Pregnancy is Not Sexual

Against moral neutral of sexual activity, Moral philosophy, Sexual morality

How are moral commands given?

In my effort to characterize how God’s moral commands are given and received, I start by describing ways we might block ourselves from hearing divine commands. Perhaps, knowing how we suppress them will show what we are suppressing.

These ways of deafening ourselves to divine commands are commonly called “rationalizations.” Not all rationalizations are conscious. Indeed, becoming aware of a rationalization may facilitate hearing the divine moral command. For often the rationalizations expose themselves as poor reasoning once they become explicit.

In my previous post, I sketched out a far-fetched rationalization for abortion. See “Abortion Stops a Coitus.” The foundation for this far-fetched rationalization is a very popular belief which to many sounds like common sense. The foundational belief is the moral neutrality of sexuality. I regard the moral neutrality of sexuality as the major rationalization deafening the opinion forming elites to divine moral commands for sexuality. If pregnancy is morally neutral, abortion can be justifed on utilitarian grounds.

I continue to criticize the moral neutrality of sexuality by showing how it supports another far-fetched rationalization for abortion. I expose it as leading implicitly to an absurd extension of the sexual. The gist of the rationalization is that pregnancy is a sexual matter and because sexual matters are morally neutral so is pregnancy

How could the condition of pregnancy be regarded as sexual? One way is the far-fetched rationale I gave in my previous post is that pregnancy is still sexual because it began with sexual intercourse. Another way is to extend the imprecise, but legitimate and important, notion of sexual privacy to pregnancy.

The notion of sexual privacy needs much examination and clarification. But I think that any analysis of sexual privacy will admit that there is such a thing and that whatever it exactly may be the first premise of the syllogism below is true. However, such an analysis will expose, I believe, that only a desire to justify abortion by making pregnancy morally neutral leads to the second premise.

What is sexually private to a woman is something with which a woman may treat according to her will.
Her pregnancy is something sexually private to a woman.
Hence, her pregnancy is something with which a woman may treat according to her will.

Abortion Terminates a Coitus; Not a Human Life. What??

Against moral neutral of sexual activity, Moral philosophy, Progressive Morality, Sexual morality

Consider a defense of abortion which I have never heard anyone present. I present it to show the baneful distortions in thinking stemming from accepting the moral neutrality of sexuality.

Abortion is categorically prohibited even for pregnancies resulting from incest or rape. Abortions are direct intentional stopping a human life. It is a hard teaching. Much grievous individual and social pain is eliminable by some abortions.

Why do so many decent people ignore the fact that abortion is an intentional direct taking of a human life? Many of my fellow Catholics simply will not look at abortion as murder. They look only at the problems to be solved by termination of a pregnancy. Anecdotal evidence suggests that most of these decent people also accept the moral neutrality of sexuality. What I want to show is that looking at pregnancy in a certain way along with accepting the moral neutrality of sexuality provides a moral defense of abortion. If people unconsciously look at pregnancy in this certain way to justify abortion, then we have an explanation of why decent people vigorously defend abortion.

What is this special way of looking at pregnancy? It is looking at pregnancy as a continuation of coitus. Of course, this is far fetched but not totally incoherent. When exactly does coitus end? Upon ejaculation the male might be pretty well finished. But coitus is a mutual act and it is not clear that the woman’s part is over once the man withdraws. It is possible to consider fertilization as a continuation of a single mutual action of ovulation and ejaculation. I do not want to continue with details because this is all fuzzy thinking. The point I want to make is that there is a line of loose unconscious thinking which connects pregnancy primarily with sexuality for moral purposes. Indeed the exception some ardent pro-lifers grant to allow abortions for pregnancy starting from an incestual coitus or rape suggests that they may be identifying these pregnancies as parts of impermissible sex acts.

If pregnancy, for moral purposes, is looked at primarily as a condition connected with the coitus initiating it, then continuation or termination of the pregnancy falls under sexual morality. In the very widely held stance of moral neutrality of sexuality, viz., there are no categorical prohibitions of any sexual act, then abortion is open to being justified by references to its consequences.

