Ontology of God--Theological Noncognitivist View

[Knight]

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ontolo...#TaxOntArg

Sorry guys, (found myself out of my depth so went GFGI-ing) found the above and started reading.

Now with a bit more understanding I am wondering to what purpose is the thread Knight?? What course are you studying? And further, is anything we are saying helpful??

As to the replies so far I am wondering why persons are (arguing from a metaphysical stand point) so quick to denounce those that are applying physical reasoning when asked to provide proof; understanding that "proof" here is physical. Proof from a metaphysical PoV will never come because by definition it is Meta(beyond) the physical.

So having said all that nonsense......what is the question Knight??

Here is the original post:

I challenge any theist to provide a coherent ontology of God. Theists (especially Christians) seem to know that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, but these attributes cannot be applied to any known being.

Theists tend to first define God and then apply it to the God they believe in. This is illogical, as how can one derive the attributes of a thing without first observing the thing being defined?

The original question in essence asks how people apply attributes to God when this God is not observable. The only real answer has been this, with my original reply:

St Thomas, I believe, described observance of God as knowledge of what isn't rather than what 'is' God. That is what the abrahamic religions are based upon.

Already your position of reason fails.

Besides this "God" name one thing which you define by what it is not. Saying what something is NOT does not describe what that something is, so I fail to see how my position fails.

Let us take another concept invented by man: unicorns. Unicorns are not horses. The also are not visible or detectable.

Now that the unicorn is defined by what it is not, any attribute can by applied without it necessarily being wrong. There is no reason to suppose that the attributes applied are correct, however. Unless the unicorn has been observed, applying attributes and then looking for them (or just plain applying attributes and saying looking for it is futile [but it's still there]) is meaningless.

Everything after this just seems to be repeating itself since Frodo doesn't seem to get it.

I'm tired of going in circles so it is time to put on a halt. Let us look at what it means to define something:

1 a : to determine or identify the essential qualities or meaning of <whatever defines us as human> b : to discover and set forth the meaning of (as a word) c : to create on a computer <define a window> <define a procedure>
2 a : to fix or mark the limits of : demarcate <rigidly defined property lines> b : to make distinct, clear, or detailed especially in outline <the issues aren't too well defined>

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/define

Let us now look at what an Ontology is:

ontology [ɒnˈtɒlədʒɪ]
n
1. (Philosophy) Philosophy the branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of being
2. (Philosophy / Logic) Logic the set of entities presupposed by a theory

By showing what God is not (I don't even think you did this successfully, but even if you had it doesn't matter), you have still done neither of these things. You have certainly limited God (a little), but as it has been said many times already, you can say an infinite amount of things that God is not and we will never get any closer to what God actually is because there are infinite more attributes you could give it. When you use actual physical objects as your analogy, you fail to see that you are defining us by what we are, not by what we are not. Perhaps you did not even noticed that you automatically started giving us physical characteristics, even animal characteristics by narrowing down that we are not inanimate. You could only do that because you have observed already what a human is. If you had no idea what a human was, we could be anything. We could be in anything, or everything, or nothing at all (think about that for a while). If humans were not observable, defining them would be impossible, even if you started with what a human is not, because in order to know for sure what something is not, you must already have an idea of what it is. That is where your logical fallacy comes into play.

Then you aren't thinking Zen.

Hey fallacy Nazi, you are aware that this is a fallacy?