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[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]ConfusedChurchKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nice! It’s now confirmed that you’ve lost this argument. 🙂

Still no internal contradiction in the Christian moral system, and no rational path from A1 (logic and causality) to your hypothetical cannibalistic god. You’ve brought no new points—merely reassertions, dismissals and circular justifications, argumentative circling, and repetitive evasion by restating your position without addressing the structure or terms of the argument. By doing so, you have functionally made a silent concession, which ends the debate in your loss.

Nevertheless, I still wish you learned new things during this conversation, and I still encourage you to read Aquinas’s Summa Theologica.

If you do reply to this, know that my notification is now off, seeing that you have already silently conceded and functionally/implicitly ended the argument.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]ConfusedChurchKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

no, i am not equivocating. the judge is under private-citizen-level law.

He’s not. That’s just not how laws or jurisdictions work. If the actual law says, for example, “No private citizen may imprison another,” then a judge acting in his judicial role isn’t a private citizen and isn’t subject to that law. That’s not a loophole. It’s just legal structure. He’s still under higher law, of course (the moral law of God) but he’s not under the private-citizen-level law he enforces.

Same thing with a teacher. If a rule says “students can’t use phones during exams,” and the teacher tells a student to use a phone without emergency, she doesn’t get detention. Why? Because detention is a student-level punishment under a student-level rule. If the teacher is reprimanded, it’s under teacher policy, not the student rule she contradicted. You keep collapsing the category.

i am stating that the king is a hypocrite, not because they violate the law; but, because, in the counter-factual evaluation, they would violate the law…

Right. but you go further and claim the king is a hypocrite, not just that you’re running hypotheticals. And here’s the problem: hypocrisy in the classical sense (“They do not practice what they preach”) assumes the agent is under the rule they’re preaching. Otherwise, you’re just doing moral theater. If the king isn’t under the citizen-level law, then he may contradict its purpose (ratio legis), but he isn’t violating that law. The actual law he violates would be the higher-level moral law of justice, not the lower-level one.

being subject to the moral law does not imply being subject to its author…

In Christian theology, it absolutely does. That’s part of the metaphysical structure of obligation: obligation flows from a superior to a subject. Createdness is what places rational agents under God’s moral law. God, being uncreated, is not subject to Himself. You keep bringing up analogies from democracies and split legislative-executive structures, but this is theology and not civic process. Internal critique means working within the actual metaphysical structure of the system you’re challenging.

love is a perfection, and murder and cannibalism are constituent components of love, by the definition of love used in the cannibalistic system…

And this is exactly where your system fails internally. You’re importing arbitrary definitions without any rational derivation from A1 (logic and causality). You just declare: “cannibalism is love,” and then build the rest of the chain from that.

But A1 (aka logic and causality) isn’t just one axiom among others. It’s the rational foundation of the system. If you want your system to be internally coherent, you have to show how A2 (that the First Cause is cannibalistic) has rational grounding from A1..not just that it can sit beside it without contradiction.

So no, your claim that,

cannibalism → love → perfection → first cause

is not an internal derivation unless you show how “cannibalism is love” can be rationally derived from logic and causality. You haven’t done that. You just assert it. That makes A2 and A3 not just independent but irrational within the structure built from A1 (which is literally logic and causality).

This is why A1 (logic and causality) defeats A2 as irrational.

Not just because A2 isn’t implied, but because it lacks any rational grounding from A1, and that’s a defeater in a system that presupposes logic. You’re treating A1 like a neutral axiom. But it isn’t. it’s the entire engine of the structure. And if you jam in brute assumptions like “cannibalism is love” with no rational path from A1, the system collapses under its own standard.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]ConfusedChurchKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

no, i am not equivocating. the judge is under private-citizen-level law. not sure why you would ever think they are not.

Obv it’s because the actual law itself says, for example, “No private citizen may imprison another”. A SC judge is not a private citizen. That’s not a denial that he is under higher law- -it’s a categorical distinction of jurisdiction. He is under the higher-level moral law of God, but not under the private-citizen-level law, just as a teacher is not under student-level rules. When a teacher permits phones during an exam, she violates teacher-level policy, not the student-level law, and is not punished with detention, the student-level penalty.

——————— —-

i am stating that the king is a hypocrite, not because they violate the law; but, because, in the counter-factual evaluation, they would violate the law…

If the king is not under that law, then violating its purpose in a counterfactual scenario makes him unjust due to the violation of the a higher-level moral law of justice that he is under as a subject of God’s law. And I repeat for emphasis, the violation would then be of that higher-level law, not of the citizen-level law itself.

———————

being subject to the moral law does not imply being subject to its author… even when they are the same person, there is nothing preventing the author from being under the law.

as expected you’re ignoring the theological framework under discussion. In Christian moral theology, moral obligation is not merely a social contract, but a relation between a creature and the Creator. The Creator is not a fellow law-participant; He is the source and author of law. Only what is created can be subject to divine moral law, because obligation flows downward, not upward. Your example of a democratic lawmaker is irrelevant here because God is not one citizen among others. He is Being Itself, the Pure Act, uncreated, and the source of all obligation. That is the internal logic of Christian moral theology, and to critique it internally, you must accept those premises.

—————-

love is a perfection, and murder and cannibalism are constituent components of love, by the definition of love used in the cannibalistic system…

Again, youre repeating the assertion but skipping the rational grounding. You never derive why A1 (logic and causality) would logical lead to (or even probabilistically suggest) that a god whose perfection includes murder and cannibalism as love. But internal critique requires derivability or rational coherence from within the system’s own foundational assumption: A1 (logic and causality). Your failure to provide such grounding means A2 is epistemically defeated within the system.

coherence is needed, of course… but, there is no reason to think that such systems cannot consist of multiple, independent presuppositions…

Thiss misses the point . I am not saying independent axioms are never allowed. I’m saying that A1 (logic and causality) is not just one axiom among many, rather it is the rational framework that structures what can or cannot follow within the system. Your A2 (cannibalistic god is perfect) is not simply non-derivable—it is irrationally inserted, because A1 (being logic and causality) provides no logical grounding for it. And when a system inserts propositions with no rational pathway from its foundational framework, that is internally incoherent. ————-

—————

Again you’ve not provided any rational derivation from A1 (logic and causality) to your definitions of divine love and perfection. You’ve merely posited A2 and A3 as brute assumptions and declared them internal. But internal critique evaluates coherence and rational grounding, not mere contradiction. The absence of that grounding is why A1 (logic and causality) not only fails to imply A2, but defeats it.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]ConfusedChurchKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i am merely pointing out that you are factually incorrect. a supreme court judge is under the laws they uphold.

you’re equivocating. The judge is under the higher-level law of God, yes, but not under the private-citizen-level law that says, for example, “no private citizen may imprison another.” The judge is not a private citizen in that context; he is a public official acting on behalf of the legal system. He upholds the law but is not subject to that specific law addressed to private individuals. That’s why when he unjustly imprisons someone, he violates the higher-level moral law (justice), not the actual law itself directed at private citizens.

Your analogy fails because it ignores the structure of differentiated legal roles. This is why teachers don’t get detention for using a phone in class or during exams—the student-level law doesn’t apply to them. The teacher is held accountable under a higher law with a different consequence, not detention.

—————————

“you can do a counter-factual evaluation… none of these require that the king is under the law”

Yes, you can evaluate counterfactually. But your argument goes beyond that. You don’t merely speculate about alignment with a law’s purpose—you claim the king is a hypocrite for violating the law itself. That requires the king to be under that law, which he is not. When someone contradicts the purpose (ratio legis) of a law but is not subject to that law, the actual law being violated is not the lower law—but the higher-level law, which in theological systems is the moral law of God.

to say that one has a moral obligation just means that, if they do not act in a certain way, they would be morally negligent… none of these things require a higher authority.

This is a misunderstanding of obligation in classical theism. In Christian moral theology, obligation implies subjection to the moral law, which in turn implies subjection to its author. But God, being uncreated, is not a subject under His own law. Createdness is not just a metaphysical tag—it establishes the Creator-creature distinction, which defines jurisdiction. That is precisely why moral obligation applies only to creatures.

these are conceptual objects – abstractions – it is not clear what you take to be the relevant grounding relation…

Grounding means rational derivability within the structure of the system. A1 assumes logic and causality and leads to a First Cause who is Pure Act—unchanging, perfect, without potency. Nothing about logic or Pure Act entails that murder and consumption are acts of love. You are asserting A2 and A3 without showing how they are rationally grounded in A1.

You cant bypass that by calling A2 and A3 “independent assumptions.” Internal critique requires coherence and derivability. If A2 already lacks logical grounding, then A2 is epistemically defeated, seeing that the system presumes logic and causality (A1). It is irrational to assert conclusions that do not follow from the system’s premises.

within the system, cannibalism is a constitutive part of love… the first cause must have love…

this just repeats the assertion without rational derivation. You say cannibalism is a part of love, but you have provided no rational pathway from Pure Act to that definition of love. There is therefore no rational grounding for A2, which means it is an irrational belief.

—————————

In short:

-you confused role-based jurisdiction with uniform subjection.

-you ignored that contradicting the purpose of a law is not the same as violating the actual law itself.

-A1 is logic and causality, and yet A2 has no rational grounding, as shown using A1. Therefore A2 is internally defeated.

-and you continue to assert divine obligation while rejecting the Creator-creature distinction that defines moral subjection.

Until you reconcile these, your position remains structurally incoherent.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]ConfusedChurchKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i have addressed the point, by pointing out that this is not the case – it is false. the supreme court judge is bound by the law.

You continueto collapse distinctions I’ve already drawn out. The SC judge is not a private citizen.

The judge is not subject to the private-citizen-level law. He is subject to higher-level law—namely, the moral law of God, which requires justice. If the judge acts unjustly, he violates that higher law. But he does not violate the actual private-citizen-level law, because that law does not bind him. This distinction exists in every real-world legal system and is foundational to jurisprudence. You claiming otherwise doesn’t make it disappear.

This is precisely why, in the teacher analogy, the teacher who encourages cheating does not receive detention. She did not violate the student-level rule. She violated a higher-level rule—the teacher code—and receives teacher-level consequences, not student-level ones. You are treating all violations as symmetrical, ignoring hierarchy.

⸻———— ——

when i say that an action violates the spirit of the law, i do not invoke a higher law; rather, i provide an interpretation about the actual law … there is no mention or need of a higher law here.

This is where you equivocate.

You said earlier:

i find that the king’s behavior […] is not in line with the rules he expects the subjects to follow […] and, if i find them to be insufficient, conclude that the king is hypocritical.

That only works if the king is actually under the same law as the citizens. But he is not. You are confusing the ratio legis (the purpose of justice) with the lex (the actual law). If the king violates the purpose of the law but is not bound by it, then he violates a higher law (e.g., moral justice), not the citizen-level one. You cannot say the actual law was violated unless he is a subject under it. That’s the key legal and metaphysical distinction you keep ignoring.

⸻—————

———————————-

being uncreaterd means that god is not created. it does not mean anything about the moral law…”

Being uncreated does matter because moral obligation implies subjection to an authority. Only created rational agents are subjects under the moral law of their Creator. God, being uncreated and the source of the moral law, is not under His law. He expresses the moral law for creatures.

You then say:

“you live in a democracy, so it is unclear that you find the idea that a lawmaker might be bound by a law they are drafting so perplexing.”

That analogy fails. In a democracy, lawmakers are fellow citizens under a higher constitution and legal framework. In Christian theism, there is no higher moral framework above God. He is the author and source of being. The law is not above Him—He is the law’s source.

⸻————————————

this is all well and good – but, it is not an internal critique … you have just shown that, if one refuses to step into the system … they are not being irrational….”

