Arguments against Soul

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

@Belaqua

How is the god of Aquinas infallible?

If you're fallacious in creating a god, then your god is fallacious.

Aquinas argued that God cannot do wrong, cannot do evil.

If you want to present an argument as to why his reasoning is fallacious you are certainly welcome to.

I'll have a lash.

In order for God to be God, there must be nothing he cannot know (Plantinga, Aquinas).

God's knowledge is not discursive - that is, God does not deduce conclusions from premises.  God knows all things at all times (Aquinas, Kretzmann).

An evil act is a 'thing' (Hume)

In order for God to have complete knowledge, God must have knowledge of the experience of God committing an evil act and must have always had this knowledge (Molina).

It is not enough for God to have the knowledge of what evil entails (see above), as that would not give him knowledge of the personal experience of evil (Molina).

In order for God to be God, God must have committed at least one evil act (Boru).


Boru

[Haipule]

What do you guys here think, what is the best argument against the existence of the soul (and therefore ghosts and afterlives)?
I used to think that the "Damage of the middle of the brain leads to two distinct personalities governing halves of the body." was an argument that would convince anybody, but, evidently, it won't. See here:
How do people who believe in souls explain away the fact that epileptic patients who have the middle of their brain severed appear to have two distinct personalities governing halves of their bodies?
In short, people respond with "Where is some reliable source for that claim?", and, to be honest, I am not sure what would be a reliable source for this. My psychology textbook saying that isn't really good evidence that's true, is it? I mean, my Croatian history textbook tells me most scientists agree Global Flood really happened.
Perhaps the best response to that is "And where is some reliable source of the claims about Maria's Shoe, and other things that supposedly prove the existence of soul?", what do you think?

Thinking is an abstract largely dependent on PHD's who went to school to learn how to say, "Polly want a cracker" just like their professors. Apparently you didn't believe them. That's good. Their all full of shit and their own crap! I'm not defending Christianity because Christianity is indefensible--DUMB AS A POST!

Please tell me how in the hell they got "soul" out of psuchE? psuchE, in the bible, means: instinctive natural born intellect--translated as "soul". What the fuck is a soul? psuchO is the verb. Does "soul" have a verb form? PLEASE!!!

Ask a stupid question...

[Belacqua]

Aquinas argued that God cannot do wrong, cannot do evil.

If you want to present an argument as to why his reasoning is fallacious you are certainly welcome to.

I'll have a lash.

In order for God to be God, there must be nothing he cannot know (Plantinga, Aquinas).

God's knowledge is not discursive - that is, God does not deduce conclusions from premises.  God knows all things at all times (Aquinas, Kretzmann).

An evil act is a 'thing' (Hume)

In order for God to have complete knowledge, God must have knowledge of the experience of God committing an evil act and must have always had this knowledge (Molina).

It is not enough for God to have the knowledge of what evil entails (see above), as that would not give him knowledge of the personal experience of evil (Molina).

In order for God to be God, God must have committed at least one evil act (Boru).


Boru

That seems like a reasonable argument. I'm going to argue back based on two points:

1) That God has no knowledge in the way that people have knowledge. Because God is entirely simple and undivided, there can't be two things, i.e. God (the knower) and evil (the thing that is known). 

2) God, as impassible, eternal, and ideal, takes no action. Therefore, he can't have "committed" any acts at all -- good or evil. 

I realize this is too simple as stands, but it's time for me to go out for the day. I'll come back to it this evening.

[Haipule]

Aquinas argued that God cannot do wrong, cannot do evil.

If you want to present an argument as to why his reasoning is fallacious you are certainly welcome to.

I'll have a lash.

In order for God to be God, there must be nothing he cannot know (Plantinga, Aquinas).

God's knowledge is not discursive - that is, God does not deduce conclusions from premises.  God knows all things at all times (Aquinas, Kretzmann).

An evil act is a 'thing' (Hume)

In order for God to have complete knowledge, God must have knowledge of the experience of God committing an evil act and must have always had this knowledge (Molina).

It is not enough for God to have the knowledge of what evil entails (see above), as that would not give him knowledge of the personal experience of evil (Molina).

In order for God to be God, God must have committed at least one evil act (Boru).


Boru

22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ Matt 7:22-23 ESV

"I NEVER knew you"? In the Greek it's actually an integrative, or question, "When did I know you?" God then, never said He is omniscience. He obviously doesn't know everyone. Why should He? He does know the ones who are His--Period!

[GrandizerII]

I'll have a lash.

In order for God to be God, there must be nothing he cannot know (Plantinga, Aquinas).

God's knowledge is not discursive - that is, God does not deduce conclusions from premises.  God knows all things at all times (Aquinas, Kretzmann).

An evil act is a 'thing' (Hume)

In order for God to have complete knowledge, God must have knowledge of the experience of God committing an evil act and must have always had this knowledge (Molina).

It is not enough for God to have the knowledge of what evil entails (see above), as that would not give him knowledge of the personal experience of evil (Molina).

In order for God to be God, God must have committed at least one evil act (Boru).


