tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post2313735736208828246..comments2024-03-18T20:24:18.935-05:00Comments on Alexander Pruss's Blog: GuiltAlexander R Prusshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-31215270604467520252009-04-04T11:08:00.000-05:002009-04-04T11:08:00.000-05:00Forgiveness gives a reason to remit punishment. A...Forgiveness gives a reason to remit punishment. And punishment is probably not <EM>required</EM> by justice anyway--justice gives a reason to punish, but does not always require it. (Quick argument: While gratitude is required in response to someone's doing good, reward is not required. Justice gives a reason to reward, but does not always require it. But reward and punishment are analogous.)Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-62597819601289083432009-04-04T10:14:00.000-05:002009-04-04T10:14:00.000-05:00Alex, what does forgiveness have to do with justic...Alex, what does forgiveness have to do with justice?<BR/><BR/>Is there any way we can call it justice without torturing the word, if what people get is not what they deserve?<BR/><BR/>i.e. if God is infinitely merciful, doesnt that mean that He cannot be infinitely just?Muralihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08036249483538443818noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-69257368805145116412009-04-04T08:02:00.000-05:002009-04-04T08:02:00.000-05:00Forgiveness by the primary injured party might be ...Forgiveness by the primary injured party might be enough. Note that we participate in Christ's expiation, at least through our being part of the Body of Christ, the Church.Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-28588576604355066032009-04-04T04:42:00.000-05:002009-04-04T04:42:00.000-05:00The question is, ought a person who has not made r...The question is, ought a person who has not made reparations for his wrongs etc to be redeemed?<BR/><BR/>Getting things that we do not deserve, at the very least, is morally irrelevant. (I dont think it is wrong to want birthday presents) With regards to redemption etc, I think we can make a stronger statement:<BR/><BR/>It is wrong that people who have not made reparations/epiation for wrongs committed etc be redeemed.Muralihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08036249483538443818noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-85208357027727837832009-01-23T12:11:00.000-06:002009-01-23T12:11:00.000-06:00This reminds me of something Louise Antony said in...This reminds me of something Louise Antony said in her debate with W.L. Craig on God and goodness. At the very end of the debate, after she had been arguing for an objective morality without God (actually, she was arguing that an atheistic objective morality is superior to Christian morality), she said it is true that for the atheist many things will go unforgiven, that there is no guarantee of redemption, that often times we can't make up for things we have done, and that many times the person we harmed isn't around to forgive us. <BR/><BR/>I think her comment caught Craig's ear. On his website he wrote:<BR/><BR/>Perhaps the most poignant moment of the debate came with her closing statement, in which she honestly confessed some of the drawbacks of atheism. One of these, she said, is that on atheism there is no redemption. If you commit a terrible wrong, there’s nothing that can ever erase it. You live with it until you die. It brought forcefully home to me the wonderful redemption that we have in Christ. How liberating to be free of the guilt of sin and to have a conscience cleansed by His blood! I think of the words of a great hymn:<BR/><BR/>My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!<BR/>My sin, not in part but the whole,<BR/>Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,<BR/>Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!<BR/><BR/>We sometimes forget that the joy of redemption is something that our atheist friends can never know.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-82261472518938978492009-01-23T10:35:00.000-06:002009-01-23T10:35:00.000-06:00That doesn't sound plausible to me. What I feel g...That doesn't sound plausible to me. What I feel guilty for is harming another person with insufficient reason. As long as that possibility is around, guilt should be around.Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-35034045705874194312009-01-23T10:22:00.000-06:002009-01-23T10:22:00.000-06:00An alternative view, riffing off Anscombe, is that...An alternative view, riffing off Anscombe, is that the notion of guilt depends on the notion of wrong-doing as crime or lawbreaking, and that this makes no sense without a lawgiver. So if atheism is true, it is impossible for there to be a (non-relative) moral *law*, thus no moral guilt, thus all feelings of moral guilt are misplaced; while in Christianity the opposite is generally true.Heath Whitehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13535886546816778688noreply@blogger.com