Skip to main content

The Trouble with Using an Infinite God As the Measure of Morality

For all of the talk by various self proclaimed "moral" authorities about  "moral absolutism," the truth is that every human on the planet is necessarily and inescapably a moral relativist. And this is because finite things can only be compared in any meaningful way to other finite things, because to compare them to infinite things makes them all equally inferior. As such, every "moral" comparison, a long with every other comparison, is necessarily "relative" to what it is being compared too, which includes any comparison to the infinite. 

This then illustrates the glaring problem with the idea that God is "infinite" and "eternal," as well as being all powerful and all knowing. That problem is that if he is all of these things, then he cannot be used in anyway as a standard for any system of morality that could be applied to finite human beings. And this is because there is no way to compare an eternal and infinitely large orange to an apple that is smaller than an atom that lasts for only a nanosecond, except to point out that the two are as opposite as any two things can possibly be.  

But a system can only be comprised of things that have comparative commonalities, otherwise it is like trying to design a system of "right" thinking by comparing calculus to colors.
 
When measured agaisnt an infinite yardstick of God, then, all actions - no matter how good or bad by our own standards - become equally neutral, because they would all be equally inferior by comparison.  The number 10, in other words, is no "closer" to infinity, than the number 10 trillion, and the number 652 is no further from infinity than the number 5.

Comparing any two numbers as "values" or "quantities"  to infinity, then, which is basically what we are doing when we compare ourselves to an "infinite God," only illustrates how both are equally deficient. Infinity, in short, makes everything equally finite.

Hence, anyone who claims to "know" more about God is like a person claiming to know more about infinity than someone else, which is like one person claiming to have gotten closer to counting to infinity than a person who has never even learned how to count. 

In this same way, any act of "evil" a finite human being can commit, would necessarily be equal to any act of "good" they can commit, when both of those acts are only measured agaisnt an infinite scale. It is only when those acts are compared to each other, and measured agaisnt our finite nature, that we can begin to qualify each as one or the other.

Hence, any act of "evil" would still be infinitely better than an infinite number of greater evils that were possible, just like any act of "good" would likewise be infinitely worse than an infinite number of greater possible "goods." And for this reason, anything that can be measured or compared by finite beings, must necessarily be relative.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Why Ben Shapiro is Wrong About BLM

If Ben Shapiro really wants answers to his condemnations of BLM, he should start by reading a few books, and then some. For example, he can find all of the answer's he's looking for in: Slavery By Another Name , by Douglas Blackmon, which shows how "thousands of African Americans were pulled back into forced labor with shocking force and brutality," right up until the 1970s, when I was still in grade school. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness , by Civil Rights litigator and legal scholar, Michelle Alexander, which explains how "mass incarceration" under the ruse of a War on Drugs, has effectively created a caste system that is as pronounced in America today as it was in the Jim Crow south, if not more. Ghosts of Jim Crow , which was written by Constitutional Law Professor, F. Michael Higgenbotham, which explains in great detail how "the shadows of Jim Crow era laws and attitudes continue to perpetuate insidious, ...

Father Mike's Omniscience About Transgenderism

The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and how people think. Gregory Batson I f my perception doesn't match up with reality, it's not reality that has to change, it's my perception.   Fr. Mi ke Schmitz Despite the ever growing mountain of evidence about the nature of transgenderism, Fr. Mike Schmitz simply refuses to change his perception. And that's because his "perception," is not only based on nothing but his "beliefs," but because selling those "beliefs" is his one and only job! The problem, if he were truly trying to follow in the footsteps of Christ, is he would stop trying to sell people what he "believes" is the truth, and he would try to actually start trying to FIND THE TRUTH instead.  NOT DOING SO, however, is simply an act of his own spiritual pride, and nothing else. WHY DO CHRISTIANS PREFER THEIR BELIEFS TO THE TRUTH?  Probably because th...

The Height of Arrogance of Christian Humility

 "To think that the ruler of the universe will run to my assistance and bend the laws of nature for me is the height of arrogance. That implies that everyone else (such as the opposing football team, driver, student, parent) is de -selected, unfavored by God, and that I am special, above it all." Dan Barker, Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist (Madison, WI: FFRF, 1992), p. 109. What could be more arrogant than to believe in miracles? To believe that the supreme ruler of the universe has not only bent the laws of nature by which everyone else is bound, but that such a ruler did so as a special favor to you, and also as a special message and invitation to you, which that ruler intentionally withholds from everyone else.  Even the person who believes they know something is a miracle believes that their knowledge of miracles is itself a special knowledge, amounting to a kind of miracle in and of itself, that the God who performed the miracle bestows to his chosen ...