What makes this different is Gavin isn't just some apologist whose studied the ontological argument but is a respected scholar of the very theologian who developed it
@MoNtYbOy101 I don't think joe necessarily responded with relative ease, rather there wasn't enough responses/response time to actually deal with the nuances to the counter arguments from joe. No fault to the host or podcast, just how it is. Be interesting to see a follow up discussion
@@kylecityyI’d prefer to hear them debate a different topic, the both essentially admitted that this particular argument isn’t a very effective one. Maybe the moral argument would be more interesting.
@ that's not really Gavin specialty though. Like I said from the beginning that was what made this topic interesting, Gavin being an Anselm scholar gives him a very unique perspective and approach to the ontological argument that you won't find with your average apologist
@MoNtYbOy101 lol. Joe, the reversal of the argument is possible. In other words Joe doesn't understand the ontological argument. How this kid is called a "philosopher" is ridiculous
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I think the ontological arguments suffer from the same critique Stroud used against ambitious transcendental arguments. The arguments start with some doxastic state (belief or acceptance of some concept) but they never bridge the gap to reality. That is to say, if you _believe_ the premises_ then you should logically _believe_ the conclusion, but it doesn't make the conclusion _actual._ The MOA has a similar problem in that it is _constrained_ by S5 logic. This is simply an axiomatic system that applies to _propositions_ and _concepts_ not reality. But it's still just a convention. , and there's nothing in the argument that bridges that gap from convention to actual. Another problem with the MOA is that it leads to a complete modal collapse that commits one to a sort of necessarianism, that seems to be incompatible with any notion of moral accountability. As far as "existence is not a predicate." This boils down to an issue with the common shorthand we use. When we say "the dog exists" what we really mean is "There is a reality (usually "my observed reality") wherein the dog exists." The point being that "exists" isn't a property of the dog, it's a property of the reality. Or to think of it another way, there is no difference in the concept of a dog, or the concept of a dog that exists. The concept is still the same. If the argument isn't differentiating between the two, it seems that the argument is just equivocating. If the argument _does_ differentiate between the two, then the conclusion simply doesn't follow from the premises.
Existence isn't a property. An existent is an eternal substance. It is the totality of spatial extension. Existence is a brute fact, it isn't something that things have, it is what grounds change.
If an argument soundly dictates something and we argue it doesn't ground it in reality because arguments can't, then this thinking eats itself for it too is dictating something by the same means.
@@benthomsen2220 _"If an argument soundly dictates something "_ That's a huge "if" and that's exactly the "if" Stroud's objection hangs on. Both the ontological argument and the transcendental argument for God both rely on our _belief_ about some aspect of reality, not that aspect of reality itself. If you don't start with some aspect of reality, you can't make conclusions about reality. Likewise, I can make statements about Bugs Bunny and how he behaves in the land of Looney Tunes, but there's no way to bridge the gap between the cartoon universe and our own reality.
@@benthomsen2220 Well, pretty much any proposition in a transcendental argument is going to qualify as a mere belief. As preusp apologists are so fond of pointing out, this argument is a fundamental, base level paradigmatic argument. This argument comes prior to establishing things like epistemology. Since you don't have all the tools of your worldview at your disposal yet, one can't claim to know any premises are true. They are just mere beliefs at that level.
I'm sure everyone will already point out the short length of time as problematic, so I'll make a different suggestion here: when you've got ten minutes left, notify your guests and ask them each to give 5-minute closing remarks. To just randomly cut in with no warning and immediately end the discussion makes it very likely that both participants will not be able to properly summarize their positions in light of what's been discussed.
I love Gavin but he's got his work cut out for him going against Schmid on this topic. Schmid as home court advantage here. This is his wheelhouse. Gavin is no slouch but his wheelhouse is typically church history. I'm excited to watch this one.
I think this is a correct assessment. Gavin did better than I thought he would, but he is at a disadvantage. All Schmid does is work with analytic arguments. That's basically his whole career focus. Gavin deals with a much wider range of topics, and that means less focused engagement, less awareness of the scholarship and less capacity to respond to high-level argumentation. Also, Schmid is producing unique scholarship in this area, while Gavin is just representing the work of others. Again, this is not to knock Gavin, he did fairly well, but it's not his speciality and that makes it difficult. It would probably be more even to have someone like Joshua Rasmussen or Ryan Mullins debate Schmid. Or Joshua Sidjuwade.
@thekirkwoodcenter i haven't watched the debate yet but I agree with. I'm familiar with the works of all those you mentioned and there were better match ups but Gavin does the work. So I'm not surprised he held his own but I do think he was outmatched in this area.
Mad respect for Gavin taking this debate. It takes a lot of guts and speaks to his character and natural talent to perform at this level. Super impressive. Perhaps it will inspire Joe to challenge himself professionally and take some personal risk someday as well. Do we have any recent examples of Joe in an adversarial role with accomplished academic atheists? Like any namechecking ever, at all? Will that change once he gets a job and doesn't have to worry as much about playing incestuous academic political games, or will that increase his fear of stepping on prominent atheist's toes even more? Who's your next debate partner Joe? Sean McDowell taking the affirmative side on the argument from Psychophysical Harmony? Perhaps you will do better than a draw in that one!
Maybe the atheists/agnostics just have better arguments?!?! I mean seriously, what does this comment even mean! You are just insinuating that Joe is something of a coward for some misconception you have about his attitude and behavior towards the area of Philosophy of Religion. He has certainly shared critiques of atheistic arguments across the several dozens of hours of high quality philosophical RUclips videos he has created over the last several years. You have zero clue what “ personal risk” he has taken.
Bro what are you talking about? Joe threw multiple objections to all of Gavin’s arguments with relative ease. Someone with Gavin’s experience in academics should be able to perform better intellectually against such a young man
I'm sorry but almost none of that makes any sense. First you say that Gavin had a "lot of guts" for taking this debate as if Joe is the academic heavyweight here and not Gavin. Wouldn't it be the other way around? That Joe had the guts to debate Gavin? And then you go on to say maybe Joe will someday take some personal risks as well? Who was risking what here exactly? And the comment about Joe refusing to take on accomplished academic atheists? Even if that's true, what the hell does that have to do with anything that happened here?
I don't understand why the theist shouldn't just say (as Anselm would) that an island would be an even greater thing if it weren't an island. There are properties that make a thing great, and some things are greater than islands by having more of such properties. Anselm's argument is only about that than which none greater can be conceived, and we can easily conceive of something greater than even the greatest possible island. I also wish they'd had time to get into the reasoning on causation and time that Anselm used in the response to Guanilo (which reasoning is then picked up on by Malcolm in the 20th century, in a very nuanced and distinct version that doesn't fall prey to parodies or symmetries like the ones Schmid mentioned).
Yes! Isn’t there a common response to the island parody that argues that the island (and any example like it) eventually just becomes God. Is that correct?
@@HainishMentatthe distinction you made dosent really make sense to me. The island is merely an analogy that is used to more easily demonstrate the problem with the argument, why is there only 3 persons of the trinity and not 6?
