Theodicy, intervention and resilience

Yes, we've been here before.
Why does God allow suffering?
Why doesn't he intervene?

Why apparent 'words of knowledge' about minor 'First World problems' and putative 'signs and wonders' in some circles while Gaza burns or someone starves unnoticed and unknown?

I'm starting this thread in response to @KarlLB's question/comment about the 'shitty answer' Job is said to have received in the book that bears his name.

Scritch, scratch, scratch ...

And wondering what possible answer would satisfy - other than, 'Oh, alright then, I'll prevent each and every potential opportunity for suffering from now on ...'

My wife died at the age of 56.
Does that mean I should abandon faith because I'd rather she hadn't?

What about people who never married or found partners in the first place? Or whose lost theirs at a younger age than I did? Or who have debilitating diseases or health conditions or ...

It seems we could go on and on.

The 'scandal of particularity.' The Incarnation happened in first century Palestine? Why not 14th century Polynesia or 3rd century Japan?

Lazarus was raised from the dead?
Why not the whole cemetery?
What was the point? He only had to die again at some stage?

I'm thinking aloud - thinking allowed - and hopefully whilst not diminishing the seriousness and sincerity of KarlLB's question, am wondering what questions I need to address to myself?

What can I do to help alleviate suffering?

How can I take forward my late wife's legacy of common sense, grace and long-suffering into the way I interact with people and treat them with the kindness and equanimity she did?

I'm sure God is big enough to handle the big questions. 'You've got some explaining to do!'

But it seems to me that whilst the questions may be different to those God is represented as making to Job, there will always be questions asked of us. That's often how Christ appears to have answered enquirers in the Gospel accounts, by asking a question in return.

That doesn't solve the problem, of course. I'm not going to resolve the mystery of the universe on the back of an envelope. But there are questions for me to answer. 'When did I see you sick or in prison ...?'
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Comments

  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    Those questions are entirely natural, like common sense, grace and long-suffering, suffering and the universe.

    And the scandal of particularity becomes infinitely absurd in infinite nature.
  • Good to give this an airing from time to time @Gamma Gamaliel

    However much I pray about it, children in Gaza and elsewhere are dying of starvation. Those who are preventing aid from reaching them must take full responsibility - person by person, and with an extra burden of responsibility on those giving orders others must obey.

    If God stopped us from doing what was harmful to others, we could absolve ourselves of any responsibility. It seems that God wants us to choose not to do it, to make up our own minds. Therefore God surely cannot intervene to stop us.

    God will always help us to bring some good out from every situation though.
  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    So when will He take responsibility?
  • As far as I'm concerned, those grieving and experiencing other traumas are entitled to believe whatever they need to. I'm not sure there can be any 'should' about it.
  • Raptor Eye wrote: »
    Good to give this an airing from time to time @Gamma Gamaliel

    However much I pray about it, children in Gaza and elsewhere are dying of starvation. Those who are preventing aid from reaching them must take full responsibility - person by person, and with an extra burden of responsibility on those giving orders others must obey.

    If God stopped us from doing what was harmful to others, we could absolve ourselves of any responsibility. It seems that God wants us to choose not to do it, to make up our own minds. Therefore God surely cannot intervene to stop us.

    God will always help us to bring some good out from every situation though.

    Whilst my familiar refrain is that everyone is entitled to believe whatever they like, I'd just say that the acts of the deity as you've explained it are functionally identical to there being no deity.
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    So when will He take responsibility?

    God doesn’t watch from a distance, but suffers alongside us - God accepts that it is costly to give us the freedom we need to make our own decisions.

  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    Raptor Eye wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    So when will He take responsibility?

    God doesn’t watch from a distance, but suffers alongside us - God accepts that it is costly to give us the freedom we need to make our own decisions.

    God lets us keep making excusing for His absent absence.
  • Alan29Alan29 Shipmate
    Martin54 wrote: »
    So when will He take responsibility?

    What, for our free will?
  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    edited March 2024
    What's that? Does He have it? Can you point to it?
  • peasepease Tech Admin
    Raptor Eye wrote: »
    Therefore God surely cannot intervene to stop us.
    Most theodicies address God's omnipotence in some way, and I found it as good a place to start as any.

    A modern-western-faith understanding of God's omnipotence seems typically to be based on a scientific/spiritual conception, of God being all powerful in a scientific sense in the same way as He is all powerful in a spiritual sense, without examining too closely what that means in detail or in practice.

