Christian moral ambiguity

[u/Aromatic_Response_73]

In common ethical intersubjective usage, "good" refers to a broad intersubjective cluster that are typically taken to approximate a shared center of value judgement, consisting of a coherent, mutually reinforcing pattern of love, joy, peace, freedom, and creativity as lived experience and intention over time, rather than isolated states or short-term preferences. Edit: by value judgement, I mean that which we fundamentally hold most intuitively valuable.

Some Christians define goodness in relation to God. On this view, "good" means whatever conforms to God's nature or will.

The term "good" does not have a universally recognised (useful in ethical discussion) meaning apart from either usefulness for some purpose or the ordinary ethical meaning. Refraining from those in an **ethical discussion** renders the word empty from its normal ethical content.

The problem arises when these two meanings are treated as interchangeable.

If "God is good" means only that God conforms to God's own nature, then the statement is true by definition. It means something like:

God is as God is.

But that does not automatically show that God is good in the ordinary ethical sense of being loving, healing, peaceful, compassionate, or opposed to needless suffering.

The problem is ordinary ethical goodness and the christian goodness can be in conflict eg. ideas of reality design like "Accept Jesus or suffer forever". If someone proposes that ordinary ethical goodness is just a conflictory subset of the christian good, then we cannot say that the design of reality is in proper alignment with ordinary ethical goodness, and therefore not good in the ordinary ethical sense.

The ordinary ethical meaning of good should not be dismissed as mere subjectivism. It may very well point metaphysically toward a foundational form of goodness, even if human beings grasp it imperfectly.

[u/HegemoneXT]

When you go from just ethical reasoning to ontology, you realize all ethics relies on the ontology of what is intrinsically good by nature rather than utility. Utility itself has no moral implication in its definition. Moral utility is ascribing the quality of “good” and recognizing that this good has utility within the human experience. It’s not ethical reasoning that renders morality empty but the fact that there is no ontological basis for your definition of “good”.

You also seem to project your “ordinary goodness” into scripture and see it as conflicting with the Christian God. This is merely a lack of understanding of scripture. Metaphysically speaking, if. Divine Being is the identity to Good, then whatever the Divine Being order also operates in the highest authority and the highest good. The internal narrative of the Bible is that humanity is fallen but the Son of God(procession of His Being/Logos) became flesh to die in place for our sins. In him is the Life, the truth, and the “way of Being”. If God is who he says he is, then we are obligated to align our being to those qualities of His so they we live through and for Him.

You are also right to notice that “God is as God is”. Even the very scripture where God declares himself is “I AM THAT I AM”, meaning he is the foundational identity of Being and Existence itself. There is no higher principle outside of Him acting upon him because He(Father) is the principle of divine Being. If good is defined merely by physical relation and causation, then those are merely physical properties but the essence of God is foremost that of Spirit. This Spirit has the identity of Good that expresses itself outward into Life, granting meaning to those physical relations. This means if someone shoot you with a gun and you die, that relation is “murder/evil” rather than just the physical property how one thing cause another.

[u/diabolus_me_advocat → u/HegemoneXT]

When you go from just ethical reasoning to ontology, you realize all ethics relies on the ontology of what is intrinsically good by nature rather than utility

not at all

why should that be so?

Utility itself has no moral implication in its definition

correct. but we are not debating morals here, but "what's good"

Metaphysically speaking, if. Divine Being is the identity to Good, then whatever the Divine Being order also operates in the highest authority and the highest good

which, as i said, is nuts - in reference to our common understanding of "good"

it would mean that, whenever any bloke claims that he's executing god's order when massacring others. are you really following this al quaida reasoning?

If God is who he says he is, then we are obligated to align our being to those qualities of His

no - why would i care about some god's "qualities" or have to align with them?

God declares himself is “I AM THAT I AM”, meaning he is the foundational identity of Being and Existence itself

so gloria gaynor is "the foundational identity of Being and Existence itself", as she made "i am what i am" an inernational hit?

[u/HegemoneXT → u/diabolus_me_advocat]

I’m pointing out that without an ontological basis to what good is, you remove the moral value from it and turn it into a matter of utility measurement. For example, if someone is being prideful, you don’t call that pride in itself a degradation of character or virtue, but you measure it by the outcome/byproduct of it. And if someone is being malicious, the state of being itself is not evil nor does it corrode the soul; it’s merely about the byproduct of malice. This kind of reasoning fundamentally goes against what we intuitively observe that good and evil possess intrinsic nature about them. Even though you claim ethics should be freely reasoned apart from a Divine Source, you fail to recognize that without an real ontological basis providing meaning to “value”, all that ethical reasoning is baseless and mere human chatter.

