(1)	It is wrong to engage in self-destructive behavior for its own sake
(2)	Homosexual behavior is self-destructive
(3)	Therefore, it is wrong to engage in homosexual behavior for its own sake

Perhaps (2) is defensible, but (1) would also rule out many high-impact sports like football, professional wrestling, and martial arts. Moreover, it’s also not likely that all homosexual behavior is engaged in for its own sake, so has narrow application even if sound.

Now, I don’t think too much should be made out of the failure to produce sound or at least cogent philosophical arguments in this area because there are sources and ways for justifying beliefs other than philosophical argument (e.g., the previous post might get us somewhere). Nevertheless, here is an argument that might have promise:

(1)	A system functions properly only when it functions as it was designed to function
(2)	A system ought to function properly
(3)	Human reproductive systems were designed to function within heterosexual relationships
(4)	Therefore, human reproductive systems function properly only within heterosexual relationships
(5)	Therefore, human reproductive systems ought to function only within heterosexual relationships

By “proper function,” I have in mind a broadly Plantingian account. I hasten to point out that talk of design is not thought to entail or imply a designer. Biologists utilize talk of design to describe how biological systems function with no theological strings attached. The above argument is consistent with utilizing design talk in that way. Accordingly, premise (3) does not necessarily mean that the human reproductive system was designed by God. It could have just as well been “designed” by the processes of naturalistic evolution. Note that a system can function, but not function properly. And this it is why I take (2) to be the main premise. Seems true to me. Perhaps other ways of putting it is like this: it is better that a system function properly than not function properly; improper function, or dysfunction, should be avoided; etc.

It is hard to state, however, what exactly the argument entails about the morality of homosexual behavior. Clearly it’s in the realm of normativity. But to say that it demonstrates, if sound, that homosexual behavior is immoral seems too strong.

Now, here’s the catch—nothing is prima facie wrong with the model X. Upon inspection, engineers cannot locate any specific problem or design flaw. In fact, it resembles other average cars in every respect other than severe statistical failure, but nobody can say just why.

Despite this, I think we are well within our intellectual rights in concluding the following: something is wrong with the model X. Actually, in the face of these statistics, it would be foolish to think there is nothing wrong with the model X even if we can’t say what. The appropriate thing to do would be to scrap production of the model X, cancel the marketing campaign, recall any existing models, and warn people against driving a model X. In fact, it would be morally wrong to sell the model X to an uninformed customer as if it is expected to perform like an average car (I’m looking at you, MTV).

As I reflect on horrendous and gratuitous evils, it seems to me that the qualitatively worst kind of such evil has been completely ignored—sexual evils. There seems to be something altogether different, more perverse and twisted and fully saturated with pure moral wickedness about sexual evils than the ones normally discussed (e.g., forest-fire fawns, stray-bullets, accidentally backing-up over one’s own child, etc.). Here I have in mind sexual evils such as rape and child molestation, to say nothing of the varying degrees of perversity these acts can have. Why do I think sexual evils are better examples of apparently gratuitous evils than the typical examples? Gratuitous evils are usually characterized by their apparent quality and quantity. It’s not the apparent quantity of sexual evils that seems different. It’s the quality of the sin that increases apparent gratuitousness. Let me suggest at least three reasons.

First, sexual evils are exclusively moral evils. Moral evils are qualitatively worse than natural evils in that they involve personal offense, which conveys a responsibility and avoidableness on behalf of the offending party that natural evils do not. That moral evils can be traced to a responsible moral agent who could have refrained from so acting heightens the intuition of gratuitousness, whereas natural evils cannot obviously be seen as avoidable or as tracing to a responsible moral agent, though such is possible (e.g., it is possible that God or demons are responsible for both moral and natural evils, but this is not obvious or apparent). But both sexual evils and, say, murderous evils are exclusively moral evils. So what makes sexual evils worse than other moral evils, such as murderous ones? Consider the following two points.

