God exists subjectively?

[theologian]

Now, you say that there's a logical dead end and the known ways to progress successfully is to introduce an exception. However, that exception invalidates the premise, as you say. I am sure I have shown the otherwise. So, kindly  show how and why the exception invalidates the premise in Five Ways. That may be a way to show that you are talking really a non contradicting part of the Five Ways.

1- The unmoved mover: The presumption is that there must be something at the start of a causal chain that is an exception to the state that creates that chain. This quality is then assigned to God, even though none of our senses can tell us that God is an unmoved mover.

2- The uncaused cause: Same as above. God's eternal nature is not indicated by anything we can sense, yet it is granted to him in order to break a causal chain.

3- The argument from contingency: Putting aside the knowledge of matter and energy --and our knowledge that the universe had a beginning-- that make this an outdated argument, God is given the quality of being imperishable in order to solve a problem for which he can only be the answer if he has that quality. Once again, none of our senses can discern this about God.

4- The argument from degree assumes that just because we make comparisons of quality, that these necessarily lead us up or down a chain of quality that must end in an absolute extreme. This one is so silly that I wonder why he did not discard it. Why doesn't this one lead us to a God that is the greatest evil?

5- The teleological argument assumes that an intelligent designer is required for the universe to work as it does. Considering the strides that science has made in understanding how things work, this one is badly outdated. That the argument from design is still compelling tells us more about how our brains work than how there is a need for a creator to set the universe in motion.

Unless we assign a specific quality to God that we cannot know before we even prove that he is real, the five ways don't lead us to an answer. The five ways are like the game show Jeopardy, where the answer is provided first and then a suitable question is formulated so as to arrive at it. The only one that we can say we 'see' with our senses is the argument from design, but as we continue to learn about the universe and how it works, we find that our senses are fooling us. That might seem easy to dismiss when talking about the origins of the universe, but there was a time when it would have been said about lightning and earthquakes and the tides. How do our senses reliably indicate any of the above are true without first applying a particular quality to God that we cannot know he possesses?

Thanks for your responses. Let me now comment on each of your comment on the Five Ways.

Now for the First Way, you've failed to point out how the exception contradicted the premise. Why? Because, there's really no contradiction. There is indeed an exception, for if there is not, then logic tells us that nothing must be existing which is absurd. However, there is no contradiction, for no premise in the First Way states that all are moved or changed. Your second objection against the First Way is that we have assigned the Unmoved Mover to God for our liking. And that the senses are not telling us that. Again, the sense part in the Five Ways can be found in the start of the five arguments, and not in the conclusions, just as our knowledge starts from the senses. So, in the first way, what was sense there is the change. You do agree that we can see change - - which is termed motion - - in your surrounding right? Now, after using the senses, we use our intellect to go deeper into reality. In the case of the First Way, we have found that there is an Unmoved Mover, or else nothing would exist, which is again absurd. Now, nothing I have said here that by the use of our senses, we can show that God is Unmoved Mover. The First Way tells us that the Unmoved Mover is call God. It is worth noting that the First Way and the other four arguments for God's existence in the Five Ways are demonstration from effects, and not demonstrating God directly. Why? Because God, by thinking about the meaning of the term, must necessarily unknowable as a whole, for if the term or the word God means that He is which nothing can be greater, then He must be Boundless, but all we could know as a whole are bounded. So, if your objection here about no premise to prove that God is the Unmoved Mover, then it is nothing but an objection like asking why dogs are called dogs? Hence, what is common in the Five Ways are that Unmoved Mover, First Cause, Necessary Being, Perfect Being and Supremely Intelligent Being, the conclusions, are called God, and that nothing that we can sense, can be predicated with the conclusions of the Five Ways.

Your objection to the Second Way is that what has been used to break the chain is the supposed nature of God. But, that can't be found in the Second Way if we are honest. Because the breaking of chain stems from the metaphysical and logical consequence that nothing would exist, which is again, absurd,and not because of God's presumed or assumed nature. On the contrary, with the help of Five Ways, we are little by little knowing what is God's essence.

