Love, Moral Prefection, and the Free Will Defense.

 


A poster on CARM "HillyBilly" (aka SillyBilly) is trying to bring in standard atheist contradiction argument against moral perfection. His argument:

My reasoning is direct and simple enough that even a child could understand it.

1) If something is morally perfect, then it has free will. [from YOU]
2) God is morally perfect. [from YOU]
3) There exists at least one thing which is morally perfect. [existential instantiation]
4) Said thing has free will. [modus ponens 1, 3)
5) There exists at least one thing which is morally perfect and has free will. [conjunction 3, 4]
6) If something is the case, then it is possible that it is the case. [theorem of modal logic]
7) Beings with moral perfection and free will are possible. [modus ponens 5, 6]
8) If something is possible, God can create it. [from YOU]
9) Therefore, God can create morally perfect beings with free will. [modus ponens 7,8]

See? It's a deductive consequence of nothing but premises from you and from the rules of logic. If you deny it, you are contradicting yourself.

 In other words the point of it all is that since moral perfection and free will don't contradict then we could side step sin and just have moral perfection and free will but without sin and all the bad implications of it. My answer to this is that free is necessary in order to have a moral universe. Moral universe is based upon love, therefore, since love requires growth through experience then moral perfection takes time. Being a mature state of agape (love) moral perfection the development of moral perfection requires experience and pain. It's not something we can be "zapped" into. Yes, I believe that God is limited to logical necessity, he can't make square circles because square circles are a contradiction in terms. So is the idea of moral perfection without love and experience is a contradiction in terms. Thus being morally perfect, if we are granted it at all, takes time and experience in life.

I don't believe that we are meant to match God's moral perfection. Jesus says "be ye perfect as your father in heaven is perfect." (Matthew 5:48). The problem is that "perfect" is a bad translation. The word in that passage is telos from tello meaning ""to set out for a definite point or goal." The word telos itself is defined as defined by Strong's:

5056 télos (a neuter noun) – properly, consummation (the end-goal, purpose), such as closure with all its results.

[This root (tel-) means "reaching the end (aim)." It is well-illustrated with the old pirate's telescope, unfolding (extending out) one stage at a time to function at full-strength (capacity effectiveness).][1]

So the end goal or purpose to which something is meant to move is the concept. Thus he's not saying "I command you to have the very save level of moral excellence that God has," but rather "be all that you are meant to be." Being all we are meant to be, in terms of moral perfection, would mean love. Love requires sacrifice, giving, compassion, forgiving, bearing with the pain of others. You can't do that in a vacuum without living among other people. Just to have the experience of that put into our heads without actually going through it and learning from it would defeat the process of learning and it would not be real love. Love requries that we actually love. To love because you are programed to love is not love.

It's much like the philosophical zombie argument. Without actually growing through the process of dealing with others in real life one would be a philosophical zombie; one would seem outwardly exactly like the end product and one might even have false memories of it but it wouldn't be real love. It wouldn't be real free will because then the agent would not have chosen to love but would just be carrying out the commands of a program. So the idea that God will just zap us into perfection is a pipe dream and would not work. That means to have a moral universe we just live in the real world and be put in situations to make real choices.

Thus it is necessary for a moral universe, that is a universe in which free will agents make moral decisions and willingly choose the good, one must risk the possibility of choosing wrongly. Free will is essential to love and moral perfection.

Then in the issue of perfection we are not required to be god-like. We are not going to be put on a level with God. We have our own telos that is the human telos; the goal or end point that we are meant to grow into, the level of love that is humanly possible.

The Christian free will defense says that God has to risk all the bad by giving us free will because love and moral decision making require free will. the atheist says we can side step the unpleasant choice of actually choosing wrongly just by God zapping us into perfection and we can still have free will. I say that is making philosophical zobmies who have not actually learned to love but merely carrying out programing.

There's a lot we can learn from this thinking even without the free will/Theodicy busienss. We can learn the difficulty of love and how hard it is to actually go through the process of learning to be what God meant us to be. In so dong we must learn that it's impossible without God's grace. That's part of the lesson, learning to rely on God.




