Divine Command Theory Collapses Into A Metaphysical Absurdity

MetaChristianity

Divine Command Theory breaks down and collapses into a logical absurdity as we follow through with its premises and push through to their endpoints as we traverse Logical Impossibility, The Good, Reason’s obligation, Reason’s final terminus, and reality’s concrete furniture vis-à-vis the Trinitarian Life.

One way to unpack this is through the prototypical “Moral Dilemma” and we’ll move forward into that after a few preliminary concepts are put into place. Regarding the Dilemma we will find the following question:

“What’s the “right” or “good” option when all logically possible options entail less than the ideal — less than Moral Excellence?”

No Moral Excellence In Privation:

We’ll get to that question on that “Moral Dilemma” in a moment but first there are a few preliminary premises which are required to expose the error of some of our Non-Theist friends in their treatment of “Moral Excellence” outside of our own perfection of being. Those include the following contours:

Ontology beats rhetoric and we find therefore that anyone who equates ((1)) the pains of Privation vis-a-vis all things Adamic ((…slavery for example and etc…)) to ((2)) The Good // The Moral Ideal of Timeless/Eternal Kingdom Metrics is theologically and metaphysically and emotionally uninformed. Evil is not a positive substance but is instead a deficiency of substance ((Being, Good, Etc.)) — Evil is therein a Hollow or Vacuum of said substance — and that is Evil as Good’s Privation — as “The Good Minus Something“. The Christian Metanarrative Defines Slavery as Privation’s Pain **therefore** The Christian Metanarrative Cannot Have a “Pro-Slavery-Verse”.

Our Non-Theist friends too often go about their criticism of the Christian Metaphysic by selectively expunging both reality as it actually is and also the Christian’s metaphysical landscape of Privation. Perhaps the assumption is that doing so is going to help their premise/premises do (real) work but of course one cannot invent Non-Christian landscapes and then claim one is exposing problems with Christian premises.

One concern which lives in that motive to remove and expunge is obviously tied to a concept of Goodness in the sense of Final Goodness or Moral Excellence. Another concern is that same concept of Goodness and Moral Excellence but WITHOUT the Fall so that what results (…too many of our Non-Theist friends wrongly assume….) is something along the the lines of “But The Fall Is Fiction So Therefore The Commands Were Bad Anyway” (and so on).

The problem with that dodge or hedge is that IF we instead affirm something other than the Fall and instead affirm an Ontic Incline Godward with respect to all things Adamic, then nothing for our Non-Theist friends is solved. In other words, with respect to Moral Excellence, one can pull off such hedges only through Fallaciously Equating Eden to Eternal Life and (thereby) ignore and expunge from our Metanarrative those two outward facing doors found within Eden, each necessitating nothing less than a radical category change vis-à-vis the ontology of all things Adamic (…the one into Privation and the other into Eternal Life / Wholeness…). Recall that “Privation” in the Christian Metaphysic is The Good Minus Some-Thing and both that proverbial Incline Godward/Upward and that proverbial Fall Downward carry us into a point in the meta-narrative in which either way the proverbial A–Z with respect to The-Good remains non-malleable. Therefore neither Map changes what is needed for Closure vis-à-vis The-Good as such Closure cannot in fact “BE” but for various Transcendentals (….which Non-Theism cannot actually provide…). Either way with respect to all things Adamic it is the case that all things Sinai are arrived at in and by nothing less than 1. a full-on Downhill Ontic which is itself 2. out of / exiting from that which is 3. all things Edenic.

Briefly for now there are typically two false premises lurking beneath the surface in all of that:

1. Evil is necessary for Good/Love/Freedom. That’s false. What is necessary for Good/Love/Freedom is Good/Love/Freedom.

2. God cannot create the Causal Agent capacitated to openly choose amid some finite [SET] of actual (ontic) options. That’s obviously false given the context of Being Itself as the Creator, as the Ground, and as He Who Continually Sustains the Seat of the Created Self in and by and through the Principle of Proportionate Causality (…as described in https://metachristianity.com/beings-superseding-ontic-over-both-material-and-non-being/ …).

Some context on those two:

A. http://disq.us/p/1zs9su4 B. http://disq.us/p/1zt3qcc C. http://disq.us/p/1ztl80l D. http://disq.us/p/1zuwk8r

E. http://disq.us/p/1zvhv8l F. http://disq.us/p/1zvghk8

Before going on we should point out one area that is True/Valid within the Divine Command Theory (the DCT) lest it appear that there is nothing inherently sound within it. While the DCT as a whole collapses into a Metaphysical Contradiction, there is one key premise (perhaps a few others) which is True/Valid and worth noting. One such feature is of course the fact that just as in all worlds “Being” streams from/in “Being Itself” so too in all worlds “Good” streams from/in “Goodness Itself” or “The Good” and therein we find the force of logical necessity compelling us into the Christian Metaphysic. Two brief quotes then before moving on:

“…Now, I do think that God, being loving, kind, good (and so forth), would not command certain actions. Take for example the act of torturing babies for fun. Given the badness of such an act, a loving God would not command it to be done. This claim differs from saying ‘given the badness of such an act, a loving God should not command it to be done.’ — One might worry that there is something independent of God which constrains God’s will. Here are three short replies. First, some DCT proponents such as Robert Adams and William Lane Craig argue that God is The Good. If God’s commands are constrained by reasons based on goodness and God is the Good, then there is nothing independent of God which constrains God’s will after all. So this is not a problem for DCT proponents who hold such a theory of goodness….” (from https://www.moralapologetics.com/wordpress/2018/7/6/on-the-third-option-to-the-euthyphro-dilemma-a-reply-to-real-atheology )

And the second:

“….Everybody is going to have his explanatory ultimate in his moral theory, whatever that might be… Any being that is worthy of worship – that is maximally great – is a very plausible stopping point for these why-explanations and for being one’s explanatory ultimate in the moral sense. [The] famous meter bar in Paris… The meter, as a length, was or can be taken to be defined in terms of the length of this bar. It is not that the bar approximated some abstract measure called a meter. The meter was just defined as being the length of that bar in the Office of Weights and Measures in Paris. That would be a very good example or illustration. God is like the meter bar with respect to the good. Another example that I find interesting is the sound of a live orchestra serves as the paradigm for what counts as high-fidelity in recording. A high-fidelity recording means it approximates to the sound of the live music. But the live music itself doesn’t approximate to anything else. It just is the paradigm for what counts as high-fidelity….” (from https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/reasonable-faith-podcast/the-euthyphro-dilemma-once-again )

Back To The Moral Dilemma:

Here’s reality “as it is” given the landscape of the aforementioned Privation (…or instead that Incline Godward / Upward and so on…) vis-à-vis the proverbial dilemma:

“…in a hypothetical war we find a few hundred people hiding and the crying baby will give away the hiding place of the 100 adults, hence they’ll be found and killed. The options: we can kill the baby and save the 100 or we can let the baby cry and sacrifice (thereby) all the adults and the baby too in the end…..”

