That framing - "the argument from change, essences/existences, contingency/necessity, parts vs. wholes, etc." - is Thomism.

That second paragraph, for example, in positing such things as an "absolute simple", supposing "pure act of will" makes sense, and so on, adopts a very particular view of how things are. It is very far from neutral, and has been used for centuries to defend christian revelation.

It looks like you have adopted a particular anachronistic account in order to achieve an already chosen outcome.

No I don't think we would; because then most of us would always block pain. — Bob Ross

Likewise, is it metaphysically possible to block pain as a mental switch: I don't know. — Bob Ross

Justice is about respecting the ordering of things; and when that ordering is broken it must be restored; and to restore it the offender has to pay a proportionate price. To forgo that price, all else being equal, is to have mercy at the expense of justice. — Bob Ross

True, and the sacrifice of Jesus has clear magical connotations: sacrifice this human, get good crops. So the sacrifice is celebrated at Easter, around the time of the spring equinox, which vaguely coincides with the last frost date in temperate zones. It's a fertility rite. — frank

The Catholic Church teaches that God Almighty came down from heaven to save us...
How does a person make sense of this? — frank

When you hamstring God by saying, "well, it might be metaphysically impossible for God to do that", you're making God sound very impotent. I get why Christians like Leibniz do that, but it's a very weak ad hoc move. Prima facie, this is obviously not the best of all possible worlds. — RogueAI

Well yeah, that's the point. Gratuitous pain sucks. It's useless.

Why would it be metaphysically impossible? The human body has some very poorly "designed" features. I don't see why it would be metaphysically impossible for God to have tweaked evolution in a way to give us better bodies with better features and still keep up naturalness appearances. Do humans have to get so much cancer? Lower back pain? Dementia? When you hamstring God by saying, "well, it might be metaphysically impossible for God to do that", you're making God sound very impotent. I get why Christians like Leibniz do that, but it's a very weak ad hoc move. Prima facie, this is obviously not the best of all possible worlds.

We're just not going to agree on mercy and justice, but I'm curious why you think Jesus made such a sacrifice

 ETA: Scratch that. Let's say we have two people, Bob and Alice. Alice is an atheist who lives a decent life and does no great harm to anyone, just minor sins here and there. Bob is a serial killer who's tortured and killed untold numbers of kids. On his deathbed, Bob accepts Jesus into his heart. Alice doesn't. What do Alice's and Bob's punishments look like?

This is an interesting, provoking, and common counter-example to the idea of mercy and acceptance of the Son—although it isn’t necessarily only facially applicable to Jesus’ forgiveness—and I understand where you are coming from here. I also used to think this way.

I would say, to be honest, that both would end up in heaven. Let me break down the general theory first and then address your questions directly.

1. I do not believe that one has to rigidly accept the Son of God (which may be Jesus if you would like) to be saved or that they have to participate in rituals (like baptism) to be accepted. As you alluded to with your example, someone can love God—love love itself: love goodness itself—without knowing the word “God”, having a concept of God that is robust, or having been exposed to some particular religion. God is judging us based off of our choices we make given the fact that we are not absolutely in control of ourselves (as natural organisms) and is evaluating how well we exhibited the virtues and, generally speaking, loved love (Himself).

2. For the vast majority of us, we have sinned before we die (although infants, e.g., haven’t if they are killed young); so for most of us we have offended God and, as I noted to @frank who ignored me, retribution is evaluated primarily based off of the dignity of the offended party (hence why shooting a rabbit illegitimately is lesser of an offense and deserving of less of a punishment than shooting a human the exact same way). With finite dignities, which are beings that are finitely good, there is a proportionate finite retribution (at least in principle) for every sin which one could, potentially, pay before they die (and thusly “serving their time” for the sin as it relates to the immanent victim—e.g., the human who was murdered). However, a sin is always also an offense against God and God is infinite goodness which is infinite dignity; so no proportionate retribution to something finite whatsoever can repay what is owed. This is why any sin, insofar as we are talking about the aspect of it that is an offense against God, damns us in a way where we ourselves cannot get out.

3. Loving love—being the a truly exceptional human being—will not repay the debt owed to an offended party with infinite dignity: Alice, or anyone of a high-caliber of virtue, is facially damned if they have sinned at least once.

