Logic Presupposes God: a Transcendental Argument for God's Existence

Response: ========== Argument from Ignorance? ========== I think this is easily dealt with. I'm not arguing from the basis of what we don't know about Las or God to the existence of God as a precondition; I'm arguing from what we DO know about LAs (all of the essential properties I laid out in my second round) to God. ========== Fallacies of TAG? ========== Con is correct when he states that him distinguishing between conceptual LAs and existent LAs seems to be where most of the clash comes from. I think the reason for this is two-fold: 1) Con artificially separates the concept of the *nature* of a thing/the *nature* existence from the concept of essences when in reality they are the same thing, and 2) it's not at all clear what Con is speaking of when he talks of the existence. I think when it's clarified what exactly existence is and how nature and essence are the same thing my objections stand. 1): A definition of "nature" that most captures what we are talking about: "1. the fundamental qualities of a person or thing; identity or essential character". [1] Some definitions of "essence "from the *very own source* that Con posted in round 3: "the characteristic or intrinsic feature of a thing, which determines its identity;***fundamental nature***." Here's another one: "the unchanging and unchangeable ***nature*** of something which is necessary to its being the thing it is; it's necessary properties." [2] Note in the second definition it mentions necessary properties. These are the equivalent to essential properties which are properties "...of an individual just in case that individual has the property in every possible circumstance in which the individual exists." [3] Also further note that properties are usually widely construed as UNIVERSALS (sound familiar?): "...To say that properties are universals is to say that the selfsame property can be instantiated by numerically distinct things. On this view it is possible for two different apples to exemplify exactly the same color, a single universal." [4] They are usually construed as universals for good reason, too, which is what the apple example illustrates. Con seem to already accept that properties exist. With that out of the way it becomes clear that when Con says talk of essences and universals fails he is mistaken. I think it's just missing the fact that Con's position implicitly commits him to their existence but Con just misses the implication. This also deals with Cons objection that LAs don't fall into the category of existence because, as I've shown above, the NATURE of something(s) ("all things that exist") simply just IS the conjunct of all essential properties. If properties exist (and Con seems to think so) then it follows that LAs exist. Con's distinction between existence and nature of existence fails. Furthermore, it would mean there is no distinction between conceptual LAs and existent LAs. Even furthermore, this would mean there is no fallacy of equivocation as I referring to exactly the same thing throughout my arguments. So, despite Con's protestations he is committed to the existence of LAs as abstract objects. 2): The way Con treats the term "existence" is just strange. He argues as if "existence" is some singular term or thing where we can derive a "one-size-fits-all" nature for "it". I explicitly argued in round 3 that existence simply IS the aggregate of all things with actual being and that there are different modes of existence - i.e. something can exist in the mind or something can exist outside the mind. Neither one is NECESSARILY more "real" than the other. So when Com claims that LAs are simply the nature of existence I'm left confused - what kind of existence does he mean here? I know that it would be coherent to place LAs in the nature of rational beings like God (where logic is a process of the mind) but I have no idea what to make of the suggestion that LAs make up the nature of existing things like matter which is inherently non-rational. ========== Futility of TAG? ========== Con's argument here all relies on what he means by "accounting for". Typically speaking when you are trying to "account for" something in philosophy you take it as a given that that thing exists. Then from that data you figure out what conditions make that something intelligible. I never said nor implied that accounting for LAs is ridiculous; what I said is I don't argue for their existence because it's a given that they do exist. To deny them is to refute yourself. Note: not arguing for their existence is not the same as agreeing that accounting for LAs is ridiculous. Given the properties of the LAs that I laid out in the 2nd round I maintain that only God makes them intelligible because God has the properties that could If it is agreed that LAs are conceptual, and I showed why Con's earlier distinction doesn't work, then they would have to instantiated by a mind. If we agree that LAs don't exist in time and space then we agree that they couldn't be instantiated by anything material as material things are necessarily located in time and space, etc. God has all these properties therefore it's sensible to account for LAs by saying God is the necessary precondition of them. I'm not exactly sure how God is "unaccounted for" - it's typically said that God is a necessary being who is self-sufficient (i.e. not dependent on anything else). God accounts for himself. ========== Epistemology ========== Here Robert Adams is useful: "And that opens the way for another explanation of our knowledge of necessary truths: an explanation in terms of divine illumination. Suppose that necessary truths do determine and explain facts about the real world. If God of his very nature knows the necessary truths, and if he has created us, he could have constructed us in a way that we would at least commonly recognize necessary truths as necessary. In this way there would be a causal connection between what is necessarily true about real objects and our believing it to be necessarily true about them. It would not be an incredible accident or an inexplicable mystery that our beliefs agreed with the objects in this." [5] I don't see why LAs have to be explicitly spelled out in scripture or whatever for this argument to work - presumably people thought something can't not be identical with itself long before Aristotle formalized the logical expressions. In return I ask the same question I have asked for several rounds: even granting LAs simply are the nature of reality - how do we get to know them without God? ======== TANG? ======== A lot of this criticism relies on Con's previous point about the LAs being the nature of existence and not things with a nature. I showed earlier how this is a false distinction. Con's other main claims here are 1) that God should be able to create logically inconsistent things if his nature is the source of LAs and 2) God cannot account for LAs because he is bound by them. 1) It's one thing to have an internal logical contradiction (a square circle) it's quite another have an external logical contradiction which is the relation of two things to each other which shows that that relation is impossible. It's no logical contradiction for God to create beings that are capable of lying simply for the fact thatthey are not omnibenevolent like God is. Omnibenevolence constrains some things that God can or can't do. 2) Again this relies on ambiguous usage of the phrase "accounted for". I have explained in what sense God "accounts for" the LAs. To say God can't account for LAs because he's bound by his own essentially rational nature is like saying idealism can't account mental experiences because by nature everything is a mental object under idealism. ======== Sources ========= In comment section.