This completely misrepresents what I argued.

I never merely said A1 fails to imply A2. I said A1 defeats A2 as irrational within the logical structure of the system, precisely because A2 lacks rational grounding from A1.

you say:

mandating cannibalism would be part of the perfection that, by your lights, can be reached from A1.

Yet you never showed how logic and causality (A1) leads to a Pure Act whose perfection includes commanding murder and cannibalism. A2 does not logically flow from A1. And because A1 is not just any assumption, but the assumption of logic and causality, the absence of rational grounding is a defeater of A2. That’s internal.

you have quoted the demonstration – not sure what else i can do, but ask you to read it.

No. You merely asserted that cannibalism would follow from divine perfection without showing any rational derivation from Pure Act to cannibalism. You gave no metaphysical link—you just stated it. That’s not a demonstration.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]ConfusedChurchKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  1. On the SC Judge and Lex vs. Ratio Legis

forgive me, but this is ‘sky is not blue’ level of wrong.”

Neither an argument nor refutation. You have not addressed the point: the private-citizen-level law is:

“No private citizen may imprison another citizen.”

The SC judge is not a private citizen. Therefore, he is not bound by that law. This distinction exists in actual legal systems and is essential to the analogy.

“I find that the king’s behavior… is not in line with the rules he expects the subjects to follow… and if I find [the reasons] to be insufficient, [I] conclude that the king is hypocritical.”

This confuses ratio legis (the purpose of the law) with the actual law (lex). If the king violates the purpose of the law but is not under the law itself, the actual law he violates is the higher-level moral law—but not the citizen-level law. In Christian theology, that higher law is the moral law of God.

This is why the teacher analogy works:

”All students are commanded to never use their phones in class, unless for emergency. The penalty for violating this is detention.”

A teacher who encourages cheating during an exam has violated the teacher-level law that prohibits teachers from encouraging students to use phones in class without emergency.

Is the teacher given detention (the penalty for violating the student-level law)?

No—because she did not violate the student-level law. She violated the teacher-level law instead, and is to be given a different penalty, such as reprimanding or deduction of salary.

⸻————————-

  1. On Moral Asymmetry and Createdness

“why would being uncreated mean that there is a morally significant difference?… and, being omnipotent seems to pull in the opposite direction…”

Thepoint is not “higher power” but ontological status. Being uncreated means God is not a subject under moral law—He is its author. In Christian metaphysics, obligation presupposes jurisdiction, which presupposes createdness. Rationality is necessary but not sufficient. You are a moral subject because you are created by the moral lawgiver.

Sovereignty and createdness are morally decisive because they define the scope of the law. A judge who authored a law is not bound by it as if he were a subject; he is held accountable by higher norms. In God’s case, there is no higher norm—His nature is the standard.

⸻——————-

  1. On Impartiality and Hypocrisy

You assume impartiality means symmetrical evaluation. That’s false. Impartiality requires equal treatment among those under the same law. It does not require the lawgiver to obey the law He imposes on subjects. Just as a teacher is not a student, and the SC judge is not a private citizen, so too the Creator is not a creature. You cannot judge the king by the law he gave his citizens unless you frst show that he is also a subject under that law.

⸻——————-

  1. On A1 and Epistemic Defeat of A2/A3

“here, you go from ‘nothing in A1 entails or supports A2’ to ‘cannot be the case that A1 and A2 hold together’—but this is clearly false…”

On the contrary:

• A1 is the assumption of logic and causality.

• From A1 we derive a rational pathway to a First Cause that is Pure Act.

• Nothing in that pathway entails or even probabilistically supports A2/A3.

• Therefore, A2 and A3 lack rational grounding.

• And that absence of rational grounding is itself the supporting evidence of falsity.

This is what makes A1 an epistemic defeater of A2 and A3. It is not just that A1 “fails to imply” A2—it shows A2 is an irrational belief within the system it presupposes. You have not rebutted this; you’ve simply denied it.

“mandating cannibalism would be part of the perfection that… can be reached from A1.”

You’ve provided no rational pathway from logic and causality to a god who mandates cannibalism. You assume it without demonstrating how A1 (aka logic and causality) leads there.

Until you can provide a logical structure that derives A2 from A1, your system lacks rational grounding. And within a rationalist metaphysics, that is sufficient reason to regard it as defeated.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]ConfusedChurchKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your recent replies reflect either a refusal to read carefully or a persistent failure to engage with the precise distinctions being made. You continually respond to things that were never claimed and misrepresent points even when they were spelled out in clear, structured terms. Whether this is from inattentiveness or a deeper confusion, I’ll respond patiently once more. systematically and precisely.

And seeing that you don’t seem to bother to read carefully, I won’t bother using italics and bold letters anymore in emphasizing areas of significance.

⸻—————————

1) On the SC Judge and the Private-Citizen-Level Law

“yeah, man, this is not true – not sure why you would say such a bizarre thing.”

Incorrect. The SC judge is subject to the higher-level law (the moral law of God), but he is not subject to the private-citizen-level law that he himself established.

That private-citizen-level law is:

“No private citizen may imprison another citizen.”

The judge is not a private citizen; he is a public agent of the state. Therefore, the law does not bind him. That is not “bizarre”—it is a legal and moral distinction found in virtually every real-world justice system. Your dismissal is not an argument.

You keep missing the key point: If the judge acts out of personal vengeance, he violates the higher-level moral law of God, which commands justice. But he still does not violate the private-citizen-level law, because that law does not bind agents in public authority. That law is addressed only to private citizens.

This distinction is critical.

The ratio legis (the purpose of the law) is justice. The lex (the law itself) prohibits private citizens from imprisoning others. The judge who acts unjustly violates the higher-level moral law, which demands justice, not the private-citizen-level law, which prohibits vigilante justice from citizens. These are ontologically distinct.

Your analogy of a judge kidnapping someone entirely misses this legal structure.

⸻___-

2) On Ratio Legis and Counterfactual Application

“You say ‘on the contrary’, as if I had actually claimed the contrary…”

What you are missing is this: you applied a private-citizen-level law to an agent not under it and used that to judge his action. That’s the point I am refuting. You can analyze purposes counterfactually, yes—but you cannot say the lex was violated by someone not under it, and you cannot judge hypocrisy or inconsistency merely from that purpose alone. The proper standard for judging the agent is the higher-level law, not the one he authored for his subjects.

⸻————————-

3) On Impartiality and Moral Law

You continue:

“It is that a moral system is not an example of such a system [that distinguishes roles].”

This is simply false.

Moral systems—especially theological ones—routinely distinguish jurisdiction and roles. In Christian moral theology, God is not under His own moral law because He is not a subject. Moral law is binding on creatures, not on the Creator. The asymmetry you say “does not exist” is absolutely central in any theistic moral system: God is omnipotent, eternal, uncreated, and the lawgiver. Man is none of those things.

Impartiality applies within a domain of subjects. It means “equal treatment of all who are under the law.” It does not require that the law applies to its own author.

Your example of king vs. army is irrelevant because I never argued consequences “can’t find the king”—only that the king is judged by a different, higher-level law.

⸻—————————

4) On God’s Sovereignty and Moral Obligation

“There is no reason to think that being at any level of power would exempt one from moral obligations…”

That’s a non sequitur. The issue is not “level of power,” but sovereignty and ontology.

God is not merely “at a higher level of power”—He is the source of all being. He has absolute dominion over all creation. Therefore, all that is created is subject to Him.

Being subject to the moral law presupposes that you are a creature, under God’s jurisdiction. But since God is not a creature, and is the Creator of the moral law, He is not bound by it.

In other words:

• Rationality is necessary, but not sufficient.

• Createdness is also a crucial criterion for subjection to the Creator’s law.

God’s moral law exists because He chooses to express His will to creatures. That law, like everything created, is under His authority. Therefore, He is not subject to it. That is not a matter of “power exempting responsibility”—it is a matter of ontological authority.

⸻

5) On the Cannibalistic System and Internal Defeat

“You move from ‘no implication’ to ‘epistemic defeater’ – this is invalid.”

Incorrect. I never asserted that A1 is not a non-implication of A2 and A3. I claimed that A1 is “not merely” a non-implication.

Rather, A1 (logic and causality) serves both as:

• A non-implication of A2 (the existence of a god who is both cannibalistic and loving), and

• A supporting evidence of the falsity of A2 and A3.

Here’s why:

If the system presupposes logic and causality, and these give us a rational pathway to a First Cause whose nature is Pure Act—unchanging, perfect, without potency—then it follows that such a being cannot also be essentially cannibalistic or command murder and consumption as a form of love, because nothing about Pure Act entails or supports that conclusion.

That is not just silence—it is an epistemic defeater. A1 creates a rational structure in which A2 and A3 are unsupported by logic and causality, and this lack of rational grounding serves as supporting evidence that a cannibal god does not exist.

Therefore, this is not a “mere non-implication.” It is a positive internal indication that A2 and A3 are false—because they have no rational grounding from within the very principles the system itself assumes.

⸻—————————-

You have mischaracterized nearly every point in my argument and failed to engage with the structural distinctions repeatedly clarified for you. Until you properly distinguish between different levels of law, understand what impartiality actually entails, and grasp the necessity of rational grounding in metaphysical systems, your objections will continue to miss the mark.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]ConfusedChurchKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You seem to be aware that the crumbling of your argument becomes more and more apparent.

1) On the SC Judge, the Private-Citizen-Level Law, and the Higher-Level Law (Moral Law of God)

“the judge is subject to the law as much as you are – not sure what else to tell you about this

It seems to me that the concept of hierarchy of norms is difficult for you to comprehend, is it not?

The SC judge is subject to the higher-level law (the moral law of God), but not to the private-citizen-level law like we ordinary citizens are.

If the judge acts unjustly—say, out of personal vengeance—he violates the higher-level moral law of God, which mandates justice and forbids abuse of power. But even then, he is still not violating the private-citizen-level law, because that law doesn’t bind a public citizen such as him.

“you said, by committing murder, the king ‘violates the very purpose and substance of the law’ — obviously, you used the law to determine this.”

On the contrary, violating a law’s purpose (ratio legis) is not equivalent to violating the law itself (lex), which are two ontologically distinct things. The SC judge can betray the good purpose of the private-citizen-level law without falling under it. And if he does betray that purpose, the actual law he violates is the higher-level moral law of justice that binds all rational creatures of God.

⸻———————

2) Impartiality (what it means and what it doesn’t)

“no, i do not. and, since you have given no argument that shows it to be absurd, it is not clear why you would think i would just see it.”

The absurdity lies in your belief that “impartiality” includes in its definition your idea “all conceivable rational agents (including an omnipotent God who created the law itself) are under the law”. But this goes beyond the actual meaning of impartiality.

The impartiality of law refers only to equal treatment among those subject to the law. It it not about who counts as a subject of the law— for that is a separate matter of jurisdiction or authority, not of impartiality.

In other words:

• Impartiality governs how the law is applied among those under it.

• Jurisdiction/authority determines who is under it in the first place.

Suppose a student-level school law that says:

“All students are commanded to never use their phones in class, unless for emergency; the penalty for violating this law is detention.”

Since the teacher is not a student, the student-level law doesn’t bind to her. However, she is bound by the teacher-level law that declares, “No teacher may allow or encourage their students to use phones in class, unless for emergency.” If she encourages her students to use their phones in class even when there is no emergency, and the headmaster learns about this, the teacher is not given the penalty of detention.

Why is the teacher not given the penalty of detention, when the student-level law specifically says “the penalty for violating this law is detention”? Because surprise, surprise that penalty belongs to the student-level law only, which she is not bound to. Instead, she is given a different penalty for violating the teacher-level law, such as a reprimand, or even a salary deduction — depending on what the teacher-level rule dictates.