Why can’t the atheist then just say cocaine would be the great island because no one could live on it, which is good since we don’t want anybody defecating on it or have the possibility of abusing it. Then use this argument for arguing against Gods existence, it’s greater that God is a no being because Gods attributes would demand explanation, and having no God would eliminate that
Why can’t the atheist then just say cocaine would be the great island because no one could live on it, which is good since we don’t want anybody defecating on it or have the possibility of abusing it. also you can snort it meaning you can consume the whole island. Then use this argument for arguing against Gods existence, it’s greater that God is a no being because Gods attributes would demand explanation, and having no God would eliminate that
Eager to watch the debate. Joe is a pretty smart guy and it is the first time i see him doing something in the debate format. Gavin is also a smart guy and a cristian that i quite enjoy listening to.
Manipulative Framing Creating a False Dichotomy: Framing the qubit as a "nonbinary state" introduces a false dichotomy between classical binary systems and quantum systems. This framing suggests that quantum computing represents a break from binary logic, when in reality, it is an extension of it. This can be seen as manipulative because it misrepresents the continuity between classical and quantum systems.
Great discussion! I don’t think Justice & mercy have to be opposed if you believe God’s justice is restorative (a la 1 Corinthians 3). See George MacDonald’s unspoken sermon “Justice.”
A problem or a strength depending on your perspective is that the premise is inversible: that which is greater than can be conceived must exist in the same way as that which is far worse.
The title of this video as displayed on its thumbnail as you scroll is, "Can Philosophy Prove God?" Where we stand in 2025, Philosophy can't prove anything, all it can hope for is to provide perspective. That isn't even a serious question. Whoever decided upon that title is out of touch with modern Philosophy.
The second part of this discussion is basically just a presentation by Joe 😅 He talked for what feels like 20 minutes straight. Great discussion either way though!
Man, what a time to end at. Would have loved for them to complete that part of the conversation. Wish Gavin would have responded to the actual parody argument Joe raised at 1:03:12 , the opposite conclusion one. Instead of telling us about another parody argument he think fails.
The parody argument: P1. God is either necessary or impossible. P2. God's nonexistence is possible. P3. If God's nonexistence is possible, then God isn't necessary. C. God is impossible. Joe then claims that this is an equally convincing argument and therefore it is a wash. To me, P2 seems less than equally convincing to the traditional P2, but I'd have to hear the argument played out to hear Joe's angle on defending the premise. My first question would be, how can God's non existence even be possible in the face of the actual ontological argument? I dont understand how he gets it off the ground in his head.
@@harlowcj Yeah, you wouldn't grant that 2nd premise if you're a theist and already think God necessarily exist, and that other ontological arguments succeed. Joe is an agnostic (?) , he thinks it's possible for God not to exist. I figure the point of the parody argument, is that the 2nd premise of the argument it's parodying, is equally unsupported. I think the idea of supporting the 2nd premise with a supposedly successful ontological argument is a bit strange. Then it could just be the argument. And the disagreement would be with the "actual ontological argument" you mentioned, if that one succeeds or not.
@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns What's crazy is the confidence to attain knowledge with pure reason, without empirical input relevant to the subject matter.
@goodquestion7915 if that's crazy then reason dictates nothing true about reality for all arguments (including a claim that all things must be empirical) will have to be reduced to the reality of apriori principles which can only be justified by the reason we claim can't work on its own.
For those knocking when it was cut off as if it was some kind of conspiracy because Gavin was losing - Unbelievable is still a radio show, and has pretty strict time segments.
Surely claiming a real God is greater than conceptual God is a category error. It is meaningless to use the “greater” comparator between real and conceptual versions of the same object.
Can anyone please clarify, if even Joe acknowledges how you can something can be comparatively "greater" outside of the mind rather than only in the mental but he has a problem with the presupposition of things that dont exist or ontological pluralism, what exactly is his contention? Is it just because of the nature of the Onological question? Why is it so crazy or incorrect or whatever to think that something can exist in a way that isnt purely physical in nature. Like obviously air exists cause we can feel and measure it and observe it to be made up of elements and atoms. But how does the idea of something not warrant existence? I think it seems pretty intuitave that a fictional character exists in a way outside of being physical ink on paper in a book. Or what Orlund said about math? Like we use numbers to observe physical reality but math itself doesnt exist in physical reality unless im missing something. Why, if it is so intuitive to believe that an idea of something does have some sort of reality, does it make the traditional reasoning no true?
Part of the problem is logical coherence. When we have ideas, we tend to leave out key details that would be essential for something to exist in reality. For instance: How would Superman fly? When discussing mathematics, this is a non-issue since everything is logically coherent by construction.
@seanpierce9386 I understand that but why do you specifically have to exclude the idea of alternate forms of existence when using the specific argument of arguing for something corporeal being greater than something that isn't touchable but still "existent" in a way that can't be touched or seen
I really like this argument, I definitely utilize it in a sense, what I mostly use to prove Gods exists is the impossibility of the contrary. Which you can flesh out using the transcendental argument for God. That being, without God ( The triune God that revealed himself to his creation over the course of history) you have no epistemic solid justification for metaphysics or ethics. Which I think is the strongest argument.
Sounds like an appeal to consequences. Grounding experience in a spatial reality is the only way to ground an epistemology. All other presuppositional starting points lack grounding and meaningful referents for the God concept.
Also you don't have objective justification for ethics, because it would be your subjective opinion that its ethical to do what god says, so that's not objective justification
If I ask: why is it unethical to do what god forbids ? All you can give is your subjective opinion that we shouldn't do what god forbids, so not objective
The move to talk anout plantingas argument was bad on the moderator Gavin doesn't defend it and we only have about an hour to talk so lets stick to the main thing
I think that by use of philosophical arguments to defend Christianity only makes the apologist dance to the atheists tune. As for myself, I’ve found the most concerning arguments come from the prophecies of the Bible itself: namely the book of Daniel
A nonexistent object is a functional distinction, not an ontological one. So one can believe there are nonexistent objects without reification. For eg. An event is a nonexistent. An event is what an existent does.
Joe was _very_ polite, but he still provided excellent (and in my opinion, poorly-answered) objections to both the classic and modal ontological arguments.
God is not just any old existence. By definition, God is the Most Existent Thing. If God doesn't exist, the evidence for that couldn't be more obvious. If God really did exist, I doubt folks would be arguing about it. If one has to jump through these kinds of hoops to establish the possibility of the existence of the Most Existent Thing, he's basically admitting that the argument is already lost.
Sort of, but more accurately, simply 'existence', which only that which is (i.e. not not in any way) has. People surprisingly deny existence has existence or is is, but that's the life of us imbeciles. We try to find ways out of the most obvious truths.
No, we dont see things fail to exist. This is false. We also dont see things begin to exist. We see the changes of an existent. Experience is itself a change within a substance.
