Nature of God: All-Good

[August]

This is an argument made by an atheist opponent in view of the nature of God as the standard for good:

(1) The view that God’s nature is the standard of goodness is committed to claiming that nature of a person (even an all-powerful one) can be the standard of Goodness.

(2) It is possible that there exists an all-powerful person who is all-hating.

(3) The nature of an all-hating all-powerful person cannot be the standard of goodness.

(4) But if the nature of an all-hating all-powerful person cannot be the standard of goodness, then neither can the nature of an all-loving all-powerful person.

I have my own thoughts, but does anyone else want to weigh in?

 

[Tim]

The nature of an all-hating all-powerful person cannot be the standard of goodness.

According to what standard? If there exists an all-powerful person, that person sets the standard, which is ultimate. There is no higher standard by which a creature may declare that hate is not good.

 

[Afterthought]

This argument is very, very messy and poorly worded, but I'll try to deal with a certain part of it as it was probably meant to be given. (I very much like Tim's answer)

(3) The nature of an all-hating all-powerful person cannot be the standard of goodness.

I may be off the mark here. I can see what this argument is attempting to do, but I can't help but wonder: Why? on this premise. The answer seems to be: Because the person is "all-hating", the nature of this person cannot be the standard of goodness. Very well then! So would you agree that if a person is "all-loving", the nature of that person could be the standard of goodness? What? That is not what you were saying? You merely meant to say that an arbitrary nature of some arbitrary person (even an all-powerful one) cannot be the standard of goodness? Well, it's a good thing we Christians don't claim that.


And as for some of the general messiness of this argument, (1) We claim that God's nature is His will as it is made known to His creatures under various actions and relations, so technically, it is God's will that is the standard of goodness, (2) it is not merely that an "all-loving" person is enough to guarantee a nature that sets the standard of goodness, and I'm not aware that Christians claim such a thing; it may be helpful here to remember that the attributes of God are human conceptions of the perfection of God's one nature, and within God's nature the attributes are not separate, (3) an "all-powerful" person is not enough either to set a standard of goodness [to use a human analogy, just because some nation is more powerful than another does not automatically give the more powerful nation a right to set standards in the other nation], and we Christians do not claim such a thing; it is not merely God's power but His right as Creator and God over all that makes His will a rule for His creatures; if asked whence this right comes from, so far as I understand, it comes from God being God, not merely God being all-powerful. No doubt, the above argument could be modified to take these things into account, but I think it's only fair to remember these things, even if it might not be prudent to make note of these things in answering the argument (and I do not know whether it would or not).


Just some thoughts; I could have erred somewhere in my understanding.

 

[toddpedlar]

The flaws are too many to number, both in terms of logic and simple common sense. Ask your friend to put things in terms of a proper logical syllogism, first. Then you can talk. My suspicion is that this person thinks somehow that there is a problem with what seems to be the foundational premise, #1, and that he has logically come to his conclusion #4 - but #4 is a standalone assertion that is complete nonsense, not a conclusion drawn from any premises.

 

[August]

Thanks everyone, keep it coming. My first response is below:

(1) The view that God’s nature is the standard of goodness is committed to claiming that nature of a person (even an all-powerful one) can be the standard of Goodness.

(2) It is possible that there exists an all-powerful person who is all-hating. (Ok...let's grant that for the sake of argument, but if such a being exists, would we? And would we know it? How?)

(3) The nature of an all-hating all-powerful person cannot be the standard of goodness. (Why not? By what standard would you judge goodness if such a being was all-powerful? This is an appeal to an objective standard of good and evil outside of the all-powerful being, a logical absurdity if you appeal to "all-powerful". Please justify how beings in a possible world ruled by an all-powerful, all-hating being would have the objective knowledge to show such a being to be good or not good. To simply define it that way in an arbitrary fashion from the "outside" does not make an argument, it is simple assertion.)

(4) But if the nature of an all-hating all-powerful person cannot be the standard of goodness, then neither can the nature of an all-loving all-powerful person (This is a non-sequitor as well as equivocation. There is no reason to assume that the nature of an all-hating being is the same as that of an all-good being. It is blindingly obvious that all-hate cannot be the definition of all-good in the same sense at the same time, unless arbitrarily assumed to be so. But there is no reason shown to do so.)

Be gentle in your comments, I did not spend a whole lot of time on it...

 

[J. Dean]

This is an argument made by an atheist opponent in view of the nature of God as the standard for good:

(1) The view that God’s nature is the standard of goodness is committed to claiming that nature of a person (even an all-powerful one) can be the standard of Goodness.

(2) It is possible that there exists an all-powerful person who is all-hating.

(3) The nature of an all-hating all-powerful person cannot be the standard of goodness.

(4) But if the nature of an all-hating all-powerful person cannot be the standard of goodness, then neither can the nature of an all-loving all-powerful person.

I have my own thoughts, but does anyone else want to weigh in?

Ask him/her to let us know when they've proven premise #2, then we'll talk. By his own atheistic stance he would have to deny the existence of said entity in premise #2, because that entity by nature would be a god.

 

[Zach]

It sounds like your friend is conceding that there is a God but that he just doesn't like his moral standards. Seems like a wonderful opportunity to explain sin to him. As Joshua and Tim said, if God exists, he sets the standards and we follow him. Thanks be to God that his standard is to glorify and enjoy him and that redeemed us when we refused to.

 

[Randy in Tulsa]

Although God's attributes are intrinsic and absolute, are they not manifested in terms of objects? If so, in terms of the object of sin, would it be accurate to say that God is all-hating?

 

[VictorBravo]

(2) It is possible that there exists an all-powerful person who is all-hating.

Not much to add except this: The second proposition is absurd. An all-hating person would hate himself and his power. If he were all-powerful, he would successfully act on that hatred and destroy himself.

Otherwise, he either is not all-powerful, or he at least loves himself.

Put another way, if he restrains himself from destroying himself in his self-hatred, he is relying on some standard outside of himself that recognizes a good (i.e., he submits to the belief that existence is good).

 

[J. Dean]

It sounds like your friend is conceding that there is a God but that he just doesn't like his moral standards. Seems like a wonderful opportunity to explain sin to him. As Joshua and Tim said, if God exists, he sets the standards and we follow him. Thanks be to God that his standard is to glorify and enjoy him and that redeemed us when we refused to.

+10. Your evaluation is true for a great many atheists I've talked to in my life. I once read a quote that said "An atheist cannot find God for the same reason that a thief cannot find a policeman."

 

[Zach]

It sounds like your friend is conceding that there is a God but that he just doesn't like his moral standards. Seems like a wonderful opportunity to explain sin to him. As Joshua and Tim said, if God exists, he sets the standards and we follow him. Thanks be to God that his standard is to glorify and enjoy him and that redeemed us when we refused to.

+10. Your evaluation is true for a great many atheists I've talked to in my life. I once read a quote that said "An atheist cannot find God for the same reason that a thief cannot find a policeman."

R.C. Sproul said that whenever he dialogues with an atheist he always says that their problem isn't that they don't believe God exists, they know he does, but they hate him.

 

[August]

As happens in these discussions, the atheist moved on to some other objections and then pointed towards a paper he wrote that is hosted on infidels.org. The paper addresses Copan and Craig, but no reformed apologists, and offers very little in terms of developing an atheistic case for objective morality. Thanks for all the feedback.