If 2+2=4, Then God Exists...

Michie · May 6, 2024

Aristotle, Anselm, Aquinas, Liebniz, and William Lane Craig provide famous reasons to believe that God exists. Less well known is a way proposed by the African intellectual Augustine. In his fantastic book Five Proofs of the Existence of God, Edward Feser explains this argument at length. Inspired by Augustine, let’s begin with the reality that 2+2=4.

Some realities exist in matter. A house is made of wood, nails, and cement. A dog has fur, muscles, and bones. Other realities exist in a mind. My memories of seeing the Grateful Dead in concert and of running track against Harvard exist in my mind. Your beliefs about dogs and about chocolate exist in your mind.

Does the reality of 2+2=4 exist in matter or in mind? Well, material realities have a particular weight, length, and density. But the reality that 2+2=4 does not have a weight, a length, or a density. So, the reality that 2+2=4 does not exist as a material object.

Continued below.

If 2+2=4, Then God Exists - Word on Fire

2+2=4 is a timeless reality and an unchanging truth, so it cannot depend upon minds like ours that come into and go out of existence.

www.wordonfire.org

chevyontheriver · May 6, 2024

Michie said:
Aristotle, Anselm, Aquinas, Liebniz, and William Lane Craig provide famous reasons to believe that God exists. Less well known is a way proposed by the African intellectual Augustine. In his fantastic book Five Proofs of the Existence of God, Edward Feser explains this argument at length. Inspired by Augustine, let’s begin with the reality that 2+2=4.

Some realities exist in matter. A house is made of wood, nails, and cement. A dog has fur, muscles, and bones. Other realities exist in a mind. My memories of seeing the Grateful Dead in concert and of running track against Harvard exist in my mind. Your beliefs about dogs and about chocolate exist in your mind.

Does the reality of 2+2=4 exist in matter or in mind? Well, material realities have a particular weight, length, and density. But the reality that 2+2=4 does not have a weight, a length, or a density. So, the reality that 2+2=4 does not exist as a material object.

Continued below.

If 2+2=4, Then God Exists - Word on Fire

2+2=4 is a timeless reality and an unchanging truth, so it cannot depend upon minds like ours that come into and go out of existence.

www.wordonfire.org

Who is that Vatican bureaucrat that says 2+2=5?

Fr. Spadaro, a close confidant of Pope Francis and the so-called “mouthpiece” of the pope, tweeted: “Theology is not #Mathematics. 2+2 in #Theology can make 5.

But back to reality ....

AlexB23 · May 6, 2024

Michie said:
Aristotle, Anselm, Aquinas, Liebniz, and William Lane Craig provide famous reasons to believe that God exists. Less well known is a way proposed by the African intellectual Augustine. In his fantastic book Five Proofs of the Existence of God, Edward Feser explains this argument at length. Inspired by Augustine, let’s begin with the reality that 2+2=4.

Some realities exist in matter. A house is made of wood, nails, and cement. A dog has fur, muscles, and bones. Other realities exist in a mind. My memories of seeing the Grateful Dead in concert and of running track against Harvard exist in my mind. Your beliefs about dogs and about chocolate exist in your mind.

Does the reality of 2+2=4 exist in matter or in mind? Well, material realities have a particular weight, length, and density. But the reality that 2+2=4 does not have a weight, a length, or a density. So, the reality that 2+2=4 does not exist as a material object.

Continued below.

If 2+2=4, Then God Exists - Word on Fire

2+2=4 is a timeless reality and an unchanging truth, so it cannot depend upon minds like ours that come into and go out of existence.

www.wordonfire.org

God invented math and fined tuned His creation, and the human brains that can process math.

So yes, God exists.

Cosmic Charlie · May 7, 2024

This author's conclusion:

In sum, it is an objective reality that 2+2=4. Mathematical realities don’t exist as material objects with color, shape, and weight; rather, they exist in your mind and my mind. Mental realities depend on a mind for their existence. But the reality that 2+2=4 (like countless other mathematical facts) is a timeless reality and an unchanging truth, so it cannot depend upon minds like ours that come into existence and can go out of existence. So, there must exist a mind that is necessarily existing, eternally understanding, and infinitely knowing. This mind Augustine calls God.

This is REALLY lightweight stuff.

2+2=4 (Well, actually 1+1=2, but from there you can extrapolate the set theory), was proven in "Principia Mathematica" by Whitehead and Russell. Do yourself a favor, don't read it.

1+1=2 is our interpretation of how counting systems work in the universe in which we find ourselves. The underlying operations and reality that supports the counting systems is beside the point. The author must know this.

Anyway, you can't go directly from "this fact exists", to therefore:, "this fact must have been created a some First Mover". It's been attempted many times by the Jews, Greeks, the early Church Fathers, the Falsafah, and the Enlightenment. Ultimately, they all failed. Augustine failed at it badly.

The discovery of God is a mystical experience, and mystical experiences are not philosophical or logical in nature. The history of religion in general and monotheism in particular shows that science and logic are just not suited to the discovery of God. It's just the wrong place to look.

And this article is just badly reasoned.

