An Argument for God's Existence 

Mathoma Indeed, I think the reactionary right if it can ultimately unite around anything can unite around Classical Theism as the ontological wellspring of its shared ends By the way I'm glad you commented. Because I know you're an expert in the field of mathematics. Many have critiqued the video on the grounds that Zeno's paradox has been answered by mathematics, which I knew beforehand, but since I know mathematics deals heavily in "potentialities" derived from quantity, is the mathematical response still reliant on the distinction between act and potency? I'd love to hear your response as I'm way underqualified on that question

+Classical Theist There are only a couple branches of math where I'm quite knowledgeable and even then, proficiency in mathematics does not imply proficiency in philosophy of mathematics just as scientists are not necessarily knowledgeable about philosophy of science or philosophy more generally. However, I consider myself a mathematical realist and I think the nominalist and formalist positions are either incoherent or extremely implausible - and even if they were coherent, they do not jive with actual experience of doing mathematics. I think you're right to say mathematical responses still rely on the distinction between actually infinite and potentially infinite. This has historically been an extremely contentious issue in the history of math, how infinities are to be thought of. After Cantor, people hardly ever distinguish between potential and actual infinities because we quantify over infinite sets habitually. To _answer_ the Zeno paradox, you definitely have to quantify over an infinite set (uncountably infinite if you use real numbers) which entails taking an infinite set to be an actual infinity and running through the set. This comes about when talking about the convergence of an infinite series, specifically when talking about limits. What these infinite sets are is by no means obvious. Finitists are totally against infinite sets (some will still allow countably infinite sets) and generally say that actual infinities are meaningless whereas mainstream math is fine with admitting all sorts of infinite sets in the ontology as actual infinities. I tend to favor the mainstream view but I'll admit to confusion as to the way in which these infinite sets and our theorems concerning them, which are as solid as any other theorem, exist - perhaps they're ideas in the mind of God or something and we somehow gain a bit of knowledge that goes way beyond finitistic physics. On the other hand, the finitist position is also reasonable for the simple reason that talk of infinite sets gets extravagant very quickly and can often lead to paradoxes, which doesn't seem to be a good sign that these infinities are actual.

atheists first syllogism, still can't help himself but to straw man

P1: My mom makes muffins P2: Muffin exists Conclusion: My mom exists Refutation: But who make mom? Checkmate

prove it

The real problem is that this, by definition, irrational system of knowledge (althought they want to even redefine it to make it even more no sense) is based, majority of times, not in high order philosophers, but in RU-vidrs... The amount of time you must spend to explain them simple notions is just irrelevant to their ignorance.

Meaningless waffle neither builds nor destroys anything.I suggest that you become familiar with the circular argument fallacy, otherwise known as the begging the question fallacy.

In order to destroy a Default Position (reserving a belief in an epistemically unfounded existential claim), someone will need to provide evidence. This comments sounds more like a wishful thought than a Description of what this video succeeded.

@@nickolasgaspar9660 what are your objections to the arguments put forth in the video?

@@nickolasgaspar9660 did you even watch the video?

I also started making some simple videos in this voiceover style recently about catholic truths and answers, but this is professional and I can already see how many things I have to learn. Your channel is helpful

I just don’t subscribe to Thomistic metaphysics. It strikes me as unintuitive and not parsimonious in relation to reality.

@@jimothynimajneb622 What is unintuitive about it?

Quite right; the principle of analogy is distinguished in two ways: analogy of attribution and analogy of proportionality (within which is analogy of proper proportionality and metaphorical proportionality). God's relation to the world as to the attributes that can be really predicated of Him would relate to the world along the principle of analogy by proper proportionality. It's a beautiful way of doing natural theology and philosophy generally.

I can'think why he or anyone might suppose that it is necessary to define 'analogous'

Hahaha, unfortunately I live with a dog I’m allergic to so you’re gonna have to get used to the sniffling for a little while my dude

Drink a Trappist Ale** everytime

But you*Are* a theist.

Thank you for the substantive comment. I quite agree, it's slightly imprecise to brand him as a theistic personalist if denial of divine simplicity is the distinguishing factor, which I largely consider it to be. However, I included Ockham (I should have spelled this out a bit) in the list because I think his philosophy and nominalist metaphysics that undergird his theology is indispensable to what made the denial of divine simplicity, the stress of the univocity of being, and the like tenable, which are what really detach theistic personalists from classical theists. I do take your criticism, though. And keep up the good work on your channel

Alright. Fair enough. And thank you! You keep up the good work as well.

Perhaps you confuse argument, or an attempt to persuade, with evidence, and maybe you are not familiar with the different categories of evidence. Would you say there is a difference between proof and persuasion? If I hit your thumb with a hammer do you need to be *persuaded* of what you experience as a result of that?It will not assist anyone to make the proposition X equals Y and then define Y in terms of X; Surely that is axiomatic. Is there any way of discerning when either an atheist or his exact opposite use the word God, whether or not they are referring to exactly the same experience? Fundamentally all universals can only be imaginary, save in terms of a combination of piecemeal and seriatim experiences glued together with what can only be called imagination or memory, and one wonders i if there is any fundamental difference between imagination and memory.Perhaps it is best summed up in the words from Catch-22: "What didn't Yossarian say to you in the latrines? When didn't he say it?"

@@vhawk1951kl shouldn't this comment be somewhere else instead of here? they were just talking about ockham theistic views, if he was a personalist or classical. seems like either a mistake or bot stuff.

Venneroth Thanks for bringing it to my attention!

That video is so bad... I don't use the term too liberally, but it was actually a dunning Kruger

I never saw that video, but Aquinas was a lying little weasel with the blood of thousands on his hands.

@@rembrandt972ify keep seething Protestant

@@democracyisajewshill3341 I'm not a protestant.

