Sure. So it's a belief. I think what I originally said is "it sounds like another layer of belief" which is being incorporated in this argument.
Of course it's a belief. As I said, that's what this argument is, evaluating the implications of a given belief system.
I understand that. I just don't think it's a way of getting to truth in the case of such incredibly far-reaching questions, of such ultimate import, in areas where we ultimately have very, very little knowledge.
Well, if you don't like that then philosophy may not be for you. It may not be the most mistake-proof way to get to the truth, but it's the best we've got. If you think you have a better way of doing things, submit a paper in a philosophy journal and you may well start a revolution in human thought.
Say God is the greatest conceivable being, and he exists. Why does that mean he's inherently significant? I don't see why any more than I see why I'm inherently significant.
Because if God is the greatest conceivable being He is the ground of all that exists and His actions are what determines the state of reality. I think that kind of kicks the notion of 'ultimate significance' to the next level for noone could be more significant than God if we consider things like making a difference.
I might say it would be impossible, but I don't see how we can simply take it for granted for that reason.
I don't know what you mean by "take it for granted". You mean take it with certainty?
That's really pushing Ockham's Razor well past the limits of its utility. Even if I was talking about some minor issue, I recognize that Ochham's Razor isn't a definite path to truth. It just helps us point--maybe--to a more likely possibility. Now we're talking about this question of incredible import and scale. That's not convincing to me.
In any event, we haven't explained how God can be uncreated. And this is the exact problem that we are trying to address with regards to the physical world. So what is it really telling us? If you think it carries some weight in pointing to a more likely possibility (which i think you suggested earlier), I can understand that. But it seems to be presenting the conclusion as a logical necessity. And some people really take it that way. I draw different conclusions from the available facts here myself, certainly, and don't feel that this line of reasoning has done anything to invalidate them.
Well, mine is essentially that we just don't know
We know the physical world is here to a reasonable degree of certainty. I understand that people have ideas beyond that, and I'm willing to listen to them and assess them. But I don't believe that certainty can be created out of uncertainty through arguments such as the Kalam.
I beg to differ. Ockham's Razor is a general problem solving principle for comparing alternative hypotheses. Just because we went into hard metaphysics doesn't mean it no longer applies. It's a tool of logic so we may well use it here.
I've noticed, though, that in your post you have this focus on "certainty" or "definite truth" expecting arguments to lead you to a rock solid certain conclusion. I'm sorry, but you won't get that here. And by that I don't just mean here as in the "God talk", but here as in philosophy in general. Certainty is near impossible to come by for most questions in philosophy, let alone in a topic as hard and complicated as the ultimate nature of reality. Philosophers realize this and very rarely do you see them try to make arguments that aim for a certain conclusion.
This is also the case in philosophy of religion. All arguments for or against God now focus on establishing a conclusion which is more plausible than it's negation, a conclusion which is more reasonable than not. Good example of that change would be to compare the way Aquinas' presented his Five Ways in "Summa Theologiae", where he posited God as the only possible explanation for certain phenomena like teleology, with the way these arguments are presented nowadays. Far from aiming for certainty, modern fine-tuning arguments are now using probability calculus! A similar shift has happened on the atheist side as well. Just take a look at the problem of evil which used to be presented as a formal logical disproof that aimed to show a logical contradiction between the propositions "God exists." and "Evil exists.".
Such attempts have long been abandoned with J.L. Mackie (one of the most famous proponents of the logical PoE and the famous author of
"Miracle of Theism") begrudgingly conceding that the argument cannot be made this way. Since then, atheology has been focused on a probabilistic, or evidential, problem of evil which doesn't aim for logical certainty, but merely tries to show that theism is less likely given the amount of evil in the world, ie less plausible, than atheism.
Only arguments for God's existence that I know of that aim to establish a logically necessary conclusion would be modern formulations of the ontological argument but even they don't rely on non-controversial premises and will ultimately boil down to the question of "what is most likely?".
Natural Theology, especially with Craig, is almost always construed in the context of best explanations. God need not be established as certainty. God need not even be that much better than the alternatives, but so long as God is at least somewhat more likely the argument is considered successful. (Obviously, the more likely it is the more persuasive the argument.)
Same goes for the Kalam. It just wants to establish God as the more plausible option than it's alternatives. I think it's more than just slightly successful, but this isn't really a thread to debate the Kalam so let's leave it at that. The point is, the goal of most arguments is to establish the rationality of a given position. That need not (and usually does not) mean establishing it as certain.
I edited my last post, I'll add that here: I'm not sure I can slog through this. I know where it's going. Case in point. The whole thing is going to rest on the assumption that God himself has significance. Which is just what Craig thinks, right?
So I don't know. I don't really get Craig. It's late here but I may try to work my way through that first article at least tomorrow. But I got discouraged quickly.
The article doesn't deal with the intricacies of God's nature, life or significance. As I said that's not the focus of the argument. (Even more so when he's writing for popular audience.)
If you feel like that article is too long and don't feel like reading, well, I don't think you'll learn much philosophy that way. I know people like to watch clips on YouTube with their favorite representative throwing one-liners (not saying you do), but if you want to really learn about this subject you'll need to read a lot. It's tough and time-consuming, but you'll learn a lot of interesting things.
As a side note, you seem to be more focused on the underlying mechanisms behind the argument than on the argument itself. I don't know if you're going with this mentality or not, but if you're trying to establish every single assumption that undergirds a position before you evaluate the position itself you're in for a bad time. Philosophy of religion has been described as the center of a wheel which connects and stretches out to every other branch of philosophy out there and I think this is a fairly accurate description. Just studying the Kalam alone brought me from philosophy of religion to philosophy of science to philosophy of time then to philosophy of mathematics and all the way to cosmology which isn't even philosophy!
This isn't even unique to "God debates" as every position and every argument, so long as it's not about the most fundamental parts of philosophy, will be based on a good number of prior assumptions and views which are, more often than not, going to be disputed to at least some degree. My advice is, if you're starting out on a particular topic, grant it the assumptions and evaluate it on it's own terms. Then after you're done, move on to the assumptions. Looking to establish every assumption first (even worse if you're looking for certainty), it's going to take you a long time before you get to evaluating the actual argument whose assumptions you were investigating.