An ultra sound is a fact check showing that pregnancy is no longer a matter of sexual morality.

The Sound of Divine Commands

Authoritarian Morality, Moral philosophy

What is it like to receive a divine moral command? What is it like to hear a moral command from God?
Answer: The sounds of a divine command are the thoughts and sentiments of accepting a categorical imperative.

The answer may appear an attempt to de-mythologize outlooks understanding moral commands as commands from God. We shall see, though, that including thoughts and sentiments in the authoritative moral outlook includes spirits, if not myths, in the outlook.

What are the thoughts and sentiments of accepting a categorical imperative?

Answer: The thoughts and sentiments of accepting a categorical imperative are the thoughts and sentiments of making a moral judgment with the thoughts and sentiments of authoritative morality. (To be developed in a subsequent post.)

Hence, the sounds of a divine command are the thoughts and sentiments of making a moral judgment with the thoughts and sentiments of authoritative morality.

No new moral rules are added to authoritative moral thinking by interpreting morality as based on divine commands. However, fears and hopes of the authoritative moral outlook need to be vindicated by interpreting the moral authority as divine. Hence, even if morality does not change by interpreting it as based on divine commands, moral theology changes to vindicate the fears and hopes essentially connected with morality.

Fear of violating a moral law, hope that one can obey the moral laws and that somehow it is better that the moral laws be obeyed are essential to moral thinking.

If the moral authority is merely aware of its commands being violated and obeyed, then morality does not matter. The authoritative moral outlook can degenerate into a version of moral nihilism that obedience to moral laws does not matter. Or worse, some group of humans may assume themselves to be the moral authority and try to be all-knowing about violations and authorized to make immoral actions have unpleasant consequences. Morality will matter under these tyrants. But we don’t want morality to matter to some human authorities.

Here I am assuming that the choices for interpreting the moral authority are right reason or a direct immanent activity of the Transcendent – God acting in nature. Moral theology needs to develop notions of this immanent activity of the Transcendent to accommodate the essential sentiments of moral thought.

Consider interpreting the moral authority as right reason. Right reason is the idealized notion of human reason working invariably to get the correct answers about facts and values. The thoughts and sentiments of accepting a categorical imperative as based on right reason is, then, hearing the command of the moral authority. But right reason itself is a lifeless abstraction. It is very difficult to interpret the transparency of our moral actions to reason. I accept the reality of collective human thinking. However, I think that some of our violations of moral laws do not get into collective consciousness. We can still commit secret sins. If right reason is real at all, it is real as a subset of collective consciousness. It is even more difficult to think of right reason as instrumental in having consequences for our violations and good conduct.

So, the moral authority needs to have contact with human reason both in individuals and the collective consciousnesses. But it also needs to be separate from human consciousness and perhaps, through moral commands, be able to have influence on what makes for human harm and good. I think we could think of it as spiritual.

Divine Commands vs. Divine Commanding

Authoritarian Morality, Divine Command Morality, Moral philosophy

In various posts, I have sketched out the structure of morality based on the commands of an authority. In sketching out the structure of authoritarian morality, I have made a strong case that people who accept retributive punishment presuppose authoritarian morality. In other posts, I have sketched out a metaphysical structure of a Transcendent on which everything, including morality, depends for existence. I have, now, the conceptual tools for constructing a conceptual scheme in which the fundamentals of morality are commands of God, with God represented by the Transcendent.

Before working out details of this conceptual structure, I need to specify what actually occurs to make the construction correct.

The structure of authoritarian morality is not authoritarian morality. The structure characterizes the moral reality. The moral reality is the commanding by the moral commander and the responding of those to whom the commands are given. This is a temporal process. So, clearly, it is immanent. Of course, this process depends upon the Transcendent for its existence and character.

But what is the commanding and hearing of commands?