[1] Bible Hub, published by Biblos, from Strong's concordance, online resource: http://biblesuite.com/greek/5056.htm
 accessed 11/23/13.

More Rumination on God and Love: is God Syonimous with Love or Is it Part of His Character?

 

On my boards poster "miles" quotes me:

mdsimpson92 on Sun Feb 03, 2013 7:57 pm

Metacrock wrote:At that time, I alluded to the linguistic-conceptual hangups of certain forms of God language. To repeat and enhance that idea, it is better to think of God as water, as a spring forming a stream. It would be better to think in terms of currents within an ocean, but that is too difficult and abstract for non-mariners and non-wayfarers.

This stream is the source and substance of what we think of as reality, a stream of consciousness, if I may adapt that term. This in turn is perceived as matter and energy, but in truth, those are just descriptions of perceptions of something more fundamental that appear to vary in speed or concentration.

he says:
Perhaps, I would prefer the Augustine concept of a vast ocean of conciousness and we are the salt. It does seem to match up well with your belief in God as consciousness. I do have one question, In this case does God equal Love or is that simply an intrinsic part of him? I ask this because I have also heard you claim that God is consciousness and when I think of love I think of it as a part of the mind (not to be confused with brain)

Julia: It's all... a dream...
Spike Spiegel: Yeah... just a dream...

Re: On God and Love

by Metacrock on Mon Feb 04, 2013 8:49 am

good Question Miles: is love a constituent part or is it ignominious with the whole?

If the former then that raises questions about God as a construct rather than an eternal reality. if God is made of parts that opens the door to questions like where do the parts come form, were they always together?

If the latter, one wonders if it makes coherent sense. How can a "thing" be synonymous with an emotion?

It just seems like if God has a character that's too much like having a personality. To answer these questions we would have to know more about God, which we can't know presumably. I think when say things like "God's character is love" I'm saying the way he seems to act toward us and the feeling I get from what I think is contact with God feels like to love to me. Thus I describe it as "character." When I say God is synonymous with love, God is love, I'm saying the basis of love is God. No god would mean no love. Love is not just an emotion that's produced by brain chemistry (after all there's no reason why we should even be conscious--love is the will to the good of the other, so it's a value and an act of will, an ideal).

If God is consciousness (the source of consciousness and conscious) that consciousness must will the good of the other. That's part of what we might call character.

On God and Love part 2

...,...CARM poster HRG ( who is a Mathematician) says it is a "category error" to say "God is love." Oxford dictianory of Philosophy defined category error as:

 A notion prominent in the work of Ryle. A category mistake arises when things or facts of one kind are presented as if they belonged to another. Someone would make a category mistake if after being shown all the battalions and regiments she wished to be shown the army. Ryle believed that a Cartesian theory of mind depended on the category mistake of reifying mental events, instead of seeing mental descriptions as just one kind of description of persons and their dispositions. Thinking of beliefs as in the head, or numbers as large spatial objects, or God as a person, or time as flowing, may each be making category mistakes.[1]

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/category-mistake#ixzz2IcR09eZs

