The Best Case for God's Existence - Robert C. Koons
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- Опубликовано: 30 апр 2020
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The purpose of Intellectual Conservatism is to defend the true, good and beautiful things of life that are jeopardized in mainstream academia and society. On this page, you will find artwork, music, satire, academic papers, lectures and my own projects defending the duty of conserving these true, good and beautiful things.
Basically, what Dr. Koons is saying is that the PSR doesn't entail that all natural things or events are determinable. The PSR only says that all natural things or events are intelligible.
That’s how I’ve pretty much always understood it anyways.
Love koons so excited
This is a terrific interview. In the first thirty minutes, Dr. Koons makes the clearest, tightest argument for the existence of God that I have yet heard or read.
I hope that in future videos, you can improve the audio quality. The interviewer is fine, but the interviewee's voice is very poorly captured. Maybe switch from Skype (if you're using that) to Zoom, and/or get Dr. Koons to his university, where he could get higher data bandwidth?
Agree about the audio
What was terrifying about it, Greg? :/
🐟 07. GOD (OR NOT):
There has never been, nor will there ever be, even the SLIGHTEST shred of evidence for the existence of the Godhead, that is, a Supreme Person, for the notion of an omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent Deity is both profoundly illogical and extremely incongruous, to put it mildly. At the risk of seeming facetious, any person who believes in a gigantic man (or woman) perched in the heavens, is a literal moron.
Why would the Absolute require, for instance, unlimited power, when there is naught but the Absolute extant? Of course, theists would argue that when God creates the material universe, He requires total power and control over His creation (otherwise He wouldn’t be, by definition, the Supreme). However, that argument in itself easily falls apart when one understands the simple fact that time is a relative concept and therefore has no influence on the eternal, timeless Absolute. The same contradiction applies to omnipresence. The ONLY omni-property which comes close to being an accurate description of Ultimate Reality is omniscience, since the Absolute knows absolutely everything (i.e. Itself).
The English word “PERSON” literally means “for sound”, originating from the Latin/Greek “persona/prósōpa”, referring to the masks worn by actors in ancient European theatrical plays, which featured a mouth hole to enable the actors to speak through. Therefore, the most essential aspect of personhood is that the individual possesses a face. The fact that we do not usually refer to a decapitated body as a “person”, seems to confirm this claim. If you were confronted simultaneously with a severed head and a decapitated body, and asked to point to the person, would you point to the head or point to the body? I'm sure most everyone would indicate the head, at least in the first instance, agreed?
Theists, by definition, believe that there is a Supreme Deity (God or The Goddess), which incorporates anthropomorphic characteristics such as corporeal form (even if that form is a “spiritual” body, whatever that may connote), with a face (hence the term “PERSON”), and certain personality traits such as unique preferences and aversions. Of course, they also believe that their fictitious God or Goddess embodies the aforementioned omni-properties, but as clearly demonstrated above, that is also a largely nonsensical, fallacious assertion.
Of course, the more INTELLIGENT theists normally counter with “But God is not a person in the same sense as we humans are persons. God is an all-powerful spiritual being, without a body. He is all-knowing, all-loving and present everywhere”. In that case, God is most definitely not a person in the etymological sense, and not even a person in the common-usage of the word. When did you last hear anyone refer to an omnipresent “entity” as being a person? The mere fact that theists use personal pronouns in reference to their non-existent Deity (usually the masculine pronoun “He”), proves that they have a very anthropomorphic conception of Absolute Reality. If God is not a male, then why use masculine pronouns? If God is, in fact, male, then why would the Supreme Person require gender? Does God require a female mate in order to reproduce? The most popular religious tradition, Christianity, claims that God is “Spirit”, yet “spirit” is a very vague and undefined term.
Incidentally, the term “person” can be (and, in my opinion, should be) used in reference to any animal which possesses a FACE, since most humans do not accept the fact that animals are persons, worthy of moral consideration. In recent times, animal rights activists have been heard referring to animals in such a way (as persons). The fact that vegans are still relatively rare in most nations/countries, seems to validate this assertion (that most humans do not see other animals, like birds, fish, and mammals, as persons), otherwise, non-vegetarians/non-vegans would have no qualms about saying such things as “I am planning to consume three persons for dinner tonight” (in reference to three animals).