If morality really is based on divine commanding, then moral experience should reveal that activity. The structure of authoritarian morality should then characterize the morality arising from God being a partner in maintenance and development of morality. I am not privy to special moral experiences. There is nothing available to me that others do not also experience in their discussions and personal thinking about right and wrong, good and evil. So, what I say about the commanding of the divine moral commander is an interpretation of what people experience in moral thought and sentiment.

I propose that a sense or thought that we are correct in moral thought or discussion be interpreted as receiving a divine command. There are various descriptions of this sense of being correct about morality. Some have called it what we receive from a moral sense others characterize it as what they get from their moral intuitions, some call it what proper reason recognizes, others characterize it as what their conscience tells them and presently many express this by claiming it is a moral issue.

I use a phrase from Kant.

Stages in our feeling infused thinking at which we can declare a categorical imperative are stages at which we have a sense of receiving a divine command. These categorical imperatives are thoughts of the form “That is right,” “That is wrong,” “That is good,” and “That is bad.” The imperatives about good and bad imply imperatives about right and wrong because a categorical imperative judgment that something is good implies that a categorical imperative that one ought never inhibit it. A categorical imperative judgment that something is bad implies a categorical imperative judgment that one ought never promote it.

To repeat: I am interpreting taking a moral judgment as final is taking it as being divinely commanded. Of course, this does not mean that people consciously interpret their conclusive moral judgments as divinely commanded.

I must emphasize that we are not incorrigible recognizers of divine commands. Divine commands are incorrigible. God cannot err on what ought to be done or propose as good something which is not good. But we can make a mistake about whether God has actually commanded an act or proposed something as good. This is what should be expected if one holds that morality is objective. The prospect of a discrepancy between the objective and the subjective arises when there are thinking feeling subjects trying to be accurate about what is given. Divine commands are the given of morality.

Critical Race Theory Debates and Authoritarian Morality

Authoritarian Morality, Moral philosophy

I am not referring to critical race theory as a methodology for scholars in legal and social research wherein they focus on uncovering and diagnosing remedies for practices which, perhaps very subtly, have an adverse impact on certain populations; especially African-Americans. In September of 2021 I am writing about thoughts and sentiments I detect in news reports about debates on teaching critical race theory in public schools. I detect no serious interest in teaching a scholarly methodology. I sense as little connection between the current debates and critical race theory as there was between the “spirit of Vatican II’’ and the documents of Vatican II back in the 1970s.

I detect debate about adding a moral dimension to the teaching of certain subjects such as history and civics. Should children K-12 be instructed that white people ought to suffer some harm for harms inflicted on African-Americans? The debates are not primarily about teaching children of the harms inflicted on African-Americans, even if voices frequently claim that they only want the facts to be presented. The concern is over learning and understanding these frequently horrifying facts with a special moral sensitivity and aspiration. The special sensitivity is a sense that someone now bears guilt for these injustices and there is an aspiration is that we be purified of the guilt for these injustices. The purging will require discomfort if not clear cut physical damage.

My writing on this topic fits in with my project of showing that moral thought is thought of rules given by divine command. For I detect in these debates presuppositions of significant themes of what I have called “authoritarian morality.” It is authoritarian morality which I, then, model as divine command morality. But of even more importance for my own efforts to make a final contribution to philosophical thought which might then trickle down to improve everyday moral thinking, these confused debates convince me of the need to write a booklet on the notion of moral harm which I have been articulating in my series of blog posts. The confusion of these debates comes from confusion about guilt, punishment and moral harm .

The major theme presupposed is the legitimacy of retributive punishment in its primitive form. . Presupposing retributive punishment is assuming that violation of a moral law entails an expungable moral rule that some harm ought to be for violation of the moral law. The expungable moral rule is expunged when the morally required harm occurs. I have called the morally required harm “moral harm.” The fundamental or primitive form of retributive punishment does not specify the type or degree of the harm which ought to occur, the person or persons who are to suffer the harm nor who is to inflict the harm. Human beings, with development of theories of retributive justice, determine the moral rules for moral harm. That development is long and hard. See The Virtue of Seeking Retribution.