The conclusion of the Third Way is that there must be a Necessary Being that is Uncaused. Again, what is sensed here is the generation and corruption of beings we see. Matter and energy is irrelevant, because quantity by itself don't tell us about the objective qualities of things.

In the Fourth Way, one must understand here that what is being talked about by St.Thomas Aquinas is the degree in truth and goodness in reality which are the transcendentals, that is, which exist in every way of being. That can't be said in smell or color or size, because not all of way of being included smell or color or size, because you cannot know the size of a color, or the smell of the size, or the smell of the color, but one can know the truth of the sizes, the truth of color, or the truth of size, hence truth can be present in every way of being. The same with willing the goodness of the smell, of the color, of the size, etc. Now, truth, goodness and being are just one and the same reality, but are just viewed from different angles. For an instance, the more actual the being, the more we know it and the more it is true and the more it is good, e.g. you know and will better an actual individual person, than a particular animal, plant and dust, because the individual person is greater in being than the other. But since, being is reality, and there is degree in being in reality, because there is degree of truth and goodness in reality, and since degree implies existence of a perfect one, it follows that there must be a Real Perfect Being. And that people call God. Now how about perfect evil? That cannot be the case, because evil is privation, that is lacking of what must be there. For example, an eye that cannot see us evil, for every eye should see. We don't prove nothing, right? Evil is just a degree of nothing. Further, evil means corruption, and if corruption, then it must be good initially, for nothing could be corrupted if it is not good initially. So, there can't be a perfect evil.

For the fifth way, science doesn't invalidate it. For, science is just focusing on the material and efficient causes of realities, while the fifth is about the final cause of things, just all acorn points to an oak tree.

Now to comment on your general comment, that we assume God's attribute and then we identify it with the conclusion of the Five Ways, let me do some answering. What is sure is that we didn't first define God as the Unmoved Mover, First Cause, Necessary Being, Perfect Being, and Supremely Intelligent Being. Instead, we have arrived at the conclusion that the Unmoved Mover, First Cause, Necessary Being, Perfect Being, and Supremely Intelligent Being exists, starting from the senses and then using sound Metaphysics and valid logical demonstration,and then we call those God. So, there's no assumption being made as you have objected. Your objection then seems to be what to call the Unmoved Mover, First Cause, Necessary Being, Perfect Being, and Supremely Intelligent Being, which is not a true objection then. Regardless of what we call God, He must necessarily exist, per Five Ways.

Finally, you are talking about particular quality of God. But to have A PARTICULAR quality is to be not God, for that will imply that something created God, and that is absurd, for in that case ,the one Who created God must be the real God.

[The Grand Nudger]

So why is that St. Thomas' arguments are not compelling, if you wouldn't mind?

Would it matter?  Will you stop schlepping them?  No, and no.  

Are they having false premise or invalid logical sequence or both?

I think that you understand those terms about as well as you understand the terms objective and subjective.  

If that is the case, then nothing can stop it to be compelling except our choice to believe subjectively instead of objectively. That will make atheist hypocrite then, for atheists accuse theists of subscribing to blind faith, and to believe subjectively is indeed to believe blindly.

Right, I;m glad you made your way to what was important, an appeal to hypocrisy riding in on the back of a false equivalence,

Tell me, is  faith a bad thing, or....what?  You're sending a conflicting message, here, amigo.  Do you hope to make me feel bad for having faith, or do you hope to get me some?

I -have- told you that the entire song and dance is irrelevant to me on more than one occasion, haven't I? You don't have to argue for your god with me. Frankly, I'd rather not watch you embarrass yourself.

[Tonus]

Now for the First Way, you've failed to point out how the exception contradicted the premise.

I did so previously.  If everything that moves must have been acted upon in order to move, the moment we introduce something that moves but is not acted upon, we have invalidated the premise.  The existence of an unmoved mover means that it's impossible for everything that moves to have been acted upon.

I don't know how to make it any clearer because it is so simple.  Logic should not tell us that there needs to be an exception in order to solve the problem.  Logic should tell us to scrap the premise because it is unworkable.  Logic should definitely not tell us to assign a quality to an unproven variable in order to allow that variable to solve the problem by presenting itself as the proof.  That is circular.

