Evidence

[Call_of_the_Wild]

Thank you for proving my point (again). Possible world semantics, as I said, involve technical, formal definitions and work by extending established formal logical systems. You don't know these. So you don't realize that in the first sentence, God necessarily exists only in some possible world, but this means nothing unless he exists in ours.

God could only necessarily exist if it is possible for him to necessarily exists, which is why in the argument the conclusion “God necessarily exists” is only drawn after the possibility of him existing is established.

Yes, you missed something: having a basic understanding of the concepts you are dealing with, the logical systems you rely on, and the arguments themselves.

Oh but I think I do understand, Legion. In fact, I understand so much that I challenge you to inform me on anything that I’ve said that was in error as it relates to the argument. Go right ahead.

Yet you like "his version".

And?

Plantinga's "version" required hundreds of pages, it requires multiple proofs, and in his books these often have upwards of 30 lines in addition to the other supporting proofs.

How many contained pages like the following, from Craig's Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom:

And?

Craig may be a misleading, manipulative individual who preys on non-specialists

Preys on non-specialists? Wait a minute, he has debated philosophers, scientists, and historians…some of the greatest minds of these fields in the world, and yet he preys on non-specialists? Is Victor Stenger or Lawrence Krauss a non-specialist when it comes to physics? Is Richard Dawkins and Franciso Ayala a non-specialist when it comes to biology? Looks like you are the one that doesn’t know what you are talking about.

, but he isn't an idiot, and what he presents in technical literature (journals and academic books) is not what you see in most of his books.

Actually, it is.

That's because most of his books are published for people who don't know the works of authors Craig mentions in the scanned page above, Tarski, Haack, and Łukasiewicz, any more than they do about formal derivations (part of one is included in the scan).

His books are heavily cited and anyone who wants to check things out for themselves has the right to do so.

When he's writing to people who are as well-informed (or much more so) than he, then he does not rely on the same arguments but vastly more technical and complex versions with little resemblance to the ones intended for the general reader.

This is blatantly false. First off, every author has a “targeted” audience and Dr. Craig advocates for Christian apologetics to be taught to laymen audiences. He wants every Christian to be able to defend the Christian faith, and he understands that the average person out there doesn’t have PH.D in philosophy nor is the average person a science major. Second, to further stress the point, Dr. Craig has laid out his kalam cosmological argument in front of a audience full of scientists, and the scientists were given the chance to ask him questions about his argument with consisted of the big bang theory, and Dr. Craig stood in front of them and answered every question as if he was a cosmologist himself. So, regardless of whether it is a novice audience or an advanced audience, Dr. Craig is very well capable of defending the arguments against anyone.

Perhaps some context would help. From the same source (italics and emphasis in original):
Aquinas gives a bad argument against the possibility of infinite regresses of all kinds of efficient causes and, at times, inconsistently with that bad argument, says that infinite regresses of generating efficient causes are not impossible. “But what if the world of sensible things began a finite time ago in a Big Bang? Could there then be infinite temporal regresses of sensible-thing efficient causes for today’s sensible things?” It is likely that Aquinas would say, “No, for then there would not have been enough time.” I say, “Yes,” though given the constraint that such causes could not recede to or beyond that Big Bang time after which ‘all hell broke loose,’ infinite regresses of such causes, considered in reverse temporal order, would at some time be from then back temporally squeezed more or more closely.

I’ve given analogies about why an infinite regression of causes is impossible. I am still waiting for them to be addressed.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

You (via Craig) argue that there must be a first cause. You argue that there was a point at which causes and events began, which you call the "big bang". The problem is that the description of causation in a reality without time allows for a point "after which there were ‘fast-starting’ beginningless series of sensible-thing causes"

I don’t even know what this means.

It is not necessary to call the origin of time (and in your cosmology the universe) the "first cause", because it (the causation of the universe), never happened. Rather, causation itself began with a "beginningless series of sensible-thing causes", not the universe.

And those sensible things are what? What caused these things to begin to exist? And even if you answer this question you are basically setting yourself up for infinite regression all over again. Cosmological models don’t solve the infinity problem.

When you play with the manner in which causation works without time, you cannot apply causal models which require time.

I never said causation works without time.

You are presented with something you don't understand.

And you presented bogus refutations.

"In the most commonly used models, those of Robertson–Walker class, the Big Bang is a single event in the spacetime.

Yeah, but under the Standard Model, the big bang theory IS the expansion of space and the creation of time itself. Why do you think there are all of these “commonly used models” out there that try to offer an explanation of why THIS universe began to exist???

The process of expansion away from the Big Bang is the time-reverse of the collapse to a singularity, i.e. it is precisely what a white hole should do...the R–W models are exceptional in almost every possible respect....the Big Bang is not a single event, but a process extended in time."
p. 201 (emphases added)
Plebanski, J., & Krasinski, A. (2006). An introduction to general relativity and cosmology. Cambridge University Press.

So what caused the event? And that event? And that event? And that event all the way back to eternity past?

Even in the most common model, the big bang is in spacetime, and NOT the origin of spacetime. How many other cosmology textbooks would you like me to open and quote from? And what textbook can you quote from?

The BGV theorem already proved that any universe that has been expanding for an average Hubble expansion of greater than 0 must have had a beginning. This is a FACT, Legion. Even if you say the big bang was an event in space time, it was an event that began to happen. This is a far cry from hundreds of years ago when everyone thought the universe was eternal. Now all of a sudden when we have evidence that the universe is not in fact eternal, it is cool to come out with all of these wacky cosmological models to try to explain it. But it doesn’t matter though, because the BGV theorem applies to string theories and most pre-big bang models. There is no escape. Not only that, you still have the problem with infinite regression. A long climb uphill and there is no naturalistic model that can avoid the absurdity with infinite regression or avoid a finite universe despite the BGV theorem.

"In as far as the term designates the quantum superposition of two macroscopically distinct states of a highly complex object, the molecules in our new experimental series are among the fattest Schrödinger cats realized to date. Schrödinger reasoned whether it is possible to bring a cat into a superposition state of being 'dead' and 'alive'. In our experiment, the superposition consists of having all 430 atoms simultaneously 'in the left arm' and 'in the right arm' of our interferometer, that is, two possibilities that are macroscopically distinct." (source)

That bolded part means that they measured the same 430 atoms as being in two places at the same time. Such "absurdities" abound and indeed are characteristic of quantum physics.

If it happened, it can’t be absurd. Why is it impossible for a man to be at two different places at one time but not these voodoo atoms? Yet, both are material objects? Makes no sense.

A single photon can be in more than one place at the same time.

Yeah, if it has special powers.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

God could only necessarily exist if it is possible for him to necessarily exists

Did you miss the whole first half of my replies? This post, which is the one right before the post you responded to, addresses a good many important things.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Oh but I think I do understand, Legion.

I don’t even know what this means.

In fact, I understand so much that I challenge you to inform me on anything that I’ve said that was in error as it relates to the argument.

The first sentence of the quote contradicts the last two sentences of the quote. Misquoting, perhaps?

No, you just didn't know what you were talking about, and I showed you. Plantinga spends a very long time going into detail about essence, which is central to his argument. His chapter in which he claims to have a "victorious" argument concerns what is entailed by essence, distinct from properties:
"But for any property P, if P is possibly exemplified, then there is a world W and an essence E such that E is exemplified in W, and E entails has P in W."

This is central to the way in which Plantinga gets from "if it is even possible that God, so conceived, exists, then it is true that he does, and, indeed, necessarily true that he does", which only proves that God exists in some possible world (not ours), to God existing in all possible worlds.

However, as you don't understand the arguments you parrot, you accused me of misquoting because you don't know enough about possible world semantics to realize saying "if it is even possible that God exists...then it is...necessarily true that he does" doesn't entail God exists in our world, only (at best) that God necessarily exists in some possible world.

And?

Why do you think that Plantinga wrote hundreds of pages if all he needed to do was write a half dozen lines or so? Because the "version" you read is a stripped-down bogus "proof" which doesn't prove anything and Craig knows this (and I know that he knows this, because I've read his specialist arguments on this an other such proofs, and they are quite different).

Preys on non-specialists? Wait a minute, he has debated philosophers, scientists, and historians…some of the greatest minds of these fields in the world, and yet he preys on non-specialists?