@@rembrandt972ify what are you

Update: I can now understand this video (This is my alt).

Set out how you understand "classical theism"

There's a link to the script in the description of the video

If you don't understand it when it is spoken, why would you understand it if it were written down?

Or you could study logic instead and find out that such arguments are a waste of time.

Some of it is still fuzzy. I could see explaining God as subsistant existence itself. But before that, I'll need to study.

What exactly do you understand it to mean or convey? Yeah, right.

Is that so? How would you summarise it? Yeah, right.

Arch Hades Panentheism is a contradiction

What do you think about this? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Zp7gAm6TxFw.html

@@John-lf3xf How is it a contradiction? Or are you just saying it contradicts scripture?

+Angus Rhodes In case you missed the first notification, this is the thread I was talking about.

Supernautiloid I had already found it, but thanks for being thoughtful.

You don't need to accept the definitions, because propositions are the underlying meaning behind words and sentences. If you disagree that existence or essence as used in this video mean what you think they do, it's irrelevant to the underlying, clearly explained propositions he is defending. What's the difference between knowing their is a God personally or classically? There's an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, omnibenevolent being in existence. What about that makes you uninterested?

Well it wasn't that great mate...

To atheists, it's just called logic, reality etc.

Doubtless you notice that both atheists and theists are identically coy when it comes to defining their terms if X tells you that there are fairies at the bottom of the garden, no doubt you would ask him to show you the fairies and also why he supposes them to be fairies -whatever they are. There is an amusing story about a woman in the 12th century that declared that she was hearing voices, and when she was asked whether they were the voices of devils or angels, she replied that they had not told her and if they had, why would she believe them?

Nevertheless both atheists and their exact opposites appear to be wholly incapable of defining their terms in any way that is not entirely circular or rather does not beg the question.

I’ve never been totally convinced by Thomistic metaphysics. It’s certainly interesting, but when people call it outdated, I can see why… I don’t concede that it isn’t a worldview to be taken seriously, but idk the whole deal of act and potency doesn’t seem very intuitive to me. I don’t buy that existence is an act. Existence to me just seems to be the exemplification of a property or properties. I feel like existence should precede essence.

@@jimothynimajneb622 Is existence an act? I think that depends on perspective. You and me cannot act in any way to exist. We just exist. It is God who holds us in existence. It is His act, sure, but not ours. Also, I agree with you that existence in a way comes before essence. In God according to Thomism His essence and His existence are one and the same. So in other words God is the One who simply is. His essence is characterized by existence first and foremost. So I'm not sure that you even disagree with Thomism on that point. I agree with you that one doesn't have to be in love with Thomism. But one should respect it and I think there is so much to profit from it, which is why we are here in this comment section. God bless and thank you for your comment!

@@affel6559 I have a lot of respect for thomism and Thomistic thought. I came across it a couple months ago and it’s intriguing. I can’t say I agree with some of the metaphysics but I definitely respect it

@@jimothynimajneb622 You probably already know this but other great Thomistic content can be found on 'Thomistic Institute' and 'Pints with Aquinas' on youtube. (The latter one regularly features a Dominican priest who is well versed on St. Thomas) Maybe the best Catholic RU-vid channel (although it is NOT explicitly thomistic) is Fr. Mike Schmitz's Ascension presents imo. God bless!

sure thing I’d be happy to see that tbh

In simple terms, God is assumed to be likeable or good, and the apparent problem arises out of the state of affairs where particular beings regard one or another manifestation or experience as dislikeable or evil. One is tempted to say that it were better if men took the advice of the writers of Genesis chapter 1, the gist of which appears to be that it is not advisable to concern yourself with all this nonsense about good and evil or liking and disliking things. The said writers plainly anticipated that nothing but trouble would come from either of those twin ideas, and how right they were, because it is a short step from those twin ideas of good and evil to those monstrosities right and wrong or what men call "morality", which has caused more death and destruction than any other of the fantasies that men keep inventing, for the simple reason that where you have morality, you have religion, and where you find religion death and destruction, which some take to be dislikeable. It is not necessarily a cause of difficulty, or a problem, that men have likes and dislikes; the real problem or difficulty arises out of their slavery to their likes and dislikes and the fact that they react blindly to them, thereby depriving themselves of all choice in the matter. The gist of the story appears to be that Mr God advised or enjoined men from embarking upon anything to do with those twin ideas good and evil, and his exact words according to the story were: "do not eat of that tree", or in plain language don't get into all that nonsense or as people say nowadays, don't go there." Since men (human beings) appear to have both likes and dislikes , or be capable of either liking or disliking certain experiences, presumably it is necessary that they have that capability for liking and disliking, and it is plain that if they are the slaves of their likes and dislikes or the mechanical/automatic reactions in that part of the brain which is to do with emotions, they will have no choice when it comes to how they manifest because it will always be in terms of their likes and dislikes which predominates over their reason, and given that they have no choice whatsoever when it comes to their likes and dislikes, they inevitably thereby depriving themselves of any choice, and thus become enslaved. The problem if probably be goes as follows: If God be everything and everything is supposed to be likeable, how can it be that one or another being will not like something or other? If you presuppose everything to be likeable and God to be everything, your presuppositions will be confounded when you discover that you don't like absolutely everything, or are not continually pleased, and it appears to be a fairly common experience that not every experience to which men or human beings are subject, necessarily pleases them. The problem if problem it bee be, is why are men such slaves to their mechanical or automatic reactions that are likes and dislikes The probable answer is that if they did not derive pleasure from certain experiences they would neither eat nor breed, and would thus die out. Should they lack an inclination to engage in the process whereby new human beings are commenced, they will die out. If you want them to both breed and eat, you had better design them in such a way that they like breeding and eating, and if you don't they will do neither, while if you do there may be dislikeable consequences which arise out of their desire for pleasure. For some inexplicable reason men describe dislikeable consequences as evil. It is merely a word that indicates that they are displeased by particular eventualities or experiences. If you really want to cause trouble that then embarked upon all that nonsense that men call "morality", which apparently leads to nothing but death and destruction for the simple reason that they will seek to impose their ideas of morality on others who may not agree with them, and that can only possibly lead to trouble or dislikeable, or evil, consequences.If there is a problem with lies not in particular in experiences or manifestations, but in liking or disliking them or in characterising them as that rather silly word evil, which is a judgement rather than a particular quality, and it is a judgement based on nothing but automatic mechanical likes and dislikes - it comes with the territory of having likes and dislikes, which are apparently necessary. There is nothing essentially evil about particular manifestations or experiences, it is characterising them as "evil" which gives rise to the problem if problem there be.