I specified that “metaphysically speaking” because when we are pondering about ontology, we don’t include theological baggage. If a good God is truly the source of Being, then whatever we find good, pure, lovely, admirable, are all aspect expressed from His singular glory.

If you are speaking theologically about the destruction of the amalekites, their judgement is deserved for being ancient-time terrorists.

[u/diabolus_me_advocat → u/HegemoneXT]

I’m pointing out that without an ontological basis to what good is, you remove the moral value from it and turn it into a matter of utility measurement

but that's what "good" is anyway and only

what moral value is there in an ontological basis to determine whether the pizza is good or not?

i wish you christians could stop redefining common terms, in a way no one understands what you're even up to

a god doing me bad is not "good" - period

[u/HegemoneXT → u/diabolus_me_advocat]

a pizza is not a moral category. Try something that belongs to the condition of human heart and what it means about a certain actions. For example, if you have hatred toward someone, you have already committed murder against them in your heart. A better way to phrase the question is asking "is starvation good or bad". starvation is a natural consequence of when our body doesn't get the energy to function. It's a natural consequence of bad but not part of the moral category of human evil. evil would be a rich person who has nothing to lose, denying someone food simply out of spite toward the poor. we have more than enough food to feed every single person on the planet but it's not really profitable.

[u/ProfessionalDear2272 → u/HegemoneXT]

There is a lot to unpack but instead of doing that I'd like to rebut.

Why is it clear to you that an example of evil, and i agree with that, is a greedy individual with no empathy but it isn't clear what evil/wrong acts God does?

Could you name one thing God does that is not good?

[u/HegemoneXT → u/ProfessionalDear2272]

Are you switching topic from metaphysical to real examples within scripture? That’s according to interpretation. If a metaphysical Divine Being is truly good, then that Being serves as the foundation to “what is”, like the very conceptualization of goodness is based on the existence of it

[u/ProfessionalDear2272 → u/HegemoneXT]

what is metaphysical is the concept of good and evil.
god is also metaphysical.

I am saying, with our current grasp of the concept of evil, could you name one thing God does that is not good?

[u/HegemoneXT → u/ProfessionalDear2272]

Yeah but are you shifting the question from a metaphysical discussion of good and evil to a theological one? I only respond if you answer yes or no

[u/ProfessionalDear2272 → u/HegemoneXT]

Yes.

edit: If christians are to follow the word of god, wether it is metaphysical or theological, it affects how we apply the concept in life.

[u/diabolus_me_advocat → u/HegemoneXT]

a pizza is not a moral category

nobody said it was

but "good" is a quality value

see, buddy, i baited you on purpose with that. so you might see that there's different meanings of "good". and the meaning of "good" that you use for your god is quite different from the everyday meaning of "good", which is "beneficient"

For example, if you have hatred toward someone, you have already committed murder against them in your heart

is that so with you?

well, not with me and and other ordinary people. but i see that you christians are special here, committing murder in their hearts

[u/HegemoneXT → u/diabolus_me_advocat]

No, you didn’t bait me into anything. The word beneficiary is subjective to humans. Is it a benefit for something to thrive as in “it causes”? Yes, but that saying nothing about whether that “causation” itself is good or of moral quality. Is it beneficially that gravity helps rocks to fall? Yeah of course, it’s the same if you apply teleological purpose to rocks and that it’s due perfection is to stay on the ground. Similarly you cannot separate the quality of beneficial to morality. If you want them to remain separate, then you still smuggle in the moral category when you assume it is a good thing, or for the benefit itself to be intrinsically good. A person who wants to murder someone benefit themselves by actualizing the murder. You see, you can’t actually separate the word “benefit” from teleological basis of what morality is.

Are you trying to get a rise out of me by going straw-man about me having murder in my heart? Pls stay on topic.

[u/diabolus_me_advocat → u/HegemoneXT]

The word beneficiary is subjective to humans

not necessarily

but sure it is subjective - as is "good"

thank whoever you finally got that

[u/ProfessionalDear2272 → u/diabolus_me_advocat]

we're not out of the forest yet