I am delighted to find acceptance of retributive punishment so widely used in a public debate. For that provides some evidence for my thesis that common moral thought is thought of an authoritative morality. Unfortunately, the satisfaction to my philosopher self is offset by my dissatisfaction as a citizen. People are implicitly using concepts such as collective guilt, obligatory harm, and substitutionary atonement without realizing they are doing so. Such unthinking use might do significant damage. For instance, there might be a need to induce much more consciousness of race if white children are to develop a sense of being guilty for harms inflicted by Whites on Blacks in 1920.

Thoughtful use of these concepts of primitive retributive punishment might alleviate the harms of thoughtlessly using them. I do not deny that thoughtless use of the authoritative moral theory that I recommend can afflict psychological and social damage. That fear gives urgency to my project of articulating clearly this moral theory because I believe it is implicitly the dominant, but confused, way of moral thinking.

The Transcendent vs Nothing

Core philosophy, Divine Command Morality, On the Nature of Satan

I am trying to understand the Christian* theme that there is a cosmic battle in progress between God and evil forces. This theme is, on the surface at least, incompatible with the Christian theme of God as the supreme unlimited source of everything except God. The latter theme expresses the standard philosophical concept of God with all the Omni’s, omniscience, omnipotence, etc..

This effort to understand the theme of a cosmic battle is crucial for my project of presenting morality as constituted by divine commands. In modelling morality as laws which are commanded it is very easy to slip into modelling morality as eternal standing laws. The model suggests that there are these immutable laws which were somehow established by a divine command. However, there really is no place for commanding. Classifying the moral laws as simply divine commands adds little to standard natural law models of morality. No new prescriptions can be added. And new prescriptions that some harm ought to occur upon violation of moral laws is crucial to morality as authoritarian morality. To emphasize that the divine commander of morality is an active commander, I try to model the divine commander as a “battlefield commander.”

At the risk of appearing to accept a childish reification of nothing, I explore a conjecture that God is struggling with nothing. There is a cosmic warfare between creating and nothing. Whatever the creator creates, the creator takes from nothing. Whatever the creator sustains keeps something from nothing. Nothing is the loser in creation.

In general, I do not like solving philosophic problems with a verbal change. If the change solves the conceptual problem, it seems an admission that the problem was only verbal. Nonetheless, I will experiment by frequently making the verbal change of “not being” for “nothing.”

The answer to “What is nothing?” is “not being.” So I rewrite my the crucial sentences of the previous paragraph as follows.

I explore a conjecture that God is struggling with not being. There is a cosmic warfare between creating and not being. Whatever the creator creates, the creator takes from not being. Whatever the creator sustains keeps something from not being. Not being is the loser in creation.

Let us suppose that the cosmic struggle is a reaction to creation. Creatures with intelligence and some power are necessary for there to be a struggle not to be – a struggle on behalf of nothing.

The creator creates intelligence with powers. There are intelligence beings with powers to influence what is created. Intelligence recognizes that it depends upon the creator for being. All intelligent beings dread not being. As dependent beings all intelligent beings are essentially capable of not being. And they know it!

There are two ways to react to awareness of dependence. One is to accept the dependent status with faith that the creator sustains one from not being. The other is to rebel against that dependent status.

In rebellion against the dependent status, a creature is rebelling against its being. The rebellious creature is choosing not to be. For a creature to be is to be dependent. Choice of not being dependent is a choice not to be. For a creature to be independent is for it not to be a creature and hence, not to be.

Choice against being a creature is choice against creation. Creation can be attacked only by preventing creatures from being – by having creatures not be. There is a limited way in which creation can be prevented. The only creatures that can be prevented from being are creatures who can not be as the creator intended that they be. These are creatures with free will. The moral laws tell these intelligent creatures what they are created to be. By violating the moral laws they choose not to be. For creatures with free will not to be as the creator intends in a particular area is always a general rebellion against being a creature and, hence, a choice not to be.