The reason HRG thinks its a category error to say "God is love" is becuase he doesn't know what a metaphor is. He thinks love is a quality or an emotion, it's produced by feelings which in turn stem from brain chemistry. Thus a  person such as God can't be a feeling produced by brain chemistry. He also no doubt thinks God can't be a person either because that is a category error according to Gilbert Ryle. That's a question for another time. Of long time readers of the blog will know that I don't put God on the level of "a person." God is not "a being" but being itself.
......,It's not uncommon for a lot of people to reduce love to the level of brain chemistry. The illusion that that is all love is is produced by the fact that love both manifests itself to us in feeling and is confused with a lot of different feelings. Feelings are transmitted though brain chemistry, thus a lot of people assume that love is just a feeling and feelings reduce to chemicals in the head. In discussing "love" in a theological context of cousre I'm talking about agope Greek term sometimes translated "charity" in English, that in itself is misleading. It leads us to think that charity just means giving things to the poor since that's mostly the context in which it is translated. What charity really is will become clear when we consider the full meaning of the term agape.The best definition of term was driven home to me not by a dictionary or Greek Lexicon but by Paul Tillich (of cousre). In his History of Christian Thought [2] he defined it as the willingness to accord basic human dignitary secure the good of the other (that's my paraphrase). From this i derive my formulaic saying "Love = will to the good of the other."
.......We have a tendency to use the term "Love" for everything form sex to ice cream. We confuse it with a lot of garbage including Romantic concepts and erotic desire. This is all based upon the notion that love is a feeling. The illusion that it is a feeling is produced by the fact that it's often manifested through feelings, thus many other feelings are taken for love when in fact hey have nothing to do with love. One of the most common forms of this problem is the confusion of sex with love. Of course I'm not going to deny that there is a special form of love that is shared between husband and wife, or between a man and woman. There are also special forms of love shared in the living out of many kinds of relationships, father and children, mother and children, other relatives, friendships. All of these are forms of love but they are extensions of something that goes much deeper than mere feelings. Feelings are deceptive and easy to mistake. On the other hand we can't really comprehend love in a cold dispassionate way apart form feelings, even though love is much more than mere feeling.
.......In it's broader scope love is an act of the willing "the will to the good of the other." That encompasses a range of concepts such as "the good" that can only be described "philosophy." In it's  highest summit love is an idea that encompasses it's own philosophy. Even this is not as far as we can go. We are told in 1 John 4:8 "he who loves knows God for God is love." This is not a category error because it's not saying that God (who may be compared to a person in some way) is a feeling.What else would it be? Considering the nature of the statement if we love we know God for God is love it's clearly a  metaphor and can refer to God's character. If we love we know God, why? Because that's what God is like. God is loving and kind and if we are loving and kind we know God's nature. Moreover, to say God is love implies a relationship so close between God and love that to know one is to know the other. What would that mean by that go is the origin or source of love. Since God is the origin or source of all things, directly or indirectly, that's just such a stretch.
.......God's charter is eternal, it's not the product of a prior cause, thus it is the basis of all that comes to be. It would have to be just as fundamental to the nature of things as God himself, that means we can link being (God is the ground of being) to love. Love, being, God all go together as the basis of all that is. We can construct both a philosophy of behavior and a philosophy of ethics on this concept. Love is the background of the moral universe. As God's character love would have to be the motive force behind creation and the end to which all is driving. Thus God is linked so closely with love we can speak of them both as the alpha and Omega. Love is the motive force, being is the action, "God" is the guiding logos that puts it all into action and brings about a creation based upon that impetus.
.......In the world of human experience love is a universal. All people around the world are capable of love, even in the higher agopic sense. All mystics sense love at the core of God's presence, even those who refuse to call the object of their experience "God" refuse to call the center of the experience "love" still describe all the secondary feelings around it including the positive outcome of the experience. That universal nature to love, in all faiths, all time periods, and all cultures, in association with the holy the religious sense is a good indication of something transcendent of mere brain chemistry something outside of human brain structure.[3]
......Love is a mystical reality. When we exhibit true love we enter into a reality with God where we can experiences soemthing of the nature of God's motivation and will. Love at it's core is mystery just as God is mystery. It's beyond our understanding, how could we understand God's motive force? That would be like understand the core of God. In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul is lauded for his one poetic passage about love but he also tells us some pretty important things about love there. first, he's using negative theology by telling us what love is not. He excludes from the application  "love" knowledge, mystical experience per se (not to say love is not a mystery) and understanding of spiritual things. "² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. " It's patienter and kind then he excludes several behaviors one might describe as "tacky." So love is manifested in positive behavior that builds others up and excludes behaviors that tear them down (not easily angered keeps no recores of wrong, v. 4). (The will to the good of the other).
.......Neither is love merely altruism or sacrifice: ³ "If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,^[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing." That's the problem with translating Agape as Charity becuase it conveys the impression that just giving and sacrificing for the poor is love in itself. Although it might prompt us to do that. The sacrificial part can be apart form love. Then what he says about loves eternal nature bears out what I've said above:

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

Love is eternal and it's the most important form of knowledge. All gift related spiritual forms of knowledge will pass away all the mysteries of the world will be explored but love will never cease. Of course it could not be eternal and be separate form God. Thus love and god are intrinsically bound up. Anything that is that closely linked with God implies a personal nature to God. We can't have impersonal unconscious love. Then it would not be a motive force or a character unless there's a character there. The personal nature of God is implied. This creates problems for some who seem to think that any consciousness on God's part is anthropomorphic regardless of how highly nuanced. I plan to deal with that issue next time.

