Posted on 01/05/2002 11:44:50 AM PST by Brian Kopp DPM
Yet it is rather obvious that "loving God with all your heart" doesn't actually contribute anything to the bottom line of good and moral behavior. "Loving your neighbor" does. Therefore, if applied to the entire population, only the second commandment is really relevant.
From a horizontal perspective I have to agree. And that may be the only perspective some feel they need. An eternal perspective would include the first.
God can do all that is possible- that is the definition of omnipotence. However this does not mean he can bring about absurdities that are contradictions in terms. For instance, God cannot make a square circle. To conceive of a square circle is impossible as it is a non-possible thing. To carry the idea out to absurdity one could ask could make himself not exist? Well, God by definition is an eternal being- his essence and existence are one and the same. To conceive of an eternal God who didn't exist is the ultimate contradiction.
Just the same a God who eternal is immutable- he does not change in a temporal fashion. The scenario posited contradict God's nature and in doing so makes it not a question about God but about some imaginary divinity.
I am glad to see you are a thoroughgoing realist. You accept a readily available rational standard of behavior that is common to all. I agree with you. However, I cannot agree that this state of affairs could come about through purely naturalistic events. I fail to see how rational thought and a free will which enables one to act on that thought can come about from chaos. Furthermore, if it does come from the random workings of matter- why is worthy of trust? In accepting the rationality of morality, you are accepting that it follows consistent norms that can be followed- but why should we have this assumption if we are merely at one point on an ever evolving naturalistic path? Would it not be the case that if morality is simply the result of evolutionary tendencies- that certain people could be more or less morally evolved? Would this not entail different standards for different peoples and different times? Different levels of moral responsibility? I believe it does. and furthermore that it is absurd. The morality theists believe in is universal, unchanging, and eternal. I don't think you can hold to that claim- your metaphysical commitments do not allow you to.
I don't know what Christians you have been associating with lexcorp but I personally know of none who hold that reason does not stand on its own. We do not disagree about this- what we disagree about is the foundations of this reason. I would consider an entirely naturalistic universe to be a modern day superstition, just as you regard my belief in an eternal God who created the universe as a superstition.
Good people are good with or without a God.
Bad people are bad with or without a God.
Bad people can give God a bad reputation. Bad people working in the name of God detract from God's goodness.
Good people do not add to God's goodness. There can be no greater goodness than God. He can not be made more good by the works of any man.
It is my guess that God often hangs his head in shame when He sees what some people on FR are doing to His reputation.
Thank you very much Thomas Hobbes. When the Nazis brutishly sought their pleasure and security they were acting in a properly moral fashion I guess.
How can human action take away from God's goodness?? Are you talking about human perception of God's goodness or God's actual goodness?
I am talking about human perceptions of God's goodness. Thank you for that clarification.
This argument is as strong as "believers know that there really is no God, they are just not being honest with themselves."
Regards.
Muslim Voluntarism, “the divine command theory,” completely dispenses with freedom. It is a deterministic system par excellent. The traditionalist believes that good deeds are good only because God commands them, and evil is evil because God forbids it. Man cannot know good, except by the will of Allah. In the Western intellectual tradition the impact of voluntarism has been significant but ultimately not dominate, whereas in the Muslim, it has been a central element.
The alternative to voluntarism is objectivism and the religious expression this took in the western tradition was through the theory of a natural law, which states: God reveals moral law to humankind, and prescribes obedience to it. The moral law is intrinsically good. This tradition prevails in the Jewish Bible, particularly in the Wisdom books. It was a tradition which was to have a deep impact on Christianity in general and its secular law in particular. In this tradition, God’s command is merely prescriptive of what is, from a purely descriptive point of view, good for human beings.
--St. Augustine
Why the separation?
I didn't write the Bible, dear st.smith, I just read some. In 2 Tim. (3-16 & 2-15), we are told that "all scripture" is "profitable" for DIFFERENT THINGS, the first being DOCTRINE. In the same book, we are told that we must DIVIDE (your word,separate) some things.