In the middle of war’s hell we find that killing the crying baby in said time of war to save the many isn’t “Morally Good”, but it might be justified given this or that horrific impact of doing otherwise – with the catch that there is no World-Contingent Metric which can satisfy “justified” in that syntax given that there is only One True Ideal. Just the same, sparing the baby and sacrificing the many in said time of war isn’t “Morally Good”, but it might be justified given this or that horrific outcome of doing otherwise – again with the catch that there is no World-Contingent Metric which can satisfy “justified” in that syntax given that there is only One True Ideal with respect to The-Good, or as some say The-Always & The-Already.

Regarding The Illusive World-Contingent Metric:

Before we shout Consequentialism one must push through to the End of any Contingent World and get beyond all possible Possibilities and Counterfactuals such that one lands in, not this or that Contingent Fact but, instead, in the Necessary vis-à-vis Ending Evil vis-à-vis The Good vis-à-vis Ending Privation (…..in short one must arrive at Closure irrespective of a. Privation or b. Incline Godward….).

It is only “there” where we find That-Which is not and cannot even in principle be the-consequence-of this or that World Contingent Vector or Metric.

Just the same it is logically unavoidable in all of this that there are no options which rise to the level of Moral Excellence in such a world. And in fact Scripture expressly defines the pains of Privation (…which is “The-Good-Minus-Some-Thing“…) as that which constitutes – not just a few ingrained mindsets in a few cultures – but reality itself. Even further, we find that such a reality sums to that very same category of World unless/until/pending nothing less than the “ontic-fact” of the only logically possible dissolution of a Vacuum (….as in “The-Good-Minus-Some-Thing”….) which is to In-Fill said Vacuum with nothing less than All Sufficiency’s Own Self-Outpouring into, and through, and to the bitter ends of that category of reality / world. As another Christian once pointed out to our Non-Theist friends:

“….As a side note, I don’t think executing child-molesting cannibals is, in your words, morally good….”

Now, how in the world would that act not be “Morally Good”? Because there is a Moral Better – or – a Higher Moral which does *not* include the destruction of the Man (….all narratives in Scripture converge in the Cross, in Christ…) and as such the Non-Theist has no rational grasp on what is actually being discussed here with respect to any coherent ontic in and of The Good. It’s almost as if fictions really do matter to our Non-Theist friends rather than the bitter reality of the pains of Privation with respect to, not a few ingrained mindsets, but of reality itself. That seems to motivate the unfortunate posture behind our Non-Theist friends with respect to their odd habit of beginning and ending all related analytics with,

“But Sinai…. But Sinai …..But…but… BUT SINAI…!!”

The Christian reply to that fallacious “Sinai Is God’s Eternal Ideal & The Means To Moral Excellence” is straightforward:

You’re struggling over a very simple fact, which is that you won’t find any Morally Excellent vector within Privation (..or “The-Good-Minus-Some-Thing“…). Notice that if one posits that Incline Godward then the syntax does not change as, all over again the problem is that of “The-Good-Minus-Some-Thing“. Hence either way we find the following simple fact: You just won’t find any Morally Excellent vector in any such Landscape. None. Zero. Every vector will, at some seam somewhere, come up as lacking good. That’s the whole show, and, so, though you suggest there is “parsing out” needed by the Christian, there is not and in fact cannot be any such need for any such “parsing-out.”

It’s not clear but it seems that our Non-Theist friends STILL want to claim that Scripture’s Metanarrative tells them and us to look to Sinai for the Means and the Ends of The Good – for the Means to the actualization of Moral Excellence in and through All-Things-Adamic. The reason that is the case is because they seem to have merely recast the entire question in this or that Non-Christian set of premises.

Unfortunately for such Straw-manning Scripture is quite clear about the means and the ends of [A] Laws in all/any time/place, including Sinai, with respect to all possible explanatory termini and also of [B] All-Sufficiency’s Own Self-Outpouring as the only logically coherent explanatory terminus.

What men do – Christian or not – Theist or Atheist – never can be “enough” with respect to any ontology of the Immutable & Necessary. We have to be careful about stopping our unpacking at the metric of normative shifts, else this or that action (…say… slavery or whatever…) forces the logical absurdity of A. condoned and a slice of the Good rather than B. tolerated and a slice of Privation. Rather, our metric must both precede and outdistance all such normative shifts. The necessary and sufficient “Means” to the “Ends” of that which is “The Good” is not, and never can be, the hard fist of Law, which is why God meets us right where we live such that Sinai is, according to the OT and the NT, anything but God’s Ideal for mankind as He works and speaks with us beneath our own conceptual ceilings. Now, that mode of tolerance on God’s part is a means towards the restraint of death rather than a means into “The Good”.

Meta-Christianity 101, day 1, lesson 1: God’s Will from A to Z

A Copy/Paste of most of http://disq.us/p/1kgunj1 here:

The A and the Z press in and Sinai’s (factual/ontic) moral deficiency is left behind for (factual/ontic) Moral Excellence. But why? And how? Why is it and how is that you, that I, that we in our natures miss the mark (…insert any list of sin/sins…) daily and yet even still are found in Christ?

The prototypical “John Newton” kidnaps human beings and trades slaves and thereby violates Exodus 21:16 and while Sinai falls short of God’s Will for John Newton by Death in Sinai – defined by Scripture as The Ministry of Death – God’s Will for John Newton is that Far Better wherein we begin to discover the (..factual, ontic…) Why and How of the proverbial Everyman – of the homosexual – of we who sin daily – of the prototypical John Newton being found alive and well in God, in Christ, intentionally embraced there.

“Glaring Moral Data” — That is what finds in Law/Moses the content of Law’s work-arounds with respect to the mindsets of the day as hard lines of distinction between Condone and Tolerate in that landscape are forced into the entire moral landscape of “Life” outside of the work of God’s Own Self-Outpouring – outside of Christ – or Pre-Christ – vis-à-vis Sanai. And yet our Non-Theist friends opine with a polemic which in fact rejects Scripture’s own description of the Law’s content of work-arounds with respect to conceptual ceilings – with respect to the pains of Privation of – not a few ingrained mindsets – but of an entire world. As described earlier regarding the sine qua non of Goodness,

“….God explicitly saying so through Jeremiah and Jesus himself saying that they were granted laws, not because they are good in of themselves, but were accommodations to the hardness of their hearts, and asking more of them would have been futile. And so on. The perfectly egalitarian human relationships of Genesis 2 is the ideal moral paradigm of the Old Testament….”

