God Qualities

awitch said:

And there are people whose only serious offense is not worshiping that god who get the worst eternal life.

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Frankly, that's something many educated Christians are embarrassed about, and have to try to find some way to explain.

dlamberth said:

Ok. What would you point to of God that is not subjective?


I look at how consciousness has evolved and that makes me wonder about God also evolving. But than I look at the Life Force of God that's inherent in Nature and that extends even to the Cosmos and see a pattern of unlimited creativity that changes only in the form expressed over time. So I can't sit here and say that God does not change. And I ask myself, if God can not change, wouldn't that be a limited God?


Between you and I, you've been the only one saying that sort of thing.


Being subjective has nothing to do with God existing or not. The the scent of a flower is subjective, yet it exists. Even the Love Mary has for Jesus is subjective, yet it exists. And God can be something other than an object and still exist.

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There are Japanese monotheistic versions of Shinto (like Konkokyo or Oomoto) that are more in line with this. They believe that God in some sense depends on the world, and especially human beings, to live. So God in these religions is inherently relational and has interbeing with creation, that God is the "soul" or spirit of the universe.

Interestingly enough, they also typically do not believe God has a particular gender.

FireDragon76 said:

There are Japanese monotheistic versions of Shinto (like Konkokyo or Oomoto) that are more in line with this. They believe that God in some sense depends on the world, and especially human beings, to live. So God in these religions is inherently relational and has interbeing with creation, that God is the "soul" or spirit of the universe.

Interestingly enough, they also typically do not believe God has a particular gender.

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I experience God as the Life Force that is inherent with in every bit of the cosmos. That sounds very much like what you were explaining.

Edit: wrong thread!

dlamberth said:

I experience God as the Life Force that is inherent with in every bit of the cosmos. That sounds very much like what you were explaining.

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Oomoto and Konkokyo believe we can relate to God in a personal way, that God has desires and a will, so it's not completely the same. It really is a kind of Asian monotheism, similar to Sikhism in that respect. Monotheistic, but not exclusivist.

"What qualities make a god good or evil?"

The question assumes the first horn of the Euthyphro, that good and evil are things other than god and determines whether a god is good or not. All of us have the intuition that there is good and evil, and that good refers to a standard we should uphold, and evil refers to the avoidance of that standard. We have three choices in which to ground that paradigm, we can ground it in something outside god, we can ground it in a gods commands, or in the case of Christianity we can ground it in God's nature. In the case of the Christian God, God's nature doesn't make something good, good simply refers to God's nature. Good means "Like Yahweh", and Evil means "not like Yahweh". One might say, "But why is it that what is Good is Yahweh's nature, I have this intuition that tells me there is objective Good, so why should I attribute it to Yahweh?" Well that is to go backwards, to the first horn, by thinking that Good is some standalone referent or entity that stands as a paradigm for sorting goodness from evil, well that standalone entity or referent is God's nature. When you love Good, you Love God's nature. When you love Evil you hate God's nature. And each of us have love and hate for God's nature in us. We are quick to love the parts of God's nature that do well for us, and even quicker to hate the parts of God's nature that stand against our desires and ambitions.

Sanoy said:

"What qualities make a god good or evil?"

The question assumes the first horn of the Euthyphro, that good and evil are things other than god and determines whether a god is good or not. All of us have the intuition that there is good and evil, and that good refers to a standard we should uphold, and evil refers to the avoidance of that standard. We have three choices in which to ground that paradigm, we can ground it in something outside god, we can ground it in a gods commands, or in the case of Christianity we can ground it in God's nature. In the case of the Christian God, God's nature doesn't make something good, good simply refers to God's nature. Good means like Yahweh, and Evil means not like Yahweh. One might say, "But why is it that what is Good is Yahweh's nature, I have this intuition that tells me there is objective Good, so why should I attribute it to Yahweh?" Well that is to go backwards, to the first horn, by thinking that Good is some standalone referent or entity that stands as a paradigm for sorting goodness from evil, well that standalone entity or referent is God's nature. When you love Good, you Love God's nature. When you love Evil you hate God's nature. And each of us have love and hate for God's nature in us. We are quick to love the parts of God's nature that do well for us, and even quicker to hate the parts of God's nature that stand against our desires and ambitions.

