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God exists subjectively?
#84
RE: God exists subjectively?
(November 20, 2016 at 8:07 pm)Tonus Wrote: I don't see how you can demonstrate anything conclusively using metaphysics.  Logical deduction tells us that the example cannot be resolved and is logically invalid.

Let's see.

(November 20, 2016 at 8:07 pm)Tonus Wrote: If the premise is "everything must have quality A" and you introduce a variable that does not have quality A, you have invalidated the premise.  If everything has a cause, the moment you introduce something that is uncaused the premise is wrong.  As I said before, it is so clear that I cannot make the explanation any simpler.

Finally, you have shown where other atheists got St. Thomas Aquinas wrong. You hold that in Five Ways of St. Thomas, there is a premise that says "everything is caused" or "everything is moved". However, if we're honest and careful, we will admit that there's no such premises in the Five Ways. If there is, kindly quote it here.

(November 20, 2016 at 8:07 pm)Tonus Wrote: My objection is that in order to resolve any of the five ways we must grant god a quality that invalidates the premise.  We're going in circles because I keep explaining this and you either ignore it or deny it without providing a sensible explanation.

I think our going in circles here will be done soon, by determining who is right in this regard: Whether St. Thomas in his Five Ways affirm that "everything has a cause" or "everything is moved" in its premises.

If you can quote part of Five Ways that shows that, then you are correct with your accusation that Five Ways invalidates its premise with its conclusion.

If you cannot, then time and again, theists have shown atheists that their just committing straw man fallacy and will not help to be theists soon due to the strength and certainty of the Five Ways and by God's grace.

(November 20, 2016 at 8:07 pm)Tonus Wrote: If there were no preconceptions, we would simply find that the example is invalid and scrap it.  I don't agree that it is about things we see and understand, because we understand that infinite regress does not lead us to a beginning, and granting a convenient quality to a made-up variable is not logical.

The Five Ways doesn't argue for a beginning. That's another point where atheist misunderstood Aquinas. The things we see and understand are the things around us. And the things around us is the starting point of the Five Ways.

(November 20, 2016 at 8:07 pm)Tonus Wrote:
Quote:because Perfect Being is Perfect Goodness, because being and the good are just one and same and are just looked in different perspective.
Unproven assertion.  Nor is it logical-- if we can extrapolate from comparative terms to reach an ultimate 'best' then we can also reach an ultimate 'worst.'

What's unproven here? Again, you misunderstand Aquinas. Because he was not deriving the perfect from the comparative terms only, but from degrees of being, and beings are not mere terms.

(November 20, 2016 at 8:07 pm)Tonus Wrote:
Quote:Because, evil is a privation.
Evil is not simply the absence of good.  Actions and motivations can be determined to be evil and we can judge things as being worse than bad.  Nor are good and evil the only factors that we can extend towards perfection.  Is god both the ultimate strength and the ultimate weakness?  The ultimate joy and the ultimate sadness?

Evil actions and evil intentions shouldn't be there, granted that we are rational beings, whom are able to know the truth and love the good by our very nature, and so what must be the intention and action should be good. Therefore, evil is still absence of good.

Some weakness and sadness are not good too, and so it is also lack of good. For after all, being and goodness are the same. The proof of that is simple: It is no GOOD to have one million dollar in your mind only. Hence, every truly good things must be real. Thus, being is being as looked on itself, being is truth as looked on the intellect, and being is goodness as looked on the will.

(November 20, 2016 at 8:07 pm)Tonus Wrote:
Quote:I don't understand how one can conclude that there's no God after the premises of the Five Ways. For, in concluding there is no God, then one is affirming that the things we see and understand are not true and real, and that is absurd.
Unproven assertion.  Also, I do not have to conclude that there is no god in order to point out that the premises of the five ways are invalid.

I'm excited to see whether you can quote from Five Ways anything that proves your claim that it affirms in its premises that "everything is caused" and so prove that you are correct, because I know there isn't a premise there that affirms that "everything has a cause".

(November 20, 2016 at 8:07 pm)Tonus Wrote:
Quote:Now, if one's scope of study is only about natural occurrence, then one will not bother to look for supernatural cause.
If one has to "bother to look for supernatural" causes, then the supernatural is not evident.  The scientific method begins with observations, and those lead to hypotheses and experimentation and possibly theories.  If our scope of study does not encompass the supernatural, then the supernatural has not been observed.

Does it follows then that what is not observed is not real?

(November 20, 2016 at 8:07 pm)Tonus Wrote:
Quote:But, if one's study has the scope of all reality like and metaphysics, one can see that if there is no supernatural, then no natural things will exist too.
Unproven assertion.  If you cannot justify your unproven assertions, I see no reason to accept them.  If your belief system requires so many such claims to remain viable, I would question its viability.