When you invite a specialist like J. D. Crossan for a debate, then change where the debate is held (so that it's filled with non-specialist believers who can't evaluate much of the argument but believe it to begin with so no matter how it goes down they'll assume it adds further proof), and even at the last minute inform the specialist that the moderator of the debate is not just setting the rules and being an objective bystander but will actively participate in the debate as well and do so backing Craig, then you are preying upon non-specialists. You are creating a scenario in which you have the upper hand before the debate starts. I'm betting you've never had to defend a study or thesis in front of a committee, or participated in an academic debate, so you wouldn't know how much of a difference the audience can make. There is a reason that good debates are well-arbitrated and have audiences with mixed views. It's because when you are someone like Crossan, and you have to debate in a church filled with everyone who disagrees with you, so that you are alone (as far as your position goes) in the building, the environment is extremely unnerving and the hostility is frequently palpable.

Is Richard Dawkins and Franciso Ayala a non-specialist when it comes to biology?

Dawkins, Hitchens, and others have all used similar tactics. In fact, increasingly the whole debate process has become a way to misinform the audience while taking their money.

Actually, it is.

REALLY!!??? So you understand what "many-valued systems" Craig refers to, and you understand the derivation given both in terms of the structure and symbols and the notation on the right hand side, such as "vel elimination"? You are familiar with Tarski, Haack, and Łukasiewicz, Quine, Putnam, Leśniewski, Church, Saunders, Lewis (David not C. S.), Pierce, etc.?

This is blatantly false.

From Craig's page (emphasis added):
Scholarly Articles
"Articles exemplifying Dr. Craig’s work as a professional philosopher and theologian published in peer-reviewed journals. For articles accessible to a general audience, go to “Popular Articles.”

Dr. Craig has laid out his kalam cosmological argument in front of a audience full of scientists

If you'd provide a youtube link that would be great.

Dr. Craig is very well capable of defending the arguments against anyone.

How would you know? The debate with Crossan that Craig had was published and included papers written for that book by Crossan and Craig and other specialists. I'd bet everyone in the audience that day thought Craig dominated. He didn't.

And those sensible things are what? What caused these things to begin to exist?

This is why it is important to read the literature on a subject, rather than select a few authors and base your understanding on entire logical systems upon the simplified versions of the arguments these authors give.

Cosmological models don’t solve the infinity problem.

"VULETIC: Well, you can think of the temperature as a loop. So if you start at zero degrees, then most atoms are standing still. As we add energy, the energy, the temperature becomes positive and becomes plus infinity, and when we add more energy so that there are more fast atoms than slow atoms, then we start - we come around to negative infinity, and then we approach zero from below." (source)

From the actual study published in Science: "The temperature is discontinuous at maximum entropy, jumping from positive to negative infinity."
Braun, S., Ronzheimer, J. P., Schreiber, M., Hodgman, S. S., Rom, T., Bloch, I., & Schneider, U. (2013). Negative Absolute Temperature for Motional Degrees of Freedom. Science, 339(6115), 52-55

There's more in that post.

. Why is it impossible for a man to be at two different places at one time but not these voodoo atoms? Yet, both are material objects? Makes no sense.

Once more, just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it "makes no sense". Granted, you aren't alone here, as physicists are still learning the ways in which systems (mostly at the subatomic level, but not always) exhibit behaviors or have properties impossible in classical physics yet not in quantum physics. However, since the days of Einstein and Bohr, technology and research have supplied us with a plethora of studies confirming experimentally what used to be only thought experiments:

Experimental delayed-choice entanglement swapping

Extreme nonlocality with one photon

Experimental Realization of Wheeler's Delayed-Choice Gedanken Experiment

NMR implementation of a quantum delayed-choice experiment

A Quantum Delayed-Choice Experiment

New Additions to the Schrödinger Cat Family

From Pedigree Cats to Fluffy-Bunnies

Two Atoms Announce Their Long-Distance Relationship

Spooky Action at a Distance or Action at a Spooky Distance

All Tangled up- Life in a Quantum World

and so on.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

Why do you think that Plantinga wrote hundreds of pages if all he needed to do was write a half dozen lines or so? Because the "version" you read is a stripped-down bogus "proof" which doesn't prove anything and Craig knows this (and I know that he knows this, because I've read his specialist arguments on this an other such proofs, and they are quite different).

All I want is for you to pick one of the premises and explain why the premises is false. Anything beyond this is nothing but rhetoric. And Bill Craig, as I said before, is an advocate of the argument as he has discussed this argument in his podcasts, his books, and also raised this very same argument in a few of his debates.

When you invite a specialist like J. D. Crossan for a debate, then change where the debate is held (so that it's filled with non-specialist believers who can't evaluate much of the argument but believe it to begin with so no matter how it goes down they'll assume it adds further proof), and even at the last minute inform the specialist that the moderator of the debate is not just setting the rules and being an objective bystander but will actively participate in the debate as well and do so backing Craig, then you are preying upon non-specialists.

Excuses excuses excuses.

You are creating a scenario in which you have the upper hand before the debate starts. I'm betting you've never had to defend a study or thesis in front of a committee, or participated in an academic debate, so you wouldn't know how much of a difference the audience can make. There is a reason that good debates are well-arbitrated and have audiences with mixed views. It's because when you are someone like Crossan, and you have to debate in a church filled with everyone who disagrees with you, so that you are alone (as far as your position goes) in the building, the environment is extremely unnerving and the hostility is frequently palpable.

If Crossan is the best you've got, then you are in trouble.

Dawkins, Hitchens, and others have all used similar tactics. In fact, increasingly the whole debate process has become a way to misinform the audience while taking their money.

It is not about the audience, it is about the arguments. I am a big WLC fan, but I think he lost the debate with Shelly Kagan. Clearly, Kagan's arguments were better and he won the night. I was watching the debate as an "audience" member, but what did it for me was who presented a stronger case for their position. This should be the standard, because the audience could have been full of Christians, but if the debater is on stage getting whooped then it really don't matter who is in the audience.

REALLY!!??? So you understand what "many-valued systems" Craig refers to, and you understand the derivation given both in terms of the structure and symbols and the notation on the right hand side, such as "vel elimination"? You are familiar with Tarski, Haack, and Łukasiewicz, Quine, Putnam, Leśniewski, Church, Saunders, Lewis (David not C. S.), Pierce, etc.?

You already hinted that you have no clue what you are talking about when it comes to WLC, so lets just leave him out of it and focus on the strength of the arguments.

If you'd provide a youtube link that would be great.

I thought you'd never ask. Just copy this in to the youtube search...

Beyond The Big Bang: William Lane Craig Templeton Foundation Lecture Q&A (HQ) 1/4

He has just given a lecture and is now taking questions from the audience, which is full of scientists and everything. He answers all of these scientist's questions eloquently and knowledgeably, despite the fact that he himself isn't a scientist.

How would you know? The debate with Crossan that Craig had was published and included papers written for that book by Crossan and Craig and other specialists. I'd bet everyone in the audience that day thought Craig dominated. He didn't.

I didn't see that debate yet. I will check it out.

This is why it is important to read the literature on a subject, rather than select a few authors and base your understanding on entire logical systems upon the simplified versions of the arguments these authors give.

I've read all I needed to read and when I feel I need to read more, I will read more.

Once more, just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it "makes no sense". Granted, you aren't alone here, as physicists are still learning the ways in which systems (mostly at the subatomic level, but not always) exhibit behaviors or have properties impossible in classical physics yet not in quantum physics. However, since the days of Einstein and Bohr, technology and research have supplied us with a plethora of studies confirming experimentally what used to be only thought experiments:

I've asked a question. Please make an attempt to actually answer my questions before going on a rhetorical barrage about things that don't correspond to the question.

 

[idav]

Because it is the Standard Model that suggests literally nothing existed before the big bang. Nothing. That is why so many cosmologists have tried to introduce these pre-big bang models. So far, there hasn’t been a model as of yet that has negated “finite” universe conclusion.

The standard model has to do with the structure of sub atomic particles. There is not spiritual puppeteers to find in the model.

The big bang starts with something. Possibly at the quantum level but that still isn't nothing. The big bang theory has nothing to do with the hypothesis that quantum nothingness keeps popping out universes.

People that presuppose naturalism.

Or people who don't presuppose something that we can't know without evidence or at least the maths for it.

Can you observe or test whether your last statement’s truth value exist?

Testing is at the heart of confirmation of truths. If you can't test it then it is just speculation.

