Anselm's Proof

>>1763748

It is more so like this.

1. God = That which no greater can be conceived than.
2. Consider your conception of God, does it include existence or not?
3. If not then you have the wrong concept in mind, because it is greater to exist than to not exist.
4. This leaves "yes" as your only possible answer, God necessarily exists.

I think this argument fails because it does not distinguish between meaning and reference to a rigorous enough degree. Just because I agree that "God" means a being that necessarily exists does'nt mean I think that the term "God" actually succeeds in referencing such a being.

Modal Ontological arguments based on Anselm's on the other hand tend to appear sound so as long as you buy into the systems of logic being utilized in them.

Leftow has an interesting modal interpretation of the argument, though I think that it may stray too far from the actual argument for the sake of making it work.

https://youtu.be/R_3Lwk6V3qY

Symbolized with G as: "God exists",◊ as our 'possible' modal operator, □ as our 'necessary modal operator, and -> as our conditional.

1. (P -> Q) -> ( ◊P -> ◊ Q)
2. G -> □ G
3. (G -> □ G) -> (◊ G -> ◊ □ G) From 1 and 2.
4. (◊ G -> ◊ □ G) From 2 and 3.
5. ◊ G
6. ◊ □ G From 4 and 5
7. ◊ □ G -> G
8. G From 6 and 7

>>1764061
I'll definitely give this a favorite for watching tomorrow. Thanks!

>>1763748
>https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/philosophy-religion

This has a good podcast on that and will show you why its not really a consistent argument

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>>1764061

And 5 is established how? Why should we accept that the given concept of "God" is coherent and could have a real referent? Is the given concept of "God" that of Anselm's argument?

Why should I believe rationality can prove anything

You can't reason me into believing it, because that's circular logic

You have to bring in some outside incentive that makes me say okay to this whole rationality thing

Checkmate, atheists/christians

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>>1768033
F A I T H
A
I
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H

>>1764061

>it is greater to exist than to not exist.

Why?

>>1768150

I have faith in my rationality to create a working model of the universe in my brain that helps me find food and shelter.

This assumption on my part is entirely arbitrary. There might not be any food or shelter at all next time I go looking for some. I don't feel compelled to tackle questions about God.

Rationality tries to tell me that certain things are true, but I wouldn't know if rationality is trustworthy if I didn't already have the truth to use for comparison.

And I don't.

>>1768200

And this entire post was me using rationality. So is this one. Rationality tells me that I'm using rationality, and rationality tells me that rationality is telling me that I'm using rationality. But should I believe any of it?

>>1768016

There is nothing contradictory about the concept "That which no greater can be conceived than". It could be the case that "perfection" scales up as a potential infinity, with no upper limit, or it could be the case that there is a maximal degree of perfection. Since one of these disjuncts is coherent with the concept the concept is possible with the way the world works, unless we can establish the falsity of that disjunct.

>>1768193
Because to exist is to have something that the non-existing thing lacks: existence, where the non-existing thing has nothing and hence the existing thing has nothing that it lacks in comparison. "Greatness" is determined by all the most general positively defined qualities, existence, being, goodness, truth, etc.( where evil for example would be barred since it is just the absence of goodness, and triangularity would be barred because it is not general enough)

>>1768316

>"Greatness" is determined by all the most general positively defined qualities, existence, being, goodness, truth, etc.( where evil for example would be barred since it is just the absence of goodness, and triangularity would be barred because it is not general enough)

So in other words, this 'proof' is just a meaningless language game

>>1768316
>Because to exist is to have something that the non-existing thing lacks: existence

But not to exist means you're not subject to the laws of reality, which makes you "greater" than something that does exist and thus is bound by reality.

>>1768338
That is an incredibly vague criticism, you didn't even try to link it to the schema I presented. I made it clear how the terms I was using operated so to ensure clarity, that is all. Please do not bother posting if you are going to be intellectually dishonest.

>>1768326
1. There are no such things as "laws of reality", "laws" are human creations, not objective features of reality. There are general features of reality that hold, but that does not mean that there are metaphysical entities called "laws" that are the reason why. It is a bad metaphor adopted from the physical sciences and the supposed "laws of nature", which are actually just concepts born from us abstracting what is mathematically quantifiable from physical phenomena.

2. It wouldn't matter anyways. Because "greatness" here is defined as I described above >>1768316 . You can use a different definition for "greatness" if you would like, but that is meaningless in regards to the ontological argument, and is not refuting it, but just talking past it.

If you don't exist, you can't have any properties. When "greatness" is defined as it is above, by default you cannot both not exist, and be superior to anything that exists, since being a non-existent being you means that you have no properties in general, and hence cannot have more of any property than anything that has that property. Hence to exist is "greater" than to not exist.

3. Likewise, any sort of positive predicate you could attach to something like "being free from the laws of reality" can't apply if you have nothing to predicate on, which is the case if you talk about something that does not exist. Even outside of the schema presented it does'nt work.

>>1768437

I got my replies mixed up.
First one is for >>1768326
Second one is for >>1768338

Fuck it's good to see some theology back on /his/, too much dumbed down bickering lately.