u/ses1

In Christian theology, progressive revelation means that God did not choose to reveal His entire truth to humanity all at once. Instead, He revealed it sequentially, over centuries, in harmony with His historical purposes.

Revelation is progressive in completion, not in direction. Newer revelation builds upon, clarifies, and fulfills older revelation - it never contradicts it.

Think of it as an educational curriculum: you do not teach a first-grader advanced calculus. You begin with basic arithmetic. The introduction of calculus later on doesn’t mean the rules of arithmetic were "wrong" or that the math teacher changed their mind; it means the student was finally ready for the fuller picture.

The Principle of Divine Pedagogy (Concession vs. Ideal)

Skeptics argue that if God permitted practices like polygamy, harsh warfare, or ancient near-eastern servitude in the Old Testament, He was either endorsing immorality or His standards changed. Note: Slavery in the Bible was indentured servitude, not chattel slavery.

God frequently used concessions to manage a fallen world without violating human free will entirely. Jesus explicitly uses this defense in Matthew 19:8:

"Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard, but it was not this way from the beginning."

Jesus points back to the Creation ideal (Genesis 1–2) as the true moral standard. The Mosaic civil law was not a portrait of a perfect heaven; it was an brake on a broken, ancient society. God regulated, restricted, and mitigated evils (like turning absolute, brutal chattel slavery into heavily restricted, legally protected debt-servitude contracts) to pull humanity gradually toward the ideal.

Historical Reality and Organic Continuity

God chose to step into real human history rather than speaking from a vacuum. If God had demanded a 21st-century Western legal and social framework from a nomadic ancient Near Eastern society in 1400 BC, the message of redemption would have been completely unintelligible and culturally unadoptable, leading to societal collapse. This would be like asking a 2 year-old to look both ways before crossing the street - they are far too immature to do so.

Conservative theology argues that God met people where they were but never left them there. The Old Testament laws planted the subverting theological seeds - such as the Imago Dei (Genesis 1:27), which states every human has equal, intrinsic value - that would inevitably grow to dismantle ancient cultural evils from the inside out.

Christocentric Fulfillment

The ultimate defense of progressive revelation is found in the New Testament itself. The author of Hebrews states:

*"In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.." (Hebrews 1:1-2)

The Old Testament laws were "shadows" pointing to a reality (Colossians 2:17). When Christ arrived, He did not discard the old law as a human mistake; He fulfilled it (Matthew 5:17) by revealing the deep, internal spiritual reality behind the external civil codes.

• The Old Law said: Do not murder (external).

• Christ revealed the full picture: Do not harbor hatred in your heart (internal).

Conclusion

To argue that progressive revelation proves human culture dictates Biblical morality is a category error. Human culture was the canvas God painted on, not the brush.

From a Christian viewpoint, progressive revelation proves God's patience as a master teacher. He tolerated sub-optimal cultural frameworks temporarily, regulating them out of mercy for a "hard-hearted" people, while steadily driving history forward toward the ultimate, unchangeable moral standard personified in Jesus Christ.

God = Goodness (or goodness is identical to God) isn't simply wordplay or a definitional trick. It's a solid metaphysical answer to one of the oldest questions in ethics: The [Euthyphro Dilemma]. Originally pointed out by Plato in his namesake dialogue Euthyphro the dilemma poses:

Is something good because the gods love it, or do the gods love it because it is already good?

• If things are good simply because God commands them, morality becomes arbitrary. If God commanded murder tomorrow, murder would suddenly be "good."

• If God is commanding things because they are already good outside of Him, then an independent standard of morality exists higher than God. This means God is not the ultimate reality; He must submit to an external moral law.

Classical theism avoids this dilemma by denying both options. Instead it offers a third option: God does not appeal to some outside standard of goodness. But God doesn't arbitrarily make it up either. God simply is the standard. Goodness is equivalent to Godliness.

But how can a personal entity be identical to an abstract moral perfection?

To understand this, we have to explore the bedrock of medieval metaphysics. Medieval philosophers like Thomas Aquinas operated under the doctrine of the Convertibility of the Transcendentals.

In this framework, Being (existence) and Goodness are conceptually distinct, but perfectly identical in reality. They are two sides of the same coin.

Goodness as "Fullness of Being"

To understand this, we must define "good" the way the philosophers: a thing is good to the extent that it successfully actualizes its intended nature or purpose. Goodness is completeness; it is the "fullness of being."

Consider a kitchen knife.

What makes a knife a good knife? It has a sharp blade, an comfortable handle, and structural integrity. These are all positive realities; they represent the "fullness" of what a knife is meant to be. They enable the knife to fulfill its purpose - to cut.

What makes a knife a bad knife? A dull blade, a cracked handle, or rust. Notice that dullness, cracks, and rust are not positive substances created and added to the knife. A crack is a lack of structural integrity. Dullness is a lack of sharpness. They are privations.

Therefore, badness or evil is always a privation - a hole, a lack, or a malfunction where being ought to be. Since evil is a negative space (a lack of being), it logically follows that being itself is inherently good. To exist at all is to possess some degree of metaphysical reality, and to possess reality is to possess a degree of goodness.

Metaphysical Good vs. Moral Good:

• Metaphysical Goodness: The sheer perfection of existing and possessing functional capacities. A cancer cell or a devastating hurricane possesses immense "metaphysical" goodness because they are highly active, powerful realities fulfilling their physical natures perfectly.

• Moral Goodness: This applies strictly to rational beings with free will. Moral goodness is achieved when a creature uses its metaphysical capacities (like intellect and will) to align with ultimate truth and the design of reality.

When a person acts wickedly, they do not possess a physical substance called "evil." Rather, they are suffering from a moral malfunction or a privation - they are taking inherently good things (desire for justice, strength, intellect) and misdirecting them.

