[geye1234]

Again, all your objections can be answered, and if I were either rich or childless I would do so myself. But I'm neither, so all I can do is provide you with a book recommendation: check out Edward Feser's work, especially Aquinas and Five Proofs. If you want to see Dawkins refuted in his own tone, see The Last Superstition.

What research have you done up to this point to answer your questions?

[sdht0]

> all your objections can be answered

I've been promised such many many times, and every single time the arguments have fallen hilariously short of the promise. For instance, the "Five Proofs" are basically a variation of the statement: I insist X has to exist, and X=God. The simple refutation is: Nope :). X can be reasoned about in other ways. Maybe I'll take a look at the other resources at some point, but my credence is low those will have any solid arguments either.

I often wonder why such arguments are taken so seriously. I've honestly tried to see if they have enough substance to make me change my mind. But each time I become more convinced religious arguments are simply wish fulfillment. Moreover, the word is God is so flexible that it's hard to pin down the exact thing people have in mind when discussing religion. And so it'll continue. As long as we live and let live without imposing viewpoints by force, that's okay!

[geye1234]

"But each time I become more convinced religious arguments are simply wish fulfillment."

Funny, I feel exactly the opposite, but of course everybody, whether religious or not, sees what he wants to see :-)

"For instance, the "Five Proofs" are basically a variation of the statement: I insist X has to exist, and X=God."

This is false. Or please tell me what work you've read that gives you that impression. It perhaps works as a parody of the ontological argument (which is not one of the 'five proofs'), but no more than that.

The book Five Proofs is not the same set of five that Aquinas very briefly summarises (though there is some overlap). The ontological argument, which I think fails, is not one of either sets.

Anyway, I've pointed you in what I hope is a profitable direction. I recommended the Five Proofs book in particular because one chapter (IMO) successfully rebuts every atheist argument that I've encountered online or in print. These books' arguments are not what you will find in typical pro-religion discourse, much of which I agree is risible. I wish you well!

[sdht0]

> sees what he wants to see

Most definitely. Though I do think (hope?) we humans can rise above our limitations to grasp the actual Truth quite a bit.

> The book Five Proofs is not the same set of five that Aquinas very briefly summarises

Alright I got the actual book now. To correct the mistake, I'll give the book a honest read and post my impressions here in a day or two. I hope you can be around to respond if I got something wrong. If not, nice talking to you!

[geye1234]

> Most definitely. Though I do think (hope?) we humans can rise above our limitations to grasp the actual Truth quite a bit.

Sure. I don't mean to imply I'm a subjectivist or that the situation is hopeless. But seeing things as they are, rather than as one is inclined to see them, takes serious effort and self-training. That's not an argument in favour or against anything; it's true in every aspect of life, from the most mundane to the biggest questions.

Feel free to respond to this comment or some more recent one, and I'll try to remember to check. Regardless of whether you're convinced, you'll at least be responding to much better arguments than what you've likely encountered so far. Enjoy!

[sdht0]

Alright, it took longer than expected. I wasn't able to give full attention to all the arguments of the book, but I think I got the main arguments and counter-arguments.

So the thesis of the book "Five Proofs" is as it says in the intro---the real debate is not between atheism and theism---by trying to show that God, as accepted by theists, definitely exists.

By God, the book means an entity with certain qualities, which I'll divide into two sets:

* impersonal: simplicity, immutability, immateriality, incorporeality, eternity, necessity

* personal: will, omnipotence, omniscience, perfect goodness, love

My main criticism of the five proofs is that, even if accepted, they can only used to demonstrate the impersonal qualities above. The book bolts on the personal qualities with thin arguments that don't follow from the proofs. And this has been my observation in many such discussions, that the meaning of the word "God" switches mid-conversation to fit the conclusion.

An impersonal "God" is actually compatible with naturalism, because here "God" is just a word being used to describe the ultimate nature of reality. So whatever the ultimate nature of reality is, if one wants to call it God, that's totally fine. To differentiate my perspective, I'll call that ultimate reality the Theory of Everything (ToE) instead. ToE has all the impersonal qualities, ToE is what sustains the universe, ToE is eternal and immutable, etc.

* ToE is what sustains the hierarchical series at each moment.

* ToE is base part out of all other composite parts of made of.

* I don't see why "there must be a necessarily existing intellect which grasps all of the logical relationships between all propositions". Truth and logic just are. They don't need to be grasped by anything to exist. However, if one wants to call this collection God/ToE, that's fine. But it doesn't follow that such a God is omniscient (as there isn't any will that "understands" in such a collection).

* I don't really see how the Thomistic Proof is different from the Aristotelian Proof, but in any case, I think ToE can be the essence of this universe's existence.

* "There must be at least one necessary being, to explain why any contingent things exist at all". Yes, the First Cause, but ToE and not a personal God.

ToE/God, with the impersonal qualities, can be the final conclusion from all the 5 proofs. But theists need "God" to be something extra. They need God to have the above personal qualities as well. And that cannot be shown with the proofs. Because the reality we observe is consistent with an impersonal ToE creating and sustaining it. ToE doesn't need to have a will, or to be perfectly good, or to love its creation. These qualities don't follow from the proofs at all. So personal qualities can only be accepted if one accepts some revelation to be true. But that is outside the scope of this discussion. All I want to show is that the thesis of the book is incorrect and atheism is back on the table.

