rainbow walking

Hi Kenny,

rw: To remain consistent to "soundness" requires a proper syllogism, thus the conclusion cannot be assumed in any of the premises but must deductively follow from them. To my knowledge "triviality" has no bearing on this operation of logic. If you can offer a syllogism that establishes God's existence without assuming it in the postulates I shall be more than happy to concede your point. If not then Koy's reasoning stands regardless of his personal position or motives for submitting it.


rw: Yabut, in order to support your claim wouldn't it be sufficient to submit one?

rw: I'm not so sure that your thinking this is justified. If you can submit a syllogism that does not ASSUME the truth of the conclusion but naturally leads to such conclusion I see no reason why anyone would deny you the accomplishment.

rw: Well, that question can easily be resolved. Submit a sound argument that renders the existence of God to be true and see what Koy's reaction is.

rw: I can appreciate your seeking but wouldn't it have been more economical to have just submitted your syllogism and wait for the results? The one you did submit failed to accomplish your aims but perhaps you have another that will meet with success?

Kenny

Hello RW,

But, strictly speaking, the premise “God exists or 2+2=5,” is not merely a restatement of “God exists” in another form. The conclusion, “God exists” is not present in any of the premises. Thus, formally, the argument is not circular. It also meets the definition of soundness offered in nearly every logic text book (if God exists). It’s premises are true and the argument is valid. Now, I agree, that, in terms of conducting warrant, the argument is most likely entirely circular, but that does not mean that it is not formally sound. We can start altering the definition of “sound,” if we like, by adding further qualifications, but then we are likely to find ourselves in a never ending (and controversial) quagmire of stipulations on what it means for an argument to be sound. I think sticking with simplicity on the definition of “soundness” is best; evaluating the overall merit of each potentially sound argument on a case by case basis.

In any case, this is why I felt clarification was in order. I wanted to know what other sorts of qualifications Koy was seeking besides “soundness” for a good theistic argument. Since God exists , sound theistic arguments are trivially easy to provide. The assertion that there are no sound arguments for God’s existence, likewise, is logically equivalent to the assertion that God does not exist.

Consider Plantinga’s version of the ontological argument which can be found

<a href="http://www.dnc.net/users/sunsogn/oa.html#Alvin" target="_blank">here</a>:

There is universal agreement in philosophical community that this argument is formally valid, but is it sound? Whether or not it is sound depends on whether or not its premises are true. I believe that the premises are true and thus that the argument is sound, though many here are likely to disagree. The warrant for the key premises boils down to the holding of certain intuitive commitments unlikely to be shared by all. Nevertheless; the fact that not all will concede the premises says nothing about whether the argument is sound.

But here’s the catch, and one of the overall points I was trying to get at. Koy and I (or Myself and anyone else) are likely to disagree concerning which arguments are sound and which arguments are not. Our commitment to the soundness of various arguments depends on the types of premises we are willing to accept which in turn depends on the varying intuitive and intellectual commitments we are likely to hold. The fact that Koy cannot see that any arguments for the existence of God are sound does not mean that none are or that theists are incapable of providing them. All it means is that there are no valid arguments for the existence of God that convince Koy.

I haven’t, prior to this thread, submitted any (what I consider to be) good sound arguments for the existence of God because that would just shift the topic of this thread into another debate over the cosmological argument or transcendental argument or whatever. There are definitely a number of valid arguments for the existence of God (very intelligent philosophers have been churning them out for years). Opinion varies as to whether they are sound.

God Bless,
Kenny

Theli

Kenny...

Well... that depends.
People usually don't just disagree. Idealy they should give an understandable reason to do so, in order to keep the discussion alive.
I would say that the discussion has completely failed if the two opposite sides just disagrees on a point without being able to debate it.
As, in this example we are discussing about god's possible existence. He does, or does not exist independent on our feelings on the subject.

Kenny

Sometimes they do; especially when it comes to very basic worldview issues.

Ideally.

Yes, but sometimes that happens.

Agreed. Likewise, any particular argument for the existence of God is either sound or not sound independently of our thoughts or feelings on the subject. However; our subjective opinion regarding the soundness of a particular argument may vary depending on prior intuitive or intellectual commitments.

God Bless,
Kenny

[ July 20, 2002: Message edited by: Kenny ]</p>

Theli

Kenny...

My response was mostly about this forum. When someone disagrees with an argument they mostly say why.

The problem however with your above argument for god's existence, is that it favors god/god's specific attributes in the definition of "Maximal excellence". If we were to change all attributes (omniscience, omnipotence), the argument would be just as valid.

Wich makes it generally useless to prove something specific, (as it can prove just about anything).
This is a problem for most philosophical arguments(I've heard) that tries to provide proof for a positive claim lacking solid evidence.
They can be used to prove any claim that lacks solid evidence.
In wich a person must presuppose what the argument tries to prove. It's a tautology.

Synaesthesia

Kenny.
I personally have yet to see any transcendental or ontological arguments that were both valid and non-question begging.

