Posted on 03/19/2003 12:48:02 AM PST by RJCogburn
Not so?
The God of the Philosophers* is also the God of the Bible. Therefore, reason cannot contradict revelation. Aquinas synthesized the best of natural philosophy (Aristotle) with divine revelation, and Christ's Church regards St. Thomas Aquinas as the premier theological doctor of the Church. That's where I'm coming from.
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*(Acts 17:23) For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.
OK. Make it unnatural sexual activities.
There is no logical reply to that position.
Things are clear to you which are wrong, AND you just did ANOTHER strawman. I never said anything at all like Jesus didn't accept the role of the military.
Who the hell are you debating? Yourself.
Are you balanced?
You can't handle the truth. You have lied repeatedly on this thread, what the hell would you know about truth?
How do you figure that? Are you talking political "rights" or natural rights?
This is simple utilitarianism, which is a simply idiotic philosophical system.
This is such obvious nonsense as to expose the stupidity of the advocate. Under a utilitarian system, if stealing from you makes you very happy, but losing your stuff to a thief makes you only somewhat annoyed, the theft is good because it increases the net amount of happiness in the world.
Exactly.
Under a libertarian system, the theft is evil because it violates the rights of the victim (no matter how little he might care, so long as he does not care so little as to actually consent to it).
I'm familiar with the argument. But if you notice in the original remarks there is no reference to "rights," just "happiness."
Several problems remain for the libertarian:
Where do rights come from?
Are they binding on everyone? If so, why?
By what authority do libertarians impose their idea of "rights" on society?
Great point!
We're talking about moral aboslutes here, and the fact remains that you're arguing that it is sometimes moral to kill children. That's an instance of situational ethics rather than moral absolutes...
If God, as Creator, has the right to destroy His creatures, He certainly has the right to order some of His creatures to destroy others. Therefore, in such a case God would not be acting immorally. It is not abnormal for God to work through proxies, as He does when He performs good acts through us.
The "voice of God" objection is a good one, but not insurmountable. This doesn't present a difficulty for Christians who, at a minimum, accept the close of Revelation with the canonization of the Bible. The Bible indicates that Christians must not murder (although killing is sometimes acceptable). The Bible also indicates that demons can appear as angels of light. Therefore, private revelation must be treated with skepticism and must conform to Biblical revelation. Therefore, a private revelation commanding murder would have to be rejected. Christians generally recognize that God used the nation of Israel to kill evildoers at least partially as a means of testing and forming them as a people, as when He ordered Abraham to offer up his son Isaac as a sacrifice.
The Catholic position is even more solid. The Church has determined that Revelation closed with the death of the last Apostle. Moreover, the Church, as the living Body of Christ, must be the final arbiter regarding the validity of private revelation. Private revelation must conform to both Scripture and Church teaching. Therefore, a Catholic would be obliged to disregard a revelation which commanded murder. The Church regards the circumstances regarding the slaughter of the Canaanites as special, as described above.
Hardly. History clearly demonstrates that the Catholic Churches' ethics have been as morally relative as God's.
This is not at all an irrelevant analogy. True, a painting belongs to a different category than human beings, but human beings belong to a different category than God. The difference between God and men is far greater than the difference between a man and a painting. The difference is infinite in all respects. God transcends all categories.
A human being is an ultimate end in one sense but not in another. Yet even earthly human life is not an ultimate end, since the taking of human life is often justifiable. In fact, individual lives can be sacrificed for the common good, as in the case of war. Ultimately, eternal life with God is the end that human life is directed toward.
The Bible also discusses a prophet who offered his virgin daughters to be raped and sexually abused as a method of appeasing the mob outside his door.
Sophistry and silliness.
I think you mean "the God purportedly described in the Bible".
Personally I find the "God" of the old testament very hard to swallow as a supreme being. More like a petulant tyrant.
But that doesn't preclude there being a "real" God, who wasn't morally relative.
Mystical hokum, which still does not disguise the moral relativism of a position which states that it's sometimes moral to kill little toddlers who are clinging to their mother's skirts...
That's true with appeals to revelation alone, although it is possible to determine whether divine revelation contradicts reason. Nevertheless, arguments based on reason alone, proceeding from First Principles, such as "the good is to be done and evil avoided," are knowable by all with at least moral certainty.
You might enjoy Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. He didn't appeal to divine revelation at all.
Really?
Right, that's what exactly I mean.
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