The Moral Argument

[Guest]

.... I do not trust what is in my heart. The human heart is unreliable. It is fickle and hypocritical. I trust the moral system written on the pages of God's Word.

Ok, fair enough. You don't.

But then how can you trust your values and motives when reading the Bible? How can you trust your understanding of what is written?

If you believe God created you, shouldn't you have a little faith in what God created?

Are you then left to trust what someone else tells you the Bible means?

Because I Know And Trust The Author

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. James 1:17

I Desire His Words Above All Others

Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. Psalms 119:11

Knowing There Is Where Truth

Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever. Psalms 119:160

And True Love Is Found

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16

Believe And Be Blessed Beloved

Love, Joe

[doubting_tommy]

ByFaithAlone - Thanks for your reply to me, I'm looking forward to giving you a proper response soon, but I shall be without internet access for a couple of days. Really interesting points though!

Edited September 3, 2011 by doubting_tommy

[ByFaithAlone]

ByFaithAlone - Thanks for your reply to me, I'm looking forward to giving you a proper response soon, but I shall be without internet access for a couple of days. Really interesting points though!

Awesome tommy... as I said, Epydemic2020 on youtube does a great job of explaining many of the debates around the Moral Argument so checking him out would be good. I will try to get back to you as soon as I can but with school going on it might be a while between posts. Thanks for your patience...

[doubting_tommy]

You are asking, “Can God not be God?” Of course not as this would defy all logic. As paradoxical as it seems, it is not impossible for an omnipotent God to be bound by logic. God, at least from the Christian perspective, cannot fail to be loving, compassionate, holy, etc. This is what I mean by His essential characteristics. He cannot be what he is not. He is not bound by some type of objective moral code but rather He is bound by the fact that He must be who He is.

We might pause here to consider what sort of thing this fact is (i.e. the fact that God must be who He is), and also to consider what it means for something to be what it is.

To take the first issue first, this seems like some kind of logical law- a thing must either be or not be, it cannot be both- so a square cannot be a circle, a triangle cannot be a square, and God cannot be anything other than God. I think that’s fair enough so far- we both seem to agree that God may be bound by laws of logic without that restriction impacting on God’s omnipotence.

What it actually means to say that “God must be who He is” is not yet clear to me though. It looks like a tautology- a thing is what it is. But things change all the time, and then the new thing is what it is. There seems to me to be no reason to suppose that God could not simply change His mind, and decide to be, let’s say, a different kind of God.

I think the question I want to ask at this point, however is the following: Is it possible that a law of morality is the same sort of law as a law of logic? (which is not to say that laws of morality *are* laws of logic, but rather that they are similar sorts of laws in that God might be constrained by them).

If we are happy to say that God cannot make a square circle, why not also say that God cannot make it moral to (for example) torture a baby for pleasure?

[Nakosis]

If I may jump in...

Yes, I believe that there are objective moral standards, although they are often quite complicated in practice.

For example, a lie can be the objectively moral choice if it saves a life.

Morality is objective, but the standard is the spirit not the letter of the law.

Love is the ultimate and objective goal of morality.

Love is the ideal source of one's moral decisions.

However it's really hard to love your enemies sometimes isn't it?

Probably best to make as few enemies as possible in life.

[ByFaithAlone]

What it actually means to say that “God must be who He is” is not yet clear to me though. It looks like a tautology- a thing is what it is. But things change all the time, and then the new thing is what it is. There seems to me to be no reason to suppose that God could not simply change His mind, and decide to be, let’s say, a different kind of God.

This seems to be the crux of your argument (please correct me if I'm wrong). You argue that God could somehow change his mind and therefore I would be again subject to what I label as the "New Dilemma" (see previous). However, from the Judeo-Christian perspective this is impossible. God (being eternal) is unchangeable. You are essentially asking the same question as before but replacing nature with mind. To God, who is merely Spirit or Being (again from the Judeo-Christian perspective), merely changing such wording does not effect the answer to the question. God's mind and nature are one in the same. From a Judeo-Christian point of view, God (and his minds, thoughts, etc.) is eternal, unchangeable, loving, perfect, etc. Asking God to stop being any one of these things would again fall under the logical consistency argument (i.e. God cannot be what He is not) and cannot be accepted as valid argumentation (as we agreed previously). That is the reasoning behind why we accept God as the final basis of objective morality.

A few verses that emphasize the Judeo-Christian perspective are as follows:

Hebrews 13:8 "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever."

Mal.3:6 "I the Lord do not change"

Duet. 33:27, Ps.90:2 "From everlasting to everlasting you are God."