If you woke up and found yourself find yourself in your dogs body but you retained your human mind…yet your body remained motionless in the bed..are you the dog, or are you your motionless body?

We are the make up of our physical form. Our physical traits determine who we are, we can add to them or take from them but a human mind will always be human and a dog brain will always be a dog. If there is just consciousness everywhere it would be there regardless of what species or non-species you are.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

To be clear, Plantinga again:
"if it is even possible that God, so conceived, exists, then it is true that he does, and, indeed, necessarily true that he does. As it is stated, however, there is one fairly impressive flaw: even if an essence entailing is maximally great in W is exemplified, it does not so far follow that this essence entails is maximally great in α. For all we have shown so far, this being might be at a maximum in some world W, but be pretty insignificant in α, our world. So the argument does not show that there is a being that enjoys maximal greatness in fact; it shows at most that there is a being that in some world or other has maximal greatness" (from The Nature of Necessity).

The first sentence of the quote contradicts the last two sentences of the quote. Misquoting, perhaps?

No, you just didn't know what you were talking about, and I showed you.

Plantinga spends a very long time going into detail about essence, which is central to his argument. His chapter in which he claims to have a "victorious" argument concerns what is entailed by essence, distinct from properties:
"But for any property P, if P is possibly exemplified, then there is a world W and an essence E such that E is exemplified in W, and E entails has P in W."

This is central to the way in which Plantinga gets from "if it is even possible that God, so conceived, exists, then it is true that he does, and, indeed, necessarily true that he does", which only proves that God exists in some possible world (not ours), to God existing in all possible worlds.

A contradiction if I ever saw one.

I repeat: Possible world semantics, as I said, involve technical, formal definitions and work by extending established formal logical systems. You don't know these. So you don't realize that in the first sentence, God necessarily exists only in some possible world, but this means nothing unless he exists in ours.


About infinite regresss, from Logic & Theism:
"Aquinas gives a bad argument against the possibility of infinite regresses of all kinds of efficient causes and, at times, inconsistently with that bad argument, says that infinite regresses of generating efficient causes are not impossible. “But what if the world of sensible things began a finite time ago in a Big Bang? Could there then be infinite temporal regresses of sensible-thing efficient causes for today’s sensible things?” It is likely that Aquinas would say, “No, for then there would not have been enough time.” I say, “Yes,” though given the constraint that such causes could not recede to or beyond that Big Bang time after which ‘all hell broke loose,’ infinite regresses of such causes, considered in reverse temporal order, would at some time be from then back temporally squeezed more or more closely. One manner of regular squeezing would be, for every time t subsequent to the time of the Big Bang, to have the immediate sensible-thing cause of a sensible thing’s coming to be at t, come to be itself at t/2. An infinite regress of the first-appearance-times of a sensible thing’s more and more remote sensible-thing causes could be: t, t/2, (t/2)/2 = t/4, [(t/2)/2]/2 = t/8, and so on ad infinitum. It is true that “if there was no first event, then there must have been an event prior to any given event” but it is not true that there must have been an event prior to any given time."
There can be infinite beginningless temporal regresses of sensible-thing efficient causes in history, even if there was a beginning to history in the sense of a time at and before which there were no sensible things and nothing happened. This makes some trouble for Craig’s basic kalam cosmological argument...A problem for this argument is that ‘the universe of sensible things’ could have begun to exist in the sense that there is time at and before which there were no sensible things and after which there were ‘fast-starting’ beginningless series of sensible-thing causes in which series each sensible thing begins to exist and is caused by a member of the series that began to exist earlier. In this scenario, though “the universe began to exist” in a sense, nothing happened when it did; nothing came into existence then, and in particular The Universe did not come into existence then. In this story it was only later that things came into existence, and they all had causes in the universe of sensible things that themselves came into existence at earlier times, but of course at times subsequent to the ‘beginning of history’. Relating this possibility to Craig’s argument, it is ‘philosophically plausible’ that everything that begins to exist, in the sense that there is an earliest time when it exists, has a cause of its existence. But it is ‘philosophically contentious’ that everything that begins to exist, either in that sense or in the sense described in which ‘the universe of sensible things’ could have come into existence, has a cause of its existence."


Read carefully and in full until you understand the argument, because until that happens you will continue to ask for that which you have been given already.

And those sensible things are what?

You seriously need to read learn more about philosophy and logic. The "sensible-thing" concept has been around long before Anselm. It comes from Aristotle, who first categorized different types of causes. You can find it used, quoted, and in the context of causation here: Are causes events or facts?

For a more historical account see here.

I never said causation works without time.

This is what I said: "When you play with the manner in which causation works without time, you cannot apply causal models which require time."

under the Standard Model

"The term “Big Bang”, however, is often...synonymous with the birth and origin of the Universe as a whole. In other words, this term is used also to indicate the single event from which everything (including space and time themselves) directly originated, emerging from an initial singular state, i.e., a state characterized by infinitely high values of energy, density and temperature.
This second interpretation is certainly suggestive, and even scientifically motivated within the standard cosmological model. Nonetheless, it has been challenged by recent developments in theoretical physics that took place at the end of the twentieth century...[such that it is] possible to build cosmological models without any initial singularity, where cosmological evolution can be traced arbitrarily far back in time, even to infinity."
Gasperini, M. (2008) The Universe Before the Big Bang: Cosmology and String Theory (Astronomers’ Universe)

Notice the "standard model" involves infinities. The only way this model can work is by using actual, real infinities. Second, it's only "standard" because nobody is happy with it but there isn't an agreement as to what should replace it.

try to offer an explanation of why THIS universe began to exist?

They don't:
"This theory, called the Big Bang theory, postulates that starting from the singularity the Universe expanded so creating space and also creating time. Like any sensible person you will ask the question, 'What was the state of affairs before the Big Bang?', to which you will receive the answer, 'There is no such thing as before the Big Bang because time did not exist until the Big Bang occurred.'"
from Time, Space, Stars and Man: The story of the Big Bang
The book is extremely non-technical and would be perfect for you.

Well friend, cosmology is my field...

The BGV theorem

you already had this explained to you by the aforementioned cosmologist here and continuing on from that post.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

All I want is for you to pick one of the premises and explain why the premises is false.

The argument is as follows;

1. God, by definition, is a maximally great being that exists necessarily. (By "great", it is meant that God has certain attributes as omnipotence, omniscience, ominpresence, and omnibenevolence).


2. It is possible for a maximally great being to exist in some possible world.

3. If it is possible for a maximally great being to exist in some world, it is possible for a maximally great being to exist in this world.

First, we'll ignore the fact that in your first premise you've already stated (not proved) "God...exists necessarily".

Second, there are 3 ways in which some entity X (such as God) can exist: in this world, in one or more possible worlds, or in no worlds. A "possible world" refers to the infinite number of ways in which things could have, but did not necessarily, occur or exist in this world. If it is possible that there is an entity X with the property P (the property of being maximally great), then it follows that necessarily X exists in some possible world(s). It does not follow that X exists in our world. The 3rd step is not a valid one. It's actually a repeat of the 2nd. Step 2 says that it is possible for a maximally great being to exist in some possible world. In order for that to be true, it must be possible for such an entity to exist in this world. That's what possible worlds are: worlds where things that we can imagine as possible in our world exist in at least one possible world.


Hence, it also follows that, as I can imagine a god who is not maximally great, we can reach the same conclusions. The property P (maximally great) must be applied to God. Properties abound but are not all of the same kind. In order to get from a God with the property P who exists in all worlds (and therefore necessarily exist, and exists in our world), it must be the case that property be of a particular type/kind. As I said, I can imagine a god without P (maximally great). It is therefore not necessarily true that God has P, it is only possibly true that God has P until proven otherwise (i.e., that, given the existence of some possible world where some entity X has the property P of being maximally great, this is not a contingent property). You have not shown that this property is essential or necessarily true of God in all possible worlds. And in fact it is only through demonstrating this, that there can be no possible world in which God does not possess P, that it follows God necessarily exists (on the condition that it is true God necessarily exists with the property P).

More simply, why is it that if a maximally great God can be conceived of that this entail that God exists? It doesn't. But whatever cannot be conceived of necessarily does not exist. If something can be conceived of, then at least it is possible for it to exist. And if it is possible for it to exist, it must exist in some possible world. It doesn't follow that it exists in our own (otherwise, we'd have dragons, orcs, etc.).

