What defines right?

[Jane D.]

Is something right and good because God says that it is? Can he change his mind? Can time, place, or situation change what is right? Or is it universal and timeless?

I tend to think that there is one universal right, and goodness cannot be defined by changing times, situations, or places. The main point of goodness is to promote life in happiness in yourself and others, and anything that hinders that is wrong. Any harm is wrong.

However, I have heard many different theories. For instace, in the Bible, some laws only apply to the time before Jesus, and things have changed now as to what is okay and not okay for us to do. So, were they okay back then because God says? If that is all it takes to make something right and good, can God decide that it is no longer okay to eat aparagus, for example?

 

[Elvendon]

Is something right and good because God says that it is? Can he change his mind? Can time, place, or situation change what is right? Or is it universal and timeless?

I tend to think that there is one universal right, and goodness cannot be defined by changing times, situations, or places. The main point of goodness is to promote life in happiness in yourself and others, and anything that hinders that is wrong. Any harm is wrong.

However, I have heard many different theories. For instace, in the Bible, some laws only apply to the time before Jesus, and things have changed now as to what is okay and not okay for us to do. So, were they okay back then because God says? If that is all it takes to make something right and good, can God decide that it is no longer okay to eat aparagus, for example?

A very good question. It is my personal view that what is ethically correct is, in some ways, situational. Although there are core principles (such as the golden rule, the fact that love is the greatest virtue etc.) that are immovable and absolute, the implimentation of these principles varies according to our situation.

However, in order to accurately act in a good way we need to achieve a degree of union with the divine - as this union (often called faith, though it goes deeper than that.) allows us to instinctively know what is right and wrong in any situation, much more easily than any sacred text.

I would like to point out something - God didn't abolish the Laws of the Torah nor render them null and void - they are still binding, but the life and resurrection of Jesus made use of a loophole to give us a way out via his grace. We are still compelled to do good deeds, but this should be due to our personal relationship with God and in response to grace.

 

[Jane D.]

I would like to point out something - God didn't abolish the Laws of the Torah nor render them null and void - they are still binding, but the life and resurrection of Jesus made use of a loophole to give us a way out via his grace.

Curiousity....does this mean that we should ask for forgivness for not following the old rules? For example, there are MANY specific rules and regulations in Dueteronomy (sp?) that would be quite silly to follow today, and nobody does. But I also never hear of anyone saying that we should ask for forgiveness for not following this rules. Does that make sense?

 

[Elvendon]

Curiousity....does this mean that we should ask for forgivness for not following the old rules? For example, there are MANY specific rules and regulations in Dueteronomy (sp?) that would be quite silly to follow today, and nobody does. But I also never hear of anyone saying that we should ask for forgiveness for not following this rules. Does that make sense?

Strictly yes... though this is generally bundled together with Original Sin in my mind.

 

[Willamena]

Is something right and good because God says that it is? Can he change his mind? Can time, place, or situation change what is right? Or is it universal and timeless?

I tend to think that there is one universal right, and goodness cannot be defined by changing times, situations, or places. The main point of goodness is to promote life in happiness in yourself and others, and anything that hinders that is wrong. Any harm is wrong.

I define "good" very similiar: that which is beneficial to life, life-forms and the quality of life. I (the individual) am the one who ultimately assesses that beneficence. What makes things "right" is how well they they fit into the order of things that we perceive. For instance, by my way of thinking, death can be "good" in some circumstances; but if it is "right" then it falls neatly into a sequence of circumstances that I am observing, regardless of me. "Good" is subjective, but "right" is objective (except where "good" is substituted as a synonym for "right").

In my opinion, a time, place and situation can certainly change what is right.

However, I have heard many different theories. For instace, in the Bible, some laws only apply to the time before Jesus, and things have changed now as to what is okay and not okay for us to do. So, were they okay back then because God says? If that is all it takes to make something right and good, can God decide that it is no longer okay to eat aparagus, for example?

Well, my response to this is based on my idea of what the Image of God is, which is a symbol for the collective psyche of an individual or a group of people. The Image of God expresses their relationship with god, and that changes as the people and their culture change. They carry with them the old 'God' from generation to generation, and gradually it evolves into a new one. Laws can come and go, even those that come from the mouth of the Image of God in myth and story, because the Image represents us, our relationship with god (the real one), and not god itself.

 

[Sunstone]

IMHO, That which is conducive to Girls Bouncing On Trampolines is right and good; That which is prohibitive of Girls Bouncing On Trampolines is wrong and evil.

A bit more seriously, I think it is impossible to seperate out circumstances when considering what is right or good. Wisdom is in one sense the ability to express the same principles through different and various actions in different and various circumstances. A universal principle always expressed the same way regardless of circumstances is almost the opposite of wisdom.

