Proving Christianity 2: Divine Simplicity

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[MushiMage]

I accept the idea that there is a something which is not predicated on anything else.

[boraalaybeyi]

So let's say a table exists necessarily. If I add food onto the table, whatever the previous "indivisible table" was is now divisible. I guess in this case it would cease to be a "table", let alone cease to be necessarily existent.

[rolmops]

I was going to go through this entire series, but I already know this is going to be a struggle. The argument that no composite has existence in and of itself I get. I've heard this one before. The problem here is where existence (differentiating from nothing) ends. Take a pencil, for instance. It's a composite, in every sense of the word: the lead, the wood, the eraser, a bit of metal, ... If the point breaks, we sharpen it. What we're left with is a tiny piece of the lead (which at a pinch, we can still use to write a word), some wood shavings (still wood, itself arguably a processed composite), and a pencil, albeit slightly shorter. Now imagine the eraser falls off, or is used up. We have now lost an entire part of the composite. Is it still a pencil? Yes. Is it the same pencil? Depends on who you ask. Can it still perform the same tasks? It can write, but not erase, so no.

OK, this may look like nothing so far contradicts anything you've said. Now I ask: there is nothing in your arguments that suggests anything other than what you call God, and what a solipsist would call himself exists. Therefore, everything that makes up the pencil could well have no existence in itself, therefore it cannot have existence in another (ie God/self). The pencil therefore doesn't exist? Or your Thomas of Aquino quotation: "if the part doesn't exist, then neither does the whole": There is no proof here that wood, lead, metal, etc... exist, therefore the pencil is not real.

Now let's flip the scrip, and say the pencil exists. You're arguing that it can only exist if the parts (wood, metal, ...) have existence. That is true. But the cause of their existence is non-determined in this argument. Does the lead of the broken tip have existence itself? It's a non-composite, so you'd have to say yes. Then again, the broken tip wouldn't exist as-is without the pencil. Its existence is self-contained, but its properties like size, shape and weight were shaped by the pencil. Same goes for the wood shavings. The wood shavings exist as a non-composite, but their existence is the result of the composite they were once part of. In that sense, are these non-composites not depending on the composite they once were part of for their existence? Your set of rules (or semi-postulates) suffer from internal contradictions up to this point. I have a hunch that I've touched upon a number of things you'll get in to later on, so I'm going to stick with this series for now, but I'll be honest: given that the first two parts of your series of arguments aren't a very strong foundation thusfar, I'm not convinced this is going to prove much of anything.

I know some will say I'm being a petulant little atheist or whatever. In all honesty, I'm not. I come from a religious background, considered myself Catholic for well over 2 decades, never really got to the point where I despised religion, let alone religious people. I just reached a point where it just didn't make sense to me anymore. I've tried finding answers, but so far I keep finding the same old arguments, and none of them are very convincing. I guess I'm kind of just lamenting this is as good as it seems to get.

[hughmungus]

Are you Catholic by any chance? Thanks and God Bless.

[quel]

I have to disagree on point IV.2

According to our current understanding of physics, there are at least 17 essential building blocks (the elementary particles of the Standard Model) which have essentially distinguishable parts from each other. In the terminology used here, each of them is a part that exists on itself. The only thing they all share in common is their existence, and some share certain physical characteristics (which are not parts, thus not making them composites and being able to exist on themselves).

Of course this is not "pure logic", and scientific facts start to come in, so we have to add the axioms "these facts happen consistency" and "evidence from the natural world can be used as physical laws" etc.etc.

[Jamric-grgr]

well but if it depends on its own parts, than it is still independent of anything external to itself? what...

[TheRealCatof]

I'm still waiting for the part that's supposed to prove christianity.

[rolfkristensen]

Greetings, I was asked to take a look at this video series by a friend.



There is a lot to wrong about his argument. Funny though, as it proves God does not exist.
1. Anything that depends on another for its existence does not have existence in itself
2. God depends on human superstition to exist.
3. There for God does not exist.
Congratulations Thomistic Disputations, you have just proven logically that God does not exist. (unfortunately for me, logic is just rules for language, you cannot prove the existence or non-existence of anything with it.)


Anyway, the entire argument is wrong, as in both premises are wrong, conclusion is wrong. There is such a thing as Emergence.