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Well I'm not justifying every aspect of human animal relations.
Look at it in terms of how we set limits on childrens behavior, experience, exposure in so many ways. If we treated other adults like that it would absolutely seem tyrannical. But God ("the father") in relation to humans?
I hadn’t heard of that, no, but I’ll agree that 4 doesn’t make this argument a logical defeater of theism. It does make the idea of an all-loving, relationship-seeking god intuitively less persuasive, though. You can appeal to the finitude of human wisdom to save any of God’s traits, but the more slippery a concept God is, the harder it is to make a judgment either way on its existence.Have you heard of Wilhelm Schmidt and Urmonotheismus? The anthropological issues here are pretty difficult too--it's not uncommon to find some sophisticated theistic concepts in aboriginal peoples, so I don't think we can say for certain that monotheism is the sort of thing that evolved over time. It's not impossible that it was the primordial belief and people only afterwards became civilized and fell away into polytheism. When it comes to prehistorical times, we just can't know. So I think 4 still fails.
No, good parents set boundaries, and deliberately expose the child to new experiences, all in the childs interest. Not as a display of power. Its in this spirit that I think the proposed God could make short work of our resistance to belief.I mean, we (hopefully) don't set limits on children's behavior because we're more powerful than they are and eager to show it. Breaking their will and making them accept what we tell them via coercion would definitely be really problematic, to put it mildly. If something is going to harm your child, you shouldn't be doing it.
No, good parents set boundaries, and deliberately expose the child to new experiences, all in the childs interest. Not as a display of power. Its in this spirit that I think the proposed God could make short work of our resistance to belief.
The more we do this the more I feel like we're in the writer's room on a TV drama, hashing out a new character's ethics and motivations.
J.L. Schellenberg is has lovingly made this argument, that has been around for decades, more accessible to the layperson and gives a good reason to reject theism.
By all means engage the argument and examine whether you think its premises are more plausibly true than false and why.
- If a perfectly loving God exists, then there exists a God who is always open to a personal relationship with any finite person.
- If there exists a God who is always open to a personal relationship with any finite person, then no finite person is ever nonresistantly in a state of nonbelief in relation to the proposition that God exists.
- If a perfectly loving God exists, then no finite person is ever nonresistantly in a state of nonbelief in relation to the proposition that God exists (from 1 and 2).
- Some finite persons are or have been nonresistantly in a state of nonbelief in relation to the proposition that God exists.
- No perfectly loving God exists (from 3 and 4).
- If no perfectly loving God exists, then God does not exist.
- God does not exist (from 5 and 6) (Schellenberg 103)
For a larger discussion of the book see:
The Hiddenness Argument: Philosophy's New Challenge to Belief in God // Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews // University of Notre Dame
Why cannot God have a relationship with anyone he wants to?...Because God is holy, He cannot relationship with “any finite person”. God can only relationship with one who is made holy by salvation through Christ.
Nicely thought-out and articulated.If God’s character/identity consisted only of perfect love, then proposition 1 may be seen as true. But God’s identity is not restricted to love. His identity is also one that includes omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, holiness, etc. Holiness is the characteristic that I focus on as being the spoiler for proposition 1.
Because God is holy, He cannot relationship with “any finite person”. God can only relationship with one who is made holy by salvation through Christ.
Seems incoherent since it is a sweeping generalization that is false on its face. I'm a Christian and I published the OP! Secondly the atheist who developed the argument thinks premise is reasonable.Yeah. Premise one for a Christian is that arguments don't count unless they agree with them already.
So you don't like this argument for atheism?Because people trying to nail down the divine like an insect specimen is funny!
Same for when they make grandiose "rules" that implicate how things must be beyond our or any other universe (like they do with kalam). Massive overreach beyond our grasp. I find that funny. But I'm weird. I know that.
That could be added as a premise to schellenberg's argument! It would serve to poison the wells to the holiness inference mentioned above.Why cannot God have a relationship with anyone he wants to?
"Hiddeness" is a terrible rigorous argument against atheism. I do concede that its a pretty good point to test against ones intuition tho.So you don't like this argument for theism?
Or do you think philosophy in general is a "massive overreach."
