Gödel's ontological proof, a formal argument for God's existence by the mathematician Kurt Gödel.
Existence of God
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ParadigmShifter
Random Nonsense Generator
I'm not convinced by axiom 3.
Axiom 3: If P1, P2, P3, ..., Pn are positive properties, then the property (P1 AND P2 AND P3 ... AND Pn) is positive as well.
(According to wiki's article on the proof).
But you can have too much of a good thing my Mum says.
This invalidates the proof.
EDIT: It's good to drink beer. It's good to drive. It's not good to drink and drive.
EDIT2: At least we know Godel was a completely rational individual though, who wouldn't answer the door to correspondents and instead insisted they push papers under his door before he would meet with them, and he TOTALLY didn't think that he was being poisoned so when his wife was ill (she used to taste all his food) he starved to death.
Axiom 3: If P1, P2, P3, ..., Pn are positive properties, then the property (P1 AND P2 AND P3 ... AND Pn) is positive as well.
(According to wiki's article on the proof).
But you can have too much of a good thing my Mum says.
This invalidates the proof.
EDIT: It's good to drink beer. It's good to drive. It's not good to drink and drive.
EDIT2: At least we know Godel was a completely rational individual though, who wouldn't answer the door to correspondents and instead insisted they push papers under his door before he would meet with them, and he TOTALLY didn't think that he was being poisoned so when his wife was ill (she used to taste all his food) he starved to death.
Trev
Prince
God chose to create being, HUMANS with the ability to make choices for right or wrong, good or evil. He could have chosen to make robots, but did not. Having made Humans with free choice, he then allows us to exercise that free choice. It is our free choice that creates the wars, calamities, tragedies. It is our choice of evil that has resulted in an earth that has become corrupted and less than perfect, responding with severe weather, earthquakes, landslides etc.
It is not right to put the blame on God for these things when you are refusing to live life as God wants you to, you are refusing to seek to know God, and you are denying that he created this world.
God knows the things that are happening and does want to fix things, but He will not intervene to prevent the disasters because in general people do not want Him to intervene to fix earth and he respects the decision of those people.
However He has sent Jesus as our Lord and Saviour and if we accept Jesus as that and request Him to forgive the things we have done wrong, then God will in eternity place us on a new earth and new heaven which are perfect so we can share eternity with God in perfection. On the other hand those who continue to reject God and Jesus His Son will live an eternity in torment without God, without God because they made that choice, and in torment because any place without God can only result in torment.
The Bible clearly states that God made man like Himself in many ways. The ways in which man is like God is the ability to make choices and also to have as part of us a spirit which lives forever. Because of the spirit that lives forever we never cease to exist, but always will live somewhere. Make the right choice and that will be the perfect earth and heaven God will create in the future.
bender19
Warlord
I don't really get the initial argument, everything is complex therefore it must have been created. To me this is bizarre logic, if God were to exist ít would be more complex than the universe. God simply exists without a creator, yet the less complex universe is too complex and must have a creator. Its a very lazy way to answer the question.
Gödel's ontological proof, a formal argument for God's existence by the mathematician Kurt Gödel.
Wish I done some logic at uni, I can barely follow that. What are the square and diamond representative of?
If he programmed us with the ability to maim and rape and allows us to do these things then he is not an omni-benevolent being. If he lacks the power to stop us doing these things then he is not omnipotent. If he doesn't know that we do these things, or indeed if he didn't know that this would result from his act of Creation, then he is not omniscient.
God might exist, but what we can be sure of is that he is a fallible being.
Question:
If I create a teenager-stabbing robot and then programme it so that it can chose whether or not to stab a teenager, will you consider me morally clean if the robot stabs someone?
He doesn't intervene, yet he sent down his son to intervene.
He doesn't want to intervene, yet he plans to eventual stage a grand intervention (rapture).
People don't want him to intervene, yet 2 billion people pray for just that every night. 4 billion more would probably be pretty OK with it he puts a stop to all the world's evils.