I’m not a philosopher - thankgod (sic, ;: ), but I think Joe - and, in my experience, all non-theists addressing the issue - do not bring out some objections to the ontological argument, as well as many other philosophical ones, that derail any practical “application” of the putative proof of “God.” In short, the concept of God is based on believers’ own definition of God, whose attributes cannot be attested from the proof. With regard to the ontological arguments, the definition of God as the greatest possible being rests on human notions of “greatness”: how do we know that this God wouldn’t consider evil an attribute of being great, or that existing without external objects, e.g., the cosmos, is greatest? Second, even if we concede the debatable proposition that existence is a permissible attribute for this argument, how can you show, absent the general human inclination, that existence is greater than non-existence? How many people (including philosophers), not to mention suffering non-human animals (if they had the sentience to reflect on it), would say that never having existed would have been better? Even if we were to accept the validity of the premises and their conclusion, it would tell us nothing about this God: anyone with their own conception of “God” could claim that as the one true God, defining their own “greatest” attributes according to their wishes. Also, who’s to say that the necessarily existing God is the God that theists claim to be the being that manifests in our existence? Perhaps, the God proved by the ontological argument is an aloof being who created lesser, i.e., great-but-not-greatest, “Gods” who do the things the “real” God is above; e.g., instantiate the cosmos, manage the world in ways that are imperfect due to their “great-but-not-greatest”ness. To restate, any God “proved” by thinking/philosophizing without empirical evidence is a useless concept, regardless of whether it exists. I would restate the aphorism attributed to Voltaire - “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him” - to “Whether or not god exists, people invent him.”
Not knowing something doesn’t mean you are equally amenable to believing each possibility. I don’t know whether there exists a teapot floating around in the asteroid belt too small for telescopes to see, but that doesn’t entail that I think it’s a 50/50.
@@MildSpeculation Joe said that he's agnostic because he finds evidence on both sides equally convincing. Yet we never see him argue against an atheist in favor of God's existence.
No he doesn't. But as an agnostic he said there is evidence and good arguments for both sides. But when an argument like this comes along the (supposedly) proves god existence, you cant expect an agnostic to have accepted it, or he would be a theist. Same with an argument that (supposedly) proves god does not exist. He does agree with some arguments that point towards god. But this conversation being about the ontological argument, of course agnostics disagree.
Consider this statement: “Superman satisfies maximal ‘fleepness’, and existing is more ‘fleep’ than not existing.” If you substitute these premises into any ontological argument, it becomes evident what’s going on. The theist is simply smuggling their conclusion into the argument through the metric, “greatness”. The argument distracts from the circularity by introducing some difficult philosophy. The symmetry arguments get close to exposing this, but importantly, they don’t replace the metric.
Good job to both of you! I'll have to watch this one again. Regarding Joe's question about why "three persons" in the Godhead is considered to be an intrinsic maximum in Christianity, Richard Swinburne has an intriguing a priori argument for the Trinity that I think addresses this. To my understanding, it goes something like this: A perfect being must be perfectly loving. Perfect love must be both mutual and unselfish, which means that it must be shared between 3 persons (since each person must love each other person and also share in love for that person with another person). 4 persons would not be better than 3 persons because the 4th person could not exist by necessity. Thus, 3 must be both the minimum and the maximum number of persons in the Godhead.
I think the discussion is running circles around the missing point here. You are not defining "great" and "greatness". If you did, a lot of this discussion would be much simpler. The ontological argument really only is convincing when great is defined as the attributes of God, ie. the greatness of God. Being greatest simply refers to the full list and proportions of attributes that God has. Frankly, I don't see the argument working for other things than God himself, in which it is fully convincing.
There may be infinite things no man has of yet , ever thought about, but God is not one of those things. So a conjured idea is an assembly of past experiences, or you cannot think of anything. No one has a truly original idea. So if people in a group as a common experience, think about God, that is a self evident truth of the behavior being the evidence itself that God exists.
@@niklaswikstrom78 You can't do anything "Safely" Maybe you could not even do "Safe Sex". You use the plural "WE" as your own assumptions that you belong in some proactive group experience , but in reality the only thing you have in common is a lack of belief in God and then the question is , what is it you proactively do believe in , that by experience you gather that up as your "Faith". ??? Who is this "WE" ???
Imagine a safe containing a treasure the value of which no greater can be counted. If this safe existed only in the mind & not in reality, then it would be less valuable than even just two dollars that exist in reality. So this treasure whose value than which no greater can be counted would be less valuable than an amount of dollars which can be counted, which is a self-contradiction. Therefore a safe containing a treasure the value of which no greater can be counted, must exist in reality.
The 3rd sentence isn't a logical contradiction as written, but you could make it so. However the first line is self contradictory and as meaningful as a 4-sided triangle (i.e. meaningless). A maximal number means as much as that. That is, it doesn't "exist in the mind" or possibility as the argument demands.
it seems this way you can define anything in to existence - omnipotent evil greatest pizza either doesn't exist or exists necessary, there are no logical contradictions for this pizza to exist , therefore....
In what way ? If you're arguing about metaphysics from a philosophical perspective the short answer seems to be no. Obviously if you're arguing about an idea of something that exists outside of time and space. au priori is justified independently of the relevant premises. So yeah kind of defeats the whole purpose of needing it to be justified by experience
An existent is spatial, empirically verifiable and grounds change. The emergence of a novel, wholly distinct existent is logically impossible making the christian concept of god incoherent gibberish without a meaningful referent.
@Professor_Pink that's the only coherent definition of an existent that doesn't conflate what something is with what something does. You are free to provide an alternative
@TheAtheistPerspective868 I don't see how other definitions conflate those two at all. The question of what is an existent thing neither touches on what that thing is, nor what its function is.
@@TheAtheistPerspective868 You claim is that yours is the only viable definition because the others conflate what something is with what something does. Go ahead and demonstrate that.
There is no proof there are any persons herein. There are just molecules of meaningless meaninglessness. To say there is no God is equivalent to saying there are no persons herein.
To be honest I disagree with Schmid's counter-argument at 32:00. And good lord, do we really have to wait that long before the arguments are presented? The waffling and friendly intellectual banter is a bit excessive and is a waste of the audience's time. But anyway, I don't really agree that Anselm's theory relies on Meinongian philosophy. It is not really saying that the mental conception of God exists in some sort of Platonic realm. And neither is it saying that a mental conception is an alternative type of existence, via ontological pluralism. It is trying to argue that you can jump from a mental conception of God to a real one, by pointing out that the imagined, maximally great God cannot be maximally great without the property of existence. This is therefore imagined to be a logically necessary aspect of such a God, which means it must exist. What scholars consistently fail to understand about this argument, is that at most it can only be used to argue that certain conceptions of maximally great beings are invalid, while others are valid. That doesn't mean that the valid conceptions are real. For example, even if we can only conceive of a maximally great being as existing, that doesn't mean that a maximally great being exists. Just like if a "supercircle" had the property of existing, that doesn't mean it exists either. Because there is no contradiction if the maximally great being, or the supercircle, simply don't exist to begin with. Then their properties don't exist either and there is no contradiction. I agree with Joe that it IS a useful exercise in logic, but in my opinion I continually find that most philosophers are failing to apprehend the true reason why the argument is wrong. When I was reading Kant's critique of Anselm's argument however, although he does mention the famous "existence is not a predicate" i.e. it cannot be considered as a property of anything since it is analytic, so the whole argument is incoherent, Kant also correctly points out that there is no contradiction if God doesn't exist at all. In fact Kant makes the argument with a triangle - that normally its internal angles must sum to 180. He points out there is no contradiction if there is no triangle. So thankfully one philosopher, Kant, really got it right (and he also brilliantly understood and tried to improve on Hume's induction problem). But that's just me. Joe studies this for a living so maybe he knows better
I’m about a quarter way in, and I am still waiting to be given an outline of any of the versions of the argument. Exactly what is the thing they are arguing about. Terrible lengthy introduction which will have lost most of the uninitiated audience. Please learn how not to lose your audience why leaving them feeling, What on earth is it that you are taliking about ? Tell us at the start.