Sources:

[1] Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy quoted on answers.com URL: http://www.answers.com/topic/category-mistake
[2] Paul Tillich, History of Christian Thought, New York: Simon and Schuster,Touchstone Books, Forward by Carl Braaten, 1972.
[3]Ralph Hood Jr. “The Common Core Thesis in the Study of Mysticism.” In Where God and Science Meet: How Brain and Evolutionary Studies Alter Our Understanding of Religion.  Patrick Mcnamara ed. West Port CT: Prager Publications, 2006, 119-235.

Google books on line version: URL: http://books.google.com.cu/books?id=0bzj3RtT3zIC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=true  visited 8/20/2012

this is a Google books preview and doesn't include all the pages.   scroll to page 119 where the article starts.

Anatomy of Argument: A Well Trod Atheist Fallacy

 


 The other day on CARM we were having a discussion about the Euthephro Dilemma. This is the question about is there a higher standard to which God must adhere in shaping morality, or in other wrodsd, is it Good because God says it or does God say it because it's good. The Atheist will shape the question so that the only available answers are either that God manufactures good based upon arbitrary whims, or he has to follow an higher standard and thus is not the highest reality. Out this discussion came the comments below:

Originally Posted by NoctambulantJoycean

No, not really. There is empirical evidence that theists simply (unconsciously) project their moral beliefs onto God, as opposed to God communicating anything to them. They also more easily project their feelings onto God since religious experience involves a breakdown on the "self/other" distinction.

Meta:
 The assumptions you make about religious experience are per conceived by reductionist premise. The sense of the numinous is empirical and embodied sense of God's love and goodness. that in itself is reason enough to assume it.

Noctam:

Here's a sampling of the relevant data:
"Believers' Estimates of God's Beliefs are More Egocentric than Estimates of Other People's Beliefs."
"Was He Happy? Cultural Difference in Conceptions of Jesus."
"Creating God in Our Image: The Role of Self-Projection in Estimating God’s Beliefs."
"How Christians Reconcile Their Personal Political Views and the Teachings of Their Faith: Projection as a Means of Dissonance Reduction."
page 1001 of "The New Synthesis in Moral Psychology."

And if you prefer video to text:
Youtube, AntiCitizenX’s “Psychology of Belief” series
Youtube, KnownNoMore’s video “Against Religious Experience…”

Meta:

that doesn't really prove anything. If humans are made in God's image than that probably pertains to consciousness. lots of reasons to assume God is the source of consciousnesses. essentially any argument for panpsychism is an argument for God's consciousness.


Noctam:

I've noticed that a lot of theists on CARM (especially you) start screaming out buzz-words like "scientism!" and "reductionism!" whenever your views are criticized. It's tiresome. It basically amounts to a defense-mechanism you employ so your beliefs don't have to meet the same epistemic standards as everything else. That's not going to fly anymore (by the way, I'm a property dualist regarding qualia, so your charge of a "reductionist premise" I'm using is laughable. Please stop assuming stuff.)

Meta:

That could be a valid complaint that I speak over your head and I should be more considerate. It doesn't really damage my arguments taht youa re unread and don'tknow the termenology in the field. Maybe you should be more humble and seek to learn more before eneter into discussion.

