But that doesn't answer the question I asked. If there are no immoral acts which are not sins, then your defense doesn't work (because in that case there is no immoral act that does not offend a party with infinite dignity).

No, you are absolutely correct; and that’s what I was arguing. The aspect of the sin which pertains to offending God is an offense against a being with infinite dignity; but whether or not the sin as it pertains to the direct object offended (e.g., the other human, the dog, the tree, etc.) is not.

There’s two interesting points here:

1. “With respect to the sin qua offending God, are all sins thereby equal?”. If infinite dignity warrants infinite demerit and offending God is to offend something with infinite dignity, then the part of the sin which offends God warrants infinite demerit. Every immoral act is a sin because every immoral act goes against God’s will, so, therefore, every immoral act—i.e., every sin—warrants the same infinite demerit. This doesn’t seem right though: like I said before, murdering a human vs. a rabbit doesn’t seem to violate God’s will the same and thusly to the same degree—but how then could they have the same demerit? It seems like infinite dignity does not per se warrant infinite demerit of an act which offends it.

2. “With respect to the sin qua offending the direct object (e.g., the human), an infinite punishment seems disproportionate to such an act or choice with finite duration and repetition which pertains to two or more beings with finite dignity—unless, to your point, the consequences are infinite”.

If humans are not eternal then Hell doesn't exist. If humans are eternal then it is possible for an act to cause infinite "spillage."

Hell doesn’t have to exist for God to punish you after you die; at least not in the strict sense of being a place absent of God for eternity. Likewise, we are talking about the causes in the universe of one’s sins and not in Hell; so I don’t understand how humans being eternal in the sense of living in another place than the universe after dying necessitates their act in the universe may have infinite spillage. A human could be eternal in this sense and the universe is finite in time; which would mean that their sin would not be capable of infinite spillage.

Banno, I am not asking for a historical account of what faith means; and I understand you seem to take a pluralist account of faith. I am wondering what you think faith means, if not just as it relates to the kind of faith in question in our beliefs about the world around us. We can't make headway if you won't commit to some meaning of the word faith.

Let me grant you that there are N valid definitions of faith: which one, out of the N, would you say pertains most closely to what we are discussing and what definition does it have? Is the kind of faith in science a different type of faith than in religion?

I said science is predominately evidence based and religion is purely faith-based

This isn't really true if we are talking about the scientific beliefs the average person has. The average person cannot verify or at least has not verified themselves the vast majority of what is the scientific body of knowledge: it is by-at-large mainly faith in the scientific institutions that make people believe. E.g., when we hear about how black holes work, we don't verify any of that ourselves in any meaningful sense: we trust the source that is telling us because we find the scientific institution and the expert-at-hand credible. Whereas with math or logic, e.g., if one understands the axioms and formulas then they don't have to take the mathematician or logician's word for it: they can a priori verify it from their armchairs.

Likewise, religion is not purely faith-based: it is predominantly faith-based for most of the average people out there.

For both, they require mostly evidence for or against trusting the source of knowledge for the claims.

The bit of truth that I think you are conveying, in imprecise terms, is that science tends to involve purported evidence that has less speculation in it and more empirical grounds; but still this is controversial. I would argue that the arguments for God's existence are more certain than a theory determinable through the scientific method because they involve reasoning about the necessary consequences of the existence of things which are presupposed in science to begin with. E.g., the argument from change derives God's existence from change which is presupposed for the scientific method: there is no experiment one can perform to verify that every effect has a cause.

On your reckoning that would be a syllogism, given that it is a series of assertions.

That’s fair. What I should have said is that the major and minor premise of a syllogism are both assertions.

I am not going to enter into prolonged interaction with the theory given that it feels a bit like a new OP.

Fair enough.

Are you claiming that there are immoral acts which are not sins?

In principle, a sin is a concept which extends the concept of immorality; such that the former is an offense, at least in part, to God. We could also word this as the immoral act is simultaneously a non-sin and sin act: the offended party which is not God being the non-sin immoral act, and the offended party as God as the sin immoral act. I prefer to just say sin is any immoral act which, at least in part, offends God to keep things simpler.

What we are asking is whether you have the burden of proof to show that there is nothing infinite about human acts

True, but I think this burden is sufficed given that humans have finite dignity, a human cannot repeat a sin infinitely since they live for a finite duration, and the consequences of the sins cannot be infinite if the universe is not eternal. I think all three of those statements are widely accepted as true.

I generally hold that “faith” isn’t a useful term outside of the religious use. But I see that perhaps my position here is unorthodox. For me it’s about a reasonable confidence given empirical results of flight. There is no need for faith.