Some intelligences have chosen against their dependent status and hence have chosen creation not to be what it is. That means that some intelligences with powers have chosen that there not be creation – that there be nothing. The rebellious creatures want their choice to be correct. The vain hope for ratification of their choice is to have it chosen by all. Thus creatures in rebellion against being seek to use their powers to have others choose not to be which in its limited fashion is always a particular choice not be be as the creator intended in a particular area.

Hence, there is resistance in creation against what the creator creates. The resistant forces can alter what the creator intends in arenas in which the creator grants freedom of choice to some creatures. The typical resistance is disobedience to the moral laws of the creator who is the moral authority.

Subsequent posts will reconsider and clarify the notion of the creator being a moral commander in a contest with intelligences, with powers and free will, who have chosen that there be no creation.

* But I am not working in Christian theology. I want my work to be philosophic. I am here giving philosophic support to Christianity. My line of thought is that authoritarian morality is the correct philosophic model of moral thought. The authoritarian model posits a moral commander in conflict with evil. So, Christianity is shown to use a philosophically approved model of morality.

The Transcendent’ s Immanent Moral Order

Authoritarian Morality, Moral philosophy

The Transcendent’ s Immanent Moral Order

This post introduces a model of authoritarian morality as the moral order of theoretical reason’s Transcendent. As such, it can be fairly labeled a model of divine command morality. The model is a construct of theoretical reason about the moral use of practical reason. For theoretical reason the ground of everything is transcendent; not in the world – not immanent.

However, we have seen that theoretical reason can concede that what transcends theoretical reason need not transcend practical reason. We have also seen the inseparability of practical and theoretical reasoning. So, this model is a theory about a dimension of practical reason which may have direct contact with theoretical reason’s Transcendent. This model can be legitimately influenced by the practical reasoning it characterizes and also influence the practical reasoning it characterizes. For instance, temptations to disobey the moral laws might lead to theorizing about their correctness just as theorizing about correctness might strengthen resistance to temptations.

The above remarks are relevant for the case that the model is correct – presents the truth about correct human morality. There are three steps to evaluating a model of divine command morality. One: does it correctly represent a significant way in which humans think about morality? Two: What is it like for the commands of this moral thinking to come from a non-human source? Three: Is the non-human source the transcendent God?

In my series of posts outlining Authoritarian Morality, I have taken step one. Step three requires more detailed examination of practical reason. Theoretical reason cannot say that commands are those of the Transcendent because theoretical reason cannot speak of the Transcendent. So, theoretical reason can never complete a defense of divine command morality. Ultimately, proof that morality is based on divine commands comes from practical reason “hearing” the commands.

In my next post, I take step two by positing authoritative moral thinking as existing innately in human thinking. This way of thinking is directly dependent upon the Transcendent and humans have a capacity to recognize the source of this way of thinking. The Transcendent’s immanent moral order is built up by humans from innate capacities such as those for language and arithmetic. However, special features of moral thinking such as the universality of its laws and transparency lead to interpreting the constructions from this capacity as dependent on more than human work.

Epistemic & Metaphysical Transcendence, Religious Truth

Core philosophy, Divine Command Morality, Realism vs. anti-realism

Epistemic and metaphysical transcendence

This post is an effort to clarify to myself what I think and mean by transcendence. Also I want to point out that conceding transcendence over theoretical thinking does not need to paralyzing doubt about the reliability and accuracy of our thinking; especially about religious truth.

When I write about getting the truth, I write as a representative realist. I write about our representations representing correctly or incorrectly a represented reality. Typically, the represented reality is thought of as not being a representation.

But what is the thought of not being a representation? A systemic feature of representative realism comes from it being reflective thinking, viz., thinking about thinking. In this theoretical thinking we are always thinking of representations. Consequently, while thinking as a representative realist, we cannot think of realities which are not representations. Thus, representative realists posit realities beyond thought as truth conditions for thoughts. This is epistemic transcendence.