    As well examining how we today understand God's omnipotence, it also seems worth examining how that understanding has changed over the last 2000 years.
  • KendelKendel Shipmate
    Raptor Eye wrote: »
    God will always help us to bring some good out from every situation though.

    The questions pour forth.
    A few of the many - word for word:

    Always: When? Under what circumstances?

    Help whom: The sufferers, the affected observers, the distanced and "safe" observers, the bystanders, the children of the sufferers to the 6th and 7th generation, or children of those imposing suffering, the dominant caste?

    Us: precisely whom?

    Some: how much and of what quality?

    Good: good for whom and by what standard?

    Situation: What situations count as those from which God will help "us" bring forth some good?
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    I do wonder why we always get a reduction of the problem of pain to not intervening with human free will. The problem is that human free will isn't the cause of a good proportion of suffering. What explanation is offered for genetic diseases, for cancers which are not lifestyle related in the slightest, for droughts and their associated famines, for death and injury from earthquakes and for sudden brain aneurysms?
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    I'm inclined to distinguish between a strong problem of suffering and a weak problem. The strong problem is to ask, given the choice between creating this universe and creating nothing, whether creating nothing was the ethical choice.
    The weak problem is to ask why God doesn't intervene more often or more obviously to make this universe a bit better.

    I think that as long as I think the strong problem is ok - and I have two children which would be unethical if I thought it wasn't - I can live with the weak problem. It means I can't pay much attention to reports of the miraculous or providential intervention as evidence of God, but that's not why I believe anyway.

    I incline to think that miracles like the resurrection are not God changing this creation, but God preparing a new creation. That is good news in the long run, but we're still living in this one although with hope we (try to) live as if in the new.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Dafyd wrote: »
    I'm inclined to distinguish between a strong problem of suffering and a weak problem. The strong problem is to ask, given the choice between creating this universe and creating nothing, whether creating nothing was the ethical choice.
    The weak problem is to ask why God doesn't intervene more often or more obviously to make this universe a bit better.

    I think that as long as I think the strong problem is ok - and I have two children which would be unethical if I thought it wasn't - I can live with the weak problem. It means I can't pay much attention to reports of the miraculous or providential intervention as evidence of God, but that's not why I believe anyway.

    I incline to think that miracles like the resurrection are not God changing this creation, but God preparing a new creation. That is good news in the long run, but we're still living in this one although with hope we (try to) live as if in the new.

    I think that's roughly where I am, with the proviso I'm far from sure there's a God at all (which is another solution to the problem of course). The best solution I can come up with to the weak problem is that intervention would make it less real and more a holodeck with the safeties all on. Which is fine, but isn't real.
  • My problem with the idea of a deity is that there's too much ambiguity. If I'm supposed to believe in this Thing then I'm looking for something that's really clear and can't be explained away or that falls apart with gentle prodding.

    I want miracles that can't be explained (and which objectively and clearly only benefit believers), I want big firey letters seen on planets when we turn our telescopes to them, I want an explanation for things that makes things clearer rather than requiring a prerequisite belief in a bunch of unlikely things.

    If this is really the best that a deity can do, and we are all supposed to sift through it to come up with the "right answer", then the deity is a bit pathetic.

    Which would appear to be a contradiction, hence easier to disbelieve in deities.
  • pease wrote: »
    Raptor Eye wrote: »
    Therefore God surely cannot intervene to stop us.
    Most theodicies address God's omnipotence in some way, and I found it as good a place to start as any.

    A modern-western-faith understanding of God's omnipotence seems typically to be based on a scientific/spiritual conception, of God being all powerful in a scientific sense in the same way as He is all powerful in a spiritual sense, without examining too closely what that means in detail or in practice.

    As well examining how we today understand God's omnipotence, it also seems worth examining how that understanding has changed over the last 2000 years.

    A good starting point in this area can be found in the book The Problem of Evil and the Problem of God by the late D Z Phillips
  • Alan29Alan29 Shipmate
    Martin54 wrote: »
    What's that? Does He have it? Can you point to it?

    OUR free will.
  • Alan29Alan29 Shipmate
    KarlLB wrote: »
    I do wonder why we always get a reduction of the problem of pain to not intervening with human free will. The problem is that human free will isn't the cause of a good proportion of suffering. What explanation is offered for genetic diseases, for cancers which are not lifestyle related in the slightest, for droughts and their associated famines, for death and injury from earthquakes and for sudden brain aneurysms?

