Hmm… Well, there’s still a tiny problem, though.
If you allow the possibility, then you allow the 2nd inference, ~~G. The necessary existence of God is not implied until the 9th inference, G, and it is validly derived. Even materialists like Suber say so. If you intend to deny a validly derived inference, then we won’t have much of anything to talk about.
Czar wrote:
Sure. I agree. But between the possibility (inference 2) and the necessity (inference 9) are six other inferences. Unless one of them does not follow logically, there is a chain of inference that connects possibility to necessity and gives it meaning.
Perhaps it is “natural,” but it has nothing to do with what I said. According to my understanding of McHugh (who explains himself quite well – which is why I’m surprised you contradict him as you do), to assert anything positive about God opens you up to Professor Martin’s charges that such a god is logically impossible because such a God is self-contradictory. Let’s review McHugh’s two axioms again:
According to McHugh’s argument, love is positive, but so is hate. Creation is positive, but so is destruction. Any descriptive term that is “understood through an act of direct conceptualization” is positive. His examples of negative terms include things like non-fast, non-hot, and, later, non-temporal, non-spatial.
These are formulated very differently from your formulations:
When you say that God’s knowledge is unbounded, you’re necessarily saying that God knows what I had for breakfast – otherwise, his knowledge has a limit. When you say that God’s power is without limit, you’re necessarily saying that God could turn my nose into a cabbage. These are clearly positive statements.
And when you say that it’s the negation of impossibility, I fail to see how this is different from saying that God is not non-blue, McHugh’s example of a double-negative, therefore positive, descriptive term.
This is where you diverge from McHugh. Your argument may still be valid, even if you disagree with McHugh on what terms apply to God. But if it’s valid to say that God is love without bounds, is is not equally valid to say that God is hate without bounds? You may no longer rely on McHugh’s defense, that “Hate” is a positive descriptor, because you yourself have allowed a positive descriptor, inasmuch as you allow God to be loving.
I will agree with you that McHugh would allow for a sinless God, because “sinning” is a positive descriptor, just like “doing good” is a positive descriptor. The God of McHugh’s proof is virtueless and sinless both. If you alter that aspect of his proof, then the God may equally be full of virtue or full of sin.
As you eloquently state in your post, “creation” is not positive, and “destruction” is not negative. You must find some other way to define your God, if you want Him to be the one and not the other.
Daniel
But the whole chain falls apart unless we agree on using your definition of “God”.
Czar
That’s been thoroughly covered. The argument begins with IF.
Well, just indulge us, okay?
— Benedict de Spinoza
The necessary existence of God is implied at G -> G, ie. the very first step. If G=NE, this is so. I posit that G and NE are not identical, and so G->~G.
I am hoping to find some way which satisfies me that God is contingent, or can be ascribed a positive descriptive term, or whether you can conceive of the thing you think you’re conceiving of, or some other objection altogether.
I’ve been thinking about this as well, and it seems there MUST be a problem in defining God as Necessary or Impossible. After all, isn’t the point of modal logic to figure out whether things are impossible, contingent, or necessary? How, then, can you define away one of these three possibilities? It really sounds to me like begging the question: if you’re trying to figure out the status of an entity, modal logic seems like it would fall apart if you were allowed to exclude one of its three possible statuses in the definition.
But I can’t quite wrap my brain around it.
Daniel
Daniel wrote:
Well, one is damned if one does and damned if one doesn’t. If one uses technical language, one is pedant. If one uses lay language, one is daft. In talking of God’s knowledge, we’re talking of a predicate, not of God. When I make that distinction, I’m playing word games. When you make it, you are clarifying.
Impossibility is already negated. Citation that necessary is derived from not possible not. See page 23.
Once again… No, sorry… More like fifty times again, this is not a proof of “my God” or the “Christian God”. A God with attributes other than necessary existence is another topic.
Sentient wrote:
But the second term of any implication is true if and only if its first term is true. And we don’t know about that until the conclusion.
It is the implication as a whole that is accepted or discarded, namely that if it is the case that God exists, then and only then but not yet decided is the case that God exists necessarily.
“If 4 is even, then it is divisible by 2” is not declaring that 4 is even.
** SentientMeat**
wrote:
God can’t be contingent on human thought because human thought doesn’t know anything. Human thought is the book that is read not the reader.
Or that it is divisible by 2. Sorry.
Daniel, please consider this.
If you are to prove that a triangle is equilateral, have you begged the question by first defining what you mean by equilateral triangle? If so, then you must toss out every proof in every branch of math.
Once you have defined equilateral triangle, your proof may proceed by saying something like, “If this triangle is equilateral, then…”. That’s exactly what the modal ontological proof does.
“If 4 is even, then it is divisible by 3” is the analogy here, is it not?
I posit that “even” is not identical to “divisible by 3”. Were you to disagree, I would accuse you of using at least one of the terms incorrectly.
I’ve accused you neither of pedantry nor daftness, so dispense with that, please. Instead, clarify how saying that “God knows what Daniel had for breakfast” is not making a positive statement about God, according to McHugh’s proof; how saying, “God is compassionate” is not making a positive statement about God.
The only thing I’d accuse you of when using technical language is of misusing it: the more I read about McHugh, the less I suspect you understand what he’s arguing. But I think it’s an honest mistake on your part; I don’t think you’re playing games.
Daniel
Of course not. But this is not equivalent.
Traditional logic systems have two outcomes: a statement is true, or a statement is false.
If your definition of the entity described in the statement includes the phrase, “any statement including this definition may not be considered false,” then your proof will necessarily find the statement to be true, because otherwise, you’re not dealing with the entity described in the statement.
But you’re not allowed to do this. You can’t throw out the possibility of falseness using your definition.
I don’t see why, in modal logic (with three rather than two outcomes), you’d be allowed to throw out the possibility of contingency in your definition.
Daniel
McHugh is saying nothing that hasn’t been said for four hundred years. Suspect whatever you wish.
So, have we determined whether or not this “God of Necessary Existence” is God the Creator, or the God of Love? Have we determined if this “God of Necessary Existence” is even compatible with God the Creator, the God of Love, etc.?
I do not feel they are any less distinct at all.
“Does the corner store carry beer?” Is it possible? Sure! We can imagine stores that carry such things. Else the question wouldn’t make any sense.
I remain puzzled at your objection.