Why does god have to be perfect?

[Enai de a lukal]

Well yeah, that is because we KNOW that 2+2 = 4.

No. Its because "possibly necessary that X" is equivalent "necessarily that X".

For necessity, all we need is the mere possibility.

No. Take Kilgore Trout's advice. "It is necessary that X" does not follow from "it is possible that X" (although the inverse does).

This is not question-begging at all.

If your argument attempts to prove that God exists, or that God exists necessarily, please tell me how having the equivalent of "God exists necessarily" as a premise is not begging the question?

It's funny how you are making it seem as if you are presenting this big revelation to me. Everything you just said is what I've been saying all along, which is all possible necessary truths must be actually necessarily true...and if one is to admit the possibility of God, one admits that God exist. I have been saying this almost from day 1...over about two dozen times now. So please.

If all you're trying to say is that you can prove the existence of God, as long as you're allowed to assume the existence of God, then sure- but so what? Since you have, as a premise/assumption of your argument, the equivalent of "necessarily God exists", you are begging the question, and all your argument really boils down to is "God exists necessarily, therefore God exists necessarily"- not a very convincing argument, needless to say.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

if one is to admit the possibility of God, one admits that God exist.

No- the argument requires that we admit to the possible necessity, not the mere possibility, of God. With only mere possibility, rather than possible necessity, the argument is not even valid in S5, in which the Brouwer principle holds.

 

[EtuMalku]

There's a possible necessity of a god?

 

[Enai de a lukal]

No. A possible necessity of God is the same as the necessity of God, and the unconditioned necessary existence of anything is sophistical nonsense. Anything that can be intelligibly thought to exist can, without contradiction, be thought as non-existent; in short, there is no such things as "necessary existence", at least in the sense the ontological argument supposes. The existence of objects or entities is always contingent.

 

[EtuMalku]

No. A possible necessity of God is the same as the necessity of God, and the unconditioned necessary existence of anything is sophistical nonsense. Anything that can be intelligibly thought to exist can, without contradiction, be thought as non-existent; in short, there is no such things as "necessary existence", at least in the sense the ontological argument supposes. The existence of objects or entities is always contingent.

Huh? :slap:

 

[Enai de a lukal]

Nevermind.

 

[cottage]

Thanks for re-emphasizing on a point that I MADE myself.

You are very welcome. Although I repeated the argument for the purpose of demonstrating a different conclusion, but I see you’ve separated it from the rest of the passage.

I’m sorry for your confusion. I’ve reinstated the paragraph that you chopped in two, to be read again together with an explanation in very simple terms that I’ve given below it.

“If there is one possible world where the Being that cannot fail to exist, fails to exist, then as the Being does not exist in all possible worlds there cannot exist such a Being. There is such a possible world, one that has yet to come into existence. And since the Being cannot exist in worlds that are possible to exist, but do not yet exist, there is no Being that exists in all possible worlds. There is therefore no Being.”

The argument from possible necessity is that if and where there are possible worlds then God will exist in them, but if there are possible worlds that are yet to exist* then self-evidently these worlds are not actual, and therefore it will be impossible for God to exist in them.

* Apologies to St Thomas (Summma Theologica) “The world was a possible being before it existed.”

No it isn't because all attributes of the Being are just as NECESSARY as the existence of the being itself. Second, the statement itself is absurd. How can it be possible that an "maximally great being" not have maximal greatness? Makes no sense.

You isolated one sentence from the rest of the paragraph, removing it from the context in which the statement was given. Here is the paragraph reinstated:

“A further point is that it is possible that the Being does not have maximal greatness or excellence. God is certainly not “all good” as Plantinga supposes; and therefore, possibly it is necessarily true that a perfectly good Being doesn’t exist. And from which it follows that it is necessarily true that a perfectly good Being doesn’t exist.”

Now I shall have to borrow from you - with apologies - and resort to shouted capitals: OMNIBENEVOLENCE IS NOT A NECESSARY ATTRIBUTE! And even if it were, which it isn’t, the facts in the actual world disprove it utterly.
So the second statement, far from being “absurd”, makes perfect sense for it questions whether we have to accept term “maximal greatness” or “maximal excellence”, and the evidence of evil and suffering in the world informs us that we do not! God is self-evidently not a perfectly good being. And if perfect goodness was supposed to be a necessary attribute, one which God must have if he is to be God, then God’s existence is demonstrably impossible.

if God is not all good, then there are no objective moral values, correct?

