Euthyphro Problem II
- Thread starter Sidheil
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I don't think you ever said what "perfect pleasure" and "perfect pain" are. Neutrality is not a thing; pleasure and pain are. Pleasure is not receiving pleasure - that's redundent; pleasure is recieving the good.
Does God experience things in general?
Does God experience things in general?
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You're equating an action to a state of being. God's self-sufficiency does not mean that He cannot feel emotion. If He was self-sufficient in every extreme way, then He wouldn't even be able to feel emotions because that would mean that He was changing His emotions.
When my wife gives me a kiss, I feel loved. However, when she is not giving me a kiss, it is not as if I suddenly feel unloved.
God does not need our love or our obedience. Rather, when we do obey, it gives Him pleasure to see His creation respond to Him out of their own free will. The fact that God can feel pleasure (and grief) shows that He is a living, active person, not just a mystical energy force floating in the sky.
When my wife gives me a kiss, I feel loved. However, when she is not giving me a kiss, it is not as if I suddenly feel unloved.
God does not need our love or our obedience. Rather, when we do obey, it gives Him pleasure to see His creation respond to Him out of their own free will. The fact that God can feel pleasure (and grief) shows that He is a living, active person, not just a mystical energy force floating in the sky.
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judechild said:
I said pain was the absence of pleasure and pleasure the absence of pain. So perfect pain is the perfect absence of pleasure and perfect pleasure the perfect absence of pain.
So is pleasure receiving all goods, or some in particular?
And yes, I think God experiences things.
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I know you said that, but I didn't agree; I only wanted thinghood for pleasure.
Pleasure is receiving a good, not all goods.
If God experiences things, is He affected by them?
Pleasure is receiving a good, not all goods.
If God experiences things, is He affected by them?
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judechild said:
Oh, okay, I see. Which good then?
In some way...if He was completely unaffected by them I don't think we could really say He experienced them.
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An undefined good. Pleasure could come from recieving food into the body, or from a loving action recieved from another person.
I agree that we couldn't say that God experiences a thing, and is unaffected by it. My question is then: do you believe that affects His sufficiency?
I agree that we couldn't say that God experiences a thing, and is unaffected by it. My question is then: do you believe that affects His sufficiency?
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judechild said:
So receiving any good is pleasure?
Only if the effects take away from, or are necessary for, His perfection.
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No, not every good is a pleasure; it is subjective.
The next question I have then is whether pleasure is necessary for a person's perfection.
The next question I have then is whether pleasure is necessary for a person's perfection.
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judechild said:
If pleasure is a good, and God is perfect good, then yes. But I'm not so sure you consider pleasure a good.
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I'm not sure I'd push self-sufficiency too far. Some theologians have considered it important to make God completely unmoved. But the Bible doesn't portray him that way. It shows God as loving, hurt when we reject him, etc. God is by nature self-sufficient. He didn't need anything else to be what he is. But he chose to create, and to create in a way in which intelligent people, who have an existence independent of him would evolve. It was his decision to do so, but he created us for fellowship with him, and personal fellowship requires personal reactions.
People have at times tended to speak of the universe as if it were a big clockwork entity, for which God determined a course and then set running. But that's not at all the kind of relationship that the Bible shows between God and us. I think it's more like an author. Authors report that they care about their characters. Yes, they are responsible for the plot. But the good ones write their book in a way that respects the integrity of the characters. I believe that God, like a good author, is able to be responsible for history telling the story he wants but also caring about and maintaining the integrity of individuals.
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Because He wants to.
2 Chronicles 7:13-14 If
Jeremiah 18:7-10 If
He bases His decisions on our actions because that's pleasing to Him.
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To say God is the end of all good is not to say that He has to have every pleasure available. Pleasure is not necessary for perfection because it is not an atribute of a person; you can be observant, logical, good, etc; but you cannot be pleasure. Pleasure is something external to the self.
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So is logic, goodness, and observance. But all of these ideas have forms as attributes. What makes pleasure different?
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Goodness is not external; a person can be good. Logic and observation are external; a person cannot be logic, or observation. A person can be logical, or observant. Pleasure depends on the giver, not the reciever, so it is external to the reciever and not a attribute of the reciever.
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So self-sufficient pleasure is actually a contradiction, except in the case of God in the Trinity? Interesting...
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