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This assumes goodness actually exists in some platonic sense, over and above concrete good acts. Not all philosophies or religions would agree with that. Taoism and Buddhism tend to believe goodness is a human concept that cannot be applied to ultimate reality.

awitch said:

Inspired by another thread, I thought it might be interesting to ask, "What qualities make a god good or evil?"

(And if anyone says "loving", I'll ask you to explain exactly what that means in detail.)

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You do.

awitch said:

Inspired by another thread, I thought it might be interesting to ask, "What qualities make a god good or evil?"

(And if anyone says "loving", I'll ask you to explain exactly what that means in detail.)

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I don't believe that God can be described in the form of "qualities". Any qualities we attempt to use will always be anthropomorphic. Now I could say that the Life Force of God is inherent with in all of life, but that's not a quality. It's more of how I experience God animated in Nature.

FireDragon76 said:

This assumes goodness actually exists in some platonic sense, over and above concrete good acts. Not all philosophies or religions would agree with that. Taoism and Buddhism tend to believe goodness is a human concept that cannot be applied to ultimate reality.

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This wouldn't be a Platonic sense for Christianity. In Christianity Goodness refers to a person, platonic forms are not people, nor do they stand in causal positions to establish things like duties. So Platonic forms would go into that bag of philosophies or religions that would disagree. There are people that intellectually disagree regarding moral ontology, and it's objective or subjective nature. And while it's fine to think about it intellectually I have yet to find anyone who does not live their life as if they are objective and binding when someone else's actions transgresses deeply on their world view or way of life. There are many religions and philosophies that are quick to claim moral values, but very slow in acquiring duties, and ontology for those values. I think those two things play a much larger role in an intellectual pursuit of this sort of thing than having a different world view.

One reason I stick with Christianity is because God and goodness are said to be the same. it seems rather hard to kataphatically deny that the ultimate reality is not goodness or not truth, seeing that it is the ultimate/highest/first reality.

I try to keep in mind that two common ways of understanding in contemplation are the apophatic and the kataphatic. without both negative and positive theological, philosophic, and mystic thinking I would not be able to see as much unity in diverse expressions that I come upon. they allow me to not automatically reject one thing just because the outside appearance of it seems to conflict with another outside appearance. in wisdom I try to put together as many of the puzzle pieces in their proper place as I can.

Sanoy said:

This wouldn't be a Platonic sense for Christianity. In Christianity Goodness refers to a person, platonic forms are not people, nor do they stand in causal positions to establish things like duties. So Platonic forms would go into that bag of philosophies or religions that would disagree.

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I just want to point out that the Good is usually viewed as the highest principle in Platonism, not just another form amongst many. Once you get to Plotinus, it's actually conceived of as the source of everything in a way that could easily be described as theistic, and the forms are dependent upon it for their existence.

Don't knock Platonism. Platonism is your friend.

Silmarien said:

I just want to point out that the Good is usually viewed as the highest principle in Platonism, not just another form amongst many. Once you get to Plotinus, it's actually conceived of as the source of everything in a way that could easily be described as theistic, and the forms are dependent upon it for their existence.

Don't knock Platonism. Platonism is your friend.

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The hierarchy of platonic forms would require a meta platonic form which organizes this hierarchy. It could place goodness at the top, but goodness could never be the highest because it is this meta platonic form that places it there. The Euthyprho dilemma kind of goes here too, is goodness at the top because the meta platonic form declares it, or does the meta platonic form declare it because it is good.

