[Serious] Could an omnipotent and omniscient god prove that he was God?

[Neo-Scholastic]

Nudge, the only reason I capitalized the term "Being-Itself", in one post, was to visually reference Heidegger for benefit of Objectivist. You could of course explain why you contradicted yourself rather than quibble now about my capitalization and spelling. Otherwise my point stands, the term "existence", as both you and Objectivist are using it, could also refer to being-itself.

(And yes, many philosophers capitalize Being to distinguish it as metaphysical principle, as opposed to a being. )

[Objectivist]

It was aimed to show why the notion of a god creating it is philosophically incoherent.  It violates facts about the nature of the universe that are in evidence, namely the axioms and the primacy of existence.

So it would seem. However that approach risks riefying an abstract principle. Does it not?

At the same, time you are presenting this axiom as a brute fact.. But it is curious to me that you do it in the same way I,writing as a thiest, reason for a Necessary Being, i.e that which must exist for anything to exist at all. How about Being-Itself? Would you not say that Being-Itself must exist logically prior to any particular being, i.e. being-as-such? And if so, would not the concept represented by 'Existence exists' be identical some being, call it God, whose very essense is to exist.

At the same time, we would both agree the principle of non-contadiction is an absolute, but only as an abstract proposition.  The PNC has no power in itself. The PNC is mind's perception of an effect of a divine logically prior cause, the power behind the proposition.

Abstractions are based on facts.  They are not just some made up thing that bears no resemblance to reality.  So no, the axiom of existence is not the same as saying there's a god which is necessary for everything to exist.  No, it says everything already exists and there's no need for a god to create it.  

You say that the law of identity and the law of non-contradiction are absolutes and they are even though they are abstract principles because the facts on which these two abstractions are based on are absolutes.  Every fact is absolute and necessary.  To exist is to be necessary.  

Your formulation, that some supernatural being is necessary for existence to exist treats existence as a derivative or contingent fact instead of an absolute which all facts are contingent on and this is why the notion of god contradicts everything that we know to be true at the most fundamental level possible.  If you are pointing to something that exists as an explanation for existence then you haven't explained existence.  You are just appealing to the very thing you want to explain in order to explain it.  Asking what caused existence to exist is like asking what's north of the north pole or what existed before everything existed.  There was no before the universe if you define it correctly as the sum total of what exists.  The universe doesn't exist as such,  It's a concept.   

Your brain can only deal with about 7 different concretes at a time.  That's its limit.  That's why really long sentences are frustrating, they are overloading your mind with too many things to pay attention to.  In order to live we have to deal with an enormous number of concretes on a daily basis.  Concepts or abstractions make us able to deal with an enormous number of concretes by turning them into one mental equivalent.  Each and every concept subsumes an unlimited number of units or similar things.  The concept of man subsumes every man that has ever existed, will ever exist, and that exists now.  It turns all that into one mental unit. The units of the concept universe are everything that exists, all their attributes, their actions, their relationships including their motion relative to each other also known as time.  Everything.  So to say who created it all is nonsensical.    

Now, this whole notion of necessary vs. contingent facts comes from a false dichotomy called the analytic-synthetic dichotomy which is the result of a faulty theory of concepts.  Christians and other theists fall prey to this false dichotomy because they have no theory of concepts to guide them.

[The Grand Nudger]

We could use capitalization to express this, as we both have in this thread.....or we could call them being itself(a) and being itself(b). Either way, it's unclear what contradiction exists between stating that being itself, or being itself(a), or succinctly put...existence... is necessary for things to exist, while Being Itself, or being itself(b), or succinctly put...god...is not.

There either is or there is not any distinction between the two, between us...and if there's not, well that's also the ballgame on the dispute....and the ballgame on this supposed contradiction.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Abstractions are based on facts.

No. Abstractions are based on observations. Careful observations result in more reliable abstractions than sloppy observations or abstractions based on suppositions about how things should be, such as Manifest Destiny or Sin. Sin is an abstraction. From your perspective, on what fact is it based?

They [abstractions] are not just some made up thing that bears no resemblance to reality

I agree. As stated above, careful observations produce better models of reality. Those models of reality (abstractions) should never be confused with actuality. Natural science makes better observations than did pre-modern folk physics based largely on suppositions. The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. The world-as-we-understand–it is IMHO a vast gloss over the world-as-it-actually-is.

