Can't remember God without knowing he exists.

[viole]

The ontological argument proves that it's impossible to conceive of a Necessary Being without seeing it exists, and so if God's greatness or God's perfection includes the level of existence of necessary being, and you see that, it's impossible it be a mere idea, but has to be the real being, by definition, because it's impossible it doesn't exist by being necessary. The false version is saying apply "necessary" to some hypothetical imagination of God idea, and than that brings it to existence by definition, that's the one taught in University. But both Descartes and Anselm showed it's impossible, if the Necessary being exists, if you conceive of that being, you are looking at the real thing because by definition it has to exist. They also proved if God is the greatest being and necessity type existence and you see that conception of that Real being, you are looking a being that not only do you know exists but has to exist. These meditations were saying reason knows God exists merely by remembering him, but those ideas were a bit butchered with the strawman version of what they were saying!

Well, it all boils down to: if there is, or I can conceive, a possible (logically consistent, even if counterfactual) world which contains a necessary being, then that being will exist, on account of its necessity, on all worlds. Including the actual one.

Correct?

I am just using here the modal version of the ontological argument, with the advantage that we can use modal logic and analytic tools, to see how it fares logically.


Ciao

- viole

 

[Link]

It means you can't conceive of God as an idea without actually seeing he exists and has to exist, if Necessary trait can be perceived.

That means in actually God can't be conceived as an idea, he can't be created in the mind, he can only be remembered and connected to.

 

[Link]

Well, it all boils down to: if there is, or I can conceive, a possible (logically consistent, even if counterfactual) world which contains a necessary being, then that being will exist, on account of its necessity, on all worlds. Including the actual one.

This is true, but trivial. The reason you have to understand is a Necessary being can't be conceived as a mere idea, you would have to be looking at the real thing to conceive of it.

So to conceive of it any possible world x or y, you have to see the real thing.

 

[Link]

Yes, you just keep repeating the same thing in different words. You’re not adding anything in response to our questions. The core claim you’re making is that God must exist if God is necessary. So, the question moves on to is God necessary? If you don’t address that, your point remains entirely hypothetical.

I don't understand what you mean by necessary because you have yet to explain what you mean by necessary. I'm ALSO waiting for you provide any evidence that it's IMPOSSIBLE for your god being to NOT exist. As I said before, there is no necessity for any god being in the universe that I live in, thus it's easy for me to conclude that there's no necessity for a god being in the universe that you live in as well.

Whether you imagine God existing or not God existing doesn't bring her into existence nor make him disappear. God is necessary by definition, if you perceive that as possible, it's only possible to conceive of it as possible if you are actually looking at the real thing.

Yes, God is so great, that nothing exists with him, but he is greater than, nothing can exist with him due to the fact his greatness and life is at the level of necessity and is unique in this regard.

It's impossible therefore to see God as a necessary being even as a mere possibility, without conceiving he exists.

 

[Milton Platt]

The ontological argument proves that it's impossible to conceive of a Necessary Being without seeing it exists, and so if God's greatness or God's perfection includes the level of existence of necessary being, and you see that, it's impossible it be a mere idea, but has to be the real being, by definition, because it's impossible it doesn't exist by being necessary. The false version is saying apply "necessary" to some hypothetical imagination of God idea, and than that brings it to existence by definition, that's the one taught in University. But both Descartes and Anselm showed it's impossible, if the Necessary being exists, if you conceive of that being, you are looking at the real thing because by definition it has to exist. They also proved if God is the greatest being and necessity type existence and you see that conception of that Real being, you are looking a being that not only do you know exists but has to exist. These meditations were saying reason knows God exists merely by remembering him, but those ideas were a bit butchered with the strawman version of what they were saying!

Are you saying that anything we can conceive of actually exists merely because we can conceive of it?

 

[Milton Platt]

You misunderstand again. We can see God is compassionate, without fully seeing him. Likewise, we can see he is necessary existence without fully seeing him.

How?