From afar, the ontological arguments look dumb. This detailed discussion made me conclude they are dumb. Shame these two obviously smart chaps are spending their time analysing such trifling problems.
The Ontological argument in 2025? Really guys? So the Greatest Conceivable Anti-Deity Donut (which prevented all gods) exists just by being defined as "greatest conceivable"?
@Efesus67 Easy. I characterize it as Christians clawing for a philosophical gap into which they may deposit their God. Then, they can pretend that the debate has reached a stalemate, which they've been selling as tending to support further consideration, even though the stalemate is as meaningless as it gets.
@ philosophy isn’t in the business of ‘proof’ In the context of the physical world proof is pursued via observation, experimentation , and empirical validation. In mathematics proofs are largely deductive and rely on a presupposed rules of inference. In philosophy rules such as those are themselves debated and challenged. It’s abstract, subjective and open ended , there’s no hypothesis that gets tested and then supported or rejected via observation of the results. That’s partly why a lot of philosophical arguments and topics have been debated for thousands of years.
@739jep I agree, in philosophy we don't "prove" anything. But, by the same token, observation and empirical evidence in science doesn't prove anything either. Science devises parsimonious and abductive explanatory models to explain the available evidence without being falsified by any of it. Proof, as a technical term, is something that belongs neither to science or philosophy, but math alone. However, the way it is being used here is colloquially. In that colloquial sense, the only thing that proves anything is an argument, and evidence is merely required for the demonstrable truth (of some) premises of arguments. Evidence alone is a brute fact that proves nothing. Meanwhile, philosophy can offer, e.g., sound deductive arguments whose conclusions are absolutely and undeniably true....."proving" in that colloquial sense the conclusion.
@ I suppose what I should say is, no matter how well you can throw a theory together about God/no God, it still remains…no one really knows, get on with life, look after you and yours. Xx
@jamieburns6801 What I said is an empirical demonstration of my original claim. You don't understand philosophy, logic, and apparently English is also a challenge for you.
"Extra mental reality..." sign me up, guess I get a PHd too. Theology and apologetics desperately abusing logic and grammar to cling to a belief. Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
@@TyrellWellickEcorp because its not actually taken seriously in academia..... TAG literally proves nothing about the existence of God and just flips the conversation by simply asserting that God MUST exist
@@TheOtherCaleb Did you watch it? Do you feel Ortlund provided compelling reason to conclude that god exists by way of an ontological argument? And, if so, can you explain what you found compelling?
All the arguments for God are terrible. Ontological arguments are the worst of a poor bunch among the traditional arguments, although Theists have managed to come up with even worse ones lately.
@@VickersJon they gave it an "A" because of how it appeals to the intuitions of everyday people who don't know any better.... they still said it was a bad argument💀
What makes this different is Gavin isn't just some apologist whose studied the ontological argument but is a respected scholar of the very theologian who developed it
And Schmidt was able to counter his arguments with relative ease, this young man is impressive
@MoNtYbOy101 I don't think joe necessarily responded with relative ease, rather there wasn't enough responses/response time to actually deal with the nuances to the counter arguments from joe. No fault to the host or podcast, just how it is. Be interesting to see a follow up discussion
@@kylecityyI’d prefer to hear them debate a different topic, the both essentially admitted that this particular argument isn’t a very effective one. Maybe the moral argument would be more interesting.
@ that's not really Gavin specialty though. Like I said from the beginning that was what made this topic interesting, Gavin being an Anselm scholar gives him a very unique perspective and approach to the ontological argument that you won't find with your average apologist
@MoNtYbOy101 lol. Joe, the reversal of the argument is possible. In other words Joe doesn't understand the ontological argument. How this kid is called a "philosopher" is ridiculous
Bro stopped it right when it was getting good 😭😭
To cut it off when he did was unacceptable.
Yeah. What makes RUclips amazing is that there are no time constraints. Except when someone just decides to end things for no reason.
where did he cut him off
Way too long for the introduction of the argument and the history. Too little on the most interesting parts. Respect the audience please
I generally hate moderators, they intervene and change the subject at the good part
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I think the ontological arguments suffer from the same critique Stroud used against ambitious transcendental arguments. The arguments start with some doxastic state (belief or acceptance of some concept) but they never bridge the gap to reality. That is to say, if you _believe_ the premises_ then you should logically _believe_ the conclusion, but it doesn't make the conclusion _actual._
The MOA has a similar problem in that it is _constrained_ by S5 logic. This is simply an axiomatic system that applies to _propositions_ and _concepts_ not reality. But it's still just a convention. , and there's nothing in the argument that bridges that gap from convention to actual. Another problem with the MOA is that it leads to a complete modal collapse that commits one to a sort of necessarianism, that seems to be incompatible with any notion of moral accountability.
As far as "existence is not a predicate." This boils down to an issue with the common shorthand we use.
When we say "the dog exists" what we really mean is "There is a reality (usually "my observed reality") wherein the dog exists." The point being that "exists" isn't a property of the dog, it's a property of the reality. Or to think of it another way, there is no difference in the concept of a dog, or the concept of a dog that exists. The concept is still the same. If the argument isn't differentiating between the two, it seems that the argument is just equivocating. If the argument _does_ differentiate between the two, then the conclusion simply doesn't follow from the premises.
Existence isn't a property. An existent is an eternal substance. It is the totality of spatial extension. Existence is a brute fact, it isn't something that things have, it is what grounds change.
If an argument soundly dictates something and we argue it doesn't ground it in reality because arguments can't, then this thinking eats itself for it too is dictating something by the same means.
@@benthomsen2220 _"If an argument soundly dictates something "_ That's a huge "if" and that's exactly the "if" Stroud's objection hangs on. Both the ontological argument and the transcendental argument for God both rely on our _belief_ about some aspect of reality, not that aspect of reality itself.
If you don't start with some aspect of reality, you can't make conclusions about reality. Likewise, I can make statements about Bugs Bunny and how he behaves in the land of Looney Tunes, but there's no way to bridge the gap between the cartoon universe and our own reality.
@@ajhieb not sure I follow. When is something "about reality itself" or "merely a belief"?
@@benthomsen2220 Well, pretty much any proposition in a transcendental argument is going to qualify as a mere belief. As preusp apologists are so fond of pointing out, this argument is a fundamental, base level paradigmatic argument. This argument comes prior to establishing things like epistemology. Since you don't have all the tools of your worldview at your disposal yet, one can't claim to know any premises are true. They are just mere beliefs at that level.
Great conversation! Thanks for hosting it.
