As I said before, I’ve read the entire thread, and I’m really having trouble wrapping my head around an understanding of how the “God” of this proof corresponds to the “God” in the “God=Love” definition you gave me earlier. The snarkiness is uncalled for, I think – and I hope you’ll address my original post, rather than addressing dalovindj, since it seems the two of you have some, uh, issues that might interfere.
Thanks!
Daniel
No problem, Daniel. Just take a look at my post to Sentient above, where I cite McHugh’s definitions. They explain the coherency of God, i.e., what distinguishes Him. All properties of God are necessarily negative (in the logical sense, not the lay sense), meaning that they exclude. McHugh explains why. Omniscience, for example, is actually unlimited knowledge (a logical negative).
Daniel
It is compatible with God is Love, because love is the facilitation of goodness. (You’ve probably seen where I’ve said that.) Thus, God is the unlimited Facilitator of Goodness. God is non-contingent, un-limited, non-temporal, in-finite, and so on.
God = Love = Facilitator of Goodness without limit
Libertarian, how does your above post change if I say that
Obviously, God=hate doesn’t map to our traditional understandings of God; but it seems to me that this statement is equally valid, given your axioms and definitions. If the axioms and definitions lead to such a counterintuitive conclusion, mightn’t there be a problem with them?
I reread your response to Sentient, and I guess here’s another place where I have a problem:
I’m not sure that this is a “traditional mystical conception” of God: it seems to me that God would therefore need to be un-aware, im-potent, non-present, im-mobile, and un-loving, since I can:
Am I misunderstanding this concept of positive descriptive terms? or ultimately, wouldn’t such a God be pretty un-impressive?
Daniel
So, if there is Love and the absence of love ( http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=161270 ), and God can only be described in negatives, does that mean that God cannot be described as Love, the light, the truth, the way, etc?
Daniel
Take a moment to read the entire McHugh article that I linked in that post. You’ll see that he addresses all of Martin’s complaints, including this one:
That’s very similar to yours.
Usually, when I offer links, it is preemptive research that was done for the purpose of conserving time and effort on the part of everyone involved. If McHugh doesn’t clear things up for you, let me know.
Robert
Absence of goodness, not absence of love, as when love is rejected by a free moral agent. Also, negative in the logical sense, not the lay sense. Please don’t reword or redact what I write.
I just read the parts of that article that look relevant, and I think the problem is that you’re going beyond the article when you say that “God=Love.” In fact, the proof in question denies that statement: ascribing love to God is ascribing a positive quality to God, and the proof doesn’t work if you can ascribe a positive quality to God.
I think you were trying to circumvent this problem by putting a negation in your statement, by saying that “God=the facilitation of love without boundaries.” But “the facilitation of love” is still a positive statement; if you can turn a positive descriptor into a negative one by adding, “without boundaries” to its end, why can’t you do the same thing with “God=hate”? For that matter, why couldn’t you say that “God=the facilitation of deep fry cooking without boundaries”?
So, while my objection about “God=Hate” is obviated by McHugh, you’ve brought the objection back by positing that “God=Love.”
If I’m wrong, please explain the difference between the two statements to me. I think they are both similar in that McHugh would disallow both of them.
Daniel
This description is not inconsistent with what Watts meant by a “mystical” conception of God as opposed to a western formal deity.
The Hindu conception of Brahman, for example, is not a “god” the way we think of gods, but a philosophical abstract denoting the ultimate truth whatever it is. Brahman has no characteristics or qualities which can be described because it has none which can be known.
The same can also be said of non-formal Buddhist mystical constructs. The ultimate ground of being has no attributes or qualities which can be assigned to it.
These tradition Eastern constructs are not seen as having moral qualities or being authoritative, they are sustainers of existence. Morality comes from humans.
In that sense, they are not completely incompatible with quantum physics.
Lib (or anyone on that side), if this has been answered, just reply with ‘answered’ (please) and I’ll search through the thread more.
So, either it is necessary that God exists or else it is not possible. But we have already said that it IS possible. Therefore, it is necessary that God exists. Since we have said that if God exists necessarily, then He exists in actuality
I hold that it is possible that God does not exist. Given that, is it still necessary that God exists? Or is it not possible that God does not exist.
I don’t think “goodness” or 'Love" can be rejected.
I think it would be closer to the truth to say, unperceived or unaware.
i.e. I never rejected love I was just unaware of its presence or existence.
i.e. I never rejected God I was just unaware of god’s presence or existence.
And is there such a entity as a “free moral agent?”
Since reality is an individual perception that may or may not coincide with others, we are left with textbook theories.
God=Supreme Being, Creator, Universal Force
Is there a God? To some there is.
Can we prove it? Yes and No.
Factoring in anomalous conditions we know of and the ones that may come in the future we can only work with what we know about on this planet.
We may be the most uncivilized and barbaric planet in the universe.
Nothing is impossible–nothing is possible. It depends on your personal reality.
