tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post5927823152868952051..comments2024-03-22T06:22:08.010+00:00Comments on Stephen Law: A 'cumulative case' for the existence of God? No.Stephen Lawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02167317543994731177noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-50078112270562761132020-12-02T16:46:39.619+00:002020-12-02T16:46:39.619+00:00I think the entire premise falls flat because it i...I think the entire premise falls flat because it is circular reasoning. The conclusion is expressed implicitly in the first premise and the rest of the arguments only lead to defining that necessary being as god as well as giving him all-powerful characteristics.<br />1. A being create the universe<br />2. He has to be omnipotent because he created the universe.<br />3. Is really just nonsense.<br />4. Since he created the universe he must be all intelligent<br />5. Since he is all powerful, all intelligent, and created the universe, he must therefore be good.<br />Therefore god exists.<br /><br />At the time, gods were pervasive, well, the belief in them. They all had roles and functions within society, but monotheism deviated and required that the being be elevated to all-powerful, because there are times that god actually fails (Judges 1:19, god fails because the coastal people had iron chariots, but by Judges 4, he figures out how to defeat iron chariots). It's more god starts out as a local deity and the omni-everything is added later and rationalized.skepticseeker42noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-55557235294301176042020-12-02T12:23:34.999+00:002020-12-02T12:23:34.999+00:00I have a different objection, which is that, so fa...I have a different objection, which is that, so far from being a cumulative case which leads to a leap of faith, the whole thing rests on a leap of faith - or rather, a leap over doubt. Suppose that all things have a cause which can be conceptualised as an entity (which is a hell of a supposition, but let that pass), then the existence of the universe must have been caused by some entity. We then have two conceptual impossibilities: a causative entity which doesn't itself have a cause (haven't we just <i>supposed</i> that <b>all</b> things have a cause?) and an entity capable of initiating the existence of the universe: nothing in existence has anything remotely approaching that kind of power. Your theist quietly forgets objection 1, then looks objection 2 in the face, says <i>credo quia impossibile</i> and looks for the next rung on the ladder: assuming an omnipotent entity, what <b>other</b> attributes would such an entity need to have?<br /><br />It's true that the chain of stipulations can just as easily end with an omnimalevolent God as an omnibenevolent one, but that seems less significant than the fact that it <b>is</b> a chain of stipulations, no more than that.Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07009879034507926661noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-65563091161151097212017-05-08T18:05:34.687+00:002017-05-08T18:05:34.687+00:00Dr. Law,
My admiration and respect for you as an...Dr. Law, <br /><br />My admiration and respect for you as an intellectual and philosopher can not be too overstated. You have a gift for, and I'll use the technical term her in the US, 'pooh-poohing' things. Oxford Dictionary states cumulative is "Increasing or increased in quantity, degree, or force by successive additions." A classical theistic case for God is no more or no less a cumulative case. Omnipotence is based on the idea of a Creator must be SO powerful to create a Universe. The other Omni's follow the case, as it is made. <br /><br />I'm sorry, but this clearly is a case where you are negating a very legitimate way to 'prove' the existence of God (and His attributes). Tony Vancehttp://tonyvance.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-53948451675814891262017-05-06T21:56:31.798+00:002017-05-06T21:56:31.798+00:00After an initial reading, it seems to me that in t... After an initial reading, it seems to me that in the legal cumulative case, there is no dependency between individual parts of the case and no sequence that has to be followed. It's simply the totality or preponderance of evidence that convicts.<br /><br />Whereas in the theistic 'cumulative' case, it's the sequence of arguments, and their dependency on each preceding argument, that in totality (and only in totality) leads to conviction. In this sense, I can't see that it's even proper to call it a cumulative argument. A better term would be a progressive argument?<br /><br />Another nitpick would be that in your examples, in the legal case what's presented is an accumulation of objective evidence, where as in the theistic case what you're presented with is a dependent sequence of arguments. In that sense, these are not qualitively similar presentations at all.<br /><br />In short then, in one you have dependency and the other, you do not.Graham Poundnoreply@blogger.com