 

[Milton Platt]

The ontological argument proves that it's impossible to conceive of a Necessary Being without seeing it exists, and so if God's greatness or God's perfection includes the level of existence of necessary being, and you see that, it's impossible it be a mere idea, but has to be the real being, by definition, because it's impossible it doesn't exist by being necessary. The false version is saying apply "necessary" to some hypothetical imagination of God idea, and than that brings it to existence by definition, that's the one taught in University. But both Descartes and Anselm showed it's impossible, if the Necessary being exists, if you conceive of that being, you are looking at the real thing because by definition it has to exist. They also proved if God is the greatest being and necessity type existence and you see that conception of that Real being, you are looking a being that not only do you know exists but has to exist. These meditations were saying reason knows God exists merely by remembering him, but those ideas were a bit butchered with the strawman version of what they were saying!

Do you realize that you are actually saying that anything that I can conceive of actually exists because I can conceive it? that make no sense. Where is Santa Clause? Where are the flying reindeer?

 

[QuestioningMind]

Whether you imagine God existing or not God existing doesn't bring her into existence nor make him disappear. God is necessary by definition, if you perceive that as possible, it's only possible to conceive of it as possible if you are actually looking at the real thing.

Yes, God is so great, that nothing exists with him, but he is greater than, nothing can exist with him due to the fact his greatness and life is at the level of necessity and is unique in this regard.

It's impossible therefore to see God as a necessary being even as a mere possibility, without conceiving he exists.

Dude, simply repeating over and over that god is necessary does NOT make it so. You need to demonstrate WHY this god being of yours is necessary.

God is necessary by definition, if you perceive that as possible, it's only possible to conceive of it as possible if you are actually looking at the real thing.

This is an absolutely ridiculous claim. I can perceive that it's POSSIBLE (though HIGHLY unlikely) that the universe was accidentally farted out by a magical pixie. Yet, I am quite able to perceive this POSSIBILITY without ever once actually looking at the real thing... since I find it very doubtful that any such pixie really does exist. The exact same holds true for your proposed god being.

So go ahead and give it another try. What is your verifiable evidence that your proposed god being is necessary?

 

[Milton Platt]

Well, it all boils down to: if there is, or I can conceive, a possible (logically consistent, even if counterfactual) world which contains a necessary being, then that being will exist, on account of its necessity, on all worlds. Including the actual one.

Correct?

I am just using here the modal version of the ontological argument, with the advantage that we can use modal logic and analytic tools, to see how it fares logically.


Ciao

- viole

And how can we verify it's necessity?

 

[Link]

Are you saying that anything we can conceive of actually exists merely because we can conceive of it?

No everything but God are possible type they may not have existed. God oneness is such that nothing exists on his level but furthermore nothing can exist with him on his level. This is true because he is absolute which when thought of from type of existence he is necessary. If oneness of God (why God must be one) is perceived it’s through his necessary nature. It doesn’t make sense to say you can see no other god but God can exist without knowing he is necessary because there is no way to count that way and know he is one and nothing on par with him. Anything not eternal also by definition cannot be necessary.

 

[Link]

And how can we verify it's necessity?

If you conceive of the necessary existence you would not only know what it is but that it exists but not only that but it’s unique eternal reality.

 

[Link]

If you conceive of the necessary existence you would not only know what it is but that it exists but not only that but it’s unique eternal reality.

Dude, simply repeating over and over that god is necessary does NOT make it so. You need to demonstrate WHY this god being of yours is necessary.

God is necessary by definition, if you perceive that as possible, it's only possible to conceive of it as possible if you are actually looking at the real thing.

This is an absolutely ridiculous claim. I can perceive that it's POSSIBLE (though HIGHLY unlikely) that the universe was accidentally farted out by a magical pixie. Yet, I am quite able to perceive this POSSIBILITY without ever once actually looking at the real thing... since I find it very doubtful that any such pixie really does exist. The exact same holds true for your proposed god being.

So go ahead and give it another try. What is your verifiable evidence that your proposed god being is necessary?

You can’t imagine away God’s existence.

 

[ratiocinator]

You can’t imagine away God’s existence.

Well, you're trying to imagine your favourite god into existence by playing silly games with words.

