# Resolved: For God to have genuine moral authority, S/He must be comprehensible to mortals. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 1, 2010, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-for-god-to-have-genuine-moral-authority-s-he-must-be-comprehensible-to-mortals/545223 "2010-07-01T18:16:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-for-god-to-have-genuine-moral-authority-s-he-must-be-comprehensible-to-mortals/545223/21 "2010-07-02T14:03:58Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > By looking at what harm the action causes, not consulting with fictional characters. Don’t fight the hypothetical. Read the first line of the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-for-god-to-have-genuine-moral-authority-s-he-must-be-comprehensible-to-mortals/545223/22 "2010-07-02T14:12:53Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#): > > Don’t fight the hypothetical. Read the first line of the OP. It applies just as well if God really did exist: God’s definitions of good and evil are only valid as long as they agree with the real world definitions. If God says that a non-evil act is evil, or that an evil act is not evil, then God is wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-for-god-to-have-genuine-moral-authority-s-he-must-be-comprehensible-to-mortals/545223/23 "2010-07-02T14:25:07Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#): > > Don’t fight the hypothetical. Read the first line of the OP. I don’t think that was quite fighting the hypothetical. The OP is only granting the existence of a creator God, not the truth of any particular scripture or myth. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-for-god-to-have-genuine-moral-authority-s-he-must-be-comprehensible-to-mortals/545223/24 "2010-07-02T14:32:07Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > It applies just as well if God really did exist: God’s definitions of good and evil are only valid as long as they agree with the real world definitions. If God says that a non-evil act is evil, or that an evil act is not evil, then God is wrong. That’s the assertion the OP is asking about. If God’s definitions don’t align with “real world” definitions, if they’re incomprehensible to you, _why_ is it wrong? A two-year-old or the clinically insane do not understand the moral implications of their act. Accountability aside (i.e., the absurd notions of putting two-year-olds and the insane in jail, or damning someone to hell for chanting the wrong slogan), does a patently immoral act become amoral or moral merely because the child/psychopath does not know why the acts are wrong? Those of us in the God-like position of comprehending the why of a moral rule do not change our opinion of the morality of an act, and just as strongly expect those who don’t to adhere to the rule. ETA: > [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I don’t think that was quite fighting the hypothetical. The OP is only granting the existence of a creator God, not the truth of any particular scripture or myth. You began with the premise that god exists; he referred to fictional characters. It’s the existence/fictionality that bucks against the OP, not whether or not the assumed-to-exist deity is right or wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-for-god-to-have-genuine-moral-authority-s-he-must-be-comprehensible-to-mortals/545223/25 "2010-07-02T15:05:07Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Note: For purposes of this discussion, let’s assume that God–by which I mean a supernatural, immortal creator more powerful than the rest of the universe combined–actually exists. We’re not assuming that God is omnipotent in the sense of “able to accomplish anything that canbe described in words”, because as many have pointed out ere this, that notion is inherently self-contradictory. Nor are we necessarily attributing any sort of “infinity” to this deity; just supreme power and knowledge. If you cannot make that imaginative leap–well, I can’t actually prevent you from posting in the thread, but I’m mystified as to why you would bother. > > In some branches of Christianity there is a doctrine known as Total Depravity. Briefly, TD means that humans are so spiritually blind and twisted as a result of the Fall of Man that, absent God’s grace, we are not only capable of consistently _doing_ good, but in fact lack the capacity to _comprehend_ good. God’s white is our black; much, if not all, of what we consider moral and right is in fact unutterably wicked and vile, and we are incapable of understanding why without first surrendering our moral and spiritual autonomy to the Deity. > > I say this notion is incoherent. For if Man is incapable of making any reliable judgment, then there is no reason for us to choose God over His Adversary except for fear fo the consequences. In a C.S. Lewis apology I am too lazy to look up, he puts it something like “we might as well obey an omnipotent fiend.” I think Lewis is basically correct here. If God exists, and wishes us to follow his moral precepts because of the rightness fo the precepts themselves, then He must create us with the capacity to understand Him and his precepts, at least in part. I do not subscribe to the doctrine of TD, however, it seems as though your