Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God

[Flagg]

Has anyone heard this argument? It is a favorite of Calvinists, the Christian denomination that denies free will to the sovereign choice of God. The juice of the argument is that it supposedly proves the Christian God by the impossibility of the contrary, by stating that without God, one cannot prove anything. The reasoning for it goes that God must be the source for the laws of logic (Identity, Non-Contradiction, Excluded Middle, etc.) since an atheistic worldview cannot account for the laws of logic at all. Morality and the problem of induction are also introduced as supposed proofs for God's existence, since they claim atheism cannot account for moral laws, nor can it count on the reliance of future events based on past experience.

Of course, Objectivism has an account for this, but I have not really seen anyone confront it directly. Thoughts?

[Alfonso Jones]

Has anyone heard this argument? It is a favorite of Calvinists, the Christian denomination that denies free will to the sovereign choice of God. The juice of the argument is that it supposedly proves the Christian God by the impossibility of the contrary, by stating that without God, one cannot prove anything. The reasoning for it goes that God must be the source for the laws of logic (Identity, Non-Contradiction, Excluded Middle, etc.) since an atheistic worldview cannot account for the laws of logic at all. Morality and the problem of induction are also introduced as supposed proofs for God's existence, since they claim atheism cannot account for moral laws, nor can it count on the reliance of future events based on past experience.

Of course, Objectivism has an account for this, but I have not really seen anyone confront it directly. Thoughts?

Been reading Gordon Clark lately, eh? Or, much worse yet, John W. Robbins?

Bill P

[Flagg]

Has anyone heard this argument? It is a favorite of Calvinists, the Christian denomination that denies free will to the sovereign choice of God. The juice of the argument is that it supposedly proves the Christian God by the impossibility of the contrary, by stating that without God, one cannot prove anything. The reasoning for it goes that God must be the source for the laws of logic (Identity, Non-Contradiction, Excluded Middle, etc.) since an atheistic worldview cannot account for the laws of logic at all. Morality and the problem of induction are also introduced as supposed proofs for God's existence, since they claim atheism cannot account for moral laws, nor can it count on the reliance of future events based on past experience.

Of course, Objectivism has an account for this, but I have not really seen anyone confront it directly. Thoughts?

Been reading Gordon Clark lately, eh? Or, much worse yet, John W. Robbins?

Bill P

Clark was a hoot. I think this is used more on the Van Tillian side of things, though, but I haven't really run up against a Clarkian before.

[Alfonso Jones]

Has anyone heard this argument? It is a favorite of Calvinists, the Christian denomination that denies free will to the sovereign choice of God. The juice of the argument is that it supposedly proves the Christian God by the impossibility of the contrary, by stating that without God, one cannot prove anything. The reasoning for it goes that God must be the source for the laws of logic (Identity, Non-Contradiction, Excluded Middle, etc.) since an atheistic worldview cannot account for the laws of logic at all. Morality and the problem of induction are also introduced as supposed proofs for God's existence, since they claim atheism cannot account for moral laws, nor can it count on the reliance of future events based on past experience.

Of course, Objectivism has an account for this, but I have not really seen anyone confront it directly. Thoughts?

Been reading Gordon Clark lately, eh? Or, much worse yet, John W. Robbins?

Bill P

Clark was a hoot. I think this is used more on the Van Tillian side of things, though, but I haven't really run up against a Clarkian before.

I've read a lot of Van Til, and a lot of Clark. Interestingly, Clark wrote a not bad history of philosophy . . . Thales to Dewey. I've got a copy in my library in Shanghai.

Bill P

[sbeaulieu]

I've got a copy in my library in Shanghai.

Bill P

Just how many libraries do you have? LOL!

~ Shane

[Alfonso Jones]

I've got a copy in my library in Shanghai.

Bill P

Just how many libraries do you have? LOL!

~ Shane

One in my office at work (Shanghai).

One at home in my apartment (Shanghai)

One in Knoxville in a storage facility.

So - - - three. For a while it was four, when I also had a university office at the University of Tennessee. And you?

Bill P

Edited April 15, 2009 by Bill P

[sbeaulieu]

I've got a copy in my library in Shanghai.

Bill P

Just how many libraries do you have? LOL!

~ Shane

One in my office at work (Shanghai).

One at home in my apartment (Shanghai)

One in Knoxville in a storage facility.

