Alvin Plantinga - Arguments about God?
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- čas přidán 8. 07. 2024
- We like arguments about God. Only by disputations and debate may truths about God emerge. Adversarial proceedings about God, as if in a court of law, can provide insights.
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Plantinga is awesome!
Is he? Explain just ONE statement he made which justifies god claims. - Can you? I never hear even one. What was it that did then?
@@paulbrocklehurst5873 You should stop hearing and start reading. What he does in many videos, as every single philosopher in the world, is not the extension he writes. The ontologic modal statement, for example, occurs among 3 books altogether, which I think he wrote one. So, what are you supposing to say? If you don´t understand him, is an evidence for your claim.
True, he’s a great advocate for atheism
Thank God! One who’s making sense!
Excellent
His dismissal there at the end gave me a chuckle because for me the qualitative things like taste and vision is much better explained by God than consciousness just emerging out of matter from nowhere.
Folks tend to say the sort of thing you just have, that God is an explanation of x, y, or z.
Well, how does God explain something like consciousness?
You should see an immediate problem in that I'm asking for a causal explanation.
If you mean that God is a causal explanation, then that explanation won't be God but how something has brought consciousness about.
If it's really an explanation in that sense, the answer will be a natural one because of course it's causal, physical, material.
If it's not, then God isn't any sort of explanation at all.
What most folks like you really mean is that there are facts of the matter that need to be explained and your narrative of those facts makes the most sense.
But in that case, you're forced to admit God isn't an explanation but a conclusion, an abduction that is, and not necessarily what evidence points to.
Abductions are fine, but without the ability to verify or falsify, test in some way, then we genuinely have no explanation at all.
Much of science is abductive, but, it does the required epistemological work that makes for good inferences rather than lucky guesses.
So, how does the existence of a God explain any feature of the world?
If it's possible there is no God, then what good is it to suppose God is relevant to any fact of the matter?
A world without God would be identical to a world with God, unless you presuppose God exists, is causal to creation and necessary for any universe.
But if the question is how we know there's a God, these very suppositions beg the question and then no feature of any universe could suggest ontically or epistemically that it has or doesn't have a deity.
Just curious because I don't think it's right to say God explains anything but, that some things invoke a belief in God and this may be a warranted belief nonetheless.
His first argument is a version of the TAG argument.
Have to disagree with you despite sympathizing with why that is tempting to say. TAG is not an argument in the sense this convo assumes. It is a method. It is performative.
Yep, and it's the perfect example of a 'syllogism'..... "It must be true 'cuz *_I_* _think_ it's so... and *_I_* can't think of any other explanation!"
4:10 does he say "I would off be among them"? So he doesn't support moral argument?
I totally believe in God, but do agree with him when he mentioned the problem of evil. On the other hand, we can never understand God’s thinking, and, I think, it’s pointless to try. I also think that the fine tuning of the universe, especially the knife’s edge fine tuning of the dark energy, is strong scientific evidence of God.
I never found the argument of evil compelling against god when I believed in god because i can imagine a reason for the evil plus when i was a polytheist I believed in multiple gods with competing goals. Though now as an atheist I don’t find fine tuning compelling because there are several cosmological theories like the multiverse and with enough of them one should be fit for life. Plus we don’t know what universes could have life, a different one might just have different life
While his arguments are interesting, it's also worth noting that Plantinga is a self-described _"Christian_ Philosopher", and if we peruse any of his other convos, many available here on CZcams, it's obvious that he has strong 'opinions', and he's definitely on a 'mission' (aka, "I _Want_ to Believe!"}.
Well that might be true but his arguments are very logical.
The same would apply to anybody who has any other world view. Judge the arguments not the person
Wow, thanks for sharing - that definitely falsifies all his arguments! To think I came THIS close to thinking his reasoning was sound.
What’s the argument for no need for arguments? I agree, but I’m curious, because I don’t have an argument ;-)
He's hinting at the idea of properly basic beliefs, entitlements, and so on.
That is, we're geared to reliably produce true beliefs (see not only Plantinga but Peirce, Goldman, Wright, Dretske, and others for specific arguments).
Second is the long-standing idea that belief is caused, reality and our experiences produce the beliefs we have, given how our individual minds are geared and how we think in particular and the sorts of beliefs we already have as new ones form, and so on.
So, our initial belief is warranted by default even if it's to disbelieve (in epistemology and psychology, belief is a dispositional attitude, so reserve and disbelief are epistemologically the same as belief ... they are dispositions that need to be warranted, justified).
Epistemologically then, we shouldn't change our mind for just any reason (such as the Cartesian maxim that we ought to doubt everything until we build up from a foundation, or the new rendition that not believing is the [proper] 'default position', for example) but because there is good reason for us to do so.
That's at least one way to explain what Plantinga might say in response to your question.
