Posted on 05/01/2003 8:44:18 AM PDT by RJCogburn
True enough, but also in a way that you may not have intended:^);
"Blessed are those who hunger after righteousness, for they shall be filled."
"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God."
"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life."
Yet you have said to r9etb;
...Neither does transcendent morality explain how he can get away with it until the day he dies - it merely suggests that he has interests beyond that day which are not served by doing as he does. And even if we grant that such transcendent morality actually exists, what then are we to make of the countless Pharaohs throughout history who "got away with it" until they finally expired after a long and successful life of tyranny and debauchery? The existence of such transcendent moral proscriptions does not appear to have precluded the existence of Pharaohs....
But unlike physical hunger, there doesn't seem to be any ground, as you note concerning the Pharaohs, for asserting any necessary consequence of ignoring moral impulses, at least in a random, purposeless, impersonal cosmos. What is the explanation for THIS hunger; namely, that hunger and thirst in our hearts for justice against the wicked? The complaint of our hearts that the wicked "get away with it" makes no sense, and is ultimately meaningless anyway, from an atheistic perspective!
But the ancient Psalmist does complain:
"Psalm 73
BOOK III -- Psalms 73-89
1
A psalm of Asaph.
Surely God is good to Israel,
to those who are pure in heart.
2 But as for me, my feet had almost slipped;
I had nearly lost my foothold.
3 For I envied the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
4 They have no struggles;
their bodies are healthy and strong. [1]
5 They are free from the burdens common to man;
they are not plagued by human ills.
6 Therefore pride is their necklace;
they clothe themselves with violence.
7 From their callous hearts comes iniquity [2] ;
the evil conceits of their minds know no limits.
8 They scoff, and speak with malice;
in their arrogance they threaten oppression.
9 Their mouths lay claim to heaven,
and their tongues take possession of the earth.
10 Therefore their people turn to them
and drink up waters in abundance. [3]
11 They say, "How can God know?
Does the Most High have knowledge?"
12 This is what the wicked are like-
always carefree, they increase in wealth.
13 Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure;
in vain have I washed my hands in innocence.
14 All day long I have been plagued;
I have been punished every morning.
15 If I had said, "I will speak thus,"
I would have betrayed your children.
16 When I tried to understand all this,
it was oppressive to me
17 till I entered the sanctuary of God;
then I understood their final destiny.
18 Surely you place them on slippery ground;
you cast them down to ruin.
19 How suddenly are they destroyed,
completely swept away by terrors!
20 As a dream when one awakes,
so when you arise, O Lord,
you will despise them as fantasies.
21 When my heart was grieved
and my spirit embittered,
22 I was senseless and ignorant;
I was a brute beast before you.
23 Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.
24 You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.
27 Those who are far from you will perish;
you destroy all who are unfaithful to you.
28 But as for me, it is good to be near God.
I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge;
I will tell of all your deeds."
r9etb has referred eloquently to the problem of moral authority. Suppose for example, that a thunderstorm comes though St. Louis tonight and deposits hail on my front lawn which accidentally happens to spell out the words, "Love your wife". Should I feel any obligation to obey the random pattern of hail that gives the appearance of a moral proposition and command? Of course not. If I may extend r9etb's remarks to include the idea that by their nature, moral propositions are not just abstract principles, they must be of personal nature and origin. Moreover, not only must they emanate from only a personal source, but they are COMMANDS. And further, not only are they personal commands, they constitute personal commands from an AUTHORITATIVE source. (I would feel no more compulsion to obey an impersonal, random concatenation of hailstones that accidentally give the appearance of a moral command than I would be to obey a hobo standing in the street issuing traffic directives.)
These roundabout meanderings are meant to illustrate the point that from an atheistic, evolutionary perspective, the question of moral "truth or consequences" is ultimately meaningless. I guess what I am focusing on, general, is your statement that the existence of God and transcendent morality only serves to throw a bit more weight against whatever immoral act one is considering, and then only if one accepts some specific premises to begin with, more specific than simply "God and objective morality exist."
Here's my question; in light of the foregoing, what is the atheistic ground for asserting the existence of an "immoral act" in the first place? You yourself have acknowledged that "evil exists", but how does one account for it in a random, purposeless, impersonal cosmos?
Cordially,
Power. What people love most is a consciousness of their own power. And immoral is every power that defies the expansion of it. The self is the atheistic ground for the assertion of anything. In the end, the self is divinized, and all atheists become shifty worshipers of the ego's occasion. If not Darwin, Hobbes is hereby vindicated.
There's no doubt God loves even the most evil person because they are created in His image, but He does not love them in the same way as He loves those who are in Christ. Those who are outside of God's saving grace really only experience his general grace (the rain falls on the just and unjust alike, and he lets them live and breath and is longsuffering toward them). Clearly the bible teaches they are "children of wrath," and is very unambiguous about it. The natural man cannot understand the things of the spirt as they are foolishness to him (Aristotle's plight).