And who might I ask is proposing that there are “objective moral values”?

Re-read the argument and tell me the point at which the conclusion is being assumed in advance. [/quote

]

You began with the conditional premise that God exists. So the scenario you’ve given me is that if God exists then he cannot be denied, which is the very point in dispute that is being assumed, i.e. his existence! But more to the point, the argument appears valid but it is empirically false in its implication and thus in its conclusion, since no purely logical proposition can demonstrate factual necessity.

No, what I did was give you an example of something that we could KNOW was necessary, but still being able to make such a thing disappear with our minds. But that doesn't change the fact that the thing is still necessary, no matter how many mental tricks you want to play.

You said: “Lets say there is a rock on the mountain, and the rock exists necessarily.” That is begging the question for the conclusion that you want to prove is used as a premise of that same argument. And I’m not talking about “making things disappear with our minds”; I’m saying there is no contradiction in denying the existence of any object. It is only concepts such as tautologies and definitions that are contradictory if denied. And the addition of a concept to the object doesn’t make the supposed object existent - or more existent!

You just said you can't conceive of a married bachelor, right? Can you conceive of a being which cannot fail to exist to not exist?? It's the same thing!!!

It absolutely is not the same thing! And that is an argument I will tirelessly continue to make. A tautology is certain because the premise is repeated in the sentence, and definitions do not allow for any other meaning. So we cannot say a bachelor is anything but an unmarried man or that a triangle has more or less than three angles. But none of those things are ontological entities. Necessary truths are simply concepts abstracted from the experiential world, which itself is a contingent truth, but because they are tautologies their truths are necessarily implied by the premises or definitions, which must then be the case in all logically possible worlds. But we, and by that I mean you too, can conceive the possible non-being of any object that exists or is supposed to exist regardless of any pretended ontological status given to it. If God’s existence were a necessary truth then it would be self-evident, and no person of a sound mind that could deny that truth anymore than they could deny 2 + 2 = 4. But “God exists”, in any conceptual form, is neither self-evident and necessary nor empirically verifiable.

Cot, so you are telling me that you can conceive the thought of an omnipresent being, to not be present? Makes no sense. If you can think of such a being, then it isn't the same being in question. In the beginning of the argument, the concept of a MGB is described, and omnipresence is one of its attributes. Given this concept, there is no way anyone can logically say that they can imagine such a being to NOT be present if they grant the given concept. You've already granted the concept because you already described it as "the absolute necessary being" above. So if you can imagine such a being to NOT exist, then you are actually not talking about the same being.

No, that’s not my argument. To describe a thing or to posit a concept is not to bestow existence upon it. I’m saying to you there is nothing existent that corresponds with the concept. And nor is it a case “of ‘”saying”’they can imagine such a being not to be present” but a simple matter of fact that the concept isn’t always present, which further demonstrates the impossibility of supposing necessity in any object and it remaining always in existence. And that demonstrates two things: God is not omniscient and he is not necessary!

You have to have more than that, cot. You claim that you can conceive of God not existing, and I claim I can conceive of God existing...so if you are telling me that God must not exist because you can conceive God to not exist, then I can tell you that God must exist, because I CAN conceive of God existing. What makes your conclusion any better than mines? So because you can conceive of God not existing, that means that God can't exist? Well, the same line of reasoning applies on the flip side, well because I can conceive of God existing, that means he must exist. That is the problem with this argument based on what we can conceive. That is why the question is about possibilities...is it possible? God's existence is either possible or impossible, and I haven't seen any logical reasons from you nor anyone else as to why it is impossible.

But you missed the crucial part of the argument I gave you. We can easily conceive of any being, and with as many attributes as we can think of, and we can just as easily conceive of the non-existence of that same being. But our being able to conceive of the latter demonstrates that what we formerly conceived of has no necessary existence, for otherwise the conception would be impossible. For the fact that is logically possible for us to conceive of the non-existence of such a being deprives it of any certainty. And I have not seen anything at all from you to show how there could possibly be an actual God, simply from the logical phraseology of a proposition. A God that has no factual existence is no God at all!

 

[FranklinMichaelV.3]

Can we even think of something that is omnipresent or omnipotent or omniscience logically? I mean we can use those blanket terms, but what experience do we have with them to be able to extrapolate to a being that encompasses these traits to their max potential?

