But I have tried. My belief is that your claim that God is literally goodness is incoherent. I have tried to explain why that’s so.
Goodness: 1. The quality of being morally good or virtuous. So says the OED. Is God a quality? But qualities are something possessed by entities. What entity possesses God?
You’re welcome to look up my posts about the ontological argument on my blog.
It was stated in the very next sentence that I wrote: “Normative principles aren’t obtained (wholly) empirically.”
I have already stated them in this thread.
Oh, I don’t claim to fully understand that myself. I was only noting that the biblical writers took the spiritual realm very seriously (see e.g. the work of Michael Heiser) and that this likely has something to do with the explanation for God’s actions that the author of Job himself gives.
No, that does not accurately represent my position. I think it should be clear why from what I’ve already said in this thread.
Thanks for finally engaging and explaining instead of simply asserting that my position is incoherent.
God’s goodness is of course, possessed by God himself.
Normally, when we say that for example, John Harshman has a PhD, then the quality of having a PhD is part of John’s nature. But the quality of having a PhD doesn’t fully encompass that nature, because there are other qualities that are also applicable to John: being male, human, a certain age, ethnicity, nationality, etc.
With God, however, God’s goodness fully encompasses God’s nature, because God’s nature cannot be divided up into different qualities like John’s nature can. Other attributes of God, such as being just, loving, perfect, immutable, eternal, purely actual and so on - are not actually separate qualities of God (like John’s qualities), but just different perspectives of understanding the single, undivided nature of God.
Secondly, God’s goodness is also not an arbitrary, limited goodness, because God is perfect and his goodness is identical to his perfection, so his goodness is also perfect. Thirdly, because God is the creator of the universe, all the goodness in it comes from God.
These things are what I mean when I say that God is simple, and that God is goodness itself. I hope it makes a little bit more sense.
You misconstrue the goal I have in this discussion. I’m not interested in arguing that objective moral values exist. My main goal is explaining how the problem of evil fits within my classical theistic worldview, which presumes the existence of God and objective moral values. I’m trying to show that there is no contradiction between the existence of evil in the world and the existence of God.
Personally, I don’t think I will ever be interested in arguing that objective moral values exist. It is like a basic belief for me. It’s similar to my belief that other minds exist, and that I’m not a brain in a vat.
Thanks for trying, at least. I now think I know what you mean when you say that God is literally goodness itself, but I don’t find what you mean to make any sense. Still, you have clarified your meaning.
Obviously not if you merely define God to be good without ever wanting to justify that. Then no action (or inaction) God could take could be said to be evil. Of course, anyone could say that of themselves.
I could murder someone and just define myself to be good, and then there’d be no contradiction.
I highly doubt that. Try to think just for one moment about young children. Toddlers. I’m quite certain there was a point in your life, in early childhood, where you too understood in some way that you exist, but did not yet know right from wrong. You’ve internalized a set of social rules from your upbringing, and is now offering this rather bad and obvious excuse because you know you could never actually defend the claim that objective moral values exist.
This “i know this by some sort of fundamental intuition” claim seems to have become the latest get-out-of-jail-free-card to offer up when you find that some belief you have cannot be rationally supported.
So this is it. All you really have are assertions, and you neither can nor will do anything to try to support them. Okay, I guess we’re done then.
Yes, but the difference is that you are not a necessary being who is Pure Actuality like God. My claim that God is by definition good is not a gambit solely devised for the purpose of wriggling out of the problem of evil. Rather, it’s part of a whole metaphysical edifice that defines God as a very different kind of being than anything else and evil as a privation of goodness, which is in line with thousands of years of Greek, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim tradition. If you’re interested to understand more (even if you disagree), Edward Feser explains this better:
And also here he talks about Stephen Law’s “evil God challenge” (similar to your idea):
Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m just being honest about what I believe. The reality of good and evil is fundamental to my existence, and I’m not going to shy away from that. Perhaps if my goal was to prove to you that moral values exist, I would try to look up arguments from other philosophers for that, but that’s not my goal in this discussion right now. On a personal level, I don’t feel I need arguments for believing that moral values exist.
Your argument about social upbringing is merely an instance of the genetic fallacy. Just because cultural differences exist doesn’t mean that certain acts aren’t universally wrong across all societies and cultures, and if there is a culture that permits or endorses those acts, I would say that culture is morally defective. So this argument doesn’t move me at all, unfortunately.
Most people don’t. Just try stealing their nice car, or even just keying it. 
Actually, I think Feser’s “third resolution” of the Euthyphro dilemma is exactly the second resolution: that there is a moral standard external to God. He created the conditions (our universe) under which that moral standard is objectively correct, but that still makes it external to him. Further, I think there’s an unfilled hole in his argument between God’s rationality and his goodness. Rationality doesn’t produce goodness unless there is an initial axiom that goodness is, for want of a better word, good.
Can you explain this further? I don’t understand how you think it’s still external to God.
In this system, rationality and goodness are intricately connected. A morally good act is one which makes us fulfill our true purpose or telos. In the case of humans, our telos is contemplation of and fellowship with God. That is what we were created for. An evil act is one which directs us away from this purpose. It seems obvious to me that it is irrational for a creature to will that which violates its true purpose. Thus, what is morally good is also necessarily what is rational.
You build a car. Its purpose, presumably, is transportation for people. But that purpose is not part of you, and the purpose is inherent in the car or perhaps in the relationship between the car and people. Was that helpful?
It seems awfully self-centered of him, if so. I didn’t have a son in order for him to worship me. He gets to choose his own purpose. I would hope for the same courtesy from God. But the question wasn’t about what’s rational for me; it’s about what’s rational for God.
