Does God Exist

Defense of TAGTANG's fundamental error can be summed up in Con's statement, "Also, not only must God exist, but he must have created the principals of logic for it to exist." Unfortunately, this is an egregious misrepresentation of the Christian worldview, as it attempts to view logic as God's offspring. Let's compare this view to the actual Christian worldview: The first scenario is indeed absurd, and not just for the reasons Con mentioned. Intelligence implies rationality, so the idea of intelligence sans logic creating logic is nonsense. The Christian worldview asserts that rationality is an innate characteristic of God, neither created by God nor existing independently from God. So, yes, logic is dependent upon God insofar as it exists only because God exists, but it is not God's creation. So, TANG fails to eliminate the Christian Worldview as accounting for logic because it has converted it into a straw man.The second problem with TANG is that it doesn't go all the way. Michael Martin was trying to argue that the logic of TAG could be used to prove the opposite. TAG uses process of elimination to leave the Christian Worldview as the last man standing, so TANG's job should be to leave only Naturalism standing. TANG never argues that Naturalism can account for logic, science, and morality. Thus, TANG is not even an argument for Atheism, just an argument against a form of Christianity that isn't even theologically accurate.I must give credit to Con, however, that he at least tries to justify logical laws from a naturalistic perspective, which is more than Michael Martin does. Unfortunately for Con, he completely undermines logic in the process. He denies that logic is universal or invariant. In short, he denies that logic is governed by laws and chooses instead to commit to the idea that they are governed by convention. Therefore, by Con's reasoning, there are potentially times and places in the universe in which God "could make it rain outside and at the same time not make it rain outside."Note the irony of how Con relies on TANG's use of the Law of Non-Contradiction only to reject it as a law in his next paragraph.Con later says he accepts the laws of logic (note how he still calls them laws after just denying their law-like nature) because they're supported by the universe. How? I'd like Con to be specific. Where does the universe exhibit the Law of Excluded Middles? In matter? In energy? The universe is physical and therefore cannot possibly exhibit such abstract notions. It's like claiming that the universe supports the idea of the number 2. Did we find the number 2 in a rock and then start employing it? Did all the numbers need to be discovered in nature before we could use them? This is a serious epistemological bind for Con and is indicative of the very problems TAG raises about Naturalism in the first place.The Issue of EvidenceAs I anticipated, Con rejects all the evidence I suggested. Con's biggest mistake is that he assumes that evidence is only evidence if it proves something. But that's not the case at all. There are four things to note about evidence: Evidence is not in and of itself proof but, rather, support for a premise that is used for proof. Evidence can lead to multiple or even conflicting conclusions based on interpretation. Evidence comes in degrees of strength, some evidence is weak and some is strong. Evidence comes in different kinds, such as reason, experiments, testimony, and experience. So, my opponent can reject the evidence as being proof of God's existence. I'm okay with that because it doesn't change the fact that there is indeed evidence—no matter how strong or weak—for God's existence despite my opponent's claim that there is no evidence whatsoever.I should point out, however, that Con should avoid pointing to other religions as alternative explanations of the evidence because he's supposed to be arguing that religions postulating God are false.Contradictions in the Nature of GodCon's notion of omnipotence is intrinsically impossible because it contains the impossibility within itself. Thus, nothing is omnipotent because such omnipotence is impossible in all circumstances, all worlds, and all agents—including God. Omnipotence has traditionally been understood to mean having the power to do all things that are intrinsically possible. This is the only definition of the word that doesn't reduce it to utter nonsense, which is what the omnipotence paradox is ultimately doing.The same goes for omniscience. Con's definition is along the lines of, "Omniscience is having all knowledge and not having all knowledge." So be it. If Con wants to employ this nonsense definition, he is free to do so, but I will assert that his definition is not a characteristic of God, or of anything for that matter. Such a definition has no intelligible use whatsoever.Furthermore, as I tried to argue before, the omniscience argument suffers from equivocation. To say that the experience of learning is itself knowledge is to say an apple is essentially an orange. Experiential knowledge is not objective knowledge. It is, by definition, knowledge that cannot be known by anyone but the agent experiencing it. So, we have two completely different types of knowledge: Objective: knowledge that can be known by all agents. Subjective: knowledge that can be only known by the agent experiencing it. In order for omniscience to be an intelligible word, it would have to adhere to the first definition. Lumping experiential knowledge into that definition is to equivocate the above two types of knowledge. Thus, the omniscience paradox fails because it places two contradictory terms into the definition from the start and then reasons in a circle from there.Both of the paradox arguments might as well read: God is floopsyjibbit Floopsyjibbit is impossible Therefore, God is impossible As C. S. Lewis once wrote, "nonsense remains nonsense even though we talk it about God." [1]ConclusionMy opponent has offered three arguments: no evidence for God, the omnipotence paradox, and the omniscience paradox. His first argument is false because evidence does in fact exist. TAG is rational evidence. Both the paradox arguments fail because they rely on unintelligible definitions.I have offered one argument: TAG. Con's rebuttal amounts to a straw man argument, and he's even gone so far as to render logic as conventional. Perhaps if we had this debate in a black hole, the laws of logic could be manipulated so that I could win by default. I know my opponent doesn't truly believe logic to be conventional because he is relying on it to prove that I am objectively wrong.I may have only one argument, but if it holds under scrutiny more so than all three of his arguments, then I have succeeded in fulfilling my burden in this debate.Sources Lewis, C. S. The Problem of Pain, New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1996, p. 18.