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What do you think of this argument for God?
#95
RE: What do you think of this argument for God?
(March 13, 2017 at 12:55 pm)SteveII Wrote:
(March 13, 2017 at 12:04 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: 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?

First, I appreciate the opportunity to fine-tune my argumentation skills on a subject we have already discussed. Thanks!

You can't switch out 'better' for 'greater'. They are not the same thing. Being all-powerful is greater (more than) than being limited in power. Being all-knowing is greater (more than) than being limited. Now, I agree that in some cases it would be better to have limited knowledge (for example, it could be overwhelming). It would also be better not to have omnipotence if one was not also morally perfect. 

Maydole defines a perfection as a property it is better to have than not have. In that sense, I'm simply following the line of logic which you yourself introduced. Regardless, you'll find that substituting 'greater' for 'better' makes not one whit of difference. Something is greater in the same measure that it is better. To argue otherwise is to make a travesty of the meaning of the word 'greater'. The word is a comparative between two things, one of which has some measure in greater abundance than the other; in this case, that something must have that measure be an objective one, based not on the opinion of minds but on some measure that makes it objectively more desirable than the other. If this isn't what objectively 'greater' means, then what does it mean? If I have two equal apples, neither is greater than the other. Only when you introduce a difference is one greater than the other, and which is 'greater' depends upon the opinion of minds, ergo is subjective. The difference in my apples matters not one whit to the universe.

Since you introduced it, I have to ask what measure moral perfection has in abundance that moral imperfection does not have? If you answer that it has more perfection or more morals, then, first you aren't specifying a measure aside from the idea that to have more of a good thing is greater than having less of a good thing. I believe that you yourself have argued that, independent of God, there are no objectively good and bad things, morally. If that is so -- and this argument is ex parte from God -- then how is moral perfection 'greater'? You seem to have pulled the ladder away before you were done using it. Regardless, properties like moral perfection are neither objectively positive or objectively negative. They are objectively neutral. You have a case where all properties are like the two same apples in relevant measure -- there is no relevant difference which makes one 'greater' than another. You seem to be arguing that more is better (greater). And thus we're back to greatness being defined as 'better'. I see no other relevant definition of 'greater'.

OED Wrote:10. (b) Of a thing, quality, etc., capable of being measured or quantified: measurably large; large as a proportion of a whole.

~ Oxford English Dictionary

This is the relevant definition I can find. If you are defining 'great' as simply larger in proportion, as you seem to be doing with omnipotence, omniscience, and moral perfection, then that is an equivocation to get around the sense of great implying that one thing is objectively better than another. The whole of the universe becomes greater than any part and size becomes a great-making property. Surely that's not what you mean?

Before I let you go, tell me how existing necessarily is 'greater' than existing contingently, from an objective viewpoint. That too is a lynchpin of the argument, because if necessary being isn't an objectively great-making property, then the whole argument collapses into a proof by assertion. (God is necessary because I say so. The modal logic then collapses.) How is contingent being 'less than' necessary being, from an objective standpoint?
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Messages In This Thread
RE: What do you think of this argument for God? - by Angrboda - March 13, 2017 at 1:31 pm
RE: What do you think of this argument for God? - by Sal - March 17, 2017 at 7:37 am

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