You keep explaining the five ways using this reasoning.  Your response to my post was to explain all the ways in which we run into limits that seem to confound us, then claim that God has a specific quality that overcomes this limitation.  But you don't explain how we can know that God has this quality aside from one version or another of "he has to have this quality."

For the fifth way, science doesn't invalidate it.

I wasn't saying that science invalidates it, I think it invalidates itself.  But there was a time when that argument could have been used to explain many things that have different explanations now because we discovered them (the germ theory of disease, for example).  Knowing that natural explanations replace supernatural ones all the time but that the reverse does not happen should give us the confidence to reject the teleological argument.

Now to comment on your general comment, that we assume God's attribute and then we identify it with the conclusion of the Five Ways, let me do some answering. What is sure is that we didn't first define God as the Unmoved Mover, First Cause, Necessary Being, Perfect Being, and Supremely Intelligent Being. Instead, we have arrived at the conclusion that the Unmoved Mover, First Cause, Necessary Being, Perfect Being, and Supremely Intelligent Being exists, starting from the senses and then using sound Metaphysics and valid logical demonstration,and then we call those God.

The most charitable explanation I can see is that Aquinas wondered about these things and, frustrated over the dilemma that they all posed, proposed a God with those qualities as an imperfect solution.  But I don't think that's what happened.  I think Aquinas was quite confident in his belief in God but could not demonstrate him and so he fell back on the idea that if we can determine that he is required, then he exists.  That's what makes the exercise so telling-- that he has to invest God with qualities that break the logic of his examples in order for the examples to "prove" God.  I wonder what would happen if he'd followed the examples to their logical conclusion and simply declared them unsolveable?  In Italy in the mid-1200s?

In any case, the examples do not work unless God has a quality that invalidates the premise.  The method by which you arrived at the answer does not change that.  And I honestly do not know what "sound metaphysics" is.  Is there a consensus on how metaphysics is researched, tested, and validated?

[Edwardo Piet]

Existence is inherently objective.

[theologian]

I did so previously.  If everything that moves must have been acted upon in order to move, the moment we introduce something that moves but is not acted upon, we have invalidated the premise.  The existence of an unmoved mover means that it's impossible for everything that moves to have been acted upon.

Remember that the term "move" we're using here is termed "motion" in Aquinas' Five Ways. And, in that context, "motion" means change.

Now, you said that one of the premise of the First Way has affirmed that everything that moves must be acted upon, and that is correct. Let's call that premise A.

Second, you argue that the conclusion then has invalidated the premise A, because the conclusion states that there is an Unmoved Mover.

The problem lies at your claim that conclusion which states that there is an Unmoved Mover contradicts the premise A.

How is it a problem?

Let's examine your reason for saying that the conclusion in the First Way contradicts the premise A. Let me quote you again:

The existence of an unmoved mover means that it's impossible for everything that moves to have been acted upon.

However, that reason is false. To show it, I'll frame it into a Q&A form.

Does the Unmoved Mover is moved or moves? (In context, does the Unchanging Changer changes or is changed?

Answer: Of course not, for everything that is unmoved is not moved.

If the Unmoved Mover is not moved, does it contradict the premise that "everything that moves must be acted upon by another"?

Answer: Obviously, no. For, the subject in that premise is that everything that moves and the predicate in that premise is that what must be acted upon. Since, the Unmoved Mover is neither moved nor acted upon, it doesn't contradict the premise which is both moved and acted upon. Because, contradiction can only be there if the Unmoved Mover is moved and not acted upon.

If you agree with the above Q&A, it follows that there is really no contradiction between the premise and conclusion of the First Way. That also applies to other argument like the Second Way. Uncaused Cause doesn't contradict the premise that every effect has a cause, because Uncaused Cause is not an effect.

If you don't agree, given that what I have given above are hopefully easier to understand, please point to me where I got it wrong above which will obviously show that I'm mistaken to think that there is no contradiction between the premises and conclusion in the arguments of St. Thomas Aquinas in his Five Ways.

