New proofs that God exists?

[Qoeleth]

I wish to propose some new proofs that God exists- and wonder how they might convince any sceptics, who (like many Christians) reject the old Thomist ways. Please feel free to refute.
“God” may be defined as “that which I have faith in”.
I have faith in something.
Therefore God exists.
God is love.
Love exists.
Therefore God exists.
The word ‘God’ exists.
Since the word is used intelligbly, it must refer to somethi**ng.
Therefore, since the word ‘God’ exists, God (the referent of the word ‘God’) must, in some sense, exist.

Are these logically sound proofs?

 

[Serious]

There is nothing new about these. Read them here… They are usually labelled as “caricatures”. Of course a good “caricature” reveals more of the subject than a precise photograph. Anyway, have fun with them

 

[ASimon]

I wish to propose some new proofs that God exists- and wonder how they might convince any sceptics, who (like many Christians) reject the old Thomist ways. Please feel free to refute.
“God” may be defined as “that which I have faith in”.
I have faith in something.
Therefore God exists.
God is love.
Love exists.
Therefore God exists.
The word ‘God’ exists.
Since the word is used intelligbly, it must refer to somethi**ng.
Therefore, since the word ‘God’ exists, God (the referent of the word ‘God’) must, in some sense, exist.

Are these logically sound proofs?

Logically sound? Sure. So is:

Everyone living in Italy is blind.
Fred lives in Italy.
Therefore, Fred is blind.

Something can be logically sound and still be wrong.

 

[Serious]

Logically sound? Sure. So is:

Everyone living in Italy is blind.
Fred lives in Italy.
Therefore, Fred is blind.

Something can be logically sound and still be wrong.

Careful. These are logically valid syllogisms, but not logically sound ones.

 

[Edmundus1581]

The word ‘God’ exists.
Since the word is used intelligbly, it must refer to somethi**ng.
Therefore, since the word ‘God’ exists, God (the referent of the word ‘God’) must, in some sense, exist.

The word ‘Unicorn’ exists.
Since the word is used intelligbly, it must refer to somethi**ng.
Therefore, since the word ‘Unicorn’ exists, Unicorns (the referent of the word ‘Unicorn’) must, in some sense, exist.

Didn’t Plato say something like that?

 

[Candide_West]

I wish to propose some new proofs that God exists- and wonder how they might convince any sceptics, who (like many Christians) reject the old Thomist ways. Please feel free to refute.
*
1)*
“God” may be defined as “that which I have faith in”.
*I have faith in something.
*Therefore God exists.

2)*
God is love.
Love exists.
Therefore God exists.

These are “proofs” of definition, the reason they don’t work is that they are ultimately tautological. By which i mean that they essentially reduce to “I define God as something which exists, therefore God exists”.

3)*
The word ‘God’ exists.
Since the word is used intelligbly, it must refer to somethi**ng.
Therefore, since the word ‘God’ exists, God (the referent of the word ‘God’) must, in some sense, exist.

The error here is the statement that if a word can be used intelligibly then it must refer to something that exists. It is of course possible to have referents which do not in fact exist as real “things” (they may be concepts only).

If this “proof” worked then you could use it to prove anything you like to exist. As per the example with unicorns.*

What you have actually shown is that the concept “God” exists,. But I don’t think anyone would argue that the concept doesn’t exist.*

 

[empther]

Friends,
I hope you can see what the A-team is trying to do here.

These “proofs” are related to the old ontological argument for the proof of God. It goes something like this. ( there are many ways to word it )

“God is a concept greater than anything else that can be conceived.
But to exist is greater than not to exist.
Therefore, God exists.”

**Aquinas rejected the ontological argument! **

By trying to make it look like believers believe these ideas, the A-team wants to make it look like we’re simple minded fools.
Meanwhile, the A-team can’t begin to understand Aquinas, as my thread “Finite past proves God exists” shows.

 

[danserr]

I wish to propose some new proofs that God exists- and wonder how they might convince any sceptics, who (like many Christians) reject the old Thomist ways. Please feel free to refute.
“God” may be defined as “that which I have faith in”.
I have faith in something.
Therefore God exists.
God is love.
Love exists.
Therefore God exists.
The word ‘God’ exists.
Since the word is used intelligbly, it must refer to somethi**ng.
Therefore, since the word ‘God’ exists, God (the referent of the word ‘God’) must, in some sense, exist.