 

[ikitikitembo]

I define moral goodness as: What should be done.

However it's what should be done that from my perspective can objectively be what we typically view as good or bad. Objectively it doesn't necessarilly have to be helping and loving others, and all that good stuff. It could be anything from the way I see it...or nothing (if no objective "law" exists). It's no coincidence that we typically view "good" as things beneficial to man. If there is no objective way of life than nothing we think ultimately matters.

 

[Mike182]

I tend to think that there is one universal right, and goodness cannot be defined by changing times, situations, or places. The main point of goodness is to promote life in happiness in yourself and others, and anything that hinders that is wrong. Any harm is wrong.

do no harm? when i was young, i was happily waking next to my mum to the shops, happily walked out into the road without looking, and my mum grabbed me back and slapped me - i have never walked out into a road without looking again. was my mum wrong for instilling that in me? i don't think so, yet it hurt.

However, I have heard many different theories. For instace, in the Bible, some laws only apply to the time before Jesus, and things have changed now as to what is okay and not okay for us to do. So, were they okay back then because God says? If that is all it takes to make something right and good, can God decide that it is no longer okay to eat aparagus, for example?

if God could command something bad to be done, it would by definition become good, because God commanded it - in other words, God can do no wrong, which defies his (her) omnipotence - plus brings God's entire moral status into question, if s/he can choose right and wrong at his (her) desire.

i personally believe that in the beginning, God wrote basic laws and principles into being, and he can't go against them.

morality, however, was not, in my opinion, set from the beginning. morality changes like fashion, would you condemn a man for eating the flesh of another man he saw die in the arctic if he was starving, and lived to tell the tale? i wouldn't, he did what he needed to do to survive, but i would condemn him if he did such an act in the UK with a shop just round the corner.... morality is relative to culture, situation, time etc, in my opinion.

 

[Valjean]

My conception of good is similar to Willamena's, but I tend to view right action in a rather mechanical, karmic way, as a function of the laws of physics. Sometimes the action-result relationship is immediate and obvious: if you hold a rock directly above your foot and release it, harm will result, a sort of mechanical, impersonal "retribution."
But if you, say, "covet your neighbor's wife, or his a**..." (or, especially, his wife's a**), the negative sequelae may not be so immediately obvious, and may take a dozen incarnations to fully manifest.

 

[Booko]

However, I have heard many different theories. For instace, in the Bible, some laws only apply to the time before Jesus, and things have changed now as to what is okay and not okay for us to do. So, were they okay back then because God says? If that is all it takes to make something right and good, can God decide that it is no longer okay to eat aparagus, for example?

Why not? He's changed his mind about consumption of alcohol, depending on the needs of the time. He's changed his mind about eating catfish and pork. He's changed his mind about how many wives a man can have. He's changed his mind about how and when people should pray.

I haven't noticed where he's changed his mind about loving thy neighbor, being truthful, charitable, or things of that nature.

For those things that do change sometimes, when you look at the conditionsi when those laws were changed, it's not too difficult to see why the changed law might be more workable than the old one.

People are always saying that God does not change. Well, I happen to believe that. But I certainly don't believe that humanity doesn't change.

If we can comprehend that the rules for a toddler do not all work for a teenager, what's so difficult about understanding why the religious rules for a maturing humanity might change?

 

[gnostic]

I would like to point out something - God didn't abolish the Laws of the Torah nor render them null and void - they are still binding, but the life and resurrection of Jesus made use of a loophole to give us a way out via his grace.

The Christians in Jesus and after his ascensions were mostly Jews, so they didn't ignore the Torah at all, just because they became Christians. The Gentile or non-Jewish Christians, are not required to follow all the laws of the Torah, since many of the laws and customs applied to Jews only.

That was precisely argument Paul had against other Jewish-Christians. Non-Jewish Christians don't require to follow Jewish eating habits, nor be circumscised.

So I agreed with your point, Elvendon.

Is something right and good because God says that it is? Can he change his mind? Can time, place, or situation change what is right? Or is it universal and timeless?

I have asked the same questions before, but not at this forum.

I don't think I can answer that, because I am still undecided about the existence of God.

Humans tends to evolved (I am not talking about Darwin's evolution), as they learn more thing, and often adapting to change situations.

I don't think God is fixed as rock, and I believe that he can change his mind, but that from my view, and nothing concrete on this speculation. But as to God's morals, that is difficulty to say, because I find that OT God is different from NT God, almost like the way Gnosticism think of the Creator as being a demiurge.

 

[finalfrogo]

Righteousness is personal. We define what is right and wrong.