise, nor do I travel in the garb of a moral relativist (at least as I think you mean the term). I realize that Krychek_2 claims objectivity for his morality, I just point out that he is unable to sustain that claim from within the limitations of his materialism. His arguments reference subjective preferences for things like misery and felicity, so it’s unclear what he thinks is objective about his morality. It seems completely ad hoc and arbitrary in a sea of arbitrary and purposeless existence. Krychek_2 wrote: … nor… Read more »
What makes you think that no one can do much about having a human nature prone to sin?
Jill, because how exactly would one change that? Within your paradigm, if I decided I didn’t want to sin any more, how exactly would I accomplish that?
This is an easy one for a Catholic! Much harder to do than to describe, but the method is part of a Catholic education. Choose the sin which comes most naturally to you and which you know is grieving God and your conscience. For the sake of the example, let’s make it be me and the sin I want to overcome is malicious or ill-natured gossip. I will leave most of the spiritual parts out and focus on method. First, I analyze myself and the problem. With whom do I do this? What am I getting out of it? Is… Read more »
Krychek, don’t you think that the actions of Israel’s God in the Old Testament were very useful to their society in that he gave them a cultural identity that has lasted for millennia and a people-group that has survived all attempts to destroy them? In that sense, God’s actions were pragmatically “moral” according to your standards and you have no right to condemn them. The Christian worldview has created the most liberated and equal societies in history, at least when they were actually built on biblical foundations. So I’m not sure why you are criticizing God’s morality if your standpoint… Read more »
Pragmatism and utilitarianism are not the same thing. Assuming you’re right that God’s actions in the Old Testament did build a cohesive society, the question is whether he could have accomplished the same result with far less misery by using a different method. Who knows, if he had sent missionaries to Canaan rather than Joshua’s armies, maybe the Canaanites would have converted and there would have been land enough for all of them.
“the question is whether he could have accomplished the same result with far less misery by using a different method.”
K2, the question, as always, is: Assuming you are correct and there is no God, what does the method or the outcome matter? If you care, even in the abstract, you know better than what you profess.
JohnM, the method and the outcome matter because every human who lives out a normal life expectancy has 70 years on this planet (more in countries with single payer health care), and those years can be years of misery or years of felicity. Just because I don’t expect to live forever doesn’t mean I want my brief stay on earth to be the hell that a society with no ethics would be.
k2 you should move to a single payer country now before the rush hits. I understand that the Venezuela single payer is still working well. Cuba’s single payer worked so well that Castro and the other favored ones went to doctors outside of the Cuban single payer system. Cubans put the state before God so that should fit your outlook well.
Cuba is close and it should meet all of your needs. My Dad always said the Cuban rum was outstanding and the cigars were good so you should have a good time while you test your theory there.
I prefer Sweden, Germany or Japan, all of which have single payer, robust economies, and individual freedom.
K2, you should move now and that way you wouldn’t have to complain about our health care system anymore. Also, in the countries you named, you wouldn’t have to worry about dangerous Christians.
However, this is just like those who said if Bush or Trump were elected president they would leave the US. Well, all the big names came back regardless of their previous oaths. Most of the draft dodgers came back years ago even though they said they would never return. So just give it up, K2. Give it up.
Give what up? I never said I would leave the country if Bush or Trump were elected. I think their policies were/are disastrous. In fact, I’m not sure America as we know it will still be here if Trump serves eight years. But it sounds like you’re trying to get me to keep a promise I never made.
No, I don’t move; I stay and fight. I will live to see single payer in the United States, probably sooner than you think. With a solidly Republican Congress, they don’t even have the votes to repeal Obamacare.
Krychek_2 wrote:
If that happens, Krychek_2 will probably also have lived to see quadrillion dollar national debt (sooner than he thinks).
It’s hilarious that Krychek_2 thinks that anything Japan is doing is sustainable, given their spiraling debt and demographic implosion.
