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In a prior blog I argued that divine Command theory was a form of subjectivism and anti-realist and that all forms of anti-realist morality would have deep problems. Here I want to set forth a smaller claim. Do the problems directed at divine command theory apply to all subjectivist theories (sometimes called relativist theories) of morality?
So again Divine Command Theory is the view that right and wrong is simply whatever God decides it is. Socrates addressed it in the Euthyphro Dilemma by asking:
1) is an act pleasing to the gods because it is good,
or rather
2) is an act good because it is pleasing to the gods?
The Divine command theory says 2 is correct. An act is good because it is pleasing to God. Whatever is God’s will to be good, is good. That is what it means to be good. Divine command theory is really a form of subjectivism where the person whose judgement is relevant is God.
Russ Schaefer-Landau argued against divine command theory (claim 2) along these lines:
The gods either have good reason to will the way they do or they do not
If the gods have no good reason to will the way they do then their view is arbitrary
If the gods have good reason to will the way they do then something is good due to those reasons not due to the gods’ will. Therefore, we would be looking at case 1 in the Euthyphro dilemma not 2.
It follows that if divine command theory is true then morality is arbitrary.
The same argument would seem to apply to all relativism/subjectivist claims of morality. We can simply exchange “the gods” for “Joe” or “western culture” or whatever subject the subjectivist/relativist thinks defines what is moral.
So the questions for this blog are does the argument work against all forms of subjectivism or relativism?
I still believe the problems I outlined in an earlier blog pose bigger problems for subjectivism and other forms of anti-realist morality, (except error theory/nihilism) but it seems to me that anything that saves the relativist from this problem would save divine command theory as well. And to the extent this argument sinks divine command theory it sinks other forms of relativism/subjectivism as well.
It seems that William Lane Craig has a view that saves divine command theory from this argument but it would not save subjectivism/relativism if the relevant subject was a person.
True and Reasonable 
morality is arbitrary, as I’ve stated before. As soon as a Christian says that it’s okay for his god to do something and not okay for a human to do it, then morality is subjective, entirely based on what is doing the action. This is what Craig claims on his website: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/euthyphro-dilemma His argument is based on an unsupported presupposition “God is the greatest conceivable being, and it is greater to be the paradigm of goodness than to conform to it.” which is no more than the ontological argument and a baseless assumption about it being “greater” to be the paradigm than it is to follow. That argument fails since anyone can always imagine a “greater” god and that anyone can imagine most anything and nothing about that says it has to exist.
that you cannot show that your god exists shows that there is no reason to accept WLC’s claim.
Hi CS and thanks for you comment.
I do not mean subjective in that sense. Subjective in the sense I mean is as opposed to an objective realist sense of morality where whether an action is right or wrong does not depend on anyone’s views of the rightness or wrongness. So moral realists like me think that if we take a specific action and say it is wrong we mean it is wrong regardless of what others think and even what I think. It is like the earth orbiting the sun. It still orbits the sun even if we think otherwise.
Moral realists certainly would say the morality of an action would depend on who is doing the action. Like I said before I might be able to destroy a painting I created but someone else would not morally be able to do that.
So at least as it relates to that principle God can morally destroy us since he created us. As you know I did a blog on that.
https://trueandreasonable.co/2014/04/07/is-god-horrible/
But it is important to note that just because God can destroy us I don’t think that necessarily excuses everything in the bible – if it were read entirely literally. That is I still tend to think it would be wrong for God to command us to kill other people. Some have argued that since he has that right he can pass that right to us. But I tend not to think that. I think it is fundamentally unnatural for us to kill other innocent people. So I think there is still a problem we need to deal with at least if you take everything in the bible as literally as possible. And for those like me who don’t there is still the problem of what is the point of the story if not to give history? Given how ancient the stories of some of the old testament are and the fact that we know very little about the authors I have to admit I don’t always know. But I think there are some guides we can use. I have a draft blog dealing with an troubling old testament passage and my own views on it and these sorts of passages generally.
You may believe morals objective, but you have yet to demonstrate that. Even your bible doesn’t support that. What it supports is the might equals right idea that as long as your god does it, then that action is morally good. The earth certainly orbits the sun, we have evidence. We have no evidence for your “moral realism”. That’s a problem. It’s even a larger problem when Christians don’t agree on what morals their god wants.
I don’t see where moral realism leads one to think that the actor changes the morality of the action. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_realism perhaps you can explain further. I can see why you would be a moral realist since you want to claim that there are objective morals that give your god a reason to be needed.
