God is just?

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
i really like the idea of "natural justice", as you state it beetle, for it fits in well with my theology (no surprise there), for to be sure, if someone sees an innocent lady being struck to the ground by some dastardly person, who will not venture to help her? thus the question that the theologian of necessity must ask, is firstly why we have a se ...[text shortened]... or is perhaps desensitised to the extent that it ceases to function properly, is it not so?

I have the feling that the Sophists were false. Because, every entity/ person needs space/time and dynamic conditions that they should enable it to survive, and survival itself is related to the control of the very environment in which the entity/ person stands; any possible condition that becomes a causing problems agent within this environment, is considered by the abv mentioned entity/ person as "enemy". We know which way the animals react: they react according to their nature and they bow not to any kind of justice as it is conceived by the Human.

But the human beings we invented the concept of justice in order to help the entities/ persons to survive/ live/ prosper within our environment (society). This pattern is common at every human society and, as a product of our culture (World 3) that it was primary designed in order to enable us to overcome specific problems over here at the World 1, it cultivates itself within our personality by means of interacting with our personal World 2. So once again, I understand "justice" merely as a product of the Human and therefore, as you remember from previous conversations of ours, Rabbie my friend, I assume as usually that the Human becomes a product of his products. This way I have in front of me a simple and economical synthesis regarding the isue of justice without contradictions, and at the same time I need not to use a metaphysic agent in order to get this theory started. In addition, over here, the "spiritual agent" as you mentioned it, it is solely my intuition during my struggle to achieve the conditions that they would enable me to survive/ live/ prosper, and at the same time enable me to establish inside me the so called "balance"; furthermore, in my opinion, from there stems the quality known as morality (but the vice-versa fails).

Nothing Holy😵

Originally posted by black beetle
I have the feling that the Sophists were false. Because, every entity/ person needs space/time and dynamic conditions that they should enable it to survive, and survival itself is related to the control of the very environment in which the entity/ person stands; any possible condition that becomes a causing problems agent within this environment, is con ...[text shortened]... there stems the quality known as morality (but the vice-versa fails).

Nothing Holy😵

"But the human beings we invented the concept of justice in order to help the entities/ persons to survive/ live/ prosper within our environment (society). "

You believe this a statement of faith, science, or maybe something
else?
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
"But the human beings we invented the concept of justice in order to help the entities/ persons to survive/ live/ prosper within our environment (society). "

You believe this a statement of faith, science, or maybe something
else?
Kelly

It is my opinion;

Originally posted by black beetle
It is my opinion;

I go back to my earlier point to you, this is just a discussion on our
opinions nothing more, because as you see it, it can be nothing else.
If all we are doing is giving our opinion than no one's views no matter
how good or bad are really any better than anyone else' right?
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
I go back to my earlier point to you, this is just a discussion on our
opinions nothing more, because as you see it, it can be nothing else.
If all we are doing is giving our opinion than no one's views no matter
how good or bad are really any better than anyone else' right?
Kelly

some opinions are worth listening to...you just got to know which ones!

Originally posted by FabianFnas
Yes, I realize that christian people read the sections they like from the bible, and rejects scetions they don't like. Whatever you think, you can find places where the bible support your beliefs. Like the pentecostals who talks strange languages, like the snake worshipper, like the pro-slavery, like the anti-evolutionaries, like the homophobes, like the ...[text shortened]... act remains.

And yes, that's one of the reasons that I cannot believe in the christian god.

I wonder what we would think of your justice if we looked at every nook and cranny in your life. No doubt, some us would take issue with some of what you have done in your life. My point being, you are using a justice scale that is skewed somewhat. However, the more alike we are with you the more likely we would concur with your own justice. I suppose that is what seperates us from the way God thinks because he is without sin. For all intensive purposes, he would have been justified wiping away the human race once Adam and Eve transgressed but the way we see things we have never been shown such mercy and, in fact, have been wronged in many occassion.

Okay, I’ve read through the thread to this point, and will make another offering, drawing from several comments that have been made thus far.

