God exists.

I will address my opponent's definition and then go through his arguments one by one. The Definition of GodMy opponent has defined God as "the intelligence behind reality" or "the mind that grounds reality. " This definition does not run afoul of the stipulations I made in Round 1, so he does not forfeit the debate, and the remainder of the debate will proceed based on this definition. However, we must still examine my opponent's definition for logical coherence, because the definition of God is a crucial component of any case for God's existence. If his definition of God is not logically coherent, then his case automatically fails. By analogy, imagine someone trying to make a case for the existence of a "blik," without defining what a blik is coherently. He might have a number of interesting arguments, but his case could never be successful. It is ironic that my opponent's avatar is a picture of Ayn Rand, because I am an Objectivist, an adherent of Rand's philosophy, myself. Further, I think Rand made a fatal objection to his definition of God. According to Ayn Rand, it is an axiom of metaphysics, which she called the "primacy of existence," that consciousness is dependent upon existence. This is evident from the fact that every state of consciousness refers to something that exists - all of our concepts, thoughts, and feelings refer to the external world. By definition, consciousness is the faculty of perceiving that which exists. [1]Due to the primacy of existence, existence could not be dependent upon a mind, since the mind would have to perceive something that existed independently of it in order to become conscious. I will now proceed to address my opponent's arguments for the existence of God. The Arguments for GodMy opponent has put forward four main arguments for the existence of God.1. Alvin Plantinga's modal ontological argument2. Anselm's ontological argument3. William Lane Craig's kalam cosmological argument4. Monistic idealism, supplemented by a number of arguments from philosophy of mindLet's consider these one by one. Alvin Plantinga's MOAIn any discussion about Alvin Plantinga's modal ontological argument, it's valuable to keep in mind what Plantinga himself says about it in The Nature of Necessity:"Our verdict on these reformulated versions of St. Anselm's argument must be as follows. They cannot, perhaps, be said to prove or establish their conclusion. But since it is rational to accept their central premiss, they do show that it is rational to accept that conclusion. And perhaps that is all that can be expected of any such argument. " [2]So even Plantinga doesn't think that this argument proves anything. Proceeding to criticisms of the argument itself, the problem is that the premise that a maximally great being is possible is unjustified. My opponent construes the possibility here as epistemic possibility, but that's not the type of possibility the argument depends on, and is actually a serious misunderstanding of the argument. Rather, the modal ontological argument is based on what Plantinga calls metaphysical possibility, which for him means that a maximally great being exists in some possible world. But this premise is question begging, since it asserts outright that a being that exists in every possible world exists in some possible world. This isn't really an argument, it's a roundabout way of asserting one's conclusion in the premise. So, I invite my opponent to establish that God exists in some possible world. An additional problem with the modal ontological argument is that it infinitely exacerbates the problem of evil. If God is all good, all loving, and all knowing, and if he exists in some world, then there should be no gratuitous evil in that world. This is a premise that theists and atheists alike accept, although theists attempt to argue that there isn't any gratuitous evil in our world by means of theodicies or skeptical theism. The problem of evil is infinitely exacerbated by the modal ontological argument, because the MOA asserts that if God exists, then he exists in every possible world. So, given the uncontroversial premise above, it follows that there can't be any gratuitous evil in any possible world, not even one single instance. If there is even a single possible instance of gratuitous evil, even one that doesn't actually exist, then it follows with certainty that God does not exist. So, in addition to inviting my opponent to prove that God is metaphysically possible, I invite him to prove that it is metaphysically impossible for there to be even a single instance of gratuitous evil. If my opponent cannot accomplish both of these tasks, then Plantinga's MOA should be discarded. I will now make an objection to Anselm's ontological argument that also applies to Plantinga's MOA with certain obvious modifications. Anselm's Ontological ArgumentThe problem with Anselm's ontological argument is that the definition of God it begins with, "the greatest possible being," is unjustified, because it is not based on evidence or reasoning. Definitions are not givens that you can arbitrarily assert, you have to provide a reason why you are using a certain definition and explain what its foundation is in reality. For example, when I define man as "the rational animal," I am basing that on an enormous body of observational evidence. That definition integrates countless observations about human beings, including their ability to speak grammatically, their ability to fly airplanes, etc. Since it is based on all of this evidence, it is a valid cognitive product and can be used to guide our reasoning effectively. The definition of God my opponent asserts isn't based on any observations, it's just arbitrarily asserted. It is not really a cognitive product, it is just empty words or an expression of emotion. My opponent may associate it with some mental images he has, but in order to establish that it has cognitive value he needs to support it with evidence. The Kalam Cosmological Argument'In response to this argument it is only necessary to point out that the universe could not have begun to exist, by definition. For a thing to begin to exist, there needs to be a time when it did not exist, followed by a time when it did exist. That is what it means for something to "begin to exist. " However, there was no time prior to the universe, since time is defined in terms of the universe. Therefore, by definition, the universe did not begin to exist, which means that the second premise is false and the causal principle in premise 1 does not apply. Another dubious premise in this argument is premise 4. My opponent attempts to support this premise as follows: " Since it had a cause, the cause was transcendent meaning it was timeless and spaceless. Only minds are from this sphere and if I can prove that God is a Mind/sphere then I win the debate. "Even if the universe did begin to exist and did have a cause, which I objected to above, it is completely arbitrary to argue that the cause had to be "transcendent" or a "mind. " There are only too many objections to this inference: How do we know the cause wasn't a prior state of the universe, which would be consistent with the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem my opponent mentions? Is there even a coherent definition of "transcendent? " (Almost certainly not. ) How could there be a mind in the absence of a material brain, since that contradicts everything we know about minds? etc. , etc. But rather than lingering on my opponent's feeble defense of premise 4, I will move on to his argument from monistic idealism, since he puts that forward as an additional defense of that premise. Monistic IdealismPremise 2 of this argument asserts that "nothing mental can interact with what is non-mental. " The objection to this is simple and decisive: It does, so it can. That's all I have to say to give a complete, scientific refutation of this argument. Every field of science is based on certain fundamental observations about what is causally connected to what. The fact that we don't know how to reduce a causal connection, like the causal connection between consciousness and matter, to more fundamental causal connections doesn't make it a mystery or a reason to appeal to the supernatural. If we have observed a causal connection and established its existence rationally, then it must be accepted as scientific. This is a conclusive refutation of my opponent's argument from monistic idealism. However, I should indicate the position in philosophy of mind that I am coming from. I am a dualist in the sense that I regard consciousness as real and as not reducible to matter - as science currently understands matter. Consciousness may be reduced to some more sophisticated understanding of matter, once science has discovered the laws of nature that give rise to consciousness, which it has not at present. However, consciousness is a natural phenomenon and does not constitute any kind of mystery, "hard problem," or gate to mysticism. I regard consciousness as a non-material (in the sense described) activity of the brain. I reject substance dualism, because a substance is a physical thing, and consciousness is not physical. I do not like the term "property dualist," either, because that term is associated with David Chalmers and the idea that consciousness is a "hard problem. "This is the Objectivist position on consciousness, as defended by followers of Ayn Rand like Leonard Peikoff [3] and Harry Binswanger. [4]ConclusionMy opponent's definition of God is incoherent, and his arguments for God are unsound. For these reasons, we should negate the resolution. References[1] . http://aynrandlexicon.com...[2] The Nature of Necessity by Alvin Plantinga, p. 221[3] Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, by Leonard Peikoff[4] How We Know, by Harry Binswange