Slex

I should say that I don't get the ontological argument. I don't get it at all. I have never understood it. It makes absloutely no sense to me. But it is still used, especially by people who use formal logic (I mean by people who use "A not A", stuff like this, you get what I mean , I guess), and probably the reason that I don't get it is that I don't have the technical apparatus, I mean I am not able to go beyond the words and terms they use. Can anyone explain it in plain English for me, or is it just sophistry, as I think it is?
More specifically, I want to know what a "necessary being" is. Necessary for what? Necessary per se? Necessary for its own existance? Because when we usually say that something is necessary, we mean that it is necessary for something else, and we usually say what this something else is, or imply it, because it is evident for the person we talk to. For example if my mother tells me: It is necessary to buy cream , I can understand that it is necessary to buy cream, because she is making a cake (even if she doesn't say it, I can conclude that, knowing that we are expecting guests or for any other reason), and without the cream she will not be able to make one. In the case of God being a necessary being, the continuation is lost to me. Necessary for what? For his own existence? But if he is necessary for his own existence, this statement makes no sense - it means that God is necessary to exist, because if it was otherwise, he wouldn't exist. God's existence is necessary for God's existence. Apart from the fact that this can be said to any other object that exists, isn't that also a thautology?
P.S. Please don't write very long posts. I don't have much time. And don't be surprised if I don't answer in the next one or two days.

happyboy

what it means is, "we've based our whole lives around this God, so we hope and pray He's real, and that we haven't wasted our lives worshipping Him, because we'd look awfully stupid if He didn't exist."

happyboy

Koyaanisqatsi

In addition to what happyboy said...

A "necessary being" is one that is not contingent upon any other being for its existence.

The conception of which goes way back (some argue to Aristotle, indirectly), but was probably made most famous by St. Thomas Aquinas in his "Five Ways," (five arguments for the existence of god), who drew from Aristotle and expanded the concept.

It goes roughly like this (and it's called the "Third Way," by the way):

1. Contingent beings are caused.
   
2. Not every being can be contingent.
   
3. There must exist a being which is necessary to cause contingent beings.
   
4. This necessary being is God.

As you can immediately see, there are many holes left unfilled, primary of which is the fact that all of this depends upon a finite universe to avoid infinite regressions (what caused the first cause that caused the cause of the first cause, etc., etc., etc.).

So, basically, Aquinas just proclaimed that the universe, to be knowable, could not be infinite, since that would mean there is no "first cause." Which is a lot like saying, because we can't comprehend pi, I'm just going to round it down to "3" and artificially remove the problem from the question so that my personal desires emerge triumphant.

In other words, the universe is asserted to be finite (and therefore "knowable"), which in turn means there must have been a first cause, aka, "god."

This is often apologized for by stating a whole bunch of asinine tenuous links and further assertions, such as the ones Aquinas made; namely that god and the universe both just sprang into existence simultaneously, which completely negates the entire notion that god created the universe, since creation implies a state of being that existed prior to the creation.

It also tends to negate his own "logic," since the entire basis for this argument was the "chicken/egg"-like paradox of existence. You can't have a chicken without it coming from an egg and you can't have an egg without it coming from a chicken, so these are contingent beings on some other non-contingent being (i.e., a necessary being that somehow depends on its own existence in order to exist). The argument in a nutshell is that an egg can't just "pop" into existence, so something had to create it. Problem being that the "something" that is argued to have created it itself just "popped" into existence.

If the egg can't do it, then why can "god?" Well, because its necessary that this was the case in order to account for the egg; evolution having not even been a glint in the rooster's eye at that point .

It's an invalid syllogism that's been demonstrated non-sequitur (modal logic-ease for "incorrect") so many times and in so many ways that it literally boggles my mind that theists still bring it up, but then that was the reason for it to begin with; a means to provide cult members with the continued illusion that their beliefs are actually based on logic.