argument is self-contradictory to me. To argue simultaneously that God has supreme knowledge (though not necessarily assuming omniscience) and that he cannot have moral superiority because we cannot comprehend him seems… off. If he has superior knowledge, then it seems simultaneously possible that he is both incomprehensible and knows more about morality than us. I saw this example in one of the posts, but it was pretty much what I was going to say anyway, but using a young child in comparison to his parents is exactly a counter-example to your argument. Relative to the child, the parent has supreme knowledge and much of that is not comprehensible to him, and yet he is also a moral authority. > [@Meatros](#): > > So what does this mean for morality? Does God simply _know_ what is moral (ie, morality does not depend on him)? Or is what God decree’s is moral (which is necessarily subjective)? I want to comment on this because I think this is actually a general non-theistic view of morality that causes a lot of confusion. Basically, to me, this question doesn’t make sense. That is, it makes an assumption that there is some sort of ordinal relationship between morality and God. What we have to keep in mind is that, as the creator, then from our perspective both have always existed and are inseparable. Thus, to say that God simply knows what is moral or that he decreed morality just doesn’t make sense. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-for-god-to-have-genuine-moral-authority-s-he-must-be-comprehensible-to-mortals/545223/26 "2010-07-02T16:01:44Z")
> [@Blaster\_Master](#): > > I do not subscribe to the doctrine of TD, however, it seems as though your argument is self-contradictory to me. To argue simultaneously that God has supreme knowledge (though not necessarily assuming omniscience) and that he cannot have moral superiority because we cannot comprehend him seems… off. If he has superior knowledge, then it seems simultaneously possible that he is both incomprehensible and knows more about morality than us. The point being made is that his “superior knowledge” doesn’t matter if we can’t tell if he IS moral or not. Presumably Satan and Cthulhu also would have superior knowledge and are also both beyond our comprehension as well. How do we decide which of the three is actually moral if we can’t understand any of them? > [@Blaster\_Master](#): > > I saw this example in one of the posts, but it was pretty much what I was going to say anyway, but using a young child in comparison to his parents is exactly a counter-example to your argument. Relative to the child, the parent has supreme knowledge and much of that is not comprehensible to him, and yet he is also a moral authority. No, the parent is supposed to be a moral authority - but quite often is nothing of the kind. The child cannot tell if the parent is actually moral or not. That example just underlines the problems with using something you don’t understand as a moral guide. > [@Blaster\_Master](#): > > I want to comment on this because I think this is actually a general non-theistic view of morality that causes a lot of confusion. Basically, to me, this question doesn’t make sense. That is, it makes an assumption that there is some sort of ordinal relationship between morality and God. What we have to keep in mind is that, as the creator, then from our perspective both have always existed and are inseparable. Thus, to say that God simply knows what is moral or that he decreed morality just doesn’t make sense. If I understand what you are saying, then you are missing the point; how do we know that God is moral at all if we don’t understand him? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-for-god-to-have-genuine-moral-authority-s-he-must-be-comprehensible-to-mortals/545223/27 "2010-07-02T16:11:49Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > It applies just as well if God really did exist: God’s definitions of good and evil are only valid as long as they agree with the real world definitions. If God says that a non-evil act is evil, or that an evil act is not evil, then God is wrong. True. Immoral gods are not good moral guides. If you believe in Zeus, the do not commit adultery rule goes right out the window. But if, for the purpose of the discussion, we posit that morality comes from god, then we’re screwed because we don’t know God’s definition of good and evil except in very limited cases. mostly having to deal with sheep. And no matter what we choose some clown is going to wave scriptures around and tell us we’re wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-for-god-to-have-genuine-moral-authority-s-he-must-be-comprehensible-to-mortals/545223/28 "2010-07-02T16:20:05Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#): > > Is this a form of: _is an act pious because the gods love it, or do the gods love an act because it’s pious?