The important part is not just that a maximally great God can be conceived of, but that this property of maximal greatness is an essential, rather than contingent, property. Furthermore, "maximal greatness" is not, for many a theologian and logician, a sufficient descriptor for God.


"Many philosopher-theologians say that God would not be simply unsurpassably great in many ways, but that This One would be in all of these ways essentially unsurpassably great. They say that God would not merely happen to be omnipotent and the rest, but that God could not be other than omnipotent and the rest. Thus Findlay writes: “it is . . . contrary to [demands inherent in religious attitudes] that [their object] should possess its various excellences in some merely . . . contingent matter . . . an adequate object of our worship must possess its various qualities in some necessary manner”. It would, he says, be idolatrous to worship something that was merely unsurpassably great, to worship it, one is tempted to elaborate, for its good fortune."
Logic & Theism

From the same:
"Plantinga is an unusual exponent of an ontological argument. He says that in the best form he has discovered for it, it is without a doubt ‘question-begging’ and thus not a ‘proof’ of its theistic conclusion for anyone who needs a proof to believe it. There is, he implies, no getting around that: “No one who didn’t already accept [its] conclusion [that there is a ‘maximally excellent’ being] would accept [its] first premise [that there is a possible world in which there is a ‘maximally great’ being, which by definition of ‘maximal greatness’ is a being that exists in, and is maximally excellent in, every world]” (Plantinga 1974a, p. 112 [cf., Plantinga 1974b p. 220)."

This is why logical proofs involves particular forms:

In every logical proof, whether written out or expressed via symbols (or both), there must be for every step of the argument an indication of what warrants it. For example, if you start with an assumption, you might write beside it or on the other side of the page either a notational device from some system (e.g, A) or that this is an assumption. And for every logically valid step that is not an assumption or a premise, there must be attached to it a logical "rule" that allows that step. This is why modal logic exists: in classical logic, propositions and predicates make denoting possibilities and necessities extremely awkward, cumbersome, and frequently unreadable. Also, the rules that allow logical steps based on what is possible and/or necessary are added to make derivations more precise and elegant.

If you look at the graphic, you will see that there are a series of steps (or, as I like to think of them, valid moves), and for each of these there is associated with it something like MP, N, etc., along with numbers. The numbers refer to the lines in the proof that are being used to defend this move or step is a valid one. Without something of this sort, there is no reason to accept an argument unless
1) I agree already
2) You can demonstrate that the steps are valid by including the justifications for each step and noting which system you are using, by developing your own notational schema and/or system and demonstrating that it is consistent with other already established systems, etc.

In the end, however, all you have done is proved that under the assumption that god is necessarily maximally great, god exists in this world. If x then y means if x is the case, then y is necessarily true. This is a proof by assumption or condition, and while it is a valid method it only holds true if the assumption is true.

And Bill Craig

I've read many of Craig's papers and a few of his books. I'm aware of what he argues.

If Crossan is the best you've got

Crossan is irrelevant to the point. I think Crossan's entire approach to understanding the historical Jesus is flawed from the start, but that doesn't justify underhanded debating strategies.

It is not about the audience, it is about the arguments.

Have you ever been a part of an academic debate or had to defend a study in front of specialists? If not, then you can't possibly no what "it is about" from the perspective of those debating. I would think, however, that it is not hard to imagine what it would be like to walk into a lecture hall filled with hardcore atheists, a debate partner who is a atheist and a philosopher, and a "judge" who is against your view and has no problem stepping in and participating in addition to moderating. In fact, if you can empathize at all with those who have stage fright, then you should realize that an audience consisting only of those who radically oppose you can be very disconcerting.

You already hinted that you have no clue what you are talking about when it comes to WLC

You mean when I said he writes one way for experts and another for the general audience? Why do you suppose his own web page makes this distinction?

copy this in to the youtube search...

Thank you

I didn't see that debate yet.

Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?: A Debate between William Lane Craig and John Dominic Crossan

I've asked a question.

Followed by "Makes no sense". How was I supposed to know that the questions weren't rhetorical?

The answer (the main one) is that all matter has nonlocal properties, but that the larger the system the more localized it becomes. And by "larger", I mean in general nonlocality gets vanishingly small by the time you get to the size of an atom, let alone a molecule.

Please make an attempt to actually answer my questions

I have already explained this to you, with graphics and everything. You ignored me.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

First, we'll ignore the fact that in your first premise you've already stated (not proved) "God...exists necessarily".

The first premise defines God by the traditional definition of God.

If it is possible that there is an entity X with the property P (the property of being maximally great), then it follows that necessarily X exists in some possible world(s). It does not follow that X exists in our world.

Well, under the definition of God, at least the Christian one that I worship, God is an omnipresent being. So based on this attribute alone, it is impossible for an omnipresent being to fail to exist in our world. How can a being be omnipresent if there is at least one place that it isn’t present?

The 3rd step is not a valid one. It's actually a repeat of the 2nd. Step 2 says that it is possible for a maximally great being to exist in some possible world. In order for that to be true, it must be possible for such an entity to exist in this world. That's what possible worlds are: worlds where things that we can imagine as possible in our world exist in at least one possible world.

I just read this like three times, and I fail to see the critique every time.

Hence, it also follows that, as I can imagine a god who is not maximally great, we can reach the same conclusions. The property P (maximally great) must be applied to God. Properties abound but are not all of the same kind. In order to get from a God with the property P who exists in all worlds (and therefore necessarily exist, and exists in our world), it must be the case that property be of a particular type/kind. As I said, I can imagine a god without P (maximally great).

But it isn’t about what you can imagine; it is about what is possible.

It is therefore not necessarily true that God has P, it is only possibly true that God has P until proven otherwise (i.e., that, given the existence of some possible world where some entity X has the property P of being maximally great, this is not a contingent property).

Wait a minute. You said above that you can imagine a god without P. Then you conclude that because you can imagine a god without P, then it is “therefore not necessarily true” that God has P…

That does not follow. I’m sorry Leg, but this isn’t St. Anslem’s version of the argument. This is the modal version, and on this version what you can imagine has nothing to do with its truth value. If a being is eternal and can never fail to exist, whether or not you can imagine the non-existence of this being is not relevant, because guess what, it exists whether you can imagine it or not.

If you agree that it is possible for God (as defined in the argument) exists necessarily, then God must exist necessarily because if God didn’t exist necessarily then it wouldn’t even be possible. But there is no incoherency based on the definition, so it is at least possible.

You have not shown that this property is essential or necessarily true of God in all possible worlds.

Once again, it is called OMINPRESENCE.

And in fact it is only through demonstrating this, that there can be no possible world in which God does not possess P, that it follows God necessarily exists (on the condition that it is true God necessarily exists with the property P).

You lost me here.

More simply, why is it that if a maximally great God can be conceived of that this entail that God exists?

But that isn’t the argument. The argument is that all possible necessary truths must be an actual necessary truth. If God exist, his existence is necessary, meaning it is necessarily true that God exists. This is not the same as saying that “just because I can conceive of it, it must be true”.

It doesn't. But whatever cannot be conceived of necessarily does not exist.

So, if that is the case, since I can conceive of God existing necessarily then God must exist. I mean after all, that is only the opposite of what you just said.

The important part is not just that a maximally great God can be conceived of, but that this property of maximal greatness is an essential, rather than contingent, property. Furthermore, "maximal greatness" is not, for many a theologian and logician, a sufficient descriptor for God.

Why isn’t it? Works fine to me.

From the same:
"Plantinga is an unusual exponent of an ontological argument. “No one who didn’t already accept [its] conclusion [that there is a ‘maximally excellent’ being] would accept [its] first premise [that there is a possible world in which there is a ‘maximally great’ being, which by definition of ‘maximal greatness’ is a being that exists in, and is maximally excellent in, every world]” (Plantinga 1974a, p. 112 [cf., Plantinga 1974b p. 220)."

I disagree with Plantiga. It is my personal belief that if you ask any non-believer is it possible for God to exist, most will be honest and say it is. It isn’t until you get in depth with the argument that people all of a sudden start doubting whether the existence of God is even possible. I can speak from personal experience on this one, because it happened on this very forum in the thread I made about the OA.

I've read many of Craig's papers and a few of his books. I'm aware of what he argues.

What about his debates where he argues against opposition, defending his own arguments and completely demolishing his opponents arguments?

Have you ever been a part of an academic debate or had to defend a study in front of specialists?

No.