...the axiom of existence is not the same as saying there's a god which is necessary for everything to exist.  No, it says everything already exists and there's no need for a god to create it.

And what is everything? The universe? ….just by what…definition. What if I say to you that Everything (in classical philosophy “the All”) is more than the empirically knowable universe? IMO some parts of reality can only be accessed by reason. Change is constant. Speaking from the perspective of presentism, it seems that the universe over-writes itself. The universe of each version of now is a different universe from the one “before”. And it makes one wonder. Things come into being and things pass out of being, yet some things always remain the same. They are eternal. The debate starts with Parcelsius and Heraclitus and works its way into the First three demonstrations of God’s existence by Thomas Aquinas which remain logically sound.

A very common mistake of atheists is this. They mistakenly assume that God is separate and distinct from the physical. And yet it has been Christian doctrine for hundreds of years that God is simultaneously immanent in and transcendent over creation, i.e. the physical world. To me that corresponds neatly with two basic metaphysical concepts: 1) what is eternal in every transient moment and 2) what must be true in all possible worlds. To me, “metaphysical” is not a category of extra stuff over and above physical reality but rather the necessary and sufficient reasons or causes for there to be any given possible physical reality. This logical chain of contingency traces back to a necessary being, the All, that includes the physical within it but is not identical to just the physical. This perspective is called panentheism.

You say that the law of identity and the law of non-contradiction are absolutes and they are even though they are abstract principles because the facts on which these two abstractions are based on are absolutes.  Every fact is absolute and necessary.  To exist is to be necessary.

Whoa there…just to be clear I see a very important distinction between abstractions, which are passive descriptions of reality, and the active causes so abstractly represented and/or modeled. Descriptions have no power over reality. The idea that they could is called magic. And I doubt either of us believe in magic. (quiet, Nudger) IMHO actual reality is most likely very different from our best suppositions about it. And no, some facts apparently need not be as they are...the physical constants do not seem absolute. Nothing seems to exclude a possible world in which the speed of light was just teeny tiny faster or slower or the gravitational constant a little higher or a little lower. And no, to exist is not be necessary. Mosquitoes exist and I can so no reason why they are necessary.

Your formulation, that some supernatural being is necessary for existence to exist treats existence as a derivative or contingent fact instead of an absolute which all facts are contingent on…If you are pointing to something that exists as an explanation for existence then you haven't explained existence.

No. I am saying that the problem of universals cannot be skated past so quickly. I say, the universe is greater than the sum of its parts, particular beings that come and go. Things within the universe are constantly coming into and out of existence. The composition of the universe is constantly changing. So what happens when all particular things cease to exist in a future possible now? Why doesn’t it just all cease to exist?

[Objectivist]

Neo-Scholastic,

Thank you very much for your detailed response. I wish I had time to respond to each and every point you made but I'll have to confine my response to just one. If You want me to answer the others I will be glad to but it will have to be one at a time as my time is very limited. I'm supposed to be editing photos right now. But I do love discussing ideas. I also apologize for the form in which I'm responding. I still can't figure out how the system works here. Yes, I'm very dumb about computer stuff and my computer whiz daughter is living in another city now. I can't ask her to help me.

I had written: You say that the law of identity and the law of non-contradiction are absolutes and they are even though they are abstract principles because the facts on which these two abstractions are based are absolutes. Every fact is absolute and necessary. To exist is to be necessary

You have written back: "Whoa there…just to be clear I see a very important distinction between abstractions, which are passive descriptions of reality, and the active causes so abstractly represented and/or modeled."

I picked this point to address because I think it gets to the heart of the disagreement between us. On my view, abstractions are not passive nor are they descriptions. They are integrations of a huge number of similar concretes, called units, by a process of abstraction that is not passive but active and also volitional. You have to choose to do it, it doesn't happen automatically. They are not descriptions either. Description implies a one to one relationship but concepts are infinity to one. You could describe me or yourself but how would you go about describing all men and women including those who lived 10,000 years ago and those who have yet to be born? It would be impossible unless you find those things that make man what he is and also distinguish him from all other things that exist. That is what a concept does or more properly that is how a concept is formed. It turns out the only thing a group of similar things don't have in common is their specific measurements. So abstraction is a process of despecifying specific measurements. For example, Men vary in height, weight, eye color, hair color, their intelligence, etc., but they all fit within the concept 'man'. If you tell me a man came to see you, I know instantly what you mean by man even though we've likely never seen the same people. That's because the concept 'man' isolates those essential characteristics that make man what he is and omits their measurements. For example, a man must be some height but he can be any height. So not passive and not descriptions but open ended classifications.