    Creation is made of matter. Matter decays. Bodies are machines - entropy is built in. A geologically dynamic planet seems to be required for life to begin. Dynamic geology = eathquakes and weather events.
    We seem to be tied to an anthropocentric view of creation ..... maybe that is part of the problem - it certainly is for the rest of the natural world.
    I'm kind of with Leibniz that we live in the best of all possible worlds ...... and the rest is up to us.
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    I'm inclined to distinguish between a strong problem of suffering and a weak problem. The strong problem is to ask, given the choice between creating this universe and creating nothing, whether creating nothing was the ethical choice.
    The weak problem is to ask why God doesn't intervene more often or more obviously to make this universe a bit better.

    I think that as long as I think the strong problem is ok - and I have two children which would be unethical if I thought it wasn't - I can live with the weak problem. It means I can't pay much attention to reports of the miraculous or providential intervention as evidence of God, but that's not why I believe anyway.

    I incline to think that miracles like the resurrection are not God changing this creation, but God preparing a new creation. That is good news in the long run, but we're still living in this one although with hope we (try to) live as if in the new.

    I think that's roughly where I am, with the proviso I'm far from sure there's a God at all (which is another solution to the problem of course). The best solution I can come up with to the weak problem is that intervention would make it less real and more a holodeck with the safeties all on. Which is fine, but isn't real.

    Yes, that makes sense to me. If God intervened all the time, it would be a magical universe. If God intervened occasionally, that seems unfair. If God doesn't intervene, good night Vienna.
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    I do wonder why we always get a reduction of the problem of pain to not intervening with human free will. The problem is that human free will isn't the cause of a good proportion of suffering. What explanation is offered for genetic diseases, for cancers which are not lifestyle related in the slightest, for droughts and their associated famines, for death and injury from earthquakes and for sudden brain aneurysms?

    Sure. My wife died of a cancer that wasn't life-style related in the slightest.

    How do I explain that? I don't know if I need to. Why shouldn't any of us die from things that aren't anything to do with the way we live? I'm not saying I have the answer/s of course.

    I didn't want my wife to die and my daughters to lose their Mum but she did. We have to deal with it.

    Christ's response to the question about the Galilean's killed in the rebellion or the 18 people crushed by the fall of the tower of Siloam raises some interesting issues:

    https://biblehub.com/luke/13-3.htm

    @KoF - fiery writing appearing on distant planets. Sure, we'd all like that. Rather than the lack of such apparently convincing proofs, it could be argued the other way. The fact that people believe despite the lack of flashing lights and writing on the wall may indicate not the feebleness of a deity but their power. After all, if someone's going to try to base their life on something without some wham-bam sign from heaven it may indicate the power of that belief. It doesn't 'prove' it of course - but as I've often cited on these boards, a wise RC priest once said that the opposite of faith isn't doubt but certainty.

  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    edited March 2024
    Alan29 wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    What's that? Does He have it? Can you point to it?

    OUR free will.

    WHAT about it? Is it something we've got that HE hasn't? Please point to it. Not HIS, OURS. How does it justify HIM being a useless, arbitrary, judgemental bastard without an unnatural trace?
  • KoF wrote: »
    My problem with the idea of a deity is that there's too much ambiguity. If I'm supposed to believe in this Thing then I'm looking for something that's really clear and can't be explained away or that falls apart with gentle prodding.

    I want miracles that can't be explained (and which objectively and clearly only benefit believers.

    Why should they benefit only believers?

    That only makes sense if God’s primary purpose in doing them is to prove to us that he exists. But what if that’s not the reason he does them? What if he flat out refuses to do miracles for that purpose, as Christ refused? (Matt 8:12).

    My own experience with miracles is that they don’t affect human belief in the long term. Those who wish to talk themselves out of believing can always find another explanation. And if I’ve seen this, how much more God?

    I think it’s a mistake to assume that God is so eager to prove himself that he will adopt the methods we propose for him—and then rail at him because he doesn’t.

    He might not be thinking on those lines at all.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0
    edited March 2024
    Well because if we could see that only believers were experiencing miracles, that might indicate that the Thing they believed in was true.

    I'm not proposing these things. These are literally things that various believers claim happen. But it is so unclear and unpredictable and unfalsifiable that it is impossible to see any difference between believer/unbeliever and believer/believer-in-other-religion

    Also, I don't want to talk myself out of believing, I just don't believe. And see no reason to accept any of the claims the thousands of different kinds of belief in the various deities.

