And this all men call God

[rkwright]

Doing some reading on Christian thought and one of the chapters is devoted to arguments for the existance of God. It covers all the basics and includes a short page or two on arguments from design. It also provides the counter arguments, one of them being from Hume saying that design doesn't prove the existance of one God any more than it does the existance of many gods.

Can this argument also be applied to Aquinas's 5 ways, or any other proof for the existance of God? Does Aquinas cover this possibility somewhere else, that there are more than 1 self caused beings?

[Paphnutius]

If I might take a stab at it...

A self-subsitent being has qualites X, Y, and Z that makes it self-subsistent (we wont get into divine simplicity right now). Now the way that things are different from one another is in some quality or or nature. Hence we are different from God because we do not share omniscience, eternity, etc...

Now if there were many self-subsitent beings that would mean that they must have different qualities, but this cannot be since having qualities X, Y, and Z is necessary to being self-caused. If one were to remove even one quality from God then one would no longer have a self-subsitent being, but a created thing due to [url="http://www.newadvent.org/summa/100307.htm"]divine simplicity[/url]. Divine simplicity as I know it states that God is all together one; He is in no way composite. Meaning that His omniscience is His omnipresence is His all goodness, etc.. It is that we in our finite understanding and existence cannot comprehend fully how this is.

What I am trying to say that for things to be different, they must be just that: differing. But if I understand Aquinas correctly, to be any way different than the self-causing God would mean that one is not self-caused.

Am I on the right track Jeff?

Edited December 29, 2005 by Paphnutius

[Guest JeffCR07]

It depends on how you approach the problem, and in what terms you are speaking. If you are strictly speaking in terms of "self-cause," then there is no reason there could not be more than one self-caused thing.

However, if you are approching it in a Platonic way, one could make the following argument: Let us imagine that there are two self-caused beings. Now, this means that neither one must look outside of itself for its own cause. However, if we can say that [i]both[/i] are self-caused, then there must be something in which they both participate that is the Form of this self-cause. But if there is a Form of self-cause (participation in which results in the two things be called "self-caused") then it is really this Form that is truly self-caused, and not the two instantiations, since properly speaking it is the Form that [i]causes[/i] the two other things to be self-caused.

Thus, a Platonist would argue that there can only be one self-caused thing. An aristotelian might have a much greater problem with this because the same logic that allowed aristotle to posit more than one unmoved mover also allows for an aristotelian to posit more than one self-caused cause.

But I'm an Anselmian, so the whole discussion really doesn't have much of an impact on me anyways :

Your Brother In Christ,

Jeff

[Guest JeffCR07]

[quote name='Paphnutius' date='Dec 28 2005, 06:54 PM']If I might take a stab at it...

A self-subsitent being has qualites X, Y, and Z that makes it self-subsistent (we wont get into divine simplicity right now). Now the way that things are different from one another is in some quality or or nature. Hence we are different from God because we do not share omniscience, eternity, etc...

Now if there were many self-subsitent beings that would mean that they must have different qualities, but this cannot be since having qualities X, Y, and Z is necessary to being self-caused. If one were to remove even one quality from God then one would no longer have a self-subsitent being, but a created thing due to [url="http://www.newadvent.org/summa/100307.htm"]divine simplicity[/url]. Divine simplicity as I know it states that God is all together one; He is in no way composite. Meaning that His omniscience is His omnipresence is His all goodness, etc.. It is that we in our finite understanding and existence cannot comprehend fully how this is.

What I am trying to say that for things to be different, they must be just that: differing. But if I understand Aquinas correctly, to be any way different than the self-causing God would mean that one is not self-caused.

Am I on the right track Jeff?
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[/quote]


Now I may be misreading your argument here, but it seems to me that you are saying something like this:

1.) God is self-caused
2.) God is simple
3.) Things that are many are composite
4.) If "self-cause" was many, it would not be simple
5.) Therefore "self-cause" is not many
6.) Therefore God is the only self-caused being

This argument doesnt work, however, because we could plug in any other predicate into the argument and it would work, and that means that your line of reasoning would ultimately lead to pantheism, since "exists" would be predicable only of God.

If I have misunderstood your argument, then please disregard and forgive the straw-man above.

Your Brother In Christ,

Jeff

[Paphnutius]

I was working from similiar things have similiar qualities.