Second, acts of sexual evils are qualitatively worse that other moral evils. Murderous evils fail to treat moral agents as valuable ends, but sexual evils fail to treat moral agents as valuable ends and mistreats them only as valuable means. I suggest that this is qualitatively worse. One might object that a murderer also treats a moral agent as a means to satisfying his desires and so is on par with sexual evils. But I think this is confused—a murderer’s victim is not valuable to the murderer insofar as they are dead; the victim is not valuable to the murderer at all. The murderer does not treat his victims as valuable means, but treats the act of murdering as a valuable means. Where x is a moral agent, perhaps the difference is between not valuing x as an end and disvaluing x. Disvaluing x includes not valuing x as a means in addition to treating x improperly (i.e., mistreating x). What’s more is that the disvaluing of x in cases of sexual evils is perverse. In the most extreme cases (that’s what we’re after), there is the shattering of an innocent and pure life for the sake of satisfying an utterly selfish and perverse carnal desire. This is not mere disvaluing, but perverse defilement or degradation.

Third, the consequences of sexual evils are qualitatively worse than other moral evils. While the consequences of both murderous evils and sexual evils are ‘forever’ in a sense, murderous evils involve a release of suffering whereas sexual evils offer no such release. They insidiously linger and continue to torture the victim long after the evil is perpetrated. Intense feelings of shame, worthlessness, and guilt created in victims of sexual evil forever mar the face of innocence. In other words, sexual evil is prolonged, undeserved torture. This torture is often mental, and as such is arguably worse than physical torture. Moreover, sexual evils often have the unfortunate consequence of being repeated by victims of sexual evils, and so, in a way, self-perpetuate.

I conclude that sexual evils are such that their quality and intensity greatly heightens apparent gratuitousness more than typical examples of apparently gratuitous evils. So the question remains—is God justified in permitting these kinds of evils? Couldn’t God have at least created humans in a way minimizes such evils, say, by creating men with less libido? Does the goodness of the gift of sexual pleasure righteously expressed outweigh or defeat the apparent gratuitousness of sexual evils?

(i)            (m – n) = ℵ₀

while the following is not:

(ii)           (m – o) = 4

because (ii) yields a finite number. If inverse operations yielding finite numbers were permitted, then it would follow that we get inconsistent results by subtracting the same number from m since n = o (both n and o are infinite), and this of course is why operations like (ii) are prohibited. But this leads me to think the following.

Craig’s point is that while inverse operations yielding finite numbers may be prohibited on paper, nothing would prevent us from performing them in the real world (say, by checking out a book from the library). But is this right? What would performing such an operation “in the real world” really amount to? What (ii) makes clear is that one would have to check out an infinite number of books to get a finite difference, not just any finite number of books. But then does Craig’s point follow that “nothing would prevent us from performing them in the real world”? Here’s something that might prevent us: having to perform and infinite task (check out an infinite number of books).

I’m not convinced that this objection works, but I don’t know the answer to it.

Descriptive accounts of divine goodness usually present goodness as a logical entailment or consequence of other divine attributes such as omniscience, omnipotence and freedom [E.g., Swinburne, The Coherence of Theism (Oxford, rev. ed. 1993), 184-216; Daniel Jill, Divinity and Maximal Greatness (Routledge, 2005), 226]. On such accounts goodness is not essential to God in the same way that omniscience and omnipotence are, which are in some sense more primitive attributes because they are not derived or logically entailed by other attributes. So where B is a being with the properties necessary and sufficient to logically entail descriptive goodness, or G, we have something like the following relation:

(1) (∀x) (Bx ⇒ Gx)

But (1) is not strong enough to capture essential goodness. Here’s an analogy: although light is logically entailed by a red giant star, light is analytically distinct from and not essential to the star itself. Again, anselmian theists are likely to think of goodness as having the same status as these other more primitive essential attributes, and so I don’t think they’ll be satisfied with accounts that analyze divine goodness in terms of (1). Perhaps logical equivalence is strong enough (speaking here of a relation between yet two distinct things, lest divine simplicity rear its ugly head). Now where B is any being which exemplifies anselmian divinity and G is essential goodness:

(2) (∀x) (Bx ⇔ Gx)

But even (2) is not likely to satisfy the anselmian theist unless the good that is essential to God is maximal. Rationality might be essential to man, but man is certainly not maximally rational. So (2) can be see as saying that any being which exemplifies anselmian divinity will be one that is essentially maximally good and any being which is essentially maximally good will be one which exemplifies anselmian divinity. “God” is not analytically distinct from “essential maximal goodness.” So the logical entailment runs in both directions. The same holds for the other essential divine attributes such as omnipotence and omniscience.