Again, you pick and choose what to claim in the bible to be literal and what to claim as metaphor, etc. Your god did command us to kill other people, if one is to take the words both the OT and NT at their value, and we have little reason not to since interpretations change with every generation. Why not take the words literally, other than to try to make believe your god is better than it is described?
I see that you use the word “innocent” when speaking about who we can and can’t kill. That is another moral determination, and you base it on your bible and *your*interpretation of it, again, we have subjective morality demonstrated since we cannot know what the correct interpretation is.
Indeed, what is the point of the stories of your god demanding the killing of people? Like many Christians, you claim to know exactly what is meant in some parts of the bible, but in the modern morally questionable parts, you suddenly plead ignorance. Claiming that you know that JC literally rose from the grave, but then saying “oh but that part where my god is acting like a complete villain, well, we have to give this god the benefit of the doubt” is pretty hypocritical.
CS:
You may believe morals objective, but you have yet to demonstrate that. Even your bible doesn’t support that. What it supports is the might equals right idea that as long as your god does it, then that action is morally good.
Joe:
I think we disagree on this. It is true that the bible suggests that what God asks us to do is good. And it is also true that the bible says God is powerful. But that does not mean God’s might is why what he commands is good in the sense of might makes right. Blessed are the meek, they shall inherit the world, he who is last shall be first, blessed are the poor etc. None of this really fits with your view.
CS:
The earth certainly orbits the sun, we have evidence. We have no evidence for your “moral realism”. That’s a problem. It’s even a larger problem when Christians don’t agree on what morals their god wants.
Joe:
https://trueandreasonable.co/2016/05/10/evidence-of-objective-moral-realism/
CS:
I don’t see where moral realism leads one to think that the actor changes the morality of the action. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_realism perhaps you can explain further. I can see why you would be a moral realist since you want to claim that there are objective morals that give your god a reason to be needed.
Joe:
Moral realism doesn’t require people to believe the morality is dependent on relationships but it allows it. Moral realists would likely agree that my destroying my own painting is different than someone else destroying my painting. My neighbor is free to lay down on his couch in his family room whenever he chooses but I am not. Moral realists do not need to deny these fairly obvious distinctions. You misunderstand it if you think they do.
CS:
Again, you pick and choose what to claim in the bible to be literal and what to claim as metaphor, etc. Your god did command us to kill other people, if one is to take the words both the OT and NT at their value, and we have little reason not to since interpretations change with every generation. Why not take the words literally, other than to try to make believe your god is better than it is described?
Joe:
Context.
CS:
I see that you use the word “innocent” when speaking about who we can and can’t kill. That is another moral determination, and you base it on your bible and *your*interpretation of it, again, we have subjective morality demonstrated since we cannot know what the correct interpretation is.
Joe:
I think sometimes we can know. For example I think we can know a baby would not be guilty of a crime justifying death.
CS:
Indeed, what is the point of the stories of your god demanding the killing of people? Like many Christians, you claim to know exactly what is meant in some parts of the bible, but in the modern morally questionable parts, you suddenly plead ignorance. Claiming that you know that JC literally rose from the grave, but then saying “oh but that part where my god is acting like a complete villain, well, we have to give this god the benefit of the doubt” is pretty hypocritical.
Joe:
Again the answer is context. The Gospels make the context much more clear as to what they are saying and why. John and Luke in particular. The old testament “authors” not so much at all. I mean we simply do not know very much about them or even if there is a single author or if the stories have evolved over time to come in the form we get now. Not to mention we don’t know as much about those ancient societies as we do about what life was like in Jesus time. So when we don’t know much about the author, the context or the audience the intent is obviously more difficult to know.
You can call me Vel if you wish.
The bible certainly does say directly that what God asks us to do should be defined as “good”, “No one is good except for God alone”. From what we see in the bible, this god is not “goodness”, since it harms humans for no reason in various cases, does not help when it can, etc. If someone doesn’t do what God says, they get killed/banished/sent to hell. I offer this as an example of the might equals right in the bible. The verses you offered, blessed are the meek, etc do not demonstrate anything against the idea of might equals right for god’s power over humanity as you declare it to be, that this god can kill us if it wants with no moral qualms. This god can do what humans are told is wrong. Blessed are the meek, unless this god wants it to be otherwise. We get told that everything that this god does is good, but there is nothing good about drowning children, and murdering children when they are “first born” in a country where the pharaoh is considered god, when a god wants to show off “Go to Pharaoh; for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his officials, in order that I may show these signs of mine among them, 2 and that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I have made fools of the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them—so that you may know that I am the LORD.””
The bible says we are supposed to thank him for being so “good”. If a human did such things, would you consider them good?
