Comments on: The transcendental ethics of God

By: Ray Ingles

Ray Ingles — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 12:59:39 +0000

You do have a point about an “internal” critique, where it’s assumed as an axiom that whatever God does is good. Of course, the case is usually set up as a reductio ad absurdam where the attempt is made to show that this assumption leads to a contradiction.

One often-advanced argument for God is the shared “moral sense” that people have, the intuition that some things are right or wrong. Usually, the “internal” critique attempts to show that assuming ‘everything God says is right’ leads to a contradiction with our moral intuitions, a la the verses of Samuel and Joshua mentioned before.

This is not a rigorous mathematical proof, necessarily, but it’s not entirely vacuous either. It does, at least, point out something a theodicy needs to address.

By: Patrick Chan

Patrick Chan — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 02:08:38 +0000

Hm, can I post it on your behalf then like I do with some of Steve’s posts? (Just kidding. I know you don’t want to. I’m just playin’.)

By: Charles Sebold

Charles Sebold — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 23:37:30 +0000

I am not worthy to untie the sandals of actual posters at T-blog. *smiles* Besides, I cribbed all my theology from them.

By: Patrick Chan

Patrick Chan — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 23:36:09 +0000

You ought to post this on Triablogue if you haven’t already done so.

By: Charles Sebold

Charles Sebold — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:22:51 +0000

Mr. Ingles has written a paper on non-theistic morality, actually.

By: Charles Sebold

Charles Sebold — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:19:01 +0000

Of course, if there are other ways to understand morality and ethics, then it’s entirely possible to mount an “external” critique a God’s ethics without “borrowing” an “ethical system”. That’d be an interesting thing to debate.

As I said, that wasn’t the point of this post, but yes, one would have to evaluate the feasibility of non-religious (more specifically, perhaps, non-Christian) ethics to see whether an external critique could be mounted.

But, even sticking within the Christian system, what this basically boils down to is the ultimate case of “might makes right”. God is the toughest entity around, and gets to set the rules. The people who collaborated with Nazi occupiers had the right idea, they just picked the wrong bully to submit to. (After all, by this logic, killing babies isn’t wrong if God commands it - 1 Samuel 15:3, Joshua 10:40.)

“Might” in the sense of “supremacy and ownership” does indeed determine the standard for good and evil within the Christian system. But implying that God is a bully (which I’m guessing is more what you meant by “might”) puts you right back outside the system again, because that’s a judgment of God. God can’t be both Good and not-Good, and within the framework of the revelation of God, He is Good. To say otherwise makes the critique an external one.

By: Ray Ingles

Ray Ingles — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 19:37:26 +0000

Of course, if there are other ways to understand morality and ethics, then it’s entirely possible to mount an “external” critique a God’s ethics without “borrowing” an “ethical system”. That’d be an interesting thing to debate.

But, even sticking within the Christian system, what this basically boils down to is the ultimate case of “might makes right”. God is the toughest entity around, and gets to set the rules. The people who collaborated with Nazi occupiers had the right idea, they just picked the wrong bully to submit to. (After all, by this logic, killing babies isn’t wrong if God commands it - 1 Samuel 15:3, Joshua 10:40.)