If not, then you can't possibly no what "it is about" from the perspective of those debating. I would think, however, that it is not hard to imagine what it would be like to walk into a lecture hall filled with hardcore atheists, a debate partner who is a atheist and a philosopher, and a "judge" who is against your view and has no problem stepping in and participating in addition to moderating. In fact, if you can empathize at all with those who have stage fright, then you should realize that an audience consisting only of those who radically oppose you can be very disconcerting.

Point?

You mean when I said he writes one way for experts and another for the general audience? Why do you suppose his own web page makes this distinction?

Once again, it is called a TARGET AUDIENCE Leg, and that TARGET AUDIENCE varies from place to place. The way I talk to my aunties is completely different than the way I talk to my cousins.

Thank you

I really want to know what you think about the lecture.

I have already explained this to you, with graphics and everything. You ignored me.

Well, you ignored my analogies so lets call it even.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I've given you multiple examples of actual infinities, I've explained that the "standard model" you claim to be in every textbook requires these, I've given you a full response to infinite regress at least twice now that you've yet to respond to fully. It would help if you didn't ignore counters to your arguments such that you can later claim you weren't refuted.

The first premise defines God by the traditional definition of God.

Traditional? "Et quidem credimus te esse aliquid quo nihil maius cogitari possit" [and indeed we believe you to be that which nothing can be conceived as better]. That's Anselm (translation mine). This definition is "traditional" only in that there is a tradition of defining God this way, not that this is the traditional definition of the Christian God

How can a being be omnipresent

The entire point of possible world semantics is to provide a method of dealing with modality in logical terms. For something to exist in all possible worlds, it must necessarily exist in all possible worlds, and a property that is defined as that which entails an entity necessarily existing in all possible worlds renders the entire logical system useless. The whole point is to deal logically with possibility by conceptualizing possibility in terms of "worlds" or "universes" in which something (and event, a state of affairs, an entity, etc.) that may or may not have happened in this actual world could happen in a possible world.

I fail to see the critique every time.

That is because you are using a proof which depends upon specific and technical terms, rules, and definitions, but you don't know these. The argument you are using is a modal argument. This "possible world" stuff is a conceptual way to understand modality and incorporate it into logical systems such that logical rules can be applied. The heart of the idea is simple: if something is possible, then it exists in some possible world. However, the ways in which philosophers of logic interpret the validity of arguments using possible worlds is not simple nor is there a consensus. However, what everybody agrees is that if there is any use to possible world semantics and/or modal logic, there must be a system in which propositions, predicates, and operators are all formally defined and in which what follows from what is likewise formally defined.

So, for example, one common element in modal/possible world logical systems is that if something is possible then there is a possible world in which whatever we say is possible exists in. That's your step 2. Your step 3 is meaningless. It is what step 2 means, only now you have negated your entire argument because you are no longer using a coherent system.

That does not follow.

That's because (again) you are relying on a logical systems with particular definitions of "what follows from what" which you don't know. Possible Worlds are possibilities.

this isn’t St. Anslem’s version of the argument.

I doubt you've read Anselm's version:
"Si ergo id quo maius cogitari non potest, est in solo intellectu: id ipsum quo maius cogitari non potest, est quo maius cogitari potest. Sed certe hoc esse non potest. Existit ergo procul dubio aliquid quo maius cogitari non valet, et in intellectu et in re."

[if, therefore, that thing, which greater than cannot be conceived, exists in thought only, that thing itself, that greater than which cannot be conceived, is then that which greater than it exists is possible to conceive. But this is clearly not possible. Therefore there exists in two ways that which nothing can be conceived as better than, both in thought and in reality.]

If you agree that it is possible for God (as defined in the argument) exists necessarily, then God must exist necessarily because if God didn’t exist necessarily then it wouldn’t even be possible.

That is to say that anything which is possible is actual (i.e., if it is a possible event it must happen, if it is a possible entity is must be, etc.). Upon what basis is it true that what is possible must necessarily be rather than remain possible?

I would hazard that once again, for all your talk of understanding, you do not have any idea how it is that logically what is possible become necessary in modal logic. If you did, you'd supply in your proof the logical rules that allow you to go from one step to another.

Once again, it is called OMINPRESENCE.

Once again, you are relying on a property that makes your entire use of possible worlds incoherent and inconsistent. You are defining a possible entity as possessing the property that makes it exist necessarily, which is just another way of saying "if possible, then it is". That's not logical. You have simply defined God as possessing the property that God exists. You've proved nothing.

But that isn’t the argument. The argument is that all possible necessary truths must be an actual necessary truth.

You do not understand what you are talking about. I will find free online sources for you on modal logic and other things relevant here if you wish.

All necessary truths are true necessarily, and there's no such thing as an "actual necessary truth" because again all necessary truths a true necessarily meaning they are actual. Possible Worlds are those which are not actual.

If God exist,

A lesson in conditionals. This is a valid and sound argument:

1) I have a degree in classical languages | P
2) If someone has a degree in classical languages, then that someone God | A
Conclusion: I am god | MP

Why is it valid and sound? It is valid because in any logical system, a conditional statement ("if x then y") along with a premise or otherwise derived statement which confirms the antecedent of the conditional allows one to use MP (modus ponendo ponens) to determine that the consequent of the conditional is true.

Why is it sound? Because I have that degree, and thus "if someone has a degree in classical languages, then that person is god", allows me to say that under that assumption I am god.

If God exist, his existence is necessary, meaning it is necessarily true that God exists.

This is a tautology. It is a way of saying if god exists, then god exists.

So, if that is the case, since I can conceive of God existing necessarily then God must exist.

...in some possible world. Which is another way of saying it is possible God exists.

Why isn’t it? Works fine to me.

Yes, but only because you don't know enough about perfect being theology.

I disagree with Plantiga.

The argument has a rich history and many versions, but I like the Alvin Plantaga's version of it

Point?

That it is not just about the arguments. It is also about the environment. And it's about whether or not one frames questions in leading ways, or otherwise manipulates the debate by using classical fallacies.

Once again, it is called a TARGET AUDIENCE

When he's writing to people who are as well-informed (or much more so) than he, then he does not rely on the same arguments but vastly more technical and complex versions with little resemblance to the ones intended for the general reader.

This is blatantly false.

How is what I said "blatantly false"?

Well, you ignored my analogies

I didn't ignore them.

 

[cottage]

To be morally perfect is to judge and discipline sin, would you not agree? All of this “bloodletting” you are talking about came as a result of God disciplining bad people.

A contradiction obtains because the concept of moral perfection stands in opposition to the causing of pain and suffering.
The term ‘discipline’ means training or conditions to enable improvement; it isn’t synonymous with the infliction of pain and suffering, and nor is it necessary for an omnipotent being to resort to such means. But then God does say “I create evil” (Isaiah 45:7)

You do not discipline someone because you don’t love them. You discipline them because you DO love them. The bible say in the infamous John 3:16 “For God so loved the WORLD”. The world includes everyone that lives in it.

God was under no logical compunction to create the world (or us) and so it certainly can’t be said that he had to create a world containing evil, or that he was compelled to inflict suffering, for there is no logical absurdity in conceiving a world without those things. A typical response to this might be: ‘There would be no point in God creating a world of automatons’, who always did exactly as programmed, and so he created a world of free agents with the power to make choices’. There are two things wrong with that. It assumes that evil must be available as a possible choice - an exquisite example of begging the question, since evil exists only because it is God’s will, and if he didn’t will it then it wouldn’t exist! The other point is that we can make all sorts of choices without having to inflict pain and suffering on our fellow men, and nor do we need evil as a perverse form of adversity test. We can conceive of a world devoid of evil, where the inhabitants co-exist in a harmonious way. And doesn’t that fit the notion of heaven, as believed or envisioned by many theists?

Doesn’t appear to make any sense.

It is the simple demonstration to show the contradiction that evil exists in the face of an all loving, benevolent God.

So is a murder a good thing, or a bad thing?

I myself don’t want to be murdered and I don’t want my kith and kin to be murdered. And further more I recognize that what I observe to harm others may also harm me and mine. So on that basis murder is a bad thing, of course it is.

I read that three times, and I failed to make sense of it. I guess I am "slow". Please break this one down for me.

2 + 2 = 4 is a necessary truth and we cannot know it or understand it to be anything but true; but if, as you say, “we don’t know whether God exists” then “God exists” cannot be on a level with 2 + 2 = 4, a demonstrable necessary truth that we don’t discover by beginning from the notion of possibility, and a chain of reasoning, but is presented intuitively and indisputably as absolute and certain.