_ Or wasn’t there a philosopher who approached the internal/external question of morality/ethics by positing classes of knowers and super-knowers? > > If The Good stems from God–and one accepts that as part of the premise–then I’m not sure comphensibility _must_ be a factor, total or not. But the problem is that we don’t know if the gods love an act or not. All the gods I know are silent on violent video games. > [@](#): > > We just had a kid. The Dudeling is less than a year old, so isn’t much to him yet. But shortly, he will be at a stage where he is responsive and toddling about. All of his moral guidance will come from us. At this stage, he will have no intuitive sense of right/wrong and will lack the capacity to understand the rules we’re setting out. All he will be able to comprehend is the reaction (emotional and otherwise) that comes from his parents. The Dudeling _has_ an awareness, has a burgeoning concept of self and self-determination, but is so limited in capacity as to warrant rote following of our ‘rules’. Right, and you are giving him constant feedback, and will be doing so for the next 20 years (and more.) Your feedback will suit the current situation, and you will make exceptions to and refine the simple rules as time goes on. Do you think you’d be as effective if you give one set of rules now and never speak to him again? > [@](#): > > That we have a sense of morality down here does not make total comprehension a requirement. That all secular moral laws can be derived from purely secular sources suggests the capacity to appreciate the wider picture of morality; it doesn’t supplant it. So basic rules such as don’t kill, don’t steal, etc. don’t need to be divinely comprehensible–they can be in \*accord \*with divine will, but not necessarily stem \*from \*it. Don’t kill - except in self defense and in time of war and maybe to prevent harm to another. Don’t steal - unless your child is starving. We clearly have an inborn sense of morality we can see in other primates, and we have a culturally ingrained sense we got from the evolution of our society. That just gives a broad outline of what most of us think is right, which is what we’d predict from a secular origin of morals. All all-knowing god can be more precise - but he hasn’t been, which is yet another reason not to believe in his existence. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-for-god-to-have-genuine-moral-authority-s-he-must-be-comprehensible-to-mortals/545223/29 "2010-07-02T16:25:54Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I don’t think that was quite fighting the hypothetical. The OP is only granting the existence of a creator God, not the truth of any particular scripture or myth. True, but there isn’t much of a discussion if the god doesn’t pretend to be a moral authority, and is just powerful. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-for-god-to-have-genuine-moral-authority-s-he-must-be-comprehensible-to-mortals/545223/30 "2010-07-02T16:35:43Z")
> [@Blaster\_Master](#): > > I saw this example in one of the posts, but it was pretty much what I was going to say anyway, but using a young child in comparison to his parents is exactly a counter-example to your argument. Relative to the child, the parent has supreme knowledge and much of that is not comprehensible to him, and yet he is also a moral authority. You are assuming a good parent here. Parents have what seems like moral authority from power. What if the child goes to the baby sitter and learns some other type (say the parent is teaching bigotry and the sitter tries to teach equality.) And, as all parents know, our moral authority evaporates over time, and we move from god to mentor and adviser. Now, if you want to say God’s moral authority comes from power alone, fine. But notice how in the case of almost every religion the development of ethics over time (analogous to the experience a child gets outside the home) have resulted in revisions to the supposedly perfect moral code of the religion. Various explanations are given: we weren’t ready for the new code, we always really meant the new morals, but the old ones were misinterpreted) but the fact is that if God has a perfect and complete moral code, he sure hasn’t shared it with us. > [@](#): > > I want to comment on this because I think this is actually a general non-theistic view of morality that causes a lot of confusion. Basically, to me, this question doesn’t make sense. That is, it makes an assumption that there is some sort of ordinal relationship between morality and God. What we have to keep in mind is that, as the creator, then from our perspective both have always existed and are inseparable. Thus, to say that God simply knows what is moral or that he decreed morality just doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand your objection. Does God simply have the ability to read some complete moral code which is inherent in the universe - in which case he is bound by it and not actually God. Or does he make up morals, and arbitrarily impose them upon us by his power, in which case they are arbitrary and no more moral than the legal code of a dictatorship. This argument of course comes from Bertrand Russell. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-for-god-to-have-genuine-moral-authority-s-he-must-be-comprehensible-to-mortals/545223/31 "2010-07-02T16:47:04Z")
All’s I can say is that I have no intention of accepting a moral authority that hasn’t proven itself worthy of the title (and the first step would be a mere demonstration of existence), though I recognize that my thoughts on the matter might change after a drug-, fever- or concussion-induced epiphanic moment. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-for-god-to-have-genuine-moral-authority-s-he-must-be-comprehensible-to-mortals/545223/32 "2010-07-02T17:02:19Z")