Are these logically sound proofs?

The last one I think has the most potential, since it is a form of the ontological argument, though I suggest Alvin Plantinga’s version as the best one available today (though there is an interesting new one in the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology)

• For example, the way the argument is currently phrased, you could use it to prove that unicorn exists, which is clearly wrong.
• Now you can fix that by clearly understanding your terms. For instance, as a greatest conceivable being (or in Plantinga’s formulation, a maximally excellent being), the concept of God includes necessary existence, which a unicorn would not. You just have to change the form of the argument to account for that.

The love argument has some promise too, but again, the form needs to be modified.

From Alvin Plantinga’s lecture notes: (T) The argument from Love

Man-woman, parent-child, family, friendship, love of college, church, country–many different manifestations. Evolutionary explanation: these adaptive and have survival value. Evolutionarily useful for male and female human beings, like male and female hippopotami, to get together to have children colts) and stay together to raise them; and the same for the other manifestations of love. The theistic account: vastly more to it than that: reflects the basic structure and nature of reality; God himself is love.
philofreligion.homestead.com/files/theisticarguments.html

So, those are just the notes from his lecture, but you see the main idea. Love is either an evolutionary adaptation like hands or feet, or else there is something more to it than that and God exists.

I would be hesitant about using your first one, at least as is. I’m not sure it’s even valid. A man might have faith in Barack Obama, on the argument as you currently have it, Barack Obama would be defined as God and therefore exist.

There are indeed other arguments besides the Thomistic ones. Some in the link above. For others, go to William Lane Craig’s website Reasonable Faith.

 

[MPat]

The word ‘God’ exists.
Since the word is used intelligbly, it must refer to something.
Therefore, since the word ‘God’ exists, God (the referent of the word ‘God’) must, in some sense, exist.

Actually, it’s the first step of the Ontological Argument. In this way you prove that “God exists in understanding.”, “God exists in mind.” or “God exists in intellect.” (in Latin it’s “in intellectu”). Now, by itself, it is not a very impressive statement - I am sure most Atheists would agree with that. Let’s look what does “God exists in understanding.” actually mean.

First let’s take some fictional character, for example, a unicorn, since they have already been used as such example in this discussion (if that is not specific enough or if someone feels that unicorns should be identified with some real animals, then, let’s say, Twilight Sparkle from “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” should be a sufficiently fictional character). Now, it is possible to understand what “a unicorn” means. So, by the same process we can get a statement “A unicorn exists in understanding.”. It simply means that one can imagine a unicorn, think about it, formulate statements about it… It doesn’t mean that unicorns also exist in reality.

In short, you proved that God exists (at least) in the same way in which any fictional character exists. But it is not something that Atheists deny. They deny that God exists in reality.

Now, the next step of the Ontological Argument is supposed to show that, given the specific definition of God, the statement “God exists in reality.” actually does follow from the statement “God exists in understanding.”. I guess it is safe to say that this part is confusing and hard to understand (I’d say that proofs of St. Thomas Aquinas are far less confusing)… In order to see how it looks, you should probably read the St. Anselm’s “Proslogion” (that contains the argument and some further reasoning), Gaunilon’s “In Behalf of the Fool” (that contains some of the main objections to the argument) and St. Anselm’s reply to it.

 

[Qoeleth]

These are “proofs” of definition, the reason they don’t work is that they are ultimately tautological. By which i mean that they essentially reduce to “I define God as something which exists, therefore God exists”.

The error here is the statement that if a word can be used intelligibly then it must refer to something that exists. It is of course possible to have referents which do not in fact exist as real “things” (they may be concepts only).

If this “proof” worked then you could use it to prove anything you like to exist. As per the example with unicorns.*

What you have actually shown is that the concept “God” exists,. But I don’t think anyone would argue that the concept doesn’t exist.*

But, God is not a ‘thing’- God does not exist as a thing, in which sense Christians and atheists are in agreement. I would suggest that, given God’s non-thing-ness, the concept or, given God’s infinite transcendence, ‘non-concept’ of God ‘is’ the same (I use this word under erasure) as God- the Word/concept of ‘God’ ‘is’ God. To paraphrase the Gospel: The Word/concept of God was with God, and the Word was God.

