The problem here is that one that believes that everything that is done , is done for the greater good could consider this before committing the sin. The action of committing the sin may reveal to one how it effects the greater good , or it may not. So committing the sin may actually not make the sinner any wiser regarding , God's predetermined plan of the greater good through every future event. One either believes that the future is predetermined and every action is done for the greater good or he doesn't or he completely ignores these thoughts. Either way i consider that it is not the action (sin) that creates the beliefs. I don't see what is a logical barrier to one not making the connection between complete moral relativism and God's plan , which always results to the greater good even though what would be Evil or sinful.
Well, my point was basically this: assuming predestination, any sin I commit will turn out to be what God wanted. But any good that I do will also turn out to be what God wanted. So any rationalisation that I may come up for sinning, on the basis of predestination, can also be applied
mutatis mutandis to not sinning. That is, I may say that my sin was predestined and desired by God, but I may also say that my not-sinning was predestined and desired by God. The parallel justifications cancel each other out, and I'm left with the same reasons for or against that I would have had if there were no predestination at all: namely, that one ought not to sin, other things being equal.
I believe that The church's positions is what you described. Sin should always be avoided unless do not sinning creates bigger Sins(Evil) in the world. This overlaps any conclusions in relation to God's predermined plan . Accordding to which all actions result into the Greater good including sins . There is just no answer regarding why sins should be avoided if as actions always lead to the greater good. In a few words , Does evil exist ? If the answer is Yes. Then several question rise regarding God's plan. It is a paradox .
I think the Catholic Church, at least, would teach that one ought not to sin
even if the sin seems to lead to a greater good overall. Consequentialist reasoning is not encouraged by the church.
One would be uncertain of the extrinsic results of sins , if he ignored the whole issue of all actions causing predetermined greater good. I am sorry that i have to repeat this principle. This argument simply has to be repeated because it makes all claims about the uncertainty of the extrinsic results as, untrue. The intrinsic value of a sin is worse than that of a not sinful action .However if the person here (and let's say , we) believe in predetermined greater good future , then the extrinsic value of it , if one actually sins , would be greater than the not sinful , alternative. One either believes this or not , or ignores it.
I'm not sure I follow what you're saying here. But it's true that all of this assumes that you know what the consequences would be of your action, if its extrinsic goodness or badness is to play a role in your decision whether to perform it or not. The difficulty - or perhaps impossibility - of knowing such things forms the basis of one of the major objections to consequentialism as an ethical theory.
Let me continue my previous reasoning .
Let's say that for a moment either the church or the sinner , ignore predetermining.
Due to the worse intrinsic value of murder and due to sins being acts that cause harm to be due to self interest , one would say that we are responsible for the sins we do because we do them with intent of harming and not for the greater good.
However if one is not ignorant of the belief of predetermining then he may claim to not be responsible for his sins as they cause the greater good possible whenever one sins. As he does not intent harm and any personal self interest he gets is part of the greater good then he is not "responsible" for his sins. Or better he shouldn't be accursed for his sins. He is doing according to God's plan and he knows it.
Right, but someone who doesn't sin can say precisely the same thing. That's why I said before that the two parallel rationalisations cancel each other out. Yes, if you sin, you can say you're just doing God's will. But if you don't sin, you can say the same thing. So they cancel each other out, and you're left with
other reasons for making your choice. If you choose to sin rather than to not sin, you must have a reason other than the predestination argument. And the point is that that reason is unlikely to be a very noble one.
You raise some clever points regarding the World ability to get better .
Personally I think the best possible world is a contradiction when thought that the best possible world was created by a perfect creature that does not have any boundaries regarding possibilities. Such world would have no imperfections just because a perfect creature can create such world.
