Quote:
Originally Posted by duffee
I know you are, but I think you are wrong for concluding that doing so suffices to defeat my argument. To the point:“I shall begin with observing, that there is an evident absurdity in pretending to demonstrate a matter of fact, or to prove it by arguments a priori. Nothing is demonstrable, unless the contrary implies a contradiction. Nothing, that is distinctly conceivable, implies a contradiction. Whatever we conceive as existent, we can also conceive as non-existent. There is no Being, whose existence is demonstrable [a priori].” — David Hume
Since I can conceive of a being that I can't conceive of as non-existent, Hume’s argument fails as a defeater. That you or Humeans can’t conceive of such a being, or adhere to a philosophical schema that prevents you from doing so, likewise fails as a defeater, and is wholly irrelevant to whether my argument works for me.
Lol. "David Hume says that square circles are inconceivable, but I can conceive of square circles, so his claim is false." This is not a serious response. But, I guess if you are only interested in whether your argument works for you maybe that doesn't matter.
You increasingly seem drawn to a mode of argumentation where you don't try to argue on the basis of premises that your opponents will accept, which seems intellectually dishonest to me. Jokerthief asks for a good argument for the existence of God, and you say, well I have a good argument, but it is only good for me, not you. That just sounds to me like a bad argument.
The ontological argument is a serious philosophical argument (although a bad one), but the version you are presenting here is not very good. Your argument is essentially this: God's essence is to exist, thus it is impossible that God not exist (notice the similiarity to Plato's argument for the immortality of the soul, to which a similar response applies).
Here is the response. It
would be nonsensical to say that there is a being who doesn't have its essence, as by definition it would then not be that being. So, if a being's essence is existence, it would be nonsensical to say that that being doesn't have existence.
Now, is this what the atheist is doing? Is she claiming that there is a being whose essence is existence which doesn't exist? No. The atheist is saying that there is no such being whose essence is existence.
The theist responds by saying that the atheist can only do this by denying that existence really is God's essence. And many atheists (including me) are fine with this. I think the conception of God as a being whose essence is existence is confused about the logical and metaphysical properties of existence.
However, even granting the point, the response is wrong. The atheist can acknowledge that if God existed that his essence would be existence without thereby implying that God actually does exist. This is because the atheist is not claiming that there actually exists a being that is God that doesn't have God's essence (existence), but rather that no such being that exists. In other words, God as a being (an existent object) is different from God as a concept (an idea in the mind). We can say that when we think about God as existing, we are thinking of a god whose essence is existence. This doesn't mean that we have to think that this god actually does exist.