Many otherwise intelligent theists, particularly the members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (a radical Indian cult first established in the United States of America in the late 1960’s by a truly delusional retired pharmacist named Mr. A. C. De), HONESTLY believe that the Ground of All Being is a youthful Indian gentleman with dark-blue-tinged black skin colour, who currently resides on His own planet in the “spiritual” world, and spends His days cavorting around with a bunch of cowherd girls! If one were to ask those ISKCon devotees how Lord Krishna manages to incorporate relative time into the timeless realm (since it takes a certain amount of time for Him to play his flute and to frolic with His girlfriends), then I’m not sure how they would answer, but they would undoubtedly dismiss the argument using illogical semantics. I’m ashamed to admit that I too, was previously one of those deluded religionists who believed such foolish nonsense. Thankfully, I managed to break-free from that brainwashing cult, and following decades of sincere seeking, came to be the current World Teacher himself.
Common sense dictates that Ultimate Reality must NECESSARILY transcend all dualistic concepts, including personality and even impersonality. However, only an excruciatingly minute number of humans have ever grasped this complete understanding and realization. Neither Eternal Beingness, Unlimited Consciousness, nor Blissful Quietude (“sacchidānanda”, in Sanskrit) necessitate personality. See Chapter 06 to properly understand the nature of Ultimate Reality, and Chapter 03 to learn how to distinguish mere concepts from (Absolute) Truth.
The wisest theologians will, when hard-pressed, admit that the primary reason for theists referring to the Absolute as personal in nature, is because the Absolute has some kind of MIND (by which they really mean some degree of Universal, Infinite Consciousness). However, it is indeed possible (and in fact, is the case) that the Ground of Being is Pure Consciousness Itself. Universal Consciousness (“puruṣa” or “brahman”, in Sanskrit) can and does include all characteristics of Pure Being, such as unconditional love, unadulterated awareness, et cetera, and we humans are, quintessentially, of the same Nature. In other words, you are, fundamentally, “God” (“tat tvam asi”, in Sanskrit).
Most arguments for the existence of a Supreme Creator God are actually arguments for the INTELLIGENT DESIGN of the perceivable universe, and not for the Intelligent Designer being a person as such. As explicated elsewhere, the phenomenal sphere is naught but an appearance in consciousness. Therefore, to assert that there is a cause of all causes is a legitimate contention, but to abruptly attribute that first cause to be a male or female (or even an androgynous) Deity is a non-sequitur. There is no evidence for any phenomena without conscious awareness.
Cont...
There are at least FOUR possible reasons why many persons are convinced of the existence of a Personal God (i.e the Supreme [Male] Deity):
1. Because it is natural for any sensible person to believe that humans may not be the pinnacle of existence, and that there must be a higher power or ultimate creative force (an intelligent designer). However, because they cannot conceive of this designer being non-personal, they automatically suspect it must be a man (God) or a woman (The Goddess) with personal attributes. One who is truly awakened and/or enlightened understands that the Universal Self is the creator of all experiences and that he IS that (“tat tvam asi”, in Sanskrit).
2. Because they may have experienced some kind of mystical phenomenon or miracle, which they mistakenly attribute to “God's grace”, but which can be more logically explicated by another means. As explained, all such phenomena are produced by the TRUE Self of all selves (“Paramātman”, in Sanskrit). I, the author of this Holy Scripture, have personally experienced very powerful, miraculous, mystical phenomena, which I formerly ascribed to the personal conception of God (since I was a Theist), but now know to be caused, ultimately, by the Real Self. The Real Self is synonymous with “The Tao”, “The Great Spirit”, “Brahman”, “Pure Consciousness”, “Eternal Awareness”, “Independent Existence”, “The Ground of All Being”, “Uncaused Nature”, “The Undifferentiated Substratum of Reality”, “The Unified Field” and “The Source of All”.
3. Because they may have witnessed the deeds or read the words of an individual who seems to be a perfect person - in other words an incarnation of the Divine Principle (“Avatāra”, in Sanskrit). To be sure, such persons do exist, but that does not necessarily prove that the Supreme Truth is inherently PERSONAL. An Avatar is a man who was born fully enlightened, with all noble qualities, but not necessarily perfect in every possible way. For example, very few (if any) of the recognized Avatars in human history taught or practiced veganism. We atheists are patiently awaiting the time when the Perfectly-Loving God will publically show Himself to His beloved creatures, rather than merely sending imperfect representatives to this planet, under the pretence that they are “fully divine”. This is known as the “Problem of Divine Hiddenness”.
Of course, this will never ever occur, because, as I think that I have sufficiently demonstrated, a Supreme Personal God is a logical impossibility.