Why would anyone in their right mind suppose your famous and imaginary cause to be a certain Mr God? If everything (which can only be imaginary) is either a cause or an effect, then everything also includes your famous and imaginary Mr God which must also be either a cause or effect, and if it is in effect what is its cause? Why call a thing he or she or imagine it to be a person, unless you happen to be insane?

@@vhawk1951kl Wouldn’t God be exempt from that necessary cause as the first principle? It’s probably more accurate to say “Everything in the Universe requires a cause” and since God pre-exists the Universe, that need for a cause would not apply to God. As for why God would be personified that has separate reasons but if anything the argument from the idea that God as the first principle that pre-exists the Universe is one of the most convincing arguments for God.

The essence of the sculpture already existed, i.e., the marble. Accidents aren't the same as essences

Try "What atheists misunderstand about God: a response to godless cranium" by classical theist

Watch Thomistic Disputations

Sturer 111 I'm pretty familiar with it, yeah. Feser has done an excellent job popularizing it in its most authentic and convincing form. Have you ordered his new book Five Proofs? I suppose I could do a video on the argument from motion in the future

I myself am not familiar with it :( Ordering the book with no idea about Scholastic metaphysics would lead nowhere I guess. Actually, I had a question (that is the direct consequence of my unfamiliarity with Aquinas). On Ed Fesers blog there is this one person called Stardusty Psyche. He constantly argues against the First Way. Other commentatores just ignore him because supposedly his arguments are very weak, always the same ones and that he is some kind of hardline atheist or something. I cant judge that, however. Could you tell me what exactly is wrong with his argumentation? He seems very convinced of himself, which could be a telltale sign. Also, his first argument that Aquinas contradicts himself because, as everything moving needs a mover, so would the unmoved mover need something moving him, is obviously weak. But still, Id like to be sure on that Here some of his "material": philosopherdhaines.blogspot.de/2013/09/a-defense-of-aquinass-first-way.html#gpluscomments edwardfeser.blogspot.de/2017/07/taking-aquinas-seriously.html?showComment=1500757199296#c7837464110761868935

Sturer 111 Actually, the new book is designed for folks who don't have time to get into the trenches of Scholastic metaphysics since he reformulates the old arguments. That's one of the main reasons he wrote it was to appeal to folks who don't have a Scholastic background. It seems like this individual really does not understand the fact that this is a metaphysical argument, and that the distinction between actuality and potentiality are metaphysical principles, not principles of physics. Furthermore, dictating something a law of nature does nothing to explain what a law of nature (in this case, inertia) actually is. The data is inert with respect to interpretation, and has no bearing on the metaphysical principle

Ah, well! Then I might look into it. Could take some time to get it though in the country where I live

Curt Herring An essence of "treeness" is a universal concept, but the imperceptible yet true fact of each iterance of tree is what Kant called noumena, which acknowledges the objective reality independent of the observer.

I will be honest, I am kinda of just dipping my toes into metaphysics, so not super familiar with the terminology. From what I can find about the term "noumena" it seems like you are talking about a thing itself, external to perception. I am just questioning whether "treeness" has its roots in the external world or is a product of the human mind organizing its perceptions of the external word into discrete packages with their own "essential properties". One could simply view the noumenal world as being beyond human understanding (beyond being, non-being and essence), and sort of absurd. This argument for God itself suggests that even existence itself could be an essence, so if one accepts the idea of essence as a construct of human minds, then it could just be inapplicable to the noumenal world. Using this idea one could embrace "treeness" as a construction which is also universal (to all rational minds). Of course this seems to collapse into solipsism, so I don't know.

You can think of it as just an information pattern, the pattern itself exists regardless of if you decide to produce it in ur mind or not.

Now if only you could turn that into plain English, but you can't, can you? If X is a true cause of Y, will not X invariably cause Y, if X is indeed a true cause of Y? Contrariwise, if Y occurs without X, can it be argued that X is not a true cause of Y. Might it not be that Y is the consequence of a number of factors including X? The better question is why call X Mister God? It may be that when it rains the pavements become wet, but I don't necessarily describe rain as Mister God, and if I do some might well question my sanity. I am reminded of the Frenchman that said that he rather liked English bread but couldn't quite understand why the English call it sausages. It may be that there is a causa causans, but for the life of me I can't think of any reason to call that -whatever it is, Mister God. Fire apparently causes things to become hot and rain to become wet, but I don't call either fire or rain Mister God. If anything and everything is God then nothing is God. If you suggest that one of the characteristics of God is causation then does it follow from that that all causes are necessarily God? Causes undoubtedly precede effects in what is experienced as time, because that is what cause means. Men (human beings) embark upon rather unsound territory when they refer to everything because self-evidently they cannot experience Everything, other than piecemeal and seriatim (which for the layman means a bit at a time one after the other) which they proceed to glue together with what can only be called imagination and/or memory. I suppose that a flock of sheep or a crowd of men could constitute a flock or a crowd without any of its without any one of them having any idea of either a flock or a crowd. The difficulty with compound concepts such as God or the universe or everything (or essence or existence or consciousness) is that they tend to be rather vague and incapable of direct immediate personal apprehension or experience that is not entirely subjective. What is the subject matter of consciousness or existence if not itself? It is an experience, and experiences do not need to be established by processes of syllogisms or any form of reasoned argument; it suffices that they are what they are insofar as they are experienced. The Hindus say: "Tat swam Assi' - that thou art; what is is. It is not necessary to go further than that. If I experience whatever I call God, it is not my business to enquire as to what others experience, nor is it necessary for me to persuade them that what I experience they also can experience, and if I do, what I will be doing is making a description rather than an argument. It is a very real question whether or not what I experience as I am_ness is identical to the experience of my brother, but neither he nor I have any way of knowing, and it is idle to speculate upon the matter. Moreover it is entirely pointless.

