Hello people,
I am not trained in logic. Could somebody help me out on something?

Its about Anselm's argument for god's existence. I had a thought about it.

He says that

"Being is greater that not being." And from there, god has to exist.

Now my thought , dont know if its meaningful, or total rubbish (in terms of academic logic) is the following:

Isnt it even greater, for a being greater than which cannot be conceived, to be able to exist and not to exist at the same time, or switch back and forth between the two, or to neither exist or not exist? As it pleases..... I mean, i would imagine a god to be able to not exist for some time and then "pop back" into existence.......



I would just like to know if my point has any value in a strict, academic sense.... And if not, why that is..
I would be grateful for opinions.......

If something does not exist, it cannot do anything, that makes total sense in the academic kind of logic.

---------- Post added 05-18-2010 at 01:24 PM ----------

!

Gd's omnipotence does not require that he violate non-contradiction.

I agree. That was my point. Too many people misunderstand the word omnipotence. They assume if God is omnipotent he can do anything, but what they should understand it to mean is that nothing doable is beyond God's ability. There are so many doable things beyond our ability because we are limited, not so for God. If something is not doable, because it is a contradiction, then not even God would be able to do it, because it is not doable. This is not a limitation on God--it simply defines Him.

When saying that God can't do something illogical or contrdictory some imagine a higher rule or rule-giver setting a limit to God, saying, "This far and no more." This is not the proper image.

In fact, it might interest you to know that the term "define" comes from the Latin, term for "to limit".

Yes, but we could imagine this like coloring in a child's coloring book. The kitty is being colored by Bobby. Bobby is too young to color inside the lines so he scribbles all over the page. The kitty on the page has lines to limit page space to what is in the cat and what is not. Any crayon marks outside those lines (outside of the limits or definition of cat) are not actually part of the cat. Only those marks that fall within the lines (limits or definition) of cat describe the cat.

So defining God, though working within limits, is not to limit God as less than omnipotent. Once again by definition we have two nuanced meanings of limit. To define here, or limit, is to demarcate what is and is not within the "boundaries" of the being we call God.

Hello people,
I am not trained in logic. Could somebody help me out on something?

Its about Anselm's argument for god's existence. I had a thought about it.

He says that

"Being is greater that not being." And from there, god has to exist.

Now my thought , dont know if its meaningful, or total rubbish (in terms of academic logic) is the following:

Isnt it even greater, for a being greater than which cannot be conceived, to be able to exist and not to exist at the same time, or switch back and forth between the two, or to neither exist or not exist? As it pleases..... I mean, i would imagine a god to be able to not exist for some time and then "pop back" into existence.......



I would just like to know if my point has any value in a strict, academic sense.... And if not, why that is..
I would be grateful for opinions.......

Here's a similar parody:


[LIST=1]
[*]The creation of the world is the most marvellous achievement imaginable.
[/LIST]
Not exactly parallel to the proposition that God is a being greater than whom cannot be conceived since we can argue that proposition is self-evidently true, and that cannot be argued about the creation of the world proposition, which although it may be true is certainly not self-evidently so. And that is quite an important distinction.

1. The creation of the world is the most marvellous achievement imaginable.
   

Not exactly parallel to the proposition that God is a being greater than whom cannot be conceived since we can argue that proposition is self-evidently true, and that cannot be argued about the creation of the world proposition, which although it may be true is certainly not self-evidently so. And that is quite an important distinction.

Actually, the creation of the world is far from the most marvellous achievement imaginable. The creation of the solar system as a whole or of the Universe is far more marvellous than creation of the third rock from our Sun. Then what about alternative universes and their interaction? Of course creation of life is marvellous, but we can imagine far more spectacular forms of life living elsewhere, whether they exist or not. We can imagine all sorts of things some more marvellous than others.

Actually, the creation of the world is far from the most marvellous achievement imaginable.

Here's a similar parody:


[LIST=1]
[*]The creation of the world is the most marvellous achievement imaginable.
[*]The merit of an achievement is the product of (a) its intrinsic quality, and (b) the ability of its creator.
[*]The greater the disability or handicap of the creator, the more impressive the achievement.
[*]The most formidable handicap for a creator would be non-existence.
[*]Therefore, if we suppose that the universe is the product of an existent creator, we can conceive a greater being-namely, one who created everything while not existing.
[*]An existing God, therefore, would not be a being than which a greater cannot be conceived, because an even more formidable and incredible creator would be a God which did not exist.
[*](Hence) God does not exist.
[/LIST]
Ontological Arguments (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Care to answer ?
Does the Set of all things contains or not contains itself ?

Hello people,
I am not trained in logic. Could somebody help me out on something?

Its about Anselm's argument for god's existence. I had a thought about it.

He says that

"Being is greater that not being." And from there, god has to exist.

Now my thought , dont know if its meaningful, or total rubbish (in terms of academic logic) is the following:

Isnt it even greater, for a being greater than which cannot be conceived, to be able to exist and not to exist at the same time, or switch back and forth between the two, or to neither exist or not exist? As it pleases..... I mean, i would imagine a god to be able to not exist for some time and then "pop back" into existence.......



I would just like to know if my point has any value in a strict, academic sense.... And if not, why that is..
I would be grateful for opinions.......

The most formidable handicap for a creator would be non-existence.

This parody-at least in its current state-seems to me to be inferior to other parodies in the literature, including the early parodies of Gaunilo and Caterus. To mention but one difficulty, while we might suppose that it would be a greater achievement to create something if one did not exist than if one did exist, it doesn't follow from this that a non-existent creator is greater (qua being) than an existent creator. Perhaps it might be replied that this objection fails to take the first premise into account: if the creation of the world really is "the most marvellous achievement imaginable", then surely there is some plausibility to the claim that the creator must have been non-existent (since that would make the achievement more marvellous than it would otherwise have been). But what reason is there to believe that the creation of the world is "the most marvellous achievement imaginable", in the sense which is required for this argument? Surely it is quite easy to imagine even more marvellous achievements-e.g., the creation of many worlds at least as good as this one! (Of course, one might also want to say that, in fact, one cannot conceive of a non-existent being's actually creating something: that is literally inconceivable. Etc.)

Hi Walkingaround.

If (hypothetical) God is omnipotent, He has to be Omnipresent - Everywhere at once, and If (hypothetical) God is everywhere - God is every thing - If God is everything<>Everything is God. So Everything and Everyone is God, and is equal to itself.

God being everywhere does not equate to God being everything. These are different unrelated concepts.