Finally, "People try nail down the divine, like an insect specimen," seems strange. Do you think that if such a being as God existed he would leave people in the dark about aspects of his nature?
Your reference to "grandiose rules," like they do in the Kalam, seems absurd.
Have you seen or read of anything that comes into being uncaused (sans equivocation)?
Does every scientific discovery since the 1928 Hibble discovery confirm a universe that has a beginning?
So just about every scientist in the world agrees with the 2 premises "Grandiose rules, of the Kalam."
Interesting. My sense from certain old testament God-person encounters is that the person involved might be very flawed with no evidence of special processes undertaken. In other words they seem like "normal" human beings.That could be added as a premise to schellenberg's argument! It would serve to poison the wells to the holiness inference mentioned above.
Nailing down just what holiness is and why it matters is difficult. In a nutshell the idea is (and it is controversial) God is so different and transcendent that he is completely set apart form other persons in existence. So different that other persons can't be in his presence or in relationship with God unless:
A. They are operating as morally perfect beings in the way God designed them to operate.
B. They have been able to follow a process that confirs holiness on them.
"Hiddeness" is a terrible rigorous argument against atheism. I do concede that its a pretty good point to test against ones intuition tho.
I agree that most scientists consider the big bang something like a beginning. But I do not think they have firm notions at all about whatever realms it may have emerged from. The time and space bounds of our universe are a sort of wall we cannot see past. That doesn't mean we can know there's nothing over the wall. Pretty sure most scientists would agree.
fallacies known as argument from ignorance, proposition that destroys all scientific knowledge, therefore "Kalam makes grandiose claims."Thats why kalam makes grandiose claims. To many unjustified assumptions about what, if anything, is/isnt "over the wall" are required to make the argument work.
Yes.Argument against theism... Not atheism.remember the conclusion is "God does NOT exist."
I assume you just made a typo.....
You cut off the additional premises and the conclusion "God does Not Exist," at the end of the OPWait, where is the actual argument for this conclusion? I see only one premise stated.
Yes. Maybe in high school. In what way do you think Great Expectations relates to the Hiddenenss of God argument? It is not intuitively obvious to me that it does but it has been 40 or more years since I read the book.Did you ever read Great Expectations?
I suppose you could put these items in wording which more of us could readily understand, if you want more input relevant to what they mean.In case I understand this right, which I can't guarantee > God does not just sit around hoping and being open to humans wanting to share with Him. But God is personal with every human being, in one way or another >
"God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble," we have in James 4:6 and also in 1 Peter 5:5.
So, according to God's word, God is already personally relating with each human, according to if the person is proud or humble! However, in order for us to deeply and sensitively share with God in His love > Romans 5:5 > we need how God corrects our nature, so we become capable of submitting to how He rules us in His own peace > Colossians 3:15 > Hebrews 12:4-14.
So, I find this first argument statement to be very limited, not representing who God is. But yes God is perfectly loving and kind.
I think this means that someone has to be resisting God, if God is so loving and the person is not sharing with God like he or she could be. And yes all have been born in sin, so we were not able to submit to how God would share with us. We were by nature resistant > we all "were by nature children of wrath, just as the others." (in Ephesians 2:3)
So, in sin our nature was resistant. So, ones have not only been resisting, but have been resistant. So, these arguments do not refer to the God presented in the Bible, I would say. Therefore, these arguments are against one who is not God, if my representation is correct . . . I would say. The person, then, has succeeded in proving the nonexistence of some imagined one who does not exist
I have already offered enough about this, possibly.
If all have been born in sin, then all by nature have been resistant; so there is no possibility, then, of there being certain ones who do not resist God while they do not share with Him.
By the way, if we are talking about Jesus being God, Jesus is forgiving and wants us to forgive generously and with compassion and caring and even as much sharing as someone is trustworthy for sharing. So, if anyone is not forgiving, like this, this person is resisting how God want
So the argument is Scellenberg's, the summary of the argument is from someone at UNoversty of Nôtre Dame.I suppose you could put these items in wording which more of us could readily understand, if you want more input relevant to what they mean.In case I understand this right, which I can't guarantee > God does not just sit around hoping and being open to humans wanting to share with Him. But God is personal with every human being, in one way or another >
"God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble," we have in James 4:6 and also in 1 Peter 5:5.
