Lots to write about today. 

So first of all, I've moved to Connecticut, and I'm set up in my new place. It's beautiful. The apartment complex is very quiet; there are some woods with paths going out into them, and a nice pond, right behind our unit. We're not too far from all the stores we need, and my commute isn't too too bad (although my wife prefers me to be home as soon and as much as possible to help with Isaac.) Chowon is adjusting really well to the rural lifestyle; it's really not that different from living in Phoenix, except that all our drive times are a little longer. 

Oh my goodness, I just remembered I have a list of things I need to accomplish!

Bleh; Memorial Day Weekend was too good. I almost forgot all my worries.

Here are some things that keep happening to me in debates, which drive me nuts:

- Appeals to authority

- Appeals to common opinion

- Utilizing emotionally charged examples to gain the high ground

- Saying that since a word means X in one place in the Bible, it must mean X in every place.

- Saying that a word means X in one place of the Bible, even though it never is used to mean that in any other place.

Anyway, I've been plugging away at some theoretical stuff for a while now, and I want to get it down in my blog. I'll start by summarizing several ideas which I've covered before, and the end of this will be to tie it together into explanations which I think are satisfactory. Topics to be addressed include: Euthyphro, God as the author of evil, the problem of evil, predestination and moral responsibility, and my most recent trouble: the nature and relevance of duty.

Alright, so to start off (I think I've covered this a number of times before): Euthyphro. What makes a thing good or evil? Is it good because God said to do it, or did God say to do it because it's good? If it's good because God said it, then it's arbitrary; God can say conflicting things and there will be true contradictions about goodness (ftr, true contradictions are not allowable). If God said it because it's good, then goodness is a standard outside of God, and God is not ultimate in morality.

The answer to this one is easy: It's good because it aligns with God's character. God says it because it aligns with God's character. God's character is unchanging, so the standard won't change. God's character is not arbitrary, but rather all things are dependent upon His character, (which also defines his creative will), and so morality is not arbitrary.

That comes up terribly often for a problem with such a simple answer. Some rebuttals have included things like, "doesn't that make 'God is good' a tautology?" which is also a really easy one to rebut. "God is good" isn't a tautology because "good" in that statement lacks a definition and is presently subject to query, whereas "God" is known by his many deeds and words recorded in scripture. Furthermore, "good" describes a characteristic of God; whereas "goodness simpliciter" does not have the capacity to act, it can be a "good thing" for one described by "goodness" to act. So, "God is good" does not teach us about God, but it rather teaches us about "good". Goodness is conformity to God's character.

That leads us into the issue of God authoring evil. God predestined everything; didn't he decide that evil deeds would happen? If so, isn't God evil?  To answer this, remember: goodness is conformity to God's character. Inversely, evil actions are actions which are not consistent with God's character. That is, ask the question: "if God were in my circumstance and station, with my abilities and limitations, and my authorities and relations, would he do X?". If the answer is "no", then it's evil. If the answer is "yes", then it's good. (this is a bit of a simplification, but I think it is sufficient to build upon). 

Now, we know God's character because of his actions. It is not outside of God's character to create something capable of deviating from God's character. It is not evil to do so. It is not outside of God's character to plan on someone deviating from God's character. It is not evil to do so. 

So, did God author deeds which deviate from his character? Yes. Does that make God evil? No. An analogy I like for this: the author of a book may write in characters who do things that the author would never do. The author of the book does not deviate from his own character in doing so. God is like this author. (A witty person will now deduce, "so you're saying that God is the author of evil", and with the above qualifications, yes I am. Note that I didn't say anything about God tempting us or whatever. This is about God's sovereignty)

So now for the problem of evil. Why did God make a world where people do evil things?  Another easy one: God did it for his glory. Just read Romans 9:22-23 -- we're the pot and he's the potter. 

Someone will ask, "Couldn't God have glorified himself without all the suffering?" And the answer is easy: no. God is no fool; he invariably chooses the best possible way to glorify himself, (and he apparently revels in surprises hence our inability to know the future). God does not waste meaning; consider that he has summed up all instruction sufficient for training in righteousness in a book that fits in your pocket; yet human law has spent so much paper just on minute interests, such as taxation, that it could stack all the way to the moon and back several times.

