Tomorrow, in spite of the fact that all of your comments are far more interesting.
Proofs that God is imaginary
- Thread starter eastsidebagel
- Start date
Fifty
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Let me spell out what I mean when I say that if "infinite" means "infinite with respect to everything", then your definition of god can't exist.
First of all, I take your view on the relationship between God and rationality to be that the thing itself, God, still obeys at least the laws of logic. Its that we cannot come to know that thing through logic and reason alone. If that is a mischaracterization of your view, let me know.
Given that, it seems like construing "infinite" as "infinite with respect to everything" makes God unable to exist. I'll just call this notion of infinite "infinite*" so you know where I am using it in that way:
1) If God is infinite*, then he is infinitely good.
2) If God is infinite*, then he is infinitely evil.
3) Infinitely good and infinitely evil are mutually contradictory properties.
4) It is logically impossible for something to possess mutually contradictory properties.
5) So an infinite* God is impossible.
If you don't like talk of good and evil, it is easy to come up with more mundane examples:
1) If God is infinite*, then he is infinitely arrogant.
2) If God is infinite*, then he is infinitely humble.
3) Infinitely arrogant and infinitely humble are mutually contradictory properties.
4) It is logically impossible for something to possess mutually contradictory properties.
5) So an infinite* God is impossible.
or:
1) If God is infinite*, then he is infinitely wide.
2) If God is infinite*, then he is infinitely narrow.
3) Infinitely wide and infinitely narrow are mutually contradictory properties.
4) It is logically impossible for something to possess mutually contradictory properties.
5) So an infinite* God is impossible.
Given my understanding of your view on the relationship between God and logic/reason, I don't think you would be inclined here to say something about how God really can possess mutually contradictory properties.
If you do say that God himself (and not just our way of gaining knowledge/understanding of him) is not bound by logic/reason, then I'm not sure discussion of God thus construed is even possible. You could say anything you want about him and you'd be right. And I don't consider that fact to be indicative of some deep fundamental truth/insight... I just think it means that your definition of God is rigged so that we can't really say anything about it, which is no more insightful or interesting than saying I can prove the existence of a square circle. Such a definition of God deserves to be taken no more seriously than a definition according to which God is an infinitely good child rapist who performs a magic trick that makes us falter every time we try to reason our way to a realization of his existence, or some similar nonsense definition.
So that's why I think you ought not mean infinite* when you say that God is infinite.
Note to other readers: If you reply to the above, it is unlikely that I will respond to your reply unless you are birdjaguar, or atticus, or plotinus (out of the people who have been participating in this thread lately). just an FYI.
Unfortunately, infinite simply doesn't mean "infinite with respect to everything". (In effect, "infinite with respect to everything" is a meaningless phrase unless a proper definition of infinite is given to make it fit within that confine. As the literal meaning of infinite is 'without end' - or beginning - that makes a refining definition necessary in order to attach any meaning to such a phrase. Also, if you take infinite to stand for 'infinitely wide, small...' etc. the original definition of infinite, eternal, permanent and unchanging, as given by Birdjaguar, takes on an entirely different meaning, whereas infinite within the context of infinite, eternal, permanent and unchanging already gives a clear indication of how infinite is meant.)
But indeed, a clarification by Birdjaguar himself would be preferable above all speculation.
Looks like the standard of debate here rose exponentially - good!
The problem here is that there are two quite different ways of thinking about the nature and existence of God, or indeed of anything.
The first way could be called an existentialist mode of inquiry. It begins by asking whether something exists, and then proceeds to asking what sort of thing it is.
The second way could be called an essentialist mode of inquiry. It begins by asking what sort of thing something is, and then proceeds to asking whether it exists.
You seem to be taking an existentialist approach. You're assuming that the word "God" has some kind of referent, and saying that we can't know much about this referent - in particular, you are saying that it is jumping the gun to attribute various properties to this referent from the outset, without first going out and (somehow) ascertaining that it actually has these properties. But in your view, it is impossible to do that, so we're stuck.
But of course, those you're criticising aren't doing this, because they are essentialists. They are defining what they mean by "God" first, and only then asking whether a thing that meets that definition exists.
If we bear in mind the difference between these two approaches and make it clear which one we're following, these confusions might be avoided. Personally it seems to me that the existentialist approach is best in a mystical or spiritual sort of context, where someone actually experiences something that seems to them divine in some way. In such a case, the basic datum is this experience, and the procedure is to ask what entity (if any) actually was experienced. But I would say that outside this sort of case, an essentialist procedure makes the most sense. How can we ask whether something exists if we don't define it first? If we don't define it, we don't even know what sort of thing we're talking about.