I'm sure everyone will already point out the short length of time as problematic, so I'll make a different suggestion here:
when you've got ten minutes left, notify your guests and ask them each to give 5-minute closing remarks. To just randomly cut in with no warning and immediately end the discussion makes it very likely that both participants will not be able to properly summarize their positions in light of what's been discussed.
Amazing discussion! Gavin and Joe are awesome!
This was so much fun!
Why cut it off right as they start going back and forth? I would have loved to hear that exchange go for a couple more minutes.
they're afraid of losing
I love Gavin but he's got his work cut out for him going against Schmid on this topic.
Schmid as home court advantage here. This is his wheelhouse. Gavin is no slouch but his wheelhouse is typically church history. I'm excited to watch this one.
His RUclips wheelhouse may be church history, but his PhD was on Anselm, so I wouldn't say he's on unfamiliar ground here.
@@GospelSimplicity was literally just about to point this out
I think this is a correct assessment. Gavin did better than I thought he would, but he is at a disadvantage. All Schmid does is work with analytic arguments. That's basically his whole career focus. Gavin deals with a much wider range of topics, and that means less focused engagement, less awareness of the scholarship and less capacity to respond to high-level argumentation. Also, Schmid is producing unique scholarship in this area, while Gavin is just representing the work of others. Again, this is not to knock Gavin, he did fairly well, but it's not his speciality and that makes it difficult. It would probably be more even to have someone like Joshua Rasmussen or Ryan Mullins debate Schmid. Or Joshua Sidjuwade.
@thekirkwoodcenter i haven't watched the debate yet but I agree with. I'm familiar with the works of all those you mentioned and there were better match ups but Gavin does the work. So I'm not surprised he held his own but I do think he was outmatched in this area.
Mad respect for Gavin taking this debate. It takes a lot of guts and speaks to his character and natural talent to perform at this level. Super impressive. Perhaps it will inspire Joe to challenge himself professionally and take some personal risk someday as well. Do we have any recent examples of Joe in an adversarial role with accomplished academic atheists? Like any namechecking ever, at all? Will that change once he gets a job and doesn't have to worry as much about playing incestuous academic political games, or will that increase his fear of stepping on prominent atheist's toes even more? Who's your next debate partner Joe? Sean McDowell taking the affirmative side on the argument from Psychophysical Harmony? Perhaps you will do better than a draw in that one!
Maybe the atheists/agnostics just have better arguments?!?! I mean seriously, what does this comment even mean! You are just insinuating that Joe is something of a coward for some misconception you have about his attitude and behavior towards the area of Philosophy of Religion. He has certainly shared critiques of atheistic arguments across the several dozens of hours of high quality philosophical RUclips videos he has created over the last several years. You have zero clue what “ personal risk” he has taken.
What draw?
Bro what are you talking about? Joe threw multiple objections to all of Gavin’s arguments with relative ease. Someone with Gavin’s experience in academics should be able to perform better intellectually against such a young man
I'm sorry but almost none of that makes any sense.
First you say that Gavin had a "lot of guts" for taking this debate as if Joe is the academic heavyweight here and not Gavin. Wouldn't it be the other way around? That Joe had the guts to debate Gavin?
And then you go on to say maybe Joe will someday take some personal risks as well? Who was risking what here exactly?
And the comment about Joe refusing to take on accomplished academic atheists? Even if that's true, what the hell does that have to do with anything that happened here?
hilarious comment. Why so emotional? Joe Schmidt seems like a decent guy, and I've seen him tackle atheist arguments head-on.
I don't understand why the theist shouldn't just say (as Anselm would) that an island would be an even greater thing if it weren't an island. There are properties that make a thing great, and some things are greater than islands by having more of such properties. Anselm's argument is only about that than which none greater can be conceived, and we can easily conceive of something greater than even the greatest possible island.
I also wish they'd had time to get into the reasoning on causation and time that Anselm used in the response to Guanilo (which reasoning is then picked up on by Malcolm in the 20th century, in a very nuanced and distinct version that doesn't fall prey to parodies or symmetries like the ones Schmid mentioned).
Yes! Isn’t there a common response to the island parody that argues that the island (and any example like it) eventually just becomes God. Is that correct?
@SocraticBeliever
I've not heard it put quite that way, but it sounds about right to me.
@@HainishMentatthe distinction you made dosent really make sense to me. The island is merely an analogy that is used to more easily demonstrate the problem with the argument, why is there only 3 persons of the trinity and not 6?
Why can’t the atheist then just say cocaine would be the great island because no one could live on it, which is good since we don’t want anybody defecating on it or have the possibility of abusing it. Then use this argument for arguing against Gods existence, it’s greater that God is a no being because Gods attributes would demand explanation, and having no God would eliminate that
Why can’t the atheist then just say cocaine would be the great island because no one could live on it, which is good since we don’t want anybody defecating on it or have the possibility of abusing it. also you can snort it meaning you can consume the whole island. Then use this argument for arguing against Gods existence, it’s greater that God is a no being because Gods attributes would demand explanation, and having no God would eliminate that
Eager to watch the debate. Joe is a pretty smart guy and it is the first time i see him doing something in the debate format. Gavin is also a smart guy and a cristian that i quite enjoy listening to.
The first comment about income and blah blah... Channel owners should protect people from scammers!
Can't wait! It will be a good discussion.
This is a treat
Manipulative Framing
Creating a False Dichotomy: Framing the qubit as a "nonbinary state" introduces a false dichotomy between classical binary systems and quantum systems. This framing suggests that quantum computing represents a break from binary logic, when in reality, it is an extension of it. This can be seen as manipulative because it misrepresents the continuity between classical and quantum systems.
Great discussion! I don’t think Justice & mercy have to be opposed if you believe God’s justice is restorative (a la 1 Corinthians 3). See George MacDonald’s unspoken sermon “Justice.”
A problem or a strength depending on your perspective is that the premise is inversible: that which is greater than can be conceived must exist in the same way as that which is far worse.
The title of this video as displayed on its thumbnail as you scroll is, "Can Philosophy Prove God?"
Where we stand in 2025, Philosophy can't prove anything, all it can hope for is to provide perspective. That isn't even a serious question. Whoever decided upon that title is out of touch with modern Philosophy.
The second part of this discussion is basically just a presentation by Joe 😅 He talked for what feels like 20 minutes straight. Great discussion either way though!
Man, what a time to end at. Would have loved for them to complete that part of the conversation.
Wish Gavin would have responded to the actual parody argument Joe raised at 1:03:12 , the opposite conclusion one. Instead of telling us about another parody argument he think fails.
The parody argument:
P1. God is either necessary or impossible.
P2. God's nonexistence is possible.
P3. If God's nonexistence is possible, then God isn't necessary.
C. God is impossible.
Joe then claims that this is an equally convincing argument and therefore it is a wash.
To me, P2 seems less than equally convincing to the traditional P2, but I'd have to hear the argument played out to hear Joe's angle on defending the premise. My first question would be, how can God's non existence even be possible in the face of the actual ontological argument? I dont understand how he gets it off the ground in his head.
@@harlowcj Yeah, you wouldn't grant that 2nd premise if you're a theist and already think God necessarily exist, and that other ontological arguments succeed.