The best possible world is not a contradiction, because we are talking only about what is possible. It may be that a completely perfect world is impossible, but the best possible world need not be completely perfect - it's just the best out of all the ones that are possible, so by definition it can't be a contradiction (because something that is a contradiction is not possible). The usual Christian belief has generally been that God can do only what is possible; he is bounded by possibility. If a completely perfect world is, in itself, inconsistent and impossible, then even an omnipotent God cannot create it, because it is impossible in itself. God can create only the best possible world.
There is the argument that Humanity and the world being imperfect is what makes us perfect according to God. I have no answer to that argument , other than if we are imperfect then we are not perfect. However the argument uses a different method to prove it self. According to God logic , imperfect means perfect. For this kind of argument it's hard to provide direct answer . A direct answer that does not have to do with God's own validity and the people that commune with him regarding , how can they understand that logic but can't explain it to secondary parties.
I suppose that a proponent of that view would say that what
appears to be imperfect is
really perfection.
In non religious logic , we can't know if this world is the best possible while acknowledging it's possibility to improve. If we believe this is the only world that exists then it is the best possible word because it exists . At tleast that is what i think.
One might believe that the world is the best possible overall - over its whole history - while also accepting that it can improve from its state right now. Suppose there were someone who lived the happiest life possible. There might be moments in his life where he was not very happy. At those times, an observer who knows that this is the best possible life might say that it's the best possible life but it can improve. The same might be true of the world. Of course one couldn't know this on the basis of observation, but one might in theory know it or at least have good reason to believe it on the basis of an argument like the one of Leibniz' I gave. One would need to have good reason for accepting the premises of that argument first, naturally.
What is the consensus on non-omnipotent monotheistic entities? In other words, I hear people say that if God is not omnipotent, He (/She/It/They) cannot be called God. (This argument I have only seen from people who don't believe in any god at all, but that is neither here nor there.) They are nonetheless willing to call entities in a polytheistic system (ie Zeus or Quetzlcoatl) gods, even though they aren't omnipotent. Is there any reason for this? Is this widespread, that you know of?
The word "god" obviously has a number of different meanings. In a generic sense it refers to anything that is worshipped, I suppose, which is why we can talk about lots of "gods" in a pagan context. But when capitalised it also functions as the
name of a particular "god", namely the supreme being of monotheism. And a name, as I'm sure Fifty will be able to explain to us, is not the same sort of thing as a definition. Probably. Of course, Christians and non-Christians don't necessarily mean the same thing by "God" even when they're supposedly talking about the same character. Here's how Barth "defines" God with a capital G:
Karl Barth said:
Let us be clear about what is usually meant by "God" outside the Christian faith. When man speaks of God, of the divine nature, of the divine essence, or of God simply, then he means the object of the universally present and active longing, the object of man's homesickness and man's hope for a unity, a basis, a meaning to his existence, and the meaning of the world; he means thereby the existence and the nature of a Being who, whether in this or that connexion with the realities other than Himself, is to be regarded as the Supreme Being that determines and dominates all that exists.
But Barth regards this notion of "God" as basically similar to that of the pagan "gods". He goes on:
Karl Barth said:
We must be clear that when we are speaking of God in the sense of Christian faith, He who is called God is not to be regarded as a continuation and enrichment of the concepts and ideas which usually constitute religious thought in general about God. In the sense of Christian faith, God is not to be found in the series of gods. He is not to be found in the pantheon of human piety and religious inventive skill... When we Christians speak of "God", we may and must be clear that this word signifies a priori the fundamentally Other, the fundamental deliverance from that whole world of man's seeking, conjecturing, illusion, imagining and speculating... we Christians speak of Him who completely takes the place of everything that elsewhere is usually called "God", and therefore suppresses and excludes it all, and claims to be alone the truth. Where that is not realised, it is still not realised what is involved when the Christian Church confesses, "I believe in God". What is involved is man's meeting with the Reality which he has never of himself sought out or first of all discovered... God in the sense of the Christian Confession is and exists in a completely different way from that which is elsewhere called divine. And so His nature, His being is different from the nature and being of all alleged gods. We summarise all that is to be said of God, in the sense of the Christian Confession, in the words "God in the Highest". You all know where I take this idea from. It is in Luke 2:14: "Glory to God in the highest"; therefore our song is, "Glory to God alone in the highest".