"Eternal" is traditionally taken to mean either infinitely old, or outside time altogether, so neither old nor new.
Don't worry - you can't take everything Fifty says seriously...
Right, this all makes sense. The standard answer would of course be that God doesn't possess every property to a certain degree, but only certain ones. Which ones? An obvious answer is all positive properties. In each of the pairs you listed, there's one positive property and one negative one, such that the negative one is just an absence of the positive one. Evil is a lack of goodness, arrogance is a lack of humility, and narrowness is a lack of width. God possess the positive properties to an infinite degree. We can say the same thing in another way by defining the negative properties as limits: to be evil is to be limited in goodness, etc. But God's infinity means he lacks all limits, so he lacks these supposed properties altogether.
This would tie in with the traditional arguments for God's infinity. Bear in mind that no-one thought God was infinite until the fourth century AD; before then, it was usual to think of God as limited (Origen, for example, was fairly clear on this). The first person to argue for God's infinity was Gregory of Nyssa (in his Life of Moses, but I don't have more specific references to hand). He said that if God is limited then there must be something limiting him, in which case this other thing would be greater than him. That is impossible, so God must be limitless and thus infinite. Scotus (at some points) uses a similar argument: what is finite could (in principle) be excelled. But God is defined as the most perfect being that there could be. So he cannot be finite.
However, Scotus later develops a notion of finitude/infinity that doesn't allow this argument. He points out that while it may be true that being limited by something else entails that you are finite, it doesn't follow that not being limited by something else entails that you are not finite (it's like saying that being painted red entails that you're red; therefore not being painted red entails that you're not red - but blood isn't painted red, yet it is still red). So Scotus develops an alternative understanding of what infinity is. For him, it is not relational, as it is for Aquinas; it is an intrinsic property. He thinks that to say that God is infinite is to say that he has each of his properties to a superlative degree.
Scotus thinks that God's infinity is his primary characteristic. It is because God is infinite that we can know that he has the other perfections. Aquinas, of course, takes a different view. He thinks that God's primary characteristic is his simplicity, and he derives God's other characteristics from that. This includes infinity. A perfectly simple being will have each property that he has in the simplest possible way. But the simplest way to have knowledge, power, etc is to have them to an infinite degree (to have them to a finite degree would require further explanation - why that degree?).
All of this is important because it shows that you need to be very careful about what you mean by "infinite" - not only which properties God has in an infinite way, but what it even means to say that something has a property in an infinite way in the first place.
Another thing, going back to the point about God having only the positive qualities. You can use this definition as the basis for an argument for God's possibility. Leibniz constructed a proof along these lines. The idea is that we define God as a perfectly simple being that possesses every perfection. This means that he possesses every simple property to a perfect degree. But by definition, perfectly simple properties are compatible with each other: they can be instantiated in the same individual. This is because, for two properties to be incompatible, there must be some simpler property such that one of them contains it and the other contains its negation. For example, the property of being arrogant involves the property of thinking that you're really great. But the property of being humble involves the property of not thinking that you're really great. So once you unpack these properties a bit, you find an explicit contradiction. But simple properties, by definition, can't be unpacked in this way. They don't consist of simpler properties at all. So a being which exemplifies all, and only, simple properties must be possible - its definition contains no contradiction, either explicit or implicit. This remains the case even if those properties are all exemplified to an infinite degree. So such a being is possible.
Whether or not this proof works, I'm not sure. Leibniz thought that the ontological argument would work if you could show that God is possible, which Descartes never did; he thought that by supplying the proof outlined above he had made good the deficiency and that the ontological argument could now be defended as a deductive argument for God's existence. I'm pretty sure he was wrong about that part.
The problem here is that there are two quite different ways of thinking about the nature and existence of God, or indeed of anything.
The first way could be called an existentialist mode of inquiry. It begins by asking whether something exists, and then proceeds to asking what sort of thing it is.
The second way could be called an essentialist mode of inquiry. It begins by asking what sort of thing something is, and then proceeds to asking whether it exists.
You seem to be taking an existentialist approach. You're assuming that the word "God" has some kind of referent, and saying that we can't know much about this referent - in particular, you are saying that it is jumping the gun to attribute various properties to this referent from the outset, without first going out and (somehow) ascertaining that it actually has these properties. But in your view, it is impossible to do that, so we're stuck.
But of course, those you're criticising aren't doing this, because they are essentialists. They are defining what they mean by "God" first, and only then asking whether a thing that meets that definition exists.