I don't know how to make it any clearer because it is so simple.  Logic should not tell us that there needs to be an exception in order to solve the problem.  Logic should tell us to scrap the premise because it is unworkable.  Logic should definitely not tell us to assign a quality to an unproven variable in order to allow that variable to solve the problem by presenting itself as the proof.  That is circular.

What premise should be scrapped? That every effect has a cause? Or that everything that has been moved are acted upon?

I believe that one of your two objections against the Five Way, namely that the conclusions in the Five Ways contradicts its premises, will be already resolved once you agree with my immediate answer above.

Now your second problem involves the assigning of God to be the Unmoved Mover, First Cause, Uncaused Necessary Being, Perfect Being and Supremely Intelligent Being. That is a problem according to you, because it presumes that it is the quality of God, and if we know the quality of God, then we are arguing in circles, for knowing the quality implies existence.

But, the Five Ways never puts in its premises that God is Unmoved Mover, First Cause etc. On the contrary, after showing the premises and the conclusion in Five Ways, that's when we only see the phrases something like "and that people call God".

Therefore, there were never assumed premises. Further, what is assumed here is that we assume that St. Thomas Aquinas and other theist assumed first that there is God and that we have conceptualized His quality.

Even if we grant your claim that the theists and St. Thomas Aquinas assumed beforehand the qualities of God, by just looking only on the premises and conclusion, it will still prove the existence of the Unmoved Mover, First Cause, etc without relying beforehand that God is the Unmoved Mover, First Cause, etc. Because, the premises in Five Ways never used the premise that God is the Unmoved Mover, the First Cause, etc, to prove the existence of the Unmoved Mover, First Cause, etc, and with that, it still arrive in its conclusion validly, for again, only after the premises and the conclusion have been presented in the Five Ways, that's the only the time the arguments in Five Ways say something like: and that people understood to be God. So, your second objection is not really an objection to Five Ways, as far as reality and logic is concerned.

Now, you may want to attribute the conclusions from the Five Ways, namely, the Unmoved Mover, First Cause, Uncaused Necessary Being, Perfect Being and Supremely Intelligent Being to other reality other than God. However, that will not succeed, for nothing in the created realities can be the Unmoved Mover, First Cause, Uncaused Necessary Being, Perfect Being and Supremely Intelligent Being. Because, if that is the case, then there's no use to demonstrate the Five Ways, because the Unmoved Mover, First Cause, etc., can just be pointed at the sensible reality easily with our senses. But, since the Unmoved Mover, the First Cause, etc., naturally can't be pointed and limited by our senses, it follows that the conclusion of the Five Ways can not be attributed to a non-God.

You keep explaining the five ways using this reasoning.  Your response to my post was to explain all the ways in which we run into limits that seem to confound us, then claim that God has a specific quality that overcomes this limitation.  But you don't explain how we can know that God has this quality aside from one version or another of "he has to have this quality."

I think you see it in the opposite way. For, the Five Ways don't start with what is God. Instead, Five Ways starts with the things we know to exist, which are the things we can see and feel. After that, using our intellect, we can arrive with the same conclusions in the Five Ways: that the Unmoved Mover, First Cause, Uncaused Necessary Being, Perfect Being, and Supremely Intelligent Being exist. And all of those we understood to be God. So, there's no need to explain the supposed initial quality of God which you assumed to be one of the premises in the Five Ways, while that is not really the case.

For the fifth way, science doesn't invalidate it.

I wasn't saying that science invalidates it, I think it invalidates itself.  But there was a time when that argument could have been used to explain many things that have different explanations now because we discovered them (the germ theory of disease, for example).  Knowing that natural explanations replace supernatural ones all the time but that the reverse does not happen should give us the confidence to reject the teleological argument.

Let me know if I have understood you here by asking you a question.

Do you see the Fifth Way as having the premise that the purpose which can be seen in nature are all supernatural?

Let me tell you now that if your answer is yes, then you don't get Aristotle and Aquinas. For, what the teleology is showing is that there is direction in every being, just an every acorn points to an oak tree. It doesn't throw away natural explanation of things. Now, it also completes the explanation why some causes are regular. And so, this can only be possible with a Supremely Intelligent Being.

