Harry Baird wrote: ↑Sat Oct 22, 2022 7:17 pm
Of course, of course: the key question is once again ignored; snipped; obliterated from the response.
I don't deal with statements that are merely rhetorical, or simply obviously wrong. I try to focus on the relevant, wherever possible.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Oct 22, 2022 1:57 pm
If even your own worldview cannot provide a rational account of why you are owed "justice,"
It can and does
Saying that doesn't make it so. But you can show it does: just state your worldview (Evolutionism, Materialism, Pantheism...) and explain how it makes it rational for you to expect "justice." That should be doable very easily, if you can do it at all.
This doesn't, though, solve the dilemma, it simply changes its expression a little, to something like this:
(2A) Are morality/justice whatever God's character/nature happens to be, or (2B) does God's character/nature conform to the standards of morality/justice?
If 2A, then morality/justice are arbitrary; if 2B, then morality/justice are not grounded in God but in some external standard. In neither case have we grounded morality/justice.
Your problem is in your wording. You've conceptualized the claim entirely wrong, then faulted it for being wrong in the way you are being wrong.
You use the phrase "happens to be," as if God had a character derived from chance or the accidents of pre-existing happenings. Likewise, you use "conform to," as if there's something prior to God to which He could potentially "conform." Both wordings require us to think of a God that comes into existence after some other thing -- either "justice" or other "happenings." So you're positing a contingent god...like Socrates's polytheistic "deities," and asking a question that only suits their case, just as Socrates himself insisted was the case.
But God's character is eternal and intrinsic. Being without start, it has no "cause," no "derivation," no "explanation as to why it is what it is," nor does it require any. The very request is, itself unintelligible. One cannot ask, "How did the eternal nature of God begin?" or "
Why is it what it is?" anymore than one can ask for a square circle or a married bachelor. The problem is in the askers conceptioon, not in the response.
There are no standards of morality/justice that precede, exceed or transcend their existence in the character of God.
You have a parallel situation in the question of origins of the universe. If the universe were, itself, and eternal entity, we could not ask what its "cause" or "origin" was. The question would not be coherent. But as it is, we know for certain that the universe is contingent and temporal, not merely from cosmology but also from entropy, which is probably the most common, readily observable, scientifically-measurable and demonstrable property we know. So we can ask the question about the origin of the universe because we can see it is not an eternal, self-existent entity. But we could not ask it if it were not so.
Atheists recognize what a difference eternity makes. Why do you think they're in such a hurry to embrace things like the Eternal Recurrance or Multiverse Theories? They're hoping to find some reason that the origin of the universe no longer needs to be accounted for. Even they realize that Theists could not ask origin questions about an eternally-self-existing universe.
And you can't ask legitimation questions about an eternal God. You would need to imagine an contingent God, first, in order to do that.
The upshot is that the "god" in whom you are expressing your disbelief is not the God I believe in either. Neither of us believes, with Socrates, in a contingent group of "gods." (See his specific questions to Euthyphro: he actually asks him precisely about the disagreements among "gods," before he rolls into the "dilemma"; even Socrates himself knew he needed polytheism to float his dilemma.)
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Oct 22, 2022 1:57 pm
My definition is the dictionary definition,
And your dictionary is your "Scripture"?
What?
I simply mean, "Do you take whatever Oxford / Merriam Webster / Cambridge / etc. say as inerrant? Definitions are contingent attempts to explain a term when it's used most generally, and within a specific cultural context. They are not sacred. But you seem to take it as if quoting one dictionary can not only prove the term is coherent to your worldview, but that it can legitimize the term as well.
In which case, "unicorn" and "pixie" have to be legitimized realities as well.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Oct 22, 2022 1:57 pm
But if you think otherwise, then meet my challenge of explaining how your account of justice works within the Hindu system. Good luck.
What a lot of desperate babble.
You can't do it, can you?
I know. Other cultures have very different conceptions of "justice," you'll find. So now the question becomes, "Which culture has the
right one?" Because it's only the
right conception that you'll have any possible expectation that there should be.
on your account, God sees in advance all that a person is going to be and do, or would be and do if given the opportunity, and knows that, because of what He foresees that person will (would) be and do, if He brings that person into existence, He will ultimately after that person's brief life on Earth be condemning that person to burn in hell for eternity...
...and then happily brings that person into existence.
This is what free will means: it means that you get to choose. It doesn't mean you are forced always to choose the best things, or the right things, but also the less-good ones, and even the evil ones...if you so choose. The choice is in the hands of the individual.
Freedom always has consequences. The man who can choose relationship with God can also choose rejection of God...or he would not have a "choice" at all. And freedom is a surpassingly great good. It's the sine qua non of personhood, identity, volition, self-determination, maturation and above all, of genuine relationship. Men have nnt only died for freedom; they've even died for the freedom of others. But freedom is a double-edged sword: the man who can choose can choose evil. But evil cannot be permitted to triumph and persist, or the very quality you've been asking about is missing...justice.
So the right fusion of all this is as follows: that man has freedom. That God does everything He can possibly do to make that freedom result in salvation, not condemnation. But that at the end of the day, man's freedom, not authoritatiran fiat, is the determinant of what his destiny is. Freedom means you choose for yourself, not have things chosen for you.
This is your sophistical means of getting around the obvious finitude of a disposition held during a person's lifetime on this planet: to include an eternity of that disposition into the future, and to then claim that a person should be punished eternally not just for that which they have been and done, but for that which they would be and do if given the opportunity;
No, it simply means to grant all men the dignity and right to choose their own ultimate disposition. They do not want God. They reject and accuse Him, as you do, and refuse to deal with their sin. They are, in fact, dedicated to destruction.
Look at yourself, Harry: who are you accusing? It's not me. I can't give you "justice," nor have I promised you it. Your worldview promises you none (unless you can show otherwise, which I leave open), so who are you accusing? There is only one Just Judge.
Again, there's nothing wrong with asking God, "How does your justice work out?" That's a tough question, but legitimate. But to say, "You are unjust, and nothing will let me believe you are not" is to test God to vindicate His justice in your personal case. And there's a time limit on how long that's ever allowed to go on.