However, acceptance of epistemic transcendence is a result from theoretical thinking about our thinking. It does not follow that when using practical reasoning we do not think directly about the realities which are beyond thought when using theoretical reasoning. For instance, when driving a car in traffic one is thinking directly about what is in the traffic; not representations of what is in the traffic. You are thinking about the car in front of you; not on how thoughts about the car can be correct.

A metaphysical argument for an ultimate reality on which all other realities depend is conducted in reflective theoretical thinking. A result is reached that an ultimate being is different from anything which can be thought. This theoretical result that there can be no thought of the Transcendent is metaphysical transcendence.

In both cases, we have theoretical claims that something cannot be thought in theoretical thinking. This concession should not lead to paralyzing doubt about our ability to think reliably and accurately.

First, it is almost impossible to separate our theoretical thinking, which is reflective thinking, from our practical thinking which, for all that we can say, deals directly with non-representational realities.

Even in the most austere theoretical thinking such as metaphysics and epistemology, we engage in the practical thinking of what words effectively express our thoughts and how to use technologies for writing those thoughts. Even in the most mundane technical projects such as washing dishes or painting a wall, we do the theoretical thinking of remembering what we have just done. For roughly the same reasons that we cannot think of things in themselves (non-representations), we cannot think of realities merely given to thought for practical reasoning. So, thinking which is totally theoretical and thinking which is totally practical probably transcend thought.

I take this as a basis for believing that for most of our thinking we do not need worry about the limitations of thought in epistemology and metaphysics.

Second, epistemic transcendence leads only to the mild skepticism that we cannot know that we know. See We cannot know that we know.

Third, metaphysical transcendence need only lead to decision that the “high metaphysical” thinking which posits the unthinkable Transcendent is not the only way to attain religiously significant truths. If the high metaphysics were the only way of attaining religious truths, true religion would be a mysticism indistinguishable from totally agnosticism or atheism.

There does, however, remain the problem of developing a religious epistemology showing how there can be truth conditions for religiously significant theories, such as a divine command moral theory, even if those truth conditions transcend our thought. These religiously significant propositions will be in that middle ground between purely theoretical thought and purely practical thought. We have noted that there is such a middle ground. It will be faith seeking understanding which motivates developing such a religious epistemology. And, yes, in this epistemology, we will concede for religious knowledge that we can never know that we know.

Opacity of free will to theoretical reason

Moral philosophy

Opacity of free will to theoretical reason. There can be no theoretical account of free will.*

This post is a digression into some of my conjectures on self awareness; especially awareness of free will. Notice that I write of self awareness; not self knowledge.

I expand upon the suggestion of the previous post that theoretical reasoning places a barrier between our thinking and what we think about to suggest why we cannot have a theory of free will.

We use our free will in our practical reasoning. We encounter our free will by using it; not by thinking about it. When we pause to think about our free choosing, we are not using our practical reasoning; let alone our free will. Instead, we switch to using our theoretical reasoning. With our theoretical reasoning we try to form some representation of our free choosing. It might be a thought of not being mentally or physically pushed. For me representation of freely choosing is remembrance of having intended to do what I chose to do. But the representation of the choosing is not the choosing. Similarly, remembrance of intending is not the intending.

Actual choosing and intending are things in themselves. Theories are about things in themselves. Things in themselves are not in the theories. The elements of theories are representations.

Perhaps this may be said of any dynamic process. But when we talk of the external causality of a falling rock, the rock does not care about what we say of it. But we have the awareness of the free choosing. So, the theoretical remarks about no free choosing because no representation of choosing recognizes its freedom concern us. For we are aware of the freedom because we are exercising it! We are aware from the inside.

Even our own reflection on free choice gives only a representation of our free choosing which is not exactly what we were aware of.

I expand the topics.