Still no evidence of your god nor of “moral realism”. I’ve read your post. There are no miracles that can be shown to have happened, so there goes your suppose evidence for your god. All we have are claims of miracles, no evidence for them at all.
Ah, so your initial claim that moral realism does say that the actor changes the morality is false then. There’s nothing showing it allows it either if there are objective morals. There is also no evidence at all that anyone would “likely agree” with you, especially moral realists who argue for objective morals. If destruction of an item is wrong, then it is always wrong if the moral is objective. And I don’t think I misunderstand at all. If objective morals are true, then you need to defend your god because its actions are horrific in many cases. There has to be an out for your god, that if it does something that makes it moral by just what it is. This is also a form of special pleading. My god doesn’t have a creator but everything needs one; my god can do objectively immoral things because its god and magically makes those objective things moral.
Again, Joe, every Christian claims a different context for how they interpret the bible and get entirely different answers than you do. Why is this context so changeable? How do you know yours is the right version?
Why do you think we can know a baby would not be guilty of a crime justifying death? We have your god judging and murdering babies repeatedly in the bible. Did the first born deserve being judged for pharoah’s actions and killed? Per the claims of the early Christian fathers, babies were justifiably condemned to hell since they were guilty of original sin. As long as god wants it, it’s “good”.
Joe, you are again picking and choosing, insisting that, by your personal opinion, the OT authors weren’t clear. You only claim that because you don’t like what they clearly say. The gospels are not anymore clear than the OT nor are they less clear, that is a baseless claim based on your opinion. We don’t know much of anything about the “authors” of the gospels either. You try to create a false dichotomy where there is none. We do know quite a bit about that time period, including that the biblical exodus never happened. The OT is supposedly history of the Jews, and now you want to claim that it can’t be and must be something else? That JC himself supposedly thought it was true is a problem for you. “26 Just as it was in the days of Noah, so too it will be in the days of the Son of Man. 27 They were eating and drinking, and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed all of them. 28 Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot: they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, 29 but on the day that Lot left Sodom, it rained fire and sulfur from heaven and destroyed all of them” Luke 17
Vel:
You can call me Vel if you wish.
The bible certainly does say directly that what God asks us to do should be defined as “good”, “No one is good except for God alone”. From what we see in the bible, this god is not “goodness”, since it harms humans for no reason in various cases, does not help when it can, etc. If someone doesn’t do what God says, they get killed/banished/sent to hell. I offer this as an example of the might equals right in the bible.
Joe:
That is not what might equals right means. It means righteousness is caused by having power. The fact that someone says an entity has power and also is moral does not necessarily mean they are saying the persons power causes them to be right.
Vel:
The verses you offered, blessed are the meek, etc do not demonstrate anything against the idea of might equals right for god’s power over humanity as you declare it to be, that this god can kill us if it wants with no moral qualms.
Joe:
The verses I quoted make it clear that being right is caused by having might. That is what might equals right means.
As to Gods rights over his own creation that is again not matter of his having might but rather a matter of his relationship to his creation. We can also destroy our creations.
Vel:
This god can do what humans are told is wrong. Blessed are the meek, unless this god wants it to be otherwise.
Joe:
What translation are you reading?
Vel:
We get told that everything that this god does is good, but there is nothing good about drowning children, and murdering children when they are “first born” in a country where the pharaoh is considered god, when a god wants to show off “Go to Pharaoh; for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his officials, in order that I may show these signs of mine among them, 2 and that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I have made fools of the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them—so that you may know that I am the LORD.””
Joe:
Murder is a loaded term. If you mean God can not end the life he creates then I disagree. I do agree God would not want us to kill end innocent lives. It is arguable he may be able to assign his right to end life to us, but ultimately I do not think that is correct. I don’t think these stories of the flood etc are relating literal history.
Vel:
The bible says we are supposed to thank him for being so “good”. If a human did such things, would you consider them good?
Joe:
Again you simply refuse that to acknowledge that there is a different relationship between the creator and his creations and others who are all his creations.
Vel:
Still no evidence of your god nor of “moral realism”. I’ve read your post. There are no miracles that can be shown to have happened, so there goes your suppose evidence for your god. All we have are claims of miracles, no evidence for them at all.
Joe:
They have been shown to have happened to many many millions of people. Just because you refuse to believe them doesn’t mean they haven’t been shown to have happened let alone that there is no evidence of them.
Vel:
Ah, so your initial claim that moral realism does say that the actor changes the morality is false then. There’s nothing showing it allows it either if there are objective morals. There is also no evidence at all that anyone would “likely agree” with you, especially moral realists who argue for objective morals.
