God Exists

In this round, I aim to show a few things: That my opponent has misread many of my points; That my opponent’s own points are, if not incoherent, irrelevant; That my opponent is out of his depth. Establishing the above will not be difficult. Given the complexity of the topic, where necessary, I will respond line-by-line (unlike my opponent, who, likely because the deficiencies of his responses would become painfully clear if what I actually said was repeated, has responded only generally). Section One A: “You have not at all tried to prove the agreed definition of God exists.” Where have I argued anything about “the best human”? I’m not sure how my opponent’s reading was even possible, given how disconnected with reality it is. My opponent accuses me of attempting to “define God into existence”. I will let Descartes respond: While from the fact that I cannot conceive God without existence, it follows that existence is inseparable from Him, and hence that He really exists; not that my thought can bring this to pass, or impose any necessity on things, but, on the contrary, because the necessity which lies in the thing itself, i.e. the necessity of the existence of God determines me to think in this way. For it is not within my power to think of God without existence (that is of a supremely perfect Being devoid of a supreme perfection) though it is in my power to imagine a horse either with wings or without wings. (Meditation V) I ask the reader to keep in mind this simple fact: If it is in God’s nature to exist, then God exists. My opponent can now either retract his point or argue that, if God necessarily exists, then God may not exist… a position that should strike even a layman like my opponent as losing. B:The “Necessary Equine” and Friends The responses which my opponent sprinkled into his round, no doubt found by googling “ontological argument debunked” or something similar, betray his lack of genuine research. “P(2)': It is possible that a necessarily existent unicorn exists.” My opponent endorses a long line of arguments, starting with Gaunlino, aimed at launching a Reductio into the heart of the Ontological Argument. However, these all fail, for they do not take into consideration the fact that there are some beings for whom necessary existence is impossible. It is no contradixion to affirm both that God may necessarily exist and that a Unicorn may not necessarily exist. Consider a necessarily existent Unicorn: this being would be extended. However, we can easily imagine a world in which substance does not permit the type of extension necessary to allow for a Unicorn, which would be impossible if such a Unicorn were necessary. Therefore, a “necessary Unicorn” is nonsensical. This argument’s form – that we can imagine, rightfully, a world in which a thing does not exist - applies to every being except for the MGB, and, thus, no other being necessarily exists in the same way (so the Ontological Argument cannot “prove anything into existence”). C: “Proving” Necessity and Possibility “You must prove that God is possible and necessary!” shrieks my opponent. The reader, however, being as intelligent as he is, will see that this is precisely what my three Proofs do. Moreover, I have made clear to my opponent that, if he is not able to show that there is some contradixion in the Idea of God, God is necessary (ironic how my opponent appeals to “logical laws” while wallowing in his own ignorance of S5). “What we know about science” CANNOT do the work he believes it may; science, the study of the CONTINGENT, cannot tell us about the modal status of anything. D: God “Contradicts” Fact My opponent makes the elementary mistake of assuming that evolution and creation are at odds. This will be brought up again later, but, for now, I must simply ask: whence came Evolution? If the answer, as I think it is, is “God”, then God created the mechanism that created life. This is more than enough to fulfil my burden. He then argues that the Big Bang is a sufficient cause of the Universe. The same question: whence came the Big Bang? Why the Big Bang and not something else? There must be some reason for X instead of Y; all things trace back to the self-caused and self-explanatory, and this is God. Why not other “creators”? Because they, too, would have to be explained. At the end of the line there must stand a single God with no equal. E: The Omnipotence Paradox God is the source of all logic; to say that he is then “bound” by logic is absurd. He defines himself, and has defined himself freely. Therefore, he has determined the bounds within which he is omnipotent. D: The Reverse Ontological Argument This fails out of the gate, for I have shown, through other means, that it is possible for a MGB to exist. Section Two After reading my Second Proof, my opponent apparently decided that, rather than responding with anything relevant, he would write a paragraph on a COMPLETELY different topic (which has been dealt with elsewhere). Proof of cowardice? The only response to this Proof is that it is “simply an assertion without evidence.” The reader knows this to be false. Section Three 1. Note how my opponent cut out my explanation. For the Universe to have a cause, there must be something the Universe, in whole, is dependent upon – this implies subservience. 2. Do you, dear opponent, wish to argue that the Universe does not have a cause? Do you wish to argue that things happen without reason – that causality is a myth? If so, I’m afraid that you will have to first discard ALL of your arguments based on science, since science is PREDICATED UPON the idea that things happen for a reason. I will give you a way out: drop this point. If you do not, in the next round I will both prove the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and show how you yourself have refuted all of your points. 3. My opponent does not understand that syllogisms do “actually prove” things. Appendix: A: Omnipotence My opponent asks why God could not have “evolved”. Evolved from what? He argues that God could have been caused by something else. This “rebuttal” ignores the points I have made about the nature of causality, necessity, and Maximal Greatness. To have one’s existence predicated on something else – to be contingent – is, definitionally, to be in existence solely because of that Other; that Other must be more primary and therefore Greater. Since such a being could not be imagined in relation to a MGB, a MGB must be self-caused. “Life on earth was self caused and it is far from omniscient.” I don’t think you understand what “self-caused” means. Yes or no: life on Earth depended on something other than life on Earth to exist? B: Omniscience “Assertion and what does this have to do with a proof of our god?” It follows from the concept of a MGB. I am showing why a being that I proved fulfils the definition of God you provided. I have no idea why you would type what you have typed. C: Omnibenevolence The Problem of Evil may be written thusly: “Whoever makes things in which there is evil, and which could have been made without any evil, or need not have been made at all, does not choose the best course. God made a world wherein there is evil; a world, I say, which could have been made without any evil or which need not have been made at all. Therefore God did not choose the best course.” (Leibniz, Theodicy) The following, Leibniz’s response to the above, decisively lays this argument to rest. “[O]ne must confess that there is evil in this world which God has made, and that it would have been possible to make a world without evil or even not to create any world, since its creation depended upon the free will of God. But I deny […] the first of the two premisses […] [T]he best course is not always that one which tends towards avoiding evil, since it is possible that the evil may be accompanied by a greater good.”