At any rate, I think there are a number of reasons why most monotheists have regarded God (the monotheist god) as necessarily omnipotent, in the sense of being able to do anything that can be done. One is that God is supposed to be perfect, which means possessing all perfections; but perfect power is a perfection. Another is that God is supposed to be supremely simple, but limited power is more complex than unlimited power (if it's limited, there must be a reason why it is limited to
this extent and not
that, which is complicated). That is how Richard Swinburne argues. Another is that God is supposed to be infinite, but if his power is limited then he is not infinite. In fact the notion that God is infinite was first defended at length by Gregory of Nyssa. This is his argument:
Gregory of Nyssa said:
...the Divine is by its very nature infinite, enclosed by no boundary. If the Divine is perceived as though bounded by something, one must by all means consider along with that boundary what is beyond it. For certainly that which is bounded leaves off at some point, as air provides the boundary for all that flies and water for all that live in it. Therefore, fish are surrounded on every side by water, and birds by air. The limits of the boundaries which circumscribe the birds or the fish are obvious: The water is the limit to what swims and the air to what flies. In the same way, God, if he is conceived as bounded, would necessarily be surrounded by something different in nature. It is only logical that what encompasses is much larger than what is contained.
Now it is agreed that the Divine is good in nature. But what is different in nature from the Good is surely something other than the Good. What is outside the Good is perceived to be evil in nature. But it was shown that what encompasses is much larger than what is encompassed. It most certainly follows, then, that those who think God is bounded conclude that he is enclosed by evil.
Since what is encompassed is certainly less than what encompasses, it would follow that the stronger prevails. Therefore, he who encloses the Divine by any boundary makes out that the Good is ruled over by its opposite. But that is out of the question. Therefore, no consideration will be given to anything enclosing infinite nature.
Aquinas couches
a similar argument in Aristotelian terminology about form and matter, but it comes down to the same thing: if something is limited, it is because it is limited
by something else; but God cannot be limited by something else because he is source of all things. You can then extend that to an argument for God's
power being infinite
as Aquinas does:
Thomas Aquinas said:
As stated above (Article 1), active power exists in God according to the measure in which He is actual. Now His existence is infinite, inasmuch as it is not limited by anything that receives it, as is clear from what has been said, when we discussed the infinity of the divine essence (7, 1). Wherefore, it is necessary that the active power in God should be infinite. For in every agent is it found that the more perfectly an agent has the form by which it acts the greater its power to act. For instance, the hotter a thing is, the greater the power has it to give heat; and it would have infinite power to give heat, were its own heat infinite. Whence, since the divine essence, through which God acts, is infinite, as was shown above (Question 7, Article 1) it follows that His power likewise is infinite.
Now Schleiermacher argued that this notion of God as infinitely powerful is, in itself, misleading. He said that we should think of God's power only in the context of his will: that is, to say that God is omnipotent is to say that his will to do good is unfettered. There are no constraints to the goodness that flows from God. The same is true of the other divine attributes; for example, to say that God is timeless is to say that his benevolent will acts in all times.
Barth says something a bit similar. It's worth quoting him at length again because as usual he offers an interestingly different way of looking at things.
Karl Barth said:
"God is almighty" means in the first instance that He is might. And might means ability, possibility in view of a reality. Where reality is created, determined and preserved, there exists a possibility, lying at its basis. And now it is stated of God that He Himself has possibility, He has this ability which is the foundation of reality, its determinant and its support: he has almightiness, that is, He has everything, He is the basic measure of everything real and everything possible. There is no reality which does not rest upon Him as its possibility, no possibility, no basis of reality, which would limit Him or be a hindrance to Him. He is able to do what He wills. Thus God's power might also be described as God's freedom. God is simply free. The concepts of eternity, omnipresence, infinity are included in it. He is mighty over everything that is possible in space and in time; He is the measure and the basis of time and space; He has no limit. But all this has a very philosophic ring...
