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I think that 5 does follow from the first 4, at least on the face of it. So the argument as it stands is probably valid. The question is whether 1-4 are actually true. Personally I would be most inclined to question 4. But there's also the issue of whether it makes sense to talk about conceiving things "as" existing or not existing, a distinction which is crucial to 1 and 2 and the conclusion. I'm not sure that this does make sense; if I conceive of something I simply conceive of it, and my judgement that it exists (or doesn't) is something distinct. This objection to Anselm's argument parallels (but is not identical to) Kant's objection to Descartes' version of the argument, which is that existence isn't a predicate.
 
Plotinus said:
(5) Therefore, if God does not exist, we can conceive of something greater than the greatest thing we can conceive of. Which is a contradiction.
This reminds me of Cantor comparing infinites.
 
IIRC, isn't that similar to Aquinas' argument about the Unmoved Mover? One of his proofs of God's existence (or rather a philosophical argument for the existence of God) was an application of Newton's Third Law of Motion: if every action must have an equal and opposite reaction, then every moving object must have been unmoving at some point, and imparted motion by another force. Extrapolated backward in time, you necessarily arrive at a point where an object induced motion, but was not moving itself. The Unmoved Mover. What force could this possibly be but God?

By the way, what is your opinion of this and Aquinas' other arguments like it? I believe there were five.

Let us admit for the moment that God is omniscient - meaning that God knows everything.

But then God cannot know what it is not to be omniscient. Therefore, there is something he doesn't know; and hence he isn't omniscient.

Or let's go down the path that he knows what it is not to be omniscient - since he knows everything. Hence, directly, he isn't omniscient.

Somebody (Berkeley, maybe? I can't remember) posited that God could only know perfect things, since he is perfect and if he were to think about imperfect things, then he would become imperfect himself, and thus cease to be God. This was used to explain why God could never interact with the universe, because existent things are necessarily imperfect. Obviously this doesn't fit with the omniscient definition of God, unless we are to imagine that God knows of the imperfect things and simply chooses to never think of them, so as to preserve his perfection. Perhaps knowledge of omniscience is something God possesses, but has not experienced? Does that count as knowledge? Or is God expected to know what all possible experiences are as part of his omniscience?
 
Somebody (Berkeley, maybe? I can't remember) posited that God could only know perfect things, since he is perfect and if he were to think about imperfect things, then he would become imperfect himself, and thus cease to be God. This was used to explain why God could never interact with the universe, because existent things are necessarily imperfect. Obviously this doesn't fit with the omniscient definition of God, unless we are to imagine that God knows of the imperfect things and simply chooses to never think of them, so as to preserve his perfection. Perhaps knowledge of omniscience is something God possesses, but has not experienced? Does that count as knowledge? Or is God expected to know what all possible experiences are as part of his omniscience?
This seems all quite true if God was an existence only on mental plane and thus subject to logic. But if there is overmental existence then the perspective may easily change.
 
Some sects of Hinduism understand Brahma (aka, The Big God) to be not a "god" at all, but rather the consciousness of all truth in the universe, which itself makes the universe work. That would fit rather well into this, an idea which is ultimately grounded in Plato's Theory of Ideas.

What you probably mean is Ishwara which has triune aspects of Brahma/Creator, Vishnu/Preserver and Shiva/Destroyer. I will have to look up Plato and his theory but essentialy Consciousness is all there realy is. From All-consciousness/God/Sat-Chit-Ananda(plane of Existence-Consciousness-Bliss)the force of consciousness descends into Supermind/Divine gnosis where truth can still be seen as whole but from there bellow (Overmind, Intuitive mind, Higher mind and physical mind) it separates into different and opposing truth-forces which can play against each other in manifested world.
Lowest form of consciousness is matter itself (inconscience)which is itself only a transfigured consciousness:
The sum of matter never changes by increase or diminution, although its component parts are continually shifting; so is it with the sum of energy in the world, so is it with the spirit. Matter is only so much mobile energy vibrating intensely into form. Energy is only so much spirit manifesting the motion that we call energy. Spirit is Force, Spirit Existence,—matter and energy are only motions in Spirit. Force and Existence made one in Bliss, Sachchidanandam, this is the eternal reality of things.

This canot be in quintessence any different from Christian tradition which calls God the Father. For if God is All-consciousness he can manifest anything including form of human relation of that of father and child.
 
IIRC, isn't that similar to Aquinas' argument about the Unmoved Mover? One of his proofs of God's existence (or rather a philosophical argument for the existence of God) was an application of Newton's Third Law of Motion: if every action must have an equal and opposite reaction, then every moving object must have been unmoving at some point, and imparted motion by another force. Extrapolated backward in time, you necessarily arrive at a point where an object induced motion, but was not moving itself. The Unmoved Mover. What force could this possibly be but God?

You're thinking of Aquinas' First Way to prove God's existence, but you've not got it right. It's nothing to do with Newton's Third Law - it would be amazing if it were, given that Aquinas lived over four centuries before Newton worked it out - and as an Aristotelian, Aquinas would not have agreed with it.

