| | Kant is not saying we should try to emulate God. For one thing God has a holy will and we have a good will, i.e., we can choose either good or evil whereas God cannot. He necessarily does the good. God, along with other regulative notions, serve only to direct "the understanding towards a certain goal upon which the routes marked out by all its rules converge as upon their point of intersection. This point is indeed a mere idea, a focus imaginarius, from which, since it lies quite outside the bounds of possible experience, the concepts of the understanding do not in reality proceed." (CPR A644/B672 I still don't see why God is necessary under this conception. If God is serving merely as an imaginary standard of judgment or morality, then you don't need God. You can have an abstract standard of judgment or morality without him.
I wrote, "There is no physical line that one can visually identity, like a line of chalk drawn on a blackboard. But, as I said, the equator is still a physical place that be crossed, like the Rockies. It is not an imaginary entity, like an angel." Do you mean to imply that, although you cannot see or touch the equator, it is a physical entity. Well, if the ship I was on crossed it, then it was positioned on the equator at the time it made the crossing. Otherwise, it could not have crossed it. I could see the area of the ocean located at the equator when I crossed it and I could have touched it, if I had had the opportunity. But I think there may be a problem with the use of the concept "cross." Not only can one cross the Rockies, but one can fail to cross them by smashing into them. You cannot, it seems to me, crash into the equator. A story may make my point. When I crossed the Article Circle, our pilot announced, very dramatically that we were about to "cross" the circle. Then he jerked the wheel of the plane and asked, "Did you guys feel that?" Of course, everyone laughed. They got the joke. The article [arctic] circle is not the kind of physical thing that can bump a plane. No, but that's hardly the criterion for whether something is real or imaginary. The arctic circle is a location on the earth that one can fly over. My point was that Kant and Rand use God and angels respectively to make epistemological points. I've never heard Rand use angels to make a philosophical point. When did she do this?
Glenn asked, "Does God do it because it is good, or is it good because God does it?" You replied, "Neither. He is necessitated to do the good by his nature and has no choice about it."
Then what he does is not "good." The concept "good" presupposes a standard, a purpose and the necessity of choice in the face of an alternative. Where no choice or alternatives exist, no morality is possible. If God has no choice about an action, then his action is neither good nor evil.
- Bill
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