I hope that helps.
Steven Hoyt makes sense. I like people who care about these things. Thank you
I'm not sure why P thinks we can't say what it is for a human being to function properly. We can't say exactly what it is for something to be alive but we don't have any problems pronouncing people dead, or thinking abnormally; the DSM seems to be very specific or at least sufficient enough at having in mind what normal functioning humans are like and abnormally functioning ones.
Knowledge as the right to be sure also seems to be a better definition at least descriptively.
P hints at his evolutionarily argument ... I think his peers have certainly shown it has some serious issues.
There are, it seems to me, no arguments to make for or against the existence of God that are one, better than the other ultimately.
The fact of the matter is, you either believe or you don't and you can only bias yourself to change your mind or have it changed by experience.
The key is always being honest and letting our mind be open so that they can get closer to the truth.
What is the truth for you?
@@Jareers-ef8hp ... a primitive concept whose use is to mark that some representation faithfully portrays its subject.
that's of course just my sense of truth in epistemic terms since that's the context here i assume.
in my mind, truth is irrelevant to epistemic concerns as there's nothing for truth-makers to make.
our concept of truth is correspondence and justification aims at it but there's no sense to correspondence in epistemic practice.
i can't understand one thing. my philosophy prof will fucked me up real hard in my next exam. :(
* The idea that there is one correct way to group objects into sets is nonsense. Indeed we know that in many areas how you happen to construct your hierarchy of sets depends entirely on what language or languages you speak.
* And no there are no moral absolutes in the strict sense. In order to agree on what is the right thing to do, you must first agree on a goal. People with different goals end up with different morals. That said we are all humans, who are social animals and come with some goals hard wired into our brains, which lead us to head in the same basic direction on many questions.
* I don't have the time here to explain why Plantinga is wrong about proper function, but he is wrong.
* Beauty again is entirely subjective. Plantinga may find Mozart's music beautiful, others may find it dull or boring. Again ideas of beauty are very much defined by what culture you happened to grow up in.
If you truly believe there are no moral absolutes, then you’d have to say that rape and murder is only wrong in your opinion. In essence, your dislike of rape and murder is the same as your dislike of certain flavors of ice cream. While you’ll undoubtedly try to salvage this by invoking the objectivity of society’s goals, you will then have to contend with the reality that some societies had the goal of eradicating Jewish people. (So much for morality, or the “goals” you think are related to it, being hardwired in our brains-in fact, the behavior of children without good parenting says otherwise.) So reality for you is a competition between societies with different opinions about desirable goals, much like little kids who like chocolate deciding to fight against those who like vanilla. Nobody is *really* right or wrong; they just have different opinions... right? I mean, you are welcome to believe all this (these debates seldom resolve arguments mathematically), but it would only give you a Pyrrhic victory in the debate.
You can make an argument about function in HUMAN terms, in the same way that we derive MEANING from words. We need God to explain function only if we are looking for an unchanging, stable and eternal meaning of function. The function of a thing is discovered in discourse. In other words, if one upholds that we (humans) are the giver of functions, which is historically contingent, then I can't see how God is at all necessary to use the word "function" in a meaningful way. Evolution has a function because this is how we comprehend it as humans. Function is only relevant in the context of human cognition, there is no function of evolution without us bracketing it as such.
I can understand almost any believer but I don't share every belief. Belief is not a matter of common sense. There no common sense about religious belief. It's common sense that this is a fact. The field of common sense is science.
So if there is a designer, engineer..God, why does he allow us to die and hurt like we do, as beautiful as life is one thing is certain, sooner or later we all suffer and all die. Why? If God exists he has all power why not just save us right now or even further back. Look how much suffering our species has gone through, look how beautiful and perfect even the animals are that live among us that have to kill one another to live. Why ..why would a loving God create that to be killed and die? I don't get it. : (
Cause if sin, god is our life force, when he distanced himself cause of sin we had to eat animals for life and energy.
@@tristanmaxwell8403 but why...
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If you make assertions then you can talk about evidence between assertions and then combine circular logic with a false equivalency. It sounds rather impressive
Platinga's, often repeated phrase, is on the lines of 'we don't know why God acts in the way he does'. Nevertheless, most believers have no problem ascertaining God's mind when it suits them. Coincidentally, God's views are identical to those of the believer expressing the views.
People do that with everything, it's called ego.
I love this channel, one of my favourites but for the love of Hitch, this was a load of bollox
Apparently you don't need valid arguments for god claims! (Just don't ask why!) Kuhn is extraordinarily gentle with this so called "thinker's" empty claims! Hitch lives & he is risen in the likes of you & me Furbs! (- Sound familiar?)
peter was and still is smarter
I find these theological arguments to be little more than pissing into the wind
disprove them with sound arguments, or else you are pissing in the wind and your opinion is merely opinion.
gtfo
God is the wind, I piss in His direction.