The argument has nothing to do with temporal causal sequences. It's about motion being imparted to the universe right now. Aquinas is thinking of the universe as rather like a train of carriages, each one pulling the one behind. There must be a locomotive at the front of the train, or the overall motion is unexplained. Similarly, there must be a First Mover which is effectively powering the universe, like the spring in a watch.

By the way, what is your opinion of this and Aquinas' other arguments like it? I believe there were five.

The argument is fine as long as you accept the metaphysics, which few people probably would today (outside Catholic scholastic circles, anyway). But a more fundamental problem with it is that even if it works, it doesn't prove God's existence, it only proves the existence of a First Mover. And why would that be God? It could be some purely physical process within the universe. Moreover, it wouldn't have to be the same First Mover all the time.

Somebody (Berkeley, maybe? I can't remember) posited that God could only know perfect things, since he is perfect and if he were to think about imperfect things, then he would become imperfect himself, and thus cease to be God. This was used to explain why God could never interact with the universe, because existent things are necessarily imperfect. Obviously this doesn't fit with the omniscient definition of God, unless we are to imagine that God knows of the imperfect things and simply chooses to never think of them, so as to preserve his perfection. Perhaps knowledge of omniscience is something God possesses, but has not experienced? Does that count as knowledge? Or is God expected to know what all possible experiences are as part of his omniscience?

I don't think Berkeley said that, and he hardly could have, given that he thought that all material objects, perfect or imperfect, exist only within God's mind. The idea you describe sounds more like Middle Platonism. Plato had thought that for every kind of thing that exists, there must be an immaterial Form, which explains the similarity between different individuals of that kind. The Middle Platonists thought that these Forms were ideas in the mind of God. But they thought that there were Forms only of natural things, not artificial ones, and only of good or beautiful things, not of lowly or ugly ones, because these would be unworthy of the divine mind. So the whole concept of the Forms had changed from a basically logical one (in Plato) to a much more religious one (in the Middle Platonists).

Augustine thought that God's mind contained ideas of all things, or at least all natural things, since it was by these ideas that he created them. This was the view of the medieval theologians too, who like Augustine also thought that human knowledge is dependent upon the divine ideas, which directly illuminate the human understanding. At least, they did until Aristotle's much more sensible epistemology was rediscovered.

Modern philosophers - at least after the odd renaissance of Augustinian Platonism that happened in the seventeenth century - would, I think, typically think in terms not of God knowing "things" (perfect or imperfect) but of God knowing facts. God's omniscience means that he knows everything that's true, or at least everything knowable that's true. Whether the facts are positive or negative isn't really here or there.
 
This is a continuation of quote from my previous post and I think its an interesting take on the topic:
Sri Aurobindo said:
Spirit is Force, Spirit Existence,—matter and energy are only motions in Spirit. Force and Existence made one in Bliss, Sachchidanandam, this is the eternal reality of things. But that Force is not motion, it is Knowledge or Idea. Knowledge is the source of motion, not motion of knowledge. The Spirit therefore is all, It is alone. Idea or Force, Existence, Bliss are only its triune manifestations, existence implying idea which is force, force or idea implying bliss.
 
You're thinking of Aquinas' First Way to prove God's existence, but you've not got it right. It's nothing to do with Newton's Third Law - it would be amazing if it were, given that Aquinas lived over four centuries before Newton worked it out - and as an Aristotelian, Aquinas would not have agreed with it.

The argument has nothing to do with temporal causal sequences. It's about motion being imparted to the universe right now. Aquinas is thinking of the universe as rather like a train of carriages, each one pulling the one behind. There must be a locomotive at the front of the train, or the overall motion is unexplained. Similarly, there must be a First Mover which is effectively powering the universe, like the spring in a watch.

Oh dear, how embarrassing. :blush:

I don't think Berkeley said that, and he hardly could have, given that he thought that all material objects, perfect or imperfect, exist only within God's mind. The idea you describe sounds more like Middle Platonism. Plato had thought that for every kind of thing that exists, there must be an immaterial Form, which explains the similarity between different individuals of that kind. The Middle Platonists thought that these Forms were ideas in the mind of God. But they thought that there were Forms only of natural things, not artificial ones, and only of good or beautiful things, not of lowly or ugly ones, because these would be unworthy of the divine mind. So the whole concept of the Forms had changed from a basically logical one (in Plato) to a much more religious one (in the Middle Platonists).

Augustine thought that God's mind contained ideas of all things, or at least all natural things, since it was by these ideas that he created them. This was the view of the medieval theologians too, who like Augustine also thought that human knowledge is dependent upon the divine ideas, which directly illuminate the human understanding. At least, they did until Aristotle's much more sensible epistemology was rediscovered.

Modern philosophers - at least after the odd renaissance of Augustinian Platonism that happened in the seventeenth century - would, I think, typically think in terms not of God knowing "things" (perfect or imperfect) but of God knowing facts. God's omniscience means that he knows everything that's true, or at least everything knowable that's true. Whether the facts are positive or negative isn't really here or there.