Life is how we live–not how we think—maybe!
LET THE VOCABULARIC WARS CONTINUE.
** The Tao possesses all qualities, which is why it has none. Possessing all is equivalent to possessing none.
*The path that can be followed
is not the eternal path.
The truth that can be told
is not the eternal truth.
He who knows does not speak.
He who speaks does not know.*
My two favorite quotes from the Tao Te Ching.
In Buddhism and other eastern nondual, non-deity beliefs, the ground of all manifestation is emptiness, it is emptiness which allows for this existence.
And it is emptiness that is looking at this monitor.
God as emptiness cannot be referred to.
I think the root of the problem here is that modal logic has a highly specialized meaning for “existence” that doesn’t correspond well with the general meaning of the word.
Libertarian, for all his knowledge, seems (to me) confused between the two terms.
Even given the questionable premises inherent in the “proof of God”, demonstrating that God “exists” in the modal sense isn’t very meaningful. Since modal logic was apparantly designed to be able to handle possibilities as actual objects, it would be an easy mistake to confuse the two forms of existence.
This can probably all be cleared up when someone offers a clear and concise definition of existence, as I recall asking Lib to do several weeks ago. I don’t think he ever got around to responding (except by dismissively suggesting I was deliberately lying about my lack of comprehension of the concept).
I don’t think so. I think existence is not significantly changed. What part has changed, exactly? I know this will sound rude, but it is a convenient phrasing, what part of “possibly exists” do you not understand? What part of “necessarily exists” do you not understand? Honestly, perhaps we can work this through with a simpler example.
I don’t think it will even come close, myself.
Here’s my problem with Lib’s argument:
Logic, whether modal or propositional, is a game. A symbolic game. I define symbols. I define rules. I create long strings of symbols. I manipulate them. I observe what happens to them. Etc.
The real world, the world we experience, the world we see and touch and feel, is something else entirely. It is, at its lowest level, a raw data stream that our brains process, and which we have learned to categorize as “light”, “sound”, “touch”, “chairs”, “the SDMB”, etc.
Now one of the most, perhaps the most, important discovery in human history is that taking the symbolic game of logic and applying it to the world is a very useful thing to do. I take the abstract symbolic logic-game called “numbers” and it gives me a powerful tool for predicting how many tomatoes I will have if I put all the tomatoes in my left hand and all the tomatoes in my right hand into a bowl. I take the symbolic games of logic and statistics further, and I end up with the Scientific Method, which has been observed over and over again to be able to predict things. This leads to inventions, discoveries, and enormous amounts of human progress.
But still, logic games are just games. Symbols. They have no actual existence. They exist only inside their own rigidly defined system.
Which brings us to the present discussion. Lib is familiar with a variation of logic called “modal logic”. I don’t know much about it (although I read through the Stanford page that he linked to), but I’m perfectly willing to believe that it is an internally consistent. Modal logic is, as I understand it, an extension of the more familiar “propositional logic” which has been the basis of logic and mathematics for centuries. One of the features of modal logic is that it includes symbols named “it is necessary that” and “it is possible that”. These symbols (and remember, they are just symbols in a game) seem, intuitively, to have correlations to concepts in the Real World.
Lib now invents a new symbol in Modal Logic. Let’s call it G. He gives G a definition inside Modal Logic. He then applies the (consistent) rules of Modal Logic, and determines that by those rules, inside the context of Modal Logic, G is true. (“True”, in this context, is a Modal Logic Word. The fact that there is an also a word in the English language “true” which corresponds to a Real World concept of truth is, at this point, irrelevant.) I have no quibble with his right to invent this symbol, define it how he pleases, and manipulate it inside Modal Logic World.
Now comes the troubling part, however. Lib makes two additional claims. It is very important to note that these are not Modal Logic claims. In fact, these are not (as far as I know) rigorously defined claims of any sort. In fact, they are just plain old assertions. They may be assertions that various famous philosophers from the past/present have agreed upon, and argued for at great length, but as far as I’m concerned, they’re just assertions. I will call them L1 and L2. (L2 is meaningless without L1).
** L1: Modal Logic is able to relevantly model, and make predictions about, the real world.** In fact, it is able to do so so well, it can produce not just predictions, but absolute proofs, about the real world. And in fact, the Modal Logic concept of truth corresponds precisely with the real world concept of truth, and the Modal Logic concepts of “it is possible that” and “it is necessary that” correspond precisely with their intuitive, English-language, real world equivalents.
L2: Within the context of the Modal Logic – Real World correspondence established in L1, Lib’s concept of G is exactly equivalent to the real world idea of God.