So the point there is much the same as those made by the other theologians, namely that if you take seriously the notion of God as supreme over creation then you can't suppose that anything limits him. But Barth goes on to attack the fetishisation of "power", especially in God:
Karl Barth said:
...God is not "power in itself". The essence of all power, namely ability, possibility, freedom as a neutral existence, absolute freedom, abstract ability, power in itself, is an intoxicating thought. Is God the essence of all sovereignty, simply potentia? He has often been understood as such, and it is natural to imagine this potentia, "power in itself", as the divine, the most profound, truest and fairest, to admire, honour, worship and praise this power in itself as the mystery of existence. Perhaps you recall how, when Hitler used to speak about God, he called Him "the Almighty". But it is not "the Almighty" who is God; we cannot understand from the standpoint of a supreme concept of power, who God is. And the man who calls "the Almighty" God misses God in the most terrible way. For the "Almighty" is bad, as "power in itself" is bad. The "Almighty" means Chaos, Evil, the Devil. We could not better describe and define the Devil than by trying to think this idea of a self-based, free, sovereign ability. This intoxicating thought of power is chaos, the tohu wabohu which God in His creation has left behind Him, which He rejected when He created heaven and earth. That is the opposite of God; that is the danger by which the world that God created is continually threatened; it is the breaking-in, the offensive of this impossible possibility of free arbitrariness, which wishes to be just potentia in itself and to carry it out and as such to reign. Where "power in itself" is honoured and worshipped, where "power in itself" wishes to be the authority and wishes to impose law, we are dealing with the "revolution of nihilism". "Power in itself" is nihil, and when "power in itself" comes to the fore and wishes to dominate, then order is not created, but that is where revolution breaks out. "Power in itself" is bad, is the end of all things. The power of God, real power, is opposed to "power in itself". It is also superior to it; and more, its opposite. God says No to this revolution of nihilism. And He is its victorious opposite; that is, by God's entering the field, that happens which happens when the sun breaks through the mist: then the power of this "power in itself" falls and collapses. Then this concept is stripped bare in its abominableness, it loses the respect that is offered it. Then the evil spirits are compelled to flee. God and "power in itself" are mutually exclusive. God is the essence of the possible, but "power in itself" is the essence of the impossible.
You sometimes hear criticisms of theism in general and Christianity in particular based on the idea that an omnipotent and omniscient God who watches everyone and punishes them for disobeying him is abhorrent; Barth agrees entirely with this and says that that is really a notion of the devil. The Christian God is quite different because he does not have this naked arbitrary power; his power is superior because it is about possibility, not constraint.
I got a nice copy of the Summa Theologica for $2. Any recommendations on what is or isn't worth reading in it?
You'll have to work that out for yourself!
edit: 1000th post! Time to open up Ask a Theologian 2!!! This would be a good time to thank Plotinus: this is quite probably the best serious thread I've ever seen on OT!
I'm glad you like it and you've made a lot of great contributions to it. I hope you'll continue to do so... perhaps after my viva I should start a new thread called Ask a Philosopher since then I'll be more qualified for that...
maybe a weird question but: how do you earn your money?
and is it actually sustainable? (if you want to answer it)
For the past two and a half years I've been doing a PhD so I've been sustained by my scholarship for that. Unfortunately that's now ended as I've just submitted my thesis, so now I'm looking for a job. Until I find one the only income I'll have is from my books, which is minimal.
The problem with the Epicurean argument is that it assumes that 1) evil exists in god's view of creation and 2) that it is the same as the human definition of evil. Neither of those needs to be true. They are merely human assumptions. In fact, the very human-centeredness of the Epicurean pov, IMO, makes it less likely to actually be true.