No, now that I think about it, I think Berkeley was the one who thought that the whole universe was a giant solipsistic dream by God, which was why he couldn't interact with us and which also explained the problem of cogito ergo sum and also being sure that the person next to you who is thinking exists as well. I really can't remember who articulated the idea in question, but I think it was one of your 17th century Platonists.

EDIT: I've done some poking around, and I'm pretty sure it was Kant.
 
Oh dear, how embarrassing. :blush:

Well, it's a common mistake.

No, now that I think about it, I think Berkeley was the one who thought that the whole universe was a giant solipsistic dream by God, which was why he couldn't interact with us and which also explained the problem of cogito ergo sum and also being sure that the person next to you who is thinking exists as well. I really can't remember who articulated the idea in question, but I think it was one of your 17th century Platonists.

Berkeley didn't think the universe is a solipsistic dream by God; he thought that created minds are distinct from God. He simply thought that material objects are mind-dependent, so every time you perceive something, what you are directly perceiving is an idea in your mind that God gives you. So it's not the case, for Berkeley, that God can't interact with us - quite the contrary, he interacts with us constantly. As far as I know Berkeley doesn't address Descartes' Cogito - the question whether I exist is not one that Berkeley's very interested in. You can think of him as a sort of combination of British empiricist epistemology with continental Cartesian metaphysics, since his understanding of the relationship between God and the world is pretty much the same as Malebranche's, but with the minor difference that he doesn't believe in matter.

EDIT: I've done some poking around, and I'm pretty sure it was Kant.

That's rather harder for me to comment on, as I don't know much about Kant's conception of God.
 
For my introductory Bible class, I'm supposed to read and review one of the books listed below. Do you have any recommendations regarding which ones might be worthwhile?

Spoiler :
D. L. Brake, A Visual History of the English Bible
Jaroslav Pelikan, Interpreting the Bible and the Constitution
J. D. Levenson, Inheriting Abraham: The Legacy of the Patriarch in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
R. L. Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them
Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity
Bart Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?
S. C. Carlson, The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith’s Invention of Secret Mark
P. Gray, Opening Paul’s Letters: A Readers Guide to Genre and Interpretation
Yoram Hazony, The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture
Ronald Hendel, The Book of Genesis: A Biography
 
I'm puzzled by that list because some of them aren't about the Bible at all. I'm afraid that the only ones I've actually read are Wilken and Stark. Both of these are very good, although Stark is a little unorthodox (he is kind of to patristics what Jared Diamond is to history). Anything by Pelikan is likely to be good, and the same with Ehrman, of course.
 
Do you, or other academic Theologians interacts with people who's specialty is Jewish Theology or Islamic Theology? Are there any journals or conferences which include articles from more than one Abrahamic religion?
 
I'm puzzled by that list because some of them aren't about the Bible at all.

The professor (who wrote the book about the Pauline epistles) has talked a fair bit about early Christian history in lecture to discuss the context in which the New Testament was written. And the way my school's liberal arts curriculum is set up, almost currently everyone in a Bible class will take a history of Christian thought class next semester, so even stuff beyond that will become relevant soon.
 
Do you, or other academic Theologians interacts with people who's specialty is Jewish Theology or Islamic Theology? Are there any journals or conferences which include articles from more than one Abrahamic religion?

Yes. I have a colleague who does this. But it's not something I really know anything about. The notion of "Abrahamic religions" is quite popular these days - it's a term you often hear; although like the term "Judeo-Christian" I often think it's really just a synonym for "Christianity" that pays lip service to the existence of other religions.

I don't know whether there are any journals that are specially devoted to the Abrahamic religions, but certainly journals of religious studies (as opposed to theology), such as Religious Studies Review, would feature articles on pretty much all religions. Philosophy of religion journals (such as the confusingly-titled Religious Studies) sometimes have articles about non-Christian religions, but they tend to focus either on Christianity or on religion in general.

The professor (who wrote the book about the Pauline epistles) has talked a fair bit about early Christian history in lecture to discuss the context in which the New Testament was written. And the way my school's liberal arts curriculum is set up, almost currently everyone in a Bible class will take a history of Christian thought class next semester, so even stuff beyond that will become relevant soon.

That sounds very sensible - I approve! Patristics is far more interesting than the Bible anyway...
 
What house of cards? What are you asking?

"Herodion" is a name; there's no evidence that it has anything to do with the Herodian dynasty. It might equally well come from the Greek herodes meaning a hero; or Herodion might have been named after the Herods. Either way, I don't see what that proves.
 
Could you explain the ontological argument like I'm five?
Apologies if it's already been asked.
 
There's a whole family of ontological arguments, so it depends which one you're talking about.

The simplest is just this: we define God as having every possible perfection. He must do, or he wouldn't be a perfect being. But one of the perfections is necessary existence, because something that necessarily exists is better than something that doesn't. So God necessarily exists.
 
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