If a thing is self-caused it must have qualities X, Y, and Z.
Things differ from one another based on qualities or nature.
In God, however, all qualities are in truth one because of divine simplicity.
So if some being were to differ in any quality from a true self-caused being, such as not having quality Y but had quality X or Z, it could not be self-caused because in a self-caused being X=Y=Z due to its nature.

Like I said, I might be misunderstanding divine simplicity, but who really has it down pat?

Anyway..your comment about plugging in existence...I would say that while we do share in existence we do not have existence as God does. We might say that God has quality X1 while we have quality X2. X1 being eternal existence and X2 being created existence. They are indeed similiar "qualities" but one is existence itself and the other is a partaking in that existence, meaing that X2 is a share in X1. What I am getting at here is that we cannot merely apply existence to both Creator and created equally but must realize that the Creator's existence is indeed different than our existence.So, plugging existence would of course not work because it is being falsly applied to both equally. Or so I would think.

Please correct me where I err.

Edited December 29, 2005 by Paphnutius

[Guest JeffCR07]

Again, I find your argument too strong. In order to escape the existence problem, you are forced to assert a different "kind" of existence. But you are not clear on what you mean. Have you introduced a new predicate, or is this the same predicate, with a nuance? If it is a new predicate, you haven't answered the question. If it is the same predicate with a nuance, your argument simply fails to satisfy.

Moreover, even if your argument [i]did[/i] work, you would then be fored to create a God-type predicate for every human-type predicate (i.e. just as there would have to be a "Divine existence" as opposed to a "human existence" there would also have to be a "Divine greatness" as opposed to a "human greatness", etc etc). This causes you problems as well because if every single attribute of God's is non-human, then you must conclude that we have no understanding of Him and can say nothing of Him (which is circular, because your premises rest on positive assertions of Divine Simplicity).

[Paphnutius]

I would say that God does have a different "kind" of existence. His is self-caused, ours is dependent. His is eternal, ours is created. He is self-subsitent existence, we share in existence. Those seem like real ontological differences. Or would you say that we have the same type of existence as God? My point is that existence there, in my understanding, seems to be falsly applied to both equally, but we know that our existence is not equal with God's existence. This may be said about greatness: our greatness is not equal to God's greatness. I do not see that creating a problem about knowing God so much as highlighting the difference between Creator and created.

Speaking of everything of God being non-human, doesn't that kind of sound like the other philosophy thread about God being totally other than creation? You know the one about the [url="http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?showtopic=42535"]really big rock[/url] and God being beyond being. Remember? Anyway...I do not think that it would result is us not knowing anything about Him because I mentioned that our existence is a sharing in His. We cannot know God in Himself, or as He exists in His own essence, but we can use the apophatic tradition and analogies.

Regardless, the more I boil down my own take on this the more I feel as though it overlaps with yours one some level (perhaps the only correct one). That is insofar as it speaks about God being self-caused and everything else sharing in that, otherwise there would be something else self-caused that both God and creation shares in. Maybe?

Edited December 29, 2005 by Paphnutius

[Guest JeffCR07]

The last part of your post does sound like the Platonistic response that I illustrated above, and if Platonism works for you, go for it.

Like I said, I'm not exactly super interested in the discussion, since the argument doesn't even get off the ground for an Anselmian.

Edit/PS - to answer your question. God does indeed exist in a different way than we do, but it is not an utterly, absolutely different way. If it were, we would not know what we are saying when we assert that God exists. So, sure, the manner of God's existence is different, but the predicate "exists" has the same meaning when we say "God exists" and when we say "we exist."

Edited December 29, 2005 by JeffCR07

[Paphnutius]

[quote name='JeffCR07' date='Dec 28 2005, 08:42 PM']The last part of your post does sound like the Platonistic response that I illustrated above, and if Platonism works for you, go for it.
[/quote]


[quote]Edit/PS - to answer your question. God does indeed exist in a different way than we do, but it is not an utterly, absolutely different way. If it were, we would not know what we are saying when we assert that God exists. So, sure, the manner of God's existence is different, but the predicate "exists" has the same meaning when we say "God exists" and when we say "we exist."
[/quote] I think my question was oversimplistic, but I was attempting to show that the difference in existence, as you say, between God and man would need to be recongized before plugging it into my position. It may have the same meaning (A exists rather than not exist), but God exists perfectly whereas we are limited in our nature. A self-subsitent being would have perfect existence, but since we differ in nature we cannot have that quality. Hence why I said, "differing things have different qualities."