If we bear in mind the difference between these two approaches and make it clear which one we're following, these confusions might be avoided. Personally it seems to me that the existentialist approach is best in a mystical or spiritual sort of context, where someone actually experiences something that seems to them divine in some way. In such a case, the basic datum is this experience, and the procedure is to ask what entity (if any) actually was experienced. But I would say that outside this sort of case, an essentialist procedure makes the most sense. How can we ask whether something exists if we don't define it first? If we don't define it, we don't even know what sort of thing we're talking about.
"Eternal" is traditionally taken to mean either infinitely old, or outside time altogether, so neither old nor new.
Don't worry - you can't take everything Fifty says seriously...
Right, this all makes sense. The standard answer would of course be that God doesn't possess every property to a certain degree, but only certain ones. Which ones? An obvious answer is all positive properties. In each of the pairs you listed, there's one positive property and one negative one, such that the negative one is just an absence of the positive one. Evil is a lack of goodness, arrogance is a lack of humility, and narrowness is a lack of width. God possess the positive properties to an infinite degree. We can say the same thing in another way by defining the negative properties as limits: to be evil is to be limited in goodness, etc. But God's infinity means he lacks all limits, so he lacks these supposed properties altogether.
This would tie in with the traditional arguments for God's infinity. Bear in mind that no-one thought God was infinite until the fourth century AD; before then, it was usual to think of God as limited (Origen, for example, was fairly clear on this). The first person to argue for God's infinity was Gregory of Nyssa (in his Life of Moses, but I don't have more specific references to hand). He said that if God is limited then there must be something limiting him, in which case this other thing would be greater than him. That is impossible, so God must be limitless and thus infinite. Scotus (at some points) uses a similar argument: what is finite could (in principle) be excelled. But God is defined as the most perfect being that there could be. So he cannot be finite.
However, Scotus later develops a notion of finitude/infinity that doesn't allow this argument. He points out that while it may be true that being limited by something else entails that you are finite, it doesn't follow that not being limited by something else entails that you are not finite (it's like saying that being painted red entails that you're red; therefore not being painted red entails that you're not red - but blood isn't painted red, yet it is still red). So Scotus develops an alternative understanding of what infinity is. For him, it is not relational, as it is for Aquinas; it is an intrinsic property. He thinks that to say that God is infinite is to say that he has each of his properties to a superlative degree.
Scotus thinks that God's infinity is his primary characteristic. It is because God is infinite that we can know that he has the other perfections. Aquinas, of course, takes a different view. He thinks that God's primary characteristic is his simplicity, and he derives God's other characteristics from that. This includes infinity. A perfectly simple being will have each property that he has in the simplest possible way. But the simplest way to have knowledge, power, etc is to have them to an infinite degree (to have them to a finite degree would require further explanation - why that degree?).
All of this is important because it shows that you need to be very careful about what you mean by "infinite" - not only which properties God has in an infinite way, but what it even means to say that something has a property in an infinite way in the first place.
Another thing, going back to the point about God having only the positive qualities. You can use this definition as the basis for an argument for God's possibility. Leibniz constructed a proof along these lines. The idea is that we define God as a perfectly simple being that possesses every perfection. This means that he possesses every simple property to a perfect degree. But by definition, perfectly simple properties are compatible with each other: they can be instantiated in the same individual. This is because, for two properties to be incompatible, there must be some simpler property such that one of them contains it and the other contains its negation. For example, the property of being arrogant involves the property of thinking that you're really great. But the property of being humble involves the property of not thinking that you're really great. So once you unpack these properties a bit, you find an explicit contradiction. But simple properties, by definition, can't be unpacked in this way. They don't consist of simpler properties at all. So a being which exemplifies all, and only, simple properties must be possible - its definition contains no contradiction, either explicit or implicit. This remains the case even if those properties are all exemplified to an infinite degree. So such a being is possible.
Whether or not this proof works, I'm not sure. Leibniz thought that the ontological argument would work if you could show that God is possible, which Descartes never did; he thought that by supplying the proof outlined above he had made good the deficiency and that the ontological argument could now be defended as a deductive argument for God's existence. I'm pretty sure he was wrong about that part.
Very elucidating. One might subject there's no proof that God is infinite or infinitely simple, though. I see no reason not to state that God is indeed limited. Once again, however, this does not go beyond pure mental exercise. (God maybe such and so, but we have no evidence to base any founded conclusion upon.) Also, I still think such approaches as what have been mentioned so far as to what God is (or might be) are too anthropomorphic. (Origines may have taken a step in the right direction, but we're not there yet.)