Odd, too, since the contingent quality to most theistic beliefs is Faith, but when one is dealing with cult mentality, logic and reason are deliberately rendered incomprehensible, more as a way to pretend to answer cult member's possible questions that valid logic raises in regard to their beliefs or dogma (and necessarily so ), but also as just another way to keep the sheep in the pen; the shepherds doing the thinking (and the shearing) for them just as they do the rather creative interpretations of scripture so that none of the sheep actually stand up, cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.

See, the fraud is revealed in the fact that, outside of cult mentality, once a syllogism is demonstrated to be non-sequitur ("incorrect"), everyone understands that the syllogism is therefore to be discarded and never raised again. That, after all, is the ultimate purpose of formal logic; to determine whether or not an argument is "correct" or not in order to discard those that are "incorrect."

But cult members don't understand what that means and think only that the existence of the argument--i.e., that someone wrote it down--is all that is required of it and it therefore proves itself simply because it was written down, regardless of the fallacies involved and the subsequent fact that the conclusions are never sequitur ("correct").

Little wonder considering the premises involved .

In other words, its nothing more than typical cult shrapnel to stop cult members from properly applying the tools and ultimate purpose of logic; to sift fact from fiction, by pretending to have done all that for them in the first place. After all, they have proof! See? Aquinas proved--using "secular" tools no less!--that we're all right to continue believing in mystical fairy god kings that magically blinked the universe into existence in order to punish us all for not worshipping them!

For a more detailed breakdown (in plain English, sort of) try this essay, or just type in "necessary + beings + Aquinas" into any search engine.

Wyz_sub10

It ususally means "necessary by definition". If god is described as omni-whatever, then he must exist because not existing would run contrary to any 'omni'.

It's circular reasoning, and meaningless in any type of discussion. If all parties agree to the "omni" attributes or to the existence of god, than "necessary" is irrelevant. If parties do not agree - i.e. one sides does not accept the existence of god, or does but not with the "omni" attributes, than stating that something is "necessary by definition" is incorrect.

Kenny

Note: this post is purely explanatory (as an explanation was requested by the OP). I have no interest in arguing for or against the OA at this time.

The term ‘necessary,’ when used in the context of the ontological argument, is being used the technical sense given to that term by various forms of modal logic. A proposition is necessary iff it is true in all logically possible worlds. A ‘possible world’ is simply a maximal description of a coherent state of affairs. Thus, to say that God is a necessary being is to say that the proposition “God exists” is necessarily true (i.e. the proposition “God exists” is true in all possible worlds). The term ‘necessary,’ in this sense, has nothing to do with something being necessary for something else.

Another way to understand it is that a contingent proposition about the world describes a state of affairs which could have been otherwise whereas a necessary proposition about the world describes something that could not have been otherwise. Thus, the statement “Kenny lives in Southern California” is a contingent proposition (and one that, in fact, would have been false if uttered a year ago) whereas “2+2=4” is a necessary one. To say that the proposition “God exists” is necessary, then, means that God could not have possibly failed to exist.

The two key premises of the ontological argument are:

1.) If God exists at all, then necessarily God exists.
2.) It is logically possible that God exists

It can be shown via modal logic (S5) that the conclusion “Necessarily God exists” follows from these two premises. The inference is valid (the conclusion does follow from the premises), but is it sound (are the premises true)?

Various arguments are given for the first premise. Suppose, for instance, God does exist and ‘God’ is defined to be a being worthy of worship. Suppose also that in order to be worthy of worship a being must be self-sufficient (i.e. it cannot depend on anything external to itself for its existence). Now suppose we think that God might not have existed. If God might not have existed, then God’s existence must be explained in light of some contingent feature of our world and it is also true that some contingent feature of our world might have prevented God from existing. But, if that’s true, then God depends on the contingent features of our world being a certain way for His existence. But if that’s true, then God is not self-sufficient. But that violates our definition of ‘God’ as a being worthy of worship. So if God exists at all, God must exist necessarily. Now, regardless of what you actually think of this argument, it shows that there are some intuitively appealing ways to argue for the truth of the first premise.

