"Wolf Kirchmeir" <wwolfkir at sympatico.can> wrote in message news:<jbysxveflzcngvpbpna.hql6od1.pminews at news1.sympatico.ca>...
> 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.)
In that case, I withdraw my disagreement.
>> 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.)
Logically indeterminate as in not logically determinable from said
argument. Now that I know the definition I agree with you about
logical indeterminacy.
>> 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.
That's not true AFAICS. If P were false that would not make "God
exists" false. And it still doesn't make God *existence* dependent on
P. It could be the case that the statement "OJ Simpson is guilty of
murderer" is seen to be true because of the incredible evidence
against him, but that doesn't mean his *guilt* depends on that
evidence. At most it would be our knowledge of his guilt that is
dependent on the evidence.
> 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.
I'd say you conflating an epistemological issue with an ontological
one.
>> 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.
I don't think so. It could be that the reason she knows that God
exists is because of some aspect about the real world, but that
doesn't mean God's existence depends on that aspect. That a person's
knowledge of God depends on some fact is perfectly consistent with the
facts the person knows being dependent for its existence on God.
Keith
> 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.