Joe:
I said: “Moral realists would likely agree that my destroying my own painting is different than someone else destroying my painting. My neighbor is free to lay down on his couch in his family room whenever he chooses but I am not. Moral realists do not need to deny these fairly obvious distinctions. You misunderstand it if you think they do.”
If you think they would disagree with me ok. I guess we will just have to agree to disagree.
Vel:
If destruction of an item is wrong, then it is always wrong if the moral is objective.
Joe:
No that is not what objective moral realism means. People can think they have a right to destroy their own property even though others can’t and still be objective moal realists.
Vel:
And I don’t think I misunderstand at all. If objective morals are true, then you need to defend your god because its actions are horrific in many cases. There has to be an out for your god, that if it does something that makes it moral by just what it is. This is also a form of special pleading. My god doesn’t have a creator but everything needs one; my god can do objectively immoral things because its god and magically makes those objective things moral.
Joe:
I think its pretty clear I am not saying that. But you can pretend I am if it makes you feel better.
Vel:
Again, Joe, every Christian claims a different context for how they interpret the bible and get entirely different answers than you do. Why is this context so changeable? How do you know yours is the right version?
Joe:
I don’t claim to know the context of many of the OT passages. I do think I have reason to think it was inspired by God though. Jesus seems to view it that way even though he also acknowledges a human element in the OT.
Vel:
Why do you think we can know a baby would not be guilty of a crime justifying death?
Joe:
Because I don’t think babies have the mental state that allows them to be guilty of intentional crimes.
Vel:
We have your god judging and murdering babies repeatedly in the bible. Did the first born deserve being judged for pharoah’s actions and killed? Per the claims of the early Christian fathers, babies were justifiably condemned to hell since they were guilty of original sin. As long as god wants it, it’s “good”.
Joe:
Vel we just disagree on the same point. I think I can morally destroy my own painting even though someone else can not. The fact that I created the painting gives me this right. You disagree. I think we have identified the disagreement. If you want to tell me why I am wrong ok but just asserting I am wrong over and over is not going to advance the conversation.
Vel:
Joe, you are again picking and choosing, insisting that, by your personal opinion, the OT authors weren’t clear.
Joe:
Its not that they are unclear in what their intent is rather they don’t tell us their intent at all. Luke and John do at least state their purpose for telling us what they do.
Vel:
You only claim that because you don’t like what they clearly say.
Joe:
No I claim that because I read them and can see it with my own eyes.
Vel:
The gospels are not anymore clear than the OT nor are they less clear, that is a baseless claim based on your opinion.
Joe:
No it is a matter of fact not opinion. Read John and Luke you will see they tell us their purpose.
Vel:
We don’t know much of anything about the “authors” of the gospels either. You try to create a false dichotomy where there is none.
Joe:
We know more than we do about some of the OT.
Vel:
We do know quite a bit about that time period, including that the biblical exodus never happened.
Joe:
Then at least you and I agree it would be a mistake to believe these passages are mainly concerned with literal truth.
Vel:
The OT is supposedly history of the Jews, and now you want to claim that it can’t be and must be something else? That JC himself supposedly thought it was true is a problem for you. “26 Just as it was in the days of Noah, so too it will be in the days of the Son of Man. 27 They were eating and drinking, and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed all of them. 28 Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot: they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, 29 but on the day that Lot left Sodom, it rained fire and sulfur from heaven and destroyed all of them” Luke 17
Joe:
I suppose you think if I were to say “we will have a Christmas dinner just like the Cratchits with goose, and gravy, apple-sauce and potatoes.” I must really believe the Cratchits existed and that “A Christmas Carol” is a literal history.
In the case of your god, people do indeed say that the reason it is right is because it is powerful; quite a few Christians make this claim from Calvin, Decartes, Wittgenstein, etc. . IN the claim that no one is good except for your god, and that you cannot show that your god is good, there is little else to base this being’s goodness on other than by default of power, it is good and we should obey it and thank it for being so “good”. Whatever this god wants is determined “good” by its apologists. This is the heart of the Euthyphro dilemma: is what is morally good commanded by this god because it is morally good (objective objective) or is it morally good because it is commanded by this god (subjective morality). Add to this the claim of many Christians of the ontological argument, that this god is good by dint of being the greatest most powerful thing in the universe and we have might equals right. We also see this in play in the exodus story where this god kills because it can, to show off its power. Liebniz has an interesting argument that claiming that your god is good by saying it can do anything “deprive God of the designation good: for what cause could one have to praise him for what he does, if in doing something quite different he would have done equally well?” From where I sit, it appears that you would praise this god for anything it does and that’s disturbing. I’d also mention that the idea is we ought to follow god because he is powerful, and thus anything he does is good or he will send us to hell.