I guess what I'm saying is that I can say that there is someone who is omniscience, but I can't very well imagine what that would be like. It would be like trying to count to infinite, yeah I can say what infinite is supposed to represent but I can't really ever get there.

 

[EtuMalku]

So the bottom line seems to be that the Abrahamic god is impossible for a human being to comprehend and therefore we can never understand all that goes on concerning Him.

How convenient.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

No. Its because "possibly necessary that X" is equivalent "necessarily that X".

Is it possible, yes or no? That should be the focal point here.

No. Take Kilgore Trout's advice. "It is necessary that X" does not follow from "it is possible that X" (although the inverse does).

Semantics.

If your argument attempts to prove that God exists, or that God exists necessarily, please tell me how having the equivalent of "God exists necessarily" as a premise is not begging the question?

Huh?

If all you're trying to say is that you can prove the existence of God, as long as you're allowed to assume the existence of God, then sure- but so what?

If the existence of God is possible, then that possibility is independent on what is assumed by me.

Since you have, as a premise/assumption of your argument, the equivalent of "necessarily God exists", you are begging the question, and all your argument really boils down to is "God exists necessarily, therefore God exists necessarily"- not a very convincing argument, needless to say.

Me saying "it is possible for God to exist" is a PROPOSITION, enaideal...the statement is either true, or false. If the statement just happens to be true, then it is true!! It isn't like I need to apologize for the statement being true. It isn't my fault The conclusion: "God exists necessarily" is 100% based on the truth value of whether it is possible for God to exist. That is why the ONLY defeater of the argument would be for one to demonstrate some kind of irrationality based on the concept, which no one can do.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

Can we even think of something that is omnipresent or omnipotent or omniscience logically? I mean we can use those blanket terms, but what experience do we have with them to be able to extrapolate to a being that encompasses these traits to their max potential?

I guess what I'm saying is that I can say that there is someone who is omniscience, but I can't very well imagine what that would be like. It would be like trying to count to infinite, yeah I can say what infinite is supposed to represent but I can't really ever get there.

So basically your argument is "because I can't understand it, it can't be true"...or "because I can't understand it, I shouldn't believe it". What is going on here?

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

No. A possible necessity of God is the same as the necessity of God, and the unconditioned necessary existence of anything is sophistical nonsense. Anything that can be intelligibly thought to exist can, without contradiction, be thought as non-existent; in short, there is no such things as "necessary existence", at least in the sense the ontological argument supposes. The existence of objects or entities is always contingent.

So now you have the problem of infinite regress. If you take away the one unconditioned necessary existence, you are left with conditioned contingency existence, going allllll the way back to past infinity. So now you are stuck in the wacky world of irrationality. Fun fun fun!!!!

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

You might want to start by looking up what "possible" means in the dictionary. And "necessary." Heck, just start at the a's and work your way through. Then check out a basic primer on logic, while you're at it.

Ok, thanks for telling me what I should do. So now I will tell you what you should do. You should find a way to offer a semi-decent logical refutation of the argument that was presented...instead of offering a paragraph full of rhetoric, as you just did.

 

[idav]

That is why the ONLY defeater of the argument would be for one to demonstrate some kind of irrationality based on the concept, which no one can do.

Many have already demonstrated the irrationality of the concept your pushing. Are we reading the same thread? lol

 

[McBell]

So basically your argument is "because I can't understand it, it can't be true"...or "because I can't understand it, I shouldn't believe it". What is going on here?

Nope, that is not what is going on.
You blundered when you moved your goal posts and they are trying to explain said blunder, but you are not understanding their explanations.

 

[McBell]

Ok, thanks for telling me what I should do. So now I will tell you what you should do. You should find a way to offer a semi-decent logical refutation of the argument that was presented...instead of offering a paragraph full of rhetoric, as you just did.

The problem is that you are not understanding the logical refutation of your argument.

 

[cottage]

So now you have the problem of infinite regress. If you take away the one unconditioned necessary existence, you are left with conditioned contingency existence, going allllll the way back to past infinity. So now you are stuck in the wacky world of irrationality. Fun fun fun!!!!