4. Because they may have been CONDITIONED by their family, society and/or religious organization over many years or decades. Unfortunately, we humans are very gullible. Due to low intelligence and lack of critical analytical skills, the typical person believes almost anything they read or hear from virtually any source, no matter how unreliable. During a visit to one's local place of worship on any given weekend, one will notice a congregation of sheepish individuals nodding in agreement with practically every nonsensical, inane word spouted by their deluded so-called “priest”, imam, mullah, rabbi, guru, monk, or preacher. Even the current World Teacher, despite his genius intellect, was once a thoroughly-indoctrinated religious fundamentalist, before he awoke to a definitive understanding of life.
Having stated the above, the worship of the Personal Deity (“bhakti yoga”, in Sanskrit), is a legitimate spiritual path for the masses. However, the most ACCURATE understanding is monistic or non-dual (“advaita”, in Sanskrit). If one wishes to be even more pedantic, the ultimate understanding is beyond even the concept of nonduality, as the famous South Indian sage, Śri Ramana Maharishi, once so rightly proclaimed.
As an aside or adjunct, it seems that virtually every religious organization, particularly those originating in Bhārata (India), claims to have been founded by an Avatar, but that’s simply wishful thinking on the part of their congregations. Only a great sage or World Teacher can POSSIBLY recognize an enlightened being, what to speak of an Incarnation of the Divine. The typical spiritual aspirant, even one who may seem to be a highly-exalted practitioner, has very little idea of what constitutes actual holiness. Frankly speaking, many famous (infamous?) religious leaders were some of the most vile and contemptible characters in human history, particularly in this Epoch of Darkness (“Kali Yuga”, in Sanskrit).
It is high time for humanity to awaken from all INANE superstitions such as the belief in a Personal God/Goddess which created the Universe.
“God is greater than God.”
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“Where there is Isness, there God is. Creation is the giving of isness from God. That is why God becomes where any creature expresses God.”
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“Theologians may quarrel, but the mystics of the world speak the same language.”
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“There is something in the soul that is so akin to God that it is one with Him... It has nothing in common with anything created.”
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“The knower and the known are one. Simple people imagine that they should see God as if he stood there and they here. This is not so. God and I, we are one in knowledge.”
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“The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.”
Eckhart von Hochheim O.P. (AKA Meister Eckhart),
German Roman Catholic Priest.
“God is merely one of man's concepts, a symbol used for pointing the way, to the Ultimate Reality, which has been mistaken for the Reality itself. The map has been mistaken for the actual territory.”
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“Worshippers may derive some sort of satisfaction or peace of mind, through worship of a concept such as God (created by themselves), but it is a futile process, from the viewpoint of experiencing one's true nature.”
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“What is seeking? Seeking is 'you' wanting to know God. Whatever you know is an object, and you are the subject. So if you want to know God, what does it mean? You are the subject and God is the object, but what exists is the other way around. God is the Subject and you are the object. ... A person understanding God would be akin to a rock understanding a geologist. A person is an unaware object, one attribute of which is an illusory sense that it is a subject. God experiences this person, and through the person, God experiences the world. Only God can experience anything. ”
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“The final understanding: There is and never was a seeker. At that understanding’s cusp, you see yourself, at last, not as the person, but as God Himself. The person is an object, but You are the subject in which all objects arise. You are the experiencing of everything that arises. When You recognize this, You no longer care whether this or any person has reached the final understanding, because You’ve ceased identifying as a person. You realize You are not the person. You are God experiencing Yourself through the person.
Now, You see this always has been the case. Even when experiencing the illusion of separateness, You were God. You recognize that You, as God, do this through and as every person who has lived or ever will.”
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“Each person’s apparently stable separate identity, each human’s sense of independent authorship of their actions, is part of the plan. It is how God plays, how God rolls, how God roles. God ‘dresses-up’ as each person with their quirks, puts them in boring or interesting settings, and then experiences what happens. Far from being a screw-up in need of fixing, it is how the universe experiences itself.”
Ramesh S. Balsekar,
Indian Spiritual Teacher.
In reply to @*The World Teacher - Jagadguru Svāmī Vegānanda*
1. "What was terrifying about it, Greg? :/"
Who said anything was terrifying? Please re-read my comment, and consult a dictionary if needed.
2. You said "There has never been, nor will there ever be, even the SLIGHTEST shred of evidence for the existence of the Godhead ...." Dr. Koons, in this video, has presented what I consider to be a strong argument for the existence of a necessary being.
Your comments, however, show "not even the SLIGHTEST shred of evidence" that you have listened to the video. If you have, please summarize Dr. Koons's argument and your objections to it. Otherwise there will be no point in continuing any discussion, or for me even to read your comments in any detail.