K2, your discussions morph into whatever makes you seem to come out with the better part of the discussion. You are just like those who said they would leave and then didn’t leave or came right back to the good ol’ USofA. Previously, you wanted an end game to single payer and I pointed out that the communist countries had single payer and you said they were poor examples. They are the end game for single payer. The end game for the politics you espouse is misery and poverty for the majority of those living under them. We have already… Read more »
“Single payer is bad because communism” is a really bad argument for the same reason “Hitler loved animals, therefore loving animals is a bad thing” is a bad argument. It’s the logical fallacy of undistributed middle.
How do misery or felicity matter at all? Your wants have no value, and ethics is a meaningless concept. If I want your misery and I could have it without consequences (which also are meaningless) to my felicity that is no different in value than me wanting your felicity and you couldn’t give me a reason for not doing what I want.
JohnM, do I really have to explain why pleasure is preferable to pain? I suppose if you’re into pain, go for it. But I certainly don’t have any trouble understanding why misery is to be avoided and felicity sought after. It’s almost as if you’re asking, Why should I not jump off a cliff? You really need an explanation for that?
K2,
Yes, give me a why should. Why should I prefer your pleasure to your pain, if I can equally have my pleasure either way? For that matter, how is it that there is any “should” at all? Jumping off a cliff or not jumping off a cliff are equally meaningless. There is no such thing as meaning. There is no you.
JohnM wrote: Yes, give me a why should. Why should I prefer your pleasure to your pain, if I can equally have my pleasure either way? For that matter, how is it that there is any “should” at all? Jumping off a cliff or not jumping off a cliff are equally meaningless. There is no such thing as meaning. There is no you. Well said, all the way through to the last. Krychek_2’s materialism doesn’t even offer a sustainable warrant for belief in the self. Material reactions do not move with regard for intent, or meaning, or any other such… Read more »
Well, if you think jumping off a cliff or not jumping are equally meaningless, then feel free to jump off a cliff and let us know how it worked out for you.
Johnm, if you’ll scroll above, I just posted a fairly lengthy response to DaveW that I think answers your points as well. Take a look at it and let me know if it did and, if not, let me know which points I still need to respond to.
Krychek_2 wrote: Well, if you think jumping off a cliff or not jumping are equally meaningless, then feel free to jump off a cliff and let us know how it worked out for you. I thought Krychek_2 said he doesn’t travel in the garb of moral relativism? If not, why does he keep referring to my subjective experience in order to determine meaning? On materialistic terms, if my life is meaningless and purposeless, ending it by jumping off of a cliff is equally meaningless and pointless. Nothing matters. Nothing is expected of anything. In any case, I don’t think that… Read more »
But your life is not meaningless. It’s appalling to people who value reason, logic, and good arguments, but not meaningless.
Krychek_2, Since you’re not dense you are disingenuous, both in your response to me, and in your allusion to me when you responded to DaveW. I’m not offended, I just observe. I’m not the one who professes to dis-believe in the transcendent. If I’m mistaken, and you do profess to believe in something transcendent, something that gives value and meaning, you need to explain who/what, why, etc. You haven’t done that, and your professed materialism can’t do that. Do you not see the irony in you being the one saying “just try living out those principles”. If you’re an atheist,… Read more »
You have some funny ideas about what atheists believe. For starters, atheism is not a positive belief; it’s a negative belief. Saying I disbelieve the Easter Bunny tells you nothing about what I *do* believe. Telling you I disbelieve astrology tells you nothing about what I *do* believe. The only thing an atheist believes is that there’s no good evidence for the existence of God. Period. Try defining people by what they do believe and not by what they don’t believe. And I think your confusion as to my supposed belief in the transcendent comes from the problem of you… Read more »
“The only thing an atheist believes is that there’s no good evidence for the existence of God. Period.”
Well, no that’s not the only thing atheists profess, not the unflinching ones anyway, I’m not sure the above describes atheism at all. Are you an atheist or an agnostic? In any case, telling yourself there is no good evidence for the existence of God is unbelief, all the same.
Yes, of course morality requires something transcendent. That requirement is first on the list.
