Jim_Smith
New
http://www.uncommondescent.com/reli...al-evidence-and-the-reasonableness-of-theism/
The reasonableness of Ethical Theism
...
Let me do a basic outline of key points:
...
Let me do a basic outline of key points:
1: A world, patently exists.
2: Nothing, denotes just that, non-being.
3: A genuine nothing, can have no causal capacity.
4: If ever there were an utter nothing, that is exactly what would forever obtain.
5: But, per 1, we and a world exist, so there was always something.
6: This raises the issue of modes of being, first possible vs impossible.
7: A possible being would exist if a relevant state of affairs were realised, e.g. heat + fuel + oxidiser + chain rxn –> fire (a causal process, showing fire to depend on external enabling factors)
8: An impossible being such as a square circle has contradictory core characteristics and cannot be in any possible world. (Worlds being patently possible as one is actual.)
9: Of possible beings, we see contingent ones, e.g. fires. This also highlights that if something begins, there are circumstances under which it may not be, and so, it is contingent and is caused as the fire illustrates.
10: Our observed cosmos had a beginning and is caused. This implies a deeper root of being, as necessarily, something always was.
11: Another possible mode of being is a necessary being. To see such, consider a candidate being that has no dependence on external, on/off enabling factors.
12: Such (if actual) has no beginning and cannot end, it is either impossible or actual and would exist in any possible world. For instance, a square circle is impossible,
One and the same object
cannot be circular and
square in the same
sense and place at the same time
. . . but there is no possible world in which twoness does not exist.
13: To see such, begin with the set that collects nothing and proceed:
{ } –> 0
{0} –> 1
{0, 1} –> 2
Etc.
14: We thus see on analysis of being, that we have possible vs impossible and of possible beings, contingent vs necessary.
15: Also, that of serious candidate necessary beings, they will either be impossible or actual in any possible world. That’s the only way they can be, they have to be in the [world-]substructure in some way so that once a world can exist they are there necessarily.
16: Something like a flying spaghetti monster or the like, is contingent [here, not least as composed of parts and materials], and is not a serious candidate. (Cf also the discussions in the linked thread for other parodies and why they fail.)
Flying Spaghetti Monster Creation of Adam
17: By contrast, God is a serious candidate necessary being, The Eternal Root of being. Where, a necessary being root of reality is the best class of candidates to always have been.
18: The choice, as discussed in the already linked, is between God as impossible or as actual. Where, there is no good reason to see God as impossible, or not a serious candidate to be a necessary being, or to be contingent, etc.
19: So, to deny God is to imply and to need to shoulder the burden of showing God impossible.
20: Moreover, we find ourselves under moral government, to be under OUGHT.
21: This, post the valid part of Hume’s guillotine argument (on pain of the absurdity of ultimate amorality and might/manipulation makes ‘right’) implies that there is a world foundational IS that properly bears the weight of OUGHT.
22: Across many centuries of debates, there is only one serious candidate: the inherently good, eternal creator God, a necessary and maximally great being worthy of loyalty, respect, service through doing the good and even worship.
23: Where in this course of argument, no recourse has been had to specifically religious experiences or testimony of same, or to religious traditions; we here have what has been called the God of the philosophers, with more than adequate reason to accept his reality such that it is not delusional or immature to be a theist or to adhere to ethical theism.
24: Where, ironically, we here see exposed, precisely the emotional appeal and hostility of too many who reject and dismiss the reality of God (and of our being under moral government) without adequate reason.
2: Nothing, denotes just that, non-being.
3: A genuine nothing, can have no causal capacity.
4: If ever there were an utter nothing, that is exactly what would forever obtain.
5: But, per 1, we and a world exist, so there was always something.
6: This raises the issue of modes of being, first possible vs impossible.
7: A possible being would exist if a relevant state of affairs were realised, e.g. heat + fuel + oxidiser + chain rxn –> fire (a causal process, showing fire to depend on external enabling factors)
8: An impossible being such as a square circle has contradictory core characteristics and cannot be in any possible world. (Worlds being patently possible as one is actual.)
9: Of possible beings, we see contingent ones, e.g. fires. This also highlights that if something begins, there are circumstances under which it may not be, and so, it is contingent and is caused as the fire illustrates.
10: Our observed cosmos had a beginning and is caused. This implies a deeper root of being, as necessarily, something always was.
11: Another possible mode of being is a necessary being. To see such, consider a candidate being that has no dependence on external, on/off enabling factors.
12: Such (if actual) has no beginning and cannot end, it is either impossible or actual and would exist in any possible world. For instance, a square circle is impossible,
One and the same object
cannot be circular and
square in the same
sense and place at the same time
. . . but there is no possible world in which twoness does not exist.
13: To see such, begin with the set that collects nothing and proceed:
{ } –> 0
{0} –> 1
{0, 1} –> 2
Etc.
14: We thus see on analysis of being, that we have possible vs impossible and of possible beings, contingent vs necessary.
15: Also, that of serious candidate necessary beings, they will either be impossible or actual in any possible world. That’s the only way they can be, they have to be in the [world-]substructure in some way so that once a world can exist they are there necessarily.
16: Something like a flying spaghetti monster or the like, is contingent [here, not least as composed of parts and materials], and is not a serious candidate. (Cf also the discussions in the linked thread for other parodies and why they fail.)
Flying Spaghetti Monster Creation of Adam
17: By contrast, God is a serious candidate necessary being, The Eternal Root of being. Where, a necessary being root of reality is the best class of candidates to always have been.
18: The choice, as discussed in the already linked, is between God as impossible or as actual. Where, there is no good reason to see God as impossible, or not a serious candidate to be a necessary being, or to be contingent, etc.
19: So, to deny God is to imply and to need to shoulder the burden of showing God impossible.
20: Moreover, we find ourselves under moral government, to be under OUGHT.
21: This, post the valid part of Hume’s guillotine argument (on pain of the absurdity of ultimate amorality and might/manipulation makes ‘right’) implies that there is a world foundational IS that properly bears the weight of OUGHT.
22: Across many centuries of debates, there is only one serious candidate: the inherently good, eternal creator God, a necessary and maximally great being worthy of loyalty, respect, service through doing the good and even worship.
23: Where in this course of argument, no recourse has been had to specifically religious experiences or testimony of same, or to religious traditions; we here have what has been called the God of the philosophers, with more than adequate reason to accept his reality such that it is not delusional or immature to be a theist or to adhere to ethical theism.
24: Where, ironically, we here see exposed, precisely the emotional appeal and hostility of too many who reject and dismiss the reality of God (and of our being under moral government) without adequate reason.