Joseph Noonan

I am going to point this out to you; the PNC is circular because it presupposes propositions.

Your position is weaker than Bonnettes.

You make the weird claim the Trinity is a logical contradiction

That's hardly a weird claim.

God is not a moral agent buddy in Classic Theism ergo yer objection is again a non-starter.

If God isn't a moral agent, then he isn't all-good. I don't really care about classical theism's bizarre attempts to define "God" in a way that doesn't conform to the way believers actually use the term just so that it can get around objections like the problem of evil. The God of Catholicism is certainly a personal being, and so is anything that I would be willing to call "God".

From a Theistic point of view “in a sense” the Eutheryphro dilemma is true. In a sense it is “impossible” for God to be “all Good” and or “All Powerful” if God really exists and evil exists as well(or at least maybe half of that is true).

So you don't have any idea what the Euthyphro dilemma is. (Hint: It has nothing to do with the problem of evil).

God is All Good but God is not morally good. Or more specifically God is not a moral agent.

If you want to talk about a God who is all-good but not morally good, then you simply aren't even addressing the problem of evil. The problem of evil is not about some other use of the word "good".

Or even more specifically God is not a moral agent unequivocally comparable to a virtuous human moral agent & or virtuous rational creature.

If the same moral rules that apply to humans don't also apply to God, then there is no objective morality.

God given His nature & relationship to creation has no obligations to His creatures so He cannot be morally condemned for not giving them what He "owes" them.

Morality is not about what you "owe" people in the sense of some sort of payback or bargain. A good being treats others well regardless of whether he owes them anything. If a person allows horrible things to happen to others just because he doesn't owe them anything, then he is a horrible person.

God is All Good because He is Metaphysically Good and Ontologically Good or Goodness Itself and the source of goodness in all things. But God is not a moral agent as we are moral agents. Indeed to say Classic Theistic God is not good for not immediately stopping the Holocaust makes about as much sense as saying Plato's Form of the Good is not really good since It too didn't stop the Holocaust(which is actually saying the same thing but I digress....).

This is funny because before reading this, I was going to point out that the way you are describing "God" sounds more like Plato's form of the good than any deity. Apparently, this is what you call "God". But that's not what any ordinary believers mean by "God", nor is it what atheists mean when they say they don't believe in God. You cannot get around problems with God's existence by just defining something else, like the form of the good, to be "God".

The Classic Theist presumes God is not obligated to stop any evil in the first place and thus is not immoral for not doing so. Morality simply doesn't apply to him. All of God’s good actions toward His creatures in Classic Theism are Gratuitous and as such they are not owed to them. So God can be praised for his Divine Charity but God cannot be condemned for not following His obligations.

That's one hell of a double standard.

Joseph Noonan

See Forrester's Paradox for how such a question can be posed...

Barking up the wrong tree again Joseph. First you confuse the Rationalist PSR vs the Neo-Scholastic. You make the weird claim the Trinity is a logical contradiction now you are back with yer non-starter polemics against some Theistic Personalist Moral Agent "deity" no Classic Theist believe in. You just can't get a break can ya guy?

> If you believe in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God, then you must not only believe that God has morally sufficient reasons for sometimes allowing child abuse

God is not a moral agent buddy in Classic Theism ergo yer objection is again a non-starter.

Here is a repost of something I wrote: I should Note a Classic Theistic Concept of God needs a Theodicy like a Fish needs a Bicycle.

From a Theistic point of view “in a sense” the Eutheryphro dilemma is true. In a sense it is “impossible” for God to be “all Good” and or “All Powerful” if God really exists and evil exists as well(or at least maybe half of that is true). All theists approach the problem by taking on one of the horns of the dilemma.

Theistic Personalists who rely on Theodicies(i.e. moral justifications for God's inaction in the face of evil) take on the “All Powerful” horn by adopting the Classic Theistic Thomistic version of Divine Omnipotence which tells us God cannot make contradictions true. You might protest “Can’t God do anything?” to which we would reply “Yes but a contradiction doesn’t describe anything. It describes nothing and adds new meaning to the phrase ‘There is Nothing God cannot do.’.” Someone might hold Descartes Irrationalist view of Omnipotence that God can make contradictions true which would solve the problem of evil. Specifically if God can make contradictions true He can make the seeming contradiction of the simultaneous existence of an Omnipotent/Omni-benevolent Deity & Evil both True. Of course this leads to the break down in all rational categories by abandoning the principle of non-contradiction so it is nonsense.
Anyway given God cannot make contradictions true the Theodicy loving Theistic Personalist tries to argue there are some goods God can only give if He temporarily tolerates evil. Plantinga largely solved the logical problem of Evil with this line of thought but then Rowe counter punched with the evidentalist problem of evil by arguing that there exists in the world seemingly gratuitous evil that gives no opportunity to give people any good. Fr. Brian Davies OTOH cuts down all leading theodicies in this work THE REALITY OF GOD AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL.

Which leads to Classic Theism's solution (see Davies) which grabs the other horn of the dilemma specifically God being “All Good”. God is All Good but God is not morally good. Or more specifically God is not a moral agent. Or even more specifically God is not a moral agent unequivocally comparable to a virtuous human moral agent & or virtuous rational creature. God given His nature & relationship to creation has no obligations to His creatures so He cannot be morally condemned for not giving them what He "owes" them. God is All Good because He is Metaphysically Good and Ontologically Good or Goodness Itself and the source of goodness in all things. But God is not a moral agent as we are moral agents.
Indeed to say Classic Theistic God is not good for not immediately stopping the Holocaust makes about as much sense as saying Plato's Form of the Good is not really good since It too didn't stop the Holocaust(which is actually saying the same thing but I digress....). Which is absurd. Or it is like saying my good root beer isn't really a good root beer because it didn't stop the holocaust.

Theodicies as they are understood post enlightenment, are predicated on the idea God is a moral agent and they try to morally justify God’s inaction in the face of evil. The Classic Theist presumes God is not obligated to stop any evil in the first place and thus is not immoral for not doing so. Morality simply doesn't apply to him. All of God’s good actions toward His creatures in Classic Theism are Gratuitous and as such they are not owed to them. So God can be praised for his Divine Charity but God cannot be condemned for not following His obligations. He simply has none to His Creatures only to Himself.

Wrong "god" bro.

To claim that in some cases it might be possible for someone to have a morally justifiable reason for permitting an evil like child abuse does not necessitate believing that “it is usually not wrong to allow children under your care to get beaten and molested.” That’s simply a non-sequitur.

That's not what Steven was claiming there. He was claiming that to say that it is not normally the case that permitting child abuse is wrong implies that it usually is the case that permitting child abuse is okay. The reason this is relevant is because God almost always permits it. Even if miracles do exist like Catholics say they do, they are few and far between. In most scenarios, things simply play out without intervention. If you believe in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God, then you must not only believe that God has morally sufficient reasons for sometimes allowing child abuse in far-fetched scenarios, but also that God had morally sufficient reasons for allowing every single instance of child abuse that has ever occurred. For many, this is too much to ask.

First of all, thank you for your kind comment. Rest assured, I will be coming back as long as people keep respecting eachothers opinions on this forum. For me, the rules of discussion are very important: exploring and searching for the truth, the facts at the middle of the table. This is what I'm looking for rather than cockiness in winning the intellectual 'fight', because judgement is not the monopoly of the strong.

I'm talking less about moralizing, than the tendency of theists to try to enshrine their particular moral code into the civil legal system.

Yes.

As to your second-to-last point, wouldn't we have to die to confirm that?