Arguments for God's Existence - Page 2

Gorgias · #16 Apr 27, '12, 1:52 pm

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Originally Posted by greylorn

Any competent argument for God's existence must begin with a complete definition of God, else it is worthless.

Anyone who presumes that a complete definition of God, as given by a finite creature, is possible, is foolish. This, however, does not constitute a proof of the non-existence of God. However, it would seem that it possible to infer the existence of God, based on God's effects, as experienced in creation.

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One must prove first that the properties themselves are possible, and move from there to a justification for the idea that an entity embodying these properties might exist, and from there to proof of existence.

And how would one who exists in the context of a physical universe prove properties that are posited to exist outside that universe, in a purely non-physical context? Just curious. 'Cause if your standard admits of no means to meet it, then you're not asking us to engage in rational discussion; you're simply obliquely telling us to go away and quit bothering you. Just sayin'...

Charlemagne II · #17 Apr 27, '12, 2:27 pm

Yet this "prime mover" is assumed to have acted, at least once, when he set the ball in motion (so to speak). So the list contains a logical absurdity, and as such it proves that such a being cannot exist. To refute such arguments is not even challenging.

Serious, seriously, get a grip on your logic.

In God there is no before or after. These are temporal concepts describing temporal existence. God created time and therefore is not subject to being ruled by his creation. To refute such an argument as yours "is not even challenging," as you would say (have said).

Charlemagne II · #18 Apr 27, '12, 2:30 pm

greylorn

Any competent argument for God's existence must begin with a complete definition of God, else it is worthless.

When I deduce from certain sounds, vibrations, smells, etc. that some is coming toward me around the next corner, do I have to have a "complete definition" of that something before I can believe that it exists?

Charlemagne II · #19 Apr 27, '12, 2:35 pm

greylorn

And, as I'vw explained in detail in previous posts, an omniscient entity cannot think creatively. IMO a Creator who cannot think creatively, cannot create, meaning that he cannot be a Creator.

Sorry I missed those posts. They must have been humdingers!

Serious · #20 Apr 27, '12, 2:51 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlemagne II

In God there is no before or after. These are temporal concepts describing temporal existence. God created time and therefore is not subject to being ruled by his creation. To refute such an argument as yours "is not even challenging," as you would say (have said).

Usual nonsense. Any ACTION involves a CHANGE. Any change involves a before and an after. Boring to point out such elementary logical errors.

JDaniel · #21 Apr 27, '12, 4:30 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by greylorn

Any competent argument for God's existence must begin with a complete definition of God, else it is worthless. One must prove first that the properties themselves are possible, and move from there to a justification for the idea that an entity embodying these properties might exist, and from there to proof of existence.

Anything else is simply a relatively mindless exercise, taking one's favorite dogma out for a walk.

Unless Plantinga defines and justifies the attributes of the entity he calls :"God," his arguments are worthless.

Craig completely fails to justify, much less prove the properties he assigns to God. IMO his arguments and conclusions are of no value, except to mollify and reassure those who are already believers in the traditional God-concept.

The property of omnipotence cannot be proven, because to prove such a property it must be demonstrated. From the laws of relativistic physics it is clear that a single use of omnipotent power would destroy the universe.

And, as I'vw explained in detail in previous posts, an omniscient entity cannot think creatively. IMO a Creator who cannot think creatively, cannot create, meaning that he cannot be a Creator. An unthinking being who simply possesses knowledge is uninteresting in other respects as well-- we have enough mindless college perfessers already.

But, Greylorn, your answer is even more absurd: "a room full of giant, lab-coated geniuses?"

Where's the book?

God bless,
jd

Charlemagne II · #22 Apr 27, '12, 8:51 pm

Serious

Usual nonsense. Any ACTION involves a CHANGE. Any change involves a before and an after. Boring to point out such elementary logical errors.

This fallacy is on a par with arguing that God was created like everything else, and that given the laws of entropy, he will end like everything else.

God is not subject to any silly "befores" and "afters."

It's always the atheist's presumption that if there is a God he has to behave according to human logic. But of course, if He did, he wouldn't be God, would he?

Serious · #23 Apr 27, '12, 11:04 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlemagne II

It's always the atheist's presumption that if there is a God he has to behave according to human logic. But of course, if He did, he wouldn't be God, would he?

There is no such thing as "human" logic. There is only logic. And God is bound by it; he cannot change the past, cannot create a square circle, and cannot act without a change.

Gaber · #24 Apr 28, '12, 6:23 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlemagne II
It's always the atheist's presumption that if there is a God he has to behave according to human logic. But of course, if He did, he wouldn't be God, would he?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Serious

There is no such thing as "human" logic. There is only logic. And God is bound by it; he cannot change the past, cannot create a square circle, and cannot act without a change.

I'm not an atheist, and I don't buy it either, as many don't. And while God has nothing to do with logic, even what we see as illogical in the Univers, even accepting it as "God/s Creation" it is the falult of the premise or our very limited vision that makes it appear that what we se doesn't follow. It is not an inconsitency or change, or personal (good grief!) descision by God to accomodate someone on this speck. Cll's argument is a form of "the God of the gaps," and in this case gapping gaps, even with the great limitations posed by low order logics.

Charlemagne II · #25 Apr 28, '12, 7:47 am

Serious

There is no such thing as "human" logic. There is only logic. And God is bound by it; he cannot change the past, cannot create a square circle, and cannot act without a change.

Logic does not exist as a separate entity. If there were no God nor any man, would there be logic? So obviously there is human logic. What you fail to consider is that the logic of God, because God is infinite, would be infinitely more complex than the logic of man. This in itself is a logical inference.