4. God is all-just and all-merciful. He is all-just because He is purely actual and a creator, and so He cannot lack at anything in terms of creating; but to fail to order His creation properly is to lack at something as a creator. Therefore, God cannot fail to order His creation properly; and ordering His creation properly is none other than to arrange the dignity of things in a hierarchy that most reflects what is perfectly good—which is Himself. He is all-merciful because He is love and love is to will the good of something for-itself even when that something doesn’t deserve it. Mercy and justice, however, as described above, are prima facie opposed to each other: if, e.g., I have mercy on you then I am not being just and if I am just then I leave no room for mercy. To be brief, the perfect synthesis of the two is for a proper representative of the group of persons that has an appropriate dignity to pay the debt of their sins so that if they truly restore their will to what is right they can be shown mercy.

5. God must, then, synthesize justice and mercy by allowing a proper representative of humans to pay for our sins; but no human can repay it. It follows, then, that God must incarnate Himself as a human to be that representative. EDIT: I forgot to mention that God is the only one that can repay the debt because He is the only one with infinite dignity to offer as repayment.

6. The Son must be the one out of the Godhead that is incarnated because God creates by willing in accord with knowledge; His knowledge of Himself is what He uses to incarnate Himself; and the Son is His self-knowledge.

So, let me answer your questions with that in mind:

1. Alice and Bob have NOT committed equal sins: I don’t think that the fact that any given sin is unrepayable to God entails that all sins are equal. It just entails that all sins require something of infinite dignity to properly repay. Admittedly, it gets kind of weird fast working with retribution for infinite demerit. For example, in hell both of them will be punished for eternity but Alice’s punishment would be something far far less than Bob’s.

2. Since God saves us through His mercy (as described before), God does not have to punish us if we repent; and repentance is not some superficial utterance “I am sorry!” or, for your example, “Jesus I accept you!”. Repentance is normally through the sincerity of heart and through actions. A person who has never heard of God at all could be saved, under my theory, because they sincerely love love itself—God Himself—through action and this doesn’t need to be a perfect life that was lived (since God must sacrifice Himself to Himself to allow for mercy upon us). Alice, I would say, would be repentant in action and (most probably in spirit) for any minor sins she commits because she is such a good hearted person. If she were to do a lot of things that are virtuous but have the psychological disposition that doing good and loving her community, family, friends, etc. is horrible and something she despises; then she isn’t really acting virtuously. That’s like someone helping the poor as a practical joke or something instead of doing it out of love.

3. For Bob, it gets more interesting: your hypothetical eliminates the possibility of the good deeds part of what is normally a part of repentance since he is on his death bed when he has a change of heart. I would say that assuming he is not superficially saying “I am sorry (psst: hopefully I get into heaven this way!)”, then I would say that God’s mercy would allow him into heaven—at least eventually. Maybe there’s a purgatory faze where he is punished a bit for it first: I don’t know. However, what I do know is that Alice will be rewarded more than Bob; because reward is proportionate to the good deeds you have performed and goes beyond giving someone mercy from punishment. I do not believe that everyone in heaven is equal; or that God loves us all the same. That’s hippie bulls**t.

I've giving you every reason to believe that I believe that I can justify my claims through natural theology; and you keep acting like I haven't done that. — Bob Ross

The Father is the one that is known; and the Son is the knowledge of Himself. — Bob Ross

My point was that we don’t have to agree on what is sinful to agree that if we sin then there must a punishment; and from there my argument begins. — Bob Ross

Justice, then, is fundamentally about restoring the order of things and not punishment — Bob Ross

Blessed are the cheese-makers, for they shall inherit the earth. — frank

I want you to demonstrate to me where the argument from change, going back to Aristotle, depends on divine revelation to demonstrate the existence of God. — Bob Ross

I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN. — Bob Ross

Do you have anything to contend with in terms of the actual concepts of divine simplicity, pure actuality, etc.? — Bob Ross

You are pretending to know my motivations for accepting arguments like the one from change; and you are painfully mistaken. — Bob Ross

Why does the Son have to be incarnated by the Father as a human to be sacrificed for our sins?
— Bob Ross

But that's not what I pointed out. The conclusion that god is father, son and spirit is not a cogent consequence of natural theology, but is dependent on revelation.