The Pillar of Divine Simplicity

The second central philosophical pillar comes from the notion of Divine Simplicity. God in classical theism is understood to be "without parts".

If God had goodness the way a human "has" a good sense of humor, it would mean goodness is an attribute separate from God's core essence. If that were true, God would be dependent on the attribute of goodness to be good.

Divine Simplicity states that God is His attributes.

• God does not have power; He is Power itself.

• God does not have existence; He is the Act of Existence itself.

• God does not have goodness; He is Goodness itself.

Since God has no potentiality (He cannot change, He cannot deteriorate, He lacks nothing), He is said to be the fullness of Being. And since fullness of Being is by definition absolute perfection, God and Goodness are synonymous.

Addressing Critical Objections:

Objection: "This is just a semantic trick! You're just redefining the word 'God' to mean 'Good' so that God wins the argument by default."

Response: No, because the argument is based on independent metaphysical deductions. We arrive at the concept of God by 1) looking at the universe and realizing there must be a primary cause that is Pure Actuality and Being itself. 2) We arrive at the concept of Goodness by realizing that perfection means the fullness of being. The philosophical argument shows that these two separate lines of inquiry collapse into the exact same metaphysical reality.

Objection: "If being equals goodness, then why is the world filled with so much horrific suffering and physical evil?"

Response: Classical philosophy distinguishes between metaphysical goodness and experiential or physical evil. A virus has metaphysical goodness (it functions perfectly according to its nature), but its interaction with a human body causes a privation of health in the human.

The suffering is real, but it confirms the theory: suffering is always experienced as the loss or corruption of a good thing (health, life, peace), proving that good is the fundamental reality, and evil is a parasite upon it.

Conclusion:

God is identical with absolute Goodness. Instead of good being a divine fiat or law standing over against God, it argues that God is the measure of all good. Since God is the completeness of being and is devoid of no perfection, God Equals Good.

See also What makes an act good?

The core of this argument rests on a philosophical method known as abduction, or "arguing to the best explanation." In the debate over God’s existence, the primary disagreement is rarely about the raw data itself. Both theist and secular scientists look at the exact same universe, read the same genetic codes, and observe the same human behaviors. The disagreement lies in the interpretive framework.

The argument posits that theism provides a far more cohesive, comprehensive, and elegant explanation for these three specific pillars of reality than a purely materialistic worldview.

Note: this argument is not arguing for the Christian God, but for Theism in general. Once a Designer is established as the best explanation, then we can go on to who the Designer is.

1. The Information in DNA

The Shared Data: DNA contains digital, programmatic information. It is a biological code consisting of four chemical bases (A, T, C, G) arranged in a precise sequence to build proteins and govern life.

• Materialism: Concludes that this code is the result of unguided chemical reactions, natural selection, and deep time.

• Theism: Concludes that the code is the product of an intellect.

Why Theism Offers the Better Explanation: In every other area of human experience, information always traces back to a mind. If you see a sequence of characters on a page, software code on a screen, or even "I love you" written in the sand, you instantly recognize intelligent agency. Materialism requires you to believe that a highly sophisticated, self-replicating digital code arose completely from mindless matter. Theism naturally aligns with our uniform experience: information comes from an informer.

2. The Fine-Tuning Constants

The Shared Data: The fundamental physical constants of our universe (such as the strength of gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the mass of electrons) are balanced on a knife-edge. If any of these values were altered by even one part in 10^60 or more, life would be impossible, and stars or planets wouldn't have formed.

• Materialism: Concludes that we either got incredibly lucky in a single universe, or we live in a "Multiverse" where an infinite number of universes exist, and we happen to occupy the winning lottery ticket.

• Theism: Concludes the universe was intentionally designed to sustain life.

Why Theism Offers the Better Explanation: To avoid a Designer, materialism is forced to invent a "Multiverse", a concept that cannot be 1) observed, 2) measured, or 3) tested. Postulating an infinite number of unobservable universes just to explain the precision of this one violates Occam’s Razor (the principle that the simplest explanation with the fewest assumptions is usually the best). Theism offers a single, elegant explanation: the universe looks fine-tuned because it was tuned.

3. The Existence of Evil and Suffering

The Shared Data: The world is filled with objective moral atrocities, suffering, and a profound human intuition that things are "not the way they are supposed to be."

• Materialism: Concludes that "evil" is just an illusion or a byproduct of evolutionary biology to help our species survive. In a purely material world, there is no objective right or wrong—only survival of the fittest.

• Theism: Concludes that evil is real, representing a departure from a good God's original design, often tied to human free will.

Why Theism Offers the Better Explanation: Materialism actually undercuts the very concept of evil. As Richard Dawkins famously put it, in a universe of blind physical forces, there is "no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference." Yet, human beings across cultures have a deep, unshakable conviction that certain things (like torturing a child) are objectively, factually wrong, not just socially inconvenient. Materialism cannot account for this moral reality. Theism accounts for both: it explains why we intuitively know what "good" is (it mirrors God's character) and why "evil" outrages us (it breaks His moral law).

Conclusion: The Explanatory Power of Worldviews

When you stack the two conclusions side-by-side, the materialistic view requires a series of mismatched, ad-hoc explanations: DNA is a fluke of chemistry, fine-tuning is a fluke of a multiverse, and evil is a fluke of evolutionary psychology.

Theism, by contrast, provides a single underlying cause that elegantly unites all three pieces of data. A supreme, intelligent, and morally good Mind perfectly accounts for why there is complex information, why the universe is precisely calibrated for life, and why objective morality exists. Therefore, based on the superior explanatory power of the conclusion, the data points directly to God.