That you know of. Are you omniscient?

No, I'm not - but then neither is God, since there is no demonstrable omniscient being.

How does that follow?

You said;: “It is necessary that the cause of time exist as a atemporal being. But it isn’t necessary that the cause of time REMAINED an atemporal being.”
And in that case God is conditioned (contradiction!)

In this case, it does. Not only that, but the necessity of God only supplements the Kalam argument against infinity. The Kalam argument makes a case for finite time, meaning that an eternal past is absurd. The Ontological argument makes a case that there had to be at least one necessary being…one uncaused cause….one cause whose existence is self sustained. Two completely independent arguments that reaches the same conclusion.

But to get back to your point, in this case it necessity does entail necessary existence, because what are we talking about? EXISTENCE. And things exist either necessarily or contingently.

There are two absolutely crucial points to be made here. Firstly, you appear to believe that since the world is contingent it must answer to a necessary being, but that is not so, for there is no logically necessary connection between the two objects. Secondly, your last sentence should read: ‘All things are necessary or contingent’. And I do not accept for a moment that from the concept of necessity, which stands in relation to contingent matter, that there is a necessary being that necessarily exists, which is precisely what the Argument from Contingency tries to address, and can only do so by calling upon features found in the contingent world, which leads to a contradiction.

However you want to put it lol. No material thing in this universe is necessary…therefore no material thing in this universe can be used to explain the origin of its own domain. Everything that we see gets its existence from an external cause. The universe itself is contingent, and these cause and effect relations cannot extend in to eternity past.

And yet you happily adopt contingent features in order to plea to God!

Fine. And the concept is a maximally great being that owes his existence to no one outside himself. Such a being either exists, or doesn’t exist. If such a being exists, he exists necessarily. Plain and simple.

Yes, plain and simple - but misleading! I’m not disputing the concept that an object that is contingent upon no other object is necessary; the statement is analytic and therefore true because it cannot be false. But what I’m saying to you is that from an object that is said have to necessary existence it does not follow that the object necessarily exists. Can you not see the distinction?

 

[cottage]

I am still at a lost for how you think you’ve successfully refuted the argument. The only way to do so is to demonstrate how such a being is logically incoherent, which you haven’t done yet at all.

The real existence of an object cannot be demonstrated via a proposition (which of course is why nobody believes in God because of the ontological argument); all that can be done is to show that the conclusion follows from valid premises and in which case the conclusion is said to be sound. So the soundness is arrived at due to the validity of the premises and not to any factual or ontological certitude; therefore one can’t suppose the existence of a necessarily existent being by virtue of the terms and their relationship in a sentence. But in any case what actually governs logical expressions is the question of whether we can think what cannot be thought. And whatever can be conceived of as existent can also be conceived to be non-existent, and since the God concept can only exist in the mind when it’s thought of, there is therefore no God that can be thought as remaining always in existence.
I believe the foregoing to be entirely conclusive in rebutting arguments of the kind that assert the existence of any being by non-inferential means.

Personally, It is hard for me to conceive of a universe at which intelligent beings begin to exist without an Intelligent Mind behind it. Once God is taken out of consideration, the only hypothesis available is that the mind came from the mindless, consciousness came from unconsciousness, sight came from the blind, and life ultimately came from non-life. I just can’t force myself to believe that stuff. I just can’t. So based on the way things are, Intelligent Design is necessary in my opinion, but not just my opinion, I think the OA is a sound and valid argument.

I can see why you would think that, due to your faith. But that means you must always begin from the answer with the question as its subbordinate. For me the world just is, and I have to accept that no empirical knowledge or metaphysical speculation can answer me why it is. But what I do know is that every argument to other worlds (God) is grounded firmly in this world, even the non-inferential ones. So the actual world is both prior to and necessary for all other-worldly notions, and this means we can only argue backwards to them. And this, it seems to me, undermines any argument to a supposed supreme being since it cannot logically exist without this, the actual world.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

Oh dear, the ontological argument? The ontological argument, in its traditional form, is logically invalid. Other forms, such as the modal ontological argument, are plainly unsound and/or question-begging.

Its amazing that folks like William Lane Craig are still rehashing these same old fallacious arguments...

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

To be clear, Plantinga again:

"if it is even possible that God, so conceived, exists, then it is true that he does, and, indeed, necessarily true that he does. As it is stated, however, there is one fairly impressive flaw: even if an essence entailing is maximally great in W is exemplified, it does not so far follow that this essence entails is maximally great in α. For all we have shown so far, this being might be at a maximum in some world W, but be pretty insignificant in α, our world. So the argument does not show that there is a being that enjoys maximal greatness in fact; it shows at most that there is a being that in some world or other has maximal greatness" (from The Nature of Necessity).

Once again, contradictory. If a necessary truth exist in some world, it must exist in all worlds.
Not even Plantiga can escape this logical fact.

This is central to the way in which Plantinga gets from "if it is even possible that God, so conceived, exists, then it is true that he does, and, indeed, necessarily true that he does", which only proves that God exists in some possible world (not ours), to God existing in all possible worlds.

Here is a newsflash for you and Plantiga: An omnipresent being exist in all possible worlds. That is what “omnipresent” mean.

I repeat: Possible world semantics, as I said, involve technical, formal definitions and work by extending established formal logical systems. You don't know these. So you don't realize that in the first sentence, God necessarily exists only in some possible world, but this means nothing unless he exists in ours.

First of all, whatever that is you underlined, that isn’t even one of the premises. So how about getting back with me when you re-analyze the premises.

About infinite regresss, from Logic & Theism:
"Aquinas gives a bad argument against the possibility of infinite regresses of all kinds of efficient causes and, at times, inconsistently with that bad argument, says that infinite regresses of generating efficient causes are not impossible. “But what if the world of sensible things began a finite time ago in a Big Bang? Could there then be infinite temporal regresses of sensible-thing efficient causes for today’s sensible things?” things that themselves came into existence at earlier times, but of course at times subsequent to the ‘beginning of history’. Relating this possibility to Craig’s argument, it is ‘philosophically plausible’ that everything that begins to exist, in the sense that there is an earliest time when it exists, has a cause of its existence. But it is ‘philosophically contentious’ that everything that begins to exist, either in that sense or in the sense described in which ‘the universe of sensible things’ could have come into existence, has a cause of its existence."

I refuse to read through all of this. I gave analogies and I expected those analogies to be addressed.

Read carefully and in full until you understand the argument, because until that happens you will continue to ask for that which you have been given already.

Give me an answer to my analogies. Instead of copy and pasting books, how about directly addressing what I said. Until you do this, there is no need to discuss anything else further.

You seriously need to read learn more about philosophy and logic. The "sensible-thing" concept has been around long before Anselm. It comes from Aristotle, who first categorized different types of causes. You can find it used, quoted, and in the context of causation here: Are causes events or facts?

Address the analogies. I am through with rhetoric.

This is what I said: "When you play with the manner in which causation works without time, you cannot apply causal models which require time."

That is what you said, and that is where you are wrong. No one said things can be caused without time. That’s not the argument. So go do your research on the argument and what is exactly stated, and then get back to me.

"The term “Big Bang”, however, is often...synonymous with the birth and origin of the Universe as a whole. In other words, this term is used also to indicate the single event from which everything (including space and time themselves) directly originated, emerging from an initial singular state, i.e., a state characterized by infinitely high values of energy, density and temperature.
This second interpretation is certainly suggestive, and even scientifically motivated within the standard cosmological model. Nonetheless, it has been challenged by recent developments in theoretical physics that took place at the end of the twentieth century...[such that it is] possible to build cosmological models without any initial singularity, where cosmological evolution can be traced arbitrarily far back in time, even to infinity."
Gasperini, M. (2008) The Universe Before the Big Bang: Cosmology and String Theory (Astronomers’ Universe)

No one stated that the singularity is a necessity. There are many models out there that don’t have a singularity as an origin point. The BGV theorem applies to those models and even String cosmologies. Not to mention the infinity problem that is independent of WHATEVER model you want to present.

Notice the "standard model" involves infinities. The only way this model can work is by using actual, real infinities. Second, it's only "standard" because nobody is happy with it but there isn't an agreement as to what should replace it.

The standard model doesn’t use “actual” infinity. Not at all. In fact, on this very model the universe began to exist from nothing. If it didn’t exist, how could the concept of infinity mean anything in relation to it?