Yes, I understand where you are coming from; as I used to also be in a similar mindset. After all, this is what the new atheism movement has produced throughout our culture (and, to fair, it is a response to poor argumentation and reasoning which common theism has offered). The layman theist tends to emphasize ‘faith’ as juxtaposed to ‘belief’ or ‘knowledge’ and brings it up mostly when they are referring to what is really ‘a high degree of faith of which this belief is based on’; and, naturally, the layman atheist latches onto this disposition and becomes the counter-disposition, equally flawed and vague, that ‘faith’ is a useless concept which only refers to blind belief that only makes sense within the context of religion.

Most of the time when I hear a layman theist and atheist debate, I think they both are getting at something that is correct but the ideas are malformed and malnourished; and each’s consciousness is developed parasitically on the other: their view is worked out through a response to the other’s view.

However, if we challenge ourselves to rise above these futile disputes and ask ourselves “what is ‘faith’?”, I think we find that it really is about trust in an authority; and we all do have beliefs that are conceived out of high concentrations of faith. For example, imagine you have a friend, Bob, who throughout your entire life has only been honest with you, even when there were grave consequences for telling the truth, and you are about to put your hand in a bucket of liquid that you think is water because you have some chemical on your hand that is burning your skin. Imagine Bob yells at you that this ‘harmless water’ is really some dangerous liquid which will spontaneously combust with the chemical on your hand if you put it in. Imagine, because of the urgency to get the chemical off your skin (to avoid further pain and damage) you cannot reasonably test nor verify directly what this liquid is in the bucket and you don’t have time to sit down and hear an elaborate spiel about how Bob knows it will combust. Would you put your hand in or trust Bob and find some other way to get the chemical off? I would bet you would trust Bob, given his serious track record of honesty; and this belief that the liquid will harm instead of help would be an act of pure faith. Is this pure faith irrational? I don’t think so; because the evidence to support having that pure faith, in this case, adds up. Bob always tells you the truth and has even has commonly done it when he knew he would get in serious trouble for doing so; and he never lies even to make a practical joke. This seems to be a rational and smart move to trust Bob when making this quick judgment call.

Ok, but what do you take 'faith' to be? Do you not have a precise definition? If not, then it seems like you are just working with vague intuitions you have.

I find this account GPT gave to be fitting in terms of the resources it has available and its current ability to "reason". It is right that faith arises when there isn't certainty and necessarily so because every instance of trust in another as a source of truth is inherently to verify something through a means which one cannot deduce the truth therefrom; however, this is also true of some non-faith based beliefs: it can be the case that one verifies through a means that does not require trust in another and yet the verification method does not necessitate the conclusion (e.g., performing an experiment, examining the condition of a car oneself as an expert, etc.).

The strength of my theory is that, unlike yours, it accounts for all the main uses you had GPT outline by providing the precise definition which can be found hazily in each. Even with people who use 'faith' in the sense of 'a belief of which there is no evidence to support it', this oftentimes is convertible to 'a pure act of trusting an authority that something is true' which is perfectly coherent with my definition.

This agrees with what I was saying, so I am confused as to what you are critiquing of mine. A purely faith-based belief would, indeed, be one which is purely based off of trusting an authority; but, as I noted before, this is very rare in practical life. Most of the time we have a little of both faith and non-faith mixed up in the belief.

:fire:

It is worth mentioning that one can be for free speech while being against tolerance:

Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions

-- Chesterton.

Just because one has to respect another's right to speak, it does not follow that one need do business with him or welcome him into their life.

I don't see that you have. P2 is merely an assertion.

The entirety of a syllogism is a mere series of assertions; but I can elaborate. I have been thinking about this more since the creation of the OP, so my explanation might veer off a bit therefrom.

An immoral act is evaluated relative to the (1) the object(s), (2) the end(s), and (3) the dignity of the offended party (parties) involved. The order of importance is 3, 2, and 1; and 3 is a subtype of 1. EDIT: it isn't really coherent to say 3 is a subtype of 1, I should have called 1 "the means".

3 holds the most weight, when considering punishment, because the thing offended (i.e., the object of the offense) is what is owed justice and punishment is about justice; and, so, punishment must firstly evaluate the value of the thing offended to determine how severe the punishment should be. E.g., skinning a rabbit alive is not as bad as skinning a human alive, disobeying the wishes of a random fellow-citizen is not as bad as disobeying a court order by a judge, etc. The objects and ends (1 and 2) could be identical in every regard and the dignity of offended party could cause the punishment to vary significantly.

2 holds the second-most weight because, after determining what was offended, what was intended by the culpable party is what is most closely tied to culpability itself (since morality is about right and wrong behavior as it relates to rational deliberation—to willing freely through thought which necessarily is determinable through ends that one had in store for the act). E.g., a person that runs over a kid because they were distracted with their phone hasn’t done something as bad as running over that same kid purposefully even thought the kid has the same dignity in each scenario. Likewise, the objects involved (1) are tied to the ends (and intentionality) of course, but their could be a divergence; and what was intended is how we investigate the act since an act is a volition of will.

