Arguments for One God Opposed to God in General

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PeteZaHut

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I’m aware of arguments such as the uncaused cause argument and intelligent design, but these seem to argue the existence of a god opposed to One God, sort of leaving the possibility of multiple gods. Do you know of any philosophical arguments for the existence of One God?
 
In his “Critique of Pure Reason” Kant states:
"1st. There are everywhere in the world clear indications of an intentional arrangement carried out with great wisdom, and forming a whole indescribably varied in its contents and infinite in extent.
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2ndly. The fitness of this arrangement is entirely foreign to the things existing in the world, and belongs to them contingently only; that is, the nature of different things could never spontaneously, by the combination of so many means, co-operate towards definite aims, if these means had not been selected and arranged on purpose by a rational disposing principle, according to certain fundamental ideas.
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3rdly. There exists, therefore, a sublime and wise cause (or many), which must be the cause of the world, not only as a blind and all-powerful nature, by means of unconscious fecundity, but as an intelligence, by freedom.
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4thly. The unity of that cause may be inferred with certainty from the unity of the reciprocal relation of the parts of the world, as portions of a skilful edifice, so far as our experience reaches, and beyond it, with plausibility, according to the principles of analogy."
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oll.libertyfund.org/?option=c…html&Itemid=27
http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=...itle=1442&chapter=97928&layout=html&Itemid=27
He adds

“Reason soars from height to height till it reaches the highest, from the conditioned to conditions, till it reaches the supreme and unconditioned Author of all.”
 
PeteZaHut said:
Unfortunately, Kant lost me on the fourth point, which I think is the one relevant to the topic.
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Occam’s Razor may help! Why postulate more than one Supreme Being? 🙂

Now we also have the Big Bang as the physical source of unity…
 
tonyrey said:
Occam’s Razor may help! Why postulate more than one Supreme Being? 🙂

Now we also have the Big Bang as the physical source of unity…
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I think other people exist, but a more efficient and beautiful solution is solipsism. Thanks Occam!
 
Well, Aquinas’ arguments are for one uncaused cause which is existence itself. This being would be infinite and would be the standard for everything else. However, you can’t have multiple omnipresent, omnipotent beings who have different wills. You can have a trinity in which there are 3 persons all one in a way that without one, none of the others would exist or they wouldn’t really be perfect.
 
Bobber90 said:
I think other people exist, but a more efficient and beautiful solution is solipsism. Thanks Occam!
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I don’t think it’s either efficient or beautiful because it condemns one to isolation in addition to amounting to egolatry and egoism “par excellence”.
 
PeteZaHut said:
I’m aware of arguments such as the uncaused cause argument and intelligent design, but these seem to argue the existence of a god opposed to One God, sort of leaving the possibility of multiple gods. Do you know of any philosophical arguments for the existence of One God?
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Pete:

Either God is finite or He is infinite. Logic, and a good demonstrative syllogism shows us that whatever creates (and sustains) a universe, such as ours, cannot be less than our universe. Whatever creates must be able to pass on some of its attributes to whatever is created, but it cannot pass on its very self. Therefore, God cannot be finite (or even transfinite), He must be Infinite.

Now, if we concede that God is Infinite, then we must consider how an infinite being can co-exist with another infinite being (or beings). An Infinite being can co-exist with finite beings: we are in view to that all our lives. So, the question we must ask is from the first sentence of this paragraph.

Now, either one infinite being will displace the other (or, others), or, it will co-mingle with it/them as two ingredients of a solution will do. If one displaces the other, then one is less restrictive than the other and it cannot be an equal. If you submit that they must be equals, then they must co-mingle. If they co-mingle, they must co-mingle perfectly since they are infinite. If they co-mingle perfectly, then they are the self-same.

That is the short and sweet of it. I’m sure there will be blood. Let it pour.

God bless,
jd
 
I know this is only half an answer because I am not presenting it here (it would likely take too long), but Fr Spitzer’s recent book, “New Proofs for the Existence of God,” actually has a well-developed logical argument not only for the existence of God but for the existence of a single God.

It is well worth the read.
 
PeteZaHut said:
I’m aware of arguments such as the uncaused cause argument and intelligent design, but these seem to argue the existence of a god opposed to One God, sort of leaving the possibility of multiple gods. Do you know of any philosophical arguments for the existence of One God?
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The surety of 2000+ years of belief, backed by the Word Incarnate vs. however long of doubt.

Jesus is the key… or the stumbling block where all the [wise and knowledgeable] continue to stumble.

how sad.
 
I agree with JDaniel’s idea
Pete:

Either God is finite or He is infinite. Logic, and a good demonstrative syllogism shows us that whatever creates (and sustains) a universe, such as ours, cannot be less than our universe. Whatever creates must be able to pass on some of its attributes to whatever is created, but it cannot pass on its very self. Therefore, God cannot be finite (or even transfinite), He must be Infinite.

Now, if we concede that God is Infinite, then we must consider how an infinite being can co-exist with another infinite being (or beings). An Infinite being can co-exist with finite beings: we are in view to that all our lives. So, the question we must ask is from the first sentence of this paragraph.

