I have made two attempts at offering a rational argument for monotheism. The first one failed, and Scalia challenged my second one. I did not respond to his challenge immediately because I knew it would require some additional thought. After putting it off for a while I have given it some additional thought, and concluded that my second attempt failed as well.
I’ve been working on some additional arguments, but haven’t thought them through entirely. If you were following the previous post, you might be interested in checking out the comments section again for my response to Scalia’s objection, and my new proposals. Hopefully you can weigh in on their strengths and weaknesses. If they seem to be sound, perhaps I’ll make them the subject of another post, “Omnipotence and Monotheism III”!
Thinking to Believe 
February 16, 2011 at 8:27 pm
Isn’t any argument for the existence of God doomed from the beginning? Due to that it proceeds from sinful and limited man and these arguments do not proceed from the proclamation of the Holy Scriptures, wouldn’t they fail from the beginning because they are from a fallible (rational & not divine) source? Even if we were right in our apologetics how would we ever truly find out if we are so limited? Wouldn’t it simply be better to return to simply preaching the Bible clearly and simply?
LikeLike
February 17, 2011 at 11:14 am
If all men are mortal, and I am a man, then I am mortal. Does this argument for my mortality fail due to human limitations and sinfulness? No. The same is true of arguments for God’s existence. They employ the same kind of rationality.
And I wouldn’t make a dichotomy between rationality and divine. God is a rational being, and He made us in our image. We would expect for our God-given rationality–when used properly–to lead us to the conclusion that God exists.
Yes, we should preach the Bible, but the Bible does not answer the question of whether God exists. It just assumes it. So what do you give a person who is asking why they should believe God exists? Do you tell them “Because the Bible says so”? That is begging the question and does nothing to answer their question. Since there are good arguments for God’s existence, we should use those in addition to pointing people to the Bible. It’s not an either-or but a both-and.
Jason
LikeLike
February 20, 2011 at 7:39 am
Maybe truth could be an argument?
What I’m meaning is that there cannot be multiple truths, because then these truths would be relative and therefore not true.
So if there were two gods, they would have to have distinct features of some kind, they could not have the exact same features, because then they would be one being. So if they had different features, there would have to be multiple truths of how to be a god. Multiple true ways don’t make sense.
It would mean, that one god is blue and one is red (silly example) and both features have the same legitimation, both are perfect, divine and of eternal truth. Why, then, are they different?
This is a much unfinished thought but maybe he can be followed?
Blessings!
LikeLike
February 22, 2011 at 1:13 am
You stated the following:
“According to theism, God is self-existent. He does not derive His being from an external source, but has being in himself. Since being is something one either has or does not have, being is indivisible (while there are an infinite number of forms in which being is expressed, being itself is singular). If being is indivisible, then only one entity can have being in itself. If there were two OBs, one of them would have being in himself while the other would depend on the first for his being.”
I do not think that theism is a proper argument here, because according to theism, there is only one god anyway so we should not have to use the conclusions theism makes out of its monotheism to validate our monotheism.
I would consider Gods having being in himself rather an attribute than a precondition to his being one God. In addition, Aristotle assumes being in itself to define the extra mental reality of every single being as far as I know, so it is indivisible but can appear more than once. A child is indivisible as well; you can have multiple children though…
LikeLike
February 23, 2011 at 7:14 am
Utapia,
Good thought. I don’t think it will work, however, because we could envision a scenario in which two divine beings have non-identical contingent properties that serve to distinguish them without detracting from either’s deity. Let’s say there are 10 attributes necessary to being divine. Being A and Being B both have all 10 necessary attributes, and yet each being possesses one additional, non-identical contingent attribute. Since both share all 10 necessary attributes, both are divine, and yet they can be distinguished from one another by the presence of different contingent attributes. The only way your argument would work is if we suppose that a divine being cannot have any contingent attributes. That may be true, but I cannot think of any argument one could offer for it.
Jason
LikeLike
February 23, 2011 at 7:15 am
I understand your point, but I was not using theism in a strict sense, otherwise I would be begging the question. I am using “theism” to refer to the concept of God. If God/Gods by definition is/are the metaphysical ultimate, then God/Gods must be self-existent.
I’m not sure how you can say a child is indivisible, and yet we can have more than one child. A child is just a particular instantiation of being, and no one is arguing that we can only have one instantiation of being (for that would mean God and only God could exist). Each new child would be a new instantiation of being. I’m not referring to instantiation or form of being, but the essence of being itself. That is singular. One either exists, or one doesn’t exist. The metaphysically ultimate being exists, has always existed, and is the source of every derivate form/instantiation of being.
Jason
LikeLike
February 24, 2011 at 12:25 pm
For anybody interested, I have posted a reply to Jason’s two proposals under Post 25.
LikeLike