What are your thoughts on this argument?

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lemonbeam

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  1. God is (by definition) a being that which no greater being can be thought.
  2. Greatness includes the greatness of virtue.
  3. Therefore, God is a being that which no being could be more virtuous.
  4. But virtue involves overcoming pains and danger.
  5. Indeed, a being can only be properly said to be virtuous if it can suffer pain or be destroyed.
  6. A God that can suffer pain or is destructible is no one that which no greater being can be thought.
  7. For you can think of a greater being, on that is non-suffering and indestructible.
  8. Therefore, God does not exist.
–

What are your thoughts on this argument?
 
lemonbeam said:
  1. God is (by definition) a being that which no greater being can be thought.
  2. Greatness includes the greatness of virtue.
  3. Therefore, God is a being that which no being could be more virtuous.
  4. But virtue involves overcoming pains and danger.
  5. Indeed, a being can only be properly said to be virtuous if it can suffer pain or be destroyed.
  6. A God that can suffer pain or is destructible is no one that which no greater being can be thought.
  7. For you can think of a greater being, on that is non-suffering and indestructible.
  8. Therefore, God does not exist.
–

What are your thoughts on this argument?
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Problem is 4 “virtue involves overcoming pains and danger” - that’s an anthropomorphic conception of virtue. For human beings, living mortal lives in time and space, virtue involves overcoming pains and danger, but for God, who is immortal, it doesn’t involve that of necessity. Virtue is what leads us to our highest end. For humans, that highest end is loving God, for plants and animals, their ‘virtue’ is in their growth and reproduction, God’s virtue is Himself.

On the other hand, you could just challenge this argument at 8 “therefore God must both suffer and be indestructible” - a good argument for the Trinity and for the Incarnation, except that this would somewhat misrepresent the nature of Christ’s redemptive suffering, which is a gratuitous gift of God, not a necessary part of His nature.
 
Virtue is a human habit whereby the person attempts to become perfect - by God’s grace. Since God is perfection itself, He dose not need to become perfect. Hence, He dose not need to undergo trials, and, in fact, cannot undergo trials, being perfect in every way.

However, when God became man, He, as man, was able to suffer, to go through trials, and it is because the Humanity of Christ is completely submissive to and was assumed by the Divinity of Christ that we say God suffered and died; however, we do not say God grew in perfection, because it is the Humanity of Christ which grew, not the Divinity, and because God is perfect, in need of nothing. It is a balance between understanding the Hypostatic Union and the perfection of God.
 
Indeed, a being can only be properly said to be virtuous if it can suffer pain or be destroyed.
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This seems to violate the idea that something created (virtue) is greater than the One who created it, by imposing its own limitation on the Creator.
 
lemonbeam said:
  1. God is (by definition) a being that which no greater being can be thought.
  2. Greatness includes the greatness of virtue.
  3. Therefore, God is a being that which no being could be more virtuous.
  4. But virtue involves overcoming pains and danger.
  5. Indeed, a being can only be properly said to be virtuous if it can suffer pain or be destroyed.
  6. A God that can suffer pain or is destructible is no one that which no greater being can be thought.
  7. For you can think of a greater being, on that is non-suffering and indestructible.
  8. Therefore, God does not exist.
–

What are your thoughts on this argument?
Click to expand...
Both 4 and 5 are problems. “Virtue” is not normally defined as overcoming pains and danger (I’m not aware of such a definition), and you can be virtuous even if you don’t risk pain or destruction in doing so. Anyone who says, “No thanks; I’m trying to cut down” when presented with a sinful option (that extra drink or piece of cake; a cigarette, fornication, etc.) is acting virtuously, even if the only consequence is a simple “Okay” from the offeror. The idea that “a being can only be properly said to be virtuous if it can suffer pain or be destroyed” seems to have been invented for the purpose of this syllogism, which makes the entire construct questionable.

Accordingly, steps 6, 7, and 8 also fail.
 
Godfollower said:
Both 4 and 5 are problems. “Virtue” is not normally defined as overcoming pains and danger (I’m not aware of such a definition), and you can be virtuous even if you don’t risk pain or destruction in doing so. Anyone who says, “No thanks; I’m trying to cut down” when presented with a sinful option (that extra drink or piece of cake; a cigarette, fornication, etc.) is acting virtuously, even if the only consequence is a simple “Okay” from the offeror. The idea that “a being can only be properly said to be virtuous if it can suffer pain or be destroyed” seems to have been invented for the purpose of this syllogism, which makes the entire construct questionable.

Accordingly, steps 6, 7, and 8 also fail.
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Ahhhhhhhhhhhh,I just think so
 
It’s a blatant contradiction:
  1. The greatest being must suffer
  2. The greatest being does not suffer
 
lemonbeam said:
  1. God is (by definition) a being that which no greater being can be thought.
  2. Greatness includes the greatness of virtue.
  3. Therefore, God is a being that which no being could be more virtuous.
  4. But virtue involves overcoming pains and danger.
  5. Indeed, a being can only be properly said to be virtuous if it can suffer pain or be destroyed.
  6. A God that can suffer pain or is destructible is no one that which no greater being can be thought.
  7. For you can think of a greater being, on that is non-suffering and indestructible.
  8. Therefore, God does not exist.
–

What are your thoughts on this argument?
Click to expand...
Point 6 is invalid. God suffers grave pain every moment that some of His children turn their backs on him. To say that just because a being can suffer pain makes it possible to think of a greater being is fallacious. For any being, capable of creating another being, which did not suffer pain when it’s creations were acting in a manner detrimental to themselves would not be a very great being. Therefore any being, capable of creation, that is incapable of pain would be an inferior being to the Christian God.
 
Drawmack said:
Okay Socrates
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👋

Unlike the word “good”, “virtue” seems to imply something distinctly human. What exactly would it mean, for example, for God to be temperate? Or courageous? Certainly, if you assume that God must be courageous, then you can easily prove He doesn’t exist:
  1. God is courageous.
  2. If God is courageous, then God displays courage.
  3. Courage entails fear.
  4. God has nothing to fear.
  5. If God has nothing to fear, then God does not display courage.
  6. God displays courage and God does not display courage.
  7. Therefore, God does not exist.
(This is called a reductio ad absurdum).

I have just proved that something God is not does not exist. But my argument has nothing to do with God, as He truly is.
 
The argument falls apart in point 1.

It should read: “**God is (by definition) a being that which no greater being can be”. **God does not exist because we think he does, he simply is irregardless of whether we think or not. For example, if everyone believes a lie, does it make it true?

Your argument presupposes that God’s existence is subjective by what he does rather than by who He is.God is great by nature, not by the result or consequence of any action.

God is the source of all greatness. He is the source of all virtue and He is the source of all goodness and He is the source of all love. If I am to help an elderly woman cross the street, that goodness in itself is not my goodness, I am simply exercising the goodness that God placed there. He is, after all the creator of all good things. We’ve just been granted the beautiful and gracious privilege of participating in it.

God Bless,
CSJ
 
lemonbeam said:
  1. God is (by definition) a being that which no greater being can be thought.
  2. Greatness includes the greatness of virtue.
  3. Therefore, God is a being that which no being could be more virtuous.
  4. But virtue involves overcoming pains and danger.
  5. Indeed, a being can only be properly said to be virtuous if it can suffer pain or be destroyed.
  6. A God that can suffer pain or is destructible is no one that which no greater being can be thought.
  7. For you can think of a greater being, on that is non-suffering and indestructible.
  8. Therefore, God does not exist.
–

What are your thoughts on this argument?
Click to expand...
Point 2 is an error. Therefore, point 8 is false.
 
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