Krychek_2 wrote: JohnM, do I really have to explain why pleasure is preferable to pain? The question is not whether pleasure is preferable to pain. We can describe our preferences all day long, but it will get us no closer to prescribing what our preferences ought to be, or whether our preferences have any meaning or value. Krychek_2 wrote: I suppose if you’re into pain, go for it. Indeed. Krychek_2 has nothing to say about what ought to be preferred. He has basically admitted it here. Krychek_2 wrote: But I certainly don’t have any trouble understanding why misery is to… Read more »
While not agreeing with Krychek on the source of our morality, I think this is an easy one to answer. He would say that evolution has hardwired a certain amount of compassion into everyone who isn’t sociopathic. Most people (and most apes and chimps, actually) are distressed by the sight of people suffering enormous pain or grief. It is innate in healthy humans to help others if it can be done without too much trouble to themselves.
Jill Smith wrote: He would say that evolution has hardwired a certain amount of compassion into everyone who isn’t sociopathic. Evolution has also hardwired the sociopath, so that argument won’t work. It doesn’t tell us whether the behavior of the sociopath is more or less valuable than anything else. It tells us what is, but not what ought to be. Remember that evolution isn’t selecting for truth or value. Whatever behaviors result are complete happenstance. Compassion is an accident of nature that is not present in many other species that do just fine without it. The attempt to assign value… Read more »
Evolution has not hardwired the sociopath; he’s a statistical outlier. And it does give us an ought — survival to pass along one’s genes, which humans accomplish by living in community.
Krychek_2 wrote: The basis for morality is that it is impossible for humans to live without it. … That’s because humans can only survive in community (absent a few outliers), and living in community requires encouraging some types of behavior and discouraging others. I know Krychek_2 repeatedly accuses me of not paying attention, but I’m fully aware that he has made this argument before. The problem isn’t that I’ve forgotten that he offered it. The problem is that Krychek_2 has forgotten that it was fully refuted at the time, and that his argument died of starvation due to lack of… Read more »
All right, my lunch break is over, so Katecho’s last post will have to wait until later tonight.
No, Katecho, it was not refuted before. You disagreed with it, but that’s not the same as refuting it. The bio-chemical functions of an individual human may or may not work with morality, but it’s not going to work as soon as two or more people start living together. You’ve gone back to the error of assuming that an organism has the same properties as the individual atoms that make it up, and that’s just wrong. And as far as human life being the standard for morality, if you don’t value your own life, feel free to toss it aside.… Read more »
Krychek_2 wrote: You disagreed with it, but that’s not the same as refuting it. If Krychek_2 had an explanation to avoid the refutation, he should provide it for us. Krychek_2 wrote: The bio-chemical functions of an individual human may or may not work with morality, but it’s not going to work as soon as two or more people start living together. You’ve gone back to the error of assuming that an organism has the same properties as the individual atoms that make it up, and that’s just wrong. Krychek_2 attempted to argue that a requirement for morality suddenly pops up… Read more »
What make you think mackerel don’t have morality?
Krychek_2 wrote: What make you think mackerel don’t have morality? I’m sure Krychek_2 would rather invite me on a rabbit trail than engage the substance of the refutations. So let’s just grant, only for the sake of argument, that mackerel can have moral awareness. How is it essential to their existence in a community? That’s what is being refuted. Krychek_2 needs to make a plausible argument, if he thinks he can. He should also anticipate whether his argument applies to colonies of jellyfish, which don’t even have a central nervous system to carry around such abstract concepts. Remember that it… Read more »
I see I didn’t need to invite you on a rabbit trail; you did just fine finding it for yourself. Send a postcard.
Note that Krychek_2 was unable to defend his assertion that morality is essential or necessary for existence in community life.
Krychek_2 wrote:
How can I “feel free” to toss it aside if there is no volition? Recall that Krychek_2 has rejected free will and volition. It’s almost as if there are two Krychek_2s, who have not compared notes with each other.
“The basis for morality is that it is impossible for humans to live without it. You could equally as well ask about the foundation for a digestive system or a circulatory system. If we don’t have it, we die.”
So which came first, morality or the circulatory system?
The circulatory system. Existence precedes essence. See Sartre.
Point that I think some are trying to raise is this – if morality is simply a useful human construct and invention (beneficial for keeping us alive), fine…. but then on what basis do you condemn or judge God for not conforming to it? He isn’t human, why would you demand he have to conform to a morality that, according to you, humans invented for the benefit of humans? It would be like me calling a civilian immoral for not conforming to military grooming regulations.
