This House Asserts That Ontology Necessitates God!

I thank Roy for his round, and this debate. I also thank the readers, and the voters for taking time out and working through this debate. As a side note, I had an extremely minor, albeit fracture of the hand and so please excuse me if there are are grammatical, or punctuation errors. With that let is begin. I should like to start with a reminder of the debate rules, and some analysis on the burden of proof. I have already shown to you how I must argue necessarily O, and Roy must argue not necessarily O. Any argument against God's existence, a negative argument will not be counted here. Now secondly Roy says he has the right to be inconsistent, and launch individual attacks. This is a load of bull. The burden is on me to show necessarily O, but as soon as Roy makes a an argument the burden shifts on him to prove his statement. He has up till now used many theories in his attacks none of which he has proved i.e Logical Positivism. He has not once attempted to answer my point regarding how he has changed his theory of imagination with sense thrice, and even conceded that he made a mistake originally. Also Roy might bring up new individual attacks now, and I will never have a chance to rebut them. Roy should stand firm with his contentions and answer my analysis on his arguments. Now as for concessions, I believe Roy has conceded that ideas are in fact not propositions for he no longer carries on that attack. This means that his first two rounds which were based on this premise fail utterly. He has failed to back up Logical Positivism or his theory of 'verifiable truth' even admitting that the philosophers of the Vienna Circle later thought it was tripe. He concedes he made a mistake when he said that anything which cannot be imagined is senseless, only now in the second last round, where I only have one chance at a rebuttal, does he amend his statement. All of this should be taken into consideration. For the ease of the readers I will now go point by point into my premises and summarize and show how each premise stands. I am going to ignore Roy's summary because it does not contain arguments just more of a sort of rant, where he once more asserts the defunct theory Logical Positivism when he states: 'Thoughts and dreams make no sense unless or until they are subject to application.' Until he proves Logical Positivism this statement is meaningless. I do feel however I need to clarify one basic rule. It is not that Ontology is anti-empirical, only that is studies phenomenon which by themselves are not necessarily empiricist. So even if God is benevolent and interacts with the world, He may possess the quality of benevolence but He and benevolence are not the same. Otherwise if today a child is born would Roy state that this is Opus Dei and proves God? No. Since God is a transcendental object, even if He is interacting, there may be an Ontological Proof. You may prove physical things through Ontology too, so long as I do not use any empirical arguments, as I have not used, the proof is Ontological. Only if I say, I can feel God, therefore God exists is the proof no longer Ontological.[12] 1. P1: Roy never attacks this premise per say, outside his analysis that ideas are propositions, something which he, himself has conceded. This premise then stands uncontested, especially since in the last round Roy does not mention this premise. 2. P2: Now Roy is once more changing the words I have used. When I talk about an idea being true I mean that this representation represents an object which exists in reality, if it is false then the object that this idea represents is imagined and is not a real object. Roy may argue that we can never know whether this object represents anything, and therefore attack premise three, but premise two is simple logic. You see, let us suppose our omniscience, then is it such that a representation represents something real, or that this representation represents something which is not real. It is as simple as this. Roy's entire attack is mislead. When Roy says that the idea of God may be empirically tested, I laugh. It is the most ironic thing I have heard. God's omnibenevolence does not directly cause interaction with humans, but indirectly. I am free to say this because my above logic is sound, and well Roy has brought up this point and it is his burden to prove it. God being benevolent means He can use intermediaries, and in any case as long as my argument is not using any empirical science this is in fact an Ontological Argument, and a sound one at that. You see here is where the proof of God could not be Ontological. If I had said since people have seen benevolence, and since benevolence can only come from God, therefore God exists. Or that there exists morals in the world, and this can be empirically tested, and since the ultimate source of morality is God therefore God exists (Kant's Moral Argument). Alas for Roy, I use nothing empirical, my appeal is solely to reason, and to nothing else, therefore my argument is in fact Ontological. If I can prove the existence of Roy without appealing to empirical sciences then I will have proved Roy Ontologically, this contention does not stand. My logic, I ask the readers to read it again, is quite sound, and this can be demonstrated through Modal Logic if debate.org only allowed to to publish it. Alas I cannot. P3: This premise has gone uncontested throughout the entire debate. If anyone wishes one may read my original argument in support of this premise, though since Roy never attacked it, I ask that it be taken as true. P4: I should ask my readers to go back to my original argument. I win this debate for one simple reason, that this was the most important premise and I supplied three proofs for this premise. The first is that the idea of God cannot be imagined because imagination yields complex ideas, and the idea of God is a simple idea, the second is that the idea of God is a priori, and no amount of combination between a posteriori ideas can yield a priori idea, and the last that God cannot be brought or forced into cognition without attributing to Him a posteriori a form. My opponent has only tackled one of these premises, alongside a negative argument. He has left out the other two and these should win me the argument. Now the first contention that is brought up is that the idea of God is not simple. Roy himself quotes the passage of Hume I cited (see only five lines of reading) regarding what constitutes a simple idea. It is then baffling that 'tis contention still hold true. For Roy himself notes how simple and complex idea distinctions are made by the only distinctionary power of human cognition (for imagination also is limited by that power): that power is the power of sensation (the definition of Hume here). Now tell me what is the taste of an omni-benevolent God (give me an answer which has the conceptualization of necessity: that it is universal to all people who possess the idea of God). What is the smell of omniscience, what pray tell is the sound of omnipotence? If one can, keeping in mind the conceptualization of necessity, please divide by Humean divisions the idea of God. If you cannot then I win, for this argument is separate to my other argument. Now Roy argues that that which cannot be imagined, and which cannot be represented by practical methods, or abstract mathematics, then it is nonsensical. Well readers do you see how he has changed and conceded his original points, and now amends his arguments? In any case lets take a few examples which would be nonsensical to Roy now. Lets recall the example of pain. Now pain only has one distinction: that of touch, so it is again a simple idea. Now pain does not have a sound (the person experiencing it might), nor does it have a taste. So is one to say that the idea of pain is absurd? Not one bit. Even if pain cannot be represented by Mathematics, and it cannot be imagined, for it is a simple idea, the idea of pain makes sense. In the words of Avicenna: 'He who denies the law of non-contradiction should be beaten and flogged separately, then at the same time, and then separately again till he may tell the difference'. So seeing the practical uses of pain I doubt pain is an absurd idea. Roy also pseudo-appeals to Logical Positivism, there is a drifting sense of it in his words. I remind the voters he never proved this theory. Another problem that I have previously mentioned, and deem fit to mention again is that I indeed did not provide a contrary theory of truth per say, although I did briefly talk about Pragmatism. The reason I did not prove a new theory of truth is because Roy never answered my contentions regarding Logical Positivism, and a propositional theory of truth is un-needed in my argument. With that then I believe I have shown that Ontology in essence necessitates God. I thank Roy Latham once more for taking out time from his schedule and debating me. If at any time I seemed anything but grateful please forgive me, for I truly do value your contentions to my argument. I also thank the voters, and the readers for going through my (as I am told) esoteric writing, and giving a thoughtful judgement. Faithfully Yours, Ajab. [12]http://cogito.ucdc.ro...