So there is a being who can do whatever is logically possible? Well, it's logically impossible that such a being exists.
What premises led you to that conclusion?
@@Angel-lg8gv lol no response
@@Angel-lg8gv You will get no response from Steve, because he has no idea from what he is trying to say. I recommend him a book: the coherence of theism. It is even one of the books that changes Antony Flew´s mind, for example.
@@timtaft8585 it is some kid.
Plantinga says "clearly there is" such a thing as moral obligation. Where's Plantinga's good evidence? The existence of the diverse range of morality seen the world and the fact it has been forever changing throughout time is clear evidence against his claim. For example, explain the moral obligation to sacrifice animals, or humans (as in the Christian moral scope).
+OnePointSix12 I think Plantinga cut short much of his argument for the sake of brevity in the interview. There plenty of his talks that go into *much* greater detail on youtube.
As for me, I usually don't have time to watch one of his 1.5 hour talks on God. Maybe you do. But, if you don't I'd recommend _InspiringPhilosophy_'s channel. He provides more concise, yet thorough, explanations of Plantinga and other philosophers' arguments for God with common refutations and counterarguments. It's worth checking out if you want more in depth explanations, and he is always willing to respond to criticism or counterarguments.
As for moral obligation, I think Plantinga was just generally referencing the moral obligation people feel toward doing what they perceive to be good. The only people who may not feel this are what we would call sociopaths. We could then argue what is good (i.e. what moral system is good) and what is not. These are two different subjects; related, but not the same.
+Greg S First, being one who places a high value on discovering truthful things, I have taken the time to study Plantinga. I have taken the time to listen to and read his arguments. I have read The Nature of Necessity, Plantinga's “victorious” modal ontological argument and his updated 1996 ontological version plus tons of his commentaries. What is worthwhile is to read opposing reviews of Plantinga's work and compare them for sensibility.
As for any help from Inspiring Philosophy, well, again this is another example of dishonest science where one starts with presuppositions and tries to fill in plausible explanations.
Plantinga must either believe he has some sort of divine revelation or accept some version ancient writings as a starting place for his belief in God. Even though he twists and distorts the text to fit his conclusions we must still agree on some basic foundation of information on which to start our thinking and philosophizing. The horror of the God of the bible is inescapable, that is if you find sacrifice horrible. There is a starting point, a genesis of all our beliefs. When one accepts faulty, superstitious stories, one can only wind up with faulty and superstitiously based conclusions.
Watch Collins video of morality.
Sacrifice of humans in the Christian moral scope?
There's clearly a thing called moral obligation. It's why we feel guilty in doing certain things. It's just that this obligation seems most likely to be the product of becoming a social creature. There's no need to think of such obligations as contingent to transcendent beings.
These arguments are totally empty. They are all on the same level of those to point that sorcery is real.
This CZcams comment is totally empty. It is on the same level of those that are have no substance whatsoever.
@@joshheter1517 Your comment is completely empty!
These fools have never heard the Voice of God. That's why they talk about arguments. If they knew they both came from the Voice of God, they wouldn't be arguing at all. They would be sharing their thoughts and getting excited about the future.
Of course you have not heard the voice of God.
Since we have no evidence supporting the notion of God, the laws of physics do not allow that which does not exist to speak to you.
We have already kinds of evidence of delusion and hallucination so you may hear voices, but they are certainly not God.
Carlos Long
I am the Voice of God and always will be. None of these foolish physicists have heard the Voice of God or no anything about it. They are totally deceived by what they observe in their worlds.
Brad Holkesvig
Dude!
You are a FUCKING Wackjob!
Carlos Long
No. I'm the Voice of God which is similar to IBM's Watson except the Voice of God is a much faster program that even gives you a body to look at with all the senses to make you believe you're living in a real world.
Brad Holkesvig
Fucking Troll!
Platinga's opinions on God are so irritatingly biased. There is no way he could have arrived at a philosophical conclusion for the existence of God had he not been operating on that presupposition. In other words he is working from a conclusion toward an explanation.
+OnePointSix12 Obviously. But at least Plantinga is a well-spoken charlatan.
+gerhitchman "Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to believe!" - Robert M. Price
He literally said in this video that he doesn't believe in God on the basis of arguments.
Well, to firstly state that: "you need an argument to believe in something" is necessarily false. You would need to believe in something before you could place in argument in that thing in many cases. What Al is proposing is a properly basic belief. You can learn more about that in his book "reformed epistemology". Before just nay saying his proposal, please keep in mind that Al is respected by almost ALL philosophers of the highest kind. I highly doubt you, of all people, are much better than those in philosophy as the contemporary philosophers at the university level. You may disagree, which is fine, I don't mean to defend Al because I agree with him. I don't in many cases. Just keep the discussion graceful and well thought out. Al is a great philosopher, and I hope you do see the truth in what he is proposing, Thank you for your time.