Again, love is not a ‘thing’ nor is it precisely definable. If the existence of God is ontologically of the same status as the existence of love- and atheists agree that love exists, and the sentence “God is love” is understood equatively, is this not proof that God (i.e. love) exists?

 

[netineti]

I wish to propose some new proofs that God exists- and wonder how they might convince any sceptics, who (like many Christians) reject the old Thomist ways. Please feel free to refute.
“God” may be defined as “that which I have faith in”.
I have faith in something.
Therefore God exists.
God is love.
Love exists.
Therefore God exists.
The word ‘God’ exists.
Since the word is used intelligbly, it must refer to somethi**ng.
Therefore, since the word ‘God’ exists, God (the referent of the word ‘God’) must, in some sense, exist.

Are these logically sound proofs?

Why would you wish to “prove” the existence of God? And why do you think that logic would even begin to be adequate to accomplish such a thing, were it possible?

 

[Candide_West]

But, God is not a ‘thing’- God does not exist as a thing, in which sense Christians and atheists are in agreement. I would suggest that, given God’s non-thing-ness, the concept or, given God’s infinite transcendence, ‘non-concept’ of God ‘is’ the same (I use this word under erasure) as God- the Word/concept of ‘God’ ‘is’ God. To paraphrase the Gospel: The Word/concept of God was with God, and the Word was God.

I’m not quite sure what you are trying to say when you state that the concept of God is the same as God. If you are trying to say that God only exists as a concept then I’d tend to agree with you. But I don’t think this is what you mean.

Again, love is not a ‘thing’ nor is it precisely definable. If the existence of God is ontologically of the same status as the existence of love- and atheists agree that love exists, and the sentence “God is love” is understood equatively, is this not proof that God (i.e. love) exists?

The problem here is that God (an omnipotent sentient being) is NOT equal to love (an emotion experienced by humans and possibly some other species). Otherwise you would have to claim that a human emotion created the universe. But, since there were no humans or other animals around at the time to experience the love then that is impossible.

If on the other hand you are trying to claim the existence of “love” as something which has an existence outside of living beings like humans then you are NOT talking about the love that people experience and we can agree exists.

 

[danserr]

Again, love is not a ‘thing’ nor is it precisely definable. If the existence of God is ontologically of the same status as the existence of love- and atheists agree that love exists, and the sentence “God is love” is understood equatively, is this not proof that God (i.e. love) exists?

The problem here is that God (an omnipotent sentient being) is NOT equal to love (an emotion experienced by humans and possibly some other species). Otherwise you would have to claim that a human emotion created the universe. But, since there were no humans or other animals around at the time to experience the love then that is impossible.

If on the other hand you are trying to claim the existence of “love” as something which has an existence outside of living beings like humans then you are NOT talking about the love that people experience and we can agree exists.

Plantinga on the argument from love:“Man-woman, parent-child, family, friendship, love of college, church, country–many different manifestations. Evolutionary explanation: these adaptive and have survival value. Evolutionarily useful for male and female human beings, like male and female hippopotami, to get together to have children colts) and stay together to raise them; and the same for the other manifestations of love. The theistic account: vastly more to it than that: reflects the basic structure and nature of reality; God himself is love.”
philofreligion.homestead.com/…arguments.html

Maybe a better way to phrase an argument from love is something like this:

1. Either love is only a biological adaptation or God exists.
2. Love is not only a biological adaptation.
3. Therefore, God exists.
4. Strikes me as fairly uncontroversial; I think 2 would be the main one you would have to work to show. There may also be a better way to phrase premise one so maybe we can play with that.

 

[danserr]

Why would you wish to “prove” the existence of God? And why do you think that logic would even begin to be adequate to accomplish such a thing, were it possible?

St. Peter in the Bible commands Christians always to be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in them.

Instead of “proof” it is better to talk about evidence, and say that we can have good evidence to support our belief in the existence of God.

 

[netineti]

St. Peter in the Bible commands Christians always to be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in them.

Instead of “proof” it is better to talk about evidence, and say that we can have good evidence to support our belief in the existence of God.

Fine sentiments, indeed. Being ready is not like artificially always being ready to pounce, though, but like a cat the potential is always there, even in what seems to be sleep. The best policy I have experienced and observed is to speak when asked, otherwise appear ordinary.

