Argument from truth

Sapiens

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I just noticed a penny sitting on the floor under my desk. It is true that there is a penny under my desk because there is actually a penny under my desk. The fact that I know it is there doesn't cause it to be true, and even if God exists, Him knowing it doesn't cause it to be true.

I think you're mixing up "truth" with "knowledge of the truth" and using them interchangeably.

God knowing it explains why it is true. His existence and his knowledge of the world explain why there can be a right correspondence with reality and why we ought to seek a right one instead of a mistsken one. Some truths have been eternally known by him and others he determined at creation.
 
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Nihilist Virus

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I have to admit I'm not knowledgeable enough to appreciate everything you said.

I did some reading to have a clue, and I realize I'm a foundationalist. I don't get how it is a problem to assume some truths to be true and build the rest of the belief structure from these.

Yes, we all have to assume something to start off. That's undeniable. The problem, aside from assumptions ultimately being unjustified, is that there isn't always a "common assumption" that we all hold. If you and I disagree on a fundamental assumption, there's no evidence or argument to examine.

Some basic beliefs I have are: the external world exists, I exist, I have experiences,

There's no solution to hard solipsism, and further, simulation theory becomes more plausible every day. You might actually need to either demonstrate that artificial minds are different from ours, or else take that as one of your initial assumptions.

I'm not proposing either of these things, but rather stating that they are possibilities. They're unfalsifiable, but your assumption, just like any assumption, is unjustified.

the laws of logic are reliable,

Nope. Quantum mechanics.

moral values exist objectively,

Why? How? Would the world be any different whatsoever if moral values did not exist objectively? What a can of worms this is though.

propositions can be true or false depending on their correspondence with reality or logical consistency.

In logic, "true" is also another one of those primitive notions. That is, it is undefined.

Maybe electrons have weird behaviors, but how does that affect our book? At a given time it is or isn't on the desk.

Firstly, I don't need to address all possible scenarios; a single counter-example is sufficient. Secondly, Schrödinger's Cat is a thought experiment relating quantum mechanics to large objects and I don't think there's been a solution to it.

I'm not knowledgeable enough on Gödel's theorem to speak on it.

In any consistent, nontrivial logical system, there must be a statement which is either true or false but cannot be shown to be such. Effectively it is neither true nor false, but a third category: undecidable.

Concerning mathematics, you're saying it's just convention or some meaningless system?

Mathematics has no meaning. That's why we are able to assign meaning to it.

Imagine for a moment that we have only shown that that two firetrucks plus two firetrucks equals four firetrucks. We would then be unjustified in claiming that two apples plus two apples is four apples. It is precisely because mathematics is meaningless that we are able to assign to it any meaning we like. This is too abstract for most people and now you have Platonists running around claiming that the number 2 actually exists in some ethereal realm. It does not.
 
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Moral Orel

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God knowing it explains why it is true.
No, you already said that knowing something doesn't cause that something, but that is what this would mean. The penny isn't there because God knows it is there.
His existence and his knowledge of the world explain why there can be a right correspondence with reality and why we ought to seek a right one instead of a mistsken one. Some truths have been eternally known by him and others he determined at creation.
A right correspondence between reality and what?
 
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HitchSlap

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Hello there!

I wish to present an argument for God and see how it holds up.

It is similar to the argument from morality, which I presented some years back, and I think these 2 arguments are the most easily apprehended and convincing ones. Here it goes:

1. If God does not exist, then truth does not exist.
2. Truth does exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.
1. If Cthulhu does not exist, then truth does not exist.
2. Truth does exist.
3. Therefore, Cthulhu exists.

Am I doing this right?

You need to watch Alex Malpass’ video where he corrects an apologist using a similar syllogism.
 
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Sapiens

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1. If Cthulhu does not exist, then truth does not exist.
2. Truth does exist.
3. Therefore, Cthulhu exists.

Am I doing this right?

You need to watch Alex Malpass’ video where he corrects an apologist using a similar syllogism.

3*. Or at least, a supreme and eternal mind from which all truths originate exists. Along with the moral argument, the design argument, the cosmological arguments, we get a fuller picture of who and what this supreme being must be like.

Call him Bob if you want. Yes, you're doing it right. So long as the same attributes are associated with the name used, it's the same being.
 
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Sapiens

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1. If Cthulhu does not exist, then truth does not exist.
2. Truth does exist.
3. Therefore, Cthulhu exists.

Am I doing this right?

You need to watch Alex Malpass’ video where he corrects an apologist using a similar syllogism.
Do you have a link to that video?
 