They need to be true to some degree. If God doesn't regard as evil the same things that we regard as evil - or at least most of them - then he isn't "good" in anything approaching our normal definition of the term. But the whole point of classical theism is that he is. Now you may reply to Epicurus by saying that our notions of "evil" or "good" aren't applicable to God, but then you have really conceded the argument to him, because you have conceded that God isn't "good" in the usual sense.
A bonus point for anyone who knows, without looking up, which author actually preserves Epicurus' argument...
The christians do and they believe that they know what god thinks is evil. Christianity gets caught in its web precisely because the Christians claim to know god's mind when it comes to evil.
I don't see any "web" here; Christians claim to know this only because they think God has revealed it to them (and indeed to everyone).
In addition, the logical paradox it creates also depends upon the assumption that reaspon and logic are more important to god than emotion and irrationality. They may be more important to some people, but there is no evidence that god holds them in higher esteem. In fact, the dominance of irrational acts in the world might lead one to the conclusion that logic and reason are less important than emotion and irrationality. How god feels on the matter is not clear.
First, I don't see a paradox. But second, the whole point of the Epicurean argument and any similar discussion of the problem of evil is that reason and logic indicate that God's existence is incompatible with the existence of evil. I mean, it is not God's supposed desire to be rational and logical which drives this, it is reason and logic themselves. Perhaps God doesn't care about reason and logic and is a sort of giant Romantic poet. That doesn't change the force of Epicurus' argument in the slightest, because even if God is like that, the world (including God) must still conform to what is logically possible. If it doesn't then you can't rationally discuss
anything.
If sin means acting with discord to gods directives, then evil is has nothing to do with it.
But it does if what God directs is good and what he forbids is evil. This is the case whether you think that they are good and evil because God commands and forbids them, or whether you think that God commands and forbids them because they are good and evil.
I would say that Christian morality is damn near any human morality regarding good and evil. Wait , it condemns Gays , adultery and so on. Well , Christianity is a byproduct of it's time and place. And still while some of these things we may not find evil , Christian morality find them corrupting and immoral and explain them as evil.
I hope you don't think that all Christians share those views!
@scy12: Wablumps are offenses against Dorfs. Ganlaffs are laws based on Dorfs, and are, in fact, very similar to Dorfs. Sumberdungs are offenses against Ganlaffs. Does this mean Sumberdungs are Wamblumps?
I'm not too sure, I haven't taken any logic classes nor have I ever participated properly in a debate.
Sumberdungs would necessarily be Wamblumps, and vice versa, if Ganlaffs and Dorfs were actually identical. Since they're not, it seems there is at least conceptual space for both Sumberdungs that are not Wamblumps and Wamblumps that are not Sumberdungs.
I think your problem is that you want to impose a rational overview to religious thinking. Why should rationality have any place in a religious system stemming from belief?
Equally, what's special about "belief" that insulates it from reason? Aren't all your beliefs equally "beliefs" no matter what their source, including your everyday and scientific beliefs? What makes you say that Christianity "stems from" belief? What does that actually mean?
And for the record, I would say that when people [1] say that "evil" exists, they are merely expressing a personal dissatisfaction with the actions of others and demonstrating their own ignorance of the last 450 million years of life on earth.
It may be true that to say something is evil is merely to express your own personal dissatisfaction with it - that view was quite popular in philosophical circles in the 1960s, although I'm afraid it's been comprehensively discredited since then - but even if it's true I don't see how such an utterance demonstrates any form of ignorance. Even if what one calls "evil" has been around for hundreds of millions of years, why should that mean one should be happy with it?
See this topic. It has to do with the theologian aspect. Meaning logic with God .
Actually the "-logy" part of "theology" really means just "speech", so "theology" is "talking about God", just as "geology" is "talking about the earth" and so on and so forth. It doesn't necessarily mean doing so in what we would call a "logical" way.
or logos , two words which have a special relation and just translating it as speech may not be the best. 