Now here is an interesting consequence of this idea. Assuming what I argue in “Theism and the Metaphysics of Meaning and Value” is correct, while a single agent can be good in the sense of (1), no single agent can be good in the sense captured by (2).  Just as three sides are essential to a triangle, at least two agents are essential to any being with essential goodness, and as I argued in the last post, perhaps exactly three agents are sufficient for maximal goodness. This means that a standard unitarian theist cannot say God is essentially good, and an anselmian theist must be a Trinitarian. This also means that if a theist wishes to avail himself of the standard response to the Euthyphro dilemma, his conception of God must be one in which there are at least two agents.

(ET)	(∀x)Px ≡ (∃y) (Ay ∙ Vyx)

And where x is now some lonely object, or object with no wholly-distinct worldmates, (ET) entails that

(1)	◊(∃x)Px ⊃ (∃y)(Ay ∙ Vyx)

which is to be read as “if there possibly exists some lonely object x that has P, then there is at least one agent y such that y V-s x.” But exactly one agent, I argue, is not sufficient for x to have P:

(2)	◊(∃x)Px ⊃ ~(∃y){Ay ∙ Vyx ∙ (∀z) [(Az ∙ Vzx) ⊃ x = z]}

Therefore, for any world where x has P, at minimum two agents are necessary:

(3)	◊(∃x)Px ⊃ (∃y)(∃z)(Ay ∙ Az ∙ Vyx ∙ Vzx ∙ x ≠ z)

So if God possibly exists with no wholly-distinct worldmates and has meaning or value, then God must be at minimum two agents. The argument, if successful, shows that a necessary condition for God to have meaning or value is for God to be at least two agents. So we can summarize the main argument’s conclusion as simply

(A1)	If God possibly exists with no wholly-distinct worldmates  and has meaning or value, then God is at least two agents

As such, it only gets you to non-unitarian monotheism, not Trinitarian monotheism. However, other interesting considerations might be brought in to bear on the question of whether exactly two agents are sufficient for God to have the maximal degree of meaning and value possible. And I think there are good reasons to think exactly two agents are not sufficient for such, but exactly three are (a la Swinburne’s argument that three persons are necessary and sufficient for the most robust exemplification of love). So Swinburnian considerations could give us a second argument:

(A2)	If God has the maximal degree of meaning or value, then God is at least three agents

Combining these two arguments, I think, gives a powerful deductive argument for not just non-unitarian monotheism, but Trinitarian monotheism. So any theist who endorses the seemingly innocuous premise

(P1)	God possibly exists with no wholly-distinct worldmates and has the maximal degree of meaning or value

which would be most theists, should be ready to accept what (A1) and (A2) demonstrate that (P1) entails; namely,

(C)	Trinitarian monotheism is true

But what would “maximal value” or “maximal meaning” look like? Suppose we understand the relationship between meaning and value as follows. It is not implausible that meaning supervenes on value, or for value to supervene on appropriate states of affairs involving agents. Something might be meaningful because of its intrinsic value. Moreover, the degree to which something is meaningful is plausibly determined by the value of the object with which it bears a relation. For example, consider the following list of different kinds of beings with which we can have relationships: inanimate objects → plants → animals → persons → God. It seems clear that the meaningfulness of the relationship increases in tandem with the amount of value each being has. Furthermore, if we adopt some version. G. E. Moore’s Principle of Organic Unities, such as the one Robert Nozick develops in Philosophical Explanations, then the degree to which some thing is valuable depends on how intimately and harmoniously related it is with its parts, and its parts are with themselves.

Now apply these insights to a divine being in which there are multiple agents. Consider the value divine agents would have if in necessary and substantial relation. Being omniscient and omnipotent, there would be a maximally intimate union of knowledge and will, and so maximal value would be exemplified. And if the degree to which a relationship is meaningful is determined by the value of the beings that make it up, then the most meaningful relationship is one in which the members are maximally valuable. The agents would enjoy a maximally meaningful relationship, as each would stand in relation to a maximally valuable other. Thus, any meaning or value endowed would be of maximal quality such that no greater meaning or value would be possible.