The last aspect, which holds the least weight, is the objects involved as it relates to the means. E.g., a person that murders someone else by way of murdering someone else to get their body to fall on the other person’s body (to kill them)(perhaps they shoot someone on top of a building so that they fall 1,000 FT onto the target victim thereby murdering both for the sake of murdering the one) is doing something worse than someone who just, ceteris paribus, murdered the same target victim because a part of the means was bad.

A sin is just an immoral act that has as one of its offended parties God. A sin, therefore, has at least two offended parties: the object of the sin (as the object of the act) and God (as the perfectly good being which wills the perfect order to things).

For the latter, a being with infinite dignity has been offended and this part of the sin does not fall prey to my OP’s argument; however, the punishments varying by objects or/and ends would have to be distinguished in varying by something—I am not sure what that would necessarily look like. E.g., having the end of killing this tree for no reason other than to go against God’s will is worse than killing the same tree in the same manner but self-gratification: both are against a being of infinite dignity, but they have different weights in terms of the ends one had; likewise, disrupting God’s will by being mean to someone in a relatively trivial manner (so to speak) is not as bad as disrupting God’s will by murdering someone: both are against a being of infinite dignity, but they have different objects (and ends, but I am emphasizing objects here) and dignities of those objects which were offended. Does this mean that it would be proportionate for God, if He did not forgive someone for their sin as it relates to offending Him, to infinitely punish them with some kind of infliction? Maybe: I don’t know.

For the former, no object of the act can have infinite dignity because it is a contingent being and none of them have been of infinite repetition (historically); however, to your point, it is in principle possible that the universe continues for infinite time and that some sins which are not rectified would “spill out” infinitely. If there’s nothing infinite about the act or its consequences, then it cannot be proportionate to punish the person responsible for the act with something infinite because something infinite is disproportionate to something finite.

So I have always held that faith is the excuse people give for believing something when they don't have a good reason.

To be fair, I do think that there is a prominent sense colloquially where confused theists will explain faith in this manner; but I think if we are iron manning the position then what they really mean is that some propositions that they believe as true they could not completely verify themselves but, rather, they trusted some authority, in this case God, to tell them. This isn’t really what it strictly means to “have no good reasons”, but people will describe it that way colloquially (sometimes).

It is also worth mentioning, to @Bannos point, we do see instances of religious people that may find that there good evidence that proposition X is false but yet they believe it is true because God has revealed it to them; but it is important to note that this is still trust in God which is based in some sort of evidence, of which they at least believe is good and sufficient, that God is trustworthy to reveal it.

My original issue with faith is that Christians often tell me that choosing to fly in a plane is an act of faith equivalent to belief in God
…
So, at the risk of becoming boring, if I trust that a plane will fly me somewhere safely because of empirical evidence that they do, almost without fail, would it be fair to call this 'faith' in flying? How does this compare to faith that God is a real?

If you believe, even in part, that the airplane will not crash because you trust the pilots to do their job (e.g., without drinking on the job, without making an improper turn, etc.); then that belief is in part faith-based: it has an element of faith mixed up in it. However, if you believe that the airplane will fly just fine because you are in expert in airplane manufacturing and you inspected the plane beforehand, then this is a non-faith-based belief.

It is important to note that this distinction doesn’t appear cleanly in practical life: odds are, e.g., even if you are an expert on airplane manufacturing that your beliefs accredited from your learning and experience which make you an expert have faith mixed up in them since you probably are not capable of verifying, all the way down (so to speak), those beliefs without appealing to trust in some authority.

First, we can demonstrate that planes exist.

Of course, a theist is going to say we can demonstrate God exists: you are just begging the question. If we are talking about faith as trust in an authority for our belief about a proposition, then IF God exists then certainly God would have the authority to tell us quite a bit about reality (if He so chooses)---right? You don’t have to accept that God exists to accept that God WOULD BE a credible source of information BUT THAT one would have to trust in God as the source, at least in part, of the truths which they believe because God revealed it to them.

Second, they almost always fly safely.

I am assuming you are referring to statistics here; but statistics are faith-based. You have to trust that the people that conducted the stats did it in an unbiased, professional, honest, and proper way to determine them.

Forget the New Atheists - that was a publishing gimmick. I think this definition of faith has been used by freethinkers for many decades. It was certainly the one Russell used, long before Hitchens and company were being polemicists. I was using it back in the 1980's.

I am not familiar enough with Russell to comment; but in common life it seems like New Atheism is to blame for people commonly thinking of faith as belief without or despite evidence: this has never been the common understanding in the literature of faith (by my lights) if we are iron manning theism that depends on divine revelation.

It is also worth mentioning that not all forms of theism are faith-based, just like how not all forms of theism are religions, since someone might not believe that God has revealed anything to them; so they don’t have any faith in God even though they believe God exists.

What is your definition of "faith"? So far, it sounds like it is "believing something despite the evidence".