I think you misunderstood what "essence" means here. Have you found out yet? If not, I will try and help here. I don't think you can refer to essence as a "concept". Rather, essence defines what something is, and THAT it exists as that something. Essence, as I recall from philosophy, is what something is, so a better term to replace it would be the "nature" of the thing. As an example: Think of a dog. It's "essence" is to be doing doggy things, which you can mark as characteristic of a dog. It is within its nature to do these things and it is not part of its essence or nature to do something against its essence or nature, such as act like or be a cat or a goat or a horse. From its DNA material, all the way to its accidental qualities (i.e., qualities we can see from out five senses), a dog is a dog. From this knowledge of canine essence or nature, we can take the idea of the essence of a dog and use it to group together other dogs throughout the world, in that they carry typical canine features. The same goes for our feline, equestrian, and other animal friends of the world. Therefore, the essence of something is the nature of what it is. It is its unchanging, definable characteristics of its entire genus. It is independent of our concept of what it is. So, if a person told you that it is a dog's essence to reason and speak and that dog's can mean what they say, such as when they say "10+10=20", you would not say "that is YOUR essence of a dog, but it is not mine", because essence is not our "concept" of what reality is, but essence is EXACTLY what reality is, the objective truth of it, regardless of our knowledge of it or not. So we should rather argue if dog's have ever reasoned and can speak and also understand the abstract concept of "20", and if it is true, then it is part of a dog's nature or essence to do this - part of its instinct, we should say. But as I have never seen a dog do this - and neither has anyone in the natural world seen this - we must conclude that this is beyond the nature of a dog to do so. One more example. A common example for defining nature is to define human nature. If I asked you "WHO are you?" You would tell me the name of the individual you are, a name given which specifically refers to the individual known as you. No one else can be the same as "who" you are. I.e. who am I? I am Richard. What kind of Richard? Richard Smith? Grant? Miller? No, I am Richard Bonnette. I have my own set of features from DNA to accidental qualities which make me unique and separate from all Richard's in the world. No other Richard can inhabit the same space, at the same time, as me. It is what defines me individually. But essence goes one step further. If I asked you "WHAT are you?", a proper response would be "I am a human being". A human being is that which has a human nature. It is the objective understanding of what it is to be human. Which is, someone who possesses the gift of reasoning, the capacity for learning, free will (i.e., freedom to follow or disobey God's natural order or laws in the universe), and other characteristics of human nature. That is your essence and mine. I am a human being, made in the image and likeness of God, with the gifts of reason and free will. But this essence is not immediately clear to other people because essence is not always obvious, as we are dependent beings. I arrived at it through study of philosophy and logic and history. Because one of the qualities of having a human essence, is being ignorant of all past history prior to my existence. Someone has to tell me who the First Cause is, for I do not know that answer myself, though I could arrive at it at some point. Perhaps that helps or hinders you in understanding essence. But it would be better to equate essence with "nature of a thing" then with a concept. We are in the realm of realistic philosophy when we deal with Thomistic or Aristotelian philosophy, so anything provided is the objective truth, as general a thing as can possibly be explained. D.Q. McInerny "Intro to Foundational Principles of Logic", I think that's the name, is a boring but insightful book in better explaining the essence of what something is. Also included are examples of strawman fallacies. My grandfather, by the way, Dr. Dennis Bonnette, taught Thomistic Philosophy at Niagara University for most of his life. He has some books on philosophy ( Also some fascinating books on the question of where rationality came from IF evolution is true, I think it was called the "Origin of Species", but I could be wrong. He has his articles on Strangenotions. com if you want to take a look around at some of his works. He is not the only source for theistic philosophy, but he is one available.

No. Essence simply means in its simplest form, and is sometimes used in contradistinction to personality. Concept is merely an idea or dream Chuck away the words and go for the actual experiences, which you either have or you don't have. To reduce something to his essence means to boil it down to its bare bones - its simplest possible form. If you try to use the mind to examine the mind you will wind up in a hall of mirrors - a species of psychological feedback loop.

Isidore.co

Because that 4D universe is composite

@@carsonianthegreat4672 but space-time isn't composite, right?

Soviet Plays Games space time is by nature composite

@@carsonianthegreat4672 why is it composite?

@@sovietsandvich8443 - because it is necessarily composed of more than one component. 1. Space. 2. Time. 3. Matter. By *definition* You cannot have any one of those without the other. A. Each component of space/time *must* have the other components, and must relate to those other components. B. It is impossible to instantiate an infinite number of enumerated sequential timeslots. (Ie, it is impossible to *finish* counting up to infinity) C. Therefore space/time cannot be eternal (we would never arrive *here* at this moment if we had to first travel an infinite number of discrete moments to get "here"). D. Therefore space/time has a beginning at some finite moment in the past. That's my quick & dirty summary of explaining a concept that is probably above my pay grade but makes sense to me ..so far. Rebuttals and corrections welcomed.

