I've outlined the "limitations" of existence in subsequent comments in this thread. The limitations I'm referring to can be generally sorted into two categories:Karpel Tunnel wrote: ↑February 9th, 2020, 6:26 am There are and have been theists whose dieties are limited by things like logic and even more. Certainly the polytheists. You argument works with Christians who follow their silly medieval predecessors who deciding that God had literally infinite power and mathematical perfection, but not with theism in general.
Further it seems like you are assuming that that which exists must have limitations. Perhaps what exists is a set that includes things such as deities that, from our perspective, have no limitations. IOW they are on the end of the spectrum of things where there is tremendous freedom, even from things that we consider part and parcel with existing.
Or perhaps God is both trancendent and immanent, the transcendent not limited to the either/or distinction that seems, I say seems, like it has to hold but doesn't, perhaps, for all we know.
This kind of deductive 'proof' is just hubris. As if we know what is possible. So we can comfortably worry little syllogisms and draw conclusions about anything at all, we have nothing to learn.
1. It is impossible for something that is self-contradictory, or otherwise logically fallacious, to exist
2. It is impossible for something that is premised on a falsehood to exist.
A deity being eminent or transcendent or even ethereal doesn't necessarily mean it exists or doesn't exist. However, it's definition can allow us to determine if it can possibly exist or not. And that's what I'm getting at here.
It may surprise you that throughout this thread I have never made the claim that God doesn't exist. In fact, there are numerous definitions of God that have been proposed here where it has been concluded not only that it is possible for God to exist per that definition, but that God actually does exist per that definition. Because I'm allowing for any number of definitions to be proposed, I'm ending up with a variety of conclusions. And that's exactly what I expected the outcome to be.
The thing about the word "exists" is that it's a word we both invented and defined. As such, we can evaluate a subject, based on its definition, and determine if it fits the definition of the word. More to your point, evaluating whether something can possibly exist or not isn't a matter of how limited our understanding of the universe is nor whether we have the capacity to conceive things that are yet unknown. There was never a point in time when quantum particles, epigenetic effects or dimensions outside of the 4 we are familiar with couldn't possibly exist, despite our inability to even imagine the possibility of their existence. Neither was there ever a time when deities that can possibly exist couldn't possibly exist. The only criteria I've been using to evaluate whether something can possibly exist or not are the two listed above. If you have a problem with those, I have no problem discussing them further.Several points here. The bolded portion is precisely the kind of hubris I mean. We'll or in this instance you'll decide if it can exist. Just via an through experiment. Think of all the things we now know to be the case via science that such thought experiments would have determined could nto exist. Particles in superposition, that space is relative, epigenetic effects (once Darwinian ideas took hold this was not just counterintuitive but heresy, and then it wasn't) and so on. Right now there are paradigmatic and specific assumptions about reality and those will affect your judgement when you rule out as impossible this or that definition of God. And, heck, most people's definitions of other people are problematic and limited. There are still many things we don't know about what makes us tick. We sit here incomplete knowledge and do our best, but often, ironically, people critical of religions, decide that they are ominicient, armchair deducers, who without leaving their living rooms can decide what is and what is not possible, forget scientific epistomology, I can tell you what cannot be. And when confronted they will say, but I am working from their definitions of words we know the limits of. Yeah, like we knew what space meant and was and was not or time or particles vs. waves and so on.
How wonderful that some small subset of modern human atheists have this divine and complete knowledge, there not possibly being anything they can't weigh in finally on!