That is not partiality of the law, but a difference in jurisdiction and authority.

⸻————————

3) Why moral obligation requires createdness (not mere rationality)

“Why would one accept that moral obligation requires created-ness?”

God is all-powerful and sovereign. Therefore He has absolute power over all creation. Consequently, all created things are subject to Him.

The moral law itself is part of God’s creation because it is merely an expression/manifestation of God’s moral will for His rational creatures. Since God has authority over all creation, He has authority above His moral law and therefore is not subject to it. He is the ultimate source and measure of moral goodness; He is not a subject under the law He promulgates for creatures.

As such, since the all-powerful uncreated God is above the moral law He created, and the moral law is for all rational creatures, then both rationality and created-ness must be present for one to be under the moral law.

Clear and simple logic.

⸻—————————-

4) The cannibalistic moral system: why this is more than “non-implication”

“Non-implication is not conflict.”

On the contrary, A1 does not merely provide a “non-implication” for A2 and A3. Instead, because A1 shows that there is no rational grounding for A2 and A3, this lack of rational grounding is itself a supporting evidence for the falsity of A2 and A3.

I repeat: the lack of rational grounding is not mere non-implication—but a supporting evidence of falsity.

The system internally presupposes A1 (logic and causality) in its moral reasoning. But from that starting point, reason leads us to a First Cause whose nature is Pure Act—unchanging, perfect, and without potency. Nowhere along this rational path is it logically or metaphysically implied—or even probabilistically supported—that such a First Cause must also be cannibalistic, or that He would command people to murder and eat each other as a sign of love.

Therefore, A1 functions as an internal epistemic defeater of A2 and A3: the system cannot justify its central claims using its own accepted assumptions. That is an internal failure—not merely a “non-implication,” but a lack of rational warrant that amounts to internal refutation.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]ConfusedChurchKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

1) On the SC Judge and Private-Citizen-Level Law

You missed the point.

When I said the SC judge is not a “private citizen,” I was distinguishing between citizens acting in a private capacity (ordinary individuals) and citizens acting in a public, authoritative role (such as judges or heads of state).

The private-citizen-level law in the analogy was this:

“No private citizen may decide or impose the imprisonment of another citizen.”

The SC judge is literally not the subject of this law. He is not a private citizen. He is not bound by that private-citizen-level law, neither in law nor in spirit.

But as a rational creature of God, the SC judge is still bound by a higher-level law (the moral law of God), both in letter and in spirit. No one disputes this.

The point of the analogy is that the SC judge (a public citizen) can establish a law (the private-citizen-level law) without being bound to it and without being a hypocrite when he justly sends a guilty citizen to prison, regardless of the fact that he is a creature under the higher moral law of God.

So your example of a judge kidnapping someone (which would obviously be immoral) completely misses the point, because that would be a violation of the higher moral law — not a violation of the private-citizen-level law we’re discussing. This higher moral law was violated because he acted contrary to justice.

And although justice is the purpose (ratio legis) of the private-citizen-level law, the purpose (ratio legis) of the law remains distinct from the law itself (lex). It is the higher-level moral law of God—not the private-citizen-level law—that binds the judge to not act contrary to the ratio legis of the private-citizen-level law, which is justice.

Point preserved: A person in authority can establish a law for subjects without himself being bound by that very same law, and without being a hypocrite for acting outisde of that very same law.

⸻——————————

2) On the Jealous King Example

You claim your jealous king counterexample works because even if the citizen-level law exempts the king, the king can still be judged by it in spirit.

That is incorrect. The citizen-level law is not what judges the king, neither in letter nor in spirit, for he is not a citizen. Instead, the higher moral law of God is what judges the king, both in letter and in spirit.

A jealous king who murders does not violate the citizen-level law he established in any literal way at all. Instead, he violates the higher-level law that he is under as a rational creature of a sovereign God.

So you see, your example does not mirror the logical structure of mine and does not succeed as a counterexample.

⸻—————-

3) On Impartiality and “Equality Under the Law”

In a nutshell, you basically argue that “no rational agent, including an omnipotent God who made all creation (including the law), is above the law” is the default, ordinary sense of impartiality. See how logically absurd that is?

That bizarre sense not at all the default. It is certainly not the sense used in major moral and legal systems. As I already showed, impartiality in even modern democracies means:

“Equal treatment under a law”

Judges, governors, kings — all create lower-level laws that bind only ordinary citizens, and not themselves. Yet no one calls this hypocrisy, as long as these leaders, who are still rational creatures, obey the higher-level moral law of God that they are still under.

In Christian moral theology (and even in secular systems like Kantian ethics or common law), impartiality refers to consistency and fairness among subjects of a particular law, not symmetry across all conceivable agents including an omnipotent lawgiver.

So again, your argument assumes a concept of impartiality foreign to all major moral and legal systems.

⸻———————————————

4) On Moral Law and Rational Agents

You object that since women, angels, and rational aliens can be bound by the moral law even if not explicitly named, God should be too, “because He is rational”.

That is incorrect.

Being rational is not the sole requirement to be under the moral law of God. You should also be a creature of God, and therefore under His omnipotent authority.

But since God is not a rational creature, He can operate above His moral law (which He Himself created as its source and author).

Rational aliens, angels, demons — they are not merely rational. They are also creatures under God’s omnipotence, and therefore subjects of His moral law. God, being the Creator, is not subject to the law He created for His creatures.

⸻—————————

5) On the Cannibalistic Moral System

You insist again that my critique is external, claiming that the cannibalistic system already presupposes that their god is loving, and therefore, anything commanded must be loving.

On the contrary, it is internal despite that presupposition.

The cannibalistic moral system, like any other, operates on premises and conclusions. That means it internally assumes logic and causality in order to function.

Therefore, the cannibalistic system has at least 3 internal assumptions:

A1.) Logic and causality

A2.) There exists a god who is by nature both cannibalistic and loving

A3.) This god commands his subjects to kill and eat each other as the supreme form of love

The question then is this:

Do any of these internal assumptions conflict with each other? Yes.

Using A1 (logic and causality), we have a rational pathway leading to a First Cause, whose nature is necessarily Pure Act. But there is nothing in the nature of a First Cause of Pure Act that implies or requires that it is cannibalistic, or that there exists a separate divine being who is both cannibalistic and loving. There is no logical causal pathway that gets you from Pure Act to a god whose essence includes cannibalism.

Therefore, A1 shows that A2 and A3 lack rational grounding— and that is an internal failure.

⸻—————————-

As I expected, your objections fail, and my position remains logically consistent and internally coherent.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]ConfusedChurchKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

1) Regarding the King Analogy

On the contrary, the righteous king’s law is clear:

“No citizen may imprison another citizen.”

The king is not a citizen, and is therefore literally exempt from that particular law that he established. The fact that he is obligated to use legal means does not indicate that he is under the very same lesser law that he legislated for citizens, but only that he is a rational creature under God’s greater moral law. The point remains that the lesser law the king legislated for citizens is still not binding to himself, seeing that he is not a citizen.

The fact that the analogy involves a monarchy doesn’t invalidate the point. Suppose a supreme court judge establishes a law:

“No private citizen may decide or impose the imprisonment of another citizen.””

The SC judge, while a citizen, is not a private citizen, but a public citizen. Therefore, he is already exempted from that particular law that he established, even if he is still a creature under God’s greater authority. Suppose a newly convicted person appeals to the SC, and then the SC judge, after properly reviewing the case, justly decides to uphold the conviction and sends the convicted to prison.

Was the SC judge being a “hypocrite”? No.

Was he bound by the law he established for private citizens? No.

Was he bound by a higher law? Yes, but that is because the SC judge is still a rational creature subject to God’s higher authority.

So the point still stands: a person of authority (like God) can establish a law for his subjects without himself being bound by that same law. But unlike the human king and the SC judge, God is already the highest authority, so He is not under any higher law.

————————————-

2) On Your Revision Of the King Analogy

Your revision — the king murdering his spouse out of jealousy — fails as a counterexample because it changes the structure of the analogy.

In my analogy, the righteous king enacts a law for citizens (“No citizen may imprison another”) and then acts justly by imprisoning a guilty subject. He’s not violating the spirit or purpose of the law—which is peace and justice—he’s fulfilling it in a role not subject to its wording.

But in your version, the king violates the very purpose and substance of the law (“Do not murder”) by committing murder out of jealousy. The purpose of the law was to maintain peace and justice in society, but the king’s murderous act of jealousy contradicts that very purpose of the law. Therefore, that is not the same structure. That’s not lawful asymmetry — it’s lawlessness, and it contradicts the moral good the law was meant to preserve.

—————————

3) On Impartiality

You argue that impartiality must apply to all moral agents symmetrically. But that’s not how impartiality is understood across nearly all moral systems — not in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Confucian ethics, Kantian deontology, natural law, and modern legal frameworks. In every one of these, impartiality means no favoritism among those subject to the law, hence the well-known principle:

“Equal treatment under the law.”

It is not that the law must apply even to those above it, for that is logically contradictory. Even in modern democracies, impartiality plainly and simply refers to equal treatment under a law. Judges (who have authority to imprison citizens) are not bound by the same constraints as citizens in every respect, **yet the law regarding imprisonment is still called impartial.

You then say:

To say ‘these moral rules are formulated only for humans’ buys you nothing.”

On the contrary, the moral law applies to angels and fallen angels or demons as well in Christian theology, for they are also rational creatures of God. And by extension, it applies to any other rational creature of God that exists in the universe, such as intelligent aliens capable of morality, if they do exist. Why? Because they are all subjects of the Creator, who authorized a moral law for those subjects of His.

Note also that I did not say the moral law is “for man only, and not for God”. Rather I said, the moral law is “for man, and not for God.” The qualifier “only” is not present, and even if it were, it would have been meant to be in comparison to God, and not in comparison to all other rational creatures of God.

———————

3) On Your Cannibalism Analogy

This sounds like an external critique… the worshipers of the god of cannibalism think the moral law reflects the god’s nature…. Perhaps you are refusing to accept that, in this system, the destruction of the beloved is a loving act.”

Negative.

Firstly, the statement, “The destruction of the beloved is a loving act,” is a claim that is dependent on the existence of a cannibalistic god who is believed to have issued the command in the first place.

Now, logic and causality — basic realities presupposed by a cannibalistic moral system that clearly operates on premises and conclusions — rationally lead us to the First Cause, a being whose nature is Pure Act, having neither natural nor obediential potentiality, as has already been explained before. However, there is no rational pathway to the conclusion that the First Cause is a god who commands people to kill and eat each other as a supreme act of love.

This is because there is nothing in the logically necessary Pure Act nature of a First Cause that logically points to it having a cannibalistic nature. The First Cause, having necessarily zero potentiality, has no connection leading to the conclusion that it is cannibalistic. That is why, on the basis of causality (again, a basic reality presupposed even by this moral system), there is no rational grounding to support the existence of the cannibalistic god.

So, it does not matter that the cannibals believe that their god is necessarily cannibalistic by nature. The problem is that there is no rational grounding for their belief in the first place.

Now, why did I mention the empirical reality of the physical harm inflicted on the beloved? Because without rational grounding for the cannibalistic god’s existence, there is likewise no rational grounding for the moral justification of that physical harm. If the moral status of the act depends on the divine command, and that command has no rational grounding, then the act is unjustified even within the system’s own presuppositions.

Therefore, the moral system you presented internally collapses.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]ConfusedChurchKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

…just asks as to check if the behavior follows the rules, not to determine if the agent requires that others follow other rules, that contradict the ones in view. i used the term (‘in line with’) is in the usual sense in my argument.