God is purely actual and an intellect (nous).
1. An intellect that has the ability to learn has potential.
2. God has no potential (since He is purely actual).
3. Therefore, a part of God being fully realized as an intellect is that He must know everything perfectly that could exist or does exist.
4. He must, then, immediately know (prior to creation) Himself perfectly.
5. When He creates, He is willing something as real.
6. Since He is absolutely simple, His willing and thinking are identical.
7. Therefore, Him willing something as real is identical to Him thinking of something as real.
8. Therefore, when He thinks of something as real it must create something.
9. His perfect self-knowledge is Him thinking of Himself as real.
10. Therefore, His perfect self-knowledge creates something real.
11. What is created as real when He thinks of something as real is that something which is the object of His thought (e.g., He thinks of a man as real and the man, the object of thought, becomes real).
12. What is the object of His thought when self-knowing is Himself.
13. Therefore, He creates (generates) Himself as the object of His thought by Himself as the subject of thought.
14. This creation cannot create a god separate (ontologically) from Himself; because He is thinking of a being, as the object of His thought (which is Himself), that is absolutely simple and no two absolutely simple beings can exist.
15. Therefore, His creation of Himself out of Himself produces a real relation between Himself distinct in origin but not concrete nature.
16. This real relation, His self-knowledge’s generation of Himself, is subsistent because it is real.
17. This real, subsistent relation is a person because He is thinking of Himself and He is a being of a rational nature; so, too, Himself as created must be a being of a rational nature and a being of a rational nature is a person.
18. This person, His self-knowledge, is the Son; and He is called the Son because the Son is begotten (is generated or created) by God as the one thinking which is the Father (and He is the Father, metaphorically, because He gives life to the Son as opposed to receiving it like pregnancy).
19. Since God has perfect self-knowledge, He must know Himself as perfectly good (and He is perfectly good because goodness is the equality of a thing’s essence and existence and His essence and existence are absolutely identical).
20. His willing and thinking are identical because He is absolutely simple.
21. Therefore, Him thinking of Himself as perfectly good is identical to Him willing Himself as perfectly good.
22. Love is to will the good of something for its own sake.
23. God, then, in knowing Himself as perfectly good wills Himself as perfectly good and this is done purely for its own sake because He cannot be affected by anything (because He is purely actual).
24. God, then, perfectly loves Himself.
25. The degree of love for a thing is proportionate to how much one wills its good for its own sake and how good that thing is.
26. God wills Himself as perfectly good as what is perfectly good.
27. Therefore, God loves Himself the most.
28. Him creating something, as noted before, is just Him willing something as real.
29. He wills as real His own good supremely.
30. Therefore, something is created (generated) out of the love between the Father and the Son.
31. This generation is not a knowledge of Himself, like the Son, but a willing of what is good—Love.
32. This willing of the good has as its object Himself.
33. This willing, then, is a generation or creation of Love for Himself out of Himself.
34. Being real, a generation or creation, this Love cannot be merely the kind of love directed towards things (like when we, as one being, will the good of another) but, rather, must be a real relation in God distinct in origin between Himself and Himself but not in concrete nature (because what is being willed, and thusly created, is nothing but Himself as the object of that willing).
35. This Love must be, then, a person because a person is a being of a rational nature, God is a being of a rational nature, and this real relation between God and Himself refers to Himself which is a being that is absolutely simple (so it doesn’t generate a new god out of it).
36. The person of Love is the Holy Spirit.

I'm trying to address what you have written.

Those terms are at least specialised Thomist terminology with their own language game, or perhaps just language on vacation, verging on word salad.

It appears that you are trying your best to give a logical and reasoned account of a narrative that is inherently incoherent. I'm sorry if pointing this out appears disrespectful, but looking into logic and language is what we do here. You seem to be justifying an iron age myth using Greek logic. We might have moved on since these things were fashionable.

I thought retribution semantically referred to restoration. — Bob Ross

You never address what I write though — Bob Ross

. 6. Since He is absolutely simple, His willing and thinking are identical.
7. Therefore, Him willing something as real is identical to Him thinking of something as real.
8. Therefore, when He thinks of something as real it must create something.

Despite claiming god to be a simple, it juxtaposes will and intellect; subject and object; father and son and so on. But those distinctions are the very thing denied by divine simplicity. The argument rests on this contradiction. Now we know that a contradiction implies anything, so we should be wary of an argument that is so dependent on contradiction.

Must a glass that is called "half empty" necessarily be a different, distinct metaphysical entity from the same glass when referred to as glass "half full?" — Count Timothy von Icarus