I allow my PHI 102 students to do a write-up about their results for extra-credit. They have explain the tensions they got, tell me whether or not they already knew about the tensions, and how they can attempt to grow past them. I don't allow them to critique the test, even though there is room for it. I want them to work on themselves. Most students already know how to discredit something they don't want to face.
My tensions were brought about by my trying to imagine a logically possible God.
The test is amusing. Plus, we can all grow from analyzing the inconsistencies in our beliefs.
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Talking with God - Analysis
You responded that there are moral standards independent of God's will. This response has been given by 47% of the 71970 people who have completed this activity to date.Tensions
If you look in the right-column, you'll find an explanation of what is meant by the term "tension".
We have identified 2 tensions in your responses, which represents a tension quotient of 25% (where lower is better). The average tension quotient for this activity is 69%.
Note: Since you do not believe that God exists, you should read the analysis below as referring to your archetypal construction of God rather than God.
Tension 1 (potential): God has freedom of will
You claimed that God has freedom of will, in that he is at liberty to exercise his power in any way he chooses. However, assuming that it is morally wrong to command what is evil, then God cannot command people to do what he knows to be morally wrong unless you accept that God is capable of immorality (which it is possible you do, since you do not think God is omnibenevolent).
Tension 2: God can obligate?
You claimed that there are moral standards independent of God's will. This claim sits uneasily with the widely held belief that any being that counts as God must have the ability to obligate through its commands: in other words, that it is necessarily morally wrong to disobey a command given by God. This view suggests at the very least that some aspect of morality flows from God. Although there is no logical inconsistency in conceiving of a God whose comamands do not obligate (see note, above, about "tensions"), it would nevertheless be a rather strange or unusual conception of God. One possible way of resolving this tension is to argue that while there are independent moral standards, it is also true that some of God's commands impose obligations. This is the position held by Christian philosopher of religion, Richard Swinburne, for example.
God and Stringency
Your concept of God has been judged by this test to be non-stringent. This indicates you think that God possesses only few of the characteristics traditionally associated with the God of the Abrahamic tradition (i.e., omnipotence, freedom of will, omnibenevolence, etc). As a result, this test will likely have judged your tension quotient to be relatively low. However, this is bought at the expense of a certain specificity in your concept of God. This brings its own problems. By stripping God of many of the traditional attributes of Godliness, it is possible to avoid some of the difficulties one tends to run into when considering whether "the good" and "the just" are loved by God because they are good and just, or whether they are good and just because they are loved by God. However, this comes at a cost, since the question which then arises is whether the entity you're left with is worthy of the designation "God". The trouble is it isn't at all clear that it is. "
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