Then the chorus returns with, "It's very bad for God to glorify himself through our suffering."  Well, first of all, remember the definitions for "good" and "evil". Everything God does is good by definition -- so, no. Secondly, a person who says this has proved that they are unregenerate -- they have overvalued human feelings and sensations (human suffering) and undervalued the glory of God. Christians under the influence of the Holy Spirit know better (see Acts 5:41). Furthermore, consider that suffering itself isn't evil; suffering is rather a consequence of evil. 

Up next, a common objection from Arminians: predestination and moral responsibility. if we are predestined to an activity, then how can we be held morally responsible? This one is also not difficult if we firm up our commitments to the prior answers. Moral responsibility is not a function of some transcendent code outside of God. It's a function of God's unchanging character. Since it is unchanging, it is also predictable -- cause and effect. This is no affront to God; God's actions are surely predictable to himself, and he commands us to count on his promises, because they are sure and will predictably come to pass. Certainly we cannot predict all of his actions -- he's infinite and we are finite; we can't comprehend enough of him to generate informed predictions about anything other than those things which he has expressed to us (his promises, his creation, etc). Consider that this is the same character from which all of nature sprang, including the cause and effect relationships upon which all of it hinges. Morality and nature are both expressions of the same God's character. 

Now, if you are predestined to sip some coffee, would you argue that it should not go into your stomach because it was predestined? That would be absurd. Moral culpability is likewise a function of cause and effect; if you steal, predestined or not, then you incur guilt by virtue of the action. Does God ever punish the innocent or acquit the guilty? No, his character, his nature, forbids it -- this is why a sacrifice was needed for our forgiveness; justice had to be done.

And finally, the chorus again: "but I didn't choose to do it if I was predestined." Well, firstly, yes you did. A "predestined choice" is still a "choice". Secondly, it doesn't matter. Just like the coffee entering your stomach as a result of your actions, moral culpability is a result of what you willed and did, and is not abdicated simply because you are predestined to will or do it.

This is where many Arminians will accidentally quote Romans 9:19b to me, or circle back to the prior point under "problem of evil" with a question like "but why did God do that?" (to glorify himself), and then "isn't God very bad to glorify himself through my sin?" (it is not wrong for God design you to deviate from his character -- see the section on God Authoring Evil), and then "isn't God very bad to be glorified by our suffering?" (you have undervalued God's glory and overvalued suffering).

Basically, moral responsibility is a function of cause and effect, along rules defined by God's character. I contest that we have zero scriptural grounds for thinking otherwise.

This leads me to my last point: the nature of duty. This has been bothering me for quite some time. I was thinking about it, and about the issue of moral responsibility, and it struck me that duty is perhaps another function of nature, like morality. Duty is clearly evidenced in scripture by statements like "husbands, love your wives", "children, honor your father and mother", and "slaves obey your masters". Duty also appears to weigh heavily into the attitude which we are required to have toward God -- "love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and strength". God also says, "If I am a father, where is my honor? If I am a master, where is my respect?". These relationships appear to hinge on a mechanism quite similar to morality, and it seems to me that duty is simply a facet of that same morality.

This seems like an accurate description of duty, and I believe it represents much progress toward an answer for the questions I have about duty. But if we stop with only the above, I still have some lingering dissatisfaction. I'm quite content with the discussion about what motivates morality, but duty has a unique characteristic which is not like what I think of when I consider the rest of morality, in that it is entirely dependent on relationships. That is, a lone person in an empty universe might perfectly contain, without expressing, exclusive capacity for certain kinds of non-relational righteousness (if there exists any such thing), and thereby have perfect conformance with all other parts of morality. But a lone person could not contain duty, because duty is always an obligation toward someone else. How then could God produce duty as an expression of a singular character? (That is, all things are expressions of God's character. If God's character is singular, how can the requirement for duty be an expression of that character?) I suppose he could not, and would not, except it is rather the case that God exemplifies duty by being three in one, and dutiful one to another within himself. He has true and real interpersonal relationships with the other persons of himself.

And this leads also to a question about whether there is any moral rule which is not also an expression of duty. If not, then the above relation -- duty's dependence on the trinity -- may be said to be applicable to all of morality, and the distinction between duty and morality eliminated. This last clue, I suppose, might eventually lead to a more thoroughgoing argument for Christian morality. It kinda makes me want to go buy some books by Van Till..

"Oh, how life imitates art."