I think you might have missed a word here when you wrote this “The verses I quoted make it clear that being right is caused by having might.” If your god didn’t have its supposed might, then it could not base its power on threats. It is threats of violence, not goodness that this god uses. This is usually hell, but in the OT and NT, this god gets right into the trenches and does his own dirty work. And I’m reading the NRSV, but I can look at about 30 other translations and they say the same thing, that god can do what humans are told is wrong. This god can murder a man for touching his magic box, God can kill children if it wants, God can allow satan to kill a family if it wants just to show off.
I know you don’t like me calling your god a murderer, but what is it when a being premeditates killing innocents to show off? You find such a god acceptable. I don’t. And funny how you have no problem in declaring that JC was wrong when he believed that the flood, etc were literal events, per your bible. In any case, they don’t need to be literal history to show the character of your god.
You have yet to show that I have some right to destroy something I make. You’ve invented this to excuse your god’s actions (when you aren’t just declaring that they never happened). Considering that this god supposedly “gave” us life, it is ours now. It isn’t his.
Joe, it’s no surprise that you can’t and won’t show evidence of these supposed “miracles” that have happened to “many many millions of people.”. I refuse to believe them for the same reasons you don’t believe in the miracles of other religions, no evidence. But again, please show evidence of these millions and millions of miracles. An ancephalic baby been given a brain? A hostage who has been murdered returned to life? Why does your god evidently hate amputees since he never heals them?
Again, no evidence that anyone would likely agree with you. Your appeals to the some vague group of people whom you can’t show are attempts to claim approval from authorities. And no, Joe, I won’t agree to disagree. I’ll point out your tactics.
Yes, objective moral realism means that if there is a moral it is always true e.g. “If destruction of an item is wrong, then it is always wrong if the moral is objective”. “Moral Realism (or Moral Objectivism) is the meta-ethical view (see the section on Ethics) that there exist such things as moral facts and moral values, and that these are objective and independent of our perception of them or our beliefs, feelings or other attitudes towards them. Therefore, moral judgments describe moral facts, which are as certain in their own way as mathematical facts.” Now, you are correct that the person might have a different set of what he claims are “facts”, which goes to show that morals aren’t objective but subjective, products of opinion.
Joe, you claim you know what verses mean by context. Then you claim you somehow don’t know the context for other verses. You can’t know the meaning of any of the verses since, as you say, you can’t know what the author was thinking. You want to pretend you do for the things you want to be true. Now, you want to claim that the OT was inspired by this god, but you want to claim that somehow there is a human element? How does that work, a god who is supposed perfect can’t get its word across nor keep out screw ups by humans, screw ups that have caused the death of many Christians by the hands of other Christians? Again, why is this context so changeable and how do you know yours is the right version?
It’s no surprise that you ignored my points about your god killing children. That’s unfortunate that you are fine with god killing children because it wants to. I’m telling you that you are wrong because that this god gave life as a gift to us and its ours now if this god exists; is it morally acceptable for you to destroy some else’s property? I’m telling you that you are wrong in saying its okay for your god to murder people to show off because I have those lovely subjective morals invented by humanity that allow us to work together and not act like selfish brats.
Again, Joe, you are trying to claim that the OT writers are unclear, based on an opinion and the same holds true for the NT writers. The OT tell us why they are recording what they record. The laws are recorded because they are from this god. The events are because of this god. What we have is either they intended it as history, or they intended it to describe their god. In either case, there is no reason not to take their word for what they wrote as literal, unless you don’t like what they wrote and need to declare it as something other than those two options. Now, if they aren’ these options, what could it have been? We know they were humans, we know the world they lived in and their beliefs.
Since others can’t see what you claim with “their own eyes”, there is no reason to think your claims as any more than opinion.
Luke and John’s purpose is the same as the OT, to document what they believed. I can google “what purpose did the OT authors have” and get Christians sure that it is true and the commandments are for Christians, and it was also for prophecy. It seems like other Christians have no problem with the “context”. And now we’re to “some” of the OT with your claims. Sigh.
Again, no exodus, then no commandments, Joe, and then no Jesus who claims that the commandments are to be followed. Do you see how this house of cards falls when you start disbelieving that certain parts are false?
