Is God superexistent?

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Well, the alternative answer would be "turtles all the way down." I personally don't find that very reasonable, however, and I'm not a big fan of Plato, either.

A bigger problem is how do we come to an empirical conclusion about the nature of existence itself WITHOUT citing existence itself as evidence? I'm not allowed, for example, to cite the Bible or even personal experience as evidence of God's existence. By the same standard you cannot point to existence and say, hey, look there it is!! ! Even worse…our sensory devices, whether they're our own sense organs or machines, are a part of existence, and thus it is impossible to prove such a thing as existence without question-begging.

Turtles all the way down is not an explanation. Why are they turtles and not rocks or elephants? Infinite regress explains nothing.
I like the way you expressed the idea that existence is a tautology. The problem with the supposed solution to the problem of existence (substituting "instantiate" for "existence") is that the problem does not vanish, it is merely swept under the rug and hidden behind semantics.

Plato's "third man argument" is actually an argument against his own theory of forms!

Why does something (anything, the universe or a particular thing) exist and not nothing? Is a question that I am not yet prepared to say is meaningless. That it is not that we are too stupid to understand the answer,but that there is no answer! Asking that question is like asking,"is the number "5" married?" Obviously to answer "yes" is absurd. To claim that "5" is a bachelor is also absurd. The question itself is absurd. To say that existence cannot be defined ( it is not a predicate ) means that any explanation of why anything exists is absurd.
Perhaps that is the way it is. Reality is a brute fact that cannot be explained. However, to me that idea is more spooky and eerie than any Twilight Zone episode.

There are some things that are just self-evident. Existence is clearly one of them. To people arguing they are not existing, what the hell are they doing existing then?

Asking, do we exist? is different than asking for an explanation as to what caused us to exist. One of the definitions of God, is the foundation of existence, the explanation of why something exists rather than nothing.

Not sure how this difference is related to what I said, but whatever you say.



Doesn't this apply to humans as well? I don't see what's so special about God.

If I remember correctly, Bertrand Russell said, "If triangles had gods, their gods would be triangles." It could have been someone else, but it's a valid observation. The supernatural, metaphysical dimension and everything in it is a product of the confused human mind, which is very bad at comprehending physical reality. It has taken many millennia and the brains of a few extraordinary people, to discover how the universe works using mathematics and the scientific method, and a mental attitude that looks at the universe as real and knowable, and not the product of a hallucination. We live in a LITERAL physical universe.

"Doesn't this apply to humans as well? I don't see what's so special about God."
MCalavera
Are you saying that if someone asks you, "why do you exist?" You will answer ,"because I exist"? You will not give an explanation of evolution and then the big bang?
Asking a person to prove that they exist is different than asking them why they exist.
The conventional definition of God ( if that definition instantiates is not dealt with here) is the explanation or foundation of existence. We are not the explanation of why we exist. However, God is. God is conventionally defined as Being itself. God's essence = his existence.

Last edited by wittgenstein on 27 Nov 2013, 10:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

What's your answer to "Why does God exist?"

If your answer is "Because He does", then how is it less absurd than me saying that I exist because I do?

Some people believe that, in that God ( the I AM Exodus 3; 14) is within all of us (Luke 17;21)
As absurd as it sounds that existence can equal essence. It is just as absurd to say that the question," why is there something rather than nothing is a meaningless question." I do not see any other options except those two.

That makes as much sense as me saying that my essence is my existence. In other words, just garbage talk.

Aha, so now you retreat to the "some people believe that about God" argument. Does this mean that, therefore, God by definition must have such properties? Not unless you actually first logically prove this to be the case.

"God is foundational ( I am speaking of the concept. If that concept instantiates is another question). Therefore, science cannot prove or disprove the existence of God.
Science cannot even define God.
What is a tooth pick? Wood. What is wood? Cellulose fibers. What are...ad infinitum. If the definitions end than the last definition in the chain is undefined,it is the foundation.
Most theologians (Aquinas etc) claim that God is Being. God is not a predicate. Existence is not a predicate. Therefore, God cannot be described. Therefore God cannot be the subject of empirical inquiry."
ME
fromhttp://www.wrongplanet.net/postp576 ... t=#5769698

Hindus, Gnostics, etc believe that. Actually, I believe that is what Jesus taught!
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp5770182 ... t=#5770182

Last edited by wittgenstein on 27 Nov 2013, 11:03 am, edited 1 time in total.

I can say the same thing about the invisible unicorn or the flying teapot or the flying spaghetti monster. God is not so foundational if you can replace that name so easily with something else just as meaningless.



God is not needed in science, so it doesn't matter.



You haven't made a logical case for why God is not a predicate, though. Until you do so, your argument about God in this discussion is unwarranted.