Says Who, Part II

I asked Craig at his blog a very rational, very appropriate question. It's one he said he'd answer.

I asked him:

IN A WORLD WHERE PEOPLE OF GOOD FAITH HAVE DIFFERING OPINIONS about any moral questions dealt with in the Bible, how do we objectively determine who is understanding it correctly?

Craig responded NOT with an answer but with links to three different people. Fair enough. I have long said that these guys don't have to do the work themselves. This is a big, important question and if conservatives HAD an answer to it, it'd be readily available, out there in the blogosphere, easy to find and reference. His first link (the one I deal with here) was to a Dr Craig.

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/reasonable-faith-podcast/how-are-morals-objectively-grounded-in-god

After reading and re-reading this post, TRYING in great good faith to find an answer to that question, here is my response to Craig:

My very brief response to your first source (Dr Craig, in a conversation with Kevin Harris) is this: Do you think he is making the case that he has objectively proven his specific moral opinions? Or that he's objectively proven that God has provided objective proof of morality or the answer to SOME moral questions? Has he answered the question of, when people of good faith disagree, how do we objectively determine who is understanding biblical text correctly, specifically as it has to do with moral questions?

If you think he's provided something like objective proof to ANY moral questions, please point out where. I've read and re-read. I don't see it. He makes claim upon claim but he never even tries to objectively prove that we have authoritative objectively proven answers to any subset of moral questions. 

I think what he's clearly doing is making his rational case for why a person might reasonably conclude that morality IS, at some level, objective... what he doesn't do is provide any objective proof of ANY moral questions.

Understand: I allow that there may well be objectively moral right and wrong. I think, clearly, that it is wrong to abuse babies, for instance. I think it is obvious. I don't think there is any question about it... BUT, I don't see how I can objectively prove it beyond claims to "it's self evident, duh!" I am not arguing - have never argued - that morality doesn't have definitive right and wrong answers. What I've consistently said is that we can't objectively prove our moral opinions, EVEN IF some action is objectively immoral. 

Do you understand what I've been saying all along?

Moving on...

So, the guy leads with an unsupported set of claims:

1. I think of God as the embodiment of the moral good. 
2. He is the paradigm of goodness. 
3. He defines what goodness is.

I certainly agree that God is good. That phrasing is not how I would put it though.

But on a larger scale: At this point, it's just a subjective claim. He hasn't proven objectively that there IS a god or that this God is good or that this God defines what goodness is. Nor does he explain what HE (the author) means by defining what goodness is.

He continues with distinguishing between values and duty, again with no support, just empty claims.

Values concern the moral worth of something – whether it is good or bad. Duties concern whether something is obligatory for us – whether it is right or wrong. I see moral duties as rooted in the commandments, moral values is rooted in the nature of God.

Says who? Why is it not also reasonable and perhaps likely that morality is simply that which IS good, itself. It's GOOD to offer a hand to someone who has fallen to help them up... it's kind, helpful, something that we appreciate. Just because it is, itself, a good thing to do. WHY is it good? Because it's how we would hope someone would treat us... it's a positive impact on human rights and concern in the world.

At any rate, that's another theory as to why something is good, but, nothing that he objectively proves. Continuing to read...

He also makes clear that he's not one of the people who say something is good or bad, just because God whimsically defined it that way. Or at least, appears to.

if God just made up what is right and wrong arbitrarily, then I would agree with you. That would be the ultimate in subjectivity. 

So, good for him, as far as that goes. He continues:

His commands to us are expressions of his will, but these are rooted in the divine nature – in his essential moral properties like justice, kindness, compassion, truthfulness, and so forth.

And on and on I read. And re-read. So, as far as I can see, this guy doesn't - doesn't even TRY to - objectively prove morality. The closest that I can see that this guy comes to a serious claim about morality is this:

I think to say that moral values are objective is not to say that they are always clear. Certainly there can be areas of gray. 

Some things are clearly right or clearly wrong but in between there can certainly be difficult moral questions that are hard to discern what is right and wrong. To say that there are objective values and duties is to say that in any moral situation that you find yourself in there is a right thing to do and there is a bad thing or a wrong thing to do. But it is not to say that that is always easy to discern. 

So we must not confuse epistemology (which is how you know moral values and duties) with ontology (which is the reality of the moral values and duties). I am not making a claim that because these things objectively exist that they are always easy to discern.

Duh.

That is, he acknowledges it's not always "clearly right..." But then, that seems to be just what I'm saying. That there may indeed be objective moral realities, but do we have any objective way to objectively PROVE our opinions about objective moral realities? I don't think so and this guy doesn't answer that question. Instead, he just says, "it's not always easy to discern..." Yeah? So? CAN YOU or can you not objectively prove your moral opinions about specific actions/ideas?

He simply does not say. That's as far as he goes with it. Right? I don't see ANY answers to that question, do you? If so, please provide them.

He goes on to say:

Exactly. If there were no God, I think there would be no objective moral values.

"I THINK... if there were no God, I THINK there would be no objective moral values..."

Where is the authoritative, objective proof of anything in that? Is he not admitting it's a subjective opinion, not a proven fact? 

It looks like to me that this guy, like all the others before him, is simply offering his reasoned opinions which are not objectively supported.

How am I mistaken?

We'll see if Craig tries to answer.

As Always, Says Who?

 

angry sinners in the hands of a loving God 

I can't help myself sometimes. I just have to ask questions that always - always - go unanswered and even unacknowledged. Stan, at his blog, was pontificating about how we know morality (in Stan's opinion, which he claims is God's opinion):

So "good" is not determined by your standard versus my standard. It is determined by God.

Another way of asking the reasonable questions that won't get an answer is this:

Rational failure 1: 

YOU, mortal and fallible human that you are, have a THEORY... a guess, that "morality is determined by God."

You haven't proven that theory, you and folks like you just promote it as if it's a given and as if you don't have to even TRY to support it. 

AND given that you are a mortal, fallible human, why is your collective theory impervious to being mistaken?

Rational failure 2. Let's ASSUME that your human theory/guess is factually correct (again, something you absolutely haven't proven... it's literally a human theory you and other humans like you promote from your own reasoning...): 

How do fallible humans rightly determine what God has determined about morality?

Presumably, he would answer (with no support), The Bible! as if that were some sort of infallible proof (that is, his human theory that the Bible has God's answers to moral questions, objectively proven). But okay, IF the Bible is the "source" for understanding God's perfect rulings system (the one that humans like Stan theorize about), how do we fallible humans understand the "moral rulings" given by God as found in the pages of the Bible (as you theorize)?

By reading it? But I read it and you read it and we come to differing, sometimes totally opposite conclusions.

At that point, how do we determine who is understanding it correctly?

The human people who agree with you?

That's hardly objective proof, right?

Don't you see the huge hole in your human theory that you're just openly ignoring?

More questions that will remain entirely unaddressed.