The real problem with the OA is the second premise. There does not seem to be anyway, at present, to prove that this premise is true. So, if the second premise cannot be proven to be true or cannot receive warrant in some other way (though I personally think it can receive warrant in a properly basic way for some persons), then the ontological argument cannot be used to establish that God exists. However, if the first premise could be sufficiently established, then we would still be left with the result that if it is logically possible for God to exist, then necessarily God exists. And that would still be a pretty significant and interesting conclusion.

God Bless,
Kenny

Christopher13

Slex, maybe you'd benefit from looking at the Nietzschean thread where I have been discussing Aquinas' "first way" to know God exists. It is similar in method to the "third way" involving the concepts of possibility and necessity. In brief, something that has its necessity of itself means that it does not receive it from another. If everything in the universe could both be and not be, given an eternity, all things would cease to be. Nothing would now exist, which is plainly false. Therefore, there exists something whose being is necessary, that is, it is not possible for it not to be. And this thing is the cause of all else . . . . Maybe go to the other thread though because I can't handle both proofs simultaneously.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Kenny :

You gave a good account of the MOA. I think one important thing to think about when we're dealing with the MOA is that

"there is a possible world in which God exists"

literally means that God exists in every possible world. It means there's a possible world in which a being that exists in every possible world exists. So that's the real problem with the MOA, as I see it. For God to be logically possible is much harder than for a contingent being to be logically possible. A contingent being just has to exist in one possible world to be possible. But a necessary being has to exist in all of them. And if there's a possible world in which God doesn't exist, then God's impossible -- it's much easier for a necessary being to fail to be possible. That's why it's so hard to support the second premise; one would have to provide reasons to think this being exists in all possible worlds, rather than just reasons to think this being exists in one possible world.

Biff the unclean

Reading Kenny's piece makes me wonder.
Does he go through such tortured logic and double speak for anything other than God's existence?
Questions like "is there a Loch Ness Monster?"
"Is there peanut butter and jelly in the fridge?"
"Is there a pile of dog poop on my front lawn?"
The evidentiary standards that the "necessary being" scenario set up are too lax to be of use when dealing with a pile of beagle B.M. Why would you be stricter with existential claims of dog shite than you would with existential claims of God Almighty?

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Biff the unclean :

Could you be more specific? I'm not sure I see to what you're referring. He seems to me to give a pretty reasonable account of the prospects for the MOA and where it fails. What do you see in his last post that strikes you as torturous and double-spoken?

Bilbo

You gave a good account of the MOA. I think one important thing to think about when we're dealing with the MOA is that

"there is a possible world in which God exists"

literally means that God exists in every possible world. It means there's a possible world in which a being that exists in every possible world exists. So that's the real problem with the MOA, as I see it. For God to be logically possible is much harder than for a contingent being to be logically possible.
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The modal premise is certainly a Trojan horse, but I'm not sure what to make of the notion that the "real problem" with its acceptability lies in the fact that the possibility of a necessary being is "harder" than the possibility of a contingent being.

I think part of the reason for suspicion about "modally loaded" statements, is the lack of clarity about whether the modal operators are modifying propositions, properties or individuals.

Perhaps some of the suspicion can be dispelled by dispensing with convoluted locutions such as "The necessary being that is impossible" and recasting the premise in terms of property instantiation:

There is a possible world in which maximal greatness is instantiated.

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A contingent being just has to exist in one possible world to be possible. But a necessary being has to exist in all of them. And if there's a possible world in which God doesn't exist, then God's impossible -- it's much easier for a necessary being to fail to be possible.
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I doubt much sense can be given to the notion that its "easier" for a "necessary being" to "not exist", than for a non-necessary being to not exist. But as noted a moment ago, this makes for puzzling use of logical quantification in any case. If we take the actualist thesis seriously, we can say very soberly that there are no necessary beings that are impossible. Anything that isn't possible isn't a necessary being.

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That's why it's so hard to support the second premise; one would have to provide reasons to think this being exists in all possible worlds, rather than just reasons to think this being exists in one possible world.
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I'm not sure that its "hard to support the modal premise", if we understand it in terms of possible property instantiation. As Kenny suggested earlier, it seems quite reasonable to say that the premise is (at worst) properly basic for some people.


Any thoughts?


Bilbo