3. It should be obvious that a necessary being is very different from any contingent being, any being that we have knowledge of through sense experience. (Philosophers and theologians can go into a lot of detail about this, but -- it should be obvious, so I won't, at least not here and now.) To characterize the Necessary Being in univocally anthropomorphic terms -- e.g. "a gigantic man (or woman) perched in the heavens" -- is therefore a ludicrous caricature of classical theism. By "univocal" I mean in exactly the same sense as we might say there is a "gigantic man" in the next room, etc. One of the most elementary conclusions is that God is not a corporeal being, therefore, of course, not a gigantic man.
St. Thomas Aquinas has taught that God is so far above human concepts that we can apply them to Him only analogously. Negative theology (apophatic theology), which simply denies the literal application of all concepts to God, is also a valid option in the Christian tradition.
4. You should understand something before criticizing it. Since you seem to have a lot of free time on your hands -- judging by the quantity of words -- please use some of it to understand theism better. It is said that God gave man two ears but only one tongue. Even if you're an atheist, you should be able to appreciate the point of that.
That approach to the Problem of Evil was quite different. Definitely gives me a new perspective
brian davies book talks about it
Excellent questions, interviewer. Thank you for this; I love hearing Dr Koons speak.
I think Aristotle solves the Grim Reaper paradox just as simply as he solves Zeno's paradox. Time could also extend infinitely without an initial moment. The contingency of each moment on the previous one doesn't require an ultimate starting point. Rather, it's an ongoing process. By sticking to the concept of potential infinity, we avoid the need for an actual infinity of completed events in the past. The sequence of moments is eternal, but it's not completed -- it's always extending. This implies there's no need for a first cause in the past. Each moment leads to the next in a potentially infinite sequence without necessitating a first, initiating moment.
That response is defeated by the Craigian infinity paradox type arguments. There is no such thing as a past eternal series of events that's merely potential because, by definition, the events have already been actualized. So you have to reckon with the Hilbert's Hotel argument and others like it that aim to show that the mere concept of an actual infinity is impossible.
Also I'm not sure this even serves to defeat the GR paradox either. If there's an infinite amount of reapers, which one strikes the killing blow? How can you be dead by the end of the hour if there's always an interval of time prior to the one you were killed in?
Modal operator shift fallacy
Excellent!
I really like this form of the PSR
I like it too. The paper he has with Pruss regarding this PSR for basic natural facts is really interesting.
Ed Feser builds on Koons and Pruss’ arguments on PSR in his 2017 book “Five Proofs.”
@@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns which proof?
@@JohnSmith-bq6nf Chapter on “the Rationalist Proof.”
@@JohnSmith-bq6nfLet me know what you think after you read it? 🍕
That was great.
Suan listening from Lamka
Well done
I find that arguments against the idea that the explanans entails the explanandum to be weak. It seems to me if one is going to use the PSR in terms of sufficient explanation, sufficient reason, or sufficient conditions, then the entailment view seems to follow because sufficient conditions logically entails their necessary conditions. For example, being a human is a sufficient condition for being a mammal, where being a mammal is the necessary condition for being human. Being human logically entails being a mammal. It seems that the nature of sufficiency is that of entailment, and the arguments against it given by the guest I do not find persuasive.
Interesting. I want to ask if this view would still apply to the Thomistic theory of propositions, which do not exist as abstract objects, but are grounded in existing things. All humans are mammals because of what is contained within the essence of human. This is different than causal explanations, where fire is a sufficient condition of water boiling, yet it is not necessary that water boils when brought near fire. It seems like entailment doesn't apply here, and this is only possible if the proposition "fire causes boiling" is not a Platonic object, but a mere object of the mind which observes fire causing boiling. Let me know what you think.
It seems as though you are committed to the difference principle (the view that a difference in the explanandum presupposes a difference in the explanans). While this principle is intuitive because the vast majority of things that we experience follow this, that doesn't entail that it would be incoherent for an explanandum to not be entailed by an explanans. As Koons and others have pointed out, libertarian free will (if you believe in it) and quantum mechanics seem to provide counterexamples to it. But even if these were not counterexamples, the difference principle doesn't seem to be necessary for rationality, while the PSR simpliciter is.
Take intellectual powers, for example. Your having intellectual powers can, alone, be the sufficient explanation for thinking of either sound argument A or sound argument B.
Even if your thinking of sound argument A could have resulted from your intellectual powers, you are currently thinking of sound argument B. This alone allows for rationality and allows for your cognition to be reliable since it comes from your intellectual powers, which are ordered towards tracking truth.
