The Moral Argument For a Deity

[Syne]

I think that I disagree with all five steps in the argument in the video

1. Morality is a rational enterprise -

That seems to me to be false. Morality doesn't seem to me to be based on reason at all, but rather on intuition. People just feel that something is right and something else is wrong. Whatever reason is involved typically follows the intuition, intended to rationalize it in terms of whatever moral principles the individual adheres to.

Intuition tells the uninformed that might equals right, and that intuition prevailed over much of human history. So what changed if not our rational understanding of morality? Feelings follow instinct, like an animal or the basest of our evolutionary psychology.

2. Moral realism is true -

That seems to me to be false as well.

Humans do seem to be pretty much on the same page as far as basic social instincts go. Most of us feel compassion, have a sense of fairness and reciprocity, and the abiity to "mind-read" others of our kind so as to intuit their emotional states.

But other than that, whatever moral ideas are built atop it are all over the map.

Human disagreement on morality doesn't speak to its realism. Just because something is real doesn't mean that everyone is equally capable of understanding it, otherwise we'd all be physicists. There are many interpretations of quantum mechanics, but the underlying physics works the same regardless which you prefer.

Don't know how you got there on premise 2, but that's my objection to premise 3.

4. Moral facts and duties are grounded in a necessary, rational source (from 1,2, and 3)

I'm not convinced that 4 follows deductively from 1,2 and 3. And whether it does or not is kind of moot if 1 and 2 are F as I suspect they are.

Even assuming 1 & 2, 3 does not derive from them, and beyond that is increasingly dubious.

[Zinjanthropos]

I get the feeling there’s nothing God can do that’s immoral. Waste the human population or just allow suffering in general and it’s ok....for Him that is. No one said God has to lead by example. Is it our job to not follow God’s lead, lest we become immoral creatures by doing what God does? I’ll do my own metaphysical equation.... divine morality = human immorality. This is too easy.

[Syne]

What happens to the human population, suffering, etc. are not god's doing. They are the natural result of a causal world where free will, a higher good, can exist. Humans allowing animals to kill each other in nature does not imply that humans are immoral, any more than god allowing humans to do as they will implies it is immoral.

[C C]

I get the feeling there’s nothing God can do that’s immoral.

But the thing is, an absolute, immutable "God" by definition couldn't DO anything without being perversely subordinated to time (change) and space (having extension, size, location, malleable outer appearance and other traits). Becoming the same as natural entities -- being yet another "developing" entity, subservient to a higher regulating process Itself or alternatively being an array of differentiated states that co-exist as some higher dimensional version of an _X_'s total sum of stages and configurations.[1]

A invulnerable God would instead be the provenance for the physical realm by being a supreme principle or kind of intellectual Platonic form prior in rank to those material characteristics.

Instead of our usual "horizontal" hierarchy or order of "causes-effects" (Mary giving birth to Cindy, Cindy giving birth to Sally, etc) it would be a "vertical" hierarchy where such an immutable God was the provenance of the natural world by being completely prior in rank to space and time (and its "horizontal" sequence). This supreme principle would be without location, size, shape, etc. Simply receiving a rational-based relational responsibility, ownership, or whatever for the physical domain rather than literally "doing/creating" as part of an action timeline.

But since "material" attributes and mechanistic relationships are the only thing human minds can apprehend in a phenomenal, empirical/convincing way -- it's perfectly fine for the physicalist (in that scheme) to assert that God by not requiring a place to exist and not requiring a spatial form and not requiring the ability to perform via changes (not being subordinate to such items) -- then accordingly this supposed immaterial, supreme principle could be construed by the physicalist as superfluous as a provenance for the natural world. ("I have no need for that hypothesis" cliche.)

When fixated with the concept of morality (rather than existence in general, as this thread is) and morality "requiring" a source prior in rank to Nature -- then, of course, the individual who needs a "grounding" or a "vertical cause" for that would more perceive their need for God in that context.

But as even Kant seems to suggest in the [2] footnote below, from a skeptic's perspective about non-material affairs it can be deemed something falling out of the motivated reasoning of that theist agent -- some conviction, that either the believer or the society or both needs this practical hypothesis in order to adhere to rules and maintain civilization.

In this area, Kant was never doing much more with his noumenal outlook than securing a refuge for traditional beliefs (not the raw folk ones, but those made more coherent by scholarly apologetics). So as to protect them from the ravages of what would be termed "scientism" today. He feared society would fall apart if it had a heavily malleable ethics that was based on Hume's view of stemming from unstable feelings (also dictated by consequences), and the contingent and relativistic situations of the phenomenal world, rather than duty (laws that were universal in extant).

For instance (to over-simplify this severely), a person benefits from a partner who loves them out of duty or principle rather than obscure sentiment or carnal rewards, because the latter is going to bail out on them when they no longer feel that way or the going gets rough.

Similar with tribal members who support each other out of duty, rather than variable contingent circumstances.

But, again, that's a crude, introductory depiction. Whatever the actual rules outputted by the categorical imperative would be, they surely wouldn't consist of blind loyalty to a person or persons, especially if the latter were breaking those global rules themselves. The intellectual allegiance would be to the laws.

- - - footnotes - - -

[1] However, this doesn't necessarily rule out an absolute God having a compromised avatar of itself or a mediator that is subordinated to the material template. But the latter shouldn't be mistaken as the former.

[2] Kant, from "Opus Postumum":

(21:83) Reason inevitably creates objects for itself. Hence everything that thinks has a God. [Obviously that would have to be refined to rational agents that "think a certain way" that would lead them to such a need.]