Good lord, you can't be serious. god is an unthinking, unfeeling stone that cannot be destroyed in that case.
Imperialmajesty
Emperor
My ignorance of mathematics is startling, lol. Good point. Anyway, I like your last paragraph.
Imperialmajesty
Emperor
@ Bolded, well, until Bird does just that we can only speculate... however, being cynical, how do we know that he will not simply piece together a logically coherent definition from the previous posts?
Imperialmajesty
Emperor
Not really, a basic glance at geology shows as much.
Imperialmajesty
Emperor
Huh, thanks for the explanation. I learned something new today.
And I also came to my own personal conclusion that my own existentialist knee jerk is in fact very untenable. Again, thank you.
You’d think that after 16,000 posts of which probably 5,000 were about some aspect of religion, I would learn better impulse control. Obviously not. Thank you for all of your interesting responses. At this point I am not going to try to respond individually to all of them at once or necessarily at all.
The purpose of having a definition of god is to establish a starting point for additional ideas about the nature of things. Such starting points are important because you can never really escape them. It will color all higher level thinking. All additional ideas must conform to the most basic foundation or you can get very tangled in your ideas.
My phrasing of “god is that which is infinite, eternal, permanent and unchanging is not written to be taken as literally as some of you would like it to be. It is a bit loose and in some aspects redundant. It is meant to convey an idea that is generally foreign to what we experience on a daily basis. Two other concepts are buried in the definition, but perhaps not obviously so. Some of you have noted them. One is “Real” with a capital R and the other is “Everything” with a capital E. The use of capitals refers to an absolute rather than relative use of the word.
My definition “points to” something that exists that is not bound by time or space or any physical dimensionality or physical properties, and that is permanent and never changes. It is all (Everything) that is Real (permanent and unchanging). Hence my frequent “God alone is,” posts. God is all that is Real. God is all encompassing in all dimensions, Everything with a capital E. But is also beyond any duality of thought such as good and evil, up down, small large, beyond (but not as in distance) any contradictions or polarity that we find in our vocabulary.
If you insist I prove it, I’ll say, not only, I can’t, but I don’t have to, I believe it to be true and that is sufficient. You can tell me it is a stupid belief and not practical and silly and contradicts science etc. Well, I’m not sure it contradicts science, but that is another question altogether.
Now such a belief is certainly not original with me or even new. It underlies Hinduism and Buddhism, as well as, Sufism and probably a few more. Each of those have built different fancy structures on a very similar base. What is important, though, is what one does with such a foundation and how it can be useful in organizing one’s world. How could such a definition have any useful meaning in a world clearly defined by time, space and discrete matter? How do people fit into such a view? We are bound by time and space and we do change. For the moment I’ve ignored the important question of nothingness.
Plotinus, as is typical, shows up with clear thoughtful insight in how one should think about such weighty matters. Thanks for contributing.
The purpose of having a definition of god is to establish a starting point for additional ideas about the nature of things. Such starting points are important because you can never really escape them. It will color all higher level thinking. All additional ideas must conform to the most basic foundation or you can get very tangled in your ideas.
My phrasing of “god is that which is infinite, eternal, permanent and unchanging is not written to be taken as literally as some of you would like it to be. It is a bit loose and in some aspects redundant. It is meant to convey an idea that is generally foreign to what we experience on a daily basis. Two other concepts are buried in the definition, but perhaps not obviously so. Some of you have noted them. One is “Real” with a capital R and the other is “Everything” with a capital E. The use of capitals refers to an absolute rather than relative use of the word.
My definition “points to” something that exists that is not bound by time or space or any physical dimensionality or physical properties, and that is permanent and never changes. It is all (Everything) that is Real (permanent and unchanging). Hence my frequent “God alone is,” posts. God is all that is Real. God is all encompassing in all dimensions, Everything with a capital E. But is also beyond any duality of thought such as good and evil, up down, small large, beyond (but not as in distance) any contradictions or polarity that we find in our vocabulary.
If you insist I prove it, I’ll say, not only, I can’t, but I don’t have to, I believe it to be true and that is sufficient. You can tell me it is a stupid belief and not practical and silly and contradicts science etc. Well, I’m not sure it contradicts science, but that is another question altogether.
Now such a belief is certainly not original with me or even new. It underlies Hinduism and Buddhism, as well as, Sufism and probably a few more. Each of those have built different fancy structures on a very similar base. What is important, though, is what one does with such a foundation and how it can be useful in organizing one’s world. How could such a definition have any useful meaning in a world clearly defined by time, space and discrete matter? How do people fit into such a view? We are bound by time and space and we do change. For the moment I’ve ignored the important question of nothingness.