In order to get doctrine right, we are told that we should "study", "work" at it,(and if we don't, we should be "ashamed" of ourselves), and that we should be about rightly "DIVIDING" the word of truth.
You see, the doctrinal "separation" of Matt. from the Christian (Pauline) epistles was not MY idea.
You also make a not so thinly veiled charge that I "denigrated" the Gospel of Matthew. I did nothing of the kind.
..I do not see the purpose of denigrating Matthews Gospel or at least placing it in opposition with Paul's epistles. I had not said 20 words (yeah, I counted them), to you before saying "DOCTRINAL". Understand that Matthew may certainly be, as the Book says, "good" for "reproof, correction, (and) for instruction in righteousness" (2 Tim. 3-16), but, if you fail to RIGHTLY DIVIDE, you will break your DOCTRINAL neck in attempting to apply Matthew, DOCTRINALLY, to a New Testament Christian. (I'm sure you understand that there are NO Christians on the face of the earth in Matthew 5).
If God is the author of "all scripture", as the Book says He is (2 Tim 2-15), there should be no clear contradictions, wouldn't you agree? In light of that, recall that in Rom. 11-13, Paul said, "I am the apostle to the Gentiles". Matthew did NOT say that, and Mark, Luke, John, Peter, etc., did NOT say it, because they were NOT.
The confusion is all too common. Many have discounted the Bible because they simply could not accept the absolute silliness of actually APPLYING Matt. 5 to themselves, DOCTRINALLY. You see, any high-school drop-out having seen people attempting to be the very meekest of the "meek" (Matt. 5), KNOWS that they were NOT "blessed" because of it, and they "inherited" absolutely nothing. They simply failed to read the part about "rightly dividing" the Book.
One appropriate personal event, and I'll quit. As a sort of personal challenge to me, a Bible blabber-mouth one day said (in front of a bunch of his church friends and me), "Everything in that Bible is for us today". Now, I KNEW what he meant, but, for the benefit of his similarly Biblically stunted friends, I wanted him to SAY it, so I said, "Sure, all of it is, in SOME fashion, but, do you mean DOCTRINALLY so, that WE should apply it all to us, today?" He said, "Yes, every verse in that Bible is doctrinally for us today." I asked him to read Matt. 5-9 aloud. (I mean, if some smart-mouthed, Bible moron wants to make a fool of himself, he may as well do it in from of all his friends, don't you think?)
He read, "Blessed are the peacemaker, for they shall be called the children of God." I asked him for his interpretation of the verse. He said that a policeman would qualify as a "peacemaker", and the policeman would go to heaven, because they "shall be called the children of God". That was his interpretation.
I said, "O.K., I'll tell you what I'll do. Only a couple of miles from here is a police station. I'll go there and bring back a policeman who will curse God, ridicule you, and spit on your Bible. And you KNOW I can do it! So, according to you, THIS policeman is going to heaven?"
Nothing but an obstinate glare and absolute silence. And this sad, conflicted, ignorant big mouth, without an honest bone in his body, just walked away. He didn't WANT to know how to resolve his error.
As a postscript, however, many of his church friends who were present that day DID move their church membership to a different denomination over the next couple of weeks. They were honest and DID want to know how to harmonize the verses. They had all read their Bible over 10 or 20 years, so, it only took about an hour of NOT telling them anything, but merely pointing to key verses that TELL them how to do it, and asking them to BELIEVE them. And they did. All but the one.
I am certainly not a world authority on the Bible. But I've had grown men and women, many dozens of them, weep tears of joy when the light came on, so to speak, and the verses that they KNEW were contradictory, and the doctrines they were taught that they KNEW were contradictory, suddenly became crystal clear.
I hope that you will be generous enough to allow that, indeed, I didn't 'denigrate" any part of the Book.
Thank you so much for your patience. Your friend, LP.
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