What's unproven here? It's easy to see that every natural thing has its own nature. However, nature are definite and it must be formed by something or someone, for from nothing, only nothing comes. Either 1) the source of the definition of nature has a nature and therefore natural; 2) or not. If 1, then it's cause may have a natural cause too, and so on and so forth, ad infinitum. But, that can't be, for we cannot arrive at a sufficient reason. But, there must be a sufficient reason. Therefore, there must be no. 2, a being that is beyond nature and therefore super-natural, Being Himself, and that people call God.

Of course, that can't be seen in natural science, because the scope of science is what is natural. However, if we argue from the scope regarding the existence of something outside of the scope, then we are arguing invalidly. So, if we argue from natural science regarding supernatural, we are doing our logic wrong. Just as the existence of the maker of rule of chess can't be known by the content of the rules of chess only, so science which is only knowing the laws of nature and its consequences cannot proceed about knowing whether there is a lawmaker or not.

(November 20, 2016 at 8:07 pm)Tonus Wrote:
Quote:Aquinas Five Ways is stronger than science
No, they're not.  They can't even get out of their own way.  They are a nonstarter.

Quote:Regarding the existence of God people believed, what must be checked there is not the existence God, but the source of their belief
If there was a source of belief that was stronger than the five ways, I would expect that theists would be presenting that to us instead.  But if Aquinas was a presuppositionalist, then it's not difficult to see why he thought the five ways were a valid method of determining that god was necessary.  Had he not been hindered by his beliefs, he might have recognized the problem with them and scrapped the whole exercise.

The problem with that is that it is not true that belief is the only reason for holding Five Ways as true, for very great philosopher like Dr. Edward Feser who was an atheist before and now who is a Catholic sees the truth of the Five Ways and is doing a very good job in pointing out the distortion of the misunderstanding of the atheists regarding the Five Ways.

(November 20, 2016 at 8:07 pm)Tonus Wrote:
Quote:There is a way to study "being" systematically and correctly, and that is by way of sound metaphysics. Metaphysics actually is the foundation of and also is assumed in science which method is verification in experiment. If that is the case, Metaphysics is beyond experiment, and it's conclusion is clearly more certain. For if that is otherwise, then we may want to deny verification in experiment too, which is again founded and assumes metaphysics.
None of that explains how metaphysics works-- it's a barely-coherent claim that it does.  You can't just string a bunch of claims together and expect them to be accepted as anything but one unproven assertion after another.

Do you know the principle of non-contradiction? It is already assumed in physical and experimentation. You don't experiment to know that principle. On the contrary, we experiment because we know that principle of contradiction is true, because of the hypothesis is true, it must not contradict what see observe. But, in metaphysics, it is shown systematically by starting with "being" (meaning that which is), and then forming the judgment that being is not non-being. And therefore, a being cannot be and not be at the same time, same place and same sense, and that is the principle of non-contradiction. So, metaphysics works with what is common with all reality: And that is "act of being". Unlike science which study only those which have quantities, it is therefore limited in its scope (because there are other reality like quality, directed-ness, causality), metaphysics which studies all that have act of being (which what makes thing real) and so what is outside of metaphysics are those which don't have act of being, which is literally nothing, this making metaphysics the correct tool to deal with supernatural and with the existence of God.

(November 20, 2016 at 8:07 pm)Tonus Wrote: Nor am I talking about religion; that's a whole other stack of problems that makes determining the possible existence of god seem like a cakewalk.  If you cannot define metaphysics and explain the ways in which it can be used to consistently determine what is true or not, then it is useless.  I strongly suspect that there is none, otherwise humanity would be moving towards one single understanding of god and not the dozens of religions and thousands of denominations within them.

Well, metaphysics is laborious. If everyone does indeed exert effort in knowing sound metaphysics, then I agree with you that there will be no dozens of religions and thousands of denomination.
Reply