This is what makes Socrates something profound. He knew that he didn't know. Plus, he looked for a way to know. This is not intellectual dishonesty. Perhaps he was a bit hubristic about it, and poked fun at those who pretended to know when they didn't.
Interesting point. But didn't Socrates make conclusions about the nature of ethics, which we know can only come from God? His ethics seemed to just hang in mid-air as he never did realize that moral absolutes from directly from the character and person of the living God.
Why blame him for what he critized others for? Here's a guy that tried to show how people's ethics are hung in mid-air and then for that we join the Athenians and make him drink hemlock for another 2500 years?
He did realize that ethics are objective (unlike epicureans), but he did not connect them to a source. I'm not criticizing him, just pointing out a simple fact. Ayn Rand objectivists do the same thing! They say certain objective ethical rules exist - but can't name the source! In that sense, Socrates was like Ayn Rand, but the similarity ends there. Ayn Rand has no personal or sexual morals from what I understand, and her ethics were quite compartmentalized. At least Socrates ethics covered a wider spectrum of the human existence.
It scarcely begins. Socrates claims ignorance, which is something Randians will never do and objectivists forget to do. Skeptics and rationalists have a few things in common--like sneezing and such.
Read him. The source is divine.
I have read enough. I did not see in any of his writings where he attributed moral absolutes to God. Where is that? He spoke of a mystical inner voice which is the seat of morality, and he spoke of Justice with a capital J, and of the "right will," but I have never seen anything attributed to Socrates (he didn't have any writings of his own - they are from Plato and Xenophon). I do not hold the greek philosophers in the high esteem that you do, but I believe Plato was the best since he understood that there are ideals and truths independent of man. The problem is for all the greeks is as F. Schaeffer explained: You cannot logical start with finite man and reason your way to the infinite or univeral; you must start with the infinite-personal and reason your way down.
They are all in the same boat, paddling the same wrong direction. Without revelation there is no knowledge. Period. End of story.
Why? Because I love the truth and stick to God's Word? I am not trying to be God, I am merely trying to adopt as much of God's truth into my life and attitudes and philosophy as I can. Colossians 2:8 is my theme verse for philosophy and I recommend it for you:
Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
Unfortunately, that excludes any admiration for greek philosophy.
.
Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point.- Blaise Pascal
That's not my understanding. My understanding is that she believed that sex was too good or too valuable to be given away casually!
Close of the Apology. BTW the independence you speak of in Plato is more true for Socrates.
No? As a way of restating my earlier point about the potential lack of transcendent consequences not precluding the existence of more contemporaneous consequences, imagine a society where everyone was free to murder with impunity, where murder was, if not condoned, at least tolerated, and therefore freely practiced on a whim. What would such a society be like? Would the freedom to murder affect the way such a society was organized, the way its members behaved, the social conventions and traditions in force? Wouldn't those effects be fairly labeled as the "consequences" of the freedom to murder at will? Would you want to live in a society that had to deal - indeed, positively embraced them - with those consequences?
What is the explanation for THIS hunger; namely, that hunger and thirst in our hearts for justice against the wicked? The complaint of our hearts that the wicked "get away with it" makes no sense, and is ultimately meaningless anyway, from an atheistic perspective!
We have an instinctive dislike for the consequences of letting the wicked get away with it - consequences which I asked you to envision above. Your heart complains because your heart knows that in a society without rules, your life is very likely to be short, brutal, and nasty. It is precisely because we are selfish that we have rules. A few people will try to selfishly lie, steal, and murder their way to the top, but most of us instinctively know that there can only be one top dog - making the odds rather long of that top dog being you or me, and so we decline to play that game by selfishly opting for self-preservation instead.
Suppose for example, that a thunderstorm comes though St. Louis tonight and deposits hail on my front lawn which accidentally happens to spell out the words, "Love your wife". Should I feel any obligation to obey the random pattern of hail that gives the appearance of a moral proposition and command? Of course not.
Imagine that your glass of water were to suddenly change to wine as you were holding it. Suppose the hailstorm deposited a perfect representation of the Virgin Mary. Suppose you were standing on the beach one day, and the sea parted before you. All of these events are entirely possible without supernatural intervention, albeit highly unlikely to occur. Are these potential events actually more significant than a random hailstone commandment to love your wife, or are they only more significant because of the significance you assign them? Suppose you had a random and accidental set of quantum fluctuations that only appeared to be Christ conversing with you in your living room - again, highly unlikely, but not impossible. Would you feel obligated to obey it? Would you even be able to tell the difference between mere appearance and true reality?
Here's my question; in light of the foregoing, what is the atheistic ground for asserting the existence of an "immoral act" in the first place? You yourself have acknowledged that "evil exists", but how does one account for it in a random, purposeless, impersonal cosmos?
Impersonal, yes. Random, sort of. Purposeless? Not at all - in that case, the field is open for any purpose we desire to create. Will we create a world that tolerates what we might call "evil", or not? What's your preference, if God should turn out to be absent?
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