Oh my, now you want to claim that JC just thinks that the OT is a story. So, Joe, support that claim. And nice strawhorse you built. How do you know that JC thinks that the OT is just a story? Show me where he says that.
in regards to your claims about miracles, you might find this interesting: http://www.debunking-christianity.com/2019/05/hermione-granger-or-apostle-paul-take.html
Bulverism is not interesting to me.
and you again falsely accuse me of that. Unfortunate.
that’s nice since I’ve not committed it. “Suppose I think, after doing my accounts, that I have a large balance at the bank. And suppose you want to find out whether this belief of mine is “wishful thinking.” You can never come to any conclusion by examining my psychological condition. Your only chance of finding out is to sit down and work through the sum yourself. When you have checked my figures, then, and then only, will you know whether I have that balance or not. If you find my arithmetic correct, then no amount of vapouring about my psychological condition can be anything but a waste of time. If you find my arithmetic wrong, then it may be relevant to explain psychologically how I came to be so bad at my arithmetic, and the doctrine of the concealed wish will become relevant — but only after you have yourself done the sum and discovered me to be wrong on purely arithmetical grounds. It is the same with all thinking and all systems of thought. If you try to find out which are tainted by speculating about the wishes of the thinkers, you are merely making a fool of yourself. You must first find out on purely logical grounds which of them do, in fact, break down as arguments. Afterwards, if you like, go on and discover the psychological causes of the error.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulverism
Yes indeed that is a good description. Speculating about the wishes of the thinkers you disagree with rather than addressing the arguments for or against their position is exactly what the blog you linked to does:
Here is a quote from your link:
“One of the reasons that J. K. Rowling’s creation has been so phenomenally popular is her artistry in depicting human emotions and behaviors. But also because people are drawn to fantasies about things that don’t happen in ‘real life.’ There could be some really cool results if they did.
Or as Hagrid put it: “Everyone’d be wantin’ magic solutions to their problems.”
The success of religion is based precisely on that.”
Do you see why your linking to classic bulverism now?
You seem to think I’m speculating. I’m not. It’s not hard to know what Christians want and why they do things like they do. I’m not working without facts here, Joe. I’ve been around 50+ years and I’ve been and known plenty of Christians.
I’m not sure where you got what you did, but it’s not on that wiki page I linked to. And to point out the quote from C.S. Lewis again, I’ve shown you are wrong on, not on purely arithmetical grounds as Lewis says, but on factual grounds and logic. Having done that, and having my own experience to work from, there is no bulverism involved. I’ve not assumed you wrong, but I have shown you wrong after looking at your and other Christian claims. Quite a difference there.
Vel
I got the quote from the blog you originally linked to and I said was bulverism. Look at this conversation I think it will refresh your memory.
And I’m still waiting for you to actually support your accusations, Joe.
I don’t think I can explain it any better. Read your quote about bulverism and then read the quote I posted from the blog you linked.
claim: an assertion open to challenge evidence: : something that furnishes proof : testimony the claims of miracles are evidence that people did believe in such things. They are not evidence that such things happened. In that no one will take testimony without additional facts to support that testimony, miracles do not support the existence of your god, or any god.
Yes lots of people take testimony for all sorts of things. The vast majority of court cases are decided based on testimony. I have a blog coming that might make you think a bit.
If you are saying yes we take testimony as evidence for all sorts of things – other than miracles – ok thats fine, but then why not just admit you are special pleading?
In that I have friends who are also lawyers and they find your claim questionable, what cases have been decided on testimony alone?
I am not saying that we take testimony as evidence for all sorts of things. we take testimony and see if it matches the facts we know.
You changed what I said. But even with what you said yes some cases and issues are decided with testimony alone.
I don’t think those friends do trial work if they do not think testimony is very important. In criminal cases the prosecutor will almost always want some other evidence beyond testimony. But it is hard to imagine a trial with no testimony – unless all the parties agree to waive certain objections.
I know you are saying you don’t take testimony as evidence. That is why you are way off base and have had such a hard time explaining how you would know anything about history for example.
See my most recent post. Let those lawyers you know think about what I am saying there. If they are trial lawyers they will know it is accurate.
for someone who claims I changed what you said, I never said that anyone doesn’t think testimony important. IT is that testimony alone does not solve cases. I’d like some examples of cases that are only determined on testimony.
I’m not sure what to tell you other than statements of people are almost always extremely important and usually what decides a case.
Manafort, OJ Simpson, Mike Tyson,etc etc., I am literally just naming off every big trial that I can think of. Statements from people are just about always going to be key. Sometimes the statements are in writing like the gospels sometimes they are oral but there are almost always statements that are important.
in all of those there was plenty of physical and documentary evidence. testimony does not stand on its own unless corroborated.
Documents are just people saying things right? The Gospels are also documents.
As far as the physical evidence in any of these trials what physical evidence do you think was more important than the testimony or documents?
