You simply reject this definition of God because you have some other concept of what one should mean by "God"
Do feel that Fr Barron changed the rules of the debate by changing the definition of God?
This then becomes a debate over how a theist is allowed to define God

I agree it's evolution and nothing to do with imaginary GOAB's but not all animals behave in this way. We do because we are primates and evolved in small groups of animals sharing a reasonably large number of genes in common. So helping those around us survive spread our genes.

PS: GOAB = Ground Of All Being

You turn around and state "in the Catholic philosophical tradition, "God" is the name that we give to absolute or unconditioned goodness, justice, truth, and life." You're basically validating your initial point by saying "look here, I've made this sound argument for why goodness has intrinsic value, now we can say that it's also entirely due to God because my beliefs say so." Your Catholic philosophical tradition might give God as the name of absolute or unconditional goodness, but that doesn't mean the rest of the world does.

I firmly agree with you on the point that there are moral absolutes. And I'm not strictly saying that God is not the source of absolute goodness. However, nothing about your argument ties God to those moral absolutes, beyond a religious assumption that God is already the source of unconditional goodness. The whole point of your argument was to prove why you can't take God out of goodness and have goodness survive. Yet the way you've setup your reasoning, all it takes is for a person to hold to different religious views than you, and your entire argument becomes invalidated.

Michael - I've been pondering your comment for a few days after some false starts at replying. All I really want to say is that I understand where you're coming from. I think even Pope Francis understands: he's talked a lot about "rigorists" in the Church, Pharisaic types who make rules their religion and treat reconciliation like a trip to the laundromat - or worse, a torture chamber.

Rules are important, but "God is not a torturer." (Scorsese's favorite line from "Diary of a Country Priest"). The revelation of the Cross (the true "mechanism" of forgiveness) is that God loves us, blemishes and all - and if that's not our center, we're off-center.

Guilt comes for us all, even - maybe especially - for those who decide there's no one out there to forgive them.

Certainly the Catholic Church provides a mechanism for relieving guilt via confession. But it also provides many additional reasons for being guilty by making a whole lot of things I don't think are morally wrong into sins. Impure thoughts ? White lies ? Masturbation ? Living in sin ? Effective contraception ? Eating meat on Fridays ? Crossing the centre line through the Church without genuflecting ? Not attending Mass ? Not going to Confession. Biting the Eucharist ? Swearing ? Disobeying your parents ?

The list seemed endless when I was a teenager although I have to say living in sin and effective contraception were not on the horizon. It was more impure thoughts and masturbation.

I wonder what the nett effect of more sins plus a mechanism for forgiveness is ?

Michael

Also, I forgot to mention this in my initial response, but it's not like this notion of 'Catholic guilt' rises out of a vacuum. I'm not particularly well versed in all the intricacies of the various non-Catholic Christian denominations, even less so of Jewish traditions (or other faiths) - but I do know the Catholic Church places an emphasis on the 'examination of conscience', in a way that I'm unaware of other faiths doing. Speaking for myself, I recall many years of being instructed in exactly how to convict myself of various crimes (be they external or of the mind), including the crime of not being rigorous enough in the cataloging of my transgressions.

Matthew,

Sorry to intrude, couple things:

Whenever I hear the phrase [Catholic guilt] it's almost always by lapsed Catholics who left the faith at a young age.

Allow me to throw in my own anecdotes; this is a phrase I often hear from current Catholics, and it's not uncommon in pop-culture either.

Non-Catholics know that Catholics don't have a monopoly on something so human

Of course not, though it might be telling that guilt is so often paired with Catholics and Jews, and that 'Catholic guilt' and 'Jewish guilt' are concepts commonly acknowledged from within and without.

Catholics are too wrapped up in the heart of their faith - that trying to forgive as they've been forgiven business.

Forgive me Matthew, but I'll have to call 'No True Scotsman' on this.

Guilt comes for us all, even - maybe especially - for those who decide there's no one out there to forgive them.

I'm genuinely surprised at this, Matthew, I've generally thought of you as being above this sort of insinuation.