This is not my area but I am fairly sure I have heard people like Sean Carroll and argue that the laws of physics would not necessarily apply in other worlds so why should the logical axioms — Tom Storm
So introducing the notion of a priori and a posteriori truths will only serve to muddy the clarity of possible world interpretations. — Banno
A being that necessarily exists cannot coherently be thought not to exist. And so God, as the unsurpassably perfect being, must have necessary existence—and therefore must exist. — Tom Storm
I think the notion of the necessity of a first cause is a logical notion, — Wayfarer
Logic always starts with some axioms... — Wayfarer
But yes, in order to be the subject to modal logic, I am taking god to be an individual. IF oyu have an alternative, set it out. — Banno
Dawkins holds that the existence or non-existence of God is a scientific hypothesis which is open to rational demonstration. Christianity teaches that to claim that there is a God must be reasonable, but that this is not at all the same thing as faith. Believing in God, whatever Dawkins might think, is not like concluding that aliens or the tooth fairy exist. God is not a celestial super-object or divine UFO, about whose existence we must remain agnostic until all the evidence is in. Theologians do not believe that he is either inside or outside the universe, as Dawkins thinks they do. His transcendence and invisibility are part of what he is, which is not the case with the Loch Ness monster. This is not to say that religious people believe in a black hole, because they also consider that God has revealed himself: not, as Dawkins thinks, in the guise of a cosmic manufacturer even smarter than Dawkins himself (the New Testament has next to nothing to say about God as Creator), but for Christians at least, in the form of a reviled and murdered political criminal. The Jews of the so-called Old Testament had faith in God, but this does not mean that after debating the matter at a number of international conferences they decided to endorse the scientific hypothesis that there existed a supreme architect of the universe – even though, as Genesis reveals, they were of this opinion. They had faith in God in the sense that I have faith in you. They may well have been mistaken in their view; but they were not mistaken because their scientific hypothesis was unsound.
Dawkins speaks scoffingly of a personal God, as though it were entirely obvious exactly what this might mean. He seems to imagine God, if not exactly with a white beard, then at least as some kind of chap, however supersized. He asks how this chap can speak to billions of people simultaneously, which is rather like wondering why, if Tony Blair is an octopus, he has only two arms. For Judeo-Christianity, God is not a person in the sense that Al Gore arguably is. Nor is he a principle, an entity, or ‘existent’: in one sense of that word it would be perfectly coherent for religious types to claim that God does not in fact exist. He is, rather, the condition of possibility of any entity whatsoever, including ourselves. He is the answer to why there is something rather than nothing. God and the universe do not add up to two, any more than my envy and my left foot constitute a pair of objects. — Terry Eagleton, Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching
I’m not really understanding why necessity entails all possible worlds. — DingoJones
The thread is here because I have the gut feeling that there must be something wrong with the argument in the OP; it's just too obvious. But I don't see what the eror is. — Banno
Something is necessary if it is true in every possible world. — Banno
. I'm just saying that if god can be represented as an individual, an "a", in a modal system, then he does not exist in all possible worlds.
But if he cannot be represented as an individual, then where does he fit? — Banno
explaining why is difficult in twitter posts. — Wayfarer
God is supposed to be a necessary being. Something is necessary if it is true in every possible world.
There is a possible world in which god does not exist.
Hence, god is not a necessary being. — Banno
Put it this way: in possible world semantics it is possible to invoke a world that does not include a given individual. Hence there are no necessary individuals. (@Amalac - does that seem right to you? ) — Banno
...there is an evident absurdity in pretending to demonstrate a matter of fact, or to prove it by any arguments a priori. Nothing is demonstrable, unless the contrary implies a contradiction. Nothing, that is distinctly conceivable, implies a contradiction. Whatever we conceive as existent, we can also conceive as non-existent. There is no being, therefore, whose non-existence implies a contradiction. Consequently there is no being, whose existence is demonstrable.
However, we can look for an instantia crucis and ask if there is another example of judgment that combines these two properties — incompatible in terms of the conceptions of Kant and Hume—, that is, one that was analytic and existential in its content. A candidate for this impossible chimera is, I suspect, the judgment "something exists." The reason this judgment can be said to be analytic and therefore "necessary" is that its negation "nothing exists" is not only false, but also unintelligible and absurd: indeed, if there is something absurd, it is that. On that basis, one can argue that "something exists" is equal to "necessarily, something exists."
Thus, this argument (the ontological argument) could be expressed in another way by saying that if God is conceivable at all, he cannot not exist. This is how our contemporary defender of Saint Anselm, Charles Hartshorne, approaches the question; in his opinion, the ontological argument is perfectly reasonable if it is re-stated as a hypothetical judgment: "If God is possible, God is necessary." But is God conceivable under the assumption that to conceive him is to admit that his essence and his existence converge and, therefore, that he is a necessary being not only in the sense that he actually exists, eternally and immutably, but in the sense that it is inevitable that he exists, he is causa sui, so that his non-existence would be, as it were, an ontic contradiction?
those who hold that God is a necessary being/ exists necessarily would have to hold, it seems to me, that God's non-existence implies a logical contradiction. — Amalac
"If God is possible, God is necessary."
But if he cannot be represented as an individual, then where does he fit?
Of course some theologian will argue that he is in some way special, but that's just special pleading - When logic shows the notion of god to be problematic, they claim that logic does not apply to god. — Banno
Do you mean that a necessary god is one that exist in every possible world? — Banno
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.