Therein Power’s Three Options and Metaphysically Necessary Tolerance weigh in, as in:

Part 1: http://disq.us/p/1kcmvsj

Part 2: http://disq.us/p/1kcnm6a

Ontological cul-de-sacs are logically impossible → Basic Ontology 101 →

http://disq.us/p/1kguuxo →
http://disq.us/p/1kivcmn →
http://disq.us/p/1kgunj1 →
http://disq.us/p/1kj2q0b →
http://disq.us/p/1kkf6iw ←

More context arrives readily in unpacking common errors in various treatments of “THE CURSINGS” via The Psalms — as per https://metachristianity.com/the-cursings-via-the-psalms/

Divine Command Theory vs. Containing Death v. Giving Life

Our hand is forced by the bulldog of logic into the contours of Scripture’s wider Metanarrative as we discover that The containment of Death (All Laws In All Cultures In All Times) is far, far different than The Giving of Life (All-Sufficiency’s Self-Outpouring, as nothing less will do).

Now, if our Non-Theist friends want to RE-Define “The-Good” into this or that normative metric, then, yes, they can find a “good” law, or at least it will be good for a generation or two pending some new wind of preference and taste and/or some new wind of Nadir/Peak with respect to vision or need. But that is not interacting with Scripture’s wider Metanarrative – and in fact it finds our Non-Theist friends interacting only with a verse here and a verse there with respect to Sinai.

Again: Our Non-Theist friends are struggling over a very simple fact, which is that we won’t find any Morally Excellent vector within “The-Good-Minus-Some-Thing” (…whether we speak of Privation or of that Incline Godward/Upward…). None. Zero. Every vector will, at some seam somewhere, come up as lacking good (…overlapping with http://disq.us/p/1rstak0 …).

Divine Command Theory As Absurdity Once Again

A bridge to another reason why Divine Command Theory is in fact a reductio ad absurdum arrives as we unpack the following comment from one of our Non-Theist friends:

“I realize that there’s a difference between the idea of Yahweh and the idea of the source and ground of all reality and I expect the other commenters here do, too. From my perspective it’s mostly theists who equivocate in this area – when it suits their argument, of course.”

Notice the error of defining the Necessary by the Contingent (….again still another logical impossibility…). The premise that a. the conceptual ceilings of contingent beings in fact b. define the actual ontological referents upon which Christian premises actually “land” is misguided. It’s akin to equating a. Physics/Cosmology for b. Ontology “As-If” the two are convertible. In fact that same false identity claim leads many to reason and argue “As-If” it is actually possible that Sinai was, is, or even can be God’s Eternal Ideal for Mankind.

Whereas, given that the ONLY “Means” which will do is nothing less than All-Sufficiency’s Own Self-Outpouring it is logically unavoidable that the Cruciform Lens is the only logically possible lens and that is because “The-Good” cannot be defined by, land in, ANY contingent set of possibilities or counterfactuals in this or that Possible World.

Divine Command Theory As Still More Absurdity

On the Christian Metaphysic, and on the bite of the bulldog of logic, “The-Good” is nothing less than “GOD” and therein “Command” necessarily entails this or that Created Order and that carries us (….IF we are to apply Divine Command Theory…) into the the metaphysical absurdity wherein The-Necessary vis-a-vis The-Good becomes Contingent upon the Contingent – which (obviously) eventually collapses into a logical impossibility – a metaphysical absurdity. That is one of the many reasons why Divine Command Theory is in fact a reductio ad absurdum.

Thinking-it-through: All of that and far more is “WHY” all which constitutes “Sinai” is defined by both the Old Testament and the New Testament as that which lacks the Far-Better which is up-head. Think it through one more time:

“The-Good” is nothing less than “GOD” and therein “Command” entails this or that Created Order such that The-Necessary vis-a-vis The-Good becomes Contingent upon the Contingent – which eventually collapses into a logical impossibility – a metaphysical absurdity.

“…God Condones The-Good-Minus-Something As “Good”…”

There again we have all the same errors and logical impossibilities and so we end up again with a statement which collapses into yet another metaphysical absurdity. Indeed….it’s like pulling teeth and… so… let’s also now think-that-through:

Given that the Means and Ends under review here are NOT in Sinai and given that Scripture itself claims just that fact, and given that it is logically impossible for “GOD” to in fact “condone” in any meaningful sense this or that slice of “Privation” (….this or that slice of “The Good Minus Some-Thing” ….) as “The-Good”, and given that Man’s true good, his final felicity, is in fact “The-Good“, and that THAT just is God Himself, we find that Scripture’s definitions with respect to the Means and Ends of Moral Excellence never would come though Sinai but must come in and through nothing less than All-Sufficiency’s Own Self-Outpouring. Given the fact that Moral Excellence is logically impossible via the reach of Sinai, we find that the phraseology of “God Condones X” necessarily fails to go through when it comes to the Old Testament landscape.

There is more on that topic a few paragraphs down, but, a few references till then:

a. http://disq.us/p/1y85jdc
b. http://disq.us/p/1rulker
c. http://disq.us/p/1n6a0s4
d. http://disq.us/p/1n6b4nq
e. http://disq.us/p/1n6884o
f. http://disq.us/p/1n5yc5q

All of that forces a logical impossibility which is itself secondary to a kind of Ontic-Cherry-Picking which weaves its way through the polemic of our Non-Theist friends as said polemic makes the fallacious moves of:

Equating Privation to Wholeness
Equating the Privation of God’s Will to the Actualization of God’s Will
Equating the Privation of The Good to The Good.

All of which, again, sums to one grand, far-reaching logical impossibility. It is helpful to focus our proverbial Lens (…. http://disq.us/p/1udcl8a …) upon Reason and her Proper Terminus as per Reason’s Obligation which necessary follows The Good:

R² wasn’t defining obligation. In fact obligation isn’t found in the Command. It’s in The Good — as in God. That’s the “problem” with “Sinai” when it comes to the necessary *means* to actualize the *ends* of the Perfection Of Being.

Law/Sinai restrains death and cannot bring Life. Only the Outpouring of All-Sufficiency can Quench, Fill, the Void that is “Privation”. Every solution to Evil other than the Cruciform Lens tries to fill that Void with something contingent, something less than All-Sufficiency.

[Sinai-Full-Stop] wrt the [Perfection of Being] is a logical contradiction, a metaphysical absurdity.

Did you catch it? 1. Obey the Law and it’s not enough. 2. Have no Law and it’s not enough.

Obligation is found weighing upon Reason as truth-finder. What is needed is Light (for Reason) and All-Sufficiency, and there we find His “Proposal” to us His beloved, and our free and informed “Reply” to the Potential Groom’s Proposal.

Why that landscape? Because Love’s interface in our particular world is the Imago Dei — and the Blueprint for that is nothing less than love’s Timeless Reciprocity vis-à-vis Being’s Ceaseless Self-Giving vis-a-vis The Trinitarian Life.