They don't:
"This theory, called the Big Bang theory, postulates that starting from the singularity the Universe expanded so creating space and also creating time. Like any sensible person you will ask the question, 'What was the state of affairs before the Big Bang?', to which you will receive the answer, 'There is no such thing as before the Big Bang because time did not exist until the Big Bang occurred.'"
from Time, Space, Stars and Man: The story of the Big Bang
The book is extremely non-technical and would be perfect for you.

I fail to see the purpose of the above post, as it has absolutely nothing to do with anything.

you already had this explained to you by the aforementioned cosmologist here and continuing on from that post.

No cosmologist can explain the absolute origin of nature. So until that happens, lets not appeal to authority.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

The standard model has to do with the structure of sub atomic particles. There is not spiritual puppeteers to find in the model.

It is actually a GR based model which as you’ve just read, virtually every cosmologist accepts.

The big bang starts with something. Possibly at the quantum level but that still isn't nothing. The big bang theory has nothing to do with the hypothesis that quantum nothingness keeps popping out universes.

Well, if it started from anything, there had to be something that started it.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

I've given you multiple examples of actual infinities, I've explained that the "standard model" you claim to be in every textbook requires these, I've given you a full response to infinite regress at least twice now that you've yet to respond to fully. It would help if you didn't ignore counters to your arguments such that you can later claim you weren't refuted.

What I want is answers to my analogies, and no; that hasn’t happened yet.

Traditional? "Et quidem credimus te esse aliquid quo nihil maius cogitari possit" [and indeed we believe you to be that which nothing can be conceived as better]. This definition is "traditional" only in that there is a tradition of defining God this way, not that this is the traditional definition of the Christian God

If you aren’t defining God as possessing the four omni’s, then we are not talking about the same God.

The entire point of possible world semantics is to provide a method of dealing with modality in logical terms. For something to exist in all possible worlds, it must necessarily exist in all possible worlds, and a property that is defined as that which entails an entity necessarily existing in all possible worlds renders the entire logical system useless. The whole point is to deal logically with possibility by conceptualizing possibility in terms of "worlds" or "universes" in which something (and event, a state of affairs, an entity, etc.) that may or may not have happened in this actual world could happen in a possible world.

And?

That is because you are using a proof which depends upon specific and technical terms, rules, and definitions, but you don't know these. The argument you are using is a modal argument. This "possible world" stuff is a conceptual way to understand modality and incorporate it into logical systems such that logical rules can be applied. The heart of the idea is simple: if something is possible, then it exists in some possible world. However, the ways in which philosophers of logic interpret the validity of arguments using possible worlds is not simple nor is there a consensus. However, what everybody agrees is that if there is any use to possible world semantics and/or modal logic, there must be a system in which propositions, predicates, and operators are all formally defined and in which what follows from what is likewise formally defined.

That's because (again) you are relying on a logical systems with particular definitions of "what follows from what" which you don't know. Possible Worlds are possibilities.

All possible necessary truths must be true in all possible worlds. Spare me of the other crap. All of this “breaking it down” stuff you are doing just isn’t necessary. I understand the argument, and I am not impressed by anything you say regarding the subject matter, because it just isn’t relevant. For example, what does ANYTHING that you just said have to do with the truth value of the argument??? NOTHING. The argument still stands, and until you can successfully refute the argument by dismantling one of the premises, everything else you say is just flat out irrelevant. So stop wasting your time typing it and my time responding to it until you can give me some meat and potatoes of why the argument fails.

I doubt you've read Anselm's version:
"Si ergo id quo maius cogitari non potest, est in solo intellectu: id ipsum quo maius cogitari non potest, est quo maius cogitari potest. Sed certe hoc esse non potest. Existit ergo procul dubio aliquid quo maius cogitari non valet, et in intellectu et in re."

[if, therefore, that thing, which greater than cannot be conceived, exists in thought only, that thing itself, that greater than which cannot be conceived, is then that which greater than it exists is possible to conceive. But this is clearly not possible. Therefore there exists in two ways that which nothing can be conceived as better than, both in thought and in reality.]

It is not Anselm’s version that I am defending, so once again, irrelevant.

That is to say that anything which is possible is actual (i.e., if it is a possible event it must happen, if it is a possible entity is must be, etc.). Upon what basis is it true that what is possible must necessarily be rather than remain possible?

Huh?

I would hazard that once again, for all your talk of understanding, you do not have any idea how it is that logically what is possible become necessary in modal logic. If you did, you'd supply in your proof the logical rules that allow you to go from one step to another.

It’s the same old song. Telling me how much I don’t know and how much I have no idea, yet you are not even ATTEMPTING to tell me how I am wrong. Not only that, I don’ even know what part of the argument you find to be flawed, because instead of focusing on the key points of the argument I have to read through all of this mumbo jumbo rhetoric that has absolutely nothing to do with anything.

For example, you just finished “explaining” Anselm’s version, despite the fact that no one is defending that version. That version is irrelevant, as we have been discussing the argument based on the modal form. There was absolutely no reason for you to even mention St. Anselm unless you are doing what I think has become quite obvious, which is trying to display your “vast” knowledge in the area, which doesn’t impress me because as far as I’m concerned, the argument has not been successfully refuted.

Once again, you are relying on a property that makes your entire use of possible worlds incoherent and inconsistent. You are defining a possible entity as possessing the property that makes it exist necessarily, which is just another way of saying "if possible, then it is". That's not logical. You have simply defined God as possessing the property that God exists. You've proved nothing.

Now here you are CLEARLY wrong. “If possible, then it is”…that is actually true when it comes to necessary truths. If it is possible for something to be necessarily true, then it is in fact ACTUALLY true. That is NOT the case when it comes to contingent truths, however. So it is clear that you fail to distinguish the difference between the nature of necessity and the nature of contingency, which further lets me know that you are ignorant of the concepts, otherwise the above statement would not have been made.

You do not understand what you are talking about. I will find free online sources for you on modal logic and other things relevant here if you wish.

I wish that you wouldn’t.

All necessary truths are true necessarily, and there's no such thing as an "actual necessary truth" because again all necessary truths a true necessarily meaning they are actual. Possible Worlds are those which are not actual.

Semantics.

A lesson in conditionals. This is a valid and sound argument:

1) I have a degree in classical languages | P
2) If someone has a degree in classical languages, then that someone God | A
Conclusion: I am god | MP

The conclusion does not follow from the premises.

Why is it valid and sound? It is valid because in any logical system, a conditional statement ("if x then y") along with a premise or otherwise derived statement which confirms the antecedent of the conditional allows one to use MP (modus ponendo ponens) to determine that the consequent of the conditional is true.

Why is it sound? Because I have that degree, and thus "if someone has a degree in classical languages, then that person is god", allows me to say that under that assumption I am god.

Wow. You talk all of this stuff about logic and philosophy, yet you are blatantly wrong here. Unless you have some definition of God that I haven’t heard yet, the argument is not sound. The conclusion is true based on whether the premises are true. The premises are clearly false, unless you are making a homemade definition of God or something.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

Whoa, slow down there lil' guy... You need the ontological argument refuted? You need only specify which version...

(as I said, the traditional version is plainly invalid, so I'm hoping you have in mind Plantinga's poorly titled "Victorious" Modal Ontological Argument, or some other reformulation...)

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I gave analogies and I expected those analogies to be addressed.

I frequently have, only to hear you say "it was too much" or some other excuse. However, I'll try again.
Several involve the mind being reducible to the brain. I will address all at once:

Now, in this analogy.......who are you? Are you the dog, or are the human that is in the bed?...

I'm the dog. Because this:

The point is, your mind is personal only to you.

is obvious. The "mind" is an emergent property of the brain. Just because the mind cannot be reduced to neurons doesn't mean that neurons can't produce the mind. The following real-life analogy should take care off all your analogies about the mind. I'm going to demonstrate to you that individual units can be made up of parts yet produce properties like a "mind' which are more than the parts.

Like individual neurons, individual ants are mindless. In fact "Even in quite large numbers" ants will remain mindless. They' will simply "walk around in never decreasing circles until they die of exhaustion."
(Franks, N. "Army ants: a collective intelligence. American Scientist, 77")
But when you have enough ants of the right type (e.g,. army ants) and the right configuration of kinds (e.g., workers and queens) everything changes:

"A colony of 500,000 Eciton army ants can form a nest of their own bodies that will regulate temperature accurately within limits of plus or minus 10 C. In a single day, the colony can raid 200 m through the dim depths of the tropical rain forest, all the while maintaining a steady compass bearing. The ants can form super-efficient teams for the purpose of transporting large items of prey."