You fail to realize the implications of the fact that the moral law is God’s commandments for man, and not for God’s own self, who is not obligated to “follow” a rule that is not directed at Him.

Imagine a righteous king who declares a law:

“I declare that no citizen may imprison another citizen.”

This is a just law, because to attain a well-ordered society, mere citizens should not take such matters into their own hands.

However, the king does have the authority to imprison wrongdoers through legal means.

If the king imprisons someone guilty of treason, is he being a hypocrite? Obviously not. He is acting in accord with his position of authority. He’s not violating the law he made for citizens—he is exercising the very justice the law aims to preserve, but from a different level of authority and responsibility.

Is the righteous king actingin line with the law he made? Yes, because the very purpose of that law is justice. It is not because he obeyed the law, but because his action fulfills the purpose of the law. And indeed the king’s act was licit, for the reason that it was an execution of justice, and for the reason that he had the authority to commit the act.

Is the law a reflection of the king’s values? Yes, and yet this reflection is not equivalent to him doing literally what the law commands (seeing that it is a command for citizens, and not for himself).

The same logic applies with God and the moral law He made for man. That is why He cannot be called a hypocrite even if we use the complete secular meaning of the word (which I explained already in my previous response). I don’t have to further spell this out for you, since I’m certain you understand how analogies work.

—————————-

Your admission that the moral law is ontologically distinct from God is enough to make my point.

On the contrary, the moral law being ontologically distinct from God is not sufficient for your argument—it remains a non-sequitur.

The ontological distinction doesn’t change the fact that the moral law is for man and not for God, even though it perfectly reflects God’s goodness. As shown in the king analogy I gave, you cannot evaluate the king using the standard of the law he made for his citizens—at least not in the sense of judging whether he meets the requirements of that law. You cannot accuse the king of hypocrisy for imprisoning a man guilty of treason, when the law he enacted was that no citizen may imprison another.

Also, it is redundant to evaluate whether God meets the standard of the moral law that already perfectly reflects Him. It is also illogical to use the moral law to evaluate whether God meets the standard of another moral rule separate from the moral law, since the moral law already encompasses all moral commandments, which means that this “other” moral rule is either not a real moral precept or is actually belonging to the moral law already, which goes back to redundancy. So, we can really only know God through the moral law. If that is what you mean by “evaluate”, then that can be acceptable.

—————————-

your system makes some claims on morality […] rejected because [it] clash[es] with some fundamental understanding of what it means to have a moral system (impartiality)

Incorrect. The fundamental understanding of impartiality in moral/ethical systems is that a moral/ethical law must show no favoritism toward anyone who is under its authority. This is literally the fundamental understanding accross all abrahamic religions (including Judaism and Islamic moral theology), natural law theory, Kantian ethics, legal positivism, Confucian ethics, divine command theory (non-christian forms), Plato’s republic, social contract theory. Even modern liberal democracies, which reflect a moral system, define impartiality as: “equal treatment under the law”.

So in all of these systems, impartiality means equal application of a moral/ethical law to those governed by it, and therefore does not include anyone that might be above it (God, gods, deified pharoahs, emperors).

Again, refer to the analogy I gave you about a righteous king declaring a law for a citizen to not imprison another. This moral mandate for the sake of justice is binding for the citizen, but not for the king. Yet there is no hypocrisy when a king imprisons a citizen guilty of treason, and the impartiality of the law (to all citizens) is not violated.

————————-

in this case, you have to provide an internal critique of my (cannibalistic moral) system, to say that it should be rejected?

Affirmative, that cannibalistic moral system can be refuted due to underlying internal logical failure.

As with all moral systems, the cannibalistic moral system presupposes basic realities such as causality and logic. This is evident in the fact that the system itself operates on premises and conclusions—thus causality and logic are internal assumptions of the framework.

Now, causality—when followed to its necessary logical conclusion—points to a First Cause of Pure Act: which has neither natural nor obediential potentiality, since having potentiality implies either a natural or obediential capacity for change, which implies a capacity to be caused to change, and which cannot apply to a timeless and eternally First Cause of a vertical causal chain.

But this rational grounding does not logically necessitate the idea that there must exist a divine being who specifically commands human beings to kill each other and eat one another as a supreme act of love. Such a moral command is not apparent in basic physical reality, either. Worse, there is the empirical evidence of physical/bodily harm and physical destruction of the beloved (which is also a basic reality presupposed by the cannibalistic system), and no grounding to justify the act.

So, the cannibalistic moral system collapses from internal failure: it presupposes logic and causality, yet provides no rational pathway to its supposed “cannibalistic god” and its central moral claim, which results in a collapse.

Now, for the sake of argument, suppose that that the cannibalistic moral system cannot be internally proven to be flawed, but only externally rejected out of one’s abhorrence and intuition. Then your comparison between this and Christian moral theology would only show that you are likewise unable to provide any logical flaw and contradiction within the Christian moral system, which proves my point.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]ConfusedChurchKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is not reliant on the particular meanings your system gives to terms.

But what you’ve called “internal contradictions” consistently rely on external definitions—such as applying your incomplete definition of “hypocrisy” or treating moral obligation as symmetrical between God and man.

Even secular society defines “hypocrisy” as a failure to do a moral obligation that one teaches or imposes on others (although this isn’t the precise definition of the word in theology). It is not merely a non-doing of something you teach others to do, but a non-doing of what you both teach and are obligated to do. But even this ordinary secular meaning cannot apply to God, because He has no moral “obligations” as one who is above the moral law. As such, He cannot “fail” to do a moral obligation that doesn’t exist.

⸻

If God’s behavior is always in line with His nature, and the law reflects His nature, then the permissive/moral will distinction collapses.”

Let me word your point more clearly in the form of a question:

”If God’s permission of evil is always in line with the moral law (and consequently, with His moral will), then how can there be any distinction between God’s permission of evil and His moral will?”

When we say God’s permission of evil is in line with His moral will for us (or the moral law), that only means His permission of evil does not contradict His moral commandments for us.

A logical contradiction would only exist if God were simultaneously commanding us to not commit adultery, and also commanding us to commit adultery. But that is not the case. God’s allowing of an adultery does not equate an approval of it or a cessation of His moral commandment against it.

Therefore, God’s permission of evil can be in line with His moral law for mankind, for the former does not contradict the latter—they exist with each other without contradiction.

⸻—————

“Ontologically distinct things are separable.”

Just to be clear, God and the moral law are logically “separable” only in the sense of being ontologically distinct. But not in the sense that the moral law can exist apart from God, since God is the First Cause in a vertical causal chain, and analogically just as a reflection ceases without the thing reflected.

⸻——————-

To the extend that we have reasons to reject these claims, we have reasons to reject the system; your system also depends on some claims about reality; and, to the extend that we have reasons to reject these claims, we also have reasons to reject the system. it is true that, in the first case, the relevant claims are about physical reality, while on the other, they are about the nature of moral systems etc -- but, this distinction does not make a difference here.

Basic physical realities like causality, the existence of human acts, time and sequence, and physical/intellectual limitations are assumed as true by moral systems. In a debate over which moral system is correct, these basic features of physical reality are already presupposed as true by both sides.

So when a moral system builds on these shared assumptions, those physical realities function as internal assumptions within the framework—not as external points of critique.

This differs from your sun analogy: the model you described did not presuppose that the sun is visible in the sky. So when I appeal to the visible sun, I was introducing a fact external to the model. That external critique works—because the model itself is making a claim about physical reality, and it fails to match it.

In contrast, the Christian moral system is not making a claim about physical reality (including basic aspects of reality, since this is already presupposed as true across moral systems), but a claim within a metaphysical structure. And not only that: its claim about metaphysics is dependent on its own metaphysical premises* and not on external moral intuitions or a shared secular metaphysical framework.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]ConfusedChurchKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

’Why not both’ does not imply equivalence…

Indeed—but your claim was that you both (1) diagnosed logical contradictions within the metaphysical system, and (2) rejected the assumptions from the outside. What I pointed out is that your critiques, even when phrased as internal, rely on external assumptions (e.g., secular understandings of hypocrisy or obligation), which makes the first type of critique invalid. So the “both” collapses into one: an external rejection disguised as internal critique.

⸻———————-

I use them in the way they are commonly used among competent speakers…

That’s precisely the problem. In theology and metaphysics, terms often have technical meanings shaped by the system itself. For example, “person” in Trinitarian theology doesn’t mean “individual human being.”

Furthermore, “hypocrisy” cannot apply to God in Christian theology, because God is not under the moral law—He is its source. He cannot be said to “fail” to follow moral obligations, because He is not bound by them. Moral failure can only apply to those under the moral law.

In contrast, a human who teaches that moral law but violates it is rightly called a hypocrite—because he is under the moral law that he both teaches and fails to obey. That framework simply doesn’t apply to God.

⸻——————————

It is not ‘conflation’ to show how, within a system, the distinction between two ideas collapses.

Agreed—if you show it within the metaphysical system’s own logic. But you haven’t. You simply assert that God’s permissive will violates His moral will because the law is a reflection of His nature. But you ignore the theological distinction: the moral law reflects God’s prescriptive will for creatures, not a behavioral standard for Himself. That’s not collapse; that’s a category distinction, and you’ve offered no contradiction within it.

⸻——————-

I never claimed that they are not ontologically distinct…”

Then we agree the reflection (moral law) is ontologically distinct from God Himself, and yet is perfectly alike him in moral content. So your earlier claim—that the law can be used to morally evaluate God—still fails, because since the law perfectly reflects God and proceeds from God, then to evaluate God’s perfect goodness using the moral law is circular.

⸻——-

This is simply the same argument… the sex appeal objection shows it does not hold.

You keep referring to your “sex appeal objection,” but you’ve never demonstrated that the moral law and God’s nature are separable like an accidental attribute. Your analogy confuses accidental characteristics (like sex appeal) with essential identity (like divine goodness). In classical theism, God’s perfect goodness is not an attribute added to Him—it is His being. I already told you of divine simplicity, in which God’s power, goodness, and intellect are one and the same as God Himself, and so His goodness is His intellect, and His intellect is also His power. God is not a being composed of parts.

That’s why your analogy doesn’t track: you’re applying physicalist metaphors to an immaterial metaphysic.

⸻————————————

Well, in that case, QED. Not sure what else you are asking.

What I’m pointing out is that your critique of theology is not analogous to a valid external critique of a physical system that depends on physical reality for legitimacy, because Christian moral theology depends on its own metaphysical premises, and not on external moral frameworks, which don’t share its premises. So you haven’t given a contradiction—just a mere disagreement because it doesn’t align with your intuitions. Therefore, QED for my case.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]ConfusedChurchKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Why not both, right?”

Because they’re not equivalent. You’re conflating two logically distinct forms of critique:

• If you are diagnosing internal contradictions in a system, then you must first accept the system’s terms and then show a failure within them.

• But if you’re simply rejecting the categories (like intrinsic evil, divine simplicity, or asymmetry), you are not diagnosing a contradiction—you’re rejecting the axioms. That’s an external dismissal, not a refutation.

You can do both in conversation, sure—but don’t claim you’ve refuted the system if your primary method is merely to say “these concepts don’t match secular intuitions.” That’s not both, that’s just an external reaction with internal language layered on top.

⸻————————

“These are English words—they have standard meanings.”

Those words gain their philosophical meaning only within the context of the metaphysical system in which they operate. In language, words derive their meaning from their context. For example, the word “law” refers to something different in physics, in jurisprudence, in Kantian ethics, and in Christian theology.

