Sorry for double posting, guys, but we're already onto multiple topics.
Argument 1
1. Something cannot come from nothing.
2. The cause of an idea must have at least as much formal reality as the idea has objective reality.
3. I have in me an idea of God. This idea has infinite objective reality.
4. I cannot be the cause of this idea, since I am not an infinite and perfect being. I don't have enough formal reality. Only an infinite and perfect being could cause such an idea.
5. So God — a being with infinite formal reality — must exist (and be the source of my idea of God).
6. An absolutely perfect being is a good, benevolent being.
7. So God is benevolent...
8. So God would not deceive me and would not permit me to error without giving me a way to correct my errors.
As far as I can tell this is a variant on the ontological argument. It falls down because it commits the fallacy of bare assertion. The reasoning behind point 5 relies entirely on the assertions inherent in points 1, 2, 3, and 4, which are entirely unsupported postulates. Given this, I'd ask you to answer the following questions:
1. Why can't something proceed from nothing?
2. Does something necessarily have to proceed from anything?
3. Why must "The cause of an idea [...] have at least as much formal reality as the idea has objective reality."? Please do us a favour and don't just copy/paste Descartes, explain in your own words.
4. Are you defining God as being that concept which has unlimited objective reality? If so, how does that match up with a concept that actually contains qualia such as "benevolence" which by necessity are limiting?
5. Why cannot we hypothesise ideas that have greater formal or objective reality than we have ourselves? Feel free to roll this one into Question 3, since I think your answer is likely to be the same thing.
Argument 2
1. I exist.
2. My existence must have a cause.
3. The cause must be either:
a) myself
b) my always having existed
c) my parents
d) something less perfect than God
e) God
4. Not a. If I had created myself, I would have made myself perfect.
5. Not b. This does not solve the problem. If I am a dependent being, I need to be continually sustained by another.
6. Not c. This leads to an infinite regress.
7. Not d. The idea of perfection that exists in me cannot have originated from a non-perfect being.
8. Therefore, e. God exists.
So, okay, you're clearly looking at the prime mover problem (though I dispute point 7), but how do you justify calling a God into existence in order to solve your problem for you, given that exactly the same argument applies to him?
To begin, please realize that things I post in discussion topics aren't always my own views. I have discussed pretty much everything under the sun; now I prefer to see what other people think. For this reason, I try to keep my own arguments at a minimum, and post only what I want people to discuss. It is somewhat difficult at times to do so, but just realize I am here for "educational" purposes rather than to debate.
Now let's see if I can answer your questions. Before I do, I should mention that I am not well versed in philosophy. The arguments I pulled from the Meditations are ones we recently "covered" in class (we seem to have skipped discussion of the meditations following the second, even though it was assigned reading). For these reasons, I think it's safe to say that my own opinions and explanations aren't the best; however, I will certainly attempt to answer your questions to the best of my ability. Don't be surprised if in answering your questions I don't support the arguments.
A1:
-Q1: Either something can come from nothing or something can come from something. I think we can both agree that it is necessary that one must be true. If something were to come from nothing, what could have caused it to come into being? If there is nothing, then there can be no cause for something to come into being. If this sentence is still here, then I couldn't remember what my next point was. If there is something, then it is possible that said something caused things to come into being. As far as I can tell, the logical conclusion is that all things come from at least one other thing.
-Q2: I think I have "answered" this in question one. Like I said though, I'm no philosopher, so I could easily be wrong (and I suspect that I am).
-Q3: Honestly this part stumps me. Try as I might I can't seem to wrap my mind around formal and objective reality.
-Q4: Not necessarily God, but any entity. The only thing I can think of for the latter question is that our idea of benevolence is not God's idea of benevolence, and therefore the qualia that are necessarily limited to us are not so for God. I'm 98% sure I'm wrong. :-p
-Q5: Since I couldn't answer question three, not so sure I can answer this one either.
A2:
-Q: I'm assuming you mean that the conclusion is made by merely eliminating the other answers. If so, I see the logic behind doing so but don't see how it is justified.
I think it's pretty obvious I don't know much on the subject. Which brings me to my original intent. Mind explaining it to me? Originally I was going to go about it one thing at a time so each point could be discussed separately but also in reference to previous points of the arguments already discussed. Then I just got lazy, partly because I doubt I'll be sticking around here very long, so I just decided to lump it all together, even though it's a lot to cover at once.
By the way, it took me 1.5-2 hours to write all this, so don't think I just winged it. I was actually doing some reading so I could answer your questions more effectively (not that it helped :-p ).