Indeed, given all of the above we begin to discover that Reason’s Obligation in her proper role as truth/fact finder necessary follows The Good vis-à-vis The True and not some “lesser-some-thing”. The content at https://metachristianity.com/reason-reality-golden-thread-reciprocity has about 10 areas where the word “obligation” is used and it looks at that term vis-à-vis the metrics of A. that which is Moral & Good & Whole as converging in the full-on ontological seamlessness with B. the metrics of that which is Rational & True.

“God-Condones-X” Is, Yet Again, A Logical Absurdity:

Given the fact that Moral Excellence is logically impossible via the reach of Sinai, we find that the phraseology of “God Condones X” necessarily fails to go through when it comes to the Old Testament landscape. The reason Sinai is defined by Scripture as the Ministry of Death comports with our moral experience and our experience with differing conceptual mindsets and ceilings. Sinai never can Give Life but in fact (according to Scripture) it can only Restrain Death.

Divine Command Theory – Still The Reductio

R. Rauser makes the following observation:

“…..Pinker is not claiming Genghis Khan’s actions were fine. Rather, he’s pointing out the cognitive dissonance with Jews & Christians condemning Khan’s actions as immoral while approving as good the same actions when undertaken by Joshua (et al)…..”

That reveals Pinker’s error of applying the reductio ad absurdum of that which sums to the Divine Command Theory. Our Non-Theist friends make the embarrassing error of leaving out Scripture’s own definition of itself with respect to Sinai, with respect to The Good, with respect to Moral Excellence, and so on, and so on. For example, according to Scripture and according to logical necessity it is logically impossible for all things Sinai and all things Divine Command to in fact sum to the Means to the End of Moral Excellence v. our own perfection of being and so on.

Added to that is the fact that Scripture of course claims a Far-Better. Not only that, our Non-Theist friends expunge the unavoidably downhill ontic which traverses the real estate moving from the Edenic’s Egalitarian milieu to/into Privation (…The Good Minus Some-Thing…) and Sinai.

Is “All-Sufficiency” Poured Into “Vacuum” The Only “Way”? There Is Only “One” “Way” To Closure?

Obviously it is Logically Necessary that there is in fact ONLY ONE LOGICALLY POSSIBLE WAY vis-à-vis the fact that there is only one Necessary Being vis-à-vis the fact that Being Itself and nothing less houses All-Sufficiency-Itself. Many Non-Theists find such Logical Necessity making them uncomfortable, which is fine as there is a right way to process that syntax of “One” “Way” and there is a wrong way. For example: Is there really only ONE way? Regardless of our explanatory terminus, in the end we have only two options:

1. The Necessary Being ~ Necessary All-Sufficiency (…Thy/Other…).
2. The Contingent Being ~ Necessary In-Sufficiency (…I/Self…).

In the end, given the nature of love, necessity, contingency, and sufficiency one of those two in fact must descend, must pour out, must be debased while the other one of those two must ascend, must be infilled, must be raised / glorified. Notice that such is true of all possible worlds regardless of Fall or Not, of Sin or Not, of Fall vs. Incline Godward/Upward (from earlier), and so on. One must push one’s terms through to their necessary terminus and, therein, we arrive, if we don’t stop too soon, here:

Is it rational to be bothered by the fact that contingent beings are in fact contingent and therefore totally (ontic) and eternally (ontic) in need of The Necessary Being? Is it “immoral” that Necessary Insufficiency (Man / Imago Dei) necessarily cannot find Eternal Wholeness BUT FOR drinking of that which sums to Necessary All-Sufficiency (GOD)?

Given what is in fact referenced by the syntax of Necessary/Being, the option of something akin to, say, [Many Necessary Beings] is a logical impossibility (and a metaphysical absurdity), and, also, the option of something akin to, say, [the contingent being *void* *of* *need*] is a logical impossibility (and a metaphysical absurdity). That is all rather basic, elementary, irreducible, and so on.

Is that *fact* somehow *immoral*? Is “reality” immoral because I am not the Necessary Being? Either I am the Necessary Being – God – or else Reality is somehow Immoral? Should God in fact LIE to us about “that” proverbial Living Water? Is God “immoral” for giving us that proverbial “Lens” by which to “See”?

Recall we are discussing the question of “Is there really only One Way?” so far here. But we cannot stop unpacking “there”, not yet — let’s keep going: When thought through to the end we find a necessary and unavoidable “Total Insufficiency” with respect to our proverbial “ontic-status” and that seems to bother some — let’s keep going — and the question is then this: Why on earth would such a basic feature of reality bother ANYONE?

In fact, some *even* seem to count the fact of that ontic-status as an Immoral Claim for “…God / Being Itself…” to actually declare to a world He in fact loves.

As bad as that is, we cannot stop yet — let’s keep going: Logic forces us to ask: Should God Lie? Is the term *need* somehow wrong or immoral? Is the syntax of “One-Logically-Possible-Terminus” somehow wrong or immoral?

*IF* we mean to find wholeness, sufficiency, our true good, our final felicity, the perfection of being (…and so on…) *THEN* all vectors converge and our hand is forced by what that all reveals about that the nature of what we mean by The Necessary Being and by the contingent being and by self/other and by love’s volition and so on. The question of A. FROM WHERE does the Contingent Being find Eternal Life and the question of B. HOW CAN the Contingent Being find Eternal Life BUT FOR the Necessary Being – press in with the force of logical necessity.

Our hand is forced to conclude that it is All-Sufficiency Himself, and nothing less, by which and through which the Interface of those Ontic Categories arrives fully intact. Should the truth of that reality – of our necessarily contingent ontic-status – NOT be revealed to Mankind by The Necessary Being? Should God lie to us? Withhold those Facts from us?

Our Non-Theist friends often see the unavoidable in all of that and, still hoping, offer a trade:

“Logically Necessary? Yes, okay, sure, you got me there, but the whole Just-One-Way thing bothers me anyway, and so I reject it!”

Okay so let’s work with that: Assuming one is referencing, say, Cosmic Fairness, if that is the end-point of one’s concerns, well then one has not pushed one’s terms through to their necessary ends. It is in the Christian metaphysic alone where one is able to rationally retain Cosmic Fairness (…as per https://metachristianity.com/heaven-hell-cosmic-fairness-ethic-love/ …). Also, it is not only Cosmic Fairness which compels us, but also logical necessity compels us. The unavoidable terminus of Reason & Reciprocity in seamless singularity with Logic & Love finds what some referent as The Always & The Already, the proverbial A to Z.

Divine Command Theory – Still The Reductio Ad Absurdum

“……universal morals that transcend the Mosaic Law…. / …The Mosaic Law was limited to a time and nation, but morality was not……”

That was from https://www.str.org/articles/how-does-the-old-testament-law-apply-to-christians-today#.XIu7nChKhPZ and that theme shows up over and over again.