[doubting_tommy]

What it actually means to say that “God must be who He is” is not yet clear to me though. It looks like a tautology- a thing is what it is. But things change all the time, and then the new thing is what it is. There seems to me to be no reason to suppose that God could not simply change His mind, and decide to be, let’s say, a different kind of God.

This seems to be the crux of your argument (please correct me if I'm wrong). You argue that God could somehow change his mind and therefore I would be again subject to what I label as the "New Dilemma" (see previous). However, from the Judeo-Christian perspective this is impossible. God (being eternal) is unchangeable. You are essentially asking the same question as before but replacing nature with mind. To God, who is merely Spirit or Being (again from the Judeo-Christian perspective), merely changing such wording does not effect the answer to the question. God's mind and nature are one in the same. From a Judeo-Christian point of view, God (and his minds, thoughts, etc.) is eternal, unchangeable, loving, perfect, etc. Asking God to stop being any one of these things would again fall under the logical consistency argument (i.e. God cannot be what He is not) and cannot be accepted as valid argumentation (as we agreed previously). That is the reasoning behind why we accept God as the final basis of objective morality.

A few verses that emphasize the Judeo-Christian perspective are as follows:

Hebrews 13:8 "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever."

Mal.3:6 "I the Lord do not change"

Duet. 33:27, Ps.90:2 "From everlasting to everlasting you are God."

I think there are two questions at play here.

The first is whether God could change His mind (I think there’s a difference here between saying mind and saying nature, but if you think they’re equivalent I’ll stick to mind for now).

The second is about what sort of thing a moral law is.

I would rather avoid the first question if I can, since that will likely get us bogged down in picking apart the Bible and arguing over interpretations.

If we suppose that a moral law is like a law of logic, then the reason God cannot change his mind is similar to the reason God cannot create a square circle. But this conception of moral laws puts morality “outside” God in the same way logic is “outside” God.

I think we should prefer that moral laws work in this way, so at this point I would like to know whether you think we have good reasons for supposing that this is not the case? (This is not to suggest that I have supplied an argument to suggest that it is the case)

[Nakosis]

Exodus 32:14

So the Lord changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people.

Sorry, I like these issues. They are like puzzles of justification...

Unchanging, what is meant by it. I think in the case of Jesus it means consistent. Or that God is consistent in his plan? will?

God knew he was going to change his direction. He knew the Hebrew would worship a false idol, he knew Moses would intercede. God waits for these milestones to occur to change direction. Because it was necessary for them to occur to teach the Hebrew. However God would also know his course of action if these necessary events did not occur.

God remains consistent and omniscient.

[Nakosis]

I fail to see the problem, since we are talking about morality.

"You shall not murder.'

"You shall not steal."

"You shall not bear false witness."

"You shall not make unto yourselves graven images and bow down to them."

"Honor your father and mother."

Seems pretty straight foward to me. Where is the confusion? God makes it pretty easy to understand. Why shouldn't I trust what is written?? Seems to me that you trying create an issue out of a nonissue.

Do you have a problem with those morality statements above??

Not me but I don't need the above statements from "God" as a basis for my morality. Hard to say if my morality would be the same if these statement were never decreed. Christian idealism has propagated itself through out the world. However my morality is what it is regardless of the commandments.

Would you do these things, would you disobey these commandments if you thought they had not been decreed by God? If God had written one should sacrifice their firstborn would you see this as moral? You'd have to right, because it was written? Since you couldn't trust your own feelings on this.

I don't trust what God created because God's creation has been stained with sin. It is no longer as He created it. So I trust the Creator instead, since He is perfect and is without sin.

What you are trusting is your understanding of these words. You are trusting your feelings that you can trust these words. You are trusting doctrines of your religion. You can't have it both ways. You have to trust yourself to some degree. It's a break with reality to claim otherwise. The doctrine is unviable, unworkable in any sense. However it's justification is necessitated by a theological stance only.

A child needs to trust their parents, whether their parents are actually trust worthy or not. Until they gain experience and understanding. However a person cannot remain a child forever. They'll never know who they can actually trust. Fairly you say you have the words in the Bible, you have nothing else to trust because you don't know what can be trusted. I trust this will not always be the case for you whether you understand that now or not.

[Nakosis]

Because I Know And Trust The Author

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. James 1:17

I Desire His Words Above All Others

Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. Psalms 119:11

Knowing There Is Where Truth

Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever. Psalms 119:160

And True Love Is Found

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16

Believe And Be Blessed Beloved

Love, Joe

As long as you know the author of the word written in your heart. Once written it becomes who you are. If you know the author then you should know you can trust the spirit given through grace.

Botz provided an excellent passage from Romans that I think touches on this. His use and understanding seemed very appropriate at the time. I'll have to see if I can find it again.