To reiterate, something cannot come out of nothing. Cogito, ergo sum. Something (I) exists. Hence there is some brute-force First Cause for this something. Theists call this First Cause God. Atheists can call this ToE (say). I claim that God = ToE at this point. Theists go one step further to give personal qualities to God, who willed this universe into existence (but could have chosen not to) and cares about its constituents, including humans, whose prayers and actions He listens to and judges, and has revealed himself at least once (if not more). Atheists reject this second part. I instead adopt a naturalist viewpoint modulated by Bayesian Reasoning. If I find some strong evidence for a personal God, I'll of course have to change my mind and become a theist.

[sdht0]

There is a lot more I can say of course, given its a book length discourse. I'll just say one more thing. The book criticizes and rejects the idea that "science is the only genuine source of knowledge". I think this is a common misunderstanding of what science is. The books says "The trouble now is that scientism becomes completely trivial, arbitrarily redefining “science” so that it includes anything that could be put forward as evidence against scientism." But that is what science, or more precisely, the scientific method is!

For instance, if the 5 proofs had actually logically and definitively proved that a personal God exists, then yes, that knowledge would become part of science.

Conversely, is it not true that the actual bedrock of religions are the books/revelations. Imagine a world where were no such revelations. Would people have as much faith in a personal caring God just on the basis of proofs?

And if the revelations were actually shown to be true, that would become part of scientific knowledge. Say God appears on Earth today and agrees to undergo scientific observations of His nature (say by turning water to wine or parting the ocean under experimental scrutiny), then naturally His existence will have to be accepted as part of reality.

The scientific method is used by everyone, whether consciously or unconsciously and to the best of their ability, to survive and understand the reality we observe. There is no other way to judge right from wrong. Scientists obviously use it to study physical reality. And theists use it for instance to judge which among the various religions (and which denomination within a religion) is actually true. Yes, that is also an application of the scientific method, looking at the arguments for the different religions and judging which one (or none) seems to be true. The disagreements come in when we don't have enough data to make a definitive judgement between the alternatives. And that's where all the wonderful imaginative ideas continue to exist.

[geye1234]

Thanks for the response and taking the time to follow my recommendation.

I'm at work so need to be brief, but I assume you read the discussion of the five qualities you list as personal, on pp.205-229. What did you think were the weaknesses in the argument? If you want to focus on just one or two of the five qualities to keep the discussion within boundaries, that's obviously fine.

Would you agree that the proofs, if successful, prove the existence of something that is other than the universe, even if the arguments for the personal qualities of this entity fail?

[geye1234]

So to give a bit more of an answer to this, and having not heard your thoughts on pp.205-229, which discuss this issue:

First, I don't think "Theory of Everything" is a good phrase for what you're trying to get at. Any theory is necessarily incomplete, since a theory attempts to describe reality using formal symbols, and formal symbols cannot be equal to the reality they attempt to describe. They cannot capture the entirety of the reality. But this is kind of nitpicking.

The very very short summary is as follows:

Omnipotence: if we accept that (at least one of) the Five Proofs succeed, it follows that God causes any given thing to exist at any moment in time. If he causes its existence, he also causes its power to act. Without God, nothing can act.

Omniscience: again, accepting at least one proof succeeds, it follows that God causes everything to be doing what it is doing at that time. Hence any 'state of affairs', like 'the cat sits on the mat', will be caused by God. Therefore he knows about them (yes I know this doesn't logically follow, the book obviously goes into far more detail).

Perfect goodness: this is a bit more complicated, since we hit disagreement about what good and evil actually are. As a premise, let us say that in classical philosophy, any evil (or bad-ness) is a defect, or alternatively, a failure of a thing to instantiate its essence. Hence a tree might be bad to the extent that it's diseased and therefore failing to grow; a dog might be bad to the extent that it has only three legs. With human beings, some defects are moral defects, which are defects of intellect and will: the person fails to perceive his true good, and therefore fails to pursue it. But moral defects are not fundamentally different from the amoral defects of trees, dogs and even artifacts like chairs and computers. This is one area where classical philosophy differs radically from modern philosophy, which posits a fact-value distinction that allegedly cannot be overcome.

To summarise, a defect in classical philosophy is where a particular, concrete example of a thing fails to instantiate its essence: that is to say, it lacks what is proper to it.

Since God's existence is the same as his essence (if you accept the Thomistic proof), it follows that God cannot have any defects, and therefore must be completely good.

Love: God does not have emotions. But to love a thing (and 'person' is included under 'thing') is to will its good: that is, its true end. Since God does this, he loves everything.

Again, all this is the ultra-ultra-cliffnotes version.

More generally, God cannot possibly lack anything, including the 'personal' qualities you describe. Again, you realise this is so when you grasp that God causes everything to exist, and therefore causes all their qualities as well. It would be impossible to cause something that you don't in some sense have yourself (either formally or eminently -- hence the objection "but God doesn't have ears!" fails). Also, remember that evil is a defect, a failure to have something, so therefore God cannot 'have' evil qualities. In a strict sense, nothing 'has' evil qualities, it only lacks corresponding good ones.