The Critic’s Inane Appeal of, “More Laws! More Laws! More Commands! More Commands!” populate his (misguided) Hope and as his (irrational) Solution to the pains of Privation:

“….[…flavors of…] “But it was 500 years before Sinai – so how were there any moral facts?!” [….mixed with flavors of….] “God who is simultaneously so foolish and weak that he can not make commandments which disavow cultural ethical failings….?”

Notice that the critic is actually claiming that the Old Testament, and Sinai, and Law, and so on, is the most important message in the universe, the beginning and end of the narrative. Therein the following was given in reply to that misguided set of premises:

You’re either uninformed or dishonest with respect to that premise. What led to an execution? What were the variables involved? List them all. If you can. Or, are you inventing definitions based on those few verses while expunging the other 99.9% of Scripture?

Just as uninformed, you’re appealing to the force of Law as God’s Means to His Ends of the annihilation of Privation and all that flows with “that”. Think about Command & Law as **your** claim to such Ends and see if you can figure out how inane your formula is.

Whence can come the annihilation of Evil, of Privation? If you understand that Evil / Privation in fact just *is* [Good Minus Something] then it is immediately apparent that one is faced with the annihilation of an absence or lack. And, just as immediately apparent, the *ONLY* possible ontic for such an End is the filling of said absence/lack.

Therein: All-Sufficiency’s Self-Outpouring.

*THAT* particular logical necessity with respect to the unavoidable interface amid the Necessary Being and the contingent being seems to bother you. And yet it’s logically impossible for said “interface” to be otherwise — as in:

a. http://disq.us/p/1n6a0s4

b. http://disq.us/p/1n6b4nq

c. http://disq.us/p/1n6884o

d. http://disq.us/p/1n5yc5q

Divine Command Theory – Again The Reductio Ad Absurdum

Quote: “This is part of the problem of this whole conversation. One half is to accurately describe what was going on in the Old Testament…. and one is the moral vision of the Old Testament as a whole. It’s absolutely vital to understand that the Mosaic law was not God’s ideal, it was God working with a certain people group in a certain cultural context to fulfill the Abrahamic covenant of bringing a certain kind of blessing to the world (a savior and kingdom of God). That the law was not God’s ideal is apparent in the narrative of the development of the law, God explicitly saying so through Jeremiah and Jesus himself saying that they were granted laws, not because they are good in of themselves, but were accommodations to the hardness of their hearts, and asking more of them would have been futile. And so on. The perfectly egalitarian human relationships of Genesis 2 is the ideal moral paradigm of the Old Testament….. ……the overarching argument involves the necessity to point out that none of this is representative of God’s ideal. You make a huge jump from tolerance to endorsement from God’s perspective that doesn’t take into account the moral vision of the biblical narrative……. the job of the critic is to demonstrate the premise of God’s future-oriented, creation repairing agenda as a falsehood, and that the Sinai covenant represents His ideal for all mankind, forever. Until the critic does that, trying to force “endorse” into the key hole of temporary, forward looking tolerance [of things we’re told He hates] is dialectical wishful thinking……” End quote (by GM).

Abraham & Isaac & Shortsighted Attempts To Justify Divine Command Theory:

a. Abraham, Faith, Divine Command Theory, & Basic Reading Comprehension at http://disq.us/p/1yh7bgt

b. Abraham, Isaac, and God’s Foreknowledge at http://disq.us/p/1yhjehw

c. Abraham, Isaac, Kierkegaard’s Paradox, Cyrus, & Isaiah 45:7 at http://disq.us/p/1yhjyrv

d. God Emotionally Tortured Abraham?? at http://disq.us/p/1yhkd08

God as Being Itself in fact is The-Good and thereby the Vectors/Agenda which stream from said Fountainhead define The Good. Oddly, our Non-Theist friends will often ask,

“Would you kill someone if your God told you to? I wouldn’t!”

Given the Christian Metaphysic the reply is (…from the Christian….) No-If-Christ and (…from the Non-Theist, from Psychology 101, from Anthropology 101….) Yes-If-That-Non-Theist (…true for any of us of course…) had been raised in Abraham’s conceptual milieu which was quite comfortable with Child Sacrifice – for then given the eternally open-ended Normative Ethics (which is all Non-Theism has) it’s obvious that the Non-Theist (…in fact anyone…) if raised beneath that ceiling WOULD obey ANY “God” should that “God” have enough weight to draw his attention/devotion.

The REAL question is A. what is the Agenda of the Christian God and 2. why is it logically impossible that Abraham kills Isaac and 3. how is it possible that the Non-Theist misses the obvious answers. For God to first Meet and then Stop Abraham in the middle of his own conceptual comfort with Child Sacrifice isn’t a difficult sub-narrative and yet our Non-Theist friends cannot grasp the obvious logical necessity that in all possibilities the child Isaac remains untouched. As discussed in the four links a, b, c, and d.

Okay. Fine. You Got Me. So Then WHAT Is The Solution To Evil?

Divine Command Theory collapses into an absurdity to the degree that it sources The-Good To Sinai and/or to the degree that it sources the Means to The-Good to Sinai. Well fine – we all get that but – since we find that said Reductio’ is logically necessary should we stubbornly cling to Divine Command Theory anyway – we must ask WHERE and HOW and with WHAT (then) do we find the MEANS to the business of Ending Evil?

“….God Ought Put An End to Evil… What Of Ending Evil…?”

Ending Privation with respect to this or that World? Ending “The Good Minus Some-Thing” with respect to this or that World? Well yes, only, it seems our Non-Theist friends have no idea what such a thing looks like or even could look like. All of the initial lines converge and ask a rather simple question to “get the ball rolling” as they say:

Should God NOT create Eden and so then NOT create love’s landscape which we find in and through the Metanarrative of A. Groom/Proposal juxtaposed to B. Potential Bride / Volitional Reply? CAN God create the Already Freely Married (Heaven) given love’s necessarily volitional vectors vis-à-vis that singular landscape of [Groom/Bride – & – Proposal/Reply]?

One must account, first, for the following:

http://disq.us/p/1xvfeu6

http://disq.us/p/1xv6v4f

http://disq.us/p/1slxh6k

In order to avoid confusion and silliness our Non-Theist friends need to recall the Christian premise in play here: Evil is Privation, which is [The Good Minus Some-Thing]. So, here within the pains of Privation exactly what are our Non-Theists friends actually demanding? An End to what? What is entailed in “Privation” and the “End” of “Privation” vis-à-vis an entire world/reality?

CAN our Non-Theist friends unpack their own demand for us? On Non-Theism own terms? Our Non-Theist friends don’t seem to realize the irony in the fact that with and by their demands here they are actually demanding their way into a full-on Metaphysical System such that they may end up where they don’t want to be — affirming what they don’t want to affirm.