Edit: I hope that you know that I am not arguing with you. Experience has taught me to sit at your feet rather than cross swords with you. I was just discussing with you so that I may learn

Edited December 29, 2005 by Paphnutius

[Guest JeffCR07]

lol, im certainly not smart enough for anyone to be sitting at my feet, if you want that, we need to get Apotheoun back in here.

Anyways, if distinguishing between the manner in which God exists and the way humans exist is all that you are doing, that would not answer the fundamental objection (that any predicate assigned to God could not be assigned to anyone else).

Basically, I do not think it is possible to use Divine Simplicity in the way that you are using it for this argument. It would be like saying that sinlessness is a property of God, divinity is a property of God, God is One, therefore divinity is the same as sinlessness, Mary was sinless, therefore Mary was divine.

Divine Simplicity simply asserts that the ontological source of all positively existing properties is One, not that all the individual properties themselves are one.

lol, now im going to bed. Have a good night, everyone, and make sure to get at least [i]some[/i] sleep Paph!

Your Brother In Christ,

Jeff

[qfnol31]

Paphnutius, I'll admit I haven't read anything, but I wanted to say that I have trouble with this:

[quote]A self-subsitent being has qualites X, Y, and Z that makes it self-subsistent (we wont get into divine simplicity right now). Now the way that things are different from one another is in some quality or or nature. Hence we are different from God because we do not share omniscience, eternity, etc...[/quote]

You seem here to go off the assumption that everything is only a list of qualities...and I think that's a dangerous route. Of course, I'm too lazy too read too much to do with philosophy. :

[Myles Domini]

[quote name='rkwright' date='Dec 28 2005, 11:46 PM']Doing some reading on Christian thought and one of the chapters is devoted to arguments for the existance of God.  It covers all the basics and includes a short page or two on arguments from design.  It also provides the counter arguments, one of them being from Hume saying that design doesn't prove the existance of one God any more than it does the existance of many gods.

Can this argument also be applied to Aquinas's 5 ways, or any other proof for the existance of God?  Does Aquinas cover this possibility somewhere else, that there are more than 1 self caused beings?
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[/quote]

Doesn't Aquinas' argument by its very nature and presentation rule out there being any other final and ultimate causes? Aquinas' argument is geared towards putting a start at an otherwise infinite chain of causes, to posit two prime movers or two first causes or two neccessary beings etc. is impossible from what he actually writes.

INXC
Myles

[Paphnutius]

[quote name='qfnol31' date='Dec 28 2005, 09:50 PM']You seem here to go off the assumption that everything is only a list of qualities...and I think that's a dangerous route.  Of course, I'm too lazy too read too much to do with philosophy.  :
[/quote]
I would not put it that way. I believe that we distinguish things from one another based on qualities, on what we perceive and understand. We make classes based on how things are similar or otherwise from one another and this appears to be based on qualities present to us.

[quote]Basically, I do not think it is possible to use Divine Simplicity in the way that you are using it for this argument. [/quote]Like I said, I need to work on my understanding of it. Any good literature you can think of?

[Semalsia]

[quote]A self-subsitent being has qualites X, Y, and Z that makes it self-subsistent (we wont get into divine simplicity right now). Now the way that things are different from one another is in some quality or or nature. Hence we are different from God because we do not share omniscience, eternity, etc...[/quote]

[quote] I believe that we distinguish things from one another based on qualities[/quote]

Right, but that isn't relevant to the question of how many gods exist. If A has qualities X, Y & Z and B also has them, then they are indeed indistinguishable from each other. But being distinguishable from others is not requirement of existence. Let's say A is god, then B is also god and indeed exactly identical god. This doesn't mean it's the same god and that there aren't actually two gods. It only means that they are alike. (gods need not be alike, however, if they can have extra qualities that don't make them lose their status as a god).

To show that there can be only one god, you'll have to prove that there is no B with quality X. This can be done by showing that X can only exists in one entity. If X is 'self-caused', then there isn't anything to stop B from also having X. Self-caused is something that can exist in many entities. However, I don't think self-caused is even necessary for the definition of god. Why would it be?

[Myles Domini]

If God is, for instance, infinite, which we accept He is how can there be two beings just like Him? Can you add a book to a bookshelf containing an infinite number of books? Of course not. There cannot be two Gods because they would subsumed into the same infinity etc.

INXC
Myles