Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Aug 05, 2018 1:30 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sun Aug 05, 2018 6:50 am
Can any theist or non-theist counter the above?
As worded at the moment, it's fairly straightforward to do so, actually.
The premise: "Absolute perfection is an impossibility in the empirical," could be 100% correct, yet it does not conduce to the conclusion "Therefore, absolute perfection is an impossibility to be real." This is because "empirical" and "real" are not the same terms. Hence, you have in that argument a fallacy of the shifting middle term, or equivocation.
"Empirical" is defined as, "based on what is seen or experienced" (Cambridge). That pretty much limits it to the physical realm. So your premise is, "Absolute perfection is impossible in the physical (empirical) world." To put it wryly, the argument assumes we can get God into a beaker. It requires us to assume that that whatever the Supreme Being is, He must be an item in the set, "empirical things."
But, by definition, the Supreme Being is the Creator of "empirical things," not a member of that set. Any Theist thinks so. So the argument dies on that basic premise. It will need a better premise.
Make sense?
There are more details to the premises I have not covered.
There are many forms of God, i.e.
- 1. The empirical God
2. The empirically possible God
3. The pantheistic or panentheistic in everywhere God
4. The transcendental God
5. The transcendental Absolute Supreme Being.
1. The empirical God
My OP address the obvious, i.e. the empirical God.
The majority of Abrahamic theists and other common theists [appx 80% of theists] generally believe their God to be somehow empirical from an anthropomorphic to the minutest element, e.g. energy or god particle which these theists are hopeful [for an impossibility] their God will be verified by Science one day.
Why they expect their God to be empirical is when they expect their God to answer their empirical prayers and various empirical responses [miracles, etc.].
One point is when one expect one's God to perform empirical things or miracles, that God has to be empirically based.
It is a contradiction and illusory to conflate two different senses in term of existence at the same time, i.e. empirical as the same time is transcendental. [need further discussion on this].
2. The empirically possible God
Early on in the dark ages when the Earth was not fully explored, theists would claim their God is an empirical entity somewhere in other side of the horizon no one has gone before.
When the Earth was fully explored and they become more learned, they shifted to the claim, their God is a bearded man or some extraterrestrial empirical being some where out there in the Universe.
This is the empirically possible God.
I can accept the claim for an empirically [100%] possible God, but one can only present it as a speculative theory until one can bring in empirical evidence to prove and justify its existence.
This claim is like any scientific theory or science fiction.
But the point is an empirical God cannot be a perfect God.
If a God is not a perfect God, then that empirical God will be an inferior God to the extent can be commanded to kiss the arse of another possible more superior God or the ontological God, i.e. the Sense of Inferiority that need to be overcome.
This is happening with SOME Muslims who believe their Allah is the ONE Greatest God over all entities.
4. Transcendental God [beyond the empirical].
The above sense of inferiority lead to the thought evolution of a greater idea [not concept] of a one-up God until a ceiling limit is reached to arrive an ontological God. Note Descartes, St. Anselm, etc.
The Ontological God is
a God than which no greater can be 'conceived' [idealized].
Kant proved the idea of God is always defaulted to the ontological God.
At the same time, Kant proved the transcendental ontological God is a resulting illusion.
5. The transcendental Absolute Supreme Being.
The transcendental Absolute Supreme Being is the Ontological God mentioned above.
3. The pantheistic or panentheistic in everywhere God
The pantheistic or panentheistic in everywhere God is claimed by SOME to be fully empirical that exists everywhere empirically thus faces the limitation of empiricism.
Generallly the pantheistic or panentheistic God is claimed to be both empirically within and transcendental [transcendent].
The pantheistic or panentheistic God that straddles the empirical and transcendental is constraint by the limitations of the empirical and transcendental explained above.
Thus you can see from the above;
- If one's God is empirical which 80% of theists believe, then such a God is impossible to be real because God by default has to be absolutely perfect.
If God it is a pantheistic or panentheistic God that straddle the empirical and transcendental, it is constraint by the empirical and transcendental limitations.
If God is claimed to be transcendental, then it is an illusion, thus impossible to be real.
From all the above, the idea [not concept] of God cannot be empirically real as believed by 80% of theists and God is an illusion if believed to be transcendental.
I have no issue if theists understand and recognize [qualify] their theistic belief and conclusion is an illusion, i.e. a perhaps critical necessarily self-deception to relieve an inherent existential crisis.
Whilst the majority of humans need God as a psychological crutch and cannot do without it
[unless there are convincing alternatives], theists need to understand [this is the toughest challenge] the idea of God is a resulting illusion of thought that has its pros and cons.
The significance is the cons of theism are outweighing its pros as move toward the future.