Daniel, my annoyance is not so much that God doesn’t conform to it, as it is with people who insist that he does conform to it in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence. There’s a cat in my neighborhood who has recently killed several birds. I’m not going to fault her for being a cat; that’s what cats do. As someone who likes birds more than I like cats, I wish she would stop. But I will laugh to scorn anyone who claims that she is kind and loving toward the birds and only thinks about how to better their… Read more »
You are not a cat. Neither is God.
Bast was an Egyptian cat god. He was so powerful that when any housecat died, the homeowners had to shave off their eyebrows in sorrow. I expect no one reproached him (or them) for killing birds.
MeMe, point taken, but so what?
Krychek_2 wrote: There’s a cat in my neighborhood who has recently killed several birds. … But I will laugh to scorn anyone who claims that she is kind and loving toward the birds and only thinks about how to better their lives, because that is just ridiculous. And that’s the same issue here. There are lots of reasons why it isn’t a valid metaphor at all, but one of the primary ones is that Krychek_2 has completely discounted guilt and innocence. It’s not even a factor in his metaphor. He simply assumes the birds have done nothing worthy of death.… Read more »
Who needs guilt or innocence? Morality may be objective, but the need for it is consequential. And that, I think, may be why you still don’t seem to understand my position (I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt that you’re not deliberately dissembling). There are objective oughts, but they reason they are objective oughts is the consequences of abiding or not abiding them. Cats, unlike humans, lack the mental capacity to understand this (though in their defense you’re not doing such a great job of it either) so they cannot be held accountable for their actions. Humans can.
Krychek_2 wrote: There are objective oughts, but they reason they are objective oughts is the consequences of abiding or not abiding them. No. There may be objective relationships between cause and effect, but, in materialism, none of that implies any oughts or prescription of any kind. There are no expectations of any outcome in a purposeless, arbitrary universe. If I cut my hand, the consequence is that I will bleed, but nothing in materialism says whether I ought to bleed or not bleed, die or not die. The concept of “need” never enters into the discussion. Krychek_2 pleads that he… Read more »
“If an omnipotent being wants to create people with a sin nature”
Hmmm, I’m a Christian and i don’t hold that assumption. As far as I know, God didn’t create humans with a sin nature. Other than some denominational outliers, I think you’d be hard pressed to make a case for that assumption.
“See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes.” Eccl 7:29
“He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?”
So, can I clarify for my understanding…. you believe in an absolute, eternal, overarching standard of morality so universal and unbreakable that even the God of Christians (who you consider to be a figment of their imagination) would be subject to (and thus could rightly be deemed “immoral” if he failed to conform to this standard) if he in fact existed?
Daniel, I wouldn’t have phrased it precisely as you did, but that’s the gist of my position, yes.
Krychek_2 says he believes in a standard of morality that is so “absolute, eternal, and overarching” that it doesn’t even depend on God’s existence. Yet somehow this moral standard depends on a material existence? Well, unless Krychek_2 is a Platonist, just pretending to be a materialist. Which Krychek_2 are we reading this time?
Yet, you believe that we can conform to this absolute standard only if our natural inclinations lead us that way, because we established elsewhere that, faced with a decision, we have no volition but must follow our strongest impulses and instincts.
How does this differ from Calvinism (there is an absolute standard of moral perfection which we can never meet due to our natural depravity) except that there is no divine lawgiver and no eternal stakes?
Jill, first of all, our desires and natural inclinations can be molded. We do that with children; we don’t leave them in their natural lord-of-the-flies condition. Instead, we train them and teach them to live out their better instincts rather than their worse ones. The criminal justice system, likewise, changes the calculus. After someone’s inclinations have been molded, they’re still not acting out of free will — they’re now doing what they’ve been encouraged and taught to do — because it’s still the stronger desire that prevails. What has changed is which desire is now stronger. Second, you don’t even… Read more »
“But by what bizarre definition of the word would you call such a being moral?…the God you describe is about as immoral an actor as one can imagine.”