Noctam:

Moving on, I really don't care what possible scenarios you can make up (ex: we're made in God's image, panpsychism implies God's conscious, numinous, blah blah blah). No. As Duhem's thesis in philosophy of science shows, one can make up any number of ad hoc, unfounded, possible explanations to protect one's pet idea. But if you resort to that, no one would and should take you seriously. So instead of just giving me possible explanations theists made up, give me plausible ones supported by evidence and not just your bare assertions. I'm getting tired of some theists like you acting as if the same epistemic standards that apply in philosophy and science in general don't apply to you.

 Meta:

 There are couple of things wrong with this particular display of ignorance.I must say I more enjoy your scientist schtick. First of all, to characterize well known ancient doctrinal potions in Christianity as "ad hoc" makes you look so unread. anyone exhibiting the knowledge I see in your arguments would be well enough read to know that image dei is an ancient doctrine. calling it ad hock well that's like saying "waiter! this Gazpacho soup is cold, send it back!"

Secondly, you didn't answer the argument. instead you merely mock and ridicule my beliefs. that is not an answer. I told you honestly and directly why I think you are wrong. the answer to that cant' be "well your ideas are silly and I don't bleieve them." I know you don't bleieve it that's kind of like betting the question! calling my beliefs names is not disproving them.


 Noctam:

So stop dodging empircal data by saying "that doesn't prove anything" (I hear that same line from AIDS denialists or other such sorts of people who are unwilling to change their beliefs regardless of the evidence you present them; yes, I'm comparing you to them). Stop accusing people who use scientific evidence to reach conclusions of being "reductionists." And start providing evidence for your claims and not just using implicit reference to properly basic beliefs, or "embodied sense of God's love and goodness," or ... as epistemic cop-outs (or really just ad hoc methods of begging the question and reducing the burden of proof for you and increasing it for everyone else) so you don't ever have to revise your beliefs.

 Meta:

 That sounds like an argument but it's not. the bit about "made up" is question betting. All you are really saying is 'I dont' believe that so it must be wrong." I didn't make it up it's an ancinet doctrine It's not just made up it's a valid bleief within a larger belief system and it answers the issue.

All scinece can do is offer explanations. Science is about proving things. So for you to gain say the notion of offering explanations is silly. You have no empirical data that disproves God or that proves morality is an independent standard. Just refusing to allow me to defend my beliefs by referencing what they are neither logical nor empirical. The experiences of the sense of the numinous are empirical, that is the mystical sense of God's reality is experienced directly. To the extent that it is always linked with the sense of God's reality it can be regarded as the co-determinate of God, that is the trace, the track the footprint of God in the snow of human experience. Thus we can regard mystical experience as experience of the divine and we can regard that as empirical.



 Noctam:

Sorry I had to be so firm. But I'm getting sick-and-tired of these tactics some theists like you employ. If you're not willing to revise your beliefs in light of new evidence and find ad hoc methods of disregardig evidence, don't expect people to take you seriously.

Meta:

I don't take atheist ridicule seriously, and since you are not willing to try and understand my bleiefs in terms of their inner logic there is basis for discussion.


What started all of this is the Euthyphro dilemma. That's not something science can prove empirically. in fact it pertains to a theistic system. The dilemma basic boils down to this: are the gods good becuase they are gods, or are they gods becuase they are good? In other words do they follow a higher standard to which they must submit. If so then something is higher than the gods.Of course Euthyphro was Socrates major foil that's why its set in the metaphysical system of Greek Mythology, and the fates are the weavers of the higher standard. it makes sense to ask questions of this sort in a Polytheistic system where the gods are contingent and not ultimate basis of all reality. It makes no sense to even consider it in a Christian system where "God" is the term we give to the basis of all that is. In that case there cannot be a higher standard.

The answer that I have brought to this question in terms of the Christian God has always been that the "higher standard" is actually God's own character, which is love. Thus I see love as the background of th moral universe. There is no standard higher than God because the moral standard to which he adheres is his own character and that all boils down to love as the basis of ethics.

Now looking at his specific claims. In terms of the anatomy of discussion he's doing the following

(1) substituting mockdry and reidicle for refuation

(2) He's begging the question and calling it "emprical evidence."

(3) He's trying to privilege his position with reference to the fortress of facts.