There is that song, you know. It says: we’ll be recognized as Christians – true disciples of Jesus – not by our rhetoric or our politics or even the soundness of our theology, but by our love. then we might be asked why we love, and what is love. the second is far more important to be able to delineate for yourself, and few have taken the contemplative path that might reveal what that actually means. Bernadette Roberts is the only contemporary Roman Catholic I know who actually has a clue beyond what is the ordinary understanding. then if there is evidence, it is you, not some quotation or reference or third party pitch.

 

[PumpkinSeed]

I wish to propose some new proofs that God exists- and wonder how they might convince any sceptics, who (like many Christians) reject the old Thomist ways. Please feel free to refute.
“God” may be defined as “that which I have faith in”.
I have faith in something.
Therefore God exists.

I could say the same about a made up creature, but that doesn’t make it true. Faith is convincing yourself that something is real. That doesn’t mean it is. It just means it is- to you.
God is love.
Love exists.
Therefore God exists.

I don’t understand how an emotion can prove God.
The word ‘God’ exists.
Since the word is used intelligbly, it must refer to somethi**ng.
Therefore, since the word ‘God’ exists, God (the referent of the word ‘God’) must, in some sense, exist.

The words goblin or fairy exists too, but we know that those aren’t real

 

[Qoeleth]

I’m not quite sure what you are trying to say when you state that the concept of God is the same as God. If you are trying to say that God only exists as a concept then I’d tend to agree with you. But I don’t think this is what you mean.

The problem here is that God (an omnipotent sentient being) is NOT equal to love (an emotion experienced by humans and possibly some other species). Otherwise you would have to claim that a human emotion created the universe. But, since there were no humans or other animals around at the time to experience the love then that is impossible.

If on the other hand you are trying to claim the existence of “love” as something which has an existence outside of living beings like humans then you are NOT talking about the love that people experience and we can agree exists.

Is the existence of the ‘concept of God’ necessarily different from the existence of ‘God’? If by ‘the concept of God’ I mean the ultimate, transcendental orientation of the yearning of the human heart, the source and grounds of justice, compassion- if this ‘concept’ exists, then surely God (or, if you prefer, ‘God’) exists.

If a person says “I believe in justice”- is that any different from saying “I believe in the concept of justice”? If “the concept of the number 7” exists then, it is true to say that “the number 7” exists. Does that mean that “the number 7” exists only as a fictional character?

I think you are mistakenly simplifying things, maybe even making a ‘straw man’ to characterize God as a ‘being’.

It is worth pointing out that saying God exists ‘in reality’ is etymologically the same saying God exists ‘in re’ (i.e. as a ‘thing’).

So atheists, by saying God does not exist ‘in reality’, are simply saying God is not ‘a thing’ or ‘a being’. But this is quite an orthodox theological position- to try to show that God exists ‘in reality’ (etymologically, ‘in thing-hood’) would, I think, be quite a different things from demonstrating the God of our faith.

 

[Qoeleth]

I wish to propose some new proofs that God exists- and wonder how they might convince any sceptics, who (like many Christians) reject the old Thomist ways. Please feel free to refute.
“God” may be defined as “that which I have faith in”.
I have faith in something.
Therefore God exists.

I could say the same about a made up creature, but that doesn’t make it true. Faith is convincing yourself that something is real. That doesn’t mean it is. It just means it is- to you.

Can we make a distinction between something ‘existing to me’, and something simply ‘existing’? No doubt the response is some things exist objectively and other things exist purely subjectively. Can you give me an example of something which ‘exists’, but does not ‘exist to you’? No? Therefore, I suggest, the difference is not meaningful.

In the end, the entire universe exists for each of us ‘subjectively’ (from the point of view of our perception and interpretation of it). There is no objective existence, no ‘existence’ independent of perception of interpretation.

If I have never heard of something, or seen it or thought about it, it does not ‘exist to me’, or since I am the person making the statement, it would equally valid to say simply ‘it does not exist.’

But if God is a dominant element ‘to me’, if ‘God’ influences my life, then God must exist/exist to me (and I would argue there is no meaningful difference).

 

[Candide_West]

Is the existence of the ‘concept of God’ necessarily different from the existence of ‘God’? If by ‘the concept *of God’ I mean the ultimate, transcendental orientation of the yearning of the human heart, the source and grounds of justice, compassion- if this ‘concept’ exists, then surely God (or, if you prefer, ‘God’) exists.

