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

[Neo-Scholastic]

I'm still having a hard time understanding how "existence exists" explains why/how particular things exist. Yes, existence is real, but so what? How is this more explanatory than saying God exists (for example)?

For example, how do you get from "existence exists" to "this local universe exists". How does a principle do that exactly?

It doesn't.  That's not it's job.  It's job as I said is to identify a general truth on which other truths rest.  How you get to further knowledge is by the same process of looking at reality and identifying what you perceive.  We don't just recognize that existence exists and deduce everything else from that recognition.  That's not the way knowledge works.  We learn almost everything inductively.  Only after we've done induction can we apply that inductive knowledge to particulars.  We can't say existence exists and then jump straight to why/ how does the local universe exist.  What is a universe, what does local mean?  What is causation?  Before we get to those concepts we've already made a long chain of discoveries that lead up to those questions and when we get to them we answer them, if they are not improper questions, by looking to reality.  We don't start with nothing and then seek a reason for why existence exists.  You have to start with existence and then see what else you can learn about it.  The question of what came before everything and what caused it is an improper question because it makes use of stolen concepts.  To steal concepts is to make use of them while ignoring their roots including the recognition that existence exists.

You mean like poposing a being whose essense and existence are the same?....sounds very familiar. Could be a stolen concept, yes?

[Objectivist]

It doesn't.  That's not it's job.  It's job as I said is to identify a general truth on which other truths rest.  How you get to further knowledge is by the same process of looking at reality and identifying what you perceive.  We don't just recognize that existence exists and deduce everything else from that recognition.  That's not the way knowledge works.  We learn almost everything inductively.  Only after we've done induction can we apply that inductive knowledge to particulars.  We can't say existence exists and then jump straight to why/ how does the local universe exist.  What is a universe, what does local mean?  What is causation?  Before we get to those concepts we've already made a long chain of discoveries that lead up to those questions and when we get to them we answer them, if they are not improper questions, by looking to reality.  We don't start with nothing and then seek a reason for why existence exists.  You have to start with existence and then see what else you can learn about it.  The question of what came before everything and what caused it is an improper question because it makes use of stolen concepts.  To steal concepts is to make use of them while ignoring their roots including the recognition that existence exists.

You mean like poposing a being whose essense and existence are the same?....sounds very familiar. Could be a stolen concept, yes?

Sorry, Neo-Scholastic, but I have no idea what you mean.  I did not speak of essences.  You wondered how the axiom of existence explains how/ why particular existents exist.  I was simply pointing out that it doesn't.  It's simply the first fact we become aware of and in the act of grasping that fact, we grasp the fact that we are conscious.  The question arises from these two recognitions which one of these has primacy, consciousness, or existence?  The answer is that existence has primacy and if existence is primary then it is eternal and uncaused.  The stolen concept arises from positing a cause in the absence of existence. The concept of a cause presupposes existence.  Now if you want to know what caused some particular existent within the universe then the answer is causality like everything else apart from existence qua existence.  The notion that some being exists outside existence and caused existence as such is philosophically incoherent and makes use of stolen concepts that are fallacious.

[GrandizerII]

I'm still having a hard time understanding how "existence exists" explains why/how particular things exist. Yes, existence is real, but so what? How is this more explanatory than saying God exists (for example)?

For example, how do you get from "existence exists" to "this local universe exists". How does a principle do that exactly?

It doesn't.  That's not it's job.  It's job as I said is to identify a general truth on which other truths rest.  How you get to further knowledge is by the same process of looking at reality and identifying what you perceive.  We don't just recognize that existence exists and deduce everything else from that recognition.  That's not the way knowledge works.  We learn almost everything inductively.  Only after we've done induction can we apply that inductive knowledge to particulars.  We can't say existence exists and then jump straight to why/ how does the local universe exist.  What is a universe, what does local mean?  What is causation?  Before we get to those concepts we've already made a long chain of discoveries that lead up to those questions and when we get to them we answer them, if they are not improper questions, by looking to reality.  We don't start with nothing and then seek a reason for why existence exists.  You have to start with existence and then see what else you can learn about it.  The question of what came before everything and what caused it is an improper question because it makes use of stolen concepts.  To steal concepts is to make use of them while ignoring their roots including the recognition that existence exists.

Fair enough. I guess I had the impression that this was aimed to answer the big question of why we exist, but if that's not what it's about, then ok.

PS: That was me who asked the question in the quote above, not Neo.

[Objectivist]

It doesn't.  That's not it's job.  It's job as I said is to identify a general truth on which other truths rest.  How you get to further knowledge is by the same process of looking at reality and identifying what you perceive.  We don't just recognize that existence exists and deduce everything else from that recognition.  That's not the way knowledge works.  We learn almost everything inductively.  Only after we've done induction can we apply that inductive knowledge to particulars.  We can't say existence exists and then jump straight to why/ how does the local universe exist.  What is a universe, what does local mean?  What is causation?  Before we get to those concepts we've already made a long chain of discoveries that lead up to those questions and when we get to them we answer them, if they are not improper questions, by looking to reality.  We don't start with nothing and then seek a reason for why existence exists.  You have to start with existence and then see what else you can learn about it.  The question of what came before everything and what caused it is an improper question because it makes use of stolen concepts.  To steal concepts is to make use of them while ignoring their roots including the recognition that existence exists.

Fair enough. I guess I had the impression that this was aimed to answer the big question of why we exist, but if that's not what it's about, then ok.

PS: That was me who asked the question in the quote above, not Neo.

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.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Fair enough. I guess I had the impression that this was aimed to answer the big question of why we exist, but if that's not what it's about, then ok.

PS: That was me who asked the question in the quote above, not Neo.

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.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's unclear why a god must exist for anything to exist, while it's crystal clear that existence must exist for anything to exist. Whatever similarity you see in the two is likely to be superficial. When you capitalize being-itself, as otherwise this would be redundant with existence.....that, is an example of reification.

[Neo-Scholastic]

it's crystal clear that existence must exist for anything to exist.

So we agree...existence is different from anything. Crystal clear. In order for any being-as-such to exist, being-itself must exist. Glad that that is settled. :-p

[The Grand Nudger]

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

[Neo-Scholastic]

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

Indeed. It is an interesting paradox! In one post you can say existence must be before anything else. And in the next post say, that Being-Itself does not exist. What, to you, is the difference between existence, writ large, and being-itself? I think you are quibbling over nothing.

[The Grand Nudger]

If we were quibbling over nothing, you would have no need of capitalizing the b and i, reifying the concept, equivocating between the two, and declaring it your god.