Some asides first—

Blackbeetle’s (Hello, friend!) and Robbie’s discussion seems fundamentally about the question: “Whence the very concept (any of our concepts) of justice?” And that goes to the very heart of supernatural theism. [I think that the injection of a “supernatural (extra-natural) category” undermines epistemology all around (including anything that we might say that we know about the supernatural itself), but I might be wrong. I am exploring that question on the “Why does god hide (pt.2) “ thread.]

No one (unless I missed it) has taken the tack that “Whatever God does is ‘just’, by definition, even if we have no idea what that means”. This does not preclude the argument that, if we simply knew all the circumstances—as God does—than we would conclude that God’s behavior is just, at least on some humanly-accessible understanding of “justness”.

Bosse (old friend!) brought in the concept of balance, which reminds me of Hindu/Buddhist doctrines of karma, and Taoist notions of coherence/harmony. I want to springboard from that notion, but from a more Aristotelian point of view (not that I am any expert on Aristotle’s ethics, so what I offer will be my own “spin”—and corrections/disputations are certainly welcome).

With those asides, I’ll continue in the following post…

According to Aristotle’s ethics, the highest good is eudaimonia. That word has had various translations into English. I will conflate two of them, and call it “flourishing well-being”. But, mostly, I will leave it untranslated.

Justice (or acting justly; or having the attribute of justness) seems part and parcel of ethics generally (e.g., Freaky’s comment that to speak of God’s being just is to speak “of His actions being in line and agreement with His perfect righteousness”.) Hence it seems fair to consider justness under the broader rubric of some ethical theory.

Bosse’s concept of balance in this regard seems to me to be akin to Aristotle’s idea of “moderation”, as the act of balancing polar opposites (say, resistance versus acquiescence) in a way that is fitting, given the circumstances. Applying this notion to God would allow that God’s is not simply a formal justice—that is the strict application of formal principles regardless of circumstances—but a “practical justice”, properly viewed against the relevant circumstances (which seems to be the kind of thing that whodey has been getting at).

The question arises: “To what end such a practical justice?” (This seems to be twhitehead’s line—as opposed to a strictly retributive justice. I would argue along with Epiphenehas, however, that—depending on the end(s) intended by such a practical justice—mercy can have its place in such a system, without contradiction.)

If God is a eudaimonist with respect to God’s creation and creatures, then—

(a) The end (telos) of God’s actions toward those creatures is to promote and sustain their eudaimonia—their (our) flourishing well-being.


(b) Actions toward that end would flow from God’s “righteousness” (God’s virtuous character, in virtue-ethics lingo).


(c) God’s just actions would not be strictly formal, but would be circumstantial-practical, aiming always at an appropriate balance that maximizes potential eudaimonia of God’s creatures—in the long run (which is how, I believe, that Aristotle also viewed it: that is, over one’s whole lifetime).


Now, I am, in part, a eudaimonist/virtue-ethicist, so that is the kind of broad schema I would try to come up with. It is still quite general, and leaves a lot of specifics to be questioned. A deontologist would come up with something else altogether.

Nevertheless, I think that type of schema creates a kind of ethical lens through which one can at least ask: “Under what conditions would such-and-such an act of God’s meet—or not meet—the criteria of (practical) justness?” This type of schema does not render such questions unarguable. It just offers a framework within which the argument might take place.

_________________________________________________________

NOTE: If God is a eudaimonist of some kind, then one might posit that God’s own eudaimonia depends upon the eudaimonia of God’s creatures. I have not made that posit, but one might.

In any setting in which we participate as social/communal beings, I would posit that my eudaimonia is not isolated, but is influenced in a positive way by the eudaimonia of others (beginning with the circle of those whom I love, and extending outwards). This seems to me “natural”, in a similar sense to how I take (correctly or incorrectly) Robbie’s reference to “natural justice”.

Originally posted by vistesd
According to Aristotle’s ethics, the highest good is eudaimonia. That word has had various translations into English. I will conflate two of them, and call it “flourishing well-being”. But, mostly, I will leave it untranslated.

