kmoney

Desirability and flourishing as a matter of truth, reality. You can say eating food is evil and does not contribute to human flourishing, but you would be wrong. :idunno: Else, just try to desire nothing-ness. Why is God's essence existence? I don't know, it just is. Why do humans need to eat food? Why is the sky blue? Why is ice cold? Why is that red? Why is God the sort of thing that bestows existence on everything that exists? Thus begins a theological inquiry, but not one that is necessarily discursive so much as mystical.

No, I don't separate them in that way. I won't say more until you say more.

But good for creatures is always relative to their species. What is good for a human is not necessarily good for a rat or a rock. But God belongs to no species, and His being is not finite. Particular actions will not increase or decrease his being and flourishing. God is therefore good/desirable/being in an absolute and undifferentiated sense. "Tom is good" means that Tom is a good human being. "God is good" means that God is good, period--the source of all being, the fullness of being, utterly perfect and desirable in every conceivable way.

The Euthyphro dilemma seems to turn on an erroneous understanding of good and evil. It conceives of good as a kind of arbitrary, rock-bottom designation, and fails to locate it within the metaphysics that connects it to desirability, being, existence, etc. If I say something is good for a human being, I do not mean that it falls into an arbitrary category created by arbitrary rules. I mean that it will add to the being of the human, it will make them flourish, it will enhance and build up their existence, and thus is intrinsically desirable (and therefore good). This is ultimately what a good action contributes to, and a good person is someone who is in the habit of performing good actions.

The predication, "God is good" is not really about morality. It includes morality but transcends it.

In the first place, what is good is desirable. Everything that is good is truly and legitimately desirable. This is the foundation of morality. But also, everything that exists or has being is good insofar as it exists. Conceived under this aspect of being or "fullness of being" as Sela said, God has all the perfections of everything he creates and causes to exist. So everything which is good, desirable, and existent comes from God who is ultimately good, desirable, and existent.

I will start by giving a reply to the Eutyphro's dilemma question:

There is what we call good and evil in the world. However, traditionally this is not understood as the co-existence and intermingling of two different substances. There is good and there is privation of the good. That is, evil is understood as a sort of defect, a "lack". This means that evil is ultimately non-being. Given the classical meaning of God which Hart defends, that God is being itself, the conception of God as evil is an impossibility. Being is all good, and God is understood to be the fullness of being. God does not adhere to a good standard outside himself, nor is the definition of good arbitrary. God is good because God is absolutely free, that is there is nothing that restricts the "unfolding" of his nature, and his nature is the good because he is the fullness of being.

I got some work to do and I have a driving lesson tomorrow, so nothing big. Going over to my brothers place to watch a movie.

More worried about what the wooly friends have planned, I'm told this is the leader of the party committee https://www.theloopyewe.com/sheri/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/alp7790lorez.jpg :Plain:

Semester is going well. Was at a lecture on Karl Marx's criticism of religion yesterday. Next week it is Freud, then we are done with the "masters of suspicion".

I will give a reply to your comment on Hart and your question on Euthyphro's dilemma soon. Will see if I can get to it later today.

:e4e:

How is it going?

Getting any reading done?

:e4e:

I have not read Pannenberg yet, I want to read his Systematic theology vol. I-III. Posted a little reply in the group by the way.

I imagine a TV coming flying out through your living room window after the game, followed by two alpaca heads and necks peeking out the broken window :chuckle:

I just realized that I posted this on my own wall two days ago lain:

A bit 'meh' to be honest...

How are you?

:e4e:

lain:

Namaste

I just read Philip Clayton's obituary of Wolfhart Pannenberg, this caught my intention and I have to cite you this:

"Once, when he was writing his anthropology, I asked him why he looked so tired. “Herr Clayton,” he said, “the literature on this topic is uferlos, unbounded. I have been reading 500 pages-a-day, now I have switched to reading 1000 pages-a-day in order to master all of it.”" (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tonyjones/2014/09/07/wolfhart-pannenberg-1928-2014/)

Now I feel unimaginably small... :Plain:

Weekend has been good. Spent some time with my brother yesterday, co-celebrated mass today. You?

No driving until next monday, my teacher is away. I need some more lessons, but I only have one obligatory course left.

I was actually thinking about wanting a Bible that was the complete opposite as well. I would love to have the biblical texts written like a novel, no references, no verse numbers, just the stories. The Bible can feel a bit encyclopedic in its style sometimes. :chuckle:

:e4e:

So a translation like "I am who I will be" might be more accurate, but it also indicates that God is who he was as well. The "I am who I will be" translation might be more fitting with the idea of God revealing himself through history, that there is a process of unfolding from his identity that takes place in history and possibly in our understanding. I also think it might fit better with the idea presented in John 3:8 in the word play that uses the double meaning of the Greek word "pneuma", meaning both wind and spirit.

Any ideas?

"The prefixed conjugation in Hebrew. The prefixed conjugation denotes the imperfective aspect of the verb. That is, it views the action of the verb from the inside or from the perspective of the action’s unfolding. This imperfective aspect can speak of (depending on context) habitual actions, actions in progress, or even completed actions that have unfolding, ongoing results. The term ‘imperfective’ does not refer to tense, though. Biblical Hebrew does not have tense like English or Greek (time of action is conveyed by context). ‘Imperfective’ refers to the kind of action being described, not the time of the action. An action can be viewed in process in the past (“was walking&#8221, the present (“is walking&#8221, or even the future (“will be walking&#8221

Heiser, M. S. (2005). In Glossary of Morpho-Syntactic Database Terminology. Logos Bible Software."

Had a look at some Logos resources about Exodus 3:14 passage. It seems that the verb "ehyeh" of the phrase "ehyeh asher ehyeh", which is typically translated as "I am who I am", is in form called yiqtol:

I really want to go there actually. It is a dream of mine to minister at Svalbard for a few years. It is a very unique place and quite an interesting population I imagine, it is mostly research stations that are located there. :chuckle:

He is a Marxist with Christian sympathies. He did the Gifford lectures (2010 if I remember correctly) on the God debate, he wrote a book criticizing Dawkins and Hitchens.

I'm finally done with the paper on Nietzsche, so now I can go back to Heschel

About Hart: Hart actually expresses some sympathy with a panpsychist view of nature when it comes to the question you asked. It is the same reason I have sympathies for the panexperientalist view of process philosophy on this issue. If we consider evolution and accept that consciousness cannot be merely a mechanistic function, then it seems to follow that subjectivity is somehow an inherent part of reality and human consciousness is a highly evolved form of it.

I will get back to you on the Exodus question. Need to look into it a little bit, my Hebrew is rather rusty

Thank you, dear friend of mine.

I've read your PMs, and thank you, and I'll write back before I go tonight.

I've really enjoyed our VM exchanges over the years.

I bought "On Evil" by Terry Eagleton. I quite enjoy Eagleton, especially his dumb humor.

Second book was "Confessions" by Augustine. Always wanted to read that.

Third book was "Fear and Trembling" by Kierkegaard. I've only read excerpts from Kierkegaard, figured it was time to read an entire work.

I've started the Eagleton book, a relatively easy read, but still a lot of depth. He is a professor of literature, so he analyzes evil using a lot of literary examples.

I might start "Man is not Alone" by Abraham Joshua Heschel before starting the other books though. That book has been on my list for a while now. "The Prophets" by Heschel is a masterpiece.

I will make a comment on the part on Hart a bit later.

:e4e:

Your TJ's comment cracked me up. :chuckle:

Do they have them where you live?

I'm enjoying my day off school, and hope you're enjoying your day off work.