Quote:
Originally Posted by NotReady
I can't find the section in Craig you're referencing, maybe you could provide a quote?
Anyway, Craig is talking about modal logic, the logic of possibility, which is how Plantinga formulates his version of the OA. Again, whether it's well done or not, Craig's point is obvious, that Dawkins (and perhaps you) don't even see the issue.
The issue is methodology. A logical argument for the existence of God will
always look like this:
(1) I imagine that reality is constituted by certain first principles. X, Y, Z.
(2) I assume that God, if He exists, can be described in similar terms.
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(3) But, wait! X + Y + Z = God! So if you trust my imagination, God exists!
The point is, obviously---I do not trust St. Anselm's imagination. Or Plantinga's. Or Craig's. Or anybody's. (
Especially not when what is being imagined are the first principles of metaphysics! Perhaps there are no first principles. Or they may be completely impenetrable to human intuition.)
A Christian giving a logical argument for God probably cannot even be an honest ATTEMPT at philosophy; the basis of which is surrendering all trust in one's personal intuition. Plantinga, for example, has a
spiritual autobiography linked from his Wiki where he says:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Plantinga
One gloomy evening (in January, perhaps) I was returning from dinner, walking past Widenar Library to my fifth floor room in Thayer Middle (there weren't any elevators, and scholarship boys occupied the cheaper rooms at the top of the building). It was dark, windy, raining, nasty. But suddenly it was as if the heavens opened; I heard, so it seemed, music of overwhelming power and grandeur and sweetness; there was light of unimaginable splendor and beauty; it seemed I could see into heaven itself; and I suddenly saw or perhaps felt with great clarity and persuasion and conviction that the Lord was really there and was all I had thought. The effects of this experience lingered for a long time; I was still caught up in arguments about the existence of God, but they often seemed to me merely academic, of little existential concern...
Perhaps this sort of credulity has made his life more interesting or endurable, I don't know. But do you see the problem? Here is someone who is unable to walk home from dinner without tripping over heaven's door! Yet he STILL trusts his intuition, even in waters (mirages?) as murky as metaphysical first principles. WHY?
I'm impressed he can still call himself a philosopher with a straight face, but beyond that...I'm...um...unimpressed.
For example, the basic premise of his OA:
- There is a first principle of every 'world' that corresponds to a logical modality of 'possible/actual.'
Does this proposition refer to any
conceivable observation? No. It just conjures some vague imagery that we may play logic games with, if we're so inclined.
And I'm not inclined, nor is Dawkins, nor is anyone who values philosophical rigor.