(22:123) It is not a substance outside myself, whose existence I postulate as a hypothetical being for the explanation for certain phenomena in the world; but the concept of duty (of a universal practical principle) is contained identically in the concept of a divine being as ideal of human reason for the sake of the latter's law-giving [...breaks off...] There is contained in man, as a subordinate moral being, a concept of duty, namely, that of the relation of right; to stand under the law of the determination his will, which he imposes upon himself, and to which he subordinates himself -- which, however, he also treats imperatively, and *asserts* independent of all empirical grounds of determination (and [which] is determining merely as a formal principle for willing).

(22:129) In moral-practical reason, there is contained the principle of the knowledge of my duties as commands, that is, not according to the rule which makes the subject into an [object], but that which emerges from freedom and which [the subject] prescribes to itself, and yet as if another higher person had made it a rule for him. The subject feels himself necessitated through his own reason (not analytically, according to the principle of identity, but synthetically, as a transition from metaphysics to transcendental philosophy) to obey these duties. What God may be can be developed from concepts, by means of metaphysics; but that there is a God belongs to transcendental philosophy and can only be proved hypothetically.

[Magical Realist]

But the thing is, an absolute, immutable "God" by definition couldn't DO anything without being perversely subordinated to time (change) and space (having extension, size, location, malleable outer appearance and other traits). Becoming the same as natural entities -- being yet another "developing" entity, subservient to a higher regulating process Itself or alternatively being an array of differentiated states that co-exist as some higher dimensional version of an _X_'s total sum of stages and configurations.[1]

Well put! I have always had this objection to a God's existing but never took the trouble of articulating it. No matter how he is conceived, God is still just another objective being subordinated to a world of material events and the spacetime continuum. He is only manifested as a finite person participating in a dominating scenario of chance, determination, and contingency. It seems all the attributes that qualify him as a deity like omnipotence and infinitude and omnipresence get nullified by his personal and "physical" (impinging in the physical domain) nature. Christians might respond that this is the nature of Christ's incarnation--that the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us--but I don't buy that. To the extent that God exists and is relatable as a person, to that extent does he lose his transcendental nature as a God.

[C C]

[...] It seems all the attributes that qualify him as a deity like omnipotence and infinitude and omnipresence get nullified by his personal and "physical" (impinging in the physical domain) nature.

Yah, as expressed in footnote #1, a perfect God might potentially have a compromised "personhood" avatar or lower level demigod at work in the natural world (I'm merely guessing it's not wholly ruled out by further analysis), but via those malleable material attributes, it becomes an unreliable mediator ranging from slight to great. All the more so with the fully human "prophets" supposedly delivering _X_ from an ultimate God.

[Syne]

But the thing is, an absolute, immutable "God" by definition couldn't DO anything without being perversely subordinated to time (change) and space (having extension, size, location, malleable outer appearance and other traits). Becoming the same as natural entities -- being yet another "developing" entity, subservient to a higher regulating process Itself or alternatively being an array of differentiated states that co-exist as some higher dimensional version of an _X_'s total sum of stages and configurations.[1]

Well put! I have always had this objection to a God's existing but never took the trouble of articulating it. No matter how he is conceived, God is still just another objective being subordinated to a world of material events and the spacetime continuum. He is only manifested as a finite person participating in a dominating scenario of chance, determination, and contingency. It seems all the attributes that qualify him as a deity like omnipotence and infinitude and omnipresence get nullified by his personal and "physical" (impinging in the physical domain) nature. Christians might respond that this is the nature of Christ's incarnation--that the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us--but I don't buy that. To the extent that God exists and is relatable as a person, to that extent does he lose his transcendental nature as a God.

That's complete nonsense. Both the notion that an unchanging god couldn't do anything and that it is somehow subordinate to the world it created. I guess that sort of misunderstanding is to be expected of atheists.

Since a god would be the one responsible for space, time, and causality, taking action within those only makes it subordinate to itself...which is only being logically consistent (not contradicting itself). It doesn't somehow, magically, diminish a game maker to player their own game.

[Zinjanthropos]

Why do I feel that if God existed, we are property? Not sure how morality fits in there. However to be owned or indebted to just because I’m a resident of this reality doesn’t make me feel comfortable, in fact quite worthless and powerless. A distinctly divine and rare form of slave, with or without free will.

[Ostronomos]

I get the feeling there’s nothing God can do that’s immoral.

But the thing is, an absolute, immutable "God" by definition couldn't DO anything without being perversely subordinated to time (change) and space (having extension, size, location, malleable outer appearance and other traits). Becoming the same as natural entities -- being yet another "developing" entity, subservient to a higher regulating process Itself or alternatively being an array of differentiated states that co-exist as some higher dimensional version of an _X_'s total sum of stages and configurations.[1]

A invulnerable God would instead be the provenance for the physical realm by being a supreme principle or kind of intellectual Platonic form prior in rank to those material characteristics.

Well put CC!. Occasionally, this God interferes with the physical realm and becomes subservient and subordinated to time and space. He is well aware of His compromising stature.

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Why do I feel that if God existed, we are property? Not sure how morality fits in there. However to be owned or indebted to just because I’m a resident of this reality doesn’t make me feel comfortable, in fact quite worthless and powerless. A distinctly divine and rare form of slave, with or without free will.

Yes but it has its advantages.

[Zinjanthropos]

Why do I feel that if God existed, we are property? Not sure how morality fits in there. However to be owned or indebted to just because I’m a resident of this reality doesn’t make me feel comfortable, in fact quite worthless and powerless. A distinctly divine and rare form of slave, with or without free will.

Yes but it has its advantages.

Has a plant any morals? Does it care whether or not you smoke it, get high, and ponder god/universe? You’re just as much a slave to a plant as you are to God. Can I equate god to a plant since morality doesn’t apply to either of them? God/plants seem like porn....the actual words/images/narcotic effect have no morals but a person who delivers, receives or uses them supposedly does.