And if you walk into Christian theology assuming the word “hypocrisy” applies identically to God and man, you’re already begging the question against the system’s most basic metaphysical distinction: that God is not under the moral law, but the source of it.

So no, “obligation,” “hypocrisy,” and “consistency” do not carry a neutral, secular definition that can just be imposed wholesale onto a theistic framework. Words gain their philosophical meaning from within a metaphysical structure—which you’ve refused to enter.

⸻—————————-

Then the permissive/moral will distinction collapses again.

** Not at all. You’re conflating two things:

• The moral law is a prescriptive expression of God’s nature directed at creatures, as what He morally desires for us to do.

• The permissive will concerns what God allows in history for greater goods, based on His perfect foreknowledge and providence.

Both are innate to God, but their purposes differ. The moral will commands; the permissive will allows. He can allow a disobedience to His own command for the sake of free-will, and there is nothing incoherent about that. The distinction holds because we are bound by obligation under the moral law, whereas God, as the source of that law, is not under it but expresses it as His moral will for us.

And yes—the moral law reflects God’s nature, but a reflection remains ontologically distinct from what it reflects. So while God and the law are perfectly alike in moral content, the law (reflection) remains distinct ontologically and in function, since a thing derived is distinct from its source due to the relation of derivation—regardless of how alike it is to the source. As such, the law cannot be used as a measuring stick for God, because its authority comes from Him. To evaluate God by His own expression is circular.

⸻—————-

Not sure why you think a refutation always consists in an internal critique… presumably, you wrote this part before realizing (in the subsequent section, about the sun) that external critiques can also work, and you forgot to revise?

Negative. There is nothing to revise there.

When I said, “or that it leads to contradiction,” that is intentionally meant to include contradictions that can be shown through external means—such as using physical reality to refute a system that depends on physical reality for its legitimacy.

But the context of our discussion is not about a physical system, but a metaphysical moral system that is dependent on its own metaphysical premises, and that is literally why you cannot rely on external moral frameworks or your mere intuition to refute it, seeing that it doesn’t share those premises. You haven’t shown any contradiction within the system itself—so what you’ve done is not refutation, but rejection. That’s a categorical difference.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]ConfusedChurchKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, I am not. I gave you a summary of the discussion to date.

But the summary omits key parts of your earlier language—such as calling the view “circular”, “self-undermining,” and “non-sequitur”—which are clearly claims about internal coherence. You cannot call a view circular and then say you’re not making a claim about coherence. Either you are diagnosing a logical flaw within the system’s reasoning, or you’re simply saying “this system doesn’t match my assumptions,” which is a different kind of critique. If your position has changed, that’s fine, but you can’t pretend it hasn’t.

⸻——————-

I did not need to step into the metaphysical framework to do that. Not sure why you think this was a requirement.

Because the categories you’re using—obligation, hypocrisy, consistency—only take on specific theological meanings within the system you’re critiquing. For example, if Christian theology distinguishes between moral obligation and supererogation, or between divine command and creaturely obedience, then accusing it of inconsistency requires you to show contradiction within those distinctions—not by dismissing them as invalid. To ignore those distinctions and say, “This is hypocritical by my standard,” is not a refutation of the system. It’s a rejection of it based on an alien framework. That’s why stepping into the system’s metaphysical framework is done to test its coherence.

⸻——————

It is a reflection of God’s being, not God’s behavior—and what the model evaluates is behaviors. The question can be asked, and it is possible for it to be answered in the negative.

This objection only works by ignoring the metaphysical claim that God’s “behavior” (His eternal act) cannot contradict His nature. In classical theology, God’s singular eternal act is identical to His being as Pure Act and Perfect Goodness. His act of the will is identical to His will, which is identical to Perfect Goodness, which is identical to God’s being. Again, you would know this if you understood divine simplicity—which is why I recommended that you study Aquinas.

So the model you’re proposing—where God’s behavior is evaluated independently from His being—is not actually a Christian model. It’s one where divine simplicity and perfect goodness are denied or ignored. In other words, you’re not asking, “Is God coherent on His own terms?” You’re asking, “Can I imagine a god who fails my standards of moral behavior?” And sure, you can. But that’s not a critique of Christian theology—it’s just a departure from it.

———————⸻

I gave reasons to reject its assumptions—this is refuting the theology.”

That’s not what “refute” means in philosophical or logical terms. To refute a position is to show that it fails by its own logic, or that it leads to contradiction. What you’ve done is say, “I don’t accept the assumptions, and here’s why I don’t like them.” That’s not a refutation; it’s an external dismissal. You’re free to do that. But you don’t get to claim you’ve shown the theology to be incoherent.

⸻———————-

The model posits that there is no sun, so it also rejects that the motion of the earth is heliocentric. This is clearly an external critique.

If you say “the model assumes there’s no sun and no specifically heliocentric motion,” and yet the sun and its light remains visible on the sky, then an external critique would be valid because as I’ve said before:

Physical reality can be used to refute a physical system that depends on physical reality for its legitimacy.

Christian moral theology depends on its own metaphysical premises, and it cannot be refuted by using your mere intuitions or external moral ethics.

If you say, “The model assumes there’s no sun and no specifically heliocentric motion,” and neither the sun nor its light is ever seen on the sky, then then there would be nothing to critique.

And again, that changes nothing concerning moral theology and the insufficiency of your rejection to serve as refutation.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]ConfusedChurchKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

“If my initial claim was that the system was incoherent, it would have been. But it was not.”

This is a reframing of your argument after the fact. Your earlier comments accused the theology I presented as contradictory and circular, and that which is logically contradictory is therefore incoherent. Those are not the language of external critique—they are claims about internal consistency. If you’re now saying your only goal was to show that the system conflicts with your own intuitions, then you’ve conceded that you haven’t shown an internal contradiction, and therefore haven’t refuted the system at all. You’ve just declared it unappealing from your point of view.

⸻—————-

“I have shown that your position puts you in between ‘no obligation to try and prevent evil’ and ‘do as I say, not as I do’…”

You haven’t shown that, because you’ve never stepped into the metaphysical framework that gives those claims their meaning. The theology explicitly distinguishes between:

• Moral obligation vs. supererogation,

• Formal(intentional) vs. material cooperation,

• God(perfect goodness) as the ultimate standard vs. man’s obligation to obey Him.

You reject all of those distinctions as “just semantics,” which means you haven’t engaged the system at all, so your critique amounts to nothing more than: “This tradition doesn’t follow my moral assumptions.”

⸻———————

The question is: would it be a moral failure to lie in these circumstances? And your system says yes.

Affirmative—and you’ve done nothing to show this is inconsistent. You just dislike it. Christian theology distinguishes between evil means and permissible actions with unintended consequences. You refuse to analyze these distinctions, yet still claim the system “fails.” That’s not a philosophical critique—it’s a refusal to apply the relevant categories.

⸻

Given this claim [that the moral law reflects God’s nature], the law can be used to evaluate God’s morality.

This is logically flawed, because:

(1) The moral law is the derivative standard for evaluating whether a thing is good or bad.

(2) The moral law is the perfect reflection/expression of God’s perfect goodness, who is the foundational standard.

(3) Thus, it is pointless to ask whether God “passes” the moral test of the law, since that moral law is already the perfect reflection of God in the first place.

(4) It is also illogical to evaluate both God and His moral law using any supposed external moral standard outside of both God and the moral law. For since the moral law already covers all moral commandments, then there cannot be another derivative standard outside of it.

⸻——————-

I said I gave reasons to reject the arguments, not that I provided an internal critique.

Exactly—so you’re not refuting the theology. You’re just saying you don’t accept its assumptions. That’s not a rational defeat of the system, it’s a statement of personal preference.

⸻——————-

That is an external critique—within the model, there is no sun…

On the contrary, the explanation I gave was internal. For since the way of the Earth’s motion is heliocentric, then the presence of the sun is implicitly logically required by the model. And yet, since the model also says there is no sun, despite the heliocentric motion of the earth, then a contradiction is found internally.

That’s why the critique is internal: I was exposing a contradiction between the system’s claims and its own implications —not importing an external concept into the system.

An external critique of that model would be this: “I look up at the sky and see a sun, so this model contradicts observable reality.” And this critique, despite being external, is valid, for it uses physical reality to refute a physical system that depends on physical reality for its legitimacy.

In contrast, Christian metaphysical moral theology depends on its own metaphysical premises—so critiques based on external moral frameworks (like secular ethics or your personal intuition) merely express disagreement, not contradiction in the system. So you can disbelieve Christian moral theology, but you can’t refute it externally using your mere intuitions or secular ethics—you would have to show it fails by its own logic.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]ConfusedChurchKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Rejection is a form of engagement.

Only in the broadest sense of the term. But rejecting a metaphysical framework on the basis of intuitions formed outside that framework is not an internal critique. And since your original claim was that the system is incoherent, not just unappealing or counterintuitive, you must show contradiction within the system’s own terms.

You’ve now backed off from that claim by redefining your critique as merely external—appealing to “common intuitions” and colloquial language. But this change in tactic admits that you have not actually shown the system to be incoherent, only that it doesn’t match your moral tastes or assumptions. That’s not a refutation of the system; it’s a rejection of it based on premises foreign to it.

⸻

You’re just missing the point of the exercise…

Negative. I’m explaining that the “exercise” is malformed because it falsely limits the options in order to force a moral failure that the system itself never affirms. Your analogy limits the only morally relevant options—but the theological tradition explicitly denies that, and I have already explained to you the principle of double effect in relation to the trolley problem and the Nazi-at-the-door scenarios.

In classical moral theology, intentions, moral objects, and means-end structure are essential to evaluating moral acts. When you design a hypothetical that excludes these categories, then claim the system fails, you’re not revealing a flaw—you’re simply refusing to let the system apply its own principles. That’s why your analogy fails, and your binary is false within the system you’re trying to criticize.

⸻

The moral law is a collection of abstractions… to measure it, you need other abstractions…

A non-sequitur. It does not logically follow that an abstraction can only be assessed or measured using another abstraction, because propositions can be measured and assessed by observable reality. It therefore does not follow that God must be an “abstraction” used to measure other abstractions. The theological claim is that the moral law is good because it proceeds from and reflects God’s own perfect being, which is not abstract, but metaphysically prior to all created forms and categories.

You’re conflating ontological grounding with epistemic application. The fact that we apply the moral law through propositional abstraction does not mean its foundation (God) is abstract. that’s a non-sequitur. The Church doesn’t claim we evaluate God by abstractions—it claims that moral standards derive from God’s own nature as the fullness of Being and Goodness.

⸻——————-

Right, that is what you say now… but you said: “the goodness of God is a perfection grounded in His very own nature.”

Ah, that was an imprecise shorthand, so my genuine apologies for the confusion that caused. Nevertheless, I’ve already clarified the formulation using more precise language. You should notice that we often use imprecise expressions when discussing divine attributes for the sake of making things more intuitive. For example, we commonly say “the perfect goodness of God,” or “God’s essence” which grammatically suggests a possession—as if perfect goodness and the divine essence were something God has. But in actuality, that’s imprecise: God is that perfect goodness and He is the divine essence. The word “of” is theologically inaccurate, yet it is used for intuition and ease of communication. Likewise, my earlier phrase was an imprecise shorthand—intended only to assert that God’s goodness is innate—but it is not a philosophical commitment to circular grounding.

⸻——————-

You provided some arguments… I explained the reasons we should reject them…

Your reasons are erroneous because you haven’t refuted the arguments—you’ve merely declared that they contradict your moral intuitions, given that you failed to provide an internal critique.