The argument is obviously wrong because it contains subjective terms and can be applied to multiple, contradictory versions of "god".

 

[HonestJoe]

God is necessary by definition

I disagree. If you are defining a God that is “necessary”, you’d need to explain why he is “necessary”. Otherwise someone could just replace God with any other concept to explain the existence of everything and unilaterally declare that thing as “necessary” which by your logic automatically means it exists. If I declare the Big Bang as “necessary” does that automatically mean it must have actually existed?

It's impossible therefore to see God as a necessary being even as a mere possibility, without conceiving he exists.

You need to be more careful with your wording there. You think you’re saying the same things but using different words can have massive differences in meaning.

Your initial claim was that the idea of a “necessary” God means we must know he exists. That is essentially saying “God must exist”. Now you talk about conceiving he exists and that suggests it’s still all just in your head and doesn’t actually say anything about reality. This is the difference between the internal logical consistency of the ideas in your head and whether the ideas in your head actually reflect reality.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

God's Greatness (perfection in case of Descartes) would include necessity if He exists.
Necessity implies existence.
It's impossible to therefore conceive of an idea of this being without the trait of it being necessary and hence exists.
Any conception of God without this trait is not God (the God who is greatest by definition is necessary).
It's impossible therefore to remember the true God without ability to recognize by this, it has to exist and thus does exist.
If God is seen as merely possibly existing, that's not the true God (only the necessary being is the true God).
God including the necessary trait, is conceived.

None of these premises are disputable really but the last one.

A greater god of this true god would be able to eat the true. Since this is a necessity of the greater god's existence, and me imagining it is less than the actual being capable of eating the true god, it exists.

But wait! There is a greater god eating the first greater god as well!

And another eating that one...

And another.

So we have an infinite amount of gods consuming each other.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

A greater god of this true god would be able to eat the true. Since this is a necessity of the greater god's existence, and me imagining it is less than the actual being capable of eating the true god, it exists.

But wait! There is a greater god eating the first greater god as well!

And another eating that one...

And another.

So we have an infinite amount of gods consuming each other.

Or, since a god capable of imagining a being greater than itself would be a greater god, we could end up with an infinite amount of gods imagining gods.

 

[Link]

Well, you're trying to imagine your favourite god into existence by playing silly games with words.

The argument is obviously wrong because it contains subjective terms and can be applied to multiple, contradictory versions of "god".

You can't imagine God by this argument, only see Him. If you imagine it, it would mean it's possible it exists or doesn't, which would be a lesser version of the "the God". The God is such that he necessarily exists. If you see that one, you know/see it necessarily exists.

 

[Link]

I disagree. If you are defining a God that is “necessary”, you’d need to explain why he is “necessary”. Otherwise someone could just replace God with any other concept to explain the existence of everything and unilaterally declare that thing as “necessary” which by your logic automatically means it exists. If I declare the Big Bang as “necessary” does that automatically mean it must have actually existed?

Declaring God necessary doesn't prove him nor make it possible a Necessary being exists, seeing God as Necessary will prove it to the one conceiving of it.

 

[Link]

I disagree. If you are defining a God that is “necessary”, you’d need to explain why he is “necessary”. Otherwise someone could just replace God with any other concept to explain the existence of everything and unilaterally declare that thing as “necessary” which by your logic automatically means it exists.

It's like asking why God is compassionate or great at all, God would not be God if not compassionate or great or good or necessary.

 

[Link]

There is a difference the definition of words, and what you see of words. If you can perceive a Necessary type existence be it a unicorn or anything, you can see it with the trait necessary, it has to exist. Of course, just putting the word necessary in front of another thing or declaring doesn't mean you actually see that x thing as necessary. To see God as necessary is to understand God and witness Him.

This is what I'm trying to show. I'm trying to show, if you see a concept of a "god" that can possibly exist, that it may or may not, it's not the one. The One God is such that if you perceive his oneness, you know not only that it exists, but that it has to and is absolute existence to the extent nothing exists with him in his highness nor anything independent of it nor anything can he possible miss in absence. Rather, he is Existence to the extent creation doesn't add to existence nor do their negative deeds decrease it.