This doesn't show that the difference principle doesn't apply to *most* cases, but that it need not apply to explain rationality, while the PSR simpliciter does. Meaning that it need not be held and it need not be universally applied.
It also means that in a being like God, who is Pure Active Potency, does not and could not require a change to create, nor does creation necessarily follow from him qua Pure Active Potency, for that would entail that he is dependent on creation, which is incoherent for an *Ultimate Foundation of Reality*
I'm still watching but, in his discussion of the cosmological argument around 5:00 and 7:00, I have some issues with the logic he is using. He says that an explanation for all natural facts can not be a natural fact, otherwise you'd have an infinite chain, and thus you must have a supernatural fact. But couldn't you say the exact same thing with respect to all supernatural facts? Well no, he says, because you could eventually arrive at a supernatural fact or being (at 7:05) that has necessity "in itself".
This I have a serious problem with. How can a being have necessity in itself? Even if its supernatural I don't see how this works logically. Because to be necessary, it should exist in some capacity - if it doesn't exist, it clearly isn't necessary. But then what assures its existence? It doesn't make sense to say "itself" because it doesn't exist yet. Or if you want to exclude any reliance on time in this, you still get circular reasoning, where existance guarantees necessity, and necessity is implied by existance. That can't possibly be valid.
It would be great if someone could explain how something guarantees its own necessity in all realities...because I don't think that's logically possible. And to the extent that it is, its unclear why this can only apply to supernatural facts and not natural ones. It sounds like he's just giving a brief summary here so I hope he digs into the argument more later on, but I just heard you guys start talking about PSR instead, which I am willing to accept for the sake of the argument.
Well, the argument is not that _an explanation for all natural facts can not be a natural fact because otherwise you’d have an infinite chain_ . Rather, the argument starts from a plausible PSR for basic natural facts, which if you deny, a door opens for at least radical empirical skepticism. From 11:39 to 18:22 he talks specifically about this. Once we see that *that* sort of PSR is indeed what we need to have empirical knowledge, then by the very broadness of that PSR, we have to conclude that even the *totality* (or plurality) of all natural facts has a cause/explanation (which is itself not natural, because if it were natural it would mean that natural reality fundamentally either “explains itself” or has no need for explanation [i.e. is uncausable], which again is what opens a door for empirical skepticism). So the cause of all natural reality has to be either “self explanatory” or is the sort of thing that has no need for an explanation (i.e. is uncausable) or some other related option in which the cause is fundamentally different from contingent stuff. From there, it’s possible, I think (although Dr. Koons didn’t mention it explicitly), to infer that the cause of natural reality has to be God.
Koons has a nice paper with Alex Pruss in which they defend the PSR for basic natural facts (I think it’s free for download still; it’s called Skepticism and the Principle of Sufficient Reason). There are also other videos here on RUclips where Rob expands a little bit more on the sort of reasoning we can use to infer that the cause of natural reality has to be God.
Maybe this clarify some things?
Define "EXIST".
There is a whole branch of logic called modal logic devoted to these issues. Alvin Plantinga has written extensively on the issue of necessity and recently Pruss and Rasmussen have made a book called “necessary existence”.
Basically, necessary beings are those who wouldn’t be metaphysically possible not to exist, though some Christians have argued against metaphysical possibility and instead use Brute Facts or Necessary Casual Being, but that’s a bit complex.
The easiest way to think about it is to imagine a world without numbers, and then realize you can’t since you just imagined 1 world.
@@whatsinaname691numbers are a feature of our mind. so yes I can think of a world without numbers: just remove all life...
Anyone else going to comment that Dr. Koons looks like Kevin Bacon?!
Evidence would be the only case for your gods... haha
and your got ... NONE..!
We could cite a variety of evidences, from arguments from reason for God by non-Christian Plato and Aristotle, and arguments by Christians such as Aquinas and Scotus and others beyond, including first mover and the cosmological arguments that call out contraditions of atheist materialism requiring an infinite past time or somehow getting everything from nothing. To the historical witness of the Apostles, and the church they began to organize, and the martyrs. To scientifically examined miracle accounts including the Incorrupt Saints, Eucharistic Miracles, the Shroud, just to name a few. To Christ being foretold by the Old Testament prophets even before a Christian tradition and the many levels of typology that exist through the Bible written in pieces seperated by thousands of years. Or even just the experience of everyday Christians. All of these are "evidences" but no amount of evidence ever will override a heart pre-committed against God or even the very idea of God. Along with evidence, it takes a person's will for them to believe in truth.