---

Now to comment on your general comment, that we assume God's attribute and then we identify it with the conclusion of the Five Ways, let me do some answering. What is sure is that we didn't first define God as the Unmoved Mover, First Cause, Necessary Being, Perfect Being, and Supremely Intelligent Being. Instead, we have arrived at the conclusion that the Unmoved Mover, First Cause, Necessary Being, Perfect Being, and Supremely Intelligent Being exists, starting from the senses and then using sound Metaphysics and valid logical demonstration,and then we call those God.

---

The most charitable explanation I can see is that Aquinas wondered about these things and, frustrated over the dilemma that they all posed, proposed a God with those qualities as an imperfect solution.  But I don't think that's what happened.  I think Aquinas was quite confident in his belief in God but could not demonstrate him and so he fell back on the idea that if we can determine that he is required, then he exists.  That's what makes the exercise so telling-- that he has to invest God with qualities that break the logic of his examples in order for the examples to "prove" God.  I wonder what would happen if he'd followed the examples to their logical conclusion and simply declared them unsolveable?  In Italy in the mid-1200s?

That isn't the case. Aquinas actually holds that there must be preambles of faith, before one would accept faith. For, one must show that he is not tricking someone in evangelizing. And what is that preambles of faith? Those are truths that can be known by reason alone like the existence of God and the immortality of the human soul. Now, if we will not distort the Five Ways, it can be seen that there are really no contradicting conclusions with the premises, and that nothing in the premise presupposed the nature of God in order to prove His existence. I am now excited to see how you will respond to my invalidation of your two objectives here. You're doing a good work in discussing things properly and respectfully.

In any case, the examples do not work unless God has a quality that invalidates the premise.  The method by which you arrived at the answer does not change that.  And I honestly do not know what "sound metaphysics" is.  Is there a consensus on how metaphysics is researched, tested, and validated?

Metaphysics is high above empirical science, for the conclusions in the former are accepted without questions by the latter. Hence, the new atheism today is so wrong big time, because they conclude that there is no God, because empirical science can't show God, which has a hidden premise, which is notoriously overlooked as being false, and that hidden premise is that only which has scientific evidence can be true, yet that is self defeating, as that statement itself doesn't have a scientific evidence, for it is a philosophical claim, and that is an example of an incorrect metaphysics. Hence, validation, which is the method used by empirical science, is not the absolute measurement of all reality. The correct metaphysics must study being, for what is common to all are being.

[Minimalist]

Does the personality and identity of the one argues affect the validity of his argument?

Of course not.  The argument is stupid whether it is you or fucking Aquinas saying it.  Evidence is needed for your heavenly horseshit., not meaningless semantics.

You can make exactly the same arguments for One-Testicled Flying Pink Unicorns and it would be just as valid.

[theologian]

So why is that St. Thomas' arguments are not compelling, if you wouldn't mind?

Would it matter?  Will you stop schlepping them?  No, and no.  

Are they having false premise or invalid logical sequence or both?

I think that you understand those terms about as well as you understand the terms objective and subjective.  

If that is the case, then nothing can stop it to be compelling except our choice to believe subjectively instead of objectively. That will make atheist hypocrite then, for atheists accuse theists of subscribing to blind faith, and to believe subjectively is indeed to believe blindly.

Right, I;m glad you made your way to what was important, an appeal to hypocrisy riding in on the back of a false equivalence,

Tell me, is  faith a bad thing, or....what?  You're sending a conflicting message, here, amigo.  Do you hope to make me feel bad for having faith, or do you hope to get me some?

I -have- told you that the entire song and dance is irrelevant to me on more than one occasion, haven't I? You don't have to argue for your god with me. Frankly, I'd rather not watch you embarrass yourself.

I believe that you know that indifference is inconclusive.

Regarding my apparent contradiction regarding faith, well it is just apparent, because what I'm really doing is yes, I'm making you feel bad for having bad faith, and I'm hoping that you'll have good faith. Bad faith is the belief in what is not true, while the good faith is belief on what is true. After all, the only honest reason to believe is that what we believe in is really true.

