John R Fraser

Missionary, teacher, theologian. Author of The Growing Disciple: Seven Attributes of a Transformed Life.

[John R Fraser @John_R_Fraser]

@TrevorSheatz Yes and amen, brother

[Trevor Sheatz @TrevorSheatz]

Many people claim to love God while blatantly ignoring what Scripture teaches.

But Jesus said, "If you love me, you will keep my commands" (John 14:15).

Faith without obedience is completely dead.

[John R Fraser @John_R_Fraser]

@eyweimi @IndianaBrunner Well, some things are more clear and some things are less clear. There are a lot of important areas of agreement. But the truth is not forever inaccessible. We're all gonna die one day. That's when it gets real, you might say.

[John R Fraser @John_R_Fraser]

@PhilosophyBeard @reddit_lies A necessary being exists in all possible worlds by definition. That's what "necessary being" means. So no, it can't be the case that there is some possible world in which a necessary being does not exist because that would not be a necessary. That is a contradiction.

[John R Fraser @John_R_Fraser]

@PhilosophyBeard @reddit_lies So you think that if some entity does not exist in some possible world, then it doesn't exist in any possible world?

[John R Fraser @John_R_Fraser]

Of course the message can still serve as an infallible authority. Just because people disagree about the message doesn't make the message itself fallible. People disagree about all kinds of things having to do with truth and reality, this is not limited to the Bible. That doesn't make knowledge of truth impossible, it just means you have to be careful about it and keep seeking to try to get it right.

If you're just looking for someone to spoon feed you so you can be lazy yourself, then that's your problem.

[John R Fraser @John_R_Fraser]

@eyweimi @IndianaBrunner I made no comment one way or the other which interpretation I think is right, and it makes no difference to my point.

[John R Fraser @John_R_Fraser]

Of course I grant the premise that it is possible that God doesn't exist. Where did I say I didn't? What I'm saying is that you would need an argument consisting of steps that move from "it's possible that God doesn't exist" to "God does not exist necessarily." And no, you don't get to do that in one step the way you apparently think the ontological argument goes, because that's not how the argument goes.

[John R Fraser @John_R_Fraser]

You really think "God is possible = God is necessary" is the whole argument? You didn't leave out any steps? Because I've seen lots of versions of it and I've never seen any that only had one step.

Plantinga's and Craig's version each has six steps. Where are the other steps? They're there for a reason. You just took one premise and the conclusion and claimed that that was the whole argument. This is why I said your version is such a strawman it's not even funny.

Again, I'm not actually defending the use of the ontological argument because I don't use it. But if you're going to critique it, your critique must be a fair critique. Yours is not even close to that.

[John R Fraser @John_R_Fraser]

Ok, you don't know what you're talking about. God is possible and God is necessary are not the same or even equivalent, so it's not a tautology. Also, the "argument" you have re-created is such a strawman it isn't even funny.

Furthermore, there is no argument to get from the non-existence of God is possible to the non-existence of God is necessary. You claim there's an inverse argument when in fact there is no argument, and then you accuse people who use the argument of not understanding it when in fact you're the one who doesn't understand it.

Sorry, but I will not be commenting further, this nonsense is not worth my time.

[John R Fraser @John_R_Fraser]

@RevivedThoughts Missionary here. Did that actually happen? I mean, I don't even know where to start, but maybe by saying God is bigger than your carbon footprint? If God called you to the mission field He also called you to leave some contrails on the way? Have fun in your sailboat?

[John R Fraser @John_R_Fraser]

@eyweimi @IndianaBrunner How so? The infallibility of Scripture does not imply that everyone's interpretation of it is infallible.

[John R Fraser @John_R_Fraser]

@IndianaBrunner Pre-trib rapture

[John R Fraser @John_R_Fraser]

@OntheMountInc For me the discipline is not in not joining an argument, it's dropping out before my keyboard leads me into sin. Especially hard when the other guy starts bragging that he wins because you dropped out!

[John R Fraser @John_R_Fraser]

Sure, but this is just another way of saying that God's existence is impossible. To show that, you would have to show that God's existence is contradictory and the person making the claim that it's impossible clearly has the burden of proof, not the person who says it's possible. It's sort of like innocent until proven guilty. A proposition p should be assumed possible until proven impossible, don't you think?

[John R Fraser @John_R_Fraser]

Okay, so two things. First of all, you said that the argument is sound but it doesn't prove that God exists. But if it's sound, then it DOES prove God exists. I agree that if someone doesn't think the argument sound then it doesn't work. But you seemed to be saying that you can think the argument sound but that in that case there is an inverse argument that leads to the opposite conclusion and that therefore it's either dishonest to use the argument or the person using it doesn't understand it.

But in fact all you're saying now (it seems) is that if someone rejects the first premise then the conclusion doesn't follow. Well, yes. Obviously if someone rejects the first premise then the conclusion doesn't follow, but that's true of ANY valid argument. That is neither dishonesty nor ignorance on the part of the person making the argument.

Second, I still maintain that there is no good inverse argument. In order to have an inverse argument that shows that if God's non-existence is possible then God doesn't exist necessarily, the first premise would have to be that God's necessary existence is impossible. Then you would need an argument to the effect that the definition of God somehow precludes even God's possible existence.

You could also try to argue directly for the impossibility of God's existence. That wouldn't really be an inverse argument though. Just claiming that God's existence is impossible is an assertion, not an argument.

There is no accepted argument among philosophers to show that God's necessary existence is contradictory or that his existence is impossible, so the atheist would have to say that one of these is the case but nobody has ever come up with a good argument to that effect even after centuries of trying . Sure, they can say that eventually someone will come up with an argument that proves God's existence to be impossible. However, I think the overwhelming consensus is that God's existence is possible.

So I don't see that there is any inverse argument, or that the person using the positive argument must be dishonest or ignorant in so doing.

Having said all that, I never use the argument myself 🙂.

[John R Fraser @John_R_Fraser]

And actually, the argument as it stands starts with the premise that God's existence is NOT impossible because it's not contradictory. If that premise is true (and you said the argument is sound, which means you concede that premise is true), then you can't get a conclusion that God's existence is impossible. So if the argument is sound as you say, you cannot get to the conclusion that God's existence is impossible.

[John R Fraser @John_R_Fraser]

@PhilosophyBeard @reddit_lies I think you're the one who doesn't understand it. In order to make this into an argument for God's non-existence, you need something in the definition of God which makes God's non-existence necessary. What in the definition of God makes God's non-existence necessary?

[John R Fraser @John_R_Fraser]

No, the inverse argument doesn't work. That should be obvious because anything that is possibly true, but not necessarily true, is also possibly false. So the premise that God possibly does not exist is already contained in the premise God possibly exists. It's not an inverse argument, it's the same argument but you mistakenly think that the argument has two conclusions which are contradictory.

That's not the case. In order to derive God's non-existence from the argument, you would need for God's non-existence to be necessary. The only way God's non-existence can be necessary is if God's existence implies a logical contradiction. But if God's existence is a contradiction, then you have defeated the premise that God's existence is possible. So as long as you start with the premise that God's existence is possible, you cannot end with a conclusion that God's non-existence is necessary.

Your refutation is mistaken.

[John R Fraser @John_R_Fraser]

No, I just explained to you FROM SCRIPTURE how God has placed teachers in the Body of Christ and uses them for the building up of the body. You twist the Scripture into this caricature, but if you quote the ACTUAL verses from the ACTUAL book (Ephesians, btw, not "Extortions,") you would understand that.