Ok, so you are defining "faith" as "belief despite the evidence" and not "belief which has an element of trust in an authority mixed up"; so I think we are just talking past each other. I don't think faith historically has ever referred to "belief despite the evidence" and that kind of usage is almost exclusively done by "new atheism" as a straw man.

It is also worth mentioning that your definition, contrary to what you wrote before, has nothing to do per se with trust in anything at all: I can have a believe despite the evidence without trusting anyone that it is true (e.g., believing I can fly because it makes me feel good).

"If one wanted to argue against factory farming they could do so on the basis of animal welfare, environmental issues, or sustainability."

This is disanalogous: your example here states multiple different arguments for why factory farming is wrong without providing an exposition of any of them, whereas my argument establishes that all three forms of infinitude (relevant to judging sins) are absent in practical sins which entails that infinite punishment would be disproportionate.

My argument is simple:

P1. If the dignity of the offended, the duration of the offense, and the repetition of the offense are finite, then it is disproportionate (and thusly unjust) to inflict a punishment that requires the sacrifice of something of infinite dignity, infinite duration, or infinite repetition.

P2: All human sins, thus far, are finite in the dignity of the offended, the duration of the offense, and the repetition of the offense.

C: Therefore, it is unjust to punish those who committed those sins with a punishment that requires the sacrifice of something of infinite dignity, infinite duration, or infinite repetition.

Now, one might object:

Aquinas' point is precisely that the water spills out for a potentially infinite duration. "So long as the disturbance of the order remains the debt of punishment must needs remain also."

I suppose it is possible that most or all human sins, thus far, are “open cases” like a continuous water spillage; but I would find that implausible. How is someone who steals and does their time in jail akin to this continuous water spillage? Likewise, wouldn’t this argument require that the universe is eternal (for the sin would have to causally affect for eternity)?

You've already been told by multiple people that Aquinas doesn't do that at all, and that you have Anselm in mind

Duly noted: perhaps I am thinking of the wrong person. I will re-read Aquinas on that part.

I'd prefer to call it a propositional attitude rather than a disposition.

Fair enough: that is what I meant by ‘disposition’, but I get your point.

While that might involve some authority, there is no reason to suppose that it must. And indeed, faith in a friend or faith in love look to be counter instances, were authority is not involved.

By authority, I don’t mean only entities which have power or rights to judge another; but, rather, entities, namely agents and institutions, that are considered properly equipped to do or divulge something.

E.g., in friendship, I might have faith in my friend that they will show up to pick me up at 5:00 PM; and this demonstrates that I trust them to pick me up and this is because I consider them as properly equipped to pick me up. Likewise, I might not believe they are properly equipped to pick me up but that they will try to anyways (viz., I have faith they will try to pick me up); and this is just to say I find them properly equipped to put in the effort to try despite lacking the resources to do it.

I would guess that for you this is too broad of a definition of ‘authority’; as I would imagine you are envisioning authorities in the sense of some governing entity. I am not opposed to using a different term for what I am describing if a better one were to find its way into my ears.

Taking his own example, I would not characterise a belief that smoking causes cancer as being faith-based. Sure, we are putting some trust in the experts who study such things, but we can go and look at their results for ourselves if we have doubts.

1. This, in principle, is true; however the source of the verification of the belief is what determines if that belief is faith-based and not if in principle the proposition could be verified in a non-faith-based manner. E.g., if I believe “1 + 1 = 2” because my math teacher told me so, without verifying it myself, then this is purely faith-based even though in principle I could verify it if I knew basic math.

2. If you concede there is trust in the experts involved in your belief that “smoking causes cancer” and you grant my definition of faith, then your belief that “smoking causes cancer” is at least in part a matter of faith. This doesn’t mean it is invalid or on par with every other belief that is faith-based.

3. With science, we cannot, oftentimes, “go look for ourselves” in such a manner as to verify the entire study or purported facts as true independently of trusting the institution or experts involved in the studies or determining those purported facts.

The evidence is there. Contrast this with the priest who insists that the bread is Jesus's flesh.

Whether or not a belief has an element of faith in it is separate from whether or not the evidence for believing is credible or sufficient to warrant that belief.

:up:

:up:

I would just clarify that faith is about trust in the strict sense of "in an authority". I could trust in the chair in that "this chair will hold me if I sit on it" because I believe it is made of strong materials and bolts by my inspection; but this kind of 'trust' is not the same as if I were to trust the chair craftsman that made it and this is why I believe it will hold me. Of course, both of these kinds of trust are in play with most of our beliefs; but it is worth separating them out for this discussion. I would say the only legitimate, strict sense of 'trust' is this kind that is in an authority.

I said no nor never implied such things: my definition was clear. A faith-based belief can have any degree of certitude (just like non-faith-based ones); for faith is a matter of the origin of the verification of a proposition's truth or falsity.