Joe is an agnostic (?) , he thinks it's possible for God not to exist.
I figure the point of the parody argument, is that the 2nd premise of the argument it's parodying, is equally unsupported.
I think the idea of supporting the 2nd premise with a supposedly successful ontological argument is a bit strange. Then it could just be the argument.
And the disagreement would be with the "actual ontological argument" you mentioned, if that one succeeds or not.
Sunday is my day of rest.
I spend all morning in bed.
In the afternoon I watch TV and drink beer.
Translating what Joe said about "Ontological arguments":
It's valuable to entertain this kind of thinking to learn how crazy crazy gets.
Nothing crazy about it, even if we reject the arguments in the end. I prefer DBH style arguments though (2014 and 2024). Meawh
@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns What's crazy is the confidence to attain knowledge with pure reason, without empirical input relevant to the subject matter.
@@goodquestion7915 Is that really all Joe had to bring in the end? If so, that’s weak as hell. Not gonna lie.
@brando3342 In a ladybug shell.
Joe said more, but such was the central main message.
@goodquestion7915 if that's crazy then reason dictates nothing true about reality for all arguments (including a claim that all things must be empirical) will have to be reduced to the reality of apriori principles which can only be justified by the reason we claim can't work on its own.
For those knocking when it was cut off as if it was some kind of conspiracy because Gavin was losing - Unbelievable is still a radio show, and has pretty strict time segments.
According to many Christians God is outside of time and space so exactly where is this reality IF God exists outside of our mind?
This was a good video
45 minutes was my limit, as I could not take this bluster seriously. I can see why cats on piano keys can be so inviting.
Surely claiming a real God is greater than conceptual God is a category error. It is meaningless to use the “greater” comparator between real and conceptual versions of the same object.
You just compared them by their compatibility. Is greatness just one we can't? If so, why?
Why the hell are those interviews short like that?
Can anyone please clarify, if even Joe acknowledges how you can something can be comparatively "greater" outside of the mind rather than only in the mental but he has a problem with the presupposition of things that dont exist or ontological pluralism, what exactly is his contention? Is it just because of the nature of the Onological question? Why is it so crazy or incorrect or whatever to think that something can exist in a way that isnt purely physical in nature. Like obviously air exists cause we can feel and measure it and observe it to be made up of elements and atoms. But how does the idea of something not warrant existence? I think it seems pretty intuitave that a fictional character exists in a way outside of being physical ink on paper in a book. Or what Orlund said about math? Like we use numbers to observe physical reality but math itself doesnt exist in physical reality unless im missing something. Why, if it is so intuitive to believe that an idea of something does have some sort of reality, does it make the traditional reasoning no true?
Part of the problem is logical coherence. When we have ideas, we tend to leave out key details that would be essential for something to exist in reality. For instance: How would Superman fly? When discussing mathematics, this is a non-issue since everything is logically coherent by construction.
@seanpierce9386 I understand that but why do you specifically have to exclude the idea of alternate forms of existence when using the specific argument of arguing for something corporeal being greater than something that isn't touchable but still "existent" in a way that can't be touched or seen
I really like this argument, I definitely utilize it in a sense, what I mostly use to prove Gods exists is the impossibility of the contrary. Which you can flesh out using the transcendental argument for God. That being, without God ( The triune God that revealed himself to his creation over the course of history) you have no epistemic solid justification for metaphysics or ethics. Which I think is the strongest argument.
Sounds like an appeal to consequences. Grounding experience in a spatial reality is the only way to ground an epistemology. All other presuppositional starting points lack grounding and meaningful referents for the God concept.
"impossibility of the contrary" is just another way of saying your personally find the contrary to be unappealing, not that it's actually impossible
Also you don't have objective justification for ethics, because it would be your subjective opinion that its ethical to do what god says, so that's not objective justification
If I ask: why is it unethical to do what god forbids ? All you can give is your subjective opinion that we shouldn't do what god forbids, so not objective
God doesn't provide a justification for metaphysics and ethics. It just shifts the burden of the problem from your subjectivity to God's.
The move to talk anout plantingas argument was bad on the moderator
Gavin doesn't defend it and we only have about an hour to talk so lets stick to the main thing
If you create a vacuum, who or what is going to fill it?
I think that by use of philosophical arguments to defend Christianity only makes the apologist dance to the atheists tune.
As for myself, I’ve found the most concerning arguments come from the prophecies of the Bible itself: namely the book of Daniel
What is Joe`s alternative to Christianity?
A nonexistent object is a functional distinction, not an ontological one. So one can believe there are nonexistent objects without reification. For eg. An event is a nonexistent. An event is what an existent does.
For the "i" Am= God have desired!
A football jersey to a debate? How respectful
Typical Arsenal fan. Gooner!
Debate is about intellectual ideas not fashion as Slavoj has shown us over the years.
Joe can wear a football jersey if he pleases. He is far brighter than any of us.
That has nothing to do with respect
you’re just mad because your boy got dog walked
The mind is a concept for cognitive activity. The mind is not an existent. Defining the mind into existence is a category mistake
The mind is as existent as the brain.
@@Professor_Pink the mind is a label. Claiming it exists is a reification fallacy
@TheAtheistPerspective868 The brain is a label, the chair is a label your wife is a label.
@@Professor_Pink the brain is that which grounds the cognitive activity that constitutes your identity
@@TheAtheistPerspective868 And the mind is that sense of self and more.
There's a tallest human being. Oh wait, he just died? Well there's still a tallest human being.
Joe was _very_ polite, but he still provided excellent (and in my opinion, poorly-answered) objections to both the classic and modal ontological arguments.
God is not just any old existence. By definition, God is the Most Existent Thing. If God doesn't exist, the evidence for that couldn't be more obvious. If God really did exist, I doubt folks would be arguing about it. If one has to jump through these kinds of hoops to establish the possibility of the existence of the Most Existent Thing, he's basically admitting that the argument is already lost.
Sort of, but more accurately, simply 'existence', which only that which is (i.e. not not in any way) has.
People surprisingly deny existence has existence or is is, but that's the life of us imbeciles. We try to find ways out of the most obvious truths.
No, we dont see things fail to exist. This is false. We also dont see things begin to exist. We see the changes of an existent. Experience is itself a change within a substance.
Yes, all creation and all thy shared feet was desired 1st!
I’m not a philosopher - thankgod (sic, ;: ), but I think Joe - and, in my experience, all non-theists addressing the issue - do not bring out some objections to the ontological argument, as well as many other philosophical ones, that derail any practical “application” of the putative proof of “God.” In short, the concept of God is based on believers’ own definition of God, whose attributes cannot be attested from the proof.
With regard to the ontological arguments, the definition of God as the greatest possible being rests on human notions of “greatness”: how do we know that this God wouldn’t consider evil an attribute of being great, or that existing without external objects, e.g., the cosmos, is greatest?
Second, even if we concede the debatable proposition that existence is a permissible attribute for this argument, how can you show, absent the general human inclination, that existence is greater than non-existence? How many people (including philosophers), not to mention suffering non-human animals (if they had the sentience to reflect on it), would say that never having existed would have been better?
