Comments on: The Just Society

By: Ben Triplett

Ben Triplett — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 21:04:39 +0000

Unless morality cannot be reduced from knowing God…if knowing God is morality and morality knowing God, then the two are one goal. A more complex picture of God…

By: thrica

thrica — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 02:52:04 +0000

You’re right that loving God is the effect of knowing God in that we can only love God in proportion to our knowledge of him, but cause and effect is a different question from means and ends. Knowing God (in an ultimate or progressive sense) has to be the end – the benefit; and morality – loving God, which entails the act of seeking further knowledge of God – is the means. Morality is not an end in itself.

By: Ben Triplett

Ben Triplett — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 01:41:47 +0000

Or, morality is a necessary consequence of proper theology and is a benefit of knowing God.

By: thrica

thrica — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 20:28:37 +0000

I’m not saying they’re entirely separable – for the believer, the second exists as an outgrowth of the first. They are one. However, the Bible consistently makes reference to two separate categories of blessing: Morality (or lack thereof) reaps spiritual consequences for the individual, justice (or lack thereof) reaps physical consequences for society.

Or, I should say, any individual benefits of justice are only conferred upon those for whom it is an outgrowth of a total love for God.

What do you have in mind by “something bigger”? How much bigger does something get than the subsumption of both action and being?

By: Ben Triplett

Ben Triplett — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:48:32 +0000

Not that you are basing your entire argument from the one verse, but I think its a misunderstanding of the greatest commandment to reduce them into two categories. Something bigger is going on there…and the two are interrelated and cannot be separated.