I do really appreciate your work on the question of divine authority--it's something I love and find worth thinking deeply about. But I don't think Christians have to say something like might makes right when it comes to God.
After all, the principle is manifestly unjust in other contexts. The fact slave-owners had power over their slaves does not even in the slightest grant them authority over their slaves. We shouldn't say God is just a bigger and more powerful chattel slave-owner, even if he might use his power toward us benevolently.
(I understand the irony of the NT's use of slave-language, but I think it's clear what's going on in those passages is not on par with the chattel slave dynamic.)
A conclusion I came to while writing this article, but perhaps failed to state as emphatically as I should have, is that omnipotence is really of a different kind than other, more limited powers. A slave-owner has power over the body of his slave, but God has power over the body, soul, mind, spirit, etc.. This isn't very precise language, but I might say that the difference between 99% omnipotence and 100% omnipotence is infinite. A 99% omnipotent being might still be judged as acting immorally, even if it has the capacity to, say, throw someone into a Hell for eternity if it desires, so long as there is still a higher, 100% omnipotent being, who can stand in judgement over it.
There are other arguments for divine authority that are more compelling from a pathos perspective (who wants to hear "God is right because God can send you to Hell"?), but I find that most of these fail to answer the proverbial psychopath's question of "well what if I don't care about that?"
My first, lame answer, is that the being we know as Satan cannot conceivably be all-powerful, so the question is superfluous. But I won't be a smart-ass.
My second, more intellectually serious answer, is this:
Such a Satan, having the all the powers of God, would thereby become the "God" of this hypothetical universe. I'm not very concerned with whether God-Satan has the "right" to rule over me, as to whether my opinion would matter outside of my own head. Suppose that God-Satan says to me, "I am going to torture your newborn child to death." What am I to do against this? It seems evil to me, but without any recourse to a higher power than God-Satan, what does it matter what I think?
If this God-Satan were limited in power, and capable of being overthrown, I might desire to gather together my fellow subjects and overthrow him, on the basis of our essentially hedonistic priorities, but a truly omnipotent God-Satan is *able* to rule, regardless of whether I think he has the "right" to or not.
In the more traditional language of "rights," that is, the legal sense, I believe that the right to rule is reserved to the Creator on account of his creating of the Creation; I see no logical reason why this couldn't apply to God-Satan, though this wasn't what my article was about.
Outrageous! You've scooped me completely! haha. Our thoughts and ideas on this are so similar, I feel like whatever spirit has you also has its hold on me. I posted my ideas a few seconds ago, give them a look over if you feel inclined.
You're kidding me, this made me cackle like a banshee. Every point that you made, if it wasn't in this article, was in one of my other articles or notes. Great minds must truly think alike!
I has been my observation over many years now, that conflict is the fundamental state of human nature. That comes as a surprise to many who have been raised in the cultural soup of The Enlightenment, being told a thousand times a day in a thousand different ways that they are “basically good and perfectible,” regardless of the evidence they see in their hearts in more honest and unguarded moments. The only solution I have found to this conflict between us all, between God and us, and internally with ourselves, is the promised indwelling of the Holy Spirit. There is no other.
Do you think that if you were created by an omnipotent Satan, he would have the right to rule over you?
I think I know where you're going with this, but I'd like you to take me there: what do you mean by "omnipotent Satan?"
I mean the being we know as Satan, except he is all-powerful and there is no other being more powerful than he is.
I do really appreciate your work on the question of divine authority--it's something I love and find worth thinking deeply about. But I don't think Christians have to say something like might makes right when it comes to God.
After all, the principle is manifestly unjust in other contexts. The fact slave-owners had power over their slaves does not even in the slightest grant them authority over their slaves. We shouldn't say God is just a bigger and more powerful chattel slave-owner, even if he might use his power toward us benevolently.
(I understand the irony of the NT's use of slave-language, but I think it's clear what's going on in those passages is not on par with the chattel slave dynamic.)
A conclusion I came to while writing this article, but perhaps failed to state as emphatically as I should have, is that omnipotence is really of a different kind than other, more limited powers. A slave-owner has power over the body of his slave, but God has power over the body, soul, mind, spirit, etc.. This isn't very precise language, but I might say that the difference between 99% omnipotence and 100% omnipotence is infinite. A 99% omnipotent being might still be judged as acting immorally, even if it has the capacity to, say, throw someone into a Hell for eternity if it desires, so long as there is still a higher, 100% omnipotent being, who can stand in judgement over it.
There are other arguments for divine authority that are more compelling from a pathos perspective (who wants to hear "God is right because God can send you to Hell"?), but I find that most of these fail to answer the proverbial psychopath's question of "well what if I don't care about that?"
My first, lame answer, is that the being we know as Satan cannot conceivably be all-powerful, so the question is superfluous. But I won't be a smart-ass.
My second, more intellectually serious answer, is this:
Such a Satan, having the all the powers of God, would thereby become the "God" of this hypothetical universe. I'm not very concerned with whether God-Satan has the "right" to rule over me, as to whether my opinion would matter outside of my own head. Suppose that God-Satan says to me, "I am going to torture your newborn child to death." What am I to do against this? It seems evil to me, but without any recourse to a higher power than God-Satan, what does it matter what I think?
If this God-Satan were limited in power, and capable of being overthrown, I might desire to gather together my fellow subjects and overthrow him, on the basis of our essentially hedonistic priorities, but a truly omnipotent God-Satan is *able* to rule, regardless of whether I think he has the "right" to or not.
In the more traditional language of "rights," that is, the legal sense, I believe that the right to rule is reserved to the Creator on account of his creating of the Creation; I see no logical reason why this couldn't apply to God-Satan, though this wasn't what my article was about.
Outrageous! You've scooped me completely! haha. Our thoughts and ideas on this are so similar, I feel like whatever spirit has you also has its hold on me. I posted my ideas a few seconds ago, give them a look over if you feel inclined.
https://open.substack.com/pub/jamesaway/p/might-makes-right?r=3h47jo&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
You're kidding me, this made me cackle like a banshee. Every point that you made, if it wasn't in this article, was in one of my other articles or notes. Great minds must truly think alike!
Right! I immediately started to wonder if you were someone I knew and had talked to about this.
I'm going to start on my next idea before you write it for me.
You're in luck; this one kinda took the wind out of my sails. Gonna be poetry and spur-of-the-moment stuff for a little while now
I has been my observation over many years now, that conflict is the fundamental state of human nature. That comes as a surprise to many who have been raised in the cultural soup of The Enlightenment, being told a thousand times a day in a thousand different ways that they are “basically good and perfectible,” regardless of the evidence they see in their hearts in more honest and unguarded moments. The only solution I have found to this conflict between us all, between God and us, and internally with ourselves, is the promised indwelling of the Holy Spirit. There is no other.
It is the King's privilege to enforce His peace.