On the surface this all appears like he's given reasoned comments but in reality he's merely evoking ideology. He doesn't actually present any evidence he only presents the threat of evidence. We don't have to prove every detail of our belief system. We only have to show that belief is warranted by sound and valid arguemnts.

Is Self Sacrafice Ethical?

I am having a good discussion with Rob Yerginson on my boards, Doxa Forums. His position is something like obejctivism, but he disavows the extremes of Ayn Rand. I think he does advocate a self oriented perspective as the basis of value and rejects self sacrifice. I feel that self sacrafice (when it's reasonable does some good--not just a martyr complex) is the highest expression of ethical behavior. I think what's lost in our society today is a understanding of the spirit as the basis of value and that self sacrifice has become a dirty word--we live in an extremely self obsessed age.

Rob:That’s too bad. Somehow man in his effort to identify and pursue value has duped himself into believing that the very thing that gives rise to the notion of value needs to be devalued itself. Such a travesty. It’s like a disease that has infected our minds, causing us to view good as evil and evil as good.

Meta:
I'm not doing that. What enables us to value is not just our own selfishness, that's not a very stable value. What enables valuing is the transcendent nature of truth. The society we live in has gone totally material and has totally forgotten and turned against all spiritual things. Value is a spiritual thing.

If you reduce it all to the material valuations of the individual then those can controlled by 1DM. (one dimensional-man).

Rob:

The good news is that logic still works. Even in our severely confused state we can go back to the source of our confusion and expose the error. The trick is to get to the root, which means that we have to be willing to “test all things.” When we discover an arbitrary presupposition without base, we root it up. So, allow me to lay it out again:

Meta:
You can't do logic without accepting the transcendent nature of truth.It's basically the concept of non contradiction. so you can't have logic without truth.

Rob:1. It is fundamental to our nature to prefer to live and thrive.

Meta
we can also direct our thriving to the group rather than the individual. We are able to give ourselves to higher things and care about others. This is the one thing upon which I agree with Mill; there is a distinction between higher pleasure and the swinish pleasure. Swinish values rooted in me ME! MY wants becuase they are ME! the higher values in "what I care about which goes beyond me."

Rob2. If we are to obtain living and thriving there are actions that we ought to take.

Meta
we may have to sacrifice lour own living and thriving for a greater good.

Rob3. While there are many values worth pursuing, we must avoid pursuing lesser values at the expense of greater values.

Meta
swinish values are lesser. the value system that puts me first above the higher values is lesser.
(not to say that Rob--who is a fine fellow-- is "swinish.")

Rob4. So long as our existence is required in order to coherently discuss those things that are of value to us, our existence is at the bottom of our value chain, whether we grasp that fact or not.

Meta
I'm not sure what you are trying to say. IF you are saying you have to secure your own good in order to support things you care about; true but there are also times when you have to give up your own good for those things.

Rob5. Since moral actions are those actions that we ought to take, then this hierarchical order of values and actions is what gives rise to objective morality (morality that is actual, that is rooted in reality, in our nature, and the natural order rather than an arbitrary morality based on whim, tradition, and the dictates of others).

Meta
I still don't accept the concept of objective morality, nevertheless, you are getting something out of place, unless I'm not following you accurately. You are doing a bait and switch you stick the necessity of our own participation into the works then make a value higher than the values we would participate to preserve. that's like he corporation becoming an entity that works for it's own survive and thus abandoning the reason for which it was founded.

Rob6. This is the correct morality for us all whether you and I happen to agree or not.

Meta
No offense that's a ridiculous thing to say. That's like truth by stipulation. I"m right whether you know it or not. then what's the point of discussion?


Rob

Now, these statements are either true of false. If you are going to accuse me of “destroying ethical thinking” you are going to have to offer some support for your claim by demonstrating the error rather than referring me to some "deontological" rabbit hole. Given these six points, where is the error?

Meta
I've already apologized for putting it on such a personal basis. we don't have to keep dragging that into it. we aer not saving the world from each other we are just exchanging views.

I think in the comments I've made I've demonstrated what is feel is the problem with each of your statements.