God does not create a world of sin. — spirit-salamander
In other words, what kind of "all-powerful" (i.e. ultimately responsible) entity "creates" us sick and then "commands" us to be well (i.e. giving us "free will" which is too weak for us to "freely" choose to obey (righteousness) and refrain from disobeying (sin) in every circumstance)? And then threatens violence, like a rapist, for disobeying the entity's command to love the entity "with all thy heart, etc"?An argument against 'divine providence', or for 'divine indifference' (and NOT necessarily - decisively - an argument for the nonexistence of 'the divine'):
(a) Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
(b) Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
(c) Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
(d) Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
'The Riddle of Epicurus' (~300 BCE) — 180 Proof
This kind of entity is, all apologetic clichés aside (e.g. theodicy), either a sadist – "demon" – or a masochistic, self-abnegating, fiction, such that the latter amounts to a pathological feitsh and the former is immoral to "worship". (The Gnostics (or acosmists re: "maya") surely had/have a point ...) — 180 Proof
If we grant that God is omniscient and omnipotent, then it follows obviously and incontestably that we did not create ourselves — spirit-salamander
Thus Aquinas wants to distinguish between the act of sin, which is caused by God, and the sin itself (which is not). For reasons I cannot go into without making an already long section longer still, the distinction Aquinas wants to draw here seems to me obscure and problematic.
creates" us sick — 180 Proof
No. Nothing in this universe can exist without God willing it and making it possible.That does not follow. Obviously we did not create ourselves (nor did God create himself). But it does not follow from God's omnipotence and omniscience that he created us. If we, like God himself, exist with aseity, that is consistent with God being omnipotent and omniscient and omnibenevolent.
Problem solved. God does not author sin, we do. — Bartricks
Yes, of course there is no "sin" because there is no g/G to disobey — 180 Proof
Not so. IIRC, "sin" is an ancient Judaic concept (re: violation of any the Torah's '613 mitzvahs') and not a Greek concept (like "hubris" or "impiety"). Besides, in the Euthyphro, Socrates calls Euthyphro's definition of piety (i.e. divine command theory) into question showing its incoherent as a justification for morals; I don't read that, however, as 'therefore morals are independent of – completely unrelated to – piety for G/gs'. At his trial, remember, Socrates denies – defends himself against – the charge of impiety (prosecuted by Meletus who also features in the Euthyphro) of which he's condemned anyway along with the crime of corrupting Athen's (elite) sons.Yet, isn't sin, understood as immorality/bad independent of god re Euthyphro's dilemma? — TheMadFool
That, I think, is only a (primitive) theocratic-totemic or autocratic-martial notion.I'd like to closely examine the word "disobey" vis-à-vis morality.
Yeah. "Taboos" are what anthropologists call them. I think other customs (mores) grew from observing "taboos" and then laws (nomos, polis) followed as populations increased in size and diversity of customs. Ethics is the latecomer, deliberately (even dialectically) developed for individuals living among crowds of strangers (& foreigners) in cosmopolitan locales also as a stranger, who must survive and who seeks to thrive (i.e. cultivate well-being, or physical health plus mental ease (i.e. living a more satisfied than dissatisfied life)) with as little conflict (i.e. fear, violence, harm, injustice) as possible.I suspect that the first humans to encounter the notion of morality discovered that morality boiled down to a list of dos and don'ts.
Two and a half millennia later, Camus says committing philosophical suicide (i.e. willful irrationality: e.g. "leap of faith", "utopianism", "denialism", "physical suicide", etc) is akin to 'sin, or impiety, even without G/gs.' — 180 Proof
"[T]he criterion problem" is only a problem for a (classical) 'justificationist' approach to epistemology. (SEP & wiki are your friends, TMF.) — 180 Proof
Señor works better for me, amigo. Gracias.Much appreciatedseñora/señorina.
Yes and yes – the latter because, like in epistemology, the former is incoherent in so far as "foundationalism" is just a species of "justificationism". Non-justificationist, or naturalistic-pragmatic, ethics such as (agency-centric) negative utilitarianism / consequentialism or aretaic eudaimonism are performative, not propositional, and work more often (as advertised) than not work. As for "why should one be moral ...?", substitute a concept like healthy or adaptable or rational for "moral" and the question self-evidently answers or negates itself.... either morality has no foundation or that attempts by moral theorists to produce one have all failed miserably. — TheMadFool
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