Nothing Exists Necessarily

Existence is not a predicate. Therefore, nothing exists necessarily.

Errata:

At 4:10, the first line should say "if and only if."

[APaleDot]

"Existence isn't a predicate"

Bet you Kant prove it.

[MasterGhostKnight]

I define a maximally great pie, a pie that exists in all mouths. Therefor pie exists in my mouth. So where is my pie?

[Skyswindler]

I define +anticitizenx as a being that makes 2 videos per week.

[AntiCitizenX]

Dear Christian Apologists,

What part of "existence is not a predicate" do you fail to understand?

[jimhize]

“A world where all bachelors have three wives” - actually this is possible without redefinition. It only requires that the world contains zero bachelors.

[lilith_speaks_out]

I am so glad I found this channel. This argument has bothered me since I first heard it from WLC, but I've never heard deconstructed quite so thoroughly. "Existence is not a predicate" is brilliant. I know this seems like child play to you, but, in many ways, I'm still emerging from the fog of fundamentalism.

[ieaturanium]

i am a human being with a very hot girlfriend by definition!





damn... didn't work :(

[Mankepanke]

Excerpt from Genesis:
And God said "Light is electromagnetic emission that necessarily exists", and there was light.

Derp

[blvalverde]

Apologists think logic is sorcery, you speak the words in the proper order and just puffs god into being.

[Tasarran]

I call it the Don't-ological Argument...

[MoovySoundtrax]

You can derive some crazy shit from the idea that God exists necessarily, especially when combined with basic theodicy:

1. God exists in all possible worlds (Plantinga)
2. God coexists with evil if and only if there are morally sufficient reasons to permit that evil (theodicy)
3. The set of all possible worlds contains all possible acts of evil (by definition)
4. God coexists with all possible acts of evil (from 1 and 3)
5. There are morally sufficient reasons to permit all possible acts of evil (from 2 and 4)
C. All possible acts of evil are morally permissible (by definition from 5)

Or if you take Leibniz's approach and say that God would create the best possible world, you're left with the conclusion that every possible world is the best possible world, which is completely incoherent.

[chrisose]

The ontological argument fails with the unsubstantiated definition of the "maximally great being".

[TwoWayDeadEND]

Thank you for making this video! One of my greatest dislikes of apologetics is that they depend on the lack of careful scrutiny of the average layman. I hate to admit it but despite my great improvement in coherent processing from say about 5 years ago, I nonetheless got blindsided by this argument. I knew from the beginning that it didn't work and that it didn't make sense, but I couldn't figure out why. It took me watching an older video of yours a couple times and watching this video in order to understand where the flaws in the structure are. We could definitely use more people of such coherency as you. *Keep up the great work please.*

[thetsarofall]

Its so hard to imagine being so hung up on an idea, so dependant on the trueness of it that you have to make something as convoluted as this argument, simply to disguise the fact that all you are saying is "x exists because x is so great it couldnt possibly not exist".

[juanenfermobastardo]

If we go with "every possible world, " then by definition at least half of those worlds doesn't have a 'necessary being'.

[biostemm]

Yeah... this argument always annoyed me - "existence" is only a property of something that manifests in reality; A thing must first manifest in reality, (preferably in some verifiably measurable way), and only then, can it be said to "exist".

[ryanlowe]

Thank you for all the work you put into making complicated subjects so accessible.

Great video.

[Ian_sothejokeworks]

I can't fail to exist. I should know; I've failed at everything else.

[OnePointSix]

Thanks AntiCitizenX. I've heard Plantinga's argument ad nauseam. I've never been able to put my cognitive finger on what it is that sounded so f'ed up when he starts describing a "necessary being" but now I do, perfectly. When starts with, "A necessary being is...", he is already making it something that exists!!!! Beautiful. Thanks again!

[thejackanapes]

One of the most useful channels on youtube.