I think Platonism is a mereological difference rather a distant alternative. It's very much like that old example of the blind men describing an elephant by each touching a different part. Each one describes vastly different pieces, but only the one standing back with sight can see it's all one thing and it's a living elephant. It's very easy to see a platonic form out there, beaming like the 'Sun' and ordering all things around it's gravity and pulling all things into itself. And then we see another platonic form, like the 'moon', pulling the tide, and fixing the hours of our day. We see the Sun as greater, and the moon as lesser, but if we stand far enough back they are all minor parts to an even greater whole. We are both looking at the same thing, the nature of Christ, but we have a mereological difference because of where we are standing in perspective to what we are experiencing.

Whenever we are asked to describe a person, we pause for a moment, wondering how we can transmit the answer we know so well. After a short pause we figure out how to answer the question. Only by breaking that mind into conceivable parts we can describe the person we know so well. "Oh, he's Kind, He's Just, He helps people when they need it. That is what is happening with the perception of Platonic forms. These separate things..."Kind" : "Just" : "Helping" just need to be made whole for us, and that occurs by relationship with the person, just as it does in life.

Sanoy said:

The hierarchy of platonic forms would require a meta platonic form which organizes this hierarchy. It could place goodness at the top, but goodness could never be the highest because it is this meta platonic form that places it there. The Euthyprho dilemma kind of goes here too, is goodness at the top because the meta platonic form declares it, or does the meta platonic form declare it because it is good.

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I'm not sure what you're talking about. I just skimmed through the Euthyphro again and see no mention of the Theory of Forms anywhere in it, so I'm going to have to ask you to provide some quotations if you think the dilemma specifically addresses this issue.

Platonism is a difficult subject for several reasons. For one, it is difficult to distill a systematic philosophy from Plato's dialogues, because it's tricky to distinguish between ideas that he's toying with idly and what he actually believes. Platonism is also much bigger than just Plato, and I'm not sure how your argument here could possibly apply to Plotinus and Proclus. They place the Good beyond the Forms--it isn't the first principle because there's a meta-form that makes it such. It is the source of the Forms.

Sanoy said:

I think Platonism is a mereological difference rather a distant alternative. It's very much like that old example of the blind men describing an elephant by each touching a different part. Each one describes vastly different pieces, but only the one standing back with sight can see it's all one thing and it's a living elephant. It's very easy to see a platonic form out there, beaming like the 'Sun' and ordering all things around it's gravity and pulling all things into itself. And then we see another platonic form, like the 'moon', pulling the tide, and fixing the hours of our day. We see the Sun as greater, and the moon as lesser, but if we stand far enough back they are all minor parts to an even greater whole. We are both looking at the same thing, the nature of Christ, but we have a mereological difference because of where we are standing in perspective to what we are experiencing.

Whenever we are asked to describe a person, we pause for a moment, wondering how we can transmit the answer we know so well. After a short pause we figure out how to answer the question. Only by breaking that mind into conceivable parts we can describe the person we know so well. "Oh, he's Kind, He's Just, He helps people when they need it. That is what is happening with the perception of Platonic forms. These separate things..."Kind" : "Just" : "Helping" just need to be made whole for us, and that occurs by relationship with the person, just as it does in life.

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Again, I am not really sure what you're talking about. I actually am a Platonist (albeit with some Thomistic leanings), and the Theory of Forms itself really is not at all central to the philosophy, except insofar as we generally think that form precedes matter. I reject nominalism. I reject materialism. I wouldn't be entirely opposed to the idea that only mind and abstract truths exist, and at least on a good day, I think goodness is convertible with being.

When you say that goodness is grounded in God's nature, you really are brushing up against Platonic theism.

Silmarien said:

I'm not sure what you're talking about. I just skimmed through the Euthyphro again and see no mention of the Theory of Forms anywhere in it, so I'm going to have to ask you to provide some quotations if you think the dilemma specifically addresses this issue.

Platonism is a difficult subject for several reasons. For one, it is difficult to distill a systematic philosophy from Plato's dialogues, because it's tricky to distinguish between ideas that he's toying with idly and what he actually believes. Platonism is also much bigger than just Plato, and I'm not sure how your argument here could possibly apply to Plotinus and Proclus. They place the Good beyond the Forms--it isn't the first principle because there's a meta-form that makes it such. It is the source of the Forms.