Was the ostrich coat more important than the testimony and documents in Manafort? OJ’s criminal case had dna but it seems the Jury didn’t care. It seemed they put more weight on his testimony. Or do you think the whole glove thing was the piece of evidence that was most helpful to him? 🙂
Tyson it was entirely an argument about whether she gave consent. What physical evidence do you think proved she did not give consent? It was ultimately just a matter of whether you believed testimony or not.
Think about this vel. Talk to your lawyer friends too.
I’ll have to say, Joe, that you are right at least in some cases. I found this about laws in Texas where they bizarrely take the uncorroborated testimony as evidence as long as a person is young enough (?) “nder Article 38.07 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure as it stood at the time of the assault, a conviction for sexual assault was supportable on the uncorroborated testimony of the victim if the victim was younger than 14 years old at the time of the offense. If the victim was 14 years old or older, however, the victim’s testimony could support a conviction only if that testimony was corroborated by other evidence. One form of corroboration, specifically described in Article 38.07 itself, was known as “outcry”: The victim’s testimony could support a conviction if he or she had informed another person, other than the defendant, about the offense within six months of its occurrence. Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann., Art. 38.07 (Vernon 1983). ” This strikes me as about as sensible as taking the testimony of the girls at the salem witch trials and murdering people because of that.
Vel
The fact of the matter is that the testimony is usually by far the most important information. In criminal cases we often like to have more because of the burden of proof. But there were people successfully prosecuted for criminal cases before we had dna technology, ballistics, or even finger prints.
You have not really thought through how we normally formulate our beliefs.
Again, you seem to be unable to show where this is the case in real life, Joe. What cases were settled only on testimony? I would also ask if you think that this is a good idea in reality considering cases like the Salem Witch trials which ended in the murder of innocents.
Schaefer’s first premise is wrong, from the DCT proponent’s standpoint.
God’s will is a brute fact. So, DCT is more akin to moral intuitionism than any other theory.
Of course, such views have their own problems. “Ought” problems.
But so do all moral realist schemes, fatally.
Keith yes I think you are correct and correctly pointed this out in my earlier blog. I a think people like WLC would prefer to say God and his goodness are “necessary” at least for this purpose use of the term brute fact will work. In other words God’s will melds with moral reality in ways that ours doesn’t. It is not like us with our changing whims on what we call moral or not.
I agree moral realism has problems, but I think claims that they are fatal are a bit of an exaggeration.
I agree with you that DCT is a mistake, and leaves God open to being seen as a monster. It is no coincidence, I believe, that WL Craig follows DCT and has tried to justify the reported behaviour of God in parts of the Old Testament where he encourages or orders genocide.
But I don’t feel we need to worry about Euthyphro, because I have no problem saying that (1) God chooses actions because they are morally right, and (2) he didn’t order the OT genocide, that was just what they thought at the time (they hadn’t been educated into the ways of God yet).
To the argument that says, then we don’t need God for morality, I say (1) no we don’t, but that doesn’t diminish God any more than he is diminished by believing 1 + 1 = 2 because it is true!, (2) but we do need God for morality because although some things are objectively right or wrong, our moral faculties are faulty, and we need God to correct them, forgive us and inspire us to do good. And I think the moral argument still works, if it is re-phrased slightly, because if atheism is true, there is no basis for objective morality, whereas if theism is true, there is a basis for believing there is.
Yes Unkle E we are on the exact same page on all accounts.
But I will admit that I am starting to wonder if God adding his transcendence to moral reality doesn’t play a role. So while I agree I think this dilemma can be answered by the theist by just adopting the first option (same as the atheist can but without the insurmountable epistemic problems) I think God may add to the robustness of that first option in an ontological sense as well. I really haven’t thought about it too much and have tons of other blogs on draft that I need to finalize first. But I am sort of wondering whether God plays an important ontological role as well. So WLC analysis could be valuable even if we don’t agree wholesale.
As for the old testament passages I do agree with you and talk about that in my response to clubshadenfreude above.
The reason I made this blog is that although I always used to think this dilemma saved the atheist because it allowed them to adopt moral realism, I see very few atheists other than philosophy professors that are moral realists. In fact I really don’t know any. The non-philosophy professors all seem to be anti-realist and mostly subjectivists. So this argument at least by the numbers seems to be a problem for them.
If you are an atheist and a moral realist please raise your hand!
so, unk, are you saying your bible is lying when you claim this “2) he didn’t order the OT genocide, that was just what they thought at the time (they hadn’t been educated into the ways of God yet).”
Hi, thanks for your question.