Their demand must itself tell us HOW it is that Privation vis-à-vis Reality is in fact Ended. Must the Necessary Being, or All-Sufficiency vis-à-vis Good vis-à-vis Being in fact Pour-Out and Into all that is Insufficient, all that is contingent, all that is in Privation? In fact it is logically impossible for the perfection of being to come by any lesser means and therein the only rational Means to the End that is Unending Wholeness is nothing less than All Sufficiency Himself vis-à-vis Goodness Himself vis-à-vis Being Himself and His Own Self-Outpouring into and through to the bitter ends of all things Adamic – as all the syntax of Logos In Descent pushes through.

A. Whence can the Contingent Being find Eternal Life but for the Necessary Being?

B. Whence can the Contingent Being’s necessary insufficiency with respect to self-sufficiency find Eternal Life but for that which sums to Necessary All-Sufficiency as the Necessary Being’s Self-Sufficiency? As per:

1. http://disq.us/p/1muihvj

2. http://disq.us/p/1ndhrgp

3. http://disq.us/p/1ndhwfj

4. http://disq.us/p/1xr8t0l

Obligation Comes In & By Reason’s Obligation As Truth-Finder:

Recall from earlier here the discussion on the source of moral obligation (….see https://metachristianity.com/reason-reality-golden-thread-reciprocity/ ….) and — also — recall from earlier here that Evil is in fact [The Good Minus Some-Thing]. It is at that location with respect to Lack/Vacuum where we ask whence can come the annihilation of Evil, of Privation? If we understand that Evil / Privation in fact just *is* [Good Minus Some-Thing] then it is immediately apparent that one is faced with the annihilation of an absence or lack. And, just as immediately apparent, the *ONLY* possible ontic for such an End is the filling of said absence/lack.

Therein again: All-Sufficiency’s Self-Outpouring.

THAT particular logical necessity with respect to the unavoidable interface amid the Necessary Being and the contingent being seems to bother Non-Theists. And yet it’s logically impossible for said “interface” to be otherwise.

“Is there really only one way?” is looked at in http://disq.us/p/1rulker and there are some overlapping vectors in the following:

a. http://disq.us/p/1n6a0s4

b. http://disq.us/p/1n6b4nq

c. http://disq.us/p/1n6884o

d. http://disq.us/p/1n5yc5q

With respect to the question of Whence Moral Obligation we can add a few more layers here as we recall that we are speaking of Obligation itself laced throughout Reason itself laced throughout The Good as we discover in reality’s concrete furniture nothing short of the Irreducible Ontic Singularity that is The Trinitarian Life. It is there that we discover the Singularity of Reason & Reciprocity or we can say of Logic & Love and — so — when we speak there of All-Sufficiency’s Self-Outpouring we are not inventing love nor are we grounding love within any World-Contingent frame of reference. Instead we find that all such Timeless Processions sum to Indestructible Love vis-à-vis the Trinitarian Life:

In the Christian metanarrative we find the Trinitarian metaphysic and therein “….that eternal one-another…” and therein love’s timeless Self-Giving in and by and of nothing less than the irreducible diffusiveness of the Ontic-Self in totum with respect to …being itself… and, thereby – once again – The Always & The Already, or that which is ceaselessly Beneath and Above – namely “Love & Necessity” as an ontic singularity.

It is there that we find in the Christian metaphysic the intellectual and moral grounds for affirming the term, “Love Himself” vis-à-vis the A and the Z of the Trinitarian Life / Trinity with respect to the Decree of the Imago Dei (…and all which comes with “that”…). That is to say, it is there that we find nothing less than the immutable love of the Necessary Being (…and all that comes with “that”…).

That is to say, it is there in nothing less than Being that we find The Always and The Already constituting love’s timeless reciprocity and Self-Giving diffusiveness of the Ontic-Self in totum (…and all that comes with “that”…). It is *that* explanatory terminus which is reality’s rock-bottom, reality’s irreducible substratum – the A and the Z of every possible ontic, of every possible sentence.

That uncanny A — Z finds the immutable with respect to, not “only” Being Itself (as it were) but instead Being Itself as love’s timeless reciprocity and therein we find Ceaseless Self-Giving revealing the fundamental fabric of reality’s concrete furniture (…as per http://disq.us/p/1wq6j96 …).

Let’s Get Specific: If God heals my cancer today and I die in ten years from cancer (or etc.) is that “Ending Evil”?

Well of course not. And then that carries us into a common straw-man:

“….Morality in the Christian paradigm is too cryptic and to mysterious….one cannot reason through it and define God’s Will with respect to “Good”….”

Cancer? Evil? Suffering? Worse? Better? We must pause here and ask if our Non-Theist friends “recognize” the Christian terms there? Well of course. Does one “recognize” that “Cancer” is in fact “lack” and is in fact “bad” and “evil”? Well of course. The reason that question must be asked is, again, because our Non-Theist friends too often insist on something like, “….Morality in the Christian paradigm is too cryptic and to mysterious….one cannot reason through it and define God’s Will with respect to “Good”….” The Straw there stems from a common false identity claim, namely that “A = B” where “A” is “God Uses All-Things For Good” and “B” is “God Wills All Things, Condones All Things, Causes All Things” (…we’ll not address here/now “B”‘s obvious error of “Occasionalism” in which God as the First-Cause is conflated for God as the Only-Cause…. as such is another topic that what we are zeroing in on here with respect to the Divine Command Theory and metaphysical absurdity….).

The Fallacy Of The-Greater-Good Theodicy

There is NO such thing as The Greater-Good “thing” for anyone to appeal to. See the following two items:

http://disq.us/p/1xvfeu6

http://disq.us/p/1xv6v4f

In fact there is only one Singularity to appeal to, and that is the Decree of the Imago Deiand what (thereby) love necessarily entails and necessarily leaves as impossible. We come again there to that Cancer question and an observation:

[Death] is the #1 Killer in the World. Therefore [Eternal Life] and nothing less is the #1 dissolution of our #1 problem. In fact, BUT FOR [Eternal Life] there is no Ontic Resolution of the #1 killer in the World.

So we must ask if our Non-Theist friends are demanding eternal unending life and wholeness? Perhaps even void of Suffering? If so then they’ve only two options, none of which help them:

A. If they are NOT asking for such an End then they are stopping short of coherence for suffering must enter somewhere and finds only its own eternally open-ended contradiction – leaving their claims finally fallacious. Note that there is no cryptic mystery here as of course we all still “recognize” the Christian’s terms vis-à-vis the moral terms in play here.

B. If they ARE demanding such an end of suffering then again they are demanding what Non-Theism can never give them vis-à-vis the Final Good as per Eternal Life as per Unending Wholeness…. and so on.