Well, yes as far as I can tell a concept in the human mind cannot create the universe because there were no humans around to do the conceptualising.*

If you are saying that in the human mind there is no difference between the concept of God and God, then I’d probably agree. But that just again shows that the concept exists.

*If a person says “I believe in justice”- is that any different from saying “I believe in the concept of justice”? If “the concept of the number 7” exists then, it is true to say that “the number 7” exists. Does that mean that “the number 7” exists only as a fictional character?

In those cases there probably isn’t a difference no, because the number 7 is a concept which exists only in human minds. Equally justice is a concept which only exists in human minds. If you wanted to say “justice caused a galaxy to collapse into a black hole” then it would need to have some kind of existence outside the human mind. So it would not be sensible to equate the concept and the external agent.

*I think you are mistakenly simplifying things, maybe even making a ‘straw man’ to characterize God as a ‘being’.

Not deliberately at least. What term would you prefer to use? “Agent” perhaps? I’m just looking for some word which makes it clear that we are talking about a sentient personal something, as opposed to something like gravity.

It is worth pointing out that saying God exists ‘in reality’ is etymologically the same saying God exists ‘in re’ (i.e. as a ‘thing’).

Again this seems to be down to terminology. I can’t think of a word for something which exists but cannot be described as a thing in itself.

*So atheists, by saying God does not exist ‘in reality’, are simply saying God is not ‘a thing’ or ‘a being’. But this is quite an orthodox theological position- to try to show that God exists ‘in reality’ (etymologically, ‘in thing-hood’) would, I think, be quite a different things from demonstrating the God of our faith.

Well by all means state a term for how you would classify something which exists, but not “in reality” and is not a " thing" or a “being”. I’m happy to use whatever terminology you like, but we need to get it nailed down so we can have a meaningful conversation.

 

[Qoeleth]

Well, yes as far as I can tell a concept in the human mind cannot create the universe because there were no humans around to do the conceptualising.*

If you are saying that in the human mind there is no difference between the concept of God and God, then I’d probably agree. But that just again shows that the concept exists.

In those cases there probably isn’t a difference no, because the number 7 is a concept which exists only in human minds. Equally justice is a concept which only exists in human minds. If you wanted to say “justice caused a galaxy to collapse into a black hole” then it would need to have some kind of existence outside the human mind. So it would not be sensible to equate the concept and the external agent.

Not deliberately at least. What term would you prefer to use? “Agent” perhaps? I’m just looking for some word which makes it clear that we are talking about a sentient personal something, as opposed to something like gravity.

Again this seems to be down to terminology. I can’t think of a word for something which exists but cannot be described as a thing in itself.

Well by all means state a term for how you would classify something which exists, but not “in reality” and is not a " thing" or a “being”. I’m happy to use whatever terminology you like, but we need to get it nailed down so we can have a meaningful conversation.

Are you sure the “universe” ‘existed’ before the emergence of the concept of ‘the universe’? Isn’t the universe simply a concept- There may be cultures which have no word for ‘universe’, have no conception of a unified totality, and (for them) the ‘universe’ simply wouldn’t exist- rather there would just be a bunch of separate ‘stuff’. Moreover, isn’t the universe only ‘conceptually’ unified? Compare with the emerging idea of ‘dark matter’ or ‘multiverses’- until the concepts/language was formulated, to all intents and purposes, they simply did not ‘exist.’ And if the word “chair” did not exist, would it be true to say that “chairs still exist”? No, because the category/word would not be there even to make the statement.

So existence is a function of language.

And if I create a new word- say “antiverse”- refering to an alternate universe with precisely opposite conditions to this one (including being non-existent, in comparison to the existent nature of this universe), haven’t I just ‘made’ something new?

For the sake of discussion, maybe God could be ‘defined’ as:
the ideatum of the idea of the absolutely transcendent.
Or, more simply:
God is the referent of the word ‘God’.

We agree that the ‘idea of the absolutely transcendent’ exists. That idea must have a ideatum (a non-thing/thing to which the idea refers), which, is necessarily infinitely removed from the ‘idea’.That ideatum exists (ek-sistere- ‘stands out’ from other ‘things’)- otherwise the idea of it could not have been formed.

In other words, ‘God’ is what I am thinking of when I am thinking of ‘God’. And ‘God’ must ‘exist’- otherwise, what am I thinking of? Even if it is non-thing (no thing/nothing), it is still part of the verbal/conceptual structure which is -]re/-]ality.