This is a distraction and is not part of Plantinga’s Ontological Argument. However if we must wander away from the discussion here are two alternatives that I’ve already given elsewhere on the forum:
The world has not always existed; there was nothing before the world and one day it will cease to be. It is finite, and uncaused since there is no contradiction in denying any necessity in cause and effect, which being a contingent principle belongs to the world; and nor is there any necessity or empirical evidence for acts of creation, no evidence whatsoever, it being nothing more than an arbitrary act of the mind. The world neither created itself nor did it come from nothing since causation began and will end with the world. (Fundamentally the Big Bang Theory.)

The world is self-existent, i.e. contingent matter sustained within the world by an eternal, immutable quality. There is neither causal regression nor any infinitely forward progression since being immaterial it is not within the constraints of time. And note that this is to apply exactly the same premise of an unknown entity that the God hypothesis seeks to employ, but with the clear advantage that the world, having actual existence, has more objective reality than what is merely believed to exist as a matter of religious faith cluttered with contradictions and confused precepts.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

I’m sorry for your confusion. I’ve reinstated the paragraph that you chopped in two, to be read again together with an explanation in very simple terms that I’ve given below it.

“If there is one possible world where the Being that cannot fail to exist, fails to exist, then as the Being does not exist in all possible worlds there cannot exist such a Being. There is such a possible world, one that has yet to come into existence. And since the Being cannot exist in worlds that are possible to exist, but do not yet exist, there is no Being that exists in all possible worlds. There is therefore no Being.”

The argument from possible necessity is that if and where there are possible worlds then God will exist in them, but if there are possible worlds that are yet to exist* then self-evidently these worlds are not actual, and therefore it will be impossible for God to exist in them.

Point?

You isolated one sentence from the rest of the paragraph, removing it from the context in which the statement was given. Here is the paragraph reinstated:

“A further point is that it is possible that the Being does not have maximal greatness or excellence. God is certainly not “all good” as Plantinga supposes; and therefore, possibly it is necessarily true that a perfectly good Being doesn’t exist. And from which it follows that it is necessarily true that a perfectly good Being doesn’t exist.”

If you don’t think moral goodness is a “great making” property, then we can not include omnibenevolence as one of God’s attribute’s, and you are still left with the other three “omnis”. So you still have the greatest conceivable being. Second, if you believe in objective moral values, then you have to in turn believe in God. Third, based on the historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, that in itself means that Jesus is who he said he is, and thus we have a morally perfect God.

Now I shall have to borrow from you - with apologies - and resort to shouted capitals: OMNIBENEVOLENCE IS NOT A NECESSARY ATTRIBUTE! And even if it were, which it isn’t, the facts in the actual world disprove it utterly.

As I just pointed out, we have reasons to believe that it is.

So the second statement, far from being “absurd”, makes perfect sense for it questions whether we have to accept term “maximal greatness” or “maximal excellence”, and the evidence of evil and suffering in the world informs us that we do not! God is self-evidently not a perfectly good being. And if perfect goodness was supposed to be a necessary attribute, one which God must have if he is to be God, then God’s existence is demonstrably impossible.

Can you prove that God doesn’t have morally sufficient reasons for permitting evil and suffering? How do you know? You can’t possibly know the mind of God and his reasons with your own finite mind. So how do you know?

And who might I ask is proposing that there are “objective moral values”?

So if you have a daughter, and a madman rapes and kills your daughter, that act isn’t objectively wrong? Yes or no?

You began with the conditional premise that God exists. So the scenario you’ve given me is that if God exists then he cannot be denied, which is the very point in dispute that is being assumed, i.e. his existence!

The truth value of the argument depends on one crucial premise/question, and that is; is it possible for God to exist? That is a proposition. The answer is YES. Everything after that logically flows to the conclusion, which is…God exists.

But more to the point, the argument appears valid but it is empirically false in its implication and thus in its conclusion, since no purely logical proposition can demonstrate factual necessity.

Yes it does..if we are talking necessity..it surely does. For all possible necessary truths must be necessarily true. To say that something is possibly necessarily true, but actually false is nonsensical. That is like saying it is possible for a light bulb to remain necessarily on for all eternity, but in reality, the light is actually off. If it were merely possible for the light bulb to remain on for all eternity, the light wouldn’t be actually (and currently) off!!! If it were possible, there would be NO circumstances at which the light would be off, and the fact that it is actually off means that there is no possibility at which it COULD be necessarily on for all eternity.