So again we ask, what does “Ending Evil” necessarily “look like”? The following “To Create / Not-Create” is a brief observation as per a. http://disq.us/p/1xv6v4f and b.http://disq.us/p/1slxh6k and c. http://disq.us/p/1xr6yav

Segues:

Another category or lens with respect to the question of Pain and Suffering is found within the following question: “Wasn’t There Pain & Suffering In Egypt’s First Born?” as per https://metachristianity.com/wasnt-there-pain-suffering-in-egypts-first-born/

Our Final Section: To Create? To Not Create? Part 1:

There’s more further down, but, for now we can simply ask this:

A. By which metrics will we Ask/Answer that question? Love’s metrics? Well yes. Of course. But then how does one rationally damn love’s begetting of love either within The Trinitarian Life (…God Not-Creating….) or within the Divine Decree of the Imago Dei (…God Creating…)?

B. Is it Good and Logical and Valuing-Of-Love on our part if we fault God for begetting love vis-à-vis the Trinitarian Life wherein we discover Timeless Reciprocity vis-à-vis Ceaseless Self-Giving with respect to Being in totum? How is it that one can rationally claim (there) that “God Is Un-Loving?

C. Is it Good and Logical and Valuing-Of-Love on our part if we fault God for begetting love in the Creative Act vis-à-vis the Decree of the Imago Dei?

Again those questions are as per a. http://disq.us/p/1xv6v4f and b.http://disq.us/p/1slxh6k and c. http://disq.us/p/1xr6yav

Why Not Heaven / Perfection Of Being From The Get-Go?

A handful of key assumptions are missed in that question. The syntax of A. Groom and B. (Potential) Bride and C. (His) Proposal and D. (Her) Reply and E. (Their) Wedding and F. (Ontic) Births and G. (Metaphysical) Lucidity all press in upon us here such that we find the following:

“IF” God should Decree and fashion the Imago Dei, “THEN” there can be no such reality as the creation of the “freely-already-married” and, therein, we begin to discover that His love’s Proposals are not the same (in content/yield) as her Replies and Replies are not the same (in content/yield) as Weddings, and, for all the same reasons, Weddings are not the same (in content/yield) as Gestations, and, also, Gestations are not the same (in content/yield) as Birth which themselves are not the same (in content/yield) as New Worlds as such relates to the Door into God’s Ideal, a Door which faces outward from both within Eden and from within Privation.

In fact we are carried into nothing less than both Groom/Bride – and – Proposal/Reply as the Simplicity of I-Thee-Wed presses in. For us to demand unending wholeness & no suffering is rational as both are Good and both sum to The Whole but IF we mean to say that God can Create such from the get-go by creating round squares akin to “The Already Freely Married” such that A. All-Things-Adamic are found bypassing B. All-Things-Edenic THEN we are offering and/or asking for a mere absurdity, a round-square given the necessary contours of love amid self/other. Recall the necessary distinctions amid Proposal / Reply / Wedding and the necessary metaphysical differences both in content and in yield. Recall again:

Again recall that to demand unending wholeness? No suffering? Well again yes but then the Metric is nothing less than Eternal Life and, therefore, our hand is forced and Non-Theism becomes its own contradiction even as the Christian Metaphysic retains lucidity.

Our Final Section: To Create? To Not Create? Part 2:

Scripture lacks the provision of logical certainty with respect to Eternal Conscious Torment vs. Universalism vs. Conditional Immortality. It is here where the Non-Theist must not over-reach as we discover Scripture’s lack of logical compulsion into logical certainty there. In fact we find obvious and even necessary reasons for that ambiguity, one of which is the Fallacy of Necessity and/or Goodness in any sort of Threat-Full-Stop paradigm or in any body of premises dealing with the interface of God/Man:

1. http://disq.us/p/1z00vz7 and 2. http://disq.us/p/1xvkoyr and 3. http://disq.us/p/1yd9lxj and 4. http://disq.us/p/1z7j4cr and 5. http://disq.us/p/1z06rze and 6. http://disq.us/p/1z4bl75 and 7. http://disq.us/p/1z4ce3b and 8. https://metachristianity.com/heaven-hell-cosmic-fairness-ethic-love/

Our Final Section: To Create? To Not Create? Part 3:

Why Create if Evil is possible? What about Eden & Possible Worlds? What about faulting God for begetting love as such relates to God Creating? Most of what has come up to this point is looking at Ending Evil vis-à-vis Ending Privation but of course Fall Or No Fall we find the SAME unavoidable interface amid God/Man or amid Necessary-Being/Contingent-Being and that is because Sin Or No Sin we find in Man, quite obviously, that which sums to the Necessary Insufficiency of ANY Contingent Being vis-à-vis its own Self-Existence. Obviously the seamlessness which we find here in the syntax of Fall-Or-No-Fall adds context and reach and so the following are a few items added only for context (…and not to give any full-on argument….) with respect to “The-Necessity-Of-The-Edenic” and so on:

A. True In All Possible Worlds —PART 1— True Pre-Eden – True In Eden – True In Privation Pre/Post Christ – True Until Wholeness / Heaven – True After – True Always & Already which is at http://disq.us/p/1zzs59j

B. True In All Possible Worlds —PART 2— True Pre-Eden – True In Eden – True In Privation Pre/Post Christ – True Until Wholeness / Heaven – True After – True Always & Already which is at http://disq.us/p/1zzy8ml

C. The Adamic, The Edenic, Free Will, God’s Will, God’s Decree, Incarnation, and Possible Worlds —PART 1— at http://disq.us/p/1mj0mc2

D. The Adamic, The Edenic, Free Will, God’s Will, God’s Decree, Incarnation, and Possible Worlds —PART 2— at http://disq.us/p/1zvghk8

E. The Adamic, The Edenic, Free Will, God’s Will, God’s Decree, Incarnation, and Possible Worlds —PART 3— at http://disq.us/p/1zzsxyp

F. With Or Without The Fall vis-à-vis All Possible Worlds — at http://disq.us/p/1zxdloe

G. The Question of Causality vis-à-vis Causes of Evil: Did God Create Evil? — at http://disq.us/p/1zxdq9v

Our Final Section: To Create? To Not Create? Part 4:

From those links above we have a few brief samples of four possible claims:

A. God created possible worlds vis-à-vis creating the Edenic and therefore God created Evil.

B. God created possible worlds vis-à-vis creating the Edenic and therein God did not Create Evil.

C. Given the Sum of Evil it is the case that God’s Reasons for permitting said Evil are inscrutable, even unintelligible.