But the nature of certain abstracta clearly seem explanatorily posterior God’s nature. For example, necessarily true propositions the truths of which are determined by God’s nature—e.g., necessarily true moral propositions, such as it is wrong to torture babies for fun. The orthodox theist can explain why this is a necessarily true proposition—because moral goodness, as God’s very nature, delimits what necessary moral truths there are, it is wrong to torture babies for fun being one of them.

But here the Christian Platonist confronts a dilemma: he must either deny that the nature of all abstrcta is explanatorily prior to God’s nature, or he must reaffirm this but deny that the abstracta typically seen as explanatorily posterior God’s nature, such as necessarily true moral propositions, are so.

The former move seems very arbitrary and ad hoc. It has us believe that only certain abstracta are the way they are independently of God. But what calls for the difference? It is hard to see what, if anything. If one says “God’s nature,” then incoherence looms, for really this amounts to saying “God’s nature determines which abstracta are explanatorily posterior his nature.” Not only is this obviously circular, it faces the further question, “what about God’s nature determines which abstrcta are explanatorily posterior his nature?” Either way the first horn of this dilemma does not seem palatable.

The second horn states that all abstracta, even necessarily true moral propositions, are the way they are just because. They are the very essence of uncreatable reality, and they delimit all possible realities, including God’s nature as it were. But this horn immediately puts the Euthyphro dilemma back on the table, for it can no longer be said that certain things are good because God’s nature is such, but, quite literally, God’s nature is such because certain things are good. This would also remove any potential for the moral argument for God’s existence, as the explanation of any moral truth would not be in terms of God’s nature, but in terms of a general reality apart from God.

Because it is not a brute fact that God’s nature is good, the question of why God’s nature is good for the Christian Platonist becomes very difficult to answer. It just seems convenient that he is good. Moreover, strictly speaking, God’s nature cannot be good, for if it were, then no further account of goodness is needed. If the Christian Platonist maintains that God’s nature is good, then the further account of goodness in terms of abstracta is superfluous. But if the Christian Platonist maintains that goodness is not strictly God’s nature, then God’s goodness becomes a contingent matter.

Thus, like the attribute of aseity, goodness as a divine attribute also seems attenuated on a Christian platonist view. The second horn of the dilemma also seems unpalatable.

The Nicene Creed confesses God to be “Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible” and the Father as “by whom all things were made.” Here, the phrase “heaven and earth” harkens back to the Hebrew expression ha·sha·ma·yim ve·’et ha·’a·retz (Gen 1:1; Ex 20:11; Jer 51:48 et al) which is recognized by scholars as a collective reference to “absolutely everything” apart from God, because God is not made. Moreover, the repeated phrase “all things,” (Rom 11:36; Col 1:16; 1 Cor 8:6 et al) also plausibly refers to all things apart from God, because God is not made.

Therefore, the traditional doctrine of creation affirms that whatever is not God is created. Moreover, they are not just created—they are created ex nihilo. This creates a problem (pun intended) for the Christian platonist who thinks there are an infinite number of uncreated abstract objects that exist independently of God. Not only is this inconsistent with creation ex nihilo, but also the attribute of aseity, which names God as the only necessarily existent, self-sufficient being.  The Christian platonist could try to avoid this by tweaking the doctrine of creation from “all things not God”  to “all creatable things not God.” Given that abstract objects are not creatable, one could say they do not properly fall under the scope of creation. It seems to me that this tweaked notion of creation does not avoid the problems. In fact, it makes matters worse.

The traditional view says that all possible creatable things are delimited by God’s nature, where abstracta are seen as somehow “part of” God’s nature (say, as God’s ideas or something like that). So abstraca are the way they are because they are part of God’s nature, and God’s nature, as the very essence of uncreatable reality, delimits possible creatable realities. In this sense, minimally, God’s nature is explanatorily (if not causally) prior to abstracta. But the Christian platonist must reverse this. He must insist that abstracta are they way they are because they, not God, are the very essence of uncreatable reality, and that they delimit all possible realities, even God’s nature. Here, abstracta are explanatorily (if not causally) prior to God’s nature. This attenuates God’s aseity even more than it first seems.

