3 Comments

  1. John G. Boulet M.D. said:

    Your arguments hinge on the fact that God is love, willing perfectly to give of Himself to others for the sake of others. I agree..
    But…. you say: “In another world could God have prescribed a moral code so completely contradictory to this world?”

    Indeed, there cannot be “another world”….. Why?

    I take this additional step: We exist at all because God is love. The fact of our existence is, I believe, the ultimate argument for the internal incoherence of any view of reality other than the Christian one. Why, after all, I ask, would a God who is irrational or a tyrant, or impersonal, or unknowable have created us to begin with? If God were the God of any other religion, then we should not exist at all, because there would be no motivation for such a “god” to create us.

    For example, one other religion that I can think of conceives of “god” as being inherently irrational and as having created us as his servile slaves who are to worship him, without any reference to loving him. I argue that such a “god” cannot exist, because “he” — or “it” — would have no motivation to create us.

    Would “god” create a creature whose purpose is to suffer? Whose whole end is to endure unending torment for ages and, indeed, for eternity? Why? There is no “logic” in such a “god”, because it is not possible to conceive that such a “god” could take delight in creatures who are manipulated, without free will of their own, for the sole sake of suffering.

    The reverse is true: Nor would there be, or could there be, a “god” who creates marionette creatures whose sole purpose is to “enjoy” an unending, eternal garden of sensual delights — also in the absence of love. Such a situation places “god” in the situation of wanting to create a creature to whom there would be, and could be, no relationship.

    No…. Reality is relational, God is personal; God is loving; we exist because of God, the triune God who “thirsts” for love overflowing. All other religions and philosophies — or negation of the meaning of existence at all — all of these cannot explain the very fact of our existence to begin with.

    December 20, 2016
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    • Matt Nelson said:

      Good stuff, John. I completely agree that our existence is a result of God as love, thus demanding a spirit of gratitude. Furthermore, it is precisely from our existence (and the existence of the physical world) that St. Thomas Aquinas was able to argue deductively to the existence of God in his Summa and elsewhere. So you are spot on.

      Your “marionette” observation regarding the absurdity of a world that exists as “an unending, eternal garden of sensual delights” reminds me a lot of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, in which he gives what many people consider to be a prophetic account of such a dangerous ideal.

      Lastly, in regards to my reference to “another world”: this was meant purely as a philsoophical illustration, a thought experiment. It is not a logical impossibility that the world exist in a different way (it is possible to imagine the world being different than it is). That being said, God for all of eternity had this world in mind and for that reason things could not have been different. My whole purpose of referring to a hypothetical other world was to show that God could not have commanded different commandments given His nature.

      Thanks for reading the article and giving your feedback. Merry Christmas!

      Matt

      December 21, 2016
      Reply
      • John G. Boulet M.D. said:

        And a great, happy Christmas to you and your family. And thank you for your great observations!

        December 26, 2016
        Reply

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