How does an essence existing on a spectrum change the argument?

From what I can tell, in your argument the tree is still a tree, it just has a potentiality to become kindling if it is acted upon by another actuality. What I believe classical theist was getting at, is that essence cannot be synonymous to existence due to the fact that for such a thing to exist, it must possess an essence already. Something cannot exist and simultaneously have an essence, an essence must preexist for it to be logically sound (he accentuates this by explaining how a dinosaur's essence can be understood and explained, but it does not mean that such an essence is in existence anymore); that which is essence and existence itself, existing simultaneously, with the capacity to give a certain thing an essence, is God. Hope this helps , and if I'm mistaken please feel free to correct me, I'm a beginner in metaphysics and understanding Thomism.

This is a continuum fallacy.

This isn't a proper response, but in your particular example, the kindling wouldn't really *be* kindling because artifacts don't have their own essence.

You need to make an actual argument. Going through his points and just saying they are wrong is not an argument.

I agree. One is not in the habit of saying the thing on the end of my left leg is my left foot therefore…… I agree with David Hume that you cannot derive an ought from an is, not that I care to waste my time with norms.

@@vhawk1951kl Day to day pragmatic decisions - who cares? But dealing with the meaning of life, well, that’s another matter.

He over-complicates things; it is thinking of of God as a thing and thinking of God as a person (the Mister God fantasy), or that seems to be what he's trying to get across, if not entirely coherently. It is entirely unnecessary to overcomplicate the idea of God - or the experience of God, with all that bunk about religion and or morality. If God is not a direct immediate personal experience for you then no amount of arguments will make it so.

Definitely classic theist (maybe not for divine simplicity though) but in general he is

Dominic Savio Yes, I will. I've been busy these last two nights, but I am going to respond to him.

Yeah. he's crowing on Twitter that nobody can beat him, his arguments are untouchable, Thomistic philosophy is unscientific, etc.

All his arguments are stock objections that have been addressed by thomists over and over and over again For one, he claims to have studied Aquinas, and yet he thinks his claim that metaphysics has to be derived from observation is somehow foreign to the mind of the Thomist, when one of the Thomistic theses is that nothing is in the intellect which was not first in the senses. But there are metaphysical principles that are derived from the most immediate of sense data, such as the law of non-contradiction, the principle of causality, the principle of finality, multiplicity, essence, distinction, form, matter, etc which are *presupposed* explicitly or implicitly prior to conducting specialized experiments based on indirect observation couched in pre-packaged mathematical systems that serve as interpretive lenses for those specialized, indirect observations. So that's a key part of one response I'll give to him

@KC No it's not. Refuted how? atheistic arrogance sometimes reveal their aggressivity towards their opponent (like a savage) rather then honest intellectual discourse.

I'm not a philosopher, so don't quote me on this, but here's how I understand it: if something is essential, then removing it, would remove the essence of the object. For example: it is not essential for a human to have black hair. I can have blond hair, rad hair, white hair and still be a human. But if we remove my intellect and will, then I'll stop existing, because it is essential for a human to have those traits. Now, if existence would be part of my essence, then I could do nothing to stop exist, except by removing my existence itself. For whatever you take away from me - my body, my intellect, my will, I am still going to exist by the virtue of my nature. Therefore, anything else would become non-essential.

It's essence is existence

All this talk about existence and essence is merely substituting one meaningless term for another - All he is saying X = Y therefore Y =X, which is as meaningless as it is fallacious, and entirely circular. If X =Y, there is no "therefore" about it. If you cannot or do not experience God as experience then no amount of arguments will bring you to a point where you do experience it. Why can't these God botherers mind their own business? You can't miss what you never had.

All the parts other than existence would already exist, making the "existence" part entirely redundant.

If something cannot come from nothing (existence cannot come from non existence), and God by definition is subsitent existence itself, then it would stand to reason that the first cause, the beginning of the physical world (and spiritual, but that's beside the point) was not an accident, therefore, not random.

@rehecked If God made that choice NECESSARILY, then his freedom would not violate sufficient reason. Humans are depicted has on necessarily having to preferA over B, so a prior explanation is required. "Itself" is not sufficient to avoid brute fact.

@rehecked it's not rocket science.

@rehecked Aquinas taught that god does not NECESSARILY create but does NECESSARRILY love himself. So he would need an explanation for why he chooses to create instead of not create. "Himself eternally" would be the explanation from Aquinas, but this is not sufficient because it since the outcome of the choice is free instead of necessary, it needs a prior explanation in order to avoid it being just random brute fact. That's very simple to understand.

@@michaelflores9220 I guess the “brute fact” is out existence itself

No, because these strings, if they exist, would be composite.

What is the foundation for these strings?

No doubt you will set out your understanding of string theory whatever that is - some sort of pointless wiseacring presumably.

Dogs aren't modeled after the essence of dog. We see things that are similar and choose to call them them dogs.

@@MrSpectralfire I mean you are essentially saying "All Chairs are quite different" But that seems almost comically self defeating. For if all chairs are quite different then you couldnt call them all 'chairs' So you have either controdicted yourself or made a trivial statement.

@@jerry250ify I'm saying, "all these things we call chairs are quite different and calling them chairs is merely a human convention not a reflection of their real nature."

