RE: Shia Islamic Argument for the existence of God
April 27, 2016 at 3:30 am
(This post was last modified: April 27, 2016 at 3:50 am by Excited Penguin.)
You fail to comprehend that the totality of entities and their universals are just as real as the finite entities are. You seem to think they aren't because the totality of entities is nothing more than a sum of its parts and therefore cannot be considered as a separate entity. I would have to disagree, since the same could be said about any separate entity in particular - namely, that it is nothing more than a sum of its parts. So if we were to take this part of your argument to its conclusion we would have to conclude that nothing could possibly exist, and yet we know that not to be true. Everything does exist, including finite entities, their totality and their universals.
You argued that universals have only a mental existence. That's true, but so does everything else. Reality itself is only a mental concept.
This is a non sequitur, plain and simple. Everything else you wrote is irrelevant, even if I granted it as logical and consistent, which I do not.
I understood everything you wrote very well, despite not having any training in philosophy(well, almost everything, there was one word that was in a different language and I couldn't even translate it). My advice to you, however, would be that you engage us in less formal debates and keep the sophistry, which, ironically, is exactly what the OP was, in its essence,(and still more ironic is the fact that this second proposition of yours, "Sophistry is void", is a clear example of such sophistry at work), at a minimum.
You argued that universals have only a mental existence. That's true, but so does everything else. Reality itself is only a mental concept.
Quote:Therefore, the first ontological proposition, which the human being cannot not know, is the affirmation of the basic reality, and its modality is eternal necessity. And since, as just explained, finite entities, such as the heavens, the earth, the cosmos, and so forth, cannot be the extension of this proposition, its extension is only an Absolute Reality—Who is above the restrictions of conditions, is present with all of the finite realities, and no absence or termination is perceivable with respect to Him.
This is a non sequitur, plain and simple. Everything else you wrote is irrelevant, even if I granted it as logical and consistent, which I do not.
I understood everything you wrote very well, despite not having any training in philosophy(well, almost everything, there was one word that was in a different language and I couldn't even translate it). My advice to you, however, would be that you engage us in less formal debates and keep the sophistry, which, ironically, is exactly what the OP was, in its essence,(and still more ironic is the fact that this second proposition of yours, "Sophistry is void", is a clear example of such sophistry at work), at a minimum.