    Believe whatever you like, but don't bring me into it.
  • peasepease Tech Admin
    Dafyd wrote: »
    I'm inclined to distinguish between a strong problem of suffering and a weak problem. The strong problem is to ask, given the choice between creating this universe and creating nothing, whether creating nothing was the ethical choice.
    This seems quite straightforward - if you know that creation will lead to evil, pain and suffering, then the ethical choice is not to create. (Which presumes moral agency, which is a separate issue.)
    The weak problem is to ask why God doesn't intervene more often or more obviously to make this universe a bit better.

    I think that as long as I think the strong problem is ok - and I have two children which would be unethical if I thought it wasn't
    I'm not sure I follow your reasoning. Are you saying that because you consider the creation of the universe to be an ethical choice, that your progenation of two children is also ethical (or, at least, not unethical)?
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    edited March 2024
    pease wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    I'm inclined to distinguish between a strong problem of suffering and a weak problem. The strong problem is to ask, given the choice between creating this universe and creating nothing, whether creating nothing was the ethical choice.
    This seems quite straightforward - if you know that creation will lead to evil, pain and suffering, then the ethical choice is not to create. (Which presumes moral agency, which is a separate issue.)

    I disagree, because with nothing you get nothing - so no love, joy or beauty either. Labour is painful, but people still choose to have children.
  • Well, yes, life ends with death, but many people would prefer life than nothing. Doesn't materiality involve pain, barring magic? I suppose you can than ask why materiality.
  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    pease wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    I'm inclined to distinguish between a strong problem of suffering and a weak problem. The strong problem is to ask, given the choice between creating this universe and creating nothing, whether creating nothing was the ethical choice.
    This seems quite straightforward - if you know that creation will lead to evil, pain and suffering, then the ethical choice is not to create. (Which presumes moral agency, which is a separate issue.)

    I disagree, because with nothing you get nothing - so no love, joy or beauty either. Labour is painful, but people still choose to have children.

    No pain, no...
  • KoF wrote: »
    Well because if we could see that only believers were experiencing miracles, that might indicate that the Thing they believed in was true.

    I'm not proposing these things. These are literally things that various believers claim happen. But it is so unclear and unpredictable and unfalsifiable that it is impossible to see any difference between believer/unbeliever and believer/believer-in-other-religion

    Also, I don't want to talk myself out of believing, I just don't believe. And see no reason to accept any of the claims the thousands of different kinds of belief in the various deities.

    Believe whatever you like, but don't bring me into it.

    If that's directed to me, nobody is bringing you into it. You do as you like. I thought we were having a discussion on this thread, and responded accordingly.
  • peasepease Tech Admin
    pease wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    I'm inclined to distinguish between a strong problem of suffering and a weak problem. The strong problem is to ask, given the choice between creating this universe and creating nothing, whether creating nothing was the ethical choice.
    This seems quite straightforward - if you know that creation will lead to evil, pain and suffering, then the ethical choice is not to create. (Which presumes moral agency, which is a separate issue.)

    I disagree, because with nothing you get nothing - so no love, joy or beauty either. Labour is painful, but people still choose to have children.
    And people increasingly choose not to have children, because of politics, because of cost, because of climate change. Not everyone makes the same ethical choices about not existing in the first place.

    And I declared that the dead,
       who had already died,
    are happier than the living,
       who are still alive.
    But better than both
       is the one who has never been born,
    who has not seen the evil
       that is done under the sun.
  • The_RivThe_Riv Shipmate
    edited March 2024
    Well, yes, life ends with death, but many people would prefer life than nothing. Doesn't materiality involve pain, barring magic? I suppose you can than ask why materiality.

    The only people for whom this is true are the ones already living. One of the most comforting thoughts one can have is that being dead will be exactly like it was before one was born. How was that experience (pre-life, or pre-conception for those who need to go that far)? Easy right? The act and/or mechanism of dying remains terrifying, but not the aftermath.
    Raptor Eye wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    So when will He take responsibility?
    God doesn’t watch from a distance, but suffers alongside us -

    It would make a load of difference if this was palpable in literally any way.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    pease wrote: »
    pease wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    I'm inclined to distinguish between a strong problem of suffering and a weak problem. The strong problem is to ask, given the choice between creating this universe and creating nothing, whether creating nothing was the ethical choice.
    This seems quite straightforward - if you know that creation will lead to evil, pain and suffering, then the ethical choice is not to create. (Which presumes moral agency, which is a separate issue.)