> [@Blaster\_Master](#): > > If he has superior knowledge, then it seems simultaneously possible that he is both incomprehensible and knows more about morality than us. He could also be mistaken and subject to learned biases. > [@](#): > > I saw this example in one of the posts, but it was pretty much what I was going to say anyway, but using a young child in comparison to his parents is exactly a counter-example to your argument. Relative to the child, the parent has supreme knowledge and much of that is not comprehensible to him, and yet he is also a moral authority. My dad’s admonishment not to steal was insdistinguishable from the admonishment not to date outside my race. It took a while before I was able to figure out that the first one made sense and the second one only made sense if you grew up in the 1950’s. > [@](#): > > Thus, to say that God simply knows what is moral or that he decreed morality just doesn’t make sense. You would have to assume God’s moral perfection for a lot of this stuff to make sense. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-for-god-to-have-genuine-moral-authority-s-he-must-be-comprehensible-to-mortals/545223/33 "2010-07-02T17:12:50Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > If I understand what you are saying, then you are missing the point; how do we know that God is moral at all if we don’t understand him? Well, we understand him a little bit don’t we? If you believe the bible, God gave us free will. I think the knowledge of good and evil is the inevitable result of free will regardless of whether or not we ate from teh tree of knowledge (which oddly enough only gives knowledge of good and evil, you would think something like transporter technology would be more useful). In any event, our ability to differentiate between good and evil is what I would call morality and while you can argue that God’s sense of morality is more developed than ours or operates on a more macro scale than ours it is hard to say that God’s morality is as alien to us as Cthuhlu. After all, we both eat from the same tree. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-for-god-to-have-genuine-moral-authority-s-he-must-be-comprehensible-to-mortals/545223/34 "2010-07-02T17:19:45Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > In any event, our ability to differentiate between good and evil is what I would call morality and while you can argue that God’s sense of morality is more developed than ours or operates on a more macro scale than ours it is hard to say that God’s morality is as alien to us as Cthuhlu. Except that believers often do claim that God’s morality is totally alien to ours, as the OP points out. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-for-god-to-have-genuine-moral-authority-s-he-must-be-comprehensible-to-mortals/545223/35 "2010-07-02T17:19:48Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > But the problem is that we don’t know if the gods love an act or not. All the gods I know are silent on violent video games. > **[God of War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_War_(video_game))** > > A god of war is a deity associated with war. > God of War or Gods of War may also refer to: > [@](#): > > Don’t kill - except in self defense and in time of war and maybe to prevent harm to another. Don’t steal - unless your child is starving. We clearly have an inborn sense of morality we can see in other primates, and we have a culturally ingrained sense we got from the evolution of our society. That just gives a broad outline of what most of us think is right, which is what we’d predict from a secular origin of morals. All all-knowing god can be more precise - but he hasn’t been, which is yet another reason not to believe in his existence. How much of that is learned. Even primates have societies with rules. The whole don’t steal unless you child is starving isn’t even particularly universal except in recent history. But if you do beleive in an innate morality, where does that morality come from? Is it genetic? ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-for-god-to-have-genuine-moral-authority-s-he-must-be-comprehensible-to-mortals/545223/36 "2010-07-02T17:42:42Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > [God of War - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_War_(video_game)) > > How much of that is learned. Even primates have societies with rules. The whole don’t steal unless you child is starving isn’t even particularly universal except in recent history. > > But if you do beleive in an innate morality, where does that morality come from? Is it genetic? Rhymer Rule 18-f requires me to point out that humans are primates no less than rhesus monkeys. Hell, we’re no less apes than chimpanzees. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-for-god-to-have-genuine-moral-authority-s-he-must-be-comprehensible-to-mortals/545223/37 "2010-07-02T18:15:43Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Except that believers often do claim that God’s morality is totally alien to ours, as the OP points out. I don’t think that is what they are saying, certainly the commandments (at least most of them) are consistent with our own sense of morality. The alien morality issue most frequently comes up when we have to explain why bad things happen to good people and why good things happen to bad people. That is when we start saying “we do not understand because we are incapable of understanding” I can explain away a lot of this stuff with the exercise of free will and with God’s greater purpose but if we can understand why murder is wrong then why can’t we understand why children must die of childhood diseases. Is it teaching us a lesson that we would not be able to learn if we knew it was a lesson? I don’t have an easy answer to that one. The implication is either that God is not as omniscient or omnipotent as some people believe or that he is indeed so alien to us that we are obeying him only because we fear him and we believe that we have some idea of how to make him happy ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-for-god-to-have-genuine-moral-authority-s-he-must-be-comprehensible-to-mortals/545223/38 "2010-07-02T18:27:39Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > [God of War - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_War_(video_game)) My video game mastery ended with the Atari 2600. > [@](#): > > How much of that is learned. Even primates have societies with rules. The whole don’t steal unless you child is starving isn’t even particularly universal except in recent history. > > But if you do beleive in an innate morality, where does that morality come from? Is it genetic? As I think I said in another response, some is genetic and some is social. Besides (other) primates, evidence for a genetic basis is the variation in innate morality we see in the population. There are people who have no trouble committing acts which most of us would never do. If some sort of God had imbued us with morality, why the variation? Our secular society knows not to judge insane sociopaths the same as sane people - we have to protect ourselves from them, but no amount of moral education seems to help them. ---
**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-for-god-to-have-genuine-moral-authority-s-he-must-be-comprehensible-to-mortals/545223/39 "2010-07-02T18:29:18Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > The point being made is that his “superior knowledge” doesn’t matter if we can’t tell if he IS moral or not. Presumably Satan and Cthulhu also would have superior knowledge and are also both beyond our comprehension as well. How do we decide which of the three is actually moral if we can’t understand any of them? Running on this, sure, all three would be beyond our comprehension, but I don’t think that means that we’re unable to make any sort of meaningful judgment about them and their moralities. That is like saying that we are unable to grasp the true nature of infinity, therefore, we cannot do any mathematics which involve infinities. And yet, we can. The fundamental difference is that the “moralities” of Satan are fundamentally inconsistent with observable and derivable moralities. For instance, I would consider murder to be a fairly straightforward derivable morality, and yet this stance is in opposition to him, thus it is fair to reject his principles. > [@](#): > > No, the parent is supposed to be a moral authority - but quite often is nothing of the kind. The child cannot tell if the parent is actually moral or not. That example just underlines the problems with using something you don’t understand as a moral guide. And this is, IMO, one of the fundamental flaws that most parents make. A child may not understand the full implications of a particular moral decision, but a child is usually capable of understanding it at some level. Parents who use “because I said so” are utterly failing in that responsibility. > [@](#): > > If I understand what you are saying, then you are missing the point; how do we know that God is moral at all if we don’t understand him? I was disputing the ordinality of morality and God as to whether there is some universal morality that God must obey or whether it is something that he simply decrees. Neither of these possibilities makes sense to me because ordinality is a meaningless concept in that context. > [@Voyager](#): > > You are assuming a good parent here. Parents have what seems like moral authority from power. What if the child goes to the baby sitter and learns some other type (say the parent is teaching bigotry and the sitter tries to teach equality.) And, as all parents know, our moral authority evaporates over time, and we move from god to mentor and adviser. This feeds back into what I said above… I think it is the responsibility of a moral authority not just to ensure that one knows what the rules are, but has some understanding of why they are that way. A parent who says “stealing is wrong, because I said so” hasn’t done anything to teach morality. Because, in the end, morality doesn’t live like that. To me, morality isn’t about a series of absolute rules, but a set of examples on some curve of high dimensionality that allows us to derive the model and apply it to a multitude of situations. I think there’s also a further assumption that a God of supreme knowledge would necessarily be far