I start with what seem to be facts. The experts say the supposedly historical sections of the OT were not written as factual history (as we moderns would understand the term), but as stories which defined them as a nation, defined their religious beliefs and argued for their right to the land. The OT texts often tell differing stories, both in terms of narrative and in terms of belief. For example there are two stories in the book of Joshua, one of great invasion and genocide, the other of gradual assimilation with some fighting, and archaeology bears out the second story.
The experts say that the beginning of the OT (not just the creation story) is mythical or legendary in character, and much of the OT is a mix of history and legend. By the time we get to the kings it is pretty historical. To describe this as “lying” wouldn’t be correct and would be anachronistic – not judging the writings based on an understanding of the times and culture. A correct understanding, I believe, is to see the OT as a record of the growing refinement of an original very pagan belief in God.
So that is background to my conclusion that God didn’t order genocide (nor for that matter was such a command ever carried out), but that was part of the developing understanding of the people who became the Jewish nation. Later parts of the OT correct those initial beliefs, as the prophets helped move the Jewish people from belief in Yahweh as a tribal god to understanding that there is one creator God.
Some experts do say that and some do not. We have the added problem that Jesus as presented seems to think that these stories are entirely factual when the character is mentioning them in the NT. Archaeology bears out that the Israelites were originally in Palestine and weren’t assimilated. They were one of the tribes there for thousands of years.
I generally define lying as making false claims for one’s own benefit. Would you agree? There is some evidence for some of the kings, but we have no evidence for Solomon or David at all, not as they are presented in the bible or for their supposedly fabulous temples and palaces. So again, we have nothing more than myth. This is why I consider it lying. It is interesting hat you want to claim that the original believers in this god were in some manner wrong on how they did it. This seems to be an attempt to claim that they “really” should have been worshipping and interpreting this god as you do, for the sole reason that you do not like the god it portrays otherwise. For claims of anachronism, you try to pull the entire bible forward in time, to claim that this god never did things that the bible, supposedly inspired and/or written by god, claims. There is nothing whatsoever in the bible that indicates this at all, it is an entirely modern invention. It is also most curious that your argument seems to be that this god could not or would not, just have the Israelites believing what you claims as the true from the very start.
You don’t like the genocide stories. Do you believe that the creation, flood, resurrection of Christ and the prophecies of Revelation to be literally true? Because all of those are just written just like the genocide stories where your god commands genocide and commands that part of the booty, young virgin girls as slaves, go to his temple.
Hi clubschadenfreude:
Like I said before, I think some of your statements are anachronistic – not understanding the times and culture. If we are going to do history, we need to avoid thinking that everyone should and did think like 21st century science-based postmoderns.
“I generally define lying as making false claims for one’s own benefit. Would you agree?”
I guess. But don’t you understand that they weren’t lying, they were just telling a different story to the one you would have told? And telling it in a different way. Like I said: “not written as factual history (as we moderns would understand the term), but as stories which defined them as a nation, defined their religious beliefs and argued for their right to the land”. Until you come to grips with this enormous difference and understand the genre, you are going to miss the point. Which I guess might be fun for polemics, but not very useful for truthful understanding.
“There is some evidence for some of the kings, but we have no evidence for Solomon or David at all, not as they are presented in the bible or for their supposedly fabulous temples and palaces.”
There is indeed some evidence for David and Solomon, and good evidence for the broad truth of the description of the times – see for example Beyond the Texts by William Dever. And again, you are interpreting the texts from a 21st century vantage point. Of course the palace and temple weren’t enormous by today’s standards, but they may well have been to them back then. When you are a child, everything looks big. I have never thought that these buildings were “fabulous”. Again, your comments make good polemics, but I have read Dever and I know the facts.
“to claim that this god never did things that the bible, supposedly inspired and/or written by god, claims. There is nothing whatsoever in the bible that indicates this at all”
This isn’t the case. There are two stories in Joshua – first half of genocide and conquest, second half of gradual assimilation with some fighting. Both can’t be true but both are included. How to explain this? It is easy, for the archaeology supports the second story. (If the first story was true, there’d be no explanation for the second. Occam’s razor.) Therefore the first one is legendary, for a purpose – presumably to bolster claims for the land. So there is a very good indication that the genocide didn’t happen. And there are other cases of two stories being told, or earlier teachings being corrected by later ones.
“It is interesting hat you want to claim that the original believers in this god were in some manner wrong on how they did it.”
I presume you don’t believe they were right either?
I think it is easy to get caught up in polemics and ignore what the experts say. I think some christians do that, and I think you have done that in the opposite direction. We could have an interesting discussion about it all if you want, but overstating the case as you have done would make that difficult.
Thanks.
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