Even if we were to accept the validity of the premises and their conclusion, it would tell us nothing about this God: anyone with their own conception of “God” could claim that as the one true God, defining their own “greatest” attributes according to their wishes.
Also, who’s to say that the necessarily existing God is the God that theists claim to be the being that manifests in our existence? Perhaps, the God proved by the ontological argument is an aloof being who created lesser, i.e., great-but-not-greatest, “Gods” who do the things the “real” God is above; e.g., instantiate the cosmos, manage the world in ways that are imperfect due to their “great-but-not-greatest”ness.
To restate, any God “proved” by thinking/philosophizing without empirical evidence is a useless concept, regardless of whether it exists.
I would restate the aphorism attributed to Voltaire - “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him” - to “Whether or not god exists, people invent him.”
Some will say, who are "YOU"?
What a horrible host and channel. Why would you cut off the debate right up to the most important point?
I loved this discussion!
“Agnostic” Joe Schmid who always debate in the side of God not existing.
Lol
Not knowing something doesn’t mean you are equally amenable to believing each possibility.
I don’t know whether there exists a teapot floating around in the asteroid belt too small for telescopes to see, but that doesn’t entail that I think it’s a 50/50.
@@MildSpeculation Joe said that he's agnostic because he finds evidence on both sides equally convincing.
Yet we never see him argue against an atheist in favor of God's existence.
No he doesn't.
But as an agnostic he said there is evidence and good arguments for both sides.
But when an argument like this comes along the (supposedly) proves god existence, you cant expect an agnostic to have accepted it, or he would be a theist.
Same with an argument that (supposedly) proves god does not exist.
He does agree with some arguments that point towards god.
But this conversation being about the ontological argument, of course agnostics disagree.
Consider this statement: “Superman satisfies maximal ‘fleepness’, and existing is more ‘fleep’ than not existing.” If you substitute these premises into any ontological argument, it becomes evident what’s going on.
The theist is simply smuggling their conclusion into the argument through the metric, “greatness”. The argument distracts from the circularity by introducing some difficult philosophy. The symmetry arguments get close to exposing this, but importantly, they don’t replace the metric.
Atheists are so dumb...
Good job to both of you! I'll have to watch this one again. Regarding Joe's question about why "three persons" in the Godhead is considered to be an intrinsic maximum in Christianity, Richard Swinburne has an intriguing a priori argument for the Trinity that I think addresses this. To my understanding, it goes something like this: A perfect being must be perfectly loving. Perfect love must be both mutual and unselfish, which means that it must be shared between 3 persons (since each person must love each other person and also share in love for that person with another person). 4 persons would not be better than 3 persons because the 4th person could not exist by necessity. Thus, 3 must be both the minimum and the maximum number of persons in the Godhead.
It felt like a dog chasing it's own tale-abstractly.
Students, what is desired?
I think the discussion is running circles around the missing point here. You are not defining "great" and "greatness". If you did, a lot of this discussion would be much simpler. The ontological argument really only is convincing when great is defined as the attributes of God, ie. the greatness of God. Being greatest simply refers to the full list and proportions of attributes that God has. Frankly, I don't see the argument working for other things than God himself, in which it is fully convincing.
"I know A Priori" means "I'm guessing while ignoring some important facts"
You’re not as clever as you think you are, sadly
@@lucashondros3418 Your humble "a priori" opinion.
There may be infinite things no man has of yet , ever thought about, but God is not one of those things. So a conjured idea is an assembly of past experiences, or you cannot think of anything. No one has a truly original idea. So if people in a group as a common experience, think about God, that is a self evident truth of the behavior being the evidence itself that God exists.
You make a lot of assertions, and offer no evidence. So we can safely disregard your "argument"
@@niklaswikstrom78 Nothing you do is "Safe", you overrate yourself.
@ Nono, we can safely disregard your ramblings.
@@niklaswikstrom78 You can't do anything "Safely" Maybe you could not even do "Safe Sex". You use the plural "WE" as your own assumptions that you belong in some proactive group experience , but in reality the only thing you have in common is a lack of belief in God and then the question is , what is it you proactively do believe in , that by experience you gather that up as your "Faith". ??? Who is this "WE" ???
Imagine a safe containing a treasure the value of which no greater can be counted.
If this safe existed only in the mind & not in reality, then it would be less valuable than even just two dollars that exist in reality. So this treasure whose value than which no greater can be counted would be less valuable than an amount of dollars which can be counted, which is a self-contradiction.
Therefore a safe containing a treasure the value of which no greater can be counted, must exist in reality.
Ah, but what if the safe is in the habit of setting folks on fire for not knowing where it hides? 🤨
@ what if?
The 3rd sentence isn't a logical contradiction as written, but you could make it so.
However the first line is self contradictory and as meaningful as a 4-sided triangle (i.e. meaningless). A maximal number means as much as that. That is, it doesn't "exist in the mind" or possibility as the argument demands.
@ The “maximal number” is infinity, which does exist as a concept. It’s 1 divided by 0.
it seems this way you can define anything in to existence - omnipotent evil greatest pizza either doesn't exist or exists necessary, there are no logical contradictions for this pizza to exist , therefore....
Well, for one, a pizza isn't the greatest possible object.
@@TheEpicProOfMinecraf How do you know that?
@@TheEpicProOfMinecraf the one that necessary exist, definitely is the greatest - because i defined it that way
@@niklaswikstrom78 Because there are yet greater foods
@@sunshin3man So, tell me, what are the qualities of the greatest possible pizza
Beloved where else all thy names can exist in front? Nor came from 1st?
Joe is awesome.
Dont arguments still have to be tied to something that can be demonstrated in our reality?
In what way ? If you're arguing about metaphysics from a philosophical perspective the short answer seems to be no. Obviously if you're arguing about an idea of something that exists outside of time and space. au priori is justified independently of the relevant premises. So yeah kind of defeats the whole purpose of needing it to be justified by experience
@ThatOneGuyWhatsHisName which is why I said it needs to be tied to something demonstrable in our reality. Supernatural cannot be demonstrated.
That is something you just said about the supernatural, no? Can you demonstrate it in reality?
@@benthomsen2220 demonstrate what?
@@Simon-nv5zj demonstrate in reality that supernatural things cannot.
Beloved where will ye begin?
An existent is spatial, empirically verifiable and grounds change. The emergence of a novel, wholly distinct existent is logically impossible making the christian concept of god incoherent gibberish without a meaningful referent.
That's your definition of an existent.
@Professor_Pink that's the only coherent definition of an existent that doesn't conflate what something is with what something does. You are free to provide an alternative
@TheAtheistPerspective868 I don't see how other definitions conflate those two at all. The question of what is an existent thing neither touches on what that thing is, nor what its function is.
@@Professor_Pink they do conflate them. However, instead simply asserting a definition can do so, please present one.
@@TheAtheistPerspective868 You claim is that yours is the only viable definition because the others conflate what something is with what something does. Go ahead and demonstrate that.
Gavin won
There is no proof there are any persons herein. There are just molecules of meaningless meaninglessness.
To say there is no God is equivalent to saying there are no persons herein.
Can you tell me what you were trying to say in your three sentences. Was there an assertion? Was there a conclusion?