You had also written: "Descriptions have no power over reality. The idea that they could is called magic. And I doubt either of us believe in magic."

You are preaching to the choir here, Neo-Scolatic. I'm an Objectivist after all. I know that descriptions have no power over reality and that magic, if it is taken to mean the subordination of reality to consciousness, is not real. The objects of consciousness hold primacy over any and all subjects of consciousness. That's why my philosophy is called Objectivism.

Unfortunately, your worldview explicitly rejects this. Above it says that you are a Christian. Christianity holds that a subject of consciousness holds primacy over the objects of consciousness. I'm going to have to invoke that law of non-contradiction you said we both agree is an absolute. You can't have it both ways. If you accept logic then you have a decision to make.

[Silver]

Capitalism sucks.

Oh, you meant majuscule.

[Objectivist]

-and yet it's not necessary for Being-Itself to exist.  Gods aren't a logical necessity.  This is also settled.

I was using being as synonymous with existence.  Just wanted to clear that up.

[Belacqua]

To exist is to be necessary

It may be that you and Neo are coming at this with different definitions, which would complicate things. 

Generally, in metaphysics, existence is not always necessary existence. There is also contingent existence. 

This is the first thing that comes up when you Google "necessary vs. contingent":

A contingent truth is one that is true, but could have been false. A necessary truth is one that must be true; a contingent truth is one that is true as it happens, or as things are, but that did not have to be true.

Pretty much the whole of classical theology relies on the difference between things that exist necessarily, and things that exist contingent on other things. Most things are in the latter category. 

Though you may be using a definition I'm not familiar with.

[The Grand Nudger]

Gods, for example, would be in the contingent category. Hypothetically, an existent god is contingent on existence. No existence, no existent gods, pretty cut and dry. Gods in mere reality, however, are contingent on a whole hell of alot more. Human beings who take comfort in the fantasy that some super person is in control of everything that troubles us, and that it can be bargained with, for example - and all of our nested contingencies.

[Objectivist]

To exist is to be necessary

It may be that you and Neo are coming at this with different definitions, which would complicate things. 

Generally, in metaphysics, existence is not always necessary existence. There is also contingent existence. 

This is the first thing that comes up when you Google "necessary vs. contingent":

A contingent truth is one that is true, but could have been false. A necessary truth is one that must be true; a contingent truth is one that is true as it happens, or as things are, but that did not have to be true.

Pretty much the whole of classical theology relies on the difference between things that exist necessarily, and things that exist contingent on other things. Most things are in the latter category. 

Though you may be using a definition I'm not familiar with.

Yes, Belaqua, I understand this, but that something is generally accepted does not make it true.  I explained where this whole necessary-contingent dichotomy comes from.  I understand it down to its roots and it is based on a fundamental error.  The error is a faulty understanding of concepts and how they are formed and defined.  The error is, among other things, the result of thinking that a concept's meaning is its definition.  Those attributes included in the definition are considered necessary and those not included are contingent, we could imagine them being different without contradiction.  Also known as the analytic-synthetic dichotomy or the rationalism-empiricism dichotomy.  It is a false dichotomy.  There are not two kinds of truth, one that can be known apriori by analyzing the definitions of words and the other synthetic, based on empirical observations.  According to this theory, analytic truths are not factual.  They have no relation to facts.  Synthetic truths are not certain since we can imagine them being different.  This is something you should study and learn because this false dichotomy is everywhere.  It has wreaked so much havoc in the world.  

A concept's meaning is not its definition. A concept's meaning is the concretes that it subsumes and all of their attributes both known and unknown. This error of supposing that concepts mean their definition strips them of all objective meaning and makes them 'social constructs'. This is why you see a lot of definitions of gods containing the word necessary. Notice the reliance on the primacy of consciousness inherent in this false dichotomy.

I follow the objective theory of knowledge, one in which knowledge is not acquired apriori but is acquired by means of perceiving reality and identifying what is perceived by an objective means.  In other words, logic applied to observed facts.  There is no reason, in reason, to split truth in the way the analytic-synthetic does. 

So if you accept this theory of knowledge you have to say that God is an analytic truth because gods are defined as necessary beings apriori and they are not related to facts in any way. They can not be proved by looking at facts but only by manipulating words which have no objective meaning.