beyond even the most knowledgable human. If we are able to derive a reasonable approximation of morality, then his knowledge would provide him with the ability to model it to a greater degree of accuracy. To carry this to your example, the only reason God would, say, support bigotry would be either he doesn’t know better (which violates one of the premises of the OP) or he knows and is deliberately deceitful, but then is unable to fulfill his obligation other than relying on appealling to his superiority. > [@](#): > > Now, if you want to say God’s moral authority comes from power alone, fine. But notice how in the case of almost every religion the development of ethics over time (analogous to the experience a child gets outside the home) have resulted in revisions to the supposedly perfect moral code of the religion. Various explanations are given: we weren’t ready for the new code, we always really meant the new morals, but the old ones were misinterpreted) but the fact is that if God has a perfect and complete moral code, he sure hasn’t shared it with us. I disagree, and I think this comes down to a fundamental difference in how we view morality. I don’t believe the moral code has changed at all but rather our ability to understand it has grown, just like a growing child. For instance, I imagine most parents would tell a 2-year-old that stealing is wrong, but when the kid grows a little older, that same parent may reveal some intricacies that it’s not necessarily wrong if one is stealing to feed a hungry family. The underlying rule didn’t change here, but the level of the child’s ability to understand, and thus the ability of the moral authority to explain the rule, is improved, and thus the underlying model of the child is improved. I think many of the rules of religion have followed similar patterns. The 10 commands, being among the most famous, is an early example of some very broad rules of thumb that are a reasonable approximation for the ability of that culture to understand within the context of their lives. That our model of morality has changed since then, given our vast increase in knowledge, is expected. In fact, to argue otherwise is like arguing that the fundamental nature of the universe changed at some point between Newton and Einstein. Simply because our understanding has changed does not mean the underlying true nature is any different. > [@](#): > > I don’t understand your objection. Does God simply have the ability to read some complete moral code which is inherent in the universe - in which case he is bound by it and not actually God. Or does he make up morals, and arbitrarily impose them upon us by his power, in which case they are arbitrary and no more moral than the legal code of a dictatorship. This argument of course comes from Bertrand Russell. Neither. This is exactly what I was arguing against, is that this dichomoty is nonsensical. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > My dad’s admonishment not to steal was insdistinguishable from the admonishment not to date outside my race. It took a while before I was able to figure out that the first one made sense and the second one only made sense if you grew up in the 1950’s. This, I think, reenforces my point above that our ability to understand morality is not static. In this case, you later derived a morality that was inconsistent with his, so you were correct to reject him as a moral authority. > [@](#): > > You would have to assume God’s moral perfection for a lot of this stuff to make sense. On an assumption of omniscience and omnipotence, yes. In fact, in my view, I have trouble seeing it effectively possibly that omnimax could be anything but. In this case, though, we don’t have those as assumptions. However, from supreme knowledge, I do think it’s fair to infer that he would also have a superior understanding of morality. Of course, one can argue, that one can have a superior understanding of morality and still choose not to abide. However, saying that superior knowledge means we are unable to detect that choice seems dubious to me. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-for-god-to-have-genuine-moral-authority-s-he-must-be-comprehensible-to-mortals/545223/40 "2010-07-02T18:49:33Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > My video game mastery ended with the Atari 2600. mastery? Pffft! > [@](#): > > As I think I said in another response, some is genetic and some is social. Besides (other) primates, evidence for a genetic basis is the variation in innate morality we see in the population. There are people who have no trouble committing acts which most of us would never do. If some sort of God had imbued us with morality, why the variation? Our secular society knows not to judge insane sociopaths the same as sane people - we have to protect ourselves from them, but no amount of moral education seems to help them. They are evil or insane. I have not seen any evidence that morality (as opposed to empathy) can be inate. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-for-god-to-have-genuine-moral-authority-s-he-must-be-comprehensible-to-mortals/545223.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-for-god-to-have-genuine-moral-authority-s-he-must-be-comprehensible-to-mortals/545223.md?page=3)