    I disagree, because with nothing you get nothing - so no love, joy or beauty either. Labour is painful, but people still choose to have children.
    And people increasingly choose not to have children, because of politics, because of cost, because of climate change. Not everyone makes the same ethical choices about not existing in the first place.

    And I declared that the dead,
       who had already died,
    are happier than the living,
       who are still alive.
    But better than both
       is the one who has never been born,
    who has not seen the evil
       that is done under the sun.

    Quite, but that’s why I don’t think it is straight forward. The ethical solution to the strong problem of suffering is to do nothing under what ethical framework - you can argue it either way ?
  • The_RivThe_Riv Shipmate
    Is an ethical framework required of God? Clearly God expects humanity to function under a specific, proscribed framework, but does it apply to him?
  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    Love levels up.
  • If God sets the rules then he would naturally be expected to abide by them himself. Lots of theological knots to untangle there. It can lead to the kind of thinking that has the infinite and Almighty God boxed in by his own decrees as it were.

    On a crude level some forms of hyper-Reformed Christianity has God painted into a corner such that he is 'unable' to forgive or to act unless and until certain conditions are met. I won't go further with that at the risk of caricature.

    FWIW I think much talk of what God 'can' and apparently 'cannot' or 'will not' do rather self-defeating. Like speculating as to whether God can create a rock too heavy for him to lift.

    That doesn't mean I am not interested in the sorts of problems posed on this and similar threads.

    But in some kind of inchoate way I sense that they are really missing the point. I'll probably be accused of taking refuge in Mystery but it strikes me that any talk of God is going to end up there. How couldn't be otherwise? This isn't a physics lesson.
  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    No it's a moral one.
  • The_RivThe_Riv Shipmate
    edited March 2024
    Well, I think we're at risk of an infinite regress, then. From where would the expectation that God abide by the ethical framework he created come, @Gamma Gamaliel ? The 'can' or 'cannot' / 'will' or 'will not' derives straight from the omnipotent characterization. God does say a few things about himself: that he's jealous, that he's compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness... But I don't think omnipotent is in his list. Certainly God takes great credit for himself in other passages, but he never quite goes all the way. Have we elevated God to omnipotence/omniscience/omnipresence all on our own?

    (ETA that I'm sorry for the loss of your wife.)
  • Well, I'd have thought that 'Almighty' rather suggests omnipotence.

    Thanks for your condolences. I do appreciate that.
  • He acts in accordance with his own nature. Nothing can constrain him, as we are often constrained, to do differently. And so he is self consistent and what we call morality flows out of his nature and has its basis in that nature. It’s not as if he’s boxed in anymore than I would be if you found me doing according to my nature. And to the suggestion that he might do otherwise, you’ll only get the answer, “But why would i want to?” It’s freedom, not constraint.
  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    And that nature is infinitely effectual love.
  • The_RivThe_Riv Shipmate
    He acts in accordance with his own nature. Nothing can constrain him, as we are often constrained, to do differently. And so he is self consistent and what we call morality flows out of his nature and has its basis in that nature. It’s not as if he’s boxed in anymore than I would be if you found me doing according to my nature. And to the suggestion that he might do otherwise, you’ll only get the answer, “But why would i want to?” It’s freedom, not constraint.

    Where is this information found?
  • Look at the picture that emerges from the Scripture. All I've done is condense it. Does that show you a God in conflict with himself, or one who is under constraints (other than those of his own nature, which can hardly be called constraints since they are himself)? Do you see anything but freedom in how he acts or what he does? Do you find inconsistency in his commands, or any way those commands do not echo his own nature?

    This idea of morality as a thing that somehow exist of itself, apart from God, and in fact cages God--that is certainly a very odd idea. If it were true, we should have to ask where it came from, and who set it up. If you say "God," then you are back to it flowing from his own nature again; and if you say "somebody else," then we have another deity to search after, don't we? Again, if you say "it was always existent," then you will have great difficulty showing that something is self-existent and yet is not an outflowing of the self-existent God's nature. There are logical traps all over the place.
  • Indeed, but whilst I'm on the same or a similar page to you, I'm not sure atheists or agnostics would accept the way you've described their position.