Boru

That seems like a reasonable argument. I'm going to argue back based on two points:

1) That God has no knowledge in the way that people have knowledge. Because God is entirely simple and undivided, there can't be two things, i.e. God (the knower) and evil (the thing that is known). 

2) God, as impassible, eternal, and ideal, takes no action. Therefore, he can't have "committed" any acts at all -- good or evil. 

I realize this is too simple as stands, but it's time for me to go out for the day. I'll come back to it this evening.

Such a God has no experiential knowledge, no discursive knowledge, takes no action. This is a God that has been reduced to something that, in my mind, is not worth even arguing against, because there's nothing anyone can say to counter such a reduced being other than it's extraneous and explains too much (or trivially true, depending on how it's being defined exactly). And aside from the argument that all things we do is moved in his direction, or whatever the exact wording is, he has no impact on my life whatsoever.

And taking such a stance about God, if God cannot do badly, he cannot do "goodly" either. He's as "infallible" as a rock is.

This is hardly the God that most Christians who come here argue for ... or even of the many Christians I've been in acquaintance with and discussed the faith with, from various stripes (whether Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant). This is far divorced from the God of the Bible (or rather, the various depictions of God in the Bible) and is not even a God that someone like William Lane Craig or other famed modern Christian apologists would want to defend (because arguments like the Kalam Cosmological Argument would then be rendered pointless). Yes, I know, I know, you're going to tell me we can safely ignore them, but they're not "ignorable" ... this reduced God, on the other hand, is.

But the thing here is that even some of those Christians who do argue for the God you refer to still believe in a literal Trinity, a literal Hypostatic Union, and a literal Incarnation and Resurrection (suggesting a deity that is not really simple and is one that actually does take action), so what gives? God knows, lol.

[EgoDeath]

Aquinas argued that God cannot do wrong, cannot do evil.

If you want to present an argument as to why his reasoning is fallacious you are certainly welcome to.

Well, first, you'd have to prove his reasoning had some merit. And since there is no god, it clearly doesn't have merit. LOL. Imagine thinking you can reason a god into existence... How silly.

However, I'd rather not derail the thread. If you wanted to make a thread about Aquinas' proofs and the god of Aquinas, I'd be happy to watch the people of AF pick it apart.

[Belacqua]

This is a God that has been reduced to something that, in my mind, is not worth even arguing against

I think I would say "expanded" rather than "reduced" but that's not important -- if the subject is of no interest to you then yes, you should ignore it.

[The Grand Nudger]

Your argument is a version of the color blind color scientist, Boru.

If god (like our color scientist) knew every bad fact, everything that doing bad entailed (like every color fact, everything that color sight entailed), then by definition it would understand and know the experience of doing bad (or seeing color) regardless of it's (or her) personal inability. Asserting that god knows everything, but that one thing, directly contradicts the setup and creates the dilemma all by it's one-sies.

On a less grand scale, we don't need to be Superman to know what flying through the air with a cape would feel like, either. I'd run with Grands comments on agency, myself.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Your argument is a version of the color blind color scientist, Boru.

If god (like our color scientist) knew every bad fact, everything that doing bad entailed (like every color fact, everything that color sight entailed), then by definition it would understand and know the experience of doing bad (or seeing color) regardless of it's (or her) personal inability.  Asserting that god knows everything, but that one thing, directly contradicts the setup and creates the dilemma all by it's one-sies.

On a less grand scale, we don't need to be Superman to know what flying through the air with a cape would feel like, either.  I'd run with Grands comments on agency, myself.

But the colour-blind scientist doesn't ever have knowledge of the personal experience of seeing red (by definition).  You can imagine what it feels like to fly like Superman, but you can't have knowledge of the personal experience of doing so.

I restricted the argument to 'that one thing' because that was the topic.  I maintain that to claim God has complete knowledge while being immutable is incoherent - God cannot know the personal experience of God doing anything, not just evil acts.

Boru

[Belacqua]

I maintain that to claim God has complete knowledge while being immutable is incoherent

Boru

I agree with that, provided we're using the word "knowledge" about God in the same way we're using it about people. It is incoherent to say that an omniscient thing could know things in the way that people know things. 

People know things largely through sense experience. "Nothing is in the [human] intellect that was not first in the senses" -- Aquinas: De veritate, q. 2 a. 3 arg. 19. 

According to his system, God does not know things through sense experience. Partly because God doesn't have sense organs as people do, and doesn't take in the limited sense-impressions that we do. Also the act of having sense impressions implies separation -- I see the tree, because the tree is over there, separate from me. 

Omniscience, in classical theology, means that all possible objects of knowledge are contained within God, not that he has them in memory as people do. A person and her memories are separable, while God and objects of knowledge are not. 

As long as people talk about God knowing everything in a way that makes him sound like a big guy with a body and sense organs, who just happens to know everyone's phone number, the concept is indeed incoherent. But as always, the fact that it was incoherent was recognized and dealt with centuries ago. I don't know why modern Christians and the atheists who hate them haven't caught up with that yet.