What do you mean?
@@paulthompson9668 really?
@@2AMXeno Thanks, I'm glad I'm not the only one!
@@paulthompson9668I’m still curious
To be honest I disagree with Schmid's counter-argument at 32:00. And good lord, do we really have to wait that long before the arguments are presented? The waffling and friendly intellectual banter is a bit excessive and is a waste of the audience's time. But anyway, I don't really agree that Anselm's theory relies on Meinongian philosophy. It is not really saying that the mental conception of God exists in some sort of Platonic realm. And neither is it saying that a mental conception is an alternative type of existence, via ontological pluralism. It is trying to argue that you can jump from a mental conception of God to a real one, by pointing out that the imagined, maximally great God cannot be maximally great without the property of existence. This is therefore imagined to be a logically necessary aspect of such a God, which means it must exist.
What scholars consistently fail to understand about this argument, is that at most it can only be used to argue that certain conceptions of maximally great beings are invalid, while others are valid. That doesn't mean that the valid conceptions are real. For example, even if we can only conceive of a maximally great being as existing, that doesn't mean that a maximally great being exists. Just like if a "supercircle" had the property of existing, that doesn't mean it exists either. Because there is no contradiction if the maximally great being, or the supercircle, simply don't exist to begin with. Then their properties don't exist either and there is no contradiction.
I agree with Joe that it IS a useful exercise in logic, but in my opinion I continually find that most philosophers are failing to apprehend the true reason why the argument is wrong. When I was reading Kant's critique of Anselm's argument however, although he does mention the famous "existence is not a predicate" i.e. it cannot be considered as a property of anything since it is analytic, so the whole argument is incoherent, Kant also correctly points out that there is no contradiction if God doesn't exist at all. In fact Kant makes the argument with a triangle - that normally its internal angles must sum to 180. He points out there is no contradiction if there is no triangle. So thankfully one philosopher, Kant, really got it right (and he also brilliantly understood and tried to improve on Hume's induction problem). But that's just me. Joe studies this for a living so maybe he knows better
Yeah, having to listen to 30mins of mental masturbation before the debate even begins is mental. Cut that out and save the viewers time.
I’m about a quarter way in, and I am still waiting to be given an outline of any of the versions of the argument. Exactly what is the thing they are arguing about. Terrible lengthy introduction which will have lost most of the uninitiated audience. Please learn how not to lose your audience why leaving them feeling, What on earth is it that you are taliking about ? Tell us at the start.
Why cut the debate there? So dishonest
From afar, the ontological arguments look dumb. This detailed discussion made me conclude they are dumb. Shame these two obviously smart chaps are spending their time analysing such trifling problems.
dump indeed
@hippios thanks for spotting the typo
The Ontological argument in 2025? Really guys? So the Greatest Conceivable Anti-Deity Donut (which prevented all gods) exists just by being defined as "greatest conceivable"?
Nevertheless, ye prefer "who am I"=?
Seriously, you cut the debate just as the Christian was losing?!
No, i don't think so.
@valkyrieloki1991 if they didn't cut it, how would you characterize this then?
Premier is Christian media, if I'm not mistaken. It shouldn't be surprising.
@Efesus67 Easy. I characterize it as Christians clawing for a philosophical gap into which they may deposit their God. Then, they can pretend that the debate has reached a stalemate, which they've been selling as tending to support further consideration, even though the stalemate is as meaningless as it gets.
Silly atheist😂😂😂
Students shared "i" Am will say, LORD ye have desired 1st!
No. Philosophy cannot ‘prove’ god.
Why?
@ philosophy isn’t in the business of ‘proof’
In the context of the physical world proof is pursued via observation, experimentation , and empirical validation. In mathematics proofs are largely deductive and rely on a presupposed rules of inference.
In philosophy rules such as those are themselves debated and challenged. It’s abstract, subjective and open ended , there’s no hypothesis that gets tested and then supported or rejected via observation of the results. That’s partly why a lot of philosophical arguments and topics have been debated for thousands of years.
@739jep I agree, in philosophy we don't "prove" anything. But, by the same token, observation and empirical evidence in science doesn't prove anything either. Science devises parsimonious and abductive explanatory models to explain the available evidence without being falsified by any of it. Proof, as a technical term, is something that belongs neither to science or philosophy, but math alone.
However, the way it is being used here is colloquially. In that colloquial sense, the only thing that proves anything is an argument, and evidence is merely required for the demonstrable truth (of some) premises of arguments. Evidence alone is a brute fact that proves nothing. Meanwhile, philosophy can offer, e.g., sound deductive arguments whose conclusions are absolutely and undeniably true....."proving" in that colloquial sense the conclusion.
No.
Why?
@ I suppose what I should say is, no matter how well you can throw a theory together about God/no God, it still remains…no one really knows, get on with life, look after you and yours. Xx
Lol ref came in and saved Gavin's ass at the end.
No. Facts have never been demonstrated by Philosophy. Only empirical and independently repeatble evidence can be used.
Can you demonstrate that claim empirically?
@jamieburns6801 Yes. Every time a philosopher speaks scientists get bored and ignore that speech.
@@goodquestion7915 I don't think you understood the assignment. But thanks already! 👍
@jamieburns6801 I don't think you understand the meaning of what is considered REAL. I bet angels and demons are part of your reality, right?
@jamieburns6801 What I said is an empirical demonstration of my original claim. You don't understand philosophy, logic, and apparently English is also a challenge for you.
God can be neither proven nor disproven. Thus it is pointless to discuss it further. Death might provide an answer 🤔
"Extra mental reality..." sign me up, guess I get a PHd too.
Theology and apologetics desperately abusing logic and grammar to cling to a belief. Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
Can philosophy prove God? Apparently not.
You can't prove anything. It's philosophy 101.
Yes it can. The transcendental argument (which schmid blatantly ignores) does.
@@TyrellWellickEcorpit simply doesnt
@@TyrellWellickEcorp because its not actually taken seriously in academia..... TAG literally proves nothing about the existence of God and just flips the conversation by simply asserting that God MUST exist
@ it does though because it shows the necessity of gods existence
The answer clearly, "no," but watching Ortlund try should be fun anyway.
Don’t be so sure my friend
@TheOtherCaleb I'm pretty sure. I've been studying various attempts for decades.
@@TheOtherCaleb Did you watch it? Do you feel Ortlund provided compelling reason to conclude that god exists by way of an ontological argument? And, if so, can you explain what you found compelling?
@@shassett79The answer is simple, your "no" doesn't matter at all.
@@michagizinski8804 OK? Do you feel better having gotten that out of your system? Did you watch? Did you find Gavin compelling?
All the arguments for God are terrible. Ontological arguments are the worst of a poor bunch among the traditional arguments, although Theists have managed to come up with even worse ones lately.
Teleological argument is pretty good.
Its one of the worst.....@@VickersJon
@@ThatOneGuyWhatsHisName took the words out of my mouth. Teloelogical was an A according to them.
@@VickersJon they gave it an "A" because of how it appeals to the intuitions of everyday people who don't know any better.... they still said it was a bad argument💀
The transcendental argument absolutely annihilates atheism.