E.g.,:

1. If I believe that "1 + 1 = 2" because I was told this is the case from my math teacher and I trust that they know what they are doing but I myself have not verified through my own application of math that it is true, then this belief is mixed up with trust in an external authority and thusly is faith-based; and this proposition I am not absolutely certain is true (for there is always a level of uncertainty in trust as a source of verification).

2. If I believe that "1 + 1 = 2" because I understand the math behind it, independently of anyone or institution, then this is a non-faith-based belief because there is no external authority required to believe it; and this proposition I am absolutely certain is true (for one can deduce its truth from the basic axioms of math and logic).

3. If I do a scientific experiment myself about the causation between smoking and cancer and I believe "smoking can cause cancer" solely because of it, then this is a non-faith-based belief; and this proposition I am not absolutely certain of (for science never affords absolute certitude).

4. If I believe "smoking can cause cancer" because I trust the many medical and scientific institutions which purport it as true (given the articles and what not that are published), then this is a faith-based belief; and this proposition I am not absolutely certain of (ditto).

By Jesus, I am referring to the man; and by the Son I am referring to God as the Word. For you, I would imagine that Jesus refers to the man and the Son as a union of some sort; however, I think it is still useful to separating out the concepts of the Son qua God and qua man. Jesus, as a man, cannot be fully God but could be, as a person in the sense of his will, God the Son working through the material body of the man.

To say that Jesus is fully God and man is contradictory; for they have contrary essences. What I mean by “Jesus’ will being the upshot of the Son” is that Jesus as a man could be united with God insofar as his will is the will of the Son (literally speaking); however, this does not make Jesus fully God (in a literal sense).

I know, Janus: I know.

1. It is not in God's power to be a Trinity: it is God's nature to be a Trinity. To say it is in His power is to imply that God chose to be or willed it to be the case, when really God's nature necessitates that He is three persons in one.

2. God cannot take human form (in a literal sense); however, He could create and animate a human. The idea of a hypostatic union of Jesus only makes sense to me, in principle, if his will is the upshot of God the Son.

3. God animating a human, so to speak, such as Jesus (let's say), would entail a human that will's perfectly in accordance with God's will; and so this being would a perfect human in will but still imperfect in toto. Every human is necessarily imperfect in total because their essence does not entail existence. Now, would it count in favor of the view that this man has God's will as his own (in literal sense) if the man were completely unblameworthy? Yes. Is it possible that a man could be unblameworthy and not have God's will as his own? Yes, but it would be highly improbable.

I just did, lmao. If you don't think my assessment was accurate, then please provide a substantial rebuttal.

Faith is a subclass of beliefs, of cognitive dispositions about propositions, that have at least in part an element of trust in an authority mixed up therein. E.g., my belief that '1 + 1 = 2' is true does not have any element of trust in an authority to render, even as purported, it as true or false and so it is non-faith based belief; whereas my belief that 'smoking causes cancer' is true does have an element of trust in an authority (namely scientific and medical institutions) to render, even as purported, it as true or false and so it is a faith-based belief.

Sorry for the belated response!

Yes, and I have been asking you what form of infinitude is at stake. Is your answer to that question, "There is some form of infinitude at stake, but I am not able to say what that form is"?

My answer was that there are three kinds of things that can be quantified over for the sake of this discussion as it relates to infinitude: (1) dignity, (2) duration, and (3) repetition. My point was that you can pick any of them or all of them for our discussion and my argument will apply.

Dignity refers to the value of the thing in question relative to its nature (and ultimately how good that nature is relative to perfect goodness); duration refers to the amount of time something occurred; and repetition refers to how often it occurred.

The reason my argument will apply to any of the three is not because it is in principle applicable to all three types but, rather, because historically we have not seen any credible examples (by my lights) of any of the three being infinite as it relates to sins. Viz., we have not seen a person take as the direct object of their sin (i.e., the directly offended party) a being with infinite dignity (although someone might argue that God as an offended party in sin counts as a directly offended party); we have not seen a sin committed for infinite duration; and we have not seen a sin committed by a person with infinite repetition.

It's not really related to causal chains. Suppose there is a pipe that helps control water levels in the Great Lakes. Water flows through that pipe at 10 gallons per minute. Now suppose you break the pipe and it is never repaired. If the Earth is destroyed four billion years from now then 2.1024e+16 gallons of water would have flowed through that pipe.* And you might say, "Ah, I merely broke a pipe. I didn't cause 2.1024e+16 gallons of spillage." But in fact you did cause 2.1024e+16 gallons of spillage, by breaking the pipe. The counterargument that breaking a pipe is disproportionate to 2.1024e+16 gallons of spillage simply does not hold water.

I agree with your assessment here; and I would point out that no matter how many gallons of spillage happen due to this person it would not warrant infinite demerit unless the water that spilled was infinite in volume, was spilling for infinite duration, or was itself or a casually derived offended party was of infinite dignity. None of these three are the case in every human example of sin.