Have you read any of his books? LOL. It doesn't matter what his beliefs are. Most of his academic works are the epitome of rigor in modal logic. His book 'The Nature of Necessity' single handedly re-cemented the idea of 'necessity' back into the philosophical conversation.
I mean, seriously.
As if Atheists are not 'biased' -_-
So highly unimpressed by those "arguments".
Thomas Nagel was impressed by Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism. Who are you?
@@tchristian04 As Richard Feynman once said: 'Have no respect whatsoever for authority; forget who said it and instead look what he starts with, where he ends up, and ask yourself, “Is it reasonable?”
It would do you well if you applied some of it yourself. But if you're kind of a sheep that needs to follow "authority", as it appears to be the case, then I recommend you read Branden Fitelson and Elliot Sober on Plantinga's arguments.
You're welcome.
Emilio R that’s quite a bit of name dropping for someone who doesn’t care who said what. Not keeping with your own standard, I find that pretty unimpressive.
@@tchristian04 That was for your benefit and I'm glad you enjoyed it.
You are not the first one to mention Branden Fitelson and Elliott Sober's attempt to debunk Plantinga but I have to say, for all the hype, they weren't that impressive.
Oh this guy's all mixed up. Dear Lord.
If god existed there would be no need to prove his existence
Believing in _God_ is juvenile childish and totally immature in today's religious war torn world.
+innerlocus still not more irrational than your comment
this new atheism movements are so butt hurt
+innerlocus 1) How is the world any more religious and war torn than it has been throughout history?
2) How is a belief in God childish? What is your view of who/what God is or might be?
+innerlocus The statement "Believing in Guns is juvenile childish and totally immature in today's war torn world." and "guns exists" are not contradictory. So why do you think your statement has any bearing on whether God exists or not?
P.s. I don't think your statement is true, I think uninformed pronouncements are sophomoric.
Ok, dude, let me just give you a hint: Communism =? Peace
@@javierborda8684 Atheism is not communism.
Did he seriously just say that it is rational and reasonable to believe in something WITHOUT having reasons (i.e. arguments and evidence). This amounts to a contradiction of the likes of saying "married bachelors exist".
No, Plantinga, it is NOT reasonable to believe in something when you have no arguments or evidence. Goddamn it, I like this guy as a philosopher, but this is just utter insanity, special pleading and IRRATIONAL.
+BecomingMike
I like Slavoj Zizek better. :)
He has some pretty good insights into Christianity, (or at least insights that make you think.)
BecomingMike "it is NOT reasonable to believe in something when you have no arguments or evidence" do you have arguments or evidence for this claim? It seems to me Evidentialism gets caught in a self-reference and infinite regress problem, because for every belief (x), one has to have an argument (y), for x. But if you should only believe y to be a good argument you have to have another argument to for y, then you have to have another argument (z) and so on and infinitum. Most people have foundational beliefs they don't have arguments for but it seems weird to say that most people are irrational, don't you think?
BecomingMike "it is NOT reasonable to believe in something when you have no arguments or evidence" do you have arguments or evidence for this claim? It seems to me Evidentialism gets caught in a self-reference and infinite regress problem, because for every belief (x), one has to have an argument (y), for x. But if you should only believe y to be a good argument you have to have another argument to for y, then you have to have another argument (z) and so on and infinitum. Most people have foundational beliefs they don't have arguments for but it seems weird to say that most people are irrational, don't you think?
*do you have arguments or evidence for this claim?*
It was more of a definition than a claim. I would, at least partially, define unreasonableness in that way.
But even epistemologically it is not impossible to defend either. You critique Evidentialism as self-referencing and regressing ad infinitum, but I have yet to see an epistemological model that is not both of those things.
Secondly, your critique is ill put in another way, since there is nothing inherent to Evidentialism that EVERYTHING needs an explanation or an argument. There is nothing about Evidentialism that makes it impossible to say that there are some explanations that do not and cannot require an explanation.
But I would say that not having an argument for a foundational belief is irrational. I have arguments for my foundational beliefs...
BecomingMike Isn't Foundationalism one? Like starting from self evident first principles that themselves don't have evidence or arguments for them. I mean that's essentially how maths works, it's justification are the laws of logic, and you couldn't provide and argument or evidence for them because that would be circular of course. As for having arguments for foundational beliefs, I think you can do such a thing (like the external world as the best explanation), but the vast majority of people don't ponder these issues or use an argument for their belief in the external world, but it seems plausibly the case that it's perfectly rational for non-philosophically inclined people to hold that belief. Similarly with ethical beliefs, it seems plausible that believing murder is wrong based on experience and inner impressions is rational whether one has an argument for grounding such beliefs ontologically or not.