RE: Arguments for God's Existence from Contingency
November 28, 2017 at 5:16 pm
(This post was last modified: November 28, 2017 at 5:31 pm by Edwardo Piet.)
I'll give you yet another example, Neo, on how 'debunking' Aquinas doesn't really take any real 'debunking' exactly, and it's really nothing more than a game that I shall call "Spot The Non-Sequitur". Wanna play? Here we go. Here's the so-called fourth of Aquinas's ways, the one about God's so-called perfection:
Can you spot the non-sequitur?
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_degree
And, to quibble a little more, the 3rd point here is false as well if it's really saying that there's necessarily one object that has ALL properties to the maximum degree. That's another non-sequitur if that is what it is saying. There's no reason to believe that one object exists that has all of those degrees to their maximum. There may be one object that is the most intelligent, another object that is the most divine, another object that is the strongest, another object that is the fastest, for example, there's absolutely no reason to believe that one object has all those things, to say otherwise is yet again just another non-sequitur.
Yeah, whether our understanding is complete or not definitely has nothing to do with a god.
I agree. No god required.
No, I don't mean the god-shaped-hole is available to everyone, I mean that the hole is available for anyone to fill with anything. And filling it with a generic uncaused cause makes a lot more sense than filling it with an uncaused cause that also has all the other properties of a god. The latter is necessarily less parsimonious and necessarily more improbable than the former.
Wikipedia Wrote:1. Objects have properties to greater or lesser extents.Yep.
Quote:2. If an object has a property to a lesser extent, then there exists some other object that has the property to the maximum possible degree.Yep.
Quote:3. there is an entity that has all properties to the maximum possible degree.Yep.
Quote:4. Hence God exists.*cough* *cough* non-sequitur *cough* *cough*
Can you spot the non-sequitur?
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_degree
And, to quibble a little more, the 3rd point here is false as well if it's really saying that there's necessarily one object that has ALL properties to the maximum degree. That's another non-sequitur if that is what it is saying. There's no reason to believe that one object exists that has all of those degrees to their maximum. There may be one object that is the most intelligent, another object that is the most divine, another object that is the strongest, another object that is the fastest, for example, there's absolutely no reason to believe that one object has all those things, to say otherwise is yet again just another non-sequitur.
(November 28, 2017 at 5:14 pm)Whateverist Wrote: Frankly I don't see the connection one way or the other, however complete our understanding may become.
Yeah, whether our understanding is complete or not definitely has nothing to do with a god.
Quote: But my best guess is that the elusive complete list of everything that exists will not include anything at all like a god.
I agree. No god required.
Quote:Absolutely, that god hole is available to all and any.
No, I don't mean the god-shaped-hole is available to everyone, I mean that the hole is available for anyone to fill with anything. And filling it with a generic uncaused cause makes a lot more sense than filling it with an uncaused cause that also has all the other properties of a god. The latter is necessarily less parsimonious and necessarily more improbable than the former.