This was my complaint with Acquinas, because he attempts to tie the infinite demerit of a sin to God’s infinite dignity since God is an offended party; however, God is not an offended party in the same sense as, e.g., if a human had infinite dignity and was killed by this water spillage: one is an offended party insofar as their authority has violated (in the case of God) whereas the other is causally affected by the sin.

Another noteworthy aspect of this, albeit separate from everything else I have said, is that it also doesn’t seem just to assign infinite demerit to any immoral act against a being of infinite dignity merely because they have infinite dignity. For example, if human’s have infinite dignity (which I don’t concede), then it would not follow that every transgression against a human is thereby of infinite demerit (and thereby requiring infinite punishment)—does it? If I, e.g., insult God with my words, is that equally as immoral as if I were suffocate His will out of my community (by promoting evil)? They would have to be if all transgressions against an infinitely good being are infinitely bad.

There seems to be a lot being said with very few words in that thread you shared; and I would worry that it is too loaded and runs the risk of being an ad hominem and potentially a straw man attack on theists. I would challenge you to demonstrate how someone like. e.g., Aquinas believing in eternal punishment is analogous to a psychopath that likes torturing dogs for fun: I'm not seeing it.

So if we accept 'free will' as the ability to act deliberately between options, we however must assume that, in order to be considered rational, the ethical agent must choose the 'better'.

I agree.

So let's say that a man truly believes that what killing innocent people 'for fun' leads to a state of unending pain for him while he is also aware that refraining to do that allows him to escape that terrible destiny. Despite this awareness and without any coercion of any kind (of internal and/or external factors) or some moment of insanity, he still does it.

To me the choice would be completely inintelligible due to the profound incoherence.

I would say that it would be rational if this man is reasoning in accordance with Reason’s principles; and it is a ‘rationally free choice’, to use your term, if this man’s rational choice is in accordance with what he sincerely believes. None of this per se negates the possibility that one sincerely believes that killing innocent people at the exchange of their well-being is the best option. I agree it would be ‘irrational’ in the colloquial sense of the term, but it meets the criteria you set out for ‘rational freedom’.

I think for your view to work, you would have to demonstrate how it is impossible for someone to believe it is the better choice to do something which will be grave to their own well-being over one which preserves or (perhaps) increases it—even in the case that a normal person would not find it reasonable to choose the former over the latter.

When we talk about ‘rationality’ in colloquial circles, sometimes we merely mean what is reasonable from the purview of a healthy member of our species (or a healthy agent); and this is a much more narrow definition than previously outlined.

Well, the reason we don't treat them in the same manner is because we assume, reasonably I believe, that children are too immature to qualify as proper moral agents and not because they are 'younger’.



I agree; however, in your hypothetical we were hypothesizing a child which indeed had the same maturity as an adult and, consequently, my argument seems immune to this rejoinder.

No, actually I think that your point is valid. It is an useful abstraction. But it can be misleading.




:up:

If a moral agent knows with perfect clarity that an action is actually detrimental for himself or herself and still chooses to do that, is the action done freely?





I would say so, because freedom of will is to will in accordance with one’s will.

But IMHO one should consider also the claim that acting rationally is also acting for the good for oneself. That is, acting rationally is acting in a way that leads truly to one's own well-being.





Hmm, I would say acting rationally is about acting in accordance with reason; which pertains only to the form of thinking and never its content. 

To me, a rational agent could be a Hitler or a Ghandi; so long as one’s course of action is in accordance with logic and reason. 

Irregardless, let’s say we consider rationality to encompass some aspect of the contents of reasoning (in conjunction with its form): wouldn’t a rational person will what is good, then? For what is good is what should be; and if we are being purely rational, without egoism, then it seems as though we would grasp that what is good is what matters; and this sometimes includes ourselves. E.g., the father that sacrifices himself for his children in an act of fatherly heroism is surely not acting irrational by sacrificing himself knowing well that it will not lead to his own well-being; but, rather, it is exactly the understanding, through reason applied impartiality to reality, that it is good, and perhaps obligatory, for him to protect his children at all costs.

can a human being really have the sufficient knowledge and deliberative power to be deemed as worthy of an infinite/perfect culpability and consequently infinite punishment?



I don’t think, in practicality, humans are perfectly culpable (at least most of the time); but they tend to do things sufficiently freely where they are culpable. I am not following why an infinite punishment would require ‘perfect culpability’. Was Hitler perfectly culpable? Maybe not, but he was sufficiently culpable of his crimes—don’t you think?

The infinitude, by my lights, of punishment is not a reflection of some perfect culpability involved; but, rather, as a proportionate punishment to the sin. To your point, if the sinner is not sufficiently culpable, then we may excuse their action; but, again, this is really muddied speech for “this sinner didn’t commit the act we thought they did because of such-and-such factors involved”.

If I truly believe that some kind of action brings a fate of eternal torment to me, it seems that doing it would be foolish on my part. Can a foolish action be truly free?





I see your point; but it is still an act in accordance with one’s will, so it is free. What do you mean by freedom?