I am exploring implications of holding that practical reason is primary over theoretical reason. We have seen the primacy in the possibility of practical reason being aware of an immanent commander who is beyond theoretical reason. So, theoretical reason regards it as the Transcendent. The Transcendent is theoretical opaque. Similarly, I want to say that free will, intending, hearing a moral law as a command and obeying a moral law because it is commanded are theoretically opaque. These are ways practical reason operates. The primacy of practical reason tells us that we cannot place theoretical constraints on capacities of practical reason. The price practical reason pays for this primacy is that there can be no theoretical justification that practical reason has these basic capacities.

To adapt some of Newman’s terminology: We can give real assent to our choosing freely but never notional assent.

A final example of theoretical opacity is the self. In practical reasoning we are aware of our self when we seek self-preservation. But when we try to have a theory of our self, we cannot, as Hume notoriously noted, we cannot even represent our self.

*( Upon editing this post, I realize that I could develop the stronger claim that moral reasoning is theoretically opaque. This would imply that moral arguments could never be logically rigorous because the inability to place basic moral reasoning capacities into a theory precludes justifying their use.)

The Transcendent is Immanent in Moral Transparency

Authoritarian Morality, Core philosophy, Divine Command Morality, Philosophical Theology

The Transcendent is Immanent in Moral Transparency

Theists establishing the existence of God as a transcendent reality can go on to establishing a consistent divine command moral theory.

In my previous post , I noted that the transcendence of that upon which everything depends for its existence is an artefact of our theoretical thinking. The argument for the being of that upon which everything depends for its existence proceeded by reflection upon our ways of thinking. That the argument proceeded by reflective thinking is apparent premises asserting that we must think in a certain way. In this reflective thinking we form a model of our thinking wherein we posit something beyond our thinking.

Similarly, in a case for a representative realism about truth conditions we form a model of our thinking wherein we posit the truth conditions for representations as things in themselves always beyond our representations. However, this barrier between truth conditions as things in themselves inaccessible to thought is only an artefact of the realism theory, a representative realism theory.

We ourselves along with our thinking are existing entities. We and our thinking are truth conditions for some claims. So, there is no reason for holding that in truth conditions, there is a barrier between thinking and what is thought about. When we are not thinking about our thinking we do not erect a barrier between thought and its objects.

So, there is a basis for holding that if we are not thinking about our thinking to form a metaphysical theory about that on which everything depends, we need not posit some barrier between that on which everything depends and our thinking. In particular, in our awareness that conformity to a moral law is transparent, our thought is in contact with that which from a theoretical point of view transcends thought. Or, so I am claiming. Recall that transparency is the awareness of our obedience, or disobedience, to a moral law is known by something or other. See Core Concepts of Authoritarian Morality.

The theoretical transcendent is encountered in our moral thinking.

This is my “breakthrough” in development of a consistent divine command moral theory.

In a series of post developing a model of moral thought as presupposing a moral authority, I have made a case for a moral commander. In another series of posts, using “high metaphysical” reasoning, I have made a case for a divinity – the Transcendent. Theoretically the Transcendent is beyond the immanent reality it sustains while the moral commander is immanent. Now, though, we have realized that in practical reasoning we could be in contact with what is theoretically transcendent. I can consistently extend my model of moral thinking by identifying the divine commander as the Transcendent in metaphysical.

Theoretical reason pays a cost for this permission to go forward in development of a divine command moral theory. The cost is that theoretical reason has to concede that practical reason is superior. For theoretical reason has to admit that it creates artefacts that need to be set aside for realities uncovered by practical reason.

I have no longer have any intention of interpreting the thought of any philosopher; let alone John Henry Newman. Only recently, I took an on-line course on Newman from Bishop Robert Barron. I wish that I had studied Newman earlier. His wisdom exhibited in combining faith and skepticism guides me. I suggest that my sense of transparency in moral thinking leads me to give what Newman calls real assent to the divine while my theoretical reasoning to the Transcendent leads me to give notional assent to the divine.