Plotinus, as is typical, shows up with clear thoughtful insight in how one should think about such weighty matters. Thanks for contributing.
Fifty
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm still confused by this definition. It seems on this definition, there are some things that would count as God, that you (or I or anyone else) would not consider worthy of the title "God". For instance, the number 2. It exists (at least most people who study the ontology of numbers think that they exist... there are some people who disagree called fictionalists), it is not bound by time or space, it has no physical dimensionality or physical properties, and it is permanent and never changing.
So do you think there is anything that distinguishes your view from someone who says, for instance, that God is a caterpillar who lives in his ear and who disappears every time you try to find evidence of his existence?
The number 2 only exists within the context of differentiated entities and within the context of a physical world which by its very natiure is transitory and impermanent. Counting is a process of naming individual separate items from which our mathematical ideas grew.
As far as the caterpiler goes, at an abstract level probably not. The FSM is of similar ilk. The value of foundational assumptions is not really the assumptions themselves, but what ones does with them and how it defines ones world. It is merely the beginning. The assumption that reasond thought leads to real Truth is no better than the FSM or your caterpilar unless it shapes additional thinking and defines the way one interacts with our world.
Atticus raised the question of “nothingness”. “Nothing” is all that is defined by time, space finiteness and change.
The physical world from the perspective of god is “nothing” as in, not Real. It is finite, transitory, impermanent and an illusion. It is an appearance of separateness and individuality that is only “visible” from the perspective of limited consciousness found in the physical world. All that is Real and really exists is the oneness of god. If we had an “improved” consciousness, then the illusion would disappear and we would all experience the single Reality that is god.
The physical world from the perspective of god is “nothing” as in, not Real. It is finite, transitory, impermanent and an illusion. It is an appearance of separateness and individuality that is only “visible” from the perspective of limited consciousness found in the physical world. All that is Real and really exists is the oneness of god. If we had an “improved” consciousness, then the illusion would disappear and we would all experience the single Reality that is god.
Fifty
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As it happens, most people who have studied putative abstract objects (and numbers in particular) regard them as not in some way dependent on our physical world (so for instance 2+2=4 even if the physical universe had never happened, or if nothing in it had ever differentiated into things that can be counted, or if no sentient being ever actually existed). So your view about numbers is controversial to say the least. But thats beyond the scope of this thread. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that fictionalism is false and that the number 2 really does exist, and really is an abstract object that is in no way dependent on or a constituent of the physical world. Then would you say that the number 2 is God (or is a God), or would you then revise your definition of God?
This is an odd sort of quasi-nihilism. I wonder if you actually have internalized this thought process and accept it throughout your life, or is it just a useful recourse to be reserved for academic discussions? Its one thing to say that there is no fundamental difference between an assumption that reason leads to truth or that the caterpillar leads to truth when we're just idly discussing these things on the forums, but how do you square that with your everyday existence? Suppose some subordinate at work came in and told you that the caterpillar says to give him a raise... do you really think that he is fundamentally just as right as you are, and that the only grounds on which you refuse his request is that you just don't accept his worldview, while acknowledging that it is equal to yours on intellectual grounds? What an odd way to live. Of course, I can't convince you of the irrationality of such a manner of thinking because you refuse to accept rationality as a starting point, but that strikes me as rather like someone just insisting that 2+2=5... I might not be able to convince him but that doesn't make him right, and that doesn't put his position on equal intellectual grounds with the position that 2+2=4
Are these all just more base-level assumptions of yours and thus immune from criticism, or do you think there is actually a rational defense of this view?
Perfection
The Great Head.
God is nothing?
I would find it difficult to hold both as true. They are very different types assumptions. My definition of god has utility in shaping a view of existence. Your ideas about the number 2 leads to expanding itself to an infinity of numbers and I do not see what that buys you in terms of making sense of things. Maybe you can build a model of existence from it, but I'm not sure I could. I can see how such a discussion would fit into a philosophy class, but it doesn't seem to me to answer any of life's questions. Assumptions that don't lead to where they can affect one's life, seem pretty silly. That is how I see the FSM and pink unicorn arguments. Now while I don't agree with biblical inerrancy, as a fundamental assumption, it does provide a sound basis for organizing one's world.
I am working on the other two parts, but I will not be able to finish them tonight.
No perf you've got it backwards. God is Everything and the universe is the manifestation of the nothing that is latent within the Everything.
How does what you propose answer any of life's questions?
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