Still, I would say that the degree of culpability is far less than that of an adult who commits an analogous act with the same intention

I would argue that they would have the same culpability; for children are given less because we assume they don’t have such knowledge. If we assume that this child does completely understand what they are doing like an adult and have not been swayed by someone else (as children are quite maleable), then why would we not try them as an adult?

The 'grave matter' is the 'act', i.e. the 'objective' component. In our example: the killing of an innocent person. The degree of knowledge and consent is the 'subjective' component.

Yeah, that’s fine for conveyance purposes; but, again, the intention is inextricably linked with their knowledge; so the degree of knowledge to me is a part of the act. I am just splitting hairs here though: just ignore me (:

if one takes all aspects into account, can a human being get that degree of culpability that deservers some form of eternal torment as a just, adequate punishment?

It depends on if the act is indeed of infinite demerit, I would say. For if one knows what they are doing and does it overwhelmingly freely; then how would one not be held fully liable for it?

If murder is a sin that carries infinite demerit, the perpetrator knows this, the perpetrator knows that they should not murder, the perpetrator does it for the fun of it (and not of necessity or coercion or what no), then why would they not be held culpable to the highest order?

I agree with that, if that is what they are saying. I think one could argue that God has a propensity for graciousness; but grace doesn't override justice. God would still have to punish those who do wrong: grace goes above and beyond what is owed, justice is about what one is owed.

In the case of Christianity, God is the one that takes on the burden of sufficing justice through Christ; and this is how God is able to be gracious and just (as you probably know very well).

My point was that God is not the offended party like the victim: God cannot be a victim. So God may be offended, and it is right to point out every sin is an offense against God, but God is not the offended party of which we take into consideration its dignity to calculate the correct punishment.

With respect to the Trinity and the sacrifice, you would be right to say that God was the victim there: I just don't think God can be a man.

Okay, but what is the basis of this? Is it something like this?

I am not taking a principle of equality but, rather, proportionality. It is not that a, e.g., sin that happened for 10-minutes has to be punished with a punishment that lasts 10-minutes; however, the punish must be proportionate. I cannot put to death a person for stealing one turnip.

In the case of a punishment that has any sense of infinitude in it (e.g., infinite duration, repetition, etc.) it seems always disproportionate to the sin (like the turnip example) because the sin, being finite in every way imaginable (in practical affairs), does not remotely approach any infinitude.

E.g., a 10-minute sin of adultery cannot be proportionate to an eternally repetitive punishment of being cheated on. That violates proportionality: don’t you think?

Okay, but if you want to argue for a disproportion of punishment, then you must specify what is supposed to be infinite and finite. Is it duration? Is it that the punishment has infinite duration whereas the transgression did not have an infinite duration?

I am saying any combination of a sin that itself contains no form of infinitude with any punishment that contains at least one form of infinitude. This means that neither the offender nor offended parties are of infinite dignity and the durations were finite.

This could be, e.g., stealing a loaf of bread and eating it with a punishment of having your things stolen for an infinite amount of times; or stealing a loaf and eating it with a punishment of feeling pain for all eternity (with no break).

I missed this. To use an analogy, imagine that a pipe breaks and the water that was flowing through it is now flowing out onto the ground. This is an order being disturbed, and as long as the pipe remains broken, the water will continue flowing out onto the ground. It will flow out onto the ground for all eternity if the cause/pipe is never repaired. Put crudely, Aquinas is saying that we are able to break our own pipes in ways that we cannot repair, and that Hell flows out of this.

This is interesting; because one could make the argument that some disruptions (viz., sins) could cause an infinite causal chain of disturbances of the proper; and I would say if this were to happen, which is very unlikely, then it would have some sort of infinite demerit and may be punished (potentially) by eternal punishment.

It is also worth noting that it may be proportionate to punish a sin that did contain infinitude in a finite way: I am not sure. Sometimes we punish by way of absence of fellow reward; e.g., all these kids get a cookie but that one kid that misbehaved: the kid gets punished by way of others being rewarded. So it may be proportionate to punish those who have committed a sin of infinite demerit with the absence of eternal life in heaven. I'll have to think about it; however, what I am arguing is that a punishment that itself involves an infinitude cannot possibly be proportionate to a sin that contains no infinitude: whether that be in duration or dignity.

But wouldn't that be philosophy, the love of wisdom, and science?

Religion can go hand-and-hand with philosophy: specifically theology. It doesn't always, but it can. Religion is about worship through tradition; theology on the nature of God.

What I mean here is that you simply cannot get a logical, objective answer to what is morally right and wrong. It's not a question of retrospect or our ignorance. The question is inherently subjective, hence you cannot get an objective answer to

Ok, so you are taking a moral anti-realist position; but theology tends to presuppose moral realism.