Yes, the purpose of the car (or the person) is not part of God itself. And indeed, morality is really about making decisions that fulfill your true purpose. But that true purpose exists only because God created and sustains it. Without God in the picture, the purpose doesn’t exist. (In fact, the whole car/person wouldn’t exist either.) Thus, without God, morality wouldn’t exist either.
There’s a difference between the car analogy and the real world in that once you build a car, its continued existence and operation doesn’t depend you anymore. That is not the case with the real world and God.
It is, indeed! And because God is perfect goodness itself, it actually makes perfect sense that he would create us for that. The reason why self-centeredness is bad for humans is because it is redirecting towards the self what is supposed to be rightfully God’s.
Since God is Being itself, for someone to choose something other than going towards God would basically tantamount to willing one’s self-destruction, which is irrational. I guess one could still do that, by rejecting the possibility of complete fellowship with God (which is what heaven is). One would be choosing to go to hell, which is basically separation from God.
Of course, in an atheistic, mechanistic worldview it makes more sense for us to choose our own purposes, since purpose is only a mental construct. There are a bunch of purposes which are compatible with everything. But once again, I’m just explaining how thinks work within the context of my classical theistic worldview, where purpose exists objectively, just as morality does.
God cannot act at odds with his own nature, which is necessarily rational. (It must be, because otherwise God could not be the source of the order and rationality present in the universe.) For God to be rational is to be himself.
He is the most valuable thing there is – he would be lying if he said he wasn’t. But he humbled himself as a man so that he could increase his joy by adopting more into his family.
That joy is us, if we have been adopted.
I can easily imagine a universe where your god does not possess some of the attributes you ascribe, particularly “goodness” and “mercy”, yet still retains others. So it is the case with your god.
(I’m expecting a reply that with different attributes he wouldn’t be your god at all, but a failure to realise that the exact point also applies to your hypothetical aliens.)
How come you get to define what God is?
Is it because your god is something you invented?
I see a number of points on which your reasoning is questionable.
Isn’t the purpose inherent in the creation? A car doesn’t work very well as a television or a socket wrench. One need not consult the car’s builder, even though without that builder the car and its purpose, or function, doesn’t exist. There is a standard of car-ness independent of the car’s builder.
Why is God needed to sustain the universe? Is he incapable of building a universe that sustains itself? How do you know he has to sustain it?
That’s a non sequitur if I ever saw it.
Another non sequitur. You think I’m willing my self-destruction? I’m not choosing separation from God. I can’t accept the possibility of complete fellowship with God anymore than I can accept complete fellowship with Sponge Bob. We could discuss hell and damnation. We could discuss heaven. I find both problematic concepts.
That doesn’t address the question of whether God’s goodness is rational.
That doesn’t follow either. One need not be X in order to be the source of X. Is God the source of all the purple in the universe? Must God therefore be purple?
Well, that means you’ve failed to understand the conception of God as metaphysically ultimate. One more time: God is not merely a being who happens to be the greatest and best among other beings. Rather, God is Being itself, and his attributes are really identical. So if you remove his mercy, he ceases to be a metaphysically ultimate being, because he would lack something that precludes him to be such. God, by definition, does not lack anything!
God is the principle by which we understand how the order in the universe ultimately comes from a single source. This entails that God has a host of attributes that are necessarily link together. To understand this better, I recommend Feser:
CT isn’t easy to understand, because in this system God is really different from any sort other being in the universe. God is such a different sort of being that we can’t talk about him literally, only analogically - meaning we can never fully describe God, even when we say that he is good, perfect, etc.
No, it means that I have understood and rejected it and, for your own specific version, refuted it as well.
What about ruthlessness, indifference, sadism and hatred? Does your god, by definition, not lack those?
Also, I earlier wrote this: “I’m expecting a reply that with different attributes he wouldn’t be your god at all…” and that’s exactly what I got.
How convenient - as soon as your description/definition of God becomes unsupportable, your god becomes indescribable.
I still think you misunderstand the nature of our disagreement. I actually think @John_Harshman is currently doing better at trying to argue for the incoherence of CT. You’re just completely missing the point and rehashing John’s earlier objections. Please reread my dialogue with John to get up to speed.
Evil is a privation of good. So God, by definition lacking no good, is not evil. Please read the Feser link about the Evil God challenge.
Now you’re being disingenuous. I never presented indescribability of God as a reason for me to not answer your objections. I was just trying to explain why CT seems hard to understand at times. Still, the indescribability of God is fundamental to classical theism, way before atheists came up with these objections. If God is truly Being itself, infinite in power and perfection, then it is naturally impossible for finite humans to fully describe him. This line of thinking dates back all the way to Plato (see, e.g. The Symposium, specifically Diotima’s speech).
That goes against centuries of D&D theology. What’s neutral, then? I don’t think that claim holds up.
I disagree.
I’ve read the relevant part of the Feser link, and he (like you) are mistaking indifference, which is privation of good, with evil, which is the opposite of good.
If the Samaritan who helped the wounded traveller is “good”, and the Levite and the priest who passed by on the other side of the trail because they lacked the compassion of the Samaritan are “evil” - then what adjective can be used to describe those who harmed the traveller?
There’s also the equivocation between ‘good’ as in helpful and compassionate vs ‘good’ as in working perfectly. A ‘good’ tool can be used for an ‘evil’ act. These are both different from your own definition of ‘good’ as meaning towards God. You appear to be mixing the three in your description of God.