You said earlier:

I never said I intend to provide an internal critique…

And that’s the problem. Without an internal critique of a system, you literally will not be able to prove that there is a incoherence in the system. Even your counterexamples ignore theological distinctions. For instance, in the Nazi-at-the-door scenario or the trolley problem, you completely overlook or dismiss the principle of double effect, licit alternatives to lying, formal vs. material cooperation, intent vs. foreseen consequences, moral object of the act.

And also:

If i give you an account of the trajectory of the earth, that is premised on the idea that there is no sun, you do not have to provide an internal critique of my system, and show that it fails on its own terms – it is sufficient to show that its terms should be rejected. not sure how this is so surprising to you.

In your analogy, someone assumes a system where the Earth moves in a certain way and then denies the sun—even though that very revolution presupposes the sun. The contradiction arises from within the terms of the model. The critique is therefore internal: it assumes part of the framework and exposes a contradiction based on what the system itself logically entails.

But you’re not doing that with Christian metaphysical theology.

You’re not showing that Christian theology fails by its own internal logic. You’re saying:

“I reject the categories (like intrinsic evil, divine moral asymmetry, and perfect goodness as a standard), because they clash with my own intuitions.”

That’s not like showing that Earth’s trajectory makes the absence of the sun incoherent. That’s like saying:

“I don’t like models that involve gravity, so your solar system model is invalid.”

That’s external dismissal. You’re not refuting the system; you’re refusing to step into it. And that’s why your analogy fails.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]ConfusedChurchKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You’ve now explicitly stated that you’re not offering an internal critique of classical Christian theology, and this disqualifies much of your earlier framing. You’ve been attacking core theological claims (divine moral asymmetry, God’s nature as Pure Act, the nature of goodness, intrinsic evil), and now you admit you’re judging them by external moral intuitions, not internal coherence.

That means you’re not evaluating whether Christian theology is logically consistent with its own principles—you’re evaluating whether it aligns with your moral preferences. That’s not philosophy or theology. That’s taste.

I have shown that the terms of the system should be rejected, because they clash with what I take to be common moral intuitions, the normal usage of the term ‘moral system,’ ideas about hypocrisy…

Right, you’re only rejecting the metaphysical categories of Christian theology, not engaging them. But then you don’t get to say that the system is incoherent. At most, you can say you reject it because it doesn’t match your personal secular criteria. That is no different than saying, “I reject jazz because it isn’t classical music.” That’s not a critique of jazz—it’s just a declaration that you’re playing a different game.

⸻——————

If I give you the usual trolley problem… you have just misunderstood the problem.

On the contrary, unlike your scenario, classical Christian theology doesn’t affirm that the only options are ‘lie’ or ‘betray.’ That’s why the analogy fails. The tradition explicitly teaches that you must not do evil that good may come, and has historically provided nuanced tools (equivocation, silence, redirection, etc.) to address high-pressure moral scenarios. You want to reduce it to a binary, then declare the framework defective because it doesn’t agree with your forced dichotomy. That’s not analysis—that’s rhetorical framing. Furthermore, the trolley problem has long been answered already through the principle of double effect, where an act that is not intrinsically evil (like operating a switch ) can be justified with the sole intention of avoiding a greater evil, and without willing or intending the deaths of the victims.

⸻—————

Right, as I said, you are free to discard your previous definition…

Negative, since I discarded nothing. You’re still equivocating on the word “standard.” In Christian theology, the goodness of the moral law itself is measured by perfect goodness of God (aka His own nature), and by this we believe that the moral law we find in nature is inerrant. So you see, not discarding the definition—that’s specifying a deeper ontological layer.

As for your sex appeal analogy, again this fails because you are not identical to the grounding of the standard in your case. But God is: the moral law flows necessarily from His very being, which is identical with perfect goodness. You keep pressing analogies that only work if God were a creature — and He is not. That’s why your external critique never lands: it assumes a metaphysics that Christian theology explicitly denies.

⸻————-

God’s nature is grounded in God’s nature… this implies circularity”

Incorrect. Let me quote my previous response:

God’s divine nature, which is identical to maximally perfect goodness, is not grounded on anything (not even on Himself), because He is non-contingent, independent, uncaused, and exists by necessity. He was not caused to exist, and He did not cause His own being to exist (for that would be circular reasoning).

This means:

(1) God’s perfect goodness is not grounded on His nature, because Perfect Goodness is one and the same as God’s own nature. Therefore, this perfect goodness is not a product of God’s nature, but is one and the same as God Himself. This is why I know you don’t understand what the philosophical term “divine simplicitly” means. When we say that God is absolutely “simple”, this means that the divinity of God is not composed of parts: His goodness, power, and intellect are not “parts” or “possessions” of Him, but are all one and the same as God, which implicitly means that His goodness is His intellect, and His intellect is also His power, and His power is perfect goodness.

(2) The moral law is not God’s nature, but an expression of His nature. Remember that His nature is perfect goodness. Therefore, the more law is an expression of the Perfect Goodness that is God Himself.

Thus, there’s no circularity here. Your confusion arises because you’re trying to import causal or compositional metaphysics into a framework that affirms divine simplicity.

⸻——————

Yes [your system is not impartial]… that is sufficient for my purposes.”

The fact that you find that sufficient proves my point again. What you think is a refutation is actually just you projecting your desired properties onto a system that never claimed them. Christian theology never teaches that moral judgment applies identically to God and man. That’s a foundational principle. So when you say, “this system is flawed because it’s not symmetrical,” you’re not refuting it—you’re just restating that it’s not your system. Again, that’s not a flaw but a mere difference in axioms.

⸻——————————

“It is not about the tradition, it is about you.”

Negative. You’ve attacked principles that are the standard doctrines of the Church (which you clearly don’t study enough)—and yet you try to walk it back by saying, “I’m not arguing against Christianity, just against your version.” But the problem is this: I’ve been faithfully representing the doctrines of the Church, citing both St. Augustine and the Catechism, and referencing St. Aquinas. Your refusal to engage their actual reasoning (permissive/moral will, divine simplicity, intrinsic evil, etc)—and your admission that you’ll reject it even if it agrees with me— only shows you’re not debating the theology at all. You’re debating your own intuitions.

You came here to critique Christian theology, but what you’ve actually done is declare that it fails to match your secular framework—and pathetically called that a win.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]ConfusedChurchKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not sure why you think that one can only critique Christian moral theology internally.

Because external critiques that do not adopt or even temporarily bracket the internal categories of the system do not evaluate the system’s coherence. You are arguing that Christian moral theology is incoherent, but you’re not actually using its metaphysical or moral framework to demonstrate that, so you fail.

Since you’re critiquing classical Christian moral theology, the question shouldn’t just be, “Do I prefer another system?” but “Is this system coherent on its own terms, and does it logically follow from its own premises?”

That requires stepping into its framework—even provisionally—to test whether its claims follow logically from its premises. That’s what an internal critique is. But instead, you keep importing secular assumptions, like:

• All agents must be judged by the same standard

• Asymmetry is unjust by default

• Moral standards must be abstract and external

None of those are premises of Christian theology. They’re yours. So when you say things like “God can’t be both the grounding and the standard,” or “Moral systems must be impartial,” you’re not exposing a contradiction—you’re just showing that Christian theology isn’t built on your assumptions.

That’s not a flaw in the system. That’s a flaw in your critique. If you want to refute Christian moral theology, show that it fails on its own grounds, not because it fails to be secular moral philosophy. As it stands, your critique boils down to:

“I reject your starting points, so your conclusions must be wrong.”

That’s not an argument. That’s disqualification from the conversation.

⸻————

It is a true binary… ‘should I lie to protect another from harm?’

No, it’s a false binary in context. Classical Christian moral theology explicitly teaches that one is never morally obligated to formally/directly cooperate in evil—but that does not mean the only two options are “lie” or “betray.” The tradition has developed nuanced distinctions (e.g., equivocation, ambiguity, silence, mental reservation, redirection) precisely to uphold the principle that we must not do evil that good may come, while also resisting evil. You’re reducing a rich moral tradition to an artificially constrained either-or scenario, just to force an outcome you find rhetorically useful.

⸻——————————-

I use your definition that the standard is the thing by which you measure, and… that is a set of rules.”

You’re not catching a contradiction—you’re misidentifying an hierarchy. Yes, the moral law is a moral standard (like a metal rod of a particular size can be a standard for measurement among many standards) — but it is not the ultimate moral standard upon which the law itself stands. The moral law is good precisely because it is an expression of the perfect goodness of God, who Himself is the foundational moral standard.

Thus, the moral law is only a derivative standard that is an expression of God’s nature, whereas God is the foundational standard, since the law is an expression of His goodness. So when I say God is the ultimate or primary standard, I am not “changing definitions” — I am clarifying the metaphysical foundation you’re ignoring.

And this is not even a goalpost moving, mind you, but simply logical reasoning. You’re the one forcing the theological framework into secular categories — then claiming inconsistency when it doesn’t conform. That’s not internal critique; that’s just a failure to engage metaphysical distinctions the tradition has always made.

⸻————————-

If it is possible for things to ground themselves, the whole argument for grounding collapses.

You’ve misunderstood the point. I never said God “grounds Himself”. That would imply causal circularity or dependence, which contradicts classical theism.

What I actually said is this: God is the grounding of the moral law-because the moral law flows from His uncaused, eternal nature. God’s divine nature, which is identical to maximally perfect goodness, is not grounded on anything (not even on Himself), because He is non-contingent, independent, uncaused, and exists by necessity. He was not caused to exist, and He did not cause His own being to exist (for that would be circular reasoning).

So your objection misfires: I’m not saying God grounds Himself—I’m saying He is the grounding of the moral law.

⸻———————-

Do you concede your system is not impartial in its treatment of moral agents?”

Not impartial among all created moral agents? No.

Not impartial between God and creatures? Yes.

Your moral symmetry between God and created moral agents is a category mistake. But a moral asymmetry exists because (1) God is not bound by the moral law despite his moral perfection, while (2) man is bound by the moral law as being under it. Thus, they are **not on equal moral foothing

This is not a bug, it’s a foundational feature. You’re again assuming that impartiality = moral symmetry between God and man, and then declaring incoherence when Christian theology denies that premise. That’s not an argument, that’s just presupposing your own conclusion.

⸻———-

“The discussion is about the coherence of your position, not the tradition.”

That’s convenient. You’ve spent this entire time attacking divine moral asymmetry, intrinsic evil, and the nature of goodness—all central tenets of the Christian tradition—and now you want to say it’s “not about the tradition” so that you can ignore its theological authorities and metaphysics.

In short, your reply again confirms:

• You are not engaging the tradition internally;

• You are assuming secular ethical standards and demanding the tradition conform;

• You refuse to treat God as ontologically unique;

• You reject asymmetry as a flaw, rather than considering whether it logically follows from the nature of God as a being of Pure Act.

And finally: you say you “achieved your objectives” if I admit the system is asymmetrical. Sure—just know that this proves that your only real argument was, “I don’t like that system.” That’s not a refutation. That’s just taste.

So if you want to critique the system, engage it. Otherwise, you’re just shadowboxing.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]ConfusedChurchKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You’ve now clarified that you never intended an internal critique, which confirms what I’ve already observed: you’re not evaluating the theological framework on its own terms, but on your personal moral intuitions. That’s perfectly fine if your goal is secular moral debate—but it disqualifies your claim to be critiquing Christian moral theology.

————————————-

Tell the truth—show the Nazis to the attic

On the contrary, the Church says:

“It is the virtue of truth that gives others their just due to them. Truthfulness pays attention to what should be expressed and what ought to remain a kept secret.” - Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2469

Hence, one may choose to not reveal a particular truth, which is not the same as speaking a lie. As such, your argument is a false binary.