So - - - three. For a while it was four, when I also had a university office at the University of Tennessee. And you?

Bill P

Several, all in my little house on-base (where I can find space)...ha!

~ Shane

[Neil Parille]

John Robbins was to Gordon Clark what Leonard Peikoff is to Ayn Rand.

-Neil Parille

[Alfonso Jones]

John Robbins was to Gordon Clark what Leonard Peikoff is to Ayn Rand.

-Neil Parille

Not that bad of a rough analogy.

Bill P

[Neil Parille]

Robbins' book makes a few good points, but in general I don't recommend it.

Clark's books Religion, Reason & Revelation and A Christian View of Men and Things are his best. I'm certainly not a Clarkaholic though. He did write in a smug tone that is somewhat reminiscent of Rand.

-Neil Parille

[Alfonso Jones]

Robbins' book makes a few good points, but in general I don't recommend it.

Clark's books Religion, Reason & Revelation and A Christian View of Men and Things are his best. I'm certainly not a Clarkaholic though. He did write in a smug tone that is somewhat reminiscent of Rand.

-Neil Parille

To be clear, in case it seemed otherwise, I have a very negative impression of Robbins' "Without a Prayer." Full of attempts to characterize Rand's thought based on taking a single sentence out of context, and interpreting it out of context of (and in fact contrary to) the rest of Rand's writing.

Bill P

[Neil Parille]

To get a flavor of Clark, read this --

http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/ipaper/rev_henry_2.html

-Neil Parille

[Barbara Branden]

Has anyone heard this argument? It is a favorite of Calvinists, the Christian denomination that denies free will to the sovereign choice of God. The juice of the argument is that it supposedly proves the Christian God by the impossibility of the contrary, by stating that without God, one cannot prove anything. The reasoning for it goes that God must be the source for the laws of logic (Identity, Non-Contradiction, Excluded Middle, etc.) since an atheistic worldview cannot account for the laws of logic at all. Morality and the problem of induction are also introduced as supposed proofs for God's existence, since they claim atheism cannot account for moral laws, nor can it count on the reliance of future events based on past experience.

Of course, Objectivism has an account for this, but I have not really seen anyone confront it directly. Thoughts?

Flagg, this isn't an argument; it's a series of assertions. No one has to account for it.

Barbara

[syrakusos]

Flagg, this isn't an argument; it's a series of assertions. No one has to account for it.

Barbara

Cogent, as always, Barbara! As I read it, I thought that each sentence was a premise to something to follow, you know "follow" as in "logically." But it never did. It's a nice introduction, but lacking any substance, it sort of falls flat. Then, I thought about what I just read. Why would the laws of logic require "accounting for"? I mean, on the one hand, suppose we just made them up based on crude approximation, like a stone hand-tool from some pliocene hominid. Even if knowledge is only approximate -- Plato's cave and all that -- the laws of logic, like the forms of automobiles, are accounted for as human inventions.

Then, there is the strong objectivist view ("Objectivism" in sense of Ayn Rand's philosophy) that the universe is this way because it is and must be. Anything else would be internally inconsistent and therefore impossible.

Those teleological arguments are always so disappointing. They promise so much and deliver so little.

Edited April 17, 2009 by Michael E. Marotta

[BaalChatzaf]

Then, there is the strong objectivist view ("Objectivism" in sense of Ayn Rand's philosophy) that the universe is this way because it is and must be. Anything else would be internally inconsistent and therefore impossible.

This position is inconsistent with free will.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[syrakusos]

Then, there is the strong objectivist view ("Objectivism" in sense of Ayn Rand's philosophy) that the universe is this way because it is and must be. Anything else would be internally inconsistent and therefore impossible.

This position is inconsistent with free will.

Ba'al Chatzaf

It's a problem that I have no solution for, to be sure. However, I do have a practical approach. I study crime. Some people try to get into the heads of criminals to answer "why?" Indeed, if you can identify the "causes" (so-called) of cirme, then, perhaps, you can minimize or eliminate them. For me, it stops with choice. I don't care if the perp is mad at his momma or mad at capitalism or anomically alienated by his life course chances or was differentially associated or ... or... or... It stops with free will, which, for me begins with the meta-choice to think or not to think.

And speaking of thinking, I think this topic has been discussed at length elsewhere. However, I do have a rather lengthy term paper on the subject.

Mike M.

Edited April 17, 2009 by Michael E. Marotta