I agree that the actual formal structure isn’t the controversial aspect, I think the formalism very often obscures more than clarifies. I don’t think that the usefulness of the premises is above critical examination. For example prepositions of the form “’X exists’ or ‘false preposition’” (God exists or 2+2=5) are identical to the assumption that it is contradictory to deny the existence of X. This for all intents and purposes is begging the question.

Similarly, Plantaga’s argument which you presents assumes that Excellence must exist and that Excellence=God. Compounded into a logically identical premise, the assumption is that ‘God necessarily exists’. This is most certainly question begging, irrespective of what your philosophical presuppositions are.

Although we are likely to disagree, I think there is enough common ground to see that question begging is not a strong philosophical stance.

Tom,
Yes, formal argument is not the means by which we establish the existence of historical figures. My point is that this is insignificant because you can’t prove the existence of a being of infinite complexity in the same way you can prove the existence of a particular human. (Humans are known to exist, Gods are NOT generally known.) If you think scientific inquiry can find God (as it can find all the things which are uncontroversial known to be ‘findable’ historical figures, particles etc.) you are wrong.

If there was any real doubt as to their existence, I’m sure some people would be willing to go through a historical analysis of Socrates and such. There is theoretical reason to think that they can be demonstrated to have existed: Human beings are observed, their existence is accounted for by biological reproduction, their histories (given many provisos) can give useful information about their past. God is a fundamentally different matter.

Now I do not deny that ‘a higher power’ could be shown, in principle, to exist. A being of infinite complexity outside of nature is another matter all together.

Kenny

Synaesthesia,

This is demonstrately false by the simple fact that, according to the rules of logic, “Kenny exists or 2+2=5” is also a true statement, as I already pointed out. I would not claim that the denial of my existence implies a logical contradiction. I already conceded, however, that the warrant for the premise “God exists or 2+2=5” seems to depend directly on whatever warrant one has for the proposition “God exists” and that this renders the former proposition useless for conferring warrant to the latter.

Well, Plantinga’s argument nowhere states “excellence must exist” as a premise or that “Excellence = God;” thus, your restatement of that argument here is, at best, a parody. But, that aside, your objection to the argument seems to be that if you combine its premises into a single large premise, that larger premise is logically equivalent to the conclusion. I really don’t know how to respond to that since that’s true for any valid argument! If you think an argument's being valid makes it question begging, then I really don’t know what else to say!

God Bless,
Kenny

[ July 20, 2002: Message edited by: Kenny ]</p>

Kenny

Theli

But, that doesn’t mean that it would be just as sound or that the premises would retain their intuitive warrant. The definition of maximal excellence is based in our intuition of what “excellence” amounts to. If “maximal excellence” were defined as “being stupid, ugly and fat,” the argument would indeed maintain a valid logical structure but all of it’s intuitive support would be gone.

Furthermore, I do not know what to make of your claim that if different definitions were inserted into the same logical structure the argument would be just as valid. Once again, that is true for any valid logical argument. All that such an assertion amounts to is a concession to the fact that the argument has a proper logical structure. I hardly see how that’s a strike against it.

God Bless,
Kenny

[ July 20, 2002: Message edited by: Kenny ]</p>

Theli

Kenny...

Why not?
There is nothing about your definition of "Maximal excellence" that merits more credibility, than any other definition.

False. Who is "we" in "our"?
I can see that the definition of ME is directly tied to the christian god, and so the argument presupposes what it tries to prove.

This argument above makes 3 false assumptions.
1. Our intuition says that god is omnimax.
2. Our intuition says that god exists.
3. Our intuition has some baring on the existence of beings unproven by us.

The god you are refering to is simply favored by you because you are a christian. Someone who believe in ghosts could use the same argument (along with his intuition) to prove the existence of ghosts.
For an argument to be valid and meaningfull, you must be able to reach the conclution that X exist without any presupposed beliefs, and without favoring one side over another.

Without even looking into the logic of the argument, but rather observing the effect in reality, you can see how this argument has flaws.

What is tries to prove is that if X can exist then X does exist, wich is an illogical claim.
The argument itself becomes useless in regards to truth, and is only there to serve the person using it.
We don't even need to look onto the structure of the argument to see it's flaws.
I much rather look at it's results.

But, we can look at the argument for fun.

This ofcourse deals with possibility, not with probability.

A hypothetical claim. It is not tied to the being in question.

A tautology, but true.

Now, here is where the error lies.
You took a hypothetical claim (not bound to the being, or the world in question) and made it a necessity.
You went from possibility (point 1) to actual existence.
Point 2 and 3 was refering to a hypothesis, not something tied with reality.
This is the fault in point4.

An extension/explaination of the result from point 4.

[ July 21, 2002: Message edited by: Theli ]</p>

Theli

Kenny...

I don't know why came up with the argument above, but it seems to me that his agenda was not to provide a usefull argument to seperate true from false, but rather trying to confuse the reader.