Homosexual acts are immoral

Con’s Argument Undermines The Debate He Started I never accused Con of not having a meaningful argument. What I was saying was that position that Con is espousing renders the specificity of the debate meaningless and redundant given the terms that Con himself defined. Con said, “For an action to be immoral means that it is contrary to right or to moral conduct. I'll refrain from posting anything more on the definition seeing as my opponent and I will no doubt have differing views on what constituted immorality.” Con defined “immoral acts” the way someone who holds to a moral standard would. But Con is now arguing that, homosexual acts are not immoral because there is no valid moral standard and therefore no such thing as “immoral acts”. Why then did Con start a debate about whether or not a speficic act is “immoral”. Con’s defined “immoral acts” but is now arguing from a position where “immoral” does not mean anything. Defending P1 I am not simply arguing that Con’s position is invalid because of its incompatibility with the terms he himself provided. I am very willing to tackle Con’s attempt in deconstructing my argument because like I said, the position Con assumed is the position of an honest person who rejects Christianity. Con basically argued against P1 of my syllogism. P1 God and His word is the standard of morality Con argues that P1 is not established since I've not proven the existence of God and the inspiration of His Word, the Bible. Epistemology I argued that Con must first acknowledge the only logical epistemic basis for things like morality and God. I argued that the only logical way gain knowledge of God and His character, which is what would ground absolute morality, is by divine revelation. The Christian position is that God made a general revelation of Himself and His character when He created man in His image. In other words, EVERYONE has a general knowledge of God and His characters INNATELY. God also made more specific revelations through scripture. Romans 1:18-15 teaches that the unbeliever, in his wickedness SUPPRESSES the knowledge of God that God made plain to all. This is the Christian claim and my goal in defending P1 is to show proof for this claim. My goal is to prove Con already knows God exist and that he is suppressing this knowledge. Con argues that divine revelational epistemology is not valid because it “does not fit the standard of proof necessary to prove a claim.” Con says that, “Obviously such a revelation would never be confirmable, falsifiable, repeatable, or any other epistemic measure proposed as a legitimate standard of proof. Therefore there is no reason to accept the validity of the Christian religion and hence no reason to accept the moral prescriptions which stem from it.” Con is asserting that verificationism is the absolute standard of proof. This is fallacious simply because verificationism is self-refuting, since verificationism can not be verified. It fails to meet its own standard. Con also mentioned that anyone can claim a divine revelation. I agree. Indeed, there are many false revelation claims, but it does not follow that there are therefore, there are NO TRUE revelations. The nature of things like morality, reason, logic, and God, demands a presuppositional or transcendental method to prove their validity. This is exactly what I’ve been doing if Con still hasn’t noticed by now. Cornelius Van Til wrote: “―A transcendental method ... seek[s] to determine what presuppositions are necessary to any object of knowledge (whether in negation or in affirmation) in order that it may be intelligible to us. We should be willing to start anywhere and with any fact that any person we meet is interested in. The question is ... what is the final reference-point required to make ... the ―fact and ―laws intelligible.” [1] Though verificationism is useful for knowledge, it is not the absolute standard. I would love for Con to prove the validity of logic and reason by his stipulated standard of verifying, falsifying and confirming. The nature of the object in contention, God’s revelation, demands a presuppositional or transcendental method to be proven absolutely true and valid. And as Van Til pointed out, the way to do this is to determine what the necessary preconditions are in order for the object to be intelligible to us. And the way to prove the Christian claim of exclusivity or uniqueness is to reason, as Van Til puts it, “from the impossibility of the contrary.” This is similar to what Con’s “praxeological method” ( if i understood it correctly). It is an internal critique of a system and the goal is to show that it is internally-incoherent and thus logically impossible. A great and simple example of this is the moral argument. The Moral Argument I argued that in order for a moral system to be intelligible and valid, it needs to possess certain necessary traits. It needs to be self-consistent, absolute, transcendent, universal, authoritative and binding. Con seems to agree with this and only argued that Christianity is not unique in having the characteristics necessary for morality. Con mentions Judaism and Kantianism. Kantianism - This is easily refutable. Notice how Con equated morality to the survival of the human race, without first establishing why the survival of the human race has moral value. This is simply arbitrary and is not binding. One can easily have the contrary opinion that self interest is the greatest good, regardless of how it impacts humanity as a whole. Or even that humans do not have more worth than any other stardust and there is no reason therefore to prioritize the survival of human beings. Kantianism is reduced to a mere personal opinion on what “good” is because ultimately Kantianism can not define and ground “moral good”. Judaism - It would seem that Judaism rivals Christianity in possessing the necessary traits needed for a moral system. Con is forgetting that Christianity claims to be Judaism in its TRUE and COMPLETE form. Judaism would be in the same category as Islam, Mormonism, JW, Gnosticism and any other corruption of true Judaism/Christianity. We would have to do an internal critique of the specific Judaism that Con is talking about to show that it is internally inconsistent. If Con wants to challenge me on this he can do so in another debate and actually include reference of their doctrines. So then, The argument is that, Christiniaty is not only the best foundation for morality; it is the ONLY philosophically sound foundation for morality whatsoever! (and reasoning for that matter). So if one appeals to a moral standard, one can only do so by assuming the truths of Christianity. Con has not rebut this point. Morality therefore presupposes Christianity, and Christianity supports the resolution. (Lev 18 and 20, Rom 1, Mat 8, Luk 7, Mat 19, Acts 8) Moral Relativism So then what about the position that there are no such thing as morality? 1. Like all form of relativism, it is self refuting. Simply put, if moral relativism is true then it is ok to disagree with it. This is simply not logically coherent. 2. Moral relativism is not livable. This is not an argument but a call to Con to examine his view and compare it with how he actually lives. Con claims to not believe in moral standards yet a quick look at his profile will show his inconsistencies and that he is very interested in ethical and moral issues. I highly doubt that Con is indifferent on what other people’s opinions are on rape, child abuse, etc. I’m willing to bet that he tries to live to a certain moral standard (that is very similar to the standard that Christianity teaches, except he tries to justify the ones that he disagrees on) That’s exactly what it looks like to suppress the knowledge of God. Thanks for the Debate socialpinko. I really wish I had more time to proofread this, I apologize for any errors in advance. Citations [1] Survey of Christian Epistemology, by Cornelius Van Til(Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1969)