Just to give you an idea of the kind of complex coordinated activity mindless ants can do, here's a picture of them forming a living bridge to get across:

Like neurons, when you have enough ants configured in the right way, suddenly you get a "hive mind" of a colony. This:

So when you are sad, are you sad…or is your brain sad?

is addressed the same way. Why do even 1,000 ants or a billion ants (all queens) just die, but a colony acts like a single organism? Because the parts produce something greater than the whole. The mind is a property of the brain, just like the complex, coordinated behaviors of colonies are products of the whole colony. You can't stick neurons together and get a mind any more than you can with certain insect colonies. However, you can get a mind when the parts are able to produce more than their sum.

I'm not what other analogies you mean, but I'm guessing they have to do with time. Here we have a problem:

That is what you said, and that is where you are wrong. No one said things can be caused without time

I am saying things can be caused without time. As I said, we've observed this in e.g., two particles by miles behaving in ways caused by connections that occur without time/in no-time.
Second, you assume the universe had to be created because of infinite regression, but even if we grant that there must be at least a first cause, there is no reason that there needs to be one. That is, instead of something causing the universe, the universe was the beginning of causation. We do not need to assume the universe was ever caused (as we're dealing with causation that doesn't involve time), so it there is no reason to think that what you call the beginning of the universe was really only many uncaused things beginning causation.



Now for your proof. Some preliminaries: a proof is valid if the conclusion follows from the premise(s), but the premises can be false ("valid" in logic doesn't mean right). A sound argument requires both validity and true premise(s) (a sound argument is right). For each and every step in a proof, even a premise, a justification for that step is required.

1. God, by definition, is a MBG that exists necessarily. | P (for premise) or A (for assumption) ?
Comment:
Let X by any event of entity (including a MGB). If X exists necessarily, then X exists in all possible worlds. That means X exists in our world. So step one asserts that God exists in this world. Why?

2. It is possible for a maximally great being to exist in some possible world. | A (or it is redundant but follows from 1 )
Comment:
The statement isn't derived as is, and although it could follow from 1 it would just be redundant, as 1 already accepts as given that God exists in our world. EVEN with a better first step, this statement is still internally redundant, as being possible means that it exists/happens in some possible world

3. If it is possible for a maximally great being to exist in some world, it is possible for a maximally great being to exist in this world. | ?Tautology

Comment:
If a MGB exists in some possible world, that again means it is possible for a MGB to exist in this world.

4. If it is possible for a maximally great being to exist in this world, then a maximally great being must exist in this world. | ?

Comment:
This is false. It is not true that a MGB or anything else must exist in this world if it does in some possible world. In some possible world, I could be a billionaire, but I'm not. So if X exists some possible world, there is no logical basis for concluding that X exists in this world.

Once again, contradictory. If a necessary truth exist in some world, it must exist in all worlds.

This is CENTRAL to your entire argument so PLEASE READ IT CAREFULLY.

In the quote above as well as in your argument you use "if". I'm going to give you a easy real life example first.

Let's say a car salesperson gives you a price. But as it's too high, you say "If you reduce the price by $300, then I'll buy the car". She doesn't do this. So, true to your word, you don't buy the car.

That's because what you said meant "on the condition that it is true you will reduce the price by $300, I will buy the car." Likewise, "If a MGB exists...then..." is just like you buying the car. Like the car, it rests upon whether or not the "if" part is true. In the car situation, it wasn't true, and you didn't buy the car. Same thing here: if X exists...." is just another way of saying "assuming that X exists", and therefore all one needs to do is not assume it.

That is what “omnipresent” mean.

Why do you think there are formal languages in logic (i.e., just symbols and rules but no words)? It makes it easy to check the first important thing: validity. I can't show you this easily, but here is a page that shows how true/false are determined and proofs constructed in formal logic. It's one thing not to use symbols in your propositions, as it is only when these get long and complicated that symbols become necessary. It's something else entirely when you don't indicate the logical rule justifying each and every line.

Without that, you have no proof.

First of all, whatever that is you underlined, that isn’t even one of the premises. So how about getting back with me when you re-analyze the premises.

1) Your "premise" makes the entire argument pointless.
2)Your statements are a convoluted mishmash of nonsense formed by collapsing different terms which mean the same thing into a sea of redundant, illogical statements. To see what an actual model proof is: Basic Concepts in Modal Logic

The standard model doesn’t use “actual” infinity.

From sect. 2.3 Standad Cosmology of this book: "Exactly at the time of the Big Bang some fourteen billion years ago, it is reckoned, all the matter and energy of the Universe was concentrated at a single point, where the density and curvature would be infinite."
From a less technical book: "Tracing the evolution predicted by the standard model backward in time even beyond the Planck radius, the Universe necessarily reaches a singular stage where the temperature becomes infinite, the curvature radius c/H is then zero, and its reciprocal (the curvature) therefore becomes infinite"

I can cite journals, monographs, books for general readers, edited volumes, etc., and repeat the same thing: the standard model includes actual infinities.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

The conclusion does not follow from the premises.

Sure they do. The argument is absolutely valid, and as long as you accept the premise, it's sound.

However, you don't know how conditionals work in logic. I demonstrated how in my last post. I also took you argument apart.

I'll give an even more bizarre but valid example:

1 The moon is made of green cheese | P
2) If the moon is made of green cheese, then then Disney characters are aliens. | A
Conclusion: Disney characters are aliens | MP by 1-2

A conditional in logic (see e.g., Truth Tables, Tautologies, and Logical Equivalence) can only be false if the antecedent (the "if" part) is true, and the consequent (the "then" part) if false. In this argument, I've started with a premise (like you might do with God), and then used an "if" (conditional) statement to conclude what I did using logic. That's because
1) conditionals are true automatically if the "if" part is false (see the truth tables in the link)
&
2) Modus ponens allows the move from steps 1 and 2 to the conclusion. It's valid. And it is just as sound as a better version of your "proof". Because what you don't understand is conditional statements are assumptions. "If it is raining, then I'll get wet" does not mean "I'll get wet" or "it is raining. I can be on the beach in a beautiful sunny day and say "if it is raining, then I'll get wet" and it would still be true. I am not actually asserting anything is true directly. Rather, I'm stating that under the assumption it is raining (regardless of whether it is or isn't) then I'll get wet.

That's how conditionals work in logic.

Wow. You talk all of this stuff about logic and philosophy, yet you are blatantly wrong here.

Right. It couldn't possibly be that you have spouted nonsense about logical systems you know only through simplified versions of certain proofs rather than reading even a bunch of websites just on formal logic (let alone taking courses or reading books on how the systems of logic you rely on work). After all, you clearly understand how modal logic works without ever reading anything about how modal logic works. Or possible worlds logic. Or classical logic. Or any logic. Instead, it's much more likely that these few simplified versions dumbed down so that they don't require the precision logicians actually use has made you sufficiently familiar with the rules of the logical systems you don't know exist.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

Sure they do. The argument is absolutely valid, and as long as you accept the premise, it's sound.

Depending on which version of the ontological argument you're endorsing, no, it is not necessarily valid. In any case, it is either invalid or it is question-begging, regardless of whatever version you use- and none of them are sound.

Right. It couldn't possibly be that you have spouted nonsense about logical systems you know only through simplified versions of certain proofs rather than reading even a bunch of websites just on formal logic (let alone taking courses or reading books on how the systems of logic you rely on work). After all, you clearly understand how modal logic works without ever reading anything about how modal logic works. Or possible worlds logic. Or classical logic. Or any logic. Instead, it's much more likely that these few simplified versions dumbed down so that they don't require the precision logicians actually use has made you sufficiently familiar with the rules of the logical systems you don't know exist.

This is all moot. It looks like you're trying to endorse some version of the Modal Ontological argument- which has several highly questionable premises, as well as requiring a dubious modal principle for the crucial inference; without this "B-principle" the Modal Ontological Argument is invalid, but if it is granted, it leads to an arbitrary proliferation of entities and ultimately, an apparent contradiction.

Thus, the Modal Ontological Argument, just like the Ontological Argument, and all other so-called "proofs of the existence of God" is unsound, and either invalid or question-begging.