Against Agnosticism - or - God is Provable

[Prince_James]

By "God" let it be understood that I am referencing the classical philosophical theology concept of God. That is to say, a being which is construed as having perfections such as omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, et cetera. You know, the classical God with a capital G. Not Zeus, not the Hebrew God as shown in the Hebrew Bible, not Quezocaotl, or any other limited deity. Not Jesus Christ, either.

With the above taken into consideration, we're talking about a being which is deducible from reason alone. ANything which has a perfection which hinges upon whether it is coherent alone to determine whether it is existent, is a being which can be judged by rational methods, completely in the absence of empirical ones. In essence: God is either necessarily existent, or necessarily non-existent. If God is a coherent concept, or some of the aspects of God are coherent, then we have an existent thing which fits the description. If we do not, then we do not. The debate may not yet be resolved fully, but it brokers such a possibility. Indeed, it is inevitable that one way or another, eventually, we shall have a definitive answer as to whether God exists or does not exist, and if the former, which qualities he can have and retain coherence, or whether all of them can be coherently put together.

As such, agnosticism, which denies that God is knowable, or that there is no evidence either which way, is false. God is in fact, knowable as existent or non-existent, and there is evidence in discussion right now to determine which he is.

 

[spidergoat]

OK. Omniscience means he knows the future, and thus cannot be omnipotent. These qualities are mutually exclusive.

 

[Prince_James]

Spidergoat:

OK. Omniscience means he knows the future, and thus cannot be omnipotent. These qualities are mutually exclusive.

What is your reasoning behind this argument? I haven't heard this line of attack before.

 

[spidergoat]

So, thought experiment. God writes down the price that oil will sell for next week, on a specific date, per barrel. Then, can he make it actually be 5 dollars higher? If he can, he was wrong about knowing the future. If he cannot, he can't do everything.

 

[Prince_James]

This assumes that God has free-will. It has not been established that God, or anything else, does.

If free-will does not exist, then one can be omnipotent without being free to do anything but what one will do. Furthermore, the notion of freedom of the will is not itself inherently apart of omnipotence, only the ability to do anything non-contradictory.

 

[spidergoat]

Then he's not intelligent. He can't make choices. Indeed there is nothing for him to do at all but follow the program like an automaton. Thus, he is unworthy of worship.

 

[Prince_James]

This again assumes that there is an alternative to being as such. If everything lacks a freedom of the will, then one can hardly "penalize" God or conceive of him as flawed for being apart of "everything". Just as we cannot say that omnipotence includes the possibility of creating square-circles.

The matter of worship is not philosophical in and of itself, but to speak on it briefly: We are thankful for the food on our table, despite the fact that the processes that grew it are without choice. As such, we could be thankful to a God, who just like us, inevitably follows cause and effect.

 

[Balerion]

You're missing the point, Prince James. To attribute anything to a God at all is ridiculous, because you have never been given any reason to believe one exists. There has been no proof put forth, no reason argued. So if you attribute what you see to a Creator, then you invented the Creator.

 

[Prince_James]

JDawg:

You're missing the point, Prince James. To attribute anything to a God at all is ridiculous, because you have never been given any reason to believe one exists. There has been no proof put forth, no reason argued.

You seem to have completely missed 2,500+ years of philosophical endeavour in the field of God. Longer if you count Eastern sources with philosophical undertones, like the Upanishads, and not merely Western philosophy.

There are plenty reasons to suggest he exists (and just as many that he does not). Philosophers have been arguing both ways for as long as I just referenced. Furthermore, as noted, God is a being which can be proven or disproven by reason alone, thus we can talk about whether there is or is not a God based on reasoning.

 

[Norsefire]

There is no reason to assume that, if there IS a creator, that he must be divine or supernatural. There is no reason to assume that this being or entity must have supernatural powers or be heavenly or holy. There is, perhaps, even more a likeliness that, if there is a creator, this creator is little more than an intelligent being, like we Humans, with technology of the ability to create universes. That is FAR more plausable than a being in the clouds throwing lightning bolts down at us

 

[Prince_James]

Okay.

Your point?

That doesn't attack the idea of God as omnipotent, omnipresent, et cetera.

In other words: We can make positive or negative statements about God and be epistemologically justified in doing so. Thus, Agnosticism is wrong.

 

[EndLightEnd]

Im with spidergoat on that one.

 

[Zephyr]

Furthermore, as noted, God is a being which can be proven or disproven by reason alone, thus we can talk about whether there is or is not a God based on reasoning.

If everything can be either proven and disproven, then the reasoning system (if sufficiently powerful) is inconsistent. See Gödel.

Pure reasoning cannot say anything about physical reality without making assumptions.

 

[Simon Anders]

So, thought experiment. God writes down the price that oil will sell for next week, on a specific date, per barrel. Then, can he make it actually be 5 dollars higher? If he can, he was wrong about knowing the future. If he cannot, he can't do everything.

So you don't believe in the possibility of a multiverse?

 

[Norsefire]

It is impossible to "reason" whether or not God exists. Evidence is required, but such evidence is perhaps near impossible to obtain. However, due to the plausability of the theory of intelligent design, I believe the origins of our universe or existence itself are questions that cannot be answered, and thus are not relevant. Frankly, whether or not there is a Creator, it doesn't matter. Not unless this entity has direct affect on our universe today, and that can be disproved.

 

[Balerion]

There are plenty reasons to suggest he exists (and just as many that he does not). Philosophers have been arguing both ways for as long as I just referenced. Furthermore, as noted, God is a being which can be proven or disproven by reason alone, thus we can talk about whether there is or is not a God based on reasoning.

You don't seem to understand what "prove" means. You can assume that God exists or doesn't, but you can't prove anything either way. Philosophize all you like, there is no evidence that speaks either way.

 

[Prince_James]

Zephyr:

If everything can be either proven and disproven, then the reasoning system (if sufficiently powerful) is inconsistent. See Gödel.

Incorrect. See: Euclidean Geometry (a system complete and consistent and not subject to Godel's incompleteness theorem).

GIT is for mathematics.

Pure reasoning cannot say anything about physical reality without making assumptions.

Untrue: The Laws of Thought are manifestly so and hold true in reality as inviolate laws.

 

[Prince_James]

JDawg:

You don't seem to understand what "prove" means. You can assume that God exists or doesn't, but you can't prove anything either way. Philosophize all you like, there is no evidence that speaks either way.

Reasoning is either true or it is not. God is a being who can be discerned by reason alone or disproved by reason alone. As such, there is evidence out there, even if we have not gotten it, which will one day conclusively prove either which way. In fact, we might all ready have it, but owing to the intellectual controversies that any theory produces, has not been recognized as such.

 

[spidergoat]

So you don't believe in the possibility of a multiverse?

One can speculate on such a thing, but belief is something different.

 

[Prince_James]

Norsefire:

It is impossible to "reason" whether or not God exists. Evidence is required, but such evidence is perhaps near impossible to obtain. However, due to the plausability of the theory of intelligent design, I believe the origins of our universe or existence itself are questions that cannot be answered, and thus are not relevant. Frankly, whether or not there is a Creator, it doesn't matter. Not unless this entity has direct affect on our universe today, and that can be disproved.

God is a necessary being. As such, he can indeed be reasoned about. Evidence is absurd in regards to beings which are rationally discernable, not empirically verifiable. Furthermore, the idea of creator is not in and of itself part and parcel of God as a being. That would be "God as a being who acts in a specific instance". Even if there is the classic argument from Aristotle regarding the prime mover.