D. It is the case that [Gratuitous Evil] Is A Metaphysical Impossibility.

As we work through those it turns out that the claim, “God’s reasons for allowing evil are inscrutable & unintelligible…” is incoherent and even demonstrably false as all vectors converge within “D” in our discovery of the fact that it is the case that Gratuitous Evil is a metaphysical impossibility and, also, as all vectors land in in a full-on contradiction of the the error of Occasionalism (…found in “A”….). For example, the following is NOT quite accurate:

“…..God allows various evils to occur because they will result, ultimately, in a surfeit of goods which outweighs the evils endured. Perhaps the simplest way to put the idea is as follows: no pain, no gain…..”

The reason that is not quite accurate is as follows:

The Greater Good umbrella does not find God allowing [ABC and/or the Possibility of ABC] “….in order to get to….” XYZ. Instead, God allows [ABC and/or the Possibility of ABC] not to gain or to get to some End but, rather, because it is a logical outflow (it is logically necessary) given His Decree of this or that World or Reality (…or etc.) — and it is remarkable how so many can muddy the waters with this concept which is no more complicated than the following:

To Decree “Square v. World X” is to find “Round v. World X” an impossibility (and so on).

Man’s final good, his true felicity, his Terminus or End is, given the Decree of the Imago Dei, nothing less than God Himself and therefore the options/possibilities regarding Man’s Ends are never ultimately between Ends vis-à-vis world-contingent possibilities or counterfactuals outside of the immediate interface of Man/God as per Self/Other — but — instead — all options/possibilities regarding Man’s Ends are always inside of / between one’s Self and God — between Self/Other – and why? Well that is obvious once we realize that the only Ontic Blueprint for Ceaseless Self-Giving streams from the Trinitarian Life.

Specific to Gratuitous Evil there is the why/how it is impossible given that such requires that we find some part of [All Things] which God’s Hand either does not or else cannot Hold/Use for Good (…see http://disq.us/p/1vc9vwd …).

There again we find the incoherence within the Non-Theist’s claim that the Moral Paradigm of what God counts as Good is somehow Unintelligible and/or Inscrutable. In all of this we come upon reality’s only Blueprint of love’s timeless reciprocity and upon reason and upon the fullness of ontic-means and ontic-ends as the eternal Processions of the Trinitarian Life (God / Trinity / Being Itself ) provide us with the following ontology:

The irreducibly rational just is ontologically seamless with the irreducibly beautiful which just is ontologically seamless with the irreducibly moral which just is ontologically seamless with love’s indestructible self-giving — which is itself seamless with the Divine Mind — which is itself seamless with Infinite Consciousness amid Divine Simplicity – which compels us into a thoroughly Trinitarian Metaphysic – and we are thereby compelled into an Adamic landscape wherein the perfection of Reason just is the perfection of Consciousness, which just is the perfection of Love, which just is the perfection of Being.

Metrics of Pre-Eden vs. Eden vs. Privation vs Perfection:

Metrics of “The Adamic” in “The Edenic”

Metrics of To-Create and Metrics of To-Not-Create

Following Through:

http://disq.us/p/1n88dze which carries forward to
http://disq.us/p/1n9dmru which carries forward to
http://disq.us/p/1n9feuh which carries forward to
http://disq.us/p/1n9fawe which carries forward to
http://disq.us/p/1n9rf6h which carries forward to
http://disq.us/p/1mj0mc2

—END—

More Generally Speaking:

A. Divine Command Theory = Reductio Ad Absurdum which is an older version of this content at http://disq.us/p/1z5us5a

B. Amalekites? Conquest? Sinai? Condone? Moral Excellence? Means & Ends? at http://disq.us/p/1z50shs with a few items for context at http://disq.us/p/1z5th9q

C. “Kill All That Breathes”?? “Divine Command Theory”?? at http://disq.us/p/1z5vlo5

D. For the Half-Narrative: http://disq.us/p/1lrhj88 and http://disq.us/p/1wq4x70

E. For the Full-Narrative: http://disq.us/p/1knyg3u

F. Prototypical John Newton v. Everyman: http://disq.us/p/1kgunj1 and also at http://disq.us/p/1z7vifq

G. For the Non-Theist who tries so hard to agree: http://disq.us/p/1kj2q0b

H. “God Ought End Evil?” Ending Evil? Ending Privation?” at http://disq.us/p/1y85jdc

I. The Four Overlapping Circles of Racism at http://disq.us/p/1z71xpg

J. Pastor Martin Luther King Jr. on Being, Non-Being, & The Summum Bonum Of Life at http://disq.us/p/1z49fop

K. Shouting “Disagreement Exists!” Is Not An “Argument” at http://disq.us/p/1z72rat

L. War is evil? Well yes. And? It’s ugly and on **all** fronts comes up short of The Good? Well yes. And? You’re correct. But agreeing with Scripture’s definitions like that isn’t enough. One has to show that one has one’s OWN Non-Theistic rational justifications for holding such a belief. But you don’t seem to. By that we mean as per a.http://disq.us/p/1y84cou and also as per b. http://disq.us/p/1wq43ok and also as per c. http://disq.us/p/1w6epee and (again) for the Non-Theist who tries so hard to agree: http://disq.us/p/1kj2q0b

M. Israelite Conquest?

N. Old Testament Wars? at http://disq.us/p/1u7o9ku

O. “What does that verse **SAY**??” athttp://disq.us/p/1vepymf

P. Canaanite (Gentile) and Jew and Crumbs and Dogs Eating Crumbs and Basic Reading Comprehension at http://disq.us/p/1uxge1w

Q. Ancient Israel & War & Syntax & Sinai & Basic Reading Comprehension at http://disq.us/p/1vec6vg

R. Tolerance & Society? at http://disq.us/p/1thty95

S. Sinai and looking for Moral Excellence:

a. http://disq.us/p/1tgseh0
b. http://disq.us/p/1tgriz7

T. Leviticus 12 & Sin Offering For Childbirth? Unclean Woman? – at http://disq.us/p/1wutrpn

U. Male, Female, Egalitarianism, Misogyny, Slavery, Metanarrative, Subnarrative, Bias, Views, & Ontic Definitions – at http://disq.us/p/1u5ej8p

V. Moral Facts? Non-Theism? To be clear it is NOT Non-Theists which cannot / do not find Moral Facts but — rather — it is their own Non-Theism which cannot find Moral Facts WRT Racism Or Anything Else. How so? Well first we have 3 Narratives as per 1. http://disq.us/p/1mxt9q0 and 2. http://disq.us/p/1mxstu8 and 3. http://disq.us/p/1mxto3s

And secondly we have still more content as per a. http://disq.us/p/1z61v1f and b. http://disq.us/p/1wq43ok and c. http://disq.us/p/1y84cou and d. http://disq.us/p/1w6epee and e. http://disq.us/p/1w3l3fn and f. http://disq.us/p/1titjw1 and g. http://disq.us/p/1j5ioqb and h. http://disq.us/p/1sozwi7 and i. http://disq.us/p/1u9rudl