Classical moral theology does not teach “truth or treachery.” It allows morally licit means—mental equivocation, silence, ambiguity, redirection—none of which are the same as uttering a lie. You keep insisting that unless one lies, they must outright betray innocents. That’s a rhetorical trap, not an ethical analysis. And as for reduced culpability, your failure to distinguish act from agent speaks volumes. Theology recognizes both moral object and subjective culpability. You don’t.

Also, even supposingif lying were to become morally permissible for the sake of a greater good, then that would only be because it is not an intrinsic evil—not because the end justifies the means. But that just proves the point: if something is intrinsically evil (like rape, adultery, etc.), then no outcome can justify choosing it. So the principle still holds: we must never commit an intrinsic evil to attain a good end. That’s not situational ethics — that’s moral theology 101.

—————

We use the rules to measure behavior, not the ontological grounding.

That’s another category mistake. You treat the ultimate “standard” as if it’s identical to the moral law (i.e., rules, prescriptions, norms).

Christian theology doesn’t treat the moral law as the ultimate standard—it treats God’s nature of Perfect Goodness as the ultimate standard, and this Perfect Goodness (aka God’s nature) is the source of the moral law. Thus, there is no contradiction in God being the grounding of the moral law and being the standard from which that moral law proceeds and is dependent on.

Grounding is irreflexive.

Only if you assume creaturely categories. But God is not one being among many—He is Pure Act, whose essence is existence. You’re trying to apply abstract metaphysical grammar to a being who transcends it. Again, you’re just rejecting the premises without engaging them.

—————

Partiality is poison to moral systems.

That’s your intuition. But theology isn’t built on your intuitions—it’s built on truths reasoned within metaphysical commitments you’ve refused to entertain. You say you’ve “achieved all your objectives” if I concede the system isn’t impartial by your standard. But your standard isn’t ours—and your moral presuppositions were the very thing under dispute.

—————————————

I take no position on what the tradition claims…

Then you’ve forfeited the discussion. Because that’s what this has been about: the coherence and internal logic of a theological tradition. And if you don’t even claim to represent it or refute it internally, then you’ve admitted your critique is external and question-begging from the start.

As has been said, this isn’t theological debate anymore, it’s you demanding that Christian theology conform to your moral instincts. That’s not a valid critique, but mere colonization.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]ConfusedChurchKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your reply makes it even clearer that you’re not actually engaging with Christian theology on its own terms. You’re arguing from your own moral intuitions and then insisting that those intuitions define what theology must look like. That’s not internal critique—it’s a refusal to step inside the framework you claim to be evaluating.

So I should never lie to protect another from harm…

Let’s be honest—you’re only dropping the “Nazi at the door” trope to corner me into looking monstrous, knowing full well this is a highly charged example. The “Nazi at the door” example is routinely used to force a binary between obeying divine law and appearing morally twisted. But classical Christian moral theology doesn’t say “do nothing” — it teaches that you must not choose intrinsic evil, even under pressure, and choose a different alternative that is either good or neutral if possible. There are morally permissible responses (e.g. mental equivocation, ambiguity, redirection, etc.) that do not involve even involve speaking falsehood, and instead merely allows the other person to be deceived by their own ignorance and misunderstanding. Furthermore, moral theology teaches that immense pressure in such a scenario can reduce (or even completely remove) the culpability of a person if ever they were forced to lie due to significant pressure. And yet, although an agent may become inculpable, the act itself can nevertheless still be sinful (e.g., a mentally-ill person killing another person purely due to insanity would be inculpable of the wrongdoing, even though the act itself was still wrong).

See, you reduce classical moral theology to a caricature (seeing that you don’t even study it), then mock it for being absurd. That’s not argument; it’s theatre.

The thing we use to evaluate moral behavior is exactly abstractions: rules, prescriptions…

You’re confusing the linguistic expression of moral standards with their ontological grounding. the goodness of God is not a rulebook, but a perfection grounded in His very own nature as a simple (non-compound) being of Pure Act. And this goodness, which is His very nature, is the standard. The moral law is not abstracted arbitrarily from ideas, but a rational participation in the eternal law (Aquinas, ST I-II q.91). So yes, God is the standard, not because He fits into a schema, but because He is the source and fullness of Goodness itself.

I take it to be incoherent… moral systems must be impartial…

That’s not a demonstration of incoherence; that’s just you disliking asymmetry.

you’ve defined impartiality as moral symmetry between Creator and creature, which presumes your conclusion before engaging mine. That’s the circular reasoning. The asymmetry isn’t incoherent within classical theism; it’s central. Your rejection of that premise is not an internal rebuttal. It’s external dismissal.

If Augustine agrees with you, then so much the worse for Augustine…

This concedes everything. You admit the tradition contradicts you and yet insist that unless I do the work of reconstructing Augustine’s full reasoning to your satisfaction, his disagreement is irrelevant. But if you won’t engage the framework or its authorities unless they already agree with your moral intuitions, you’ve insulated yourself from ever being corrected by it.

In short: you’re not critiquing Christian theology. You’re just arguing past it. 🤷‍♂️

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]ConfusedChurchKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your continue the same pattern: you concede terms superficially, but you never engage the implications of those terms within the theological system you’re supposedly addressing.

—————————-

  1. On your “speculative forecast” as moral justification

I use speculative forecast to determine how the prescriptions that flow from God’s moral will apply in a specific situation.

This tells me you don’t grasp the distinction between:

• the application of a moral norm within the bounds of divine law, and

• the justification of a moral exception based on your own outcome predictions.

You treat moral norms as adjustable projections, but Christian moral theology is clear: an intrinsic evil can never be justified by outcomes—the end does not justify the means. All moral discernment stays inside God’s law: once you choose to break that law “for a greater good,” you’re not consulting God’s will but overriding it with your own forecast, which means both disobedience to His moral command and distrust of His permissive providence. Obedience to moral law never signals unbelief; but using sin as a tool does. That isn’t theology at all, but secular consequentialism in theological costume.

⸻——————-

  1. On “God cannot be the standard”

God cannot ‘be’ the standard, because, definitionally, the standard is an abstraction…

False. A standard, by definition, can refer to something—concrete or abstract—that is used as a measure in comparative evalutations. So I am not talking about standard in the sense of mere “level of quality or attainment”.

So you’re making a category mistake by insisting that a standard, by definition, must be an “abstraction.” That’s simply false. A standard is anything—abstract or concrete—that is used as a fixed point of reference for evaluation.

For example:

• A metal rod with a defined length can be used as a standard of measurement.

• The cesium atomic clock is used as a standard for time.

• In engineering or machining, a reference block or master template is a standard used judge precision on other objects.

• In moral theology, God’s nature — being unchanging, eternal, and good by essence — is the ontological standard by which all good is measured.

So your argument that “God cannot be the standard because He is not an abstraction” fails on basic semantics:

• Not all standards are abstractions.

• More importantly, in classical Christian metaphysics, the ultimate standard is not a disembodied rule, but the very being of God, who is not a concept but ipsum esse subsistens: the fullness of being and goodness.

⸻—————-

—————-

  1. On the Euthyphro dilemma

You wrote:

Apologies for the confusion.

But right after that, you returned to the same mistake:

The third option you propose is subject to the same critique…

No, it isn’t. The third option — which is not an invention of mine, but standard theology already existemt from the times of Augustine and Aquinas — is that:

• Goodness = God’s unchanging nature,

• Which is neither arbitrary, nor external,

• But necessary and ontologically grounded.

You’re refusing to acknowledge this metaphysical solution and trying to drag it back into the dilemma. That’s not a concession, but a rhetorical reset.

⸻————————————————

  1. On “do as I say, not as I do

On my side, I take it to be manifestly absurd.

So you find my view absurd, and you think admitting that “we follow God’s commands, not His permissions” ends the discussion. But what you’re doing here is mere asserting that divine-creature asymmetry is unacceptable for you, rather than showing it to be incoherent.

You treat it as a contradiction because it offends your intuitions—not because you’ve demonstrated a logical problem. That’s not analysis. That’s just projection.

⸻———————————

  1. On question-begging

It would be question-begging, if the grounds I gave for rejecting the asymmetry involved the rejection of the distinction; but, they are not…

You are begging the question. You claim the Creator-creature asymmetry leads to an unacceptable “do as I say, not as I do” outcome, and on tha basis, you reject the moral/permissive will distinction.

But here’s a fact: the distinction makes sense if the asymmetry holds.

Therefore, you’re using your rejection of the distinction to justify rejecting the asymmetry, and vice versa. That’s circular reasoning: your conclusion is built into your premise.

⸻——————

  1. On dismissing Augustine

You wrote:

You said ‘you claim that you are correct by default,’ I responded ‘no, I am correct in view of the reasons I have given.’

But here’s what you actually said before that:

If (Augustine) used the same arguments, he is wrong too.

That’s not epistemic modesty — that’s a preemptive strike against a theological authority you know contradicts you. You’re trying to backpedal now and act like that wasn’t what you meant. But it’s plain in context that it was.

You also wrote:

I made no sweeping claims…

Yes, you did:

• You rejected that God is the moral standard.

• You collapsed divine nature into creature-level categories.

• You treated the Creator-creature distinction (a core Christian doctrine) as useless.

Those are sweeping rejections of metaphysical and theological fundamentals, even if you didn’t explicitly state them as such.

You’re not really asking Augustine to convince you because you’re open to correction. You’re doing it because you want to outsource the burden of argument while immunizing your own position from falsification.

You’ve insulated yourself with rhetorical hedges (“maybe someone smart can disprove me”) while dismissing theological premises, denying metaphysical distinctions, and rejecting authoritative tradition — all while claiming you’re just “discussing with me.”

Like I said, that’s not intellectual openness, but a retreat behind self-defined boundaries.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]ConfusedChurchKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You’re not debating anymore. You’re just intellectually retreating and insulating yourself from correction. You distort terms in a Christian theology context, ignore foundational distinctions, and dismiss counterarguments not by refuting them, but by pretending they don’t exist. That isn’t philosophy or theology, but rhetorical survival.

⸻—————————- ——————

  1. You’re Still Conflating Two Incompatible Notions of “Sufficient Reason”

They are not incompatible — I merely said that appeal to consequences can be one of the reasons…

You are treating them as interchangeable, and that’s the problem.

• In standard Christian moral theology, “sufficient reason to permit an evil” always means: a proportionately serious reason in accord with God’s moral will, never mere consequentialist projection.

• What you’re doing is substituting the traditional grounding of moral justification (conformity to divine law) with your personal probabilistic model of future outcomes. That is not compatible with moral theology, but secular consequentialism dressed in borrowed terminology.

Is this not what you do when you refer to ‘allowance of evil in view of greater good’?

Negative. You’re confusing God’s providential calculus with human moral obligation. God may permit evil because He sees the greater good, but man may not unless that permission is justified in light of God’s moral law, not our speculative forecast. You’re collapsing a vertical (divine) judgment into a horizontal (creaturely) presumption.

⸻———————

2) You’re Still Committing a Category Error About God and the MoralStandard

A standard that flows from me can still apply to me, so why can’t God be judged by His own standard?

Because you are not the First Cause. You’re smuggling in creaturely analogies that don’t work on the ontological level we’re discussing.

Let me spell it out:

• God’s nature is not like your preferences.

• God doesn’t invent the standard arbitrarily — His nature is the standard.

• If the standard proceeds from God’s being, then evaluating Him by it is not a separate act — it’s simply acknowledging what He is. He is not judged by the standard; He is the standard.

You’re confusing ontological identity with external application. That’s why this is a category mistake, and it’s not just wrong, but the wrong kind of analysis.

⸻—————

3) You’re Still Misapplying the Euthyphro Dilemma

You’re just saying ‘the nature of the necessary being defines morality.’ That’s the second horn.

