vrijdag 31 augustus 2018
EO bericht over mijn nieuwste Godsargument
De EO plaatste op haar Visie website een verkorte versie van mijn nieuwste argument voor het bestaan van God. Erg mooi dat men hieraan aandacht besteedt. De bijdrage is hier beschikbaar. Met dank aan Reinier Sonneveld.
zondag 12 augustus 2018
Plato’s De Sofist en een hierop geïnspireerd Godsargument
Onlangs ontwikkelde ik na bestudering van Plato’s De Sofist een nieuw argument voor het bestaan van God. Dit argument en het verband met Plato’s dialoog werk ik hier nader uit. Vragen en opmerkingen zijn welkom!
zaterdag 4 augustus 2018
A scholastic style argument for God’s existence
Driving back from France to the Netherlands and thinking about negative predication in Plato’s The Sofist I thought of the following scholastic style argument for God’s existence. I’m not sure whether it can be found (in this form) in scholastic (or even ancient) tradition. It might very well be. In any case I think the argument is quite interesting and should appeal to those who are friends of the Aristotelian distinction between potential and actual being.
1. Everything that exists, either exists potentially or actually (premise)
2. If something exists potentially, it can exist actually (premise)
3. If something can exist potentially and can exist actually, it can be actualized (premise)
4. God exists potentially (assumption for reductio ad absurdum)
5. God can exist actually (from 2, 4)
6. God can be actualized (from 3, 4, 5)
7. God cannot be actualized by something external to God (premise)
8. God can actualize himself (from 6, 7)
9. Something that exists potentially can only be actualized by something that exists actually (premise)
10. God can exist simultaneously potentially and actually (contradiction; from 8, 9)
11. God exists actually (from 1, 4, 10)
Moreover, it follows that God cannot exist potentially. That is to say, God necessarily exists actually. For if God could exist potentially, then (3) and (11) would entail that God can be actualized, which is as shown above impossible.
One may wonder why we do not infer God’s non-existence from the refutation of (4). To see why I shall elaborate a bit more on the first premise. Unicorns exist potentially. So yes, there are unicorns. Unicorns exist. But they exist only as potential beings. There are no actual unicorns. Unicorns do not exist actually. You and I also exist. You and I do not exist potentially though. You and I actually exist. That is to say, you and I exist actually. Non-existents are impossibilia and vice versa. A squared circle for example is impossible and therefore does not exist. A squared circle does not even exist potentially. What about God? God is not an impossibilia. So God exists. The real interesting question though is whether God exists potentially (like unicorns) or actually (like you and me). My argument is an argument to the conclusion that God exists actually and not merely potentially.
So my argument departs from a rather deflationary reading of the word ‘existence’ according to which not much is said when we attribute ’existence’. Everything that is possible exists. Take again unicorns. On the notion of existence as assumed for my argument unicorns exist as mere possibilia. They do not have actual existence. So the real question is not whether God exists, but whether God has actual existence.
Compare Anselm’s ontological argument. For Anselm the question is not whether God exists. The question for him is whether God exists in reality or merely in the mind. The notion of existence assumed for my argument is akin to a (neo-)Platonic account of existence: when we are able to think of something coherently it either exists as an eidos in the mind or as an eidos in reality. After all, non-being cannot be coherently thought of, as Parmenides taught the Platonists.
1. Everything that exists, either exists potentially or actually (premise)
2. If something exists potentially, it can exist actually (premise)
3. If something can exist potentially and can exist actually, it can be actualized (premise)
4. God exists potentially (assumption for reductio ad absurdum)
5. God can exist actually (from 2, 4)
6. God can be actualized (from 3, 4, 5)
7. God cannot be actualized by something external to God (premise)
8. God can actualize himself (from 6, 7)
9. Something that exists potentially can only be actualized by something that exists actually (premise)
10. God can exist simultaneously potentially and actually (contradiction; from 8, 9)
11. God exists actually (from 1, 4, 10)
Moreover, it follows that God cannot exist potentially. That is to say, God necessarily exists actually. For if God could exist potentially, then (3) and (11) would entail that God can be actualized, which is as shown above impossible.
One may wonder why we do not infer God’s non-existence from the refutation of (4). To see why I shall elaborate a bit more on the first premise. Unicorns exist potentially. So yes, there are unicorns. Unicorns exist. But they exist only as potential beings. There are no actual unicorns. Unicorns do not exist actually. You and I also exist. You and I do not exist potentially though. You and I actually exist. That is to say, you and I exist actually. Non-existents are impossibilia and vice versa. A squared circle for example is impossible and therefore does not exist. A squared circle does not even exist potentially. What about God? God is not an impossibilia. So God exists. The real interesting question though is whether God exists potentially (like unicorns) or actually (like you and me). My argument is an argument to the conclusion that God exists actually and not merely potentially.
So my argument departs from a rather deflationary reading of the word ‘existence’ according to which not much is said when we attribute ’existence’. Everything that is possible exists. Take again unicorns. On the notion of existence as assumed for my argument unicorns exist as mere possibilia. They do not have actual existence. So the real question is not whether God exists, but whether God has actual existence.
Compare Anselm’s ontological argument. For Anselm the question is not whether God exists. The question for him is whether God exists in reality or merely in the mind. The notion of existence assumed for my argument is akin to a (neo-)Platonic account of existence: when we are able to think of something coherently it either exists as an eidos in the mind or as an eidos in reality. After all, non-being cannot be coherently thought of, as Parmenides taught the Platonists.
vrijdag 3 augustus 2018
Hoop en werkelijkheid
“Hoe komt het dat een gevoel van hoop ons zo’n intens genoegen verschaft? Dat komt omdat de toekomst, waar we naar believen over beschikken, zich aan ons voordoet in een veelheid van vormen, allemaal even aanlokkelijk, allemaal tot de mogelijkheden behorend. En ook al wordt het meest begeerde toekomstbeeld uiteindelijk werkelijkheid, dat betekent dan tevens dat de andere mogelijkheden worden opgeofferd en dat we veel verliezen. Het beeld dat we ons van de toekomst vormen wemelt van de mogelijkheden en is dus rijker dan de toekomst zelf. Daarom is de hoop voor ons aanlokkelijker dan het bezit, voelen we ons sterker aangetrokken tot de droom dan tot de werkelijkheid.” (Henri Bergson, Tijd en vrije wil, Boom, Amsterdam, 2014, p. 14)
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