Messages In This Thread
God exists subjectively? - by henryp - November 6, 2016 at 1:57 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Edwardo Piet - November 6, 2016 at 2:10 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Whateverist - November 6, 2016 at 2:11 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Foxaèr - November 6, 2016 at 2:15 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by abaris - November 6, 2016 at 2:28 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Rhondazvous - November 7, 2016 at 1:58 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by abaris - November 7, 2016 at 2:21 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by The Grand Nudger - November 6, 2016 at 2:34 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Edwardo Piet - November 6, 2016 at 2:48 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by henryp - November 7, 2016 at 12:21 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Minimalist - November 7, 2016 at 12:53 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Edwardo Piet - November 11, 2016 at 8:58 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Whateverist - November 11, 2016 at 6:49 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by The Grand Nudger - November 6, 2016 at 3:10 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by The Grand Nudger - November 7, 2016 at 1:12 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by theologian - November 11, 2016 at 6:37 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by The Grand Nudger - November 11, 2016 at 6:39 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by theologian - November 11, 2016 at 6:40 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Foxaèr - November 11, 2016 at 6:41 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by theologian - November 11, 2016 at 6:50 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by henryp - November 11, 2016 at 7:13 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Foxaèr - November 11, 2016 at 7:14 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by henryp - November 11, 2016 at 7:16 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Foxaèr - November 11, 2016 at 6:51 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by theologian - November 11, 2016 at 7:05 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Foxaèr - November 11, 2016 at 7:07 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Edwardo Piet - November 13, 2016 at 4:39 am
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Whateverist - November 11, 2016 at 7:08 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by theologian - November 11, 2016 at 7:11 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Whateverist - November 11, 2016 at 7:12 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Foxaèr - November 11, 2016 at 7:14 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by theologian - November 11, 2016 at 9:24 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by The Grand Nudger - November 11, 2016 at 7:15 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Edwardo Piet - November 11, 2016 at 8:58 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by henryp - November 12, 2016 at 3:57 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by henryp - November 12, 2016 at 4:06 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Minimalist - November 12, 2016 at 4:48 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by henryp - November 12, 2016 at 5:03 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Tonus - November 12, 2016 at 5:45 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Tonus - November 11, 2016 at 9:10 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by theologian - November 11, 2016 at 10:46 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Tonus - November 12, 2016 at 2:05 am
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Edwardo Piet - November 11, 2016 at 9:16 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Minimalist - November 11, 2016 at 9:27 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by LostLocke - November 12, 2016 at 12:17 am
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Minimalist - November 12, 2016 at 12:48 am
RE: God exists subjectively? - by theologian - November 12, 2016 at 11:20 am
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Tonus - November 12, 2016 at 12:16 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Angrboda - November 12, 2016 at 6:46 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by The Grand Nudger - November 12, 2016 at 11:28 am
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Minimalist - November 12, 2016 at 2:05 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by bennyboy - November 12, 2016 at 4:24 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by henryp - November 12, 2016 at 5:10 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Minimalist - November 12, 2016 at 5:05 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Minimalist - November 12, 2016 at 6:44 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by theologian - November 13, 2016 at 2:43 am
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Tonus - November 13, 2016 at 9:51 am
RE: God exists subjectively? - by henryp - November 14, 2016 at 9:56 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by The Grand Nudger - November 13, 2016 at 4:43 am
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Whateverist - November 13, 2016 at 9:57 am
RE: God exists subjectively? - by theologian - November 13, 2016 at 5:55 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by bennyboy - November 13, 2016 at 8:14 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Minimalist - November 13, 2016 at 7:03 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Minimalist - November 13, 2016 at 8:32 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Arkilogue - November 13, 2016 at 8:40 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Tonus - November 13, 2016 at 9:18 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by The Grand Nudger - November 15, 2016 at 2:48 am
RE: God exists subjectively? - by theologian - November 16, 2016 at 4:08 am
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Tonus - November 16, 2016 at 8:48 am
RE: God exists subjectively? - by theologian - November 16, 2016 at 11:13 am
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Tonus - November 16, 2016 at 11:53 am
RE: God exists subjectively? - by theologian - November 17, 2016 at 12:58 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Tonus - November 17, 2016 at 8:46 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by theologian - November 20, 2016 at 6:44 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Tonus - November 20, 2016 at 8:07 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by theologian - November 20, 2016 at 10:25 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Tonus - November 20, 2016 at 11:20 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by bennyboy - November 16, 2016 at 10:02 am
RE: God exists subjectively? - by The Grand Nudger - November 16, 2016 at 11:42 am
RE: God exists subjectively? - by theologian - November 17, 2016 at 1:08 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Edwardo Piet - November 16, 2016 at 2:55 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Minimalist - November 17, 2016 at 1:04 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by The Grand Nudger - November 17, 2016 at 1:29 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by theologian - November 17, 2016 at 2:05 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by The Grand Nudger - November 17, 2016 at 2:32 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Minimalist - November 20, 2016 at 10:29 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by theologian - November 20, 2016 at 10:38 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Minimalist - November 20, 2016 at 10:49 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by theologian - November 20, 2016 at 11:05 pm
RE: God exists subjectively? - by theologian - November 21, 2016 at 2:28 am
RE: God exists subjectively? - by Tonus - November 21, 2016 at 9:04 am

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