When Einstein said he wanted to know God's thoughts, that was a tacit admission that God knew something Einstein didn't know, and it was Einstein's business to search out and find those thoughts. But at the end Einstein was still searching and not able to uncover all God's thoughts.

Gaber · #26 Apr 28, '12, 9:01 am

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Originally Posted by Charlemagne II

Logic does not exist as a separate entity.

And neither does anything else. God is ALL.

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If there were no God nor any man, would there be logic?

Given.

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So obviously there is human logic. What you fail to consider is that the logic of God, because God is infinite, would be infinitely more complex than the logic of man. This in itself is a logical inference.

The "logic of God" is an anthropomorphization, projected by our sense of wishing understandable order, as are our ideas about God, the Unknown not being penetrable in its etirety, or even nearly, by mortal mind. Nevertheless, man constructrs thoughts about what he thinks reality is, even, and maybe especially, if he feels he has "deivine guidance."

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When Einstein said he wanted to know God's thoughts, that was a tacit admission that God knew something Einstein didn't know, and it was Einstein's business to search out and find those thoughts. But at the end Einstein was still searching and not able to uncover all God's thoughts.

Which will never be discovered, as God as Being has none, unless you wish to consider Creation as God's thought. But then we have the dualist delima of "If all this is God's thought, God's thought cannot be sepearate from God, yet Christians maintain a belief in an objective creation apart from God" that is not possible.

greylorn · #27 Apr 28, '12, 6:06 pm

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Originally Posted by Gaber

I myself might ammed that to read "...possesses information, or book learning," as distinct from actual knowledge which comes from experience and understanding. My experience is, say in driving a car, my ability to do that was hypothetical or theoretical at one point, became a matter of information at another, was practiced with heavy doses of thinking at another, and evolved into the ability to do it by attention to feel and sound later,as my mind and muscles came to "know" what to do without thinking out every step. Generally we might say that what is known is done by feel. Maths might even fall into this category. Remember th story of the benzene ring? Or how many mathemeticians say they think and think and think and then, unbidden, bingo! Darn, that sounds really zen! Similarly with other creative pursuits at their levels and degrees of maturity.

You are clearly on the right track, and if you examine what you already know about knowledge and the application thereof, you'll find that more critical distinctions can be made.

For example, most EE students graduating with B grades or higher can write down Maxwell's equations for electrodynamics upon request, and can work with those equations to develop solutions to particular geometries used in transmitting electromagnetic energy (e.g. transmission wires, waveguides, free em propagation in space, etc). Yet at best, only 3% of them can actually derive those equations from scratch-- "scratch" being simpler laws of em behavior such as Ampere's and Faraday's laws.

Deriving such concepts from scratch requires something I call "conceptual knowledge," an understanding of something that runs so deep, that from it, all other knowledge about a topic can be derived.

Another example: Every high school physics student "knows" E=mc{sup]2[/sup], but only a handful of physicists in the world could be sat down in a closed room with pencil and paper and derive it from 19th century physics knowledge.

Driving a car is not an example of this. It is a brain-controlled phenomenon. Yes, for some it requires thought in the practice stages, When I felt that it was time for me to drive (age 14) I studied the family encyclopedia to learn how to shift gears, then went out and stole cars to get some practice in. Nothing to it, but I've known others who struggled, and know some today who cannot handle a gearbox.

Yet there is an example here for the application of conceptual knowledge. Because I knew how transmissions and clutches worked at the theoretical level, when I got a job driving an old 10-speed dump truck (3 x 5 tranny), with no synchronizing drums, learning to double-clutch and handle two sticks took about ten minutes.

Whatever, genuine ideas such as those of the mathematicians you mentioned seem only to follow conceptual understanding, mastering the use of the tools of thought. IMO the brain has nothing whatsoever to do with this process.

greylorn · #28 Apr 28, '12, 6:24 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Serious

There is no such thing as "human" logic. There is only logic. And God is bound by it; he cannot change the past, cannot create a square circle, and cannot act without a change.

You are correct. If you need an exercise in futility, try convincing Charley 2 and his many other programmed accomplices.

AndyT_81 · #29 Apr 28, '12, 6:35 pm

Hi Serious,

Quote:

There is only logic. And God is bound by it; he cannot change the past, cannot create a square circle, and cannot act without a change.

Why do you think that action involving change is a logical necessity? In fact, it seems that asserting a universal like this on the basis of the action of material, temporal things is a logical fallacy, i.e.:

1. All material, temporal things change when they act
2. God acts
3. Therefore God must change

1-3 is clearly fallacious, because God is not a material and temporal thing.

greylorn · #30 Apr 28, '12, 6:39 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlemagne II

Serious

There is no such thing as "human" logic. There is only logic. And God is bound by it; he cannot change the past, cannot create a square circle, and cannot act without a change.

Logic does not exist as a separate entity. If there were no God nor any man, would there be logic? So obviously there is human logic. What you fail to consider is that the logic of God, because God is infinite, would be infinitely more complex than the logic of man. This in itself is a logical inference.

When Einstein said he wanted to know God's thoughts, that was a tacit admission that God knew something Einstein didn't know, and it was Einstein's business to search out and find those thoughts. But at the end Einstein was still searching and not able to uncover all God's thoughts.

Your assertion is wrong. You know nothing about logic, so here is something for you to learn, which you will blow off.

Note that logic does not change. In mathematical form it is the perfect language, which is why the dimwit scientists who wanted to direct potentially evil aliens to planet earth sent a disk with mathematical symbols along with the Voyager deep space probe.

God cannot declare that 2+2=5. As with all elements of logic, its principles remain to be discovered, and are independent of matter-based reality. 2+2=4 is true even if there is nothing to count, no bananas to sell. That is why mathematical logic is universally agreed upon.