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Sapiens

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No, you already said that knowing something doesn't cause that something, but that is what this would mean. The penny isn't there because God knows it is there.

A right correspondence between reality and what?

Well, in this sort of case I would say that you're right and that God did cause it to be true because he created the universe in such a way as to make this statement/situation true (the penny and the desk are created, geographical location as well, dimensions...). But the fact that ideas exist, for instance, has always coeternally been true because of God having them in his own mind.

A right correspondence between reality and our minds' assessment of it.
 
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Sapiens

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In what way could our experience be connected to reality such that we shouldn’t trust it?

As I said in my OP. Why should there be a right correspondence between our minds and reality, without design? There would be no reason to believe so. And aren't you the one supposed to propose an alternative explanation to my God hypothesis?

We might all be hallucinating. Everything could be a figment of our imagination and we'd have no clue about the world actually surrounding us.
 
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As I said in my OP. Why should there be a right correspondence between our minds and reality, without design? There would be no reason to believe so. And aren't you the one supposed to propose an alternative explanation to my God hypothesis?

We might all be hallucinating. Everything could be a figment of our imagination and we'd have no clue about the world actually surrounding us.
Well, your OP runs on the assumption that there shouldn’t be any correspondence between our experience and reality, and I’m not seeing any reasoning for that besides your difficulty imagining how that could happen.
 
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HitchSlap

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Call him Bob if you want. Yes, you're doing it right. So long as the same attributes are associated with the name used, it's the same being.
So it would seem your syllogism will prove that any entity exists. This doesn’t seem problematic to you?
 
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HitchSlap

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Do you have a link to that video?

The Matt Slick Fallacy

“If you only have two possibilities to account for something … if one of them is negated the other is necessarily validated as being true … So we have ‘God and not-God’, so that’s called a true dichotomy, God either exists, or it is not the case that God exists, we have the thing and the negation of the thing. So now we have a true disjunctive syllogism … We have, for example, the transcendental laws of logic … Can the no-God position account for the transcendental laws of logic? And the ultimate answer is no it cannot. So therefore because it cannot, the other position is automatically necessarily validated as being true. Because, you cannot negate both options out of the only two possibilities; that’s logically impossible.”
 
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Moral Orel

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So it would seem your syllogism will prove that any entity exists. This doesn’t seem problematic to you?
I think it's an attempt to show that we were created and designed by an intelligent entity, and sure you could put any old god in there, but that would still be a substantial proof, if it worked, which I don't think it does.

Cumulatively with the other arguments mentioned it would point towards the Christian God, if all of them worked, which I don't think any of them do.
 
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Sanoy

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This might be a good definition to use here, truth refers to the correspondence between our intellectual faculties and reality. That puts truth in a position most here can use, while leaving the thing that would acquire the truth (our intellectual faculties) in debate.
 
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Sanoy

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So it would seem your syllogism will prove that any entity exists. This doesn’t seem problematic to you?
He said "So long as the same attributes are associated with the name used, it's the same being." and that is a crucial remark. If this is H.P. Lovecrafts Cthulhu why should we expect robust intellectual faculties? The attributes play an important role here.
 
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Tinker Grey

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I think it's an attempt to show that we were created and designed by an intelligent entity, and sure you could put any old god in there, but that would still be a substantial proof, if it worked, which I don't think it does.

Cumulatively with the other arguments mentioned it would point towards the Christian God, if all of them worked, which I don't think any of them do.
Well, they are all valid. It's just that none of them are sound.

To establish soundness, you must establish the premises. So as someone noted above (@Nihilist Virus?), there are grounds to question the existence of truth. But even if you grant that, I can't grant that truth implies a god until the existence of gods is demonstrated.

A. If Truth exists, God doesn't.
B. Truth does.
C. God ain't.

Not very convincing, is it?
 
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HitchSlap

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He said "So long as the same attributes are associated with the name used, it's the same being." and that is a crucial remark. If this is H.P. Lovecrafts Cthulhu why should we expect robust intellectual faculties? The attributes play an important role here.
So as long as I define the requisite attributes, then exists?
 
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Sanoy

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So as long as I define the requisite attributes, then exists?
IMO, according to the formula, it would mean that some container, which includes such requisite attributes, exists. I don't want to speak for the OP, but that is how I see it.
 
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HitchSlap

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IMO, according to the formula, it would mean that some container, which includes such requisite attributes, exists. I don't want to speak for the OP, but that is how I see it.
You are correct. All the OP has demonstrated is that you can define anything into existence.

The question is: either Cthulhu exists or doesn’t.
 
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