Justice (or acting justly; or having the attribute of justness) seems part and parcel of ethics generally (e.g., Freak ...[text shortened]... similar sense to how I take (correctly or incorrectly) Robbie’s reference to “natural justice”.

i think God is just///i just can't justify it

Originally posted by karoly aczel
i think God is just///i just can't justify it

Ah! That encapsulates the whole point of this thread: How does one justify calling God just?


EDIT: For one who says, “Because scripture says so”, the question is: “If one does not have an understanding of what ‘justness’ entails, how does one know what scripture is talking about?”

Originally posted by KellyJay
I go back to my earlier point to you, this is just a discussion on our
opinions nothing more, because as you see it, it can be nothing else.
If all we are doing is giving our opinion than no one's views no matter
how good or bad are really any better than anyone else' right?
Kelly

During a given conversation -during whatever we do, that is- we have to evaluate constantly; however it's enough to sit quietly doing nuffin😵

Originally posted by vistesd
According to Aristotle’s ethics, the highest good is eudaimonia. That word has had various translations into English. I will conflate two of them, and call it “flourishing well-being”. But, mostly, I will leave it untranslated.

Justice (or acting justly; or having the attribute of justness) seems part and parcel of ethics generally (e.g., Freak ...[text shortened]... similar sense to how I take (correctly or incorrectly) Robbie’s reference to “natural justice”.

Hey my friend, have a good time🙂




Aristotle's eudaimonia is bliss -Sancho's net😵

Originally posted by black beetle
Hey my friend, have a good time🙂




Aristotle's eudaimonia is bliss -Sancho's net😵

I hope you are well, blackbeetle!

Aristotle's eudaimonia is bliss…

There seems to be argument among philosophers over whether eudaimonia ought to be translated into English as “happiness” (or joy, bliss) or “flourishing” or “well-being”. In this case, I would take joy as being reflective of well-being (especially a flourishing well-being), as opposed to ill-being.

Since I don’t take well/ill-being as strictly physical, but also psychological, I think I would have no problem bridging to, say, Zen (or sat-chit-ananda!). One thing that eudaimonia entails, it seems to me, is ataraxia. (I’m not sure that there is anything that is in “far eastern” philosophy that is not also in the Greeks. Heracleitus has always seemed to me a kind of “Zen master”.)

Originally posted by vistesd

There seems to be argument among philosophers over whether eudaimonia ought to be translated into English as “happiness” (or joy, bliss) or “flourishing” or “well-being”. In this case, I would take joy as being reflective of well-being (especially a flourishing well-being), as opposed to ill-being.

Could you not change "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness " to "eudaimonia"?

Ataraxia, apatheia -- is there a difference?

Originally posted by vistesd
I hope you are well, blackbeetle!

[b]Aristotle's eudaimonia is bliss…

There seems to be argument among philosophers over whether eudaimonia ought to be translated into English as “happiness” (or joy, bliss) or “flourishing” or “well-being”. In this case, I would take joy as being reflective of well-being (especially a flourishing well-bei ...[text shortened]... y that is not also in the Greeks. Heracleitus has always seemed to me a kind of “Zen master”.)[/b]

I am fine, thank you🙂

I may become the vehicle wherein everything is completely perfect and meaningful: as I establish myself in the original condition of the natural state I focus on the perfection process rather than on the generation process and then Space/ Time and Awareness they become inseparable. Then, as I realize the gnosis of the inseparability of bliss and emptiness, I ensure eudaimonia whilst ensuring Nothing -this status I call "bliss" in contrast to the eudaimonic ethics.

And of course you are right, I should have post "Aristotle's eudaimonia is bliss to me"!
Aristotle was talking about the (inner) eudaimonia that derives from specific virtues and he understood as "eudaimonia" the final aim of the human actions.
BTW this approach is similar to the Christian one, for this religion promises spiritual eudaimonia during a supernatural afterlife status as a reward to the believer who lived with virtue. Kant dismissed the eudaimonic agent of that religion because he was asking for good works (without rewards) merely as a result of the sense of duty but, since he thought that it was necessary the establishment of a balanced relation between virtue during this life and eudaimonia during afterlife, he assumed that the persons of virtue that they were not "happy" at this life they should taste eudaimonia during afterlife -and therefore he accepted the Christian approach. What a noise😵