I am now realizing in my rambling first post it probably would have been more helpful for me to note that all sin was generally taken as being primarily a sin against God. And I would agree with this, the idea of God as some sort of disengaged "third party" to sin does not make a lot of theological sense.

Yes, but is this sin against God, whereof God is not the thing directly offended nor the offender, warrant eternal punishment?

The question of whether eternal punishment is justified seems to me to be different from the question as to whether eternal punishment is theologically sound. The two need not go hand in hand, and indeed they usually don't go together, with the claim that God would be justified in punishing repetent sinners, but shows mercy instead, being a common one.

I don’t see how eternal punishment can be theologically sound if it is unjust: God is perfectly just, so God cannot eternal punish if it is unjust to do so.

Grace is an another essential aspect of most theological theories; but it does not override justice. Viz., grace does not partake in unjust things and justice must still be served.

Thank you, I will take a look.

It would be interesting to see someone try to flesh out this argument

I think this is a good point and, upon thinking about it more, I think it is per se possible that a sin could carry with it eternal punishment; but the kinds of sins we commit historically are not.

I am thinking of something like this:

1. A punishment which incorporates any form of infinitude must have as its corresponding offense one which has in that same form an infinitude. (principle of proportionality in justice)

2. No form of infinitude exists in any offense possibly made by creatures which have or currently exist in the universe.

3. Therefore, the punishment for any given offense possibly made by creatures which have or currently exist in the universe cannot contain any form of infinitude.

For all intents and purposes, I don’t think it matters if the infinitude is in terms of duration of the crime, repetition of the crime, the dignity of the offended party, etc. In the case of humans, which are the only example we have of a being capable of moral scrutiny, there has been nor are there any cases of an offense where (A) the offender was of infinite dignity, (B) the offense had—at least in part—infinite duration, or (C) the offense had—at least in part—infinite repetition.

If (to your point) Hitler were to be a creature which was eternally carrying out mass genocides, was torturing someone for eternity without any break, or a human (to your Vatican point) had infinite dignity and he tortured them; then it would be proportional to punish, by some means, with an eternal punishment.

To Vatican, I would say this is just their attempt at keeping up with the times; but humans do not have infinite dignity, nor is that possible.

The dignity of a thing is relative to its nature such that one closer to God is higher than one more remote; and God is has the highest dignity and is the only one with infinite dignity because He is perfectly good. Humans cannot be perfectly good, for their essence is never capable of being identical to their existence; and this is impossible because the only being capable of having the two identical is the kind of being which is subsistently existent (and human’s do not possess subsistent existence inherently from their essence).

That’s why Being itself is the only thing that can possibly be perfectly good.

This may true, but it isn't necessarily true; and I don't believe that religions were created with this in mind: they were seeking the truth the best way they could. Just because we can retrospectively determine that they got a ton of stuff wrong, given our understanding now, doesn't mean they were making stuff up to "get answers to questions they can't get a 'logical' one for". That's a very shallow interpretation of religion.

Perhaps I am misreading Acquinas, but it seems as though, even in your excerpt, he is arguing that sin is the disruption of God's order and, as such, incurs a debt of eternal punishment.

Your take is very interesting. I would say, despite it not pertaining to your take directly, I still don’t see how sin is ‘objectively infinitely bad’ (viz., infinitely bad).

To me, the ‘subjective’ vs. ‘objective’ factors in sin is false (albeit it useful for conveying your point); since an act is the volition of will, so it stems from this ‘subjectivity’ which you described and so two people are held unequally culpable for a sin are not committing the same sin. We like to say colloquially, e.g., that the schizophrenic and the normal person—or the child and the adult—who both directly intentionally killed an innocent person in the same manner have committed the same murder (objectively, as you put it); but they haven’t: the intentions, wherefrom the volition arises, is drastically different. In fact, the schizophrenic, in this case, has not committed (objectively) the act of murder assuming they are hallucinating to the point where in the hallucination they are committing valid self-defense or perhaps manslaughter.

In short, the problem with your objective vs. subjective distinction is that acts have embedded into their identity intentionality to which it corresponds—e.g., murder is the intentionally killing of an innocent person in the manner where the intentionality is towards killing THAT innocent person.

Now, I would say, in this light I have depicted, this distinction is erased and the question becomes: are some acts, of which are sins, simply not deserving of infinite punishment?

For example, if you believe that a child that shoots someone and kills them while insufficiently understanding what a gun is cannot be held morally culpable to the same level as an adult who does understand guns who does the same relevant things and that this child cannot be held accountable to the point of infinite punishment, then I submit to you that you believe the act of shooting someone with insufficient understanding of what a gun is does not carry with it, objectively, infinite punishment.

Jewish hell is no longer than 12 months and it exists only to purify you of your sin, not to punish. So I'd change your "mainstream Abrhamic religions" to be "Christianity."

I don’t think Judaism itself dictates a 12-month purgatory (e.g., there are plenty of jews that believe in eternal punishment); and Islam is also an Abrahamic religion.