    I don't think they'd see 'morality' as a 'thing' that exists in and of itself - irrespective of whether there is can God or not - but as the product of various social exchanges and forces. A range of social and evolutionary imperatives that make collaborative and morally acceptable actions vital for survival.

    But I may have misunderstood you.

    There are a number of people here who seem to regard God as inconsistent, capricious and something of a 'bastard' based on their understanding of certain texts and how they've heard them presented. No matter how many times you or I or anyone else might say, 'Weighing up the sum total of all the texts we can demonstrate that God is all-loving and always consistent', there'll be an objection.

    'What about this verse? What about that one?'

    But you know that already.
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    The_Riv wrote: »
    Is an ethical framework required of God? Clearly God expects humanity to function under a specific, proscribed framework, but does it apply to him?
    If it doesn't we then get hooked on the Euthyphro dilemma: does God command the ethical framework because it's good (but then what makes it good?) or is it only good because it's commanded by God (in which case God is an arbitrary dictator).

    The traditional theistic answer (in those traditions that do philosophy) is that created goodness is a reflection of God's nature. In traditions influenced by Plato it's an actual participation in God's nature; in others it's an imitation. As Lamb Chopped has already said.

    The idea that morality is no more than a set of rules commanded by God goes back no further than the late Middle Ages / early Modern period - not coincidentally I suspect like the divine right of kings.

    As for where that information is found, the answer is a lot of philosophers and theologians trying to think logically through what goodness entails.
  • Seems like a reasonable inference that the deity is not working at the same level as humans.

    Humans can manipulate ants and ant colonies and make them do things that they might not ordinarily do. It would be weird to think that humans had the ability to act as humans but were constrained by behaviours that were ant-like when interacting with ants.
  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    KoF wrote: »
    Seems like a reasonable inference that the deity is not working at the same level as humans.

    Humans can manipulate ants and ant colonies and make them do things that they might not ordinarily do. It would be weird to think that humans had the ability to act as humans but were constrained by behaviours that were ant-like when interacting with ants.

    Well that must be the case with God and the whole of His infinite creation, because He does it as if He doesn't.
  • peasepease Tech Admin
    [theodicy and omnipotence]
    A good starting point in this area can be found in the book The Problem of Evil and the Problem of God by the late D Z Phillips
    Yes - indeed it is.
    ...
    Quite, but that’s why I don’t think it is straight forward. The ethical solution to the strong problem of suffering is to do nothing under what ethical framework - you can argue it either way ?
    Given "The strong problem is to ask, given the choice between creating this universe and creating nothing, whether creating nothing was the ethical choice."

    As touched on in other posts, I'd say the underlying question is whether God Himself abides by an ethical framework. Personally, I think not. For example, consider whether God can experience an ethical dilemma - eg the trolley problem.

    As Lamb Chopped says, He acts according to His nature.
  • peasepease Tech Admin
    Dafyd wrote: »
    The_Riv wrote: »
    Is an ethical framework required of God? Clearly God expects humanity to function under a specific, proscribed framework, but does it apply to him?
    If it doesn't we then get hooked on the Euthyphro dilemma: does God command the ethical framework because it's good (but then what makes it good?) or is it only good because it's commanded by God (in which case God is an arbitrary dictator).

    The traditional theistic answer (in those traditions that do philosophy) is that created goodness is a reflection of God's nature. In traditions influenced by Plato it's an actual participation in God's nature; in others it's an imitation. As Lamb Chopped has already said.
    I note that the classical theistic perspective is that the Euthyphro dilemma is a false dilemma.
    From a classical theistic perspective, therefore, the Euthyphro dilemma is false. As Rogers puts it, "Anselm, like Augustine before him and Aquinas later, rejects both horns of the Euthyphro dilemma. God neither conforms to nor invents the moral order. Rather His very nature is the standard for value."
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthyphro_dilemma#False_dilemma_in_classical_theistic_perspective
  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    edited March 2024
    His actual nature, were He to be, is not to reveal His existence, is to create as if He didn't. What else does that, and not a bunch of old manuscripts, say about His nature?
  • peasepease Tech Admin
    Martin54 wrote: »
    His actual nature, were He to be, is not to reveal His existence, is to create as if He didn't. What else does that, and not a bunch of old manuscripts, say about His nature?
    That He can't be found by accident?
  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    pease wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    His actual nature, were He to be, is not to reveal His existence, is to create as if He didn't. What else does that, and not a bunch of old manuscripts, say about His nature?
    That He can't be found by accident?

    Or design.
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