Isaiah 55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
God by his own admission is incapable of your standard of morality.
You can have your non theistic morals, but you can’t establish non theistic ethics.
You can tell Him so yourself as soon as you cross the great divide. Until that time, why do you care what other’s think or preach? And why would anyone care if they have insulted your intelligence? Douglas can post whatever he likes on his own blog and you are not under compulsion to read any of it, much less, respond.
Did anyone see the beat-down that Rosaria Butterfield issued to the PCA at (get this) a PCA church in Nashville? Oh, my. Dr. Butterfield appears to have an affinity for dead hetero white guys like John Owen who keep her rooted in the Gospel and, from the looks of it, cocked and ready to fight. I think she called the PCA love-affair with same-sexism “dumb” or something like that. Douglas – this post was a great addition to that. Keep writing.
Link?
http://www.alliancenet.org/mos/1517/thinking-that-they-are-more-merciful-than-god
Thanks
Well, no significant disagreement… but I don’t quite get why the emphasis on (get this) the fact she was within a PCA church? It seems a quite appropriate venue to issue a challenge to that denomination. Were you expecting rather a beat down to the UCC from within a PCA church? Or would it have been more or less shocking if she had issued this challenge to the PCA from within a Methodist church? But if you think that is something…. I once heard a pastor give a beat down to the PCA at (get this) the PCA General Assembly….!… Read more »
“Neither do I feel guilty over my inability to publish in staid and responsible journals.”
A-hah, so you can fly like a bird after all.
“A young boy is enjoying life, and all his waking thoughts are occupied with cultivating an honest work ethic by means of his paper route, and enjoying the simple pleasures of his baseball card collection. Then one day his body floods with testosterone—which he did not in any way request or ask for—and blam. Breasts and legs everywhere.” Oh my!! I can’t think of anything to say. Ouch!
This post underlines the reality that all social heresies are rooted in theological heresies. Culture follows the church.
Jesus said we are the light and salt. There is no other. The mushy Pelagian ‘gospel’
is what needs to be cast out onto the pathways. They are the blind leading others into the ditch.
This is a poor argument. There’s no way to lay this at the feet of Pelagius since he explicitly taught that the idea that it’s impossible not to sin was nonsense. Yes, he said (essentially) that “a man cannot be blamed for what cannot be helped”, but he only said that to point out that man can, in fact, resist all sin on their own. You’re taking one of his premises and using it to draw the exact opposite conclusion that he did, then blaming him for your incorrect conclusion. In reality, this issue is more a matter of most… Read more »
WATYF wrote: There’s no way to lay this at the feet of Pelagius since he explicitly taught that the idea that it’s impossible not to sin was nonsense. Yes, he said (essentially) that “a man cannot be blamed for what cannot be helped”, but he only said that to point out that man can, in fact, resist all sin on their own. Wilson’s is correct that the original operating premise is Pelagian. Even WATYF acknowledges that Pelagius held the premise that, “a man cannot be blamed for what cannot be helped”. Wilson is not arguing that Pelagius reconciled the premise… Read more »
[just that he was the classic promoter of the premise itself.] “The”? He’s hardly the only one to promote it. It’s pretty central to Arminianism, after all. Regardless, you can’t fault him for a premise that he brings to a completely different conclusion than others. You’re essentially saying, “It’s Pelagius’s fault that all these people didn’t bother to read everything he said”. Pelagius (for those who are even aware of his teachings) is primarily known for his conclusion: that man can choose all on his own to live a sinless life. I daresay that no one on earth is aware… Read more »
WATYF wrote: He’s hardly the only one to promote it. It’s pretty central to Arminianism, after all. But Arminius came along more than 1000 years after Pelagius, which explains why Pelagius is generally credited for the premise (as Wilson does). WATYF wrote: Regardless, you can’t fault him for a premise that he brings to a completely different conclusion than others. Wilson is faulting Pelagianism for the premise itself. Correctly so, since the premise is flawed. It doesn’t matter to Wilson’s argument how Pelagius tried to reconcile a flawed premise. WATYF wrote: So if anything could be laid at his feet,… Read more »