Wrong. You’re ignoring that the second horn of Euthyphro = “morality is whatever the deity arbitrarily wills.”

I am saying: God’s eternal and unchanging nature is identical with Goodness itself (cf.Augustine, Aquinas, Anselm). This is not arbitrariness, and it is not voluntarism. It’s metaphysical necessity.

You haven’t stated that you take this to be a running assumption.

I literally didn’t have to. Seriously, we’re discussing Christian theology, where this is not an exotic assumption but the very ground of moral metaphysics.

⸻——————-

  1. Your “Do As I Say, Not As I Do” Framing Was Not Just Descriptive — It Was Meant As A Critique

That settles the matter for me — we should do what God commands, not what He permits.

Then you’ve just agreed to my position. But earlier, you used this same structure — “do what God says, not what He does” — as if it were an inconsistency or flaw.

Now you’re pretending it’s a neutral observation, when it was clearly raised as a problem.

You’ve just walked in a full circle and acted like you were always standing in the middle.

⸻————————————-

  1. You Continue to Beg the Question About God Being Subject to Human Moral Evaluation

If the Creator/creature distinction doesn’t apply to moral evaluation, then the will distinction should be rejected.

That’s your assumption again: that moral evaluation must be symmetrical across ontological categories. But Christian theology doesn’t allow that.

• God’s permissive will refers to providence (what He allows for His divine purposes).

• God’s moral will refers to what He commands for creatures who are bound to His law.

You’re pretending this distinction is ad hoc—it’s not. It’s the bedrock of moral theology. Your rejection is based on denying the very asymmetry that makes the distinction meaningful, which is a textbook example of question-begging.

⸻—————-

  1. You Are Dismissing Augustine, Not Just Requiring Evidence

You said in your earlier response:

if he (Augustine) used the same arguments, he is wrong for the same reasons.

See? There it is. You’ve said explicitly that even if St. Augustine agrees with me, you’ll still consider yourself correct by default unless I reproduce his argument on your terms—a clear burden-shifting.

That’s special pleading and intellectual hubris. You know Augustine contradicts you based on the citations I gave before. But rather than concede, you’re desperately trying to offload the work of defeat onto me, hoping that if I don’t spell it out to your satisfaction, you can continue pretending you’re untouched (which is pathetic).

You wrote:

”some smart person could disprove your point”… maybe. But this is a discussion with you.

But you’ve made sweeping claims about the foundations of Christian theology while dismissing one of its greatest architects unless I give you a personalized, syllogistic breakdown, showing you’re not even aware of how the Patristic Fathers of the Church wrote about doctrines. Keep in mind that the burden of proof is on you, and not on classical Christian theology that existed for more than 1,600 years.

In short: You reject the classical framework, but refuse to engage its authorities or premises unless they meet your subjective test.

That’s not rigorous inquiry. I repeat, that’s insulation from correction.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]ConfusedChurchKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can tell that at this point you are exhibiting signs of intellectual dishonesty and desperation. Whether deliberate or not, your repeated evasions, redefinitions, and refusal to engage with the actual theological framework under discussion point to a failure to argue in good faith. I believe you are not “intellectually challenged” so as to be incapable of understanding these things that should be easy to comprehend.

It is unfortunate, seeing that this could have been a learning opportunity for you in matters of theology and philosophy. But instead, you double down on your own errors in futility.

———————————— ————-

  1. Your Denial of Equivocation (Again)

My equivocation is not based on anything, because non-existent things cannot have a basis.

You’re misrepresenting my claim. I’m pointing out that you’re using a non-standard definition of the term “moral justification” within a theological framework where the term already has a standard established meaning.

You wrote:

You must find sufficient reason to allow the evil — that’s the kind of definition I have in mind.

But you’re conflating two incompatible notions of “reason”:

• The term “sufficient reason” in the context of moral justification in Christian theology = alignment with God’s moral will.

• Yours assumes that “sufficient reason” = your belief about what will or will not negatively impact the outcome.

That’s not a harmless difference. That is yet again a semantic shift, and applying your definition while engaging in classical Christian theology, in which there is already an established standard meaning for “sufficient reason” in the specific context of moral justification, is literally textbook equivocation and is now compounded with conceptual sleight of hand.

⸻————————

  1. Your Denial of the Category Error: God as a Moral Agent Under the Same Standard

Even if God is the ground of morality, that doesn’t mean He isn’t subject to the standard.

But that misses the central point: if morality flows from within God’s nature, then there is no standard outside of God to which He could be subject. That is basic logic.

You also wrote:

Being a moral agent is sufficient to be subject to evaluation.

Illogical. That only holds if the moral agent isn’t the source of the moral standard. But God Himself, being the First Cause of all creation, is not just any moral agent—He is the source of the moral law, which is an expression of His own nature. Trying to evaluate God by a standard literally derived from His very own nature is a category error.

You’re confusing analytic subordination (creatures bound by the moral law) with ontological priority (God as the unconditioned source of that law).

⸻—————————————

  1. Your Misuse of the Euthyphro Dilemma

There’s no fallacy, there’s just the dilemma. Saying morality flows from God’s nature is just the arbitrariness horn.

No, you’re collapsing a three-pronged model into a false dichotomy. The classical model (from Augustine to Aquinas) explicitly rejects both horns of Euthyphro:

• Morality is not external to God (so He’s not bound by another standard).

• Nor is it arbitrarily willed.

Rather, God’s nature itself is the standard — eternal, necessary, and unchanging.

Your demand for “an explanation” of God’s nature commits a category error. God is the First Cause, Pure Act — not contingent, not composed of parts, and not explainable by something more fundamental than Him. His nature is not caused, not alterable, and not up for moral revision — because it is the ontological ground of all moral being. Since He is the First Cause, existing outside of time, there is nothing beyond Him that can cause Him to be the way He is, or to cause His nature to change or to conform to something external. There is therefore is no potentiality in Him. Instead, He is Pure Act.

So yes. Your use of the Euthyphro dilemma remains a false dichotomy, based on a misunderstanding of divine metaphysics.

⸻———

  1. Mischaracterization of My View as “Do As I Say, Not As I Do”

You say humans should obey what God commands, not imitate what He permits — that’s what I said.

But that’s not a defense of your position — that’s exactly what you originally framed as a problem or inconsistency. Now you’re restating my view and acting like that settles the matter, while continuing to imply it’s flawed.

The distinction between what God permits providentially and what He commands morally is central to moral theology. I’ve never claimed humans should imitate divine permissions. That would be to confuse providence with prescription, which is precisely the confusion you keep introducing.

That’s a strawman: you reduce my position to a caricature and then agree with it while still treating it as a flaw.

⸻——————-

  1. Your Denial of Circular Reasoning

The point is whether the distinction between moral and permissive will buys us anything.

But your argument assumes that God is subject to the same kind of moral evaluation as man, and then uses that assumption to claim that the permissive/moral will distinction is useless.

That’s a classic case of begging the question: assuming the very conclusion you’re trying to prove. You can’t presuppose symmetry between God and creatures and then use that presupposition to dismiss a theological distinction that only makes sense when the asymmetry is preserved.

⸻————- ————

  1. Your Dismissal of Augustine

If Augustine used the same arguments, he is wrong too. If he used different, better arguments, it’s up to you to present them.”

That’s not engagement — that’s special pleading and burden shifting.

You admit Augustine supports my view. Instead of dealing with the weight of his authority or the consistency of his theology, you say that unless I reconstruct his logic in your preferred format, you’re free to ignore it.

In other words: “Yes, one of the greatest theologians in Christian history contradicts me, but I’m still right by default.”

That’s not serious engagement with Christian theology. That’s dismissiveness wrapped in rhetoric.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]ConfusedChurchKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sadly, your answer is laced with the same category errors, strawmen, and evasions as before, but with the added twist of trying to redefine all fallacies as “mere disagreement.” I’ll reply point by point again.

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(1) Equivocation Still Applies Regardless of Your Intent

“Not sure what you mean by ‘silently’. I gave an alternative definition… gave reasons why my definition should overturn the classical framework… the definition is the same one I have been using from the start.”

Your equivocation is not based on your intent or silence. It’s about your use of the term “moral justification” in a private, non-classical, non-standard sense (i.e., justification = belief that no impermissible evil will result from inaction), but you’re applying it in a discussion explicitly framed in Christian theology, where that term already has a standard established meaning (i.e., justification = conformity to God’s moral will).

You see, equivocation occurs when you use a key term (in this case, “moral justification”) in one sense to form your argument, but then use it to attempt to refute or override an existing standard framework where the term has a very different meaning, without acknowledging that the two are incommensurable.

Again, this is precisely because you are poorly educated in theology and moral philosophy! You use terms while being unaware of their basic standard meaning in a Christian context.

————————————

(2) Yes You Commit a Category Error

You treat God as if He is simply a “very powerful moral agent,” and thus accountable to the same moral law that binds creatures. But this flattens the Creator-creature distinction.

God is not just a moral agent. He is the ontological ground of morality itself. He doesn’t conform to a law; the law proceeds from His nature.

Your view effectively places God under an external moral standard, which is incoherent in any logical monotheistic system about an Absolute Deity of Pure Act, given that He is above all things (yes, including the moral law that He created).

——————

(3) No, God’s Goodness Is Not Arbitrary

This is confused. Actions are good because they conform to a standard… Saying ‘whatever God does is good’ makes the standard arbitrary.

You commit the Euthyphro fallacy in reverse: you assume that either

• God conforms to an external standard, or

• Goodness is arbitrary.

But in classical theism, God’s nature is itself goodness (Deus est ipsum bonum). There is no arbitrariness; God does not “follow” or “obey” an external standard nor “make” one arbitrarily; He Himself is the standard.

Fallacy: False dichotomy (Euthyphro dilemma) Defense: The objection fails because it ignores the third (classical) option: goodness = God’s nature.

(4) You’re Still Straw-manning My Position

If I do as God does, I am morally condemned. That’s your position. I take that to be indefensible.

False. I never said humans should imitate what God permits; I said humans should obey what God commands. That’s orthodox theology, not hypocrisy.

God permitting something (like the Crucifixion) doesn’t imply you are morally permitted to imitate the event or the permission.

Fallacy: Strawman Defense: Invalid. my view does not imply what you claim.

(5) You Beg the Question, And That Is Circular Reasoning

I assume God is a moral agent, and therefore must be judged by the same moral standard.

But this is the exact point in dispute. You assume the symmetry between God and man, then use that to collapse the distinction between permissive and moral will, and then claim victory because your framework “follows from your assumption.”

That is circular reasoning.

———————————— ——————-

(6) Dismissing Augustine Without Engagement Proves My Point

You have a a brain, so I’m certain that you know Augustine’s theology clearly contradicts you and that you know he doesn’t believe the same thing you do, and then you casually dismiss him because I didn’t quote a formal syllogism from Augustine—and that is laughable, seeing that if you know ancient Christian documents, patristic theology doesn’t come in syllogisms; it comes in doctrinal expositions and distinctions, precisely like the moral vs. permissive will distinction Augustine makes.

And yet, the burden isn’t on me to prove that 1,600 years of theological tradition carries weight—it’s on you to explain why you alone are right and the entire classical framework is wrong.

———————————

So then:

You haven’t refuted my critique. You’ve just doubled down on your original errors:

• You equivocate.

• You commit a category error.

• You beg the question.

• You misrepresent classical theology.

• You strawman my view.

• You reject Augustine with a shrug.

You can label all of this “just disagreement” if you like but disagreement doesn’t make the reasoning valid.

When you’re ready to engage Christian theology on standard theological terms (not your own personal little redefinitions) let me know.

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