# IS God necessay? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 22, 2004, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-necessay/256369 "2004-07-22T16:41:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2004, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-necessay/256369/41 "2004-07-24T00:15:01Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > Oh, a _connection_. Well, then, if I gave you John, I gave you a connection. There is a direct connection between the concept of God as first cause and the first verses of John. Did you perhaps mean a _chain of inference_? For your information, I do not believe that the Bible is the word of God, and hold no opinion on the cosmological argument. That is not to say that I find the argument invalid. (The argument linked by the OP is valid, but suspect for the reasons I stated.) Do not assume that every man of faith is either religious or an idiot. The response was amusing. As far as I know, you’ve never used the first cause argument as a justification for belief in a particular deity - though many have. Perhaps they are part of the class of religious idiots, which, while not equivalent to the set of all believers, is alas not null. The OP’s argument is for a personal god (which seems unjustified) but not for any particular brand of personal god. Someday I may run into someone who has a decent argument that the caused creation of the universe implies the existence of their particular god - but I’m not holding my breath. ---
**Author:** ![fireworks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/59ef9b/32.png) [@fireworks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fireworks)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2004, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-necessay/256369/42 "2004-07-24T01:48:00Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > The antecedant makes sense, and in fact is the crux of the OP’s whole question: “Is God necessary?”. It is, after all, a question of modality; therefore, a modal proof is appropriate to address the question. The consequent, however, is a non sequitur. In any Kripke system, A and “A” are two different things: A is the logical element, i.e., the thing that “A” is _about_. If we assign to God the free variable G, then G represents God, while “G” is a statement about God. In a modal context, G might represent that God exists in actuality, while “G” is the proposition, “God exists in actuality”. In practice, the quotes are seldom used because it is easy to understand whether we are talking about a thing or about a statement about a thing. It is the same distinction that is made in linguistics, where a word and the thing it represents are two different entities. There is “tree”, the word, and tree, the tree. Math is the same. There is the number 2 and the numeral “2”, the latter being merely a codification of the former. The numeral “2” has no value; it is merely a squiggly mark that signifies a number that _does_ have a value. So, just because we can make a logical statement about God does not mean that God is a logical statement. I saw zero relevance there. God has Necessary Existence. The Axioms of Logic have necessary existence (as your link shows). Therefore, with regard to modality, they are _identical_. Since you are not speaking about anything else, then we’re done there. > [@](#): > > Well, thank goodness we’re not to worry about that because if we did, we would have a contradiction. God is either necessary or contingent, but cannot be both. Not true. There is nothing incoherent with sometimes being contingent upon something else and having necessary existence, as long as that other thing has necessary existence. It follows necessarily, anyways. > [@](#): > > But if it is given that God has logically necessary existence, then the question in the thread title in answered. Sure. We have not proven the existence of any prelimenary idea that we have of “God”. We can call “God”, “asdkjfasldj”, it matters not. All we need to acknowledge is that whatever it is, it has necessary existence. Well, thank goodness we’re not to worry about that because if we did, we would have a contradiction. God is either necessary or contingent, but cannot be both. Well, that depends on what we look at, the tools with which we look, and the scope of what it is we are to determine. As with anything else, we can ask any number of questions about God and make any number of determinations. For example, if x is necessary, then we know that there exists for every x some y such that y = x. ([Proof](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/actualism/proofNE.html)). But if it is given that God has logically necessary existence, then the question in the thread title in answered. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2004, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-necessay/256369/43 "2004-07-24T10:42:42Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Someday I may run into someone who has a decent argument that the caused creation of the universe implies the existence of their particular god - but I’m not holding my breath. Well. See, thing is, you could write a proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem using nothing but the five Peano axioms. Of course, it would have manifold lemmas spawning a multitude of corollaries, recursing often to establish new inferences that serve as premises, and be enough volumes to fill a library. Often, when these sorts of proofs are given, the logician then writes commentary in which he draws upon conclusions from other —read: unrelated — arguments to make statements that, on the surface, seem to come out of nowhere. I’m not saying you’re doing this, necessarily, but if you aren’t careful, it will be like saying of Andrew Wiles’ famous proof, “But sir, you have failed to establish that zero is a number.” ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2004, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-necessay/256369/44 "2004-07-24T11:02:29Z")
> [@Fireworks](#): > > I saw zero relevance there. Then we are at an impasse. You asserted: “there is no difference between God and an axiom of logic”. I explained that “because we can make a logical statement about God does not mean that God is a logical statement”. The only thing that I can even imagine that might be missing to connect it all for you is that you might not know that an axiom is itself a logical statement — merely one that is accepted without proof. > [@](#): > > The Axioms of Logic have necessary existence (as your link shows). That is not what the link shows. It shows, as I said, that for every x, there must be some y such that y = x. In other words, it shows that necessary existence obtains in se. > [@](#): > > Therefore, with regard to modality, they are identical. Oy. Even giving you your dubious point for the sake of argument only raises another fallacy, a fallacy of composition. It is not necessarily the case that two entities sharing a common attribute share every attribute in common. Otherwise, there would be no difference between the sun and a tennis ball, both of which are yellow and spherical. > [@](#): > > There is nothing incoherent with sometimes being contingent upon something else and having necessary existence, as long as that other thing has necessary existence. That’s ridiculous. A contingent proposition is one that might be true in some circumstances but false in others. A necessary proposition is one that is always true. ([Cite](http://www.fact-index.com/m/mo/modal_logic.html)) For example, the statement that the ratio between a circle’s circumference and its diameter is pi is true if the circle is drawn on a flat plane, but false if the circle is drawn on a sphere or saddle. That is a contingent statement. But A -\> A is always true. It is a necessary statement. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2004, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-necessay/256369/45 "2004-07-24T11:34:29Z")
Correction: > [@](#): > > It shows, as I said, that for every x, there must be some y such that y = x. It shows that, for every _necessary_ x… ---
**Author:** ![fireworks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/59ef9b/32.png) [@fireworks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fireworks)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2004, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-necessay/256369/46 "2004-07-24T17:32:29Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > Then we are at an impasse. You asserted: “there is no difference between God and an axiom of logic”. I explained that “because we can make a logical statement about God does not mean that God is a logical statement”. The only thing that I can even imagine that might be missing to connect it all for you is that you might not know that an axiom is itself a logical statement — merely one that is accepted without proof. Not at all. But I’m tired of explaining it. That’s my fault, not yours. > [@](#): > > That is not what the link shows. It shows, as I said, that for every x, there must be some y such that y = x. In other words, it shows that necessary existence obtains in se. What? Are you arguing that the axioms of logic do not have necessary existence? All worlds that do not have the axioms of logic, we disregard. They are impossible worlds. We are not concerned with the impossible. [qoute]Oy. Even giving you your dubious point for the sake of argument only raises another fallacy, a fallacy of composition. It is not necessarily the case that two entities sharing a common attribute share every attribute in common. Otherwise, there would be no difference between the sun and a tennis ball, both of which are yellow and spherical. [/quote] Not at all, I said that with \*_regard to modality_, they are the same. They both share the same modal status. Necessary existence. No fallacy in there. > [@](#): > > That’s ridiculous. A contingent proposition is one that might be true in some circumstances but false in others. A necessary proposition is one that is always true. ([Cite](http://www.fact-index.com/m/mo/modal_logic.html)) For example, the statement that the ratio between a circle’s circumference and its diameter is pi is true if the circle is drawn on a flat plane, but false if the circle is drawn on a sphere or saddle. That is a contingent statement. But A -\> A is always true. It is a necessary statement. You’re missing the point. If something is contingent upon something else, then it depends upon that for its existence. For example, consider being A that has property B (no other being can have this property, let us say). Property B cannot exist if being A does not exist. So, property B is _contingent upon A_, but its existence can still be necessary (existence in all possible worlds), if the existence of A is necessary. It is completely different to suggest that x is contingent upon y, than saying that x’s existence is contingent. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2004, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-necessay/256369/47 "2004-07-24T18:29:31Z")
That’s a reification of the property’s ontology. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-necessay/256369.md?page=2)