tergiversant

Does "God exists" express a coherent, thinkable proposition?

If so, what? That is, can it be unpacked without resorting to loose analogy or incoherent expressions?

tergiversant@OklahomaAtheists.org

<a href="http://www.OklahomaAtheists.org" target="_blank">ATHEISTS of OKLAHOMA</a>

"Atheists are OK."

[ May 29, 2002: Message edited by: tergiversant ]</p>

geoff

[QUOTE]Originally posted by tergiversant:
[QB]Does "God exists" express a coherent, thinkable proposition?

Richard Swineburne argues for the affirmative in his "The Coherence of Theism", a book in the analytic tradition.

Ion

[quote]Originally posted by geoff:
<strong>Is that any good?

tergiversant

[quote]Originally posted by geoff:
<strong>I know. Plantinga and others argue similarly. Does anyone here care to make the argument? Preferably in brief, without overmuch cutting and pasting.

We could start by assigning specific meanings to both words. We especially have to clear up what "exists" should be taken to mean, that is, what "is" is.

tergiversant@OklahomaAtheists.org

<a href="http://www.OklahomaAtheists.org" target="_blank">ATHEISTS of OKLAHOMA</a>

"Atheists are OK."

[ May 29, 2002: Message edited by: tergiversant ]</p>

Philosoft

I am something of a noncognitivist but I've begun to suspect that there's not really a whole lot of practical difference between "'God' represents a concept" and "most people act as if 'God' represents a concept.

"God exists" appears to mean something entirely different from "all x that are not God exist." When talking about things that can be used with transitive verbs, we can talk about concrete things (car, chair, keyboard) a) that have material referents, and b) whose material referents can affect other material things; or we can talk about abstract things (unicorn, song, invisible man) for which there are no corresponding material things (and it follows that they have no direct effect on the material world).

God appears to need a new category, perhaps divine things because 1) God is said to be able to affect material things (as a concrete thing) and 2) God is said to be immaterial (i.e. not composed of atoms, quarks, strings; as an abstract thing).

Now, it makes sense to me to dismiss this as special pleading because the inferred Christian desire is to have defined an unevidenced category of 'thing' with a population of one. Obviously, there are no other things like God which can be observed as an example of a thing like God. QED.

I do, however, see the rhetorical nature of this argument, as the average theist (and presumably the not-so-average theist) is more than willing to accept the 'divine thing' hypothesis (or at least implicitly incorporate it into his worldview) and proceed to attribute qualities to the now allegedly defined God. So I'd have to say, while noncognitivism is rationally appealing to me, it's an argumentative dead-end for those who a priori reject the notions it entails.

Adrian Selby

I find myself wondering more and more whether I truly understand the proposition. If I ask myself what God is, such that I can make sense of ascribing to the concept existence, I find I can't make sense of it, how does one make sense of the infinite, the all powerful, these kinds of attributes are open to debate, can be seen to self contradictory, as debated on many threads here, and therefore beyond 'That big guy in the Bible' I'm not sure I can understand anything about the concept of God beyond the fact that its a word.

Therefore, it seems to make as much sense as 'kiysu fg=sglasr exists'.

Certainly if I were to start having a discussion about whether or not God exists, in trying to frame what it is we're saying exists, I anticipate all kinds of problems with the definition.

Adrian

tergiversant

I certainly hope you are wrong about that. While I tend to think that most any argument against theism is an argumentative dead-end when dealing with hardcore theists, I believe that some few of them may be won over through reason and argument (as many of us once were).

As to the nature of noncognitivism, you have done a fine job outlining the nature of the ontological/existential problem to some extent. But it gets even more fun once we move past the problem of existence and "proceed to attribute qualities to the now allegedly defined God." There are a plethora of incoherent and self-contradictory predicates typically assigned to the concept of "God" itself.

Oh, that a sagacious theist would stand up and try to make this most fundamental of theistic claims make some degree of sense!

tergiversant@OklahomaAtheists.org

<a href="http://www.OklahomaAtheists.org" target="_blank">ATHEISTS of OKLAHOMA</a>

"Atheists are OK."

Philosoft

I'd like to believe this as well, because the noncognitivist argument, at least WRT the Judeo-Christian God, does make so much sense to me. The problem I see is that theism doesn't deal with god-concepts. Theism presumes the existence of a god prior to concept formation. Thus, in any sort of structured theistic argument, a premise, whether stated or assumed, will always be "God exists." I believe this premise is so fundamentally held that a retort like, "the statement 'God exists' is meaningless unless you can describe your concept of the thing 'God'" would be more likely to provoke hostility than promote contemplation.

<strong> Tell me about it.

<strong> I share your desire, Terg.