C.S. Lewis on Sexual Morality and Christian Marriage

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I see, well there is something to be said about the fact that, for centuries since the Faith’s founding, every major Christian scholar accepted and taught the belief of the “Worm of Regret,” among many other things. But I won’t push this, after all, as I mentioned above, it was Our Lady of Fatima, not some professional apologist, that got me to revert to the Catholic Faith. (Albeit, mortal non-Saint human agents did play a part in it.) Granted I believed in the existence of God before my reversion, but my faith was weak and wishful. Now however my belief in the existence of God is so strong, that if someone where to present me with overwhelming, undeniable evidence that God does not exist, my reaction would be akin to that of the titular character’s behaviour in Frederic Nietzsche’s Parable of the Madman; because quite frankly, if does not exist, reality would cease to make sense to me.

Well said! It really all just comes down to your presuppositions.

I've adopted an open form of objectivism for the sake of a temporal philosophy. The idea of Christian faith being "wishful" is offensive to me. God either exists or He doesn't. You've expressed in your Nietzsche reference the same reaction I think committed disbelievers would have. Twilight cannot understand that God's will is perfect, that somehow God's decisions are contingent on how mankind "feeeels" about things. It's easy to pass judgment on that which you don't fully understand.

Plattitudes like "God's will is perfect" are problematic because they are meant to shut down critical thought and undermine the strength of human rationality. It's a thought-stopping technique.

When one considers the fact that everyone has a different notion of what "God's will" is, one is confronted with the difficulty in knowing which wills are God's and which are humans'. I think that's where removing platitudes and engaging in critical enquiry can be beneficial.

Thank you, yes I do try very hard to assume the best of people, despite the times we live in. I haven’t really thought of it in terms of an atheist’s view of reality, I guess should. It can get hard at times though since I truly consider the Catholic Church to be a family, and my fellow-Catholics to be my brothers and sisters. Usually though I get more angered with opponents of the Church that are closer to Her than with hostile seculars and atheists, (I’m not saying Twilight is one them.) so I guess I’m at an advantage in this field. But regardless I still need work on developing that martyr-like zeal.

It’s interesting though that we’re discussing the subjective moral judgements and “wishful thinking” because, back when I was a Deist, and had that weak wishful faith in God; it was my concerns objective morality that made me desperately want God to be real. I didn’t have a good childhood, and for me, both then and now, morality cannot exist without God, thus if God doesn’t exist, morality doesn’t exist, and if morality doesn’t exist than what I suffered in my childhood was totally okay and legit, and I couldn’t live with that. It was that and the grace of God that kept hanging on to some kind of belief in His existence. Of course now I’ve grown far beyond that to the point where like I said before, reality doesn’t make sense to me without God.

Catholic Theology defines God as the Supreme Being, this means that God is Perfection Himself and thus, His will is most certainly perfect. You can’t dismiss “God’s will is perfect” as a “platitude” and try to criticize a believer and impose that dismissal in your criticism of said believer. Because if that believer agrees with the Catholic teaching that God is the Supreme Being, than your criticism is completely contradictory. Atheists need to stop these kinds of criticisms and just get to the main arguments, either God does exist or He doesn’t. If God does exist, than He exists a se, He is perfectly just, His will is perfect, &c.

Whether reality makes sense to you without God is irrelevant. NOTHING can possibly make sense at all without God, specifically the God we worship.

God created the universe and is ultimately responsible for how the universe works. He is the author of life and has given it the highest value. So when you look at life and the individual, you see that the primary motive of all rational beings is to preserve life, beginning with one’s own. That which causes pain is a threat to life and must be avoided. That which brings about happiness and pleasure (within reason) preserves life and is sought after. So one may conclude that material self-seeking is moral good and objective because it is rooted in physical reality. And because we can know God is responsible for that reality, we can trust that what is right and just is encoded within that same material reality. Love for others, for example, is a response to one’s own values and is one manifestation of reciprocity. It is only the rational mind that can detect and act on love, which due to the effects of sin on the mind requires an act of God. Without God, there’s no such thing as rational thought.

Shield gave an excellent answer for God’s perfection not being a platitude.

The Bible is explicit about what God’s will is or is not, and same can be inferred from objective reality. Being perfect is a logical conclusion drawn from God’s nature. If God is perfect, His will must also be perfect. It’s illogical to assume that man’s lack of omniscience is a reflection of God. If God had wanted an omniscient being, He would have made one. You can’t presume to know God’s will from what one person says if there is a risk that person is projecting his own will onto God’s, e.g. lying, wishful thinking, etc. But omniscience is problematic because our own thoughts would be indistinguishable from God’s own. Rational thought would be irrelevant, as would personal agency. The relevant question is do we trust God’s will or not? We already know God’s will if we’re being honest with ourselves. But do we trust Him? It’s more often the case that we don’t.

As to shutting down rational thought—not at all. But what even is the value of rational thought? Sin corrupts the human mind, and thus human beings are incapable of rational thought to begin with. In order to have rational thought, you must have some objective standard by which conclusions may be drawn. Love cannot exist unless the object of desire possesses value, for instance, nor can love be said to exist without some corresponding objective byproduct or physical action in the material world, i.e. giving a hug or feeding the hungry, etc. But where does value come from? An object cannot have value if it doesn’t exist. Therefore, value comes from objective reality, which cannot exist apart from God, and thus nothing can have value unless God first gives it value.

Rational and independent thought are God’s crowning achievement in the creation of man. The influence of sin on the human mind renders all human thinking worthless. Faith in God is as close to rational thought one can get without borrowing from other believers. The only way one can trust one’s own thoughts is by trusting that God makes those thoughts worth something, gives them value. Only with the renewal of the mind through faith in Christ can rational thought happen.