At the end of the day, any being that makes other beings and then judges for doing things that he created them able to do, and punishes them for not worshipping him is a hypocritical jerk worthy of no-one's praise.
Terxpahseyton
Nobody
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-.-i see no one has read the first post and are just taking one look at the title and posting "God God bah" look try to read the first post and talk about whats on the post you making me laugh just read the post
Dude, epic fail.
It is thereby.
ParadigmShifter
Random Nonsense Generator
Truronian, there's this amazing thing called wikipedia you know 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel's_ontological_proof
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel's_ontological_proof
Truronian, there's this amazing thing called wikipedia you know
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel's_ontological_proof
Wowsers! An encyclopaedia on my computer, and all in one volume!
Existing is good, God is ubergood so God must exist. Never seen it written in maths before... I remain unconvinced. Axiom 5 is an obvious problem. Axioms 2-4 all have problems that link back to Axiom 1, I can certainly see counterexamples using properties that I consider positive but they might not fall under Godel's definition. Axiom 1 is too vague to tell.
ParadigmShifter
Random Nonsense Generator
It's amazing! It's like the cornish pasty of knowledge
I don't get where giving us free will has any bearing on whether he is benevolent or not. That quote above is totally baseless.
Were he all good, he would not create something with the potential for evil.
ParadigmShifter
Random Nonsense Generator
Is it benevolent to put an enormous button which has a sign saying: "Do not press this button" in a child's room? And then having a talking snake tell them to press the button?
Because that's what it seems like God did that with the apple on the tree of knowledge (I'm using a child analogy here since without knowledge I'm guessing Adam and Eve had child-like innocence - hence the walking around with dangly bits thing).
Because that's what it seems like God did that with the apple on the tree of knowledge (I'm using a child analogy here since without knowledge I'm guessing Adam and Eve had child-like innocence - hence the walking around with dangly bits thing).
Lillefix
I'm serious. You can.
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Because then we wouldn't have free will. And without free will you can't be perfect(that makes sense to me at least).
But is God not perfect? He certainly can't have free will if he is omni benevolent, as an all good God will always do the good thing... no choice in it.
Lillefix
I'm serious. You can.
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Believe me, I didn't say anything else made any sense. I'm just saying it makes sense to me that humans are able to do evil things.
Lone Wolf
Deity
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My Christian acquaintances said that Adam and Eve were punished not for eating the apple, but for trying to shift the blame to someone else after doing it (Adam on Eve, Eve on the Snake). Dunno how prevalent that option is among the believers, though.
Kennigit
proud 2 boxer
Sure people did. I did.
Now, I assume you didn't read my post. Beneath the ever-so-awesometastic analogy/reference that I use, I actually summarize the OP.
Gödel's proof is very interesting (and the article also gives a useful insight into modular logic), but I agree with Truronian that everything hinges on Axiom 1 and that's a quite strong axiom.
I doubt we can objectively assign the adjective "positive" to any property while using a definition of positive that makes sense.
I doubt we can objectively assign the adjective "positive" to any property while using a definition of positive that makes sense.
lovett
Deity
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The only halfway intelligible interpretation of free will is a compatibilist one. That we have free will because whatever we do is a function of who we are. How we became 'who we are' is largely irrelevant.
Consequently God could have made a humanity which had no propensity towards evil, without robbing humanity of 'free will'. The important thing is that we could be evil if we so wanted, but we would never so want.
Curious question: Does God have free will?
He obviously can't decide to do something that violates his omnibenevolence. But if he doesn't have free will, how can he be omnipotent?
That's not really an argument for this discussion, but rather a question I'd like to hear a theological explanation for.
He obviously can't decide to do something that violates his omnibenevolence. But if he doesn't have free will, how can he be omnipotent?
That's not really an argument for this discussion, but rather a question I'd like to hear a theological explanation for.
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