@@MrSpectralfire Look if thats true then why would we expect our thoughts (and our concepts you propose to be imaginary) to have any relation to reality at all? Why can we use these (You suppose made up) concepts not only merely to describe and model reality but to predict its out comes. At its very core its incoherent. But lets make a more formal statement against conceptualism. (All taken from Dr. Edward Fesers Ph.D, book "Five proofs from the existence of God" from p.89 onward "The Augustinian proof" (personally selected the examples that fitted here): 1. The argument from geometry: In geometry we deal with perfect fines, perfect angles, perfect circles, and the like, and discover objective and necessary truths about them. For example, it is an objective and necessary truth that the angles of a Euclidean triangle add up to the sum of two right angles. We discovered this rather than invented it and couldn’t change it if we wanted to. It was true before any human mind existed and would remain true even if every human being went out of existence. Since these truths are objective andnecessary, they cannot be mere constructs of our minds. Since they are necessary and unalterable truths, they would also remain true whatever happens in the material world, and even if the material world went out of existence. Furthermore, no material thing has the perfection that geometrical objects have. So, these truths do not depend on the material world either. 2.The argument from mathematics in general: Mathematical truths in general are necessary and unalterable, while the material world and the human mind are contingent and changing-for example, that 2 + 2 = 4 was true long before anyone realized it, and would remain true even if every human being forgot about it or died out. It would also remain true whatever happens in the material universe, and even if the entire material universe went out of existence. Hence, the things these truths are truths about-numbers and other mathematical objects- cannot be either mere constructs of the human mind, or dependent on the material world. Moreover, the series of numbers is infinite, but there are only finitely many material things and only finitely many ideas within any human mind or collection of human minds. Hence, the series of numbers cannot be dependent for its existence on either human minds or the material world. 3.The argument from science: Scientific laws and classifications, being general or universal in their application, necessarily make reference to universals; and science is in the business of discovering objective, mind-independent facts. Hence, to accept the results of science is to accept that there are universals that do not depend for their existence on the human mind. Science also makes use of mathematical formulations, and since (as noted above) mathematics concerns a realm of abstract objects, to accept the results of science thus commits one to accepting that there are such abstract objects. 4. The argument from the objectivity of concepts and knowledge: When you and I entertain the concept of any universal-the concept of triangularity, say, or of redness-we are each entertaining one and the same concept, which refers to one and the same universal. It is not that you are entertaining your own private concept of redness and I am entertaining mine, with nothing in common between them. Similarly, when we each consider various propositions, we are entertaining the same propositions. For example, when you think about the Pythagorean theorem and I think about the Pythagorean theorem, we are each thinking about one and the same truth. It is not that you are thinking about your own personal Pythagorean theorem and I am thinking about mine (whatever that would mean). Furthermore, many of the universals and propositions we entertain are the same as those entertained by people long dead, and will be entertained by people who do not yet exist, long after we are dead. If the human race died out, and some new intelligent beings came into existence, they could come to entertain the same universals and propositions we did. So, universals and propositions are not mere constructs of the human mind, but have some foundation outside the human mind. Consider also that this must be the case in order for communication to be possible. Suppose that, as conceptualism implies, the universals and propositions you entertain were sheer constructs of your mind. Then it would be impossible for you and anyone else ever to communicate. For whenever you said something-“Snow is white”, say-then the universals you refer to and propositions that you expressed would be things that existed only in your own mind, and would thus be inaccessible to anybody else. Your idea of snow would be entirely different from my idea of snow, and since your idea is the only one you would have any access to, and my idea is the only one I would have access to, we would never mean the same thing whenever we talked about snow, or about anything else for that matter. But this is absurd. We are able to communicate and grasp the same concepts and propositions. Indeed, we have to be able to do so even to agree or disagree about conceptualism itself. Hence, universals and propositions cannot be mere constructs of the human mind, but must have some foundation outside it. And lastly: 5. The argument from the incoherence of psychologism: Arguments like the last are associated with the logician Gottlob Frege, who was concerned to uphold the scientific status of logic and mathematics against a doctrine known as “psychologism” . Psychologism tends to reduce the laws of logic and mathematics to mere psychological principles governing the operation of the human mind.4 On this view, logic and mathematics don’t describe objective reality, but merely the way the structure of our minds leads us to think about reality. There are obvious affinities between conceptualism and this sort of view. When you add to it (as some relativists would) the suggestion that the way our minds are structured is determined by contingent and evolving biological, social, historical, and cultural circumstances, the result is a very radical form of relativism, on which all our concepts, as well as logic, mathematics, science, and so forth, are culturally conditioned and subject to revision, with no necessary connection to objective reality. This is radical, and totally incoherent, as are psychologism and conceptualism generally. For if we say that our concepts, standards of logic, and the like are determined not by any correspondence to objective reality but rather by the effects on our minds of contingent forces of history, culture, and the like, or even by biological evolution, then we have to give some account of exactly how this works. We have to say precisely which biological and cultural forces were responsible, how they formed our minds, and so forth. We will also have to give arguments in defense of this account. But such an account will necessarily appeal to various universals (e.g., Darwinian selection pressures, class interests, genetic mutations, and social trends) and to scientific and mathematical principles governing the relevant processes; and defending it will require appeal to standards of logic. Yet these were the very things the view in question tells us have no objective validity, and (since they purportedly depend on our minds for their existence) did not exist before our minds did. Hence, this sort of view completely undermines itself. Suppose instead that, following Kant, the conceptualist or advocate of psychologism takes the less radical position that though our concepts and standards of logic and mathematics reflect only the operations of our own minds and not objective reality, this is a necessary fact about ourselves, something that could not be changed by either biological or cultural evolution. Would this save the view from incoherence? Not at all. For again, the advocate of such a view is going to have to explain to us how he knows all this, and how our minds got that way in the first place. And if he appeals to concepts, logical standards, and so forth that he’s just got done telling us have no connection to objective reality and depend entirely on our minds for their existence, then he’s effectively undermined his own case. On the other hand, insofar as he claims that it is a necessary fact about our minds that we have the concepts, standards of logic, and so forth that we do, then he’s thereby claiming to have knowledge of the objective nature of things-specifically, of the objective nature of the workings of our minds- of just the sort that was supposed to be ruled out by his theory. For to formulate and defend his claim, he needs to appeal to certain universals (like mind), standards of logic, and so forth; and again, his theory claims that these have no objective validity. So, he’s caught in a dilemma: if he insists, as his theory must lead him to, that our concepts, standards of logic, and so forth have no objective validity, then he cannot so much as defend his own position; if he claims that they do have validity, so as to justify his claim to know about the objective nature of our minds, then he’s just contradicted his own view in the very act of defending it. Again, the view is simply incoherent.

