RE: What do you think of this argument for God?
March 13, 2017 at 12:04 pm
(This post was last modified: March 13, 2017 at 12:20 pm by Angrboda.)
(March 13, 2017 at 11:32 am)SteveII Wrote:(March 13, 2017 at 10:01 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: There may be answers to it, but you haven't provided one. All you've done is regurgitate Maydole's flawed argument and asserted that it is sound, along with a bunch of irrelevant material and objections. Properties aren't better to have than not have, objectively speaking. Until you can show that they are, you've got nothing but a bunch of logic resting on an incoherent definition. Note that it isn't enough to say that you would prefer to have x rather than not have x, you need to show that the universe as an unfeeling body cares whether you have x or don't have x. This I strongly doubt you can show, because the universe as a whole has no opinion on the matter. It is not enough just to assert that some properties are better to have than not, you have to show why. Until you do, you're just spinning your wheels.
The 'subjective' objection is thought in popular circles to be the problem with the argument but isn't this just an escape route designed not to have to address
(March 13, 2017 at 11:32 am)SteveII Wrote: the fact that being all powerful is greater than be limited in power,
The universe could care less whether you are all powerful or limited in power. The question only matters to subjects that might have an interest in the benefits of being all powerful, but no interest in the benefits of being limited in power. I told you what you had to show in order to demonstrate that something like being all powerful is objectively great and you just ignored it. Whether you can imagine being limited in power as being more desirable than being all powerful is irrelevant. All you've done is give me your subjective opinion that being all powerful is better than being of limited power. And given all possible worlds, there will clearly be beings that think it is 'better' to have limited power. The problem is not in stating things which you think are without peer, you have to define 'better' in objective terms, not simply provide a laundry list of things which you think are without peer. Your inability to understand this basic point is a failing in your ability to distinguish between subjective and objective. Even if all beings in all possible worlds preferred being all powerful to being limited in power, that would still be a subjectively 'better' property to have. All you've done is provide a laundry list of properties that you assert are objectively great; you haven't given any reason whatsoever for me to believe that these are anything but subjective preferences. I'm beginning to think you don't understand the difference between subjective and objective, and that you're just mouthing irrelevant distinctions you've heard elsewhere.
What difference does it make whether you are all powerful or not, which isn't a difference of preference as would be given by a mind?
(March 13, 2017 at 11:32 am)SteveII Wrote: all-knowing is greater than limited knowledge, and morally perfect is greater than morally defective--and all three clearly great-making properties.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. All three are subjectively great, given appropriate subjects. It is not enough that these are "clearly great-making properties." In order for the argument to work, they must be 'objectively' great, which can't be shown because the idea of something being "objectively better" than something else is incoherent. I don't think you understand the difference.
Let's take a popular example. In a store window is a sign that says, "Fast - Good - Cheap -- Pick any two." If properties are objectively better and worse than one another, then you should have little difficulty explaining which pair is the best, or that they are all equally good FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF SOMEONE HAVING NO PREFERENCES.
(March 13, 2017 at 11:32 am)SteveII Wrote: The desired confusion that you want/need is when you start adding properties that are clearly not great-making properties. If you run across a property that different people could have an opinion on what is greater, then all you have identified a property that is not a great-making one.
No, this is not the problem. The problem is your inability to distinguish between properties that are highly desirable and those that are objectively desirable. There's the problem right there, "objectively desirable." There is no such thing as objectively desirable because desires are all subjective facts. You keep asserting that certain things are objectively better without ever bothering to explain in what sense they are 'better'. Better from the point of view of a subject will not get you there. It has to be better in terms of objective properties (of the properties).
(March 13, 2017 at 11:32 am)SteveII Wrote: But the hurdle seems to be even less than that. Are the traditionally stipulated great-making properties of God coherent? If they are coherent, they are possible and as the rest of the argument explains, if they are possible, they exist.
The question is not whether they are coherent but rather whether better and worse have objective definitions. If not then it is incoherent to say that x or y property is objectively great, and the rest of the argument collapses.