So with a MGB (God), if it is possible for such a being to exist, then there is no possibility at which he could NOT exist, so if it is possible, God must exist!!! Wasn’t that just beautiful?

You said: “Lets say there is a rock on the mountain, and the rock exists necessarily.” That is begging the question for the conclusion that you want to prove is used as a premise of that same argument.

Wait a minute, cot…so every time someone uses an analogy for object X, they are begging the question for the conclusion that they want? My point is, regardless of whether or not object X exists or not, your imagination is not dependent upon the truth value of the proposition.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

And I’m not talking about “making things disappear with our minds”; I’m saying there is no contradiction in denying the existence of any object. It is only concepts such as tautologies and definitions that are contradictory if denied. And the addition of a concept to the object doesn’t make the supposed object existent - or more existent!

All I want to know is it possible for God as defined in the argument to exist.

So we cannot say a bachelor is anything but an unmarried man or that a triangle has more or less than three angles.

And we cannot say a omnipresent being is anything other than present.

But none of those things are ontological entities. Necessary truths are simply concepts abstracted from the experiential world, which itself is a contingent truth, but because they are tautologies their truths are necessarily implied by the premises or definitions, which must then be the case in all logically possible worlds.

Right, and some truths qualify as necessary, and others don’t. The argument is whether or not a MGB qualifies as a necessary truth.

But we, and by that I mean you too, can conceive the possible non-being of any object that exists or is supposed to exist regardless of any pretended ontological status given to it. If God’s existence were a necessary truth then it would be self-evident, and no person of a sound mind that could deny that truth anymore than they could deny 2 + 2 = 4. But “God exists”, in any conceptual form, is neither self-evident and necessary nor empirically verifiable.

You’ve just made my point for me, cot. We cannot deny 2+2=4 because we know 2+2=4. Suppose there is a astronomically difficult mathematical problem that we DON’T know the answer to, such as how many times does 2 go in to 12345679894938288438291883828918982892919191991832838488483828181^120. We don’t know the answer, right? But if we DID know the answer, it would very difficult for us to deny its truth, or imagine a world in which it wouldn’t be true. But with God, we start off neutral, by NOT knowing whether or not God exists. But once we examine the concept, such as the being’s attributes and necessary nature, it is also difficult to deny, in the same way it is difficult to deny a world at which 2+2=4. Here is why;

You know the concept of God, right? You accept the concept, right? Now can you imagine an omnipresent being to be not present? Can you imagine an omniscient being to not know the answer to a question? Can you imagine an omnipotent being to be unable to do something that is logically possible? In the same way 2+2=4, a omniscient being must know everything, because you can’t imagine a omniscient being to not know something, correct? It is the same thing.

No, that’s not my argument. To describe a thing or to posit a concept is not to bestow existence upon it. I’m saying to you there is nothing existent that corresponds with the concept.

Based on what?

And nor is it a case “of ‘”saying”’they can imagine such a being not to be present” but a simple matter of fact that the concept isn’t always present, which further demonstrates the impossibility of supposing necessity in any object and it remaining always in existence. And that demonstrates two things: God is not omniscient and he is not necessary!

Based on what?

But you missed the crucial part of the argument I gave you. We can easily conceive of any being, and with as many attributes as we can think of, and we can just as easily conceive of the non-existence of that same being. But our being able to conceive of the latter demonstrates that what we formerly conceived of has no necessary existence, for otherwise the conception would be impossible. For the fact that is logically possible for us to conceive of the non-existence of such a being deprives it of any certainty.

For the fact that it is logically possible for us to conceive of the existence of such a being implies the certainty of its existence. Nothing changes, cot. Same logic on the flip side.

And I have not seen anything at all from you to show how there could possibly be an actual God, simply from the logical phraseology of a proposition. A God that has no factual existence is no God at all!

Anything that is logically possible must be true in some possible world.

 

[FranklinMichaelV.3]

So basically your argument is "because I can't understand it, it can't be true"...or "because I can't understand it, I shouldn't believe it". What is going on here?

I've seen you use the opposite argument when faced with the problem of evil in saying that "I don't understand it, but it's true" Or something or another to that effect.

But anyway I was saying that simply saying that you have no standard to actually say what an omni-max being would be. You could certainly say it exists, but you have no standard to equate it to outside of your own mind.