Again, I am not really sure what you're talking about. I actually am a Platonist (albeit with some Thomistic leanings), and the Theory of Forms itself really is not at all central to the philosophy, except insofar as we generally think that form precedes matter. I reject nominalism. I reject materialism. I wouldn't be entirely opposed to the idea that only mind and abstract truths exist, and at least on a good day, I think goodness is convertible with being.

When you say that goodness is grounded in God's nature, you really are brushing up against Platonic theism.

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The Euthyphro 'trilemma' is that Good is either grounded in God, arbitrary, or greater than God. The trilemma exhausts the available options, so it should show up for any grounding of good even if God is replaced with a form. I haven't looked into Plotinus in a long time, but since it's exhaustive it should also fall into one of the three.

Sometimes I go overboard in metaphor. That part was a long way of going about the idea that we are describing the same thing from opposites sides. From the whole, and from the individual attributes of the whole. I'm a light idealist, I haven't really worked out what to do with the material world though. But here I'm just talking about the particulars of goodness, justice, mercy etc. Instead of them being unconnnected forms that we know, I believe they are all attributes of a person that we can know.

Goodness is not an essence, it is a value judgment, a partially instinctive, partially learned/taught and partially intellectual reaction to exhibited behaviours or motivations.
It is not entirely arbitrary, but instead grounded in social needs and material realities. Still, it is malleable enough that different cultures or even different individuals may not agree on what is or isn't good.

Jane_the_Bane said:

Goodness is not an essence, it is a value judgment, a partially instinctive, partially learned/taught and partially intellectual reaction to exhibited behaviours or motivations.
It is not entirely arbitrary, but instead grounded in social needs and material realities. Still, it is malleable enough that different cultures or even different individuals may not agree on what is or isn't good.

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That is one of many competing theories of values and morality, and not an established fact. I honestly don't find it very persuasive at all, since even talking about social needs and material realities presupposes the possibility that certain options are better or worse than others. I think the Platonists are right that the Good precedes value judgments, rather than the reverse.

The fact that different cultures disagree on what is or isn't good doesn't actually mean that morality is malleable. I would say that oppressing people is always bad, and that insofar as cultures engage in systematic oppression, those cultures are behaving badly.

Silmarien said:

The fact that different cultures disagree on what is or isn't good doesn't actually mean that morality is malleable. I would say that oppressing people is always bad, and that insofar as cultures engage in systematic oppression, those cultures are behaving badly.

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Morality is the last place I go to when thinking of the goodness of God. Where I go to see the Goodness of God is in the Life Force of God. And that Force of Life I see/experience in such things as the scent of flowers, the spark of life in plants and animals, in the bonding Love of a mother with her new born child, in the mountain meadow in full spring time bloom, in the rushing rivers and still clear lakes and in the expanse of the Cosmos, those sorts of things.

dlamberth said:

Morality is the last place I go to when thinking of the goodness of God. Where I go to see the Goodness of God is in the Life Force of God. And that Force of Life I see/experience in such things as the scent of flowers, the spark of life in plants and animals, in the bonding Love of a mother with her new born child, in the mountain meadow in full spring time bloom, in the rushing rivers and still clear lakes and in the expanse of the Cosmos, those sorts of things.

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If you think that the Goodness of God is the same thing as the Life Force of God, then you're relatively close to a theory of transcendentals. Truth, Goodness, and Being are convertible. This is Platonism.

A society that tears newborn children away from their mothers and carelessly destroys the natural world is being less than moral. The two ideas are not unrelated.

Silmarien said:

If you think that the Goodness of God is the same thing as the Life Force of God, then you're relatively close to a theory of transcendentals. Truth, Goodness, and Being are convertible. This is Platonism.

A society that tears newborn children away from their mothers and carelessly destroys the natural world is being less than moral. The two ideas are not unrelated.

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How does Platonism relate to Panentheism? I ask because its through Panentheism that I experience the Life Force of God.