Bob Crowley · May 7, 2024

Even so I remember my old Protestant pastor saying to me once that he thought someone would come up with a proof of God based on zero, or nothingness, which is of course the complete antithesis of God.

I suppose you might call it a proof by negation.

If you have insomnia, Kurt Godel the mathematician and Einstein's friend developed his proof that God exists.

Gödel Says God Exists and Proves It

Gödel is the first of many great scientists and philosophers to present the argument for God’s existence using mathematical logic.

mindmatters.ai

Kurt Gödel - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Albert Einstein was also living at Princeton during this time. Gödel and Einstein developed a strong friendship, and were known to take long walks together to and from the Institute for Advanced Study. The nature of their conversations was a mystery to the other Institute members. Economist Oskar Morgenstern recounts that toward the end of his life Einstein confided that his "own work no longer meant much, that he came to the Institute merely ... to have the privilege of walking home with Gödel".[27]

Apparently "the nature of their conversations was a mystery to the other institute members". If we'd been there we probably would not have understood it either.

Cosmic Charlie · May 7, 2024

Bob Crowley said:
Even so I remember my old Protestant pastor saying to me once that he thought someone would come up with a proof of God based on zero, or nothingness, which is of course the complete antithesis of God.

I suppose you might call it a proof by negation.

Yeah, this was attempted by the Catholic Church, the whole logic fell apart when the existence of a vacuum was proven. It's put a serious crimp in attempts to show the existence of God by negation.

Bob Crowley said:
If you have insomnia, Kurt Godel the mathematician and Einstein's friend developed his proof that God exists.

Gödel Says God Exists and Proves It

Gödel is the first of many great scientists and philosophers to present the argument for God’s existence using mathematical logic.

mindmatters.ai

Kurt Gödel - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Apparently "the nature of their conversations was a mystery to the other institute members". If we'd been there we probably would not have understood it either.

This proof is questionable.

I'm kind of proud of myself because I figured out why before I went to Wikipedia to look it up:

Gödel's ontological proof - Wikipedia

As with all attempts of prove the existence of God objectively, it makes assumptions that can be doubted or disputed.

JesusFollowerForever · May 7, 2024

Michie said:
Aristotle, Anselm, Aquinas, Liebniz, and William Lane Craig provide famous reasons to believe that God exists. Less well known is a way proposed by the African intellectual Augustine. In his fantastic book Five Proofs of the Existence of God, Edward Feser explains this argument at length. Inspired by Augustine, let’s begin with the reality that 2+2=4.

Some realities exist in matter. A house is made of wood, nails, and cement. A dog has fur, muscles, and bones. Other realities exist in a mind. My memories of seeing the Grateful Dead in concert and of running track against Harvard exist in my mind. Your beliefs about dogs and about chocolate exist in your mind.

Does the reality of 2+2=4 exist in matter or in mind? Well, material realities have a particular weight, length, and density. But the reality that 2+2=4 does not have a weight, a length, or a density. So, the reality that 2+2=4 does not exist as a material object.

Continued below.

If 2+2=4, Then God Exists - Word on Fire

2+2=4 is a timeless reality and an unchanging truth, so it cannot depend upon minds like ours that come into and go out of existence.

www.wordonfire.org

It Takes 26 Fundamental Constants To Give Us Our Universe, But They Still Don't Give Everything

It Takes 26 Fundamental Constants To Give Us Our Universe, But They Still Don't Give Everything

VideoWhen we think about our Universe at a fundamental level, we think about all the particles in it and all the forces and interactions that occur between them. If you can describe those forces, interactions and particle properties, you have everything you need to reproduce our Universe, or at...

www.forbes.com

Bob Crowley · May 7, 2024

It depends on whether the vacuum in space is truly empty.

Is the vacuum of space truly empty?

Even far from Earth, there's plenty of stuff floating around in space.

www.space.com

Is the Vacuum of Space Truly Empty? .....

Quantum physics provides a surprising answer: No. Physicists have discovered that quantum fields soak all of space and time, and these quantum fields give rise to the particles of everyday life. But when left to their lonesome, the quantum fields have an intrinsic energy, known as vacuum energy. This energy is omnipresent throughout the universe. Even though you wouldn't have any particles around you, you'd still have this energy to be your sole companion.

A proof of God by negation would require absolute emptiness, with no fields, "vacuum energy" or anything else. I've got no idea how someone would go about proving it, but what appears to be absolute zero or empty space, actually isn't.

Cosmic Charlie · May 7, 2024

Bob Crowley said:
It depends on whether the vacuum in space is truly empty.

A proof of God by negation would require absolute emptiness, with no fields, "vacuum energy" or anything else. I've got no idea how someone would go about proving it, but what appears to be absolute zero or empty space, actually isn't.

You are correct. And without proof that nothingness exists, you can't use it as a contradiction as a proof for God.

Things were going along with proof by contradiction pretty well, and then Torricelli created a vacuum and the whole thing went out the window. He didn't catch too much flak about it from the Church, but a couple of other people were burned at the stake over it.

If 2+2=4, Then God Exists...

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