@@jerry250ify - thanks for that lengthy and illuminating response. To my mind, it underscores the serious threat that Leftism (and it's perpetual desire to nullify and obscure definitions) is to Western civilization. Indeed, human civilization.

Well are you a diest or athiest

Wouldn't this be addressed by some form of understanding the dual nature of Christ - that He is *both" God and man? (I don't know a solid answer to your question, but it seems to me that you're asking about what John 1:1-12 is describing )

Uh, no. God is described as unchanging and simple in scripture yet is still personal. The God of classical theism is personal in the sense that it has intent and will, so he can still be identified with Yahweh.

Idk but a god that is sustaining this universe, which it seems to be at this moment, sounds very personal to me!

You seem to be misunderstanding the point here. I'll try to explain as best as I can. When you say hydrogen and oxygen combine to make water because of physics, you are obviously talking about physics. However he is taking about metaphysics. So potentially hydrogen and oxygen given the right circumstances and ratios can form water. They potentially are water. Philosophically this is the potential/actual distinction. So the argument which follows is based on the fact that there is such a difference at al. You are correct to say that water is formed through physics, however that is not a metaphysical explanation of change. That is mearly stating the observation and the method but not why change is possible at all. Observing changes and explaining why things can change at all are two different things. I hope this has made it somewhat clearer.

Who told you that and why do you believe them?

Stay

Not being able to understand something doesn’t make it wrong

@@wizarddog5049 Who said it was wrong? Just indicating why, in my case, it couldn't be persuasive.

@@axolotl5327 What would be persuasive to you?

@@wizarddog5049 An argument that I understood and whose validity was evident too me.

@@axolotl5327 Yes I understand I’m just trying to help. I think there are more concise explanations of this argument elsewhere. Just looking up “Argument from motion” should help

@UCMSkxLxl172VCIvAhRNljXw I have little to no intention with the ants nest outside of my house and the gap between me and an ant is far smaller than the gap between me and this "omnipotent, eternal, immense, incomprehensible, infinite in intellect and will" being. It's not that it is incapable of intention just that we don't come into the scope of importance of such a thing just as some amoeba in a drain doesn't have relevance to me. However that does not mean this creators rules (as much as we are able to perceive them from his/its creation) are any less valid and suddenly not worth following. btw Your response was far more detailed and well written than i deserved given the quality of my comment so thank you for that.

Then don't bother with it. Not everything is explicable to the ordinary mind which cannot understand anything since it is only a dreaming machine. Forget the mind and go for the actual experiences. You dream or use words and concepts but it never occurs to you to enquire into what is there *before* those words dreams and concepts. That is a matter the can only be discovered by way of experiment, which requires a perfectly silent mind. What steals or eats your attention? That is a matter of fact that can only be discovered by experiment - you might say a form of science which means knowing, which means direct immediate personal experience for which words concepts and dreams are wholly unnecessary. They are simply too noisy.

Immortal Wolf I’m sorry but HOW is this an emotional argument? Philosophical =\= emotional Everything I said is thoroughly justified in rational grounds and proven via logical demonstration Until you can point out where SPECIFICALLY the argument fails instead of autistically screeching and complaining about philosophy your comment really isn’t going anywhere I don’t think you understood a single concrete point I made because you didn’t address any of it

Why are you driving a wedge between argument and proof? Where’s your empirical proof for the proposition that all demonstrable truth has to be empirically measurable?

btw, to answer your questions: an argument is never proof of anything except that one is able to argue. proof is something that is derived by observation and study not by philosophical pandering. and as for the second, if one is unable to as you put it measure something then how can it be demonstrated to be true. observation without an instrument capable of measuring the object observed is not sufficient. of course one could for instance see an object drop from a given height , and indeed observe it and know that it drops, however that does not tell one at what rate that object drops. by using an instrument to measure it one can determine the rate of speed of the object and the force impact it exerts. the senses can lie to you but a well tuned instrument that measures a given constant will not. and with the vast array of instruments that we have access to now in this modern era, there is still no evidence to support the existence of deities, if in the future we do determine a way and succeed, then, we can be certain. until then, this amounts to only philosophical thought experiments. of course i wont say that its impossible for a deity to exist, one could very well exist and might be very different from what we think of as a deity. until i have seen true evidence of one i wont concede that one does. there i hope that sufficiently answers your questions.

Immortal Wolf you are arguing in a circle. Your philosophical thesis that all demonstrable truth must be empirically measurable is not itself empirically measurable. Also when you mention an instrument, you forget that we also access the information provided by the instrument through our own senses, so if our senses might deceive us without instruments they also can deceive us when it comes to decoding information obtained through an instrument. Your position is incoherent.

Thomas is not an empiricist; he's a thomist/Aristotelian realist.

@@SwangBley Yes, which is very empiricist, if even so unintentionally

@@SwangBley ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-IrpTSgPhTXQ.html Here is an arrgument against Classical Theists essence energy conflation

While Aquinas thought that all knowledge started with sensory experience, he diverges from Empiricism in that he thinks that the intellect can move beyond a knowledge of direct sensory impressions and can abstract universals and intelligible essences from particular things, thus entailing that metaphysics is possible.

@@SwangBley Which is where he lost Hume

kek

@Soli Deo Gloria how?

