The Logical Premise?

[lesliedellow]

I am ultimately culpable

The Westminster Confession of Faith contains the following passage:

"God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass:"

So God is responsible for whatsoever comes to pass, but to use the word "culpable" you must presuppose that he is answerable to whatever moral code you put forward for him to conform himself to.

 

[Obliquinaut]

So God is responsible for whatsoever comes to pass, but to use the word "culpable" you must presuppose that he is answerable to whatever moral code you put forward for him to conform himself to.

So culpability does not follow from responsibility?

Can you imagine a crime for which I am responsible but not culpable?

And can you explain to me how that would be "justice" by an metric?

 

[Obliquinaut]

The Westminster Confession of Faith contains the following passage:

"God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass:"

So God is responsible for whatsoever comes to pass, but to use the word "culpable" you must presuppose that he is answerable to whatever moral code you put forward for him to conform himself to.

Don't get me wrong, I fully understand that you have dispensed with Euthyphro by merely ignoring the second horn of the dilemma. That is no longer in question. It does not, however, solve the dilemma for everyone else.

This is why I feel it fulfills my original point that such a God is fraught with philosophical conundra. (And, at least for me, undergirds a certain degree of atheism. That is why it costs me nothing to allow the conundra to exist without any problem. For the faithful it appears, in my experience, to require that they simply ignore the various logical impossibilities and decree ex cathedra, if you will, the solution.)

 

[lesliedellow]

So culpability does not follow from responsibility?

Can you imagine a crime for which I am responsible but not culpable?

1.) You are not God.
2.) Therefore there is some higher authority you are responsible to, whether that be God or some secular government.
3.) Therefore you can contravene whatever code of conduct that higher authority imposes.
4.) Therefore you can be culpable if you contravene that moral or legal code.

 

[AV1611VET]

And can you explain to me how that would be "justice" by an metric?

I doubt it, but I'll give you something to trample:

Romans 3:26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

God declares us GUILTY, then takes the penalty upon Himself.

There are three types of judgements:

1. Justice: getting what we deserve (Hell).
2. Mercy: not getting what we deserve (Hell).
3. Grace: getting what we don't deserve (Heaven).

Grace = God's Riches At Christ's Expense

 

[Loudmouth]

Probably not. As I said, it's difficult to work with hypotheticals for this, but my reaction would probably be to ask why there is a claim of mountains when I see plains.

But there is a claim that there are mountains and not plains. That part is not in question as part of the hypothetical.

Would you then change the amount of certainty you have just because the most obvious and easiest observations contradict what God claims?

 

[Resha Caner]

But there is a claim that there are mountains and not plains. That part is not in question as part of the hypothetical.

Would you then change the amount of certainty you have just because the most obvious and easiest observations contradict what God claims?

I think my answer remains unchanged. I would ask questions, and until something changes would maintain a position of "I don't know." I don't see that your hypothetical requires me to take any action.

 

[Loudmouth]

I think my answer remains unchanged. I would ask questions, and until something changes would maintain a position of "I don't know." I don't see that your hypothetical requires me to take any action.

So if I took you to Kansas and asked you to describe the landscape, you would say "I don't know"?

 

[AV1611VET]

So if I took you to Kansas and asked you to describe the landscape, you would say "I don't know"?

I say you didn't take me to the Kansas that God described.

There must be another Kansas somewhere.

 

[Resha Caner]

So if I took you to Kansas and asked you to describe the landscape, you would say "I don't know"?

I feel like we're going in circles, so I'm looking for a way to break the cycle. Maybe you could tell me what you would say/do. God says one thing; you see another, and ...

 

[Obliquinaut]

1.) You are not God.
2.) Therefore there is some higher authority you are responsible to, whether that be God or some secular government.
3.) Therefore you can contravene whatever code of conduct that higher authority imposes.
4.) Therefore you can be culpable if you contravene that moral or legal code.

So the only way responsibility cannot lead to culpability is if one is God?

God is responsible for making the murderer knowing he will murder but God is not culpable because He's God. At least there's not rational reason for that.

This sounds a LOT like "special pleading", but it certainly is standard theology.

 

[lesliedellow]

God is responsible for making the murderer knowing he will murder but God is not culpable because He's God. At least there's not rational reason for that.

Culpability implies that there is some authority, whose code of conduct you are obligated to obey. There is no authority higher than God, and therefore he cannot be held culpable. QED.

 

[quatona]

Culpability implies that there is some authority, whose code of conduct you are obligated to obey. There is no authority higher than God, and therefore he cannot be held culpable. QED.

Who or what determines who or what is the highest authority?

 

[Kylie]

Then you're going to wear your green top tomorrow.

Then I have no free choice then?

Can't you get dressed without making it a philosophical/theological shouting issue?

Sorry if the larger text upset you. You didn't seem to notice those words before, so I thought I'd help you out.

 

[Kylie]

It was still your decision, even though preordained. If you found yourself in court on a drink-driving charge, you wouldn't find yourself conducting a philosophical debate about the nature of free will. The only question would be whether or not you freely got behing the wheel of a car after you had been on a drinking binge.

Whether or not your actions had been predetermined, either by God, or by the iron clad operation of physical laws, wouldn't be deemed an issue in determining your guilt.

How can that logic possibly work?

A choice requires that there are at least two possible options, each of which has some actual possibility of happening.

To continue your analogy, there was nothing stopping me from deciding to not drive after drinking. There have been many times, after all, when I have refused to drive because I'd had a few drinks, even if I felt fine. The two options - driving and not driving - were both plausible outcomes.

But if God knows everything for a fact, then only one option is possible. If there can only ever be one outcome, how can it be considered a choice?

 

[Kylie]

Except that we are not here talking about somebody modifying your normal behaviour through the use of drugs, or whatever. "My genes made me do it," would be unlikely to cut much ice, even if it was strictly true.

But doing something because God knew exactly what would happen and doing something because you are driven to by your genes is entirely different.

 

[Kylie]

1.) You are not God.
2.) Therefore there is some higher authority you are responsible to, whether that be God or some secular government.
3.) Therefore you can contravene whatever code of conduct that higher authority imposes.
4.) Therefore you can be culpable if you contravene that moral or legal code.

Isn't this just special pleading?

 

[lesliedellow]

Who or what determines who or what is the highest authority?

The creator of all that is.

 

[AV1611VET]

Then I have no free choice then?

None that you recognize.

As I pointed out: whether God exists or not, you've seemed to convince yourself you have no free choice.

 

[lesliedellow]

But if God knows everything for a fact, then only one option is possible. If there can only ever be one outcome, how can it be considered a choice?

If the Newtonian picture of how the universe works on a macroscopic scale is anything likeaccurate, as it very obviously is, then there would appear to be only one option anyway.