According to the traditional view, whatever God creates must be consistent with his own nature, and sans creation nothing exists apart from God. Hence, whatever is created is created ex nihilo. But this is not possible for Christian platonism, for it is not just false that nothing can exist apart from God, it is necessarily false. All things creatable by God are not delimited by God’s nature alone, as orthodoxy would have it, but also by abstracta. For example, God couldn’t create a world where 2+2=5 not because anything about God’s nature prevents such incoherence, but because it is a brute and inexplicable fact, even for God, that 2+2=4. Thus, God creates not strictly ex nihilo, but also according to abstracta. Thus, even the tweaked notion of creation gives us at best creation ex abstracta.

Therefore, it seems impossible to square either a robust conception of God’s aseity or the doctrine of creation ex nihilo with platonism. Furthermore, platonism may have further untoward consequences for the Christian philosopher. Such will be the subject of the next post.

It seems to me that part of the task of justifying an intuition over a conflicting one (or perhaps more accurately, defeating an opposing intuition) involves being able to plausibly explain the origin of the opposing intuition and why its origin is relevant to its defeasibility. Abstractly, take any two conflicting intuitions, i₁ and i₂. Say I want to justify i₁ over i₂. I engage as follows: The reason S has i₂ is because of reasons r₁, r₂, r₃, etc., where r₁, r₂, r₃, etc. are likely occurent beliefs S holds.  But reasons r₁, r₂, r₃, etc. should not properly give rise to i₂ either because one or more of them is false or unjustified, or because they properly give rise to something else (some other occurent belief implied them?) that does not at all conflict with i₁.

This leads me to wonder whether all intuitions are actually just occurrent beliefs that we can’t identify or haven’t identified plausible origins of, perhaps because of weak powers of introspection. Of course, this does not mean no intuition is ever justified. In the case of i₁, it is entirely possible that undiscovered reasons r₁, r₂, r₃ etc. do properly give rise to i₁.

And this means that in cases where our introspective powers are too weak to uncover the occurent beliefs relevant to either person’s opposing intuition, an argumentative (though not necessarily epistemic) stale-mate is reached. This also means that in cases like the one explained above where r₁, r₂, r₃ etc. are exposed as not properly giving rise to i₂, if the reasons giving rise to i₁ are unknown, then merely argumentative superiority is demonstrated, not epistemic. After all, the reasons giving rise to i₁ could also be bogus, in which case there would be an epistemic stalemate.

And this leads me to wonder whether there can ever be a genuine case of epistemic stalemate between two conflicting intuitions, each of which are properly the result justified and true occurent beliefs. Sure it is possible that each opposing intuition can be properly the result of justified false beliefs, but once truth is thrown into the mix, it is a matter of propositions being either consistent or contradictory.

The same motive [lust for control] may lead us to curtail our hopes. We adjust our plans easily to pleasant surprises, but unpleasant surprises threaten our control. From the standpoint of control, therefore, pessimism seems a stronger position than optimism. I think this fact is the main source of the intellectual machismo that prides itself on a sort of “tough-mindedness” that refuses to hope for very much. The desire for control tempts us to believe that if we hope for too much we will make fools of ourselves, whereas if we turn out to have hoped for too little we will only have proved to be “stronger” than we needed to be. This machismo is no more rational than the wishful thinking of which the hopeful are often accused. And when there is talk of “wishful thinking,” we would do well to realize that if we have a nonrational motive for believing the best, most of us have a nonrational motive for believing the worst. Pessimism is not happier than optimism; hope is happier than despair. But it is quite possible to prefer control to happiness.

What Christianity promises may seem “too good to be true”; the emotional meaning of this is that Christianity promises more than we can hope for without giving up control. The supreme threat to our control, however, is God himself…Is the desire for control something that inhibits me from trusting God? …The feeling that it is stronger, more controlling, to expect evil than to expect good is a powerful enemy of faith.

From Robert Adams, “The Virtue of Faith” in The Virtue of Faith and Other Essays in Philosophical Theology (Oxford, 1987), 19-20