Because Islam is 💩

It is merely a word indicating that you don't like something is it not? On one view the gist of the story in Genesis chapter 1 is a warning against those twin fantasies known as "good and evil" - Don't get into that nonsense do not eat of that tree. It is sound advice.

Evil is a Privation/Corruption of Good

Excellent analysis, you're a seeker of truth for sure!

The word for which, is imaginary. All universals are imaginary because they can only be compounded of piecemeal and seriatim experiences glued together with imagination and or memory which are probably one of the same thing; Universals are more glue than substance, Or some would say more duff than the plum

What a great counter argument!

@@grubblewubbles >pitbull pfp

@@riaodh :(

You do realise things can be proven without empirical evidence for example algebra and calculus both of which have no empirical evidence to back them up yet we know these things exist purely through reason alone

You are holding to an outdated view of epistemology that was refuted long ago called "logical positivism"

It's not been refuted, just challenged. It's one philosophical argument against another. Any "truth" statements derived from any method of philosophical debate have the problem of not being confirmed by just the arguments themselves. Without verification, anybody's argument is just as valid as the next guy's argument. Verification is a key tool in determining what arguments are valid and those that are just undetermined. You're just pointing out the current run of thought in this area in philosophy. Just because current thought might be in this place doesn't make it valid or accurate.

+smokert5555 You are right. I was wrong to use "refuted" which implies someone else did it. It is actually _self-refuting_. You are aware no serious atheist academics hold to it right? It was only resurfaced recently due to the philosophical ignorance of new atheists.

+smokert5555 In metaphysical arguments if the premises are true the conclusion follows necessarily. A good comparison is mathematics such as 2+2=4. 2+2 = 5 and 2+2 = 3 are not as valid as 2+2= 4. You don't understand metaphysics.

odd how it is so necessary to argue for special relativity. How come something that is meant to be so evident needs to be tested?

Or you could observe relativistic effects.

Scientists literally do the same thing for scientific theories. Doesn't necessarily mean that they're wrong.

@@angelusvastator1297 Theories are testable and independently verifiable, if not then at best they are hypotheses.

@@blablabubles Of course no one has ever used the theory of special relativity as their justification to deny human rights or pass legislation.

if an argument is sound the content of one of the premises will inadvertently be evidence because the conclusion logically follows from it and another premise. So, your first statement is false and purely question-begging against CT's argument

@KC P1 is false. That's why it is *not* part of the Kalam cosmological argument. As per WLC, everything that *begins to exist* has a cause. The God of Abraham did not begin to exist, and therefore needs no cause. ( my response to you is so painfully obvious and simple to a beginner philosopher like myself, I cannot believe you're serious. Either that, or I'm missing something. Please correct me if I'm wrong. And if I'm not wrong, please apologize so we can keep you in good standing)

Kindly provide hard evidence to support your existential claim that "existential claims need hard evidence". Thanks.

@The Man Dude, you literary asked for evidence on why evidentialism is true............lol

@The Man so you want me to prove you that Evidentialism is "true" (whatever that means) but you don't ask for evidence.....bananas are good for you? First of all it's not a matter of whether Evidentialism is true or not, but how epistemically successful this thesis really is. A claim needs to be supported by facts in order to become knowledge (true statement). If not then it simply remains a claim. Those facts can offer evidential support to the claim rendering it epistemically valuable. Science experiences a run away success in epistemology by insisting in using Objective Empirical Evidence. This is the only proof you need in order to understand the epistemic success of Natural Philosophy in relation to the rest Philosophical categories. It's the only category that demands objective empirical evidence for all its frameworks.

Then enlighten us as to where exactly this argument fails or begone

letrewiarz And to no surprise, he never responded 🤣

I wish it was illegal for people to be verbose and going around circles. Lol.

Then respond

Wonder why you never responded

In short premise 1.is obviously wrong and thus the entire thing is NOT AN ARGUMENT.

"my admittedly limited epistemology cannot account for a concept I personally dislike, ergo it must not exist" Nice going. Where are numbers located btw?

due to your logic algebra, geometry, calculus etc no longer exist

Wrong. Number describe the count of a form. Number are a concept. You don't pray to a concept anymore than you pray to superman. Superman is a concept. Does Superman exist? No. Superman is a form i.e. concept but Superman does not have location therefore Superman does not exist.

question: does a square exist? according to your logic no as it has no physical location, the square on a piece of paper is merely an arrangement of ink particles,on a computer its pixels etc etc. Yet humans can understand what a square is through reason alone and understand the essence of a square. Secondly don't straw man an my argument i never said you have to pray to numbers just something does not have to have a physical form in order to exist. If you are utterly bemused by this very simple concept you really shouldn't b e looking a philosophy or theology (along with maths and science come to think of it)

KC Atheist This is a waste of a comment. You didn’t even address anything said in the video. How do you expect anyone to see this as a rebuttal in any way shape or form?

I clicked on the comments hoping he provided post-viewing commentary. Letdown.

Some are convinced by the beauty of nature which is in absubance; others convinced by the exemplary character of Christ’s life; others by their own personal experience. But if one needs absolute rational proof to accept the existence of God, it may take some contemplation and argument to get there but it is there

Convinced of a god you claim is found in "classical theism"? I highly doubt that.

"it may take some contemplation and argument to get there but it is there." Doesn't it hurt you a little to say or write something like that? Contemplation and argument?

Gen - does all truth have to be reduced to your palette and sensibilities in order to be true?

Rebuttal salad. You Begin by assuming an infinite God can be understood by a finite mind. Please justify your assumption. You then proceeded to assume that all claims must be empirically verified to be truth, and must be discarded if they lack empirical evidence. Please provide empirical verification of your assumption that all truth must be empirically verified in order to be accepted. If you can't ( forgive me for not holding my breath) please discard your assumption. Proceed.

>muh word salad brainlet.