So, can I finally convince you now to demonstrate here why is that the 5 Ways are not compelling for you? After all, for an argument be not compelling is one thing, and to ignore it is another thing.

---

Does the personality and identity of the one argues affect the validity of his argument?

Of course not.  The argument is stupid whether it is you or fucking Aquinas saying it.  Evidence is needed for your heavenly horseshit., not meaningless semantics.

You can make exactly the same arguments for One-Testicled Flying Pink Unicorns and it would be just as valid.

But, your One-Testicled Flying Pink Unicorns cannot be the First Cause, for we can further ask, what caused it to be a One-Testicled Flying Pink Unicorns instead of other form? It has a distinct manner of being from its act of being, and so it not a Simple Being like God, and every non - simple being must be caused.

The Five Ways starts with evidences and then uses logic to go deeper into reality. Hence, to deny its conclusion that God exist despite of Five Ways is to deny either the evidences or logic or both.

Thanks for trying to show how Five Ways could be wrong. That's a good move, albeit it's a contains a wrong objection.

[The Grand Nudger]

I believe that you know that indifference is inconclusive.

.....lol?

Regarding my apparent contradiction regarding faith, well it is just apparent, because what I'm really doing is yes, I'm making you feel bad for having bad faith, and I'm hoping that you'll have good faith. Bad faith is the belief in what is not true, while the good faith is belief on what is true. After all, the only honest reason to believe is that what we believe in is really true.

Actually, I was simply pointing out that an appeal to hypocrisy is a poor way to argue for your faith.  

So, can I finally convince you now to demonstrate here why is that the 5 Ways are not compelling for you? After all, for an argument be not compelling is one thing, and to ignore it is another thing.

Again, it's not as if it matters why -I- don't find them compelling, that won't change the fact that you do....and - again- it's not an issue for m anyway, since I couldn't be a christian even if your silly little superstitions were true.  

I've got an ethical objection to slaughtering jews as payment for my wrongdoings, understand?

[theologian]

Actually, I was simply pointing out that an appeal to hypocrisy is a poor way to argue for your faith.

Well, I'm not arguing for the faith when I was appealing to the hypocrisy of some atheist, but I was arguing against the hypocrisy of some atheists whom suspend their reasoning faculty when presented by sound theistic arguments for God's existence like the Five Ways. Arguing for the faith is when both parties accepted that God exist in light of human reason. For, the credibility of faith lies in God's authority, whom can neither deceive nor be deceived.

Again, it's not as if it matters why -I- don't find them compelling, that won't change the fact that you do....and - again- it's not an issue for m anyway, since I couldn't be a christian even if your silly little superstitions were true.  

I've got an ethical objection to slaughtering jews as payment for my wrongdoings, understand?

Well, if atheists are reasonable, they must have at least a good reason to reject the Five Ways instead of being indifferent. After all, Five Ways are not matters of faith, but matters of reason.

I can't understand what you mean by your ethical objection? Are you referring to Jews or instead to a Jew?

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, I'm not arguing for the faith when I was appealing to the hypocrisy of some atheist, but I was arguing against the hypocrisy of some atheists whom suspend their reasoning faculty when presented by sound theistic arguments for God's existence like the Five Ways. Arguing for the faith is when both parties accepted that God exist in light of human reason. For, the credibility of faith lies in God's authority, whom can neither deceive nor be deceived.

Riiiight...not at all arguing for the faith, lol.  You think that an argument, btw, is when both parties accept that god exists in the light of human reason?  So, I'm just gonna add the word argument to the pile of words you don't understand.  

Well, if atheists are reasonable, they must have at least a good reason to reject the Five Ways instead of being indifferent. After all, Five Ways are not matters of faith, but matters of reason.

Leave it to a good christer to tell people what they must do, lol.  No, I -mustn't-...again, my atheism isn't the reason I'm  not a christian, nor is my rejection of aquinas arguments as compelling the reason.   If I believed that your god existed, I still wouldn't be a christian.  That makes your entire song and dance irrelevant to me.

I can't understand what you mean by your ethical objection? Are you referring to Jews or instead to a Jew?

Surprise surprise, you don't understand an ethical objection.