Now, either one infinite being will displace the other (or, others), or, it will co-mingle with it/them as two ingredients of a solution will do. If one displaces the other, then one is less restrictive than the other and it cannot be an equal. If you submit that they must be equals, then they must co-mingle. If they co-mingle, they must co-mingle perfectly since they are infinite. If they co-mingle perfectly, then they are the self-same.
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This same idea of whether there could be two infinite Gods bothered me years ago. I reasoned it out this way.

Two infinite Gods would be identical in everyway. I don’t think there is any need to expand on that? How could they not be identical?

All right. Now the question is how would you distinguish between them?

We can go further than that.
Would the two Gods themselves be able to distinguish themselves from each other?

Who is to say which God created the Andromeda galaxy and which God created the Milky Way?

Well of course this is all very ridiculous. If there were two infinite Gods they would merge into one because they are indistinguishable.

There could not be two infinite Gods, because:
as Aquinas says, God’s essence is existence. God is existence. But if God is infinite, God is infinite existence.

Now it should go without saying that anything that can be counted, measured or divided cannot be infinite. ( This is so fundamental it can’t be explained. It’s axiomatic. You have to see it from the definitions of the terms used… ) But two Gods would be counted. Two Gods would be divided. There’s two violations of the idea of intinity.

There can’t be two infinite Gods.
 
empther said:
I agree with JDaniel’s idea

This same idea of whether there could be two infinite Gods bothered me years ago. I reasoned it out this way.

Two infinite Gods would be identical in everyway. I don’t think there is any need to expand on that? How could they not be identical?

All right. Now the question is how would you distinguish between them?

We can go further than that.
Would the two Gods themselves be able to distinguish themselves from each other?

Who is to say which God created the Andromeda galaxy and which God created the Milky Way?

Well of course this is all very ridiculous. If there were two infinite Gods they would merge into one because they are indistinguishable.

There could not be two infinite Gods, because:
as Aquinas says, God’s essence is existence. God is existence. But if God is infinite, God is infinite existence.

Now it should go without saying that anything that can be counted, measured or divided cannot be infinite. ( This is so fundamental it can’t be explained. It’s axiomatic. You have to see it from the definitions of the terms used… ) But two Gods would be counted. Two Gods would be divided. There’s two violations of the idea of intinity.

There can’t be two infinite Gods.
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Spot on, I use the same argument regarding the second way; a being who’s essence is existence. But on top of this argument I think the fourth way, the henological argument, helps just as much when establishing that the unmoved mover must be one who is the maximum of being.
 
JDaniel said:
Pete:

Either God is finite or He is infinite. Logic, and a good demonstrative syllogism shows us that whatever creates (and sustains) a universe, such as ours, cannot be less than our universe. Whatever creates must be able to pass on some of its attributes to whatever is created, but it cannot pass on its very self. Therefore, God cannot be finite (or even transfinite), He must be Infinite.

Now, if we concede that God is Infinite, then we must consider how an infinite being can co-exist with another infinite being (or beings). An Infinite being can co-exist with finite beings: we are in view to that all our lives. So, the question we must ask is from the first sentence of this paragraph.

Now, either one infinite being will displace the other (or, others), or, it will co-mingle with it/them as two ingredients of a solution will do. If one displaces the other, then one is less restrictive than the other and it cannot be an equal. If you submit that they must be equals, then they must co-mingle. If they co-mingle, they must co-mingle perfectly since they are infinite. If they co-mingle perfectly, then they are the self-same.

That is the short and sweet of it. I’m sure there will be blood. Let it pour.

God bless,
jd
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👍 One stroke of Occam’s Razor is short, sweet and bloodless!
 
interesting, i think Plato also makes an argument for the existence one God rather than multiple Gods.
 
empther said:
This same idea of whether there could be two infinite Gods bothered me years ago. I reasoned it out this way.

Two infinite Gods would be identical in everyway. I don’t think there is any need to expand on that? How could they not be identical?
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How did you arrive that they would be identical, as opposed to some other view like a yin-yang (陰陽) type relationship in which the two gods some have differing abilities but balance each other.
 
ThinkingSapien said:
How did you arrive that they would be identical, as opposed to some other view like a yin-yang (陰陽) type relationship in which the two gods some have differing abilities but balance each other.
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Then the infinite being responsible for the creation of the world would not be the perfect nor would he really be infinite. Infinite means no bounds and perfect means complete. However, God would be “bound” in the sense that He would be lacking in the abilities that the other being has and would not be perfect in that he would once again be lacking in the abilities of the other being. So, you can either say that you have two completely different finite beings who in working together can achieve the perfect and infinite (which is actually impossible as adding two finite things together only creates a larger finite thing, not the infinite), or you are left to say that there is one God who is perfect and infinte. The second is the only that works with the Universe we find if we follow Aquinas’ five ways. So, for the believer, God is the only God (however, this does not exclude any chance of a trinity, but I would prefer not to post on that right now as it would take up a lot more room and time)
 
No one has yet explained the need for more than one God unless the term “God” is used idiosyncratically!🙂
 
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