Argument from Degree of Perfection

[idav]

In a closed system overall. I was talking about specific things within a system: you don't make sonething cold by "adding cold;" you make it cold by removing heat.

The things within the system are attributes of an overall existence. Hot and cold are part of somerhing that is ultimately at equilibrium. There is no hot and cold to god.

 

[Tumah]

But that's not how things work in reality. Things get colder by getting less hot. The increase of one is the decrease of the other.

I'm not saying that's how things work. I'm saying that's how I believe he's categorizing the world. Dogs don't come out of humans, but he still categorizes dogs under humans in the "complexity" hierarchy.

And many other characteristics that aren't opposite poles of a spectrum are still mutually exclusive. "Maximally soft" is incompatible with "maximally scaly." "Maximally just" is incompatible with "maximally merciful."

They may be mutually exclusive in one (or more) respect(s), but still belong to the same hierarchy. This is (Aristotelian) philosophy, not physics. A dog can't be a human but it still fits below the human in the "complexity" hierarchy. Its a conceptual hierarchy, not a physical one. Similarly, hot and cold may be mutually exclusive, but if you were to make a hierarchy of thermal energy, hot would beget warm which would beget cold. Each additional level would be a greater degree of the quality that makes up the hierarchy. He takes that back to what he understands is the most unadulterated of that quality: the example he gives is fire, which stands at the apex of heat as the "greatest heat".

By following that logic, there should be something that stands at the apex of complexity, nobility and whatever, it should feature the greatest degree of these things. That thing is what he calls god.

I think this argument falls short unless he can show that the thing directly before "god" (which presumably is already known to exist), isn't the thing that is to the greatest degree of these categories. Otherwise, similar to what you pointed out earlier, there's no reason to assume there is something greater. If there is no heat greater than fire, then why can't there be nothing more complex, noble, etc. than the thing on the rung immediately below G-d?

 

[Tumah]

In so far as Aquinas is asserting a Hierarchy of complexity exists in nature, I think God would appear to be at the "top" of the pyramid in nature. I'm not sure as this is my first venture into Aquinas's theology.

I have no experience in philosophy either. But I would have thought that Aquinas as a Christian would believe that the entire hierarchy was formulated by G-d. With the information provided, it doesn't make sense to me why the Creator of the system should be bound within it. I'd expect that that the Creator would be external to it.

Maybe Aquinas believes that the following hierarchy must inevitably be caused by a Creator that is the extreme of complexity, nobility, etc. Which I guess makes sense. If the most extremely complex thing creates something that is the most extremely complex thing, then it hasn't really done anything, since there's no way to identify it as separate from itself. So all it can do is create lesser than itself.

I'm not sure that could be used to rationalize backwards to a god though, without proving that the rung immediately under it isn't already he apex.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Some people are comfortable with abstractions and paradox, others aren't. Doesn't much matter either way - seems more important to recognize that even if something doesn't make sense to us, it probably does to someone else.

I mean, on the whole I don't agree with Aquinas' argumentations, but when I set aside my usual map of the territory for a while, I get it. Or try to, anyway. Sometimes I fall a bit short of understanding maps of the territory that are radically different from my own. It can't be helped.

It sounds like you're not looking at the argument as an actual proof (or attempt at a proof, anyway), then.

I agree that it's useful as a glimpse into Aquinas's thought processes. He probably did think that this "proof" was a good reason to believe in God. When I look at it, despite it being confused and irrational, I can still take it as interesting in an anthropological sense.

But I'm also looking at his proof as, well, a proof: this argument is Aquinas's declaration that every rational person who agrees with his premises must accept that God must exist. And in that regard - i.e. in how Aquinas intended the argument to be read and understood - it utterly fails.

And the inherent contradictions do matter. As a logical proof, it would have been more valid to have said: "since some maximally great attributes contradict each other, it would be a logical impossibility for them all to be manifest simultaneously in one being. Therefore, God (defined as a being that's maximally great in all respects) does not exist."

If your argument serves the opposite conclusion to the one you're trying to make as well or better than it serves yours, then it doesn't actually support your conclusion.

Aquinas has not provided us with an alternate "map" of the territory; he's provided us with partial instructions to draw his map, but since they contradict each other, the map can't even be drawn yet.

 

[Rinchen]

I believe something like heat is objectively measured. Higher heat leads to different metals melting.

What I was really getting at is that the argument in the OP has a basis that is purely fantasy, idealogical, and not based in any correct apprehension of reality. If the foundation of my argument for why the world exists is a unicorn, it's safe to say the rest of my argument is probably, well, a little off. Simply because we have no realistic experiance of a unicorn in reality. If the idea doesn't correlate with what is actually observed in our reality, then the idea probably isn't a good thing to base a view of reality on.