Tuggy rallies to knockout

“Dale down for the count.” Now that’s a good headline by Slanderin’ Steve, from the humor standpoint.

He sure puts out a lot of words, drops a lot of names, for a guy who doesn’t know what he’s talking about! But skipping all of that, his objection, which he imagines to be a strong one is:

If a unitarian God can be loving or personal without an object because he doesn’t need anything or anyone else, then there’s no reason for him to have an innate capacity for interpersonal relations or the ability to love another.

Quite a bold claim there! Wonder how anyone could conceivably justify it? In general, intelligent beings have lots of abilities that they might never actually exercise. e.g. My ability to sincerely say, “That Steve Hays, he sure does know how to argue.”

At least I got his attention with my simple argument which I “attempted” to sketch. (LOL)

1. By his essence, God is perfect in power.

2. By his essence, God is able to love another.

1 does seem to imply 2, as I explained before. Hays huffs and puffs, and tries to make up a fallacy that he imagines I’m committing here, but he does nothing to show that 1 could be true while 2 is false, which is what it takes to show how the argument is invalid.

But his ravings do, I think bring up an interesting point; at least, this is what I got out of them. This ability of God’s must supervene on more than only his power. Let me explain.

• Obviously, as Hays point out, actual two-way love requires two to freely enter in. What is implied by God’s omnipotence is the ability to do his side of that. That, his side of the loving, is most surely a logically possible task.
• But we can ask: is it possible for God? Some actions are logically possible in general, but are things God couldn’t do, such as stealing little kids’ Halloween candy just for the fun of it.
• In my view, intentional actions require a relevant motive. God must have a motive to enter into interpersonal love, if he’s to have that ability. But this is entailed by his moral perfection. He should have a non-compelling motive to bring about any intrinsically good state of affairs. Interpersonal love is intrinsically good, as such.

Let’s just build this extra background assumption, then, into the argument as a premise:

1. By his essence, God is morally perfect.
2. By his essence, God is perfect in power.
3. Therefore, by his essence, God is able to love another.

Yep – that seems sound too. We could make this into a longer argument as per above. But even in this form, it seems like a knockout. By 1, he’d want to love another. By 2, he’d be able to bring about another who might love him back, and do his own part. Thus, (3) he is able to love another. (Note that this doesn’t require his being to bring about the whole relationship single-handedly.)

Despite his windy ravings, by the way, there’s nothing wrong with this plausible argument either:

1. God is as perfect as any being could be.
2. A being which was perfect in every way except for the capacity to enter into interpersonal, loving relationships would be less perfect than a being who also had that capacity.
3. Therefore, God has that capacity.

Hays whines,

All he’s done is to build a capacity for interpersonal relations or the ability to love another into his stipulative definition of a perfect God. He posits that that’s a necessary component of perfect God. So his appeal is circular.

Unfortunately, he’s unclear about what counts as circular. There is no strange stipulation in that argument, no gerrymandered definition. 2 seems true to everyone, even to Steve! In general, if someone loses her capacity to love, we think she is therefore not as great or as perfect as she used to be. 3 follows from 1 & 2. Thus, he must either accept the argument as sound or deny 1. Which will it be?

He should accept it as sound. But for all we can tell, this is an argument any unitarian Christian can endorse.

A valid argument with premises that appeal to most any Christian is exactly what is needed here. Both of the above arguments seem to fit the bill. About my simpler, two step argument, he complains:

He fails to provide an underlying reason for why a perfect God must have that attribute.

Arguing that God must have a feature doesn’t necessarily reveal exactly which other features it supervenes on. The first argument above does, while the second does not. Not that its any worse for that. He is demanding a lucid explanation of God’s having the feature in question – which is fine. Of course, he’ll quickly bail on demanding lucid explanations when it comes to his pet views. But that’s another post.

At the end of the post, ridiculously, he insists on a point that I generously granted for the sake of argument: that Trinity theology implies that God is essentially able to enter into I-Thou relationships. But my point was: so does unitarian theology. Thus, he fails to show any advantage for his brand of trinitarian speculation vs. unitarian views.

This is how you win an argument with the loveable Steve-ster. Like Ali’s classic rope-a-dope strategy vs. Foreman, just let him gas on to really high word counts, till he’s tired, then you can drop him with a few short punches – six lines total.

Wait – did I just compare Hays to George Foreman? I am feeling generous today!