Logical/Metaphysical Proof of the Existence of God?

[punkforchrist]

No problem here. You don’t have a Thomistic cosmological argument any more though. God is no longer necessarily the First cause of everything.

The modal argument I offered was never intended to be Thomistic (although the MTW certainly is), but Leibnizian. I should clarify, though, that the argument is ultimately a blend of both. It is Leibnizian as it refers to necessity and contingency, but Thomistic with respect to the notion of “cause” as opposed to “explanation.”

OK, so you must restrict your CP then to contingent concrete objects. The objection still holds.

I’ve already restricted the CP to contingent concrete objects.

Come on. The clear import of the question is what makes Him different in this world than in another possible one. You’re just dodging,

I wasn’t dodging. It’s just that your objection rests on the idea that libertarianism is inconsistent with “necessary being.” If the two really are inconsistent, then I’d like to understand how.

If God is simple, there are no real distinctions. If His action or choice of action is identical to His essence, and His essence is necessary, then His action is likewise necessary.

Why does God’s action have to be identical with His essence in order for Him to be simple? God’s actuality (re: existence) is identical with His essence, but that’s an entirely different thing from saying that His action and essence are identical.

But there’s something different about Jones. Saying there’s nothing different about Jones is just absurd, he’s doing something different in the different worlds.

This only means there are different facts about Jones, but his essence (thing-ness) remains the same.

And what makes the determination of when “we” need to justify it? Seems pretty ad hoc.

A proposition can use additional justification whenever it can be reducible to something simpler. There’s nothing ad hoc about that. “10 x 4 > 17,” for example, is reducible to the properly basic claim that, “40 > 17.”

Not all things with no defeaters are properly basic.

I didn’t say they are. What I did say was that a properly basic thing, if it truly is properly basic, requires a lack of defeaters. These are two separate claims.

But if it needs induction to arrive at, it isn’t properly basic. Moreover, if it relies on induction, whatever follows cannot be a deductive proof.

I didn’t say it needs induction. That’s just one way of supporting the first premise. I still disagree with you about the nature of inductive-deductive arguments. I don’t need to observe every human being in order to conclude that Socrates is mortal.

 

[Areopagite]

This is a contradiction. If the goodness of God is perfect and incapable of increasing from other things, then nothing apart from Himself can be ordered to His goodness as an end.

If the goodness of God does, in fact, increase from other things, then, necessarily willing His own goodness to the maximum extent, God necessarily wills those things which maximizes His goodness.

But we do necessarily will something to make the end attainable, even if we can choose (e.g. horse or walking) the precise means. If we are the most rational, we choose the best means. But if we simply will ourselves to get there without any means, then it is impossible for there to be any means.

So, you’re saying that a perfectly rational creature will only act in its own interest? It could never seek to do good to things that are outside himself? Is that what you’re saying?

I apologize if I am misunderstanding you.