On 27 Dec 2003 18:04:13 -0800, keith wrote:
>I took "indeterminate" to mean "*couldn't* be known, not didn't happen
>to *be* known".
>>keith
"Logically indeterminate" was the phrase. It has a precise technical meaning:
"a proposition is logically indeterminate if its truth value cannot be
determined from the premises given." (It is of course possible that the truth
of the proposition can be determined by some other argument based on some
other grounds.)
A valid argument is one which, if and only if the premise is true, yields a
true conclusion. If the premise of a valid argument is false, then the
conclusion may be either true or false - either truth value of the conclusion
is consistent with the premise. Hence the conclusion of a valid argument with
a false premise is logically indeterminate. Hence, if we find that we have a
valid argument for god's existence, and we find further that its premise is
false, then the existence of god is logically indeterminate. (NB that a
premise is false when any and at least one of its conjoined propositions is
false.)
But no matter what, if "god exists" is the conclusion of some premise P, then
the truth of "god exists" is contingent on the truth of P. If P is about some
aspect(s) of the real world, then god's existence is contingent on those
aspects. Which is absurd, since god is presumed to be the creator of the real
world. Hence there can be no proof of god's existence, if it is also true
that god's existence is not contingent on anything outside itself.
Whether "god exists" is true or not, I do not presume to say. But anyone who
holds that it is true will contradict his or her own beliefs if they attempt
to prove god's existence by any appeals to our experience of the real world.
Yet all such proofs that I have encountered do in some way make such an
appeal. Therefore all such proofs contradict the presumption that god's
existence is not contingent on anything outside of god itself. (NB that
arguments that appeal to the nature of god are invalid because they beg the
question, since any statement about the nature of god assumes the existence
of god. Such arguments are irrelevant to this point.)
This is why I find it a great puzzle that so many people who profess faith in
god nevertheless wish to construct an argument that god exists.
--
Wolf Kirchmeir, Blind River ON Canada
"Nature does not deal in rewards or punishments, but only in consequences."
(Robert Ingersoll)