Let's be honest

[Belacqua]

Following the same logic:


Before God created existence, there was no existence.

If God was an existent entity, then there was already existence before God.

So the thing that created existence could not have already existed.


Is this sound?

Theologians would say that it's valid but not sound. 

That is, given the premisses as written, the logic works -- therefore it's valid. However theologians don't agree that God is "an existent entity." So for them it's not a sound argument.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Well, okay so if we are being honest then as a believer I have to say that serious atheism...the kind that is not just a negative reaction to religion or simple lack of belief; but rather, a deep reflection on the absurdity of the human condition in a world devoid of transcendence...that kind of bold and noble atheism that dares to look into the abyss.
..serious atheism like that is more complimentary than opposed to theistic belief.

No its not. It's like comparing a paleontologist to the guy who wore the Barney suit.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Well, okay so if we are being honest then as a believer I have to say that serious atheism...the kind that is not just a negative reaction to religion or simple lack of belief; but rather, a deep reflection on the absurdity of the human condition in a world devoid of transcendence...that kind of bold and noble atheism that dares to look into the abyss.
..serious atheism like that is more complimentary than opposed to theistic belief.

No its not. It's like comparing a paleontologist to the guy who wore the Barney suit.  

I don't get your point. Be that as it may, I see that your purported religious view is "rational". From this would it be fair to assume that your consider atheism the only rational response to the human condition? If so, could you elaborate on your first principles if you have them?

[Neo-Scholastic]

Following the same logic:


Before God created existence, there was no existence.

If God was an existent entity, then there was already existence before God.

So the thing that created existence could not have already existed.


Is this sound?

Theologians would say that it's valid but not sound. 

That is, given the premisses as written, the logic works -- therefore it's valid. However theologians don't agree that God is "an existent entity." So for them it's not a sound argument.

Fair enough, however. One definition of God is Necessary Being. Therefor the answer to the question of why there is something rather than nothing starts to sound tautalogical, a point @emjay makes. To me this is not an insurmountable objection. Because the something in question is not simply nothing but also (apparently) not everything that could be. In other words, we have to ground the particularity of this reality on transcendent universals...eternity in a wildflower.

[The Grand Nudger]

For all the shit that the afflicted step in along the way to their necessary beings - I wonder if it even matters?

Let's take the god described just a few posts back. One that doesn't create things ex nihilo, rather, a god that moves things around and rearranges them. Does this actually harm any religious belief? I can't see why it would. Does it harm any superstition about why particular things in life are the way they are? I can't see why it would. Perfectly good god just sitting here - no twisting our scrotums into knots to defend.

[Peebothuhlu]

OK, reaching out to my agnostic/atheist friends.  I'm very curious, genuinely interested, are there are "arguments" that theists have provided for proof of a God's existence (not even the Christian God), that you found compelling?  Or caused you to pause and perhaps say, there might be A God out there?

I found that when it's all broken down in most debates, an agnostic/atheist boils down to moral arguments/judgments against God, which in and of themselves does not disprove there being a God per se.  Just that they refuse to accept a God they find reprehensible.

Hello here as well as 'There'.

'Arguments' are one thing. Also, none that have crossed my path have done much for/to/with me or the way I understand the world/reality.

The other thing is 'Evidence'. Where are the diety's fingerprints on the smoking gun that is the reality around us?

And, of course, you'd refuse to have anything to do with something you'd find reprehensible. That just makes sense.

Cheers.

[emjay]

Theologians would say that it's valid but not sound. 

That is, given the premisses as written, the logic works -- therefore it's valid. However theologians don't agree that God is "an existent entity." So for them it's not a sound argument.

Fair enough, however. One definition of God is Necessary Being. Therefor the answer to the question of why there is something rather than nothing starts to sound tautalogical, a point @emjay makes. To me this is not an insurmountable objection. Because the something in question is not simply nothing but also (apparently) not everything that could be. In other words, we have to ground the particularity of this reality on transcendent universals...eternity in a wildflower.

It's an interesting thought, I think the first time I've personally seen anyone address this. It's something I'll have to ponder.

[Deesse23]

However theologians don't agree that God is "an existent entity." So for them it's not a sound argument.

What is it to them then? Non-existent? Imaginary? Something "new" wntirely different from those? If so, please demonstrate that this kind of "not-existent" ...existence(?) is even possible.

Good luck.

[Belacqua]

Theologians would say that it's valid but not sound. 

That is, given the premisses as written, the logic works -- therefore it's valid. However theologians don't agree that God is "an existent entity." So for them it's not a sound argument.

Fair enough, however. One definition of God is Necessary Being. Therefor the answer to the question of why there is something rather than nothing starts to sound tautalogical, a point @emjay makes. To me this is not an insurmountable objection. Because the something in question is not simply nothing but also (apparently) not everything that could be. In other words, we have to ground the particularity of this reality on transcendent universals...eternity in a wildflower.

Yeah, I think I was too limited in what I said before. I was thinking of "existent entity" as an existing object, which exists in the same way as other objects that we know. So for example if I started a list of all the objects in the universe, it might go: "my left shoe, the Statue of Liberty, Jupiter, God, my right shoe, etc. [to include everything in the universe]." But as I understand it God doesn't fit on that list, because God isn't a thing you can count up alongside other things. He is essentially prior to all of them. 

But yes, if we think of God as a transcendent universal, and it's OK to say that such things exist, then you'd say that God exists. Just now I looked up "necessary being" on the Stanford site, and they use "entity" to refer to non-concrete things, so I was wrong to limit the word that way. They say:

There are various entities which, if they exist, would be candidates for necessary beings: God, propositions, relations, properties, states of affairs, possible worlds, and numbers, among others. Note that the first entity in this list is a concrete entity, while the rest are abstract entities.

I think I disagree that the God of classical theology is a "concrete" entity, but maybe I'm misusing the word again.

I don't think it's proper to say that "God created existence" though, as if that's a thing that happened at a given point in time. I don't think we can talk about what existed before there was existence. So @HappySkeptic, I'm going to apologize and change my answer: theologians would find your syllogism unsound because they reject the premises. They hold that God is existence, and a necessary being for the existence of anything else, so they don't believe that there was a time before the existence of God. (Augustine addresses this at length.) 

Quotes from Blake always hold a lot of sway with me. As I understand it, he thought of God as infinite. And (before Georg Cantor came along) people thought that infinity could not be divided. You can't cut infinity in half -- if you drew a line through the middle of infinity, it would extend out in one direction to infinity still, so it would still be infinity. Therefore if God is present in a wildflower, it's not as if a part of him is circumscribed in that flower; he is present in his entirety in that wildflower. It's the fault of our doors of perception that we can't see that. So for him and others who hold to this line of thought (e.g. Nicholas of Cusa) it's wrong to say that there is something where God is not. 

So Blake wrote this to the false God of this world that other Christians believe in (who can be divided or absent):

To God 

If you have formd a Circle to go into 
Go into it yourself & see how you would do

[The Grand Nudger]

The use of the term and it's sense is footnoted.  

if God is identical to his properties, then he is a property, and they are a single property, in which case God is a single property. Given that properties are abstract entities, and abstracta are causally inert, then God is abstract and causally inert — which is of course inconsistent with the core tenet of classical theism according to which God is the personal creator and sustainer of every contingent being. No abstract object is either a person or a causal agent. No abstract object can be omniscient, or indeed know anything at all. More fundamentally, no abstract entity can be identical to any concrete entity. God as person and creator is concrete.