So, according to God's word, God is already personally relating with each human, according to if the person is proud or humble! However, in order for us to deeply and sensitively share with God in His love > Romans 5:5 > we need how God corrects our nature, so we become capable of submitting to how He rules us in His own peace > Colossians 3:15 > Hebrews 12:4-14.
So, I find this first argument statement to be very limited, not representing who God is. But yes God is perfectly loving and kind.
I think this means that someone has to be resisting God, if God is so loving and the person is not sharing with God like he or she could be. And yes all have been born in sin, so we were not able to submit to how God would share with us. We were by nature resistant > we all "were by nature children of wrath, just as the others." (in Ephesians 2:3)
So, in sin our nature was resistant. So, ones have not only been resisting, but have been resistant. So, these arguments do not refer to the God presented in the Bible, I would say. Therefore, these arguments are against one who is not God, if my representation is correct . . . I would say. The person, then, has succeeded in proving the nonexistence of some imagined one who does not exist
I have already offered enough about this, possibly.
If all have been born in sin, then all by nature have been resistant; so there is no possibility, then, of there being certain ones who do not resist God while they do not share with Him.
By the way, if we are talking about Jesus being God, Jesus is forgiving and wants us to forgive generously and with compassion and caring and even as much sharing as someone is trustworthy for sharing. So, if anyone is not forgiving, like this, this person is resisting how God wants loving.
Are you sure about this?....The realm scientist agree the universe came from was:
No space, no time, to matter, no energy, no laws....
Seems entirely plausible that the rules we observe within our universe would continue to be valid whatever we discover about the "over the wall". I would point out that theists typically agree too. If God is whats over the wall, must He conform to our scientific understanding of our material universe lest the whole scientific project be rendered invalid?...Further you are arguing from ignorance, that is to say just because there is no time in the history of the universe where something came into to being from nothing we are just ignorant and a future science we no nothing about could possibly produce something that we theorize has never happened in the history of the universe oh and would itself destroy all scientific knowledge!....
Are you sure about this?
All that^^^, its about the universe itself. Thats NOT what we've been talking about. We've been talking about whats beyond the universe, be it God, or some other eternal and uncreated order from which universes emerge, or nothing.Yes.
The Scientific Evidence
Let us turn our attention to the Standard model, the Hot Big Bang – which everyone knows about but so few are willing to live with the implications. In a nutshell the standard big bang model describes the expansion of space-time from an initial singularity predicted by Einstein’s theory of General Relativity. It needs to be clear that if the big bang model is true then space-time is absolutely finite, as time tends to zero then the volume of space tends to zero. The singularity is not simply a change in matter or form but rather the absolute beginning of space-time.
Physicist Paul Davies, “If we extrapolate this prediction to its extreme, we reach a point when all distances in the universe have shrunk to zero. An initial cosmological singularity therefore forms a past temporal extremity to the universe. We cannot continue physical reasoning, or even the concept of spacetime, through such an extremity. For this reason most cosmologists think of the initial singularity as the beginning of the universe. On this view the big bang represents the creation event; the creation not only of all the matter and energy in the universe, but also of space-time itself.”[ii]
“Almost everyone believes that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the big bang”- Hawkings[iii]
George Ellis explaining the implications of the Friedman-Lemaitre Universe Singularity Theorem says, “This is not merely a start to matter — it is a start to space, to time, to physics itself. It is the most dramatic event in the history of the universe: it is the start of existence of everything”[iv]
So that’s one thing that needs to be clear is that the standard model leads to an absolute beginning of space-time, not just a change in pre-existing matter from one form to another – but an absolute coming into being of space-time itself. The point where general relativity breaks down is the singularity, where space-time comes into existence.
see:Did the universe begin to exist or is eternal?- a brief survey
The holdout is Larry Krauss.
See Tricks New Atheists Play (Part 2)
Are you referring to Spinoza and Hume?would point out that theists typically agree too. If God is whats over the wall, must He conform to our scientific understanding of our material universe lest the whole scientific project be rendered invalid?
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