I challenge Lib (or anyone else) to make a case for either L1 or L2. The problem with L1 is that not all consistent symbolic games are at all useful when it comes to describing and predicting the real world. For instance (very simple example here) it’s perfectly possible to do all of one’s math modulo 9. That is, 8+1 = 0. This is a perfectly consistent system. And in fact it will give you all sorts of nice useful results. But it will also tell you that if you have 4 apples and then 5 more, you’ll end up with no apples. The mere fact that modal logic is a consistent logical game, and an outgrowth of propositional logic, in no way convinces me that I should use it to describe or predict the real world (although honestly, this is a very confusing and subtle topic).
It’s easiest to criticize L1 and L2 together. L2 wants to set up a correspondence between a concept in the real world (God) and a concept in logic-world (G). Of course, setting up such correspondences is necessary and useful, and no science could ever be done without such correspondenes. For instance, suppose I wanted to predict how two billiard balls will bounce off of each other. I first learn the rules of the logic-game called Classical Newtonian Mechanics. I then come up with a way to set up correspondences between billiard balls on a table and hypothetical concepts of CNM. I then observe that the rules of CNM allows me to predict, with incredible accuracy, where the billiard balls go. Thus, I feel confident in my claim that CNM was a useful way to describe billiard balls (L1) and my analysis of what concepts in CNM correspond to billiard balls, and how (L2).
I didn’t just randomly assert “hey, Modal Logic is a useful, and in fact, perfect, way to discuss real world questions of theology and cosmology, and God corresponds perfectly to G”. I might as well say “hey, parabolic functions are a perfect way to describe absolute Evil, and this particular one here corresponds perfectly to Sloth.”
One last thing (and this is venturing more into imho territory than GD territory): I’m not aware of any situation in science, math, or philosophy in which a logical/symoblic game has been by-consensus-succesfully used to describe, predict, and/or prove a concept anywhere near as amorphous and ill-defined as “God”. In fact, although I am an agnostic, I think it cheapens one of the most profound ideas in all of human thought to say “well, this concept is so simple that it can be described, predicted, and proved by the rules of a game so simple that they can be described on a web page in 10 minutes”. Any concept of God that can be 100% encompassed and described by a symbol in a logical game is not one that lives up to the passion and depth of the human religious experience.
Of course, the moment I finish up a really long post, I think of something important that I left out.
There’s something tricky about this whole argument. Lib wants people to question his two assumptions about God, which correspond (in his Modal Logic world) to G->G and <>G (I think). What he’s saying is “it’s possible to usefully describe God in terms of Modal Logic. Now let’s have a lengthy discussion about what philosophical and theological concepts of God might correspond to what rules in Modal Logic”. And if you respond to him, you’re accepting his initial claim that it’s possible to usefully describe God in terms of Modal Logic. Which I don’t accept. So if you get into a long argument about whether it’s possible that God exists, with the assumption that you’re discussing the validity of the definition <>G, you’ve basically already agreed that Lib is playing a valid game in a valid arena, and you’re just arguing about the details.
On the drive home from work, I got to thinking about the Tao, and how the God of McHugh’s proof is much closer to the Tao than to the Judeo-Christian deity. After all, The Tao that can be described is not the eternal Tao, but in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Which of these entities, the Tao or God, can be described with the positive descriptor of “creative”?
McHugh’s God is not creative, for it is nothing positive. It can only be described in terms of what it is not. Similarly, I think McHugh would reject the idea that God=Love: in getting rid of the possibility that he proves the existence of a Supreme Evil, he also gets rid of the possibility of proving the existence of a Supreme Good.
That’s one objection, although it does make room for claiming that McHugh proves the existence of the Tao.
I’m still unclear that he does so, in any meaningful way. After all, the God (or the Tao) whose existence he proves necessarily does not be in time. It does not be in space. It has no mass, nor does it have energy, nor does it have a recognizeable identity from one moment to the next. It is not composed of some spiritual essence so far undiscovered by humanity. In addition to its lack of form or location, it can do nothing. It knows nothing. It is not aware of its surroundings, nor is it perceivable by any means by entities in the real world. It has never created anything, nor has it destroyed anything, nor has it affected anything. It is not benevolent; it is not malevolent. It does not care about anything. It does not respond to worship. It does not manifest itself in those who study it; it does not manifest itself in those who ignore it.
Why? Because the opposite of all my statements above would constitute a positive descriptor of this “God.”
Given that paragraph, what does it mean for such an entity to exist? I’m having trouble with this part of the proof.
Let us say, however, that there is a useful meaning to stating that such an entity exists. Nonetheless, it seems a far cry from proving what we normally think of as the existence of God. Normally we think of an entity who is probably sentient (as opposed to this being, who is necessarily nonsentient); who is omnipresent (as opposed to this being, who is nowhere in space); who is omnipotent (as opposed to powerless) and omniscient (as opposed to knowledgeless). We think of a being who is loving (as opposed to – you know the drill by now), who recognizes and rewards worship and good behavior. We think of a being that watches over, shelters us. We think of a being who created the universe.
McHugh’s proof does not touch even tangentially on such a being. Whether it is logically sound is a different question from whether it proves anything that sheds any theological or materialist insight.
Daniel