I never said it's exterior to your god. I said it's intrinsic to reality, which by necessity would include Yahweh if he exists. Being intrinsic to all reality, goodness would not be exterior to anything.
Nor would it necessitate any ontological basis in Yahweh, which is the pertinent point.
Whether you accept it or not, it is the necessary implication of your own assertions. You have denied Yahweh the authorship of goodness, which makes goodness an innate fact. You can't just arbitrarily claim this innateness for Yahweh alone.
Let's imagine for a moment a candle, this candle's a magical candle that's always existed, nobody lit this candle it's just always been burning and it's never consumed its wick. In this closed system heat and light originate from the candle's flame, and it's the only source of heat and light that can exist. If this closed system were real, and we could say that heat and light are have their source and are innate to the candle, and that it is because of the candle that there is warmth and light in or upon anything else.
If there exists no outside heat or outside light beyond the candle itself, and if the candle does not arbitrarily decide on what heat or light are, but rather the heat and light are the intrinsic properties of the candle being the candle, we do not need to conclude that heat and light are intrinsic realities unto themselves and the candle is merely an instance among many other of that property in action. Because, remember, in this closed system there is nothing else that produces heat and light--but things are made warm and are alighted by the candle.
If goodness is defined not as an abstract idea; nor as an arbitrarily decided "moral system", but is innately divine and is sourced from the Divine Being itself then neither does God appeal to a rule of goodness beyond Himself, nor does He decide what is good as an act of capricious whimsy. It instead comes as the reality of God warming and alighting the world.
God has made Himself known as being kind, loving, just, and merciful. Because this is God as God
is.
Let's look at a basic principle of Jewish and Christian ethics, Hillel the Elder once said "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor." and Jesus said, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." This is axiomatic to the Abrahamic traditions.
So when I say God is just, I should know what "just" means. Can I know what "just" is purely as an abstract? Instead perhaps I ought to look at things as we experience them: I see when I go without food that I am hungry and it troubles me, I would like to have food and put in a better state. I should then be able to perceive that even as I would like to have food when I am hungry that if my neighbor is hungry it would do him good, do him right, to have food. And thus a wrong has been righted. I see in myself that I do not want bodily harm done to me, and so my neighbor would not like bodily harm done to him. I see in myself that I would want to be treated compassionately and kindly, and so my neighbor would desire the same.
What I would not want done to me; should not be done to my neighbor.
What I would want done for me, I ought desire to see it done for my neighbor.
And so to say that God is good is both to say that God desires the good for His creatures and that such goodness for creatures flows from the God who is Himself good. Why should I see to it that my neighbor does not go hungry, merely because God has by whim decided it that way when He could have made it go another? No. Because God is constrained by a greater rule or law of what is good to desire and will the good for and among His creatures? No. But rather that God, being God, is the good and has vested that goodness in and for His creatures. And so we read in the Genesis text that God saw all that He made and it was "exceedingly good" it is, indeed, that there is a goodness in all things that are, as the innate goodness of God has come to all things; and further that the creation remain good and in keeping with the good. And thus comes love, kindness, mercy, and justice.
Unless, again, you propose Yahweh as the artificer of some sort of boundary to that innateness, consciously limiting it only to himself. In which case you've leapt from the second horn and impaled yourself on the first.
See above.
-CryptoLutheran
