Does God Exist? Alvin Plantinga's Answer
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- 0:00 Introduction
0:01 Who is Alvin Plantinga?
0:24 Plantinga's approach
1:05 What is Belief?
2:50 What is Belief in God?
4:25 Is Belief in God Sensible?
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Plantinga’s explanation of god comes down to the tale of the emperor's new clothes.
This is not fair. He is avoiding the subject. This sensus divinitatis can be a physiological response, self-delusion, etc.
So why then God gives this sense to some and not to others?
great!!!!!
The fact that god demands the same prerequisites as every scammer on the planet: ‘believe in me’, ‘have faith in me’ points in the direction of man made god(s).
Faith is not a sense, it's a capacity of reasonable belief we all have. Someone trying to sell you on their belief is like a blind person telling another blind person what the sky looks like. They don't know any more than you do.
Does this analogy really hold? I could have been blind since birth and people could tell me what it was like to see. Even being blind I can test their assertion that sight is real, by having someone give me a group of coloured objects, and tell me the colour of each. If I know by feel which object I'm displaying to someone, I could arrange to display them to random people and ask them what colour each was. After thousands of tests and everyone saying the same thing, even being blind, I'd still have to agree there was a sense others had that I didn't. In other words you are not relying on the testimony of others. Is it the same with a "sense" of god? It can't be tested. Thousands of people may say they feel god, or have seen miracles or whatever, but on what basis should I believe them? Even if they say they are feeling god, how to they know they aren't being fooled? Sorry, this whole "you hear the music or you don't" thing won't do.
The analogy is beautiful, and it holds. Having said that, all analogies are limited. There is no analogy that anyone has ever come up with that cannot be defeated. Analogies should be taken for what they offer. It's true that none of the five senses can be directly correlated with an abstract "Sensus Divinitatus", which is perhaps more accurately described as a 6th sense. We have no direct empirical evidence of a 6th sense, but we do have a rational one.
@@TheoSakoutis Except this 6th sense has different results. People from all over the world have spiritual experiences but they don't agree if it's God, two gods, more, or something else. Then the 6th sense is no better than basic belief, you can't arrive at any conclusion.
@@MostlyPonies1 Our 5 senses also yield different results. No one is in agreement about what they are telling us, so that is not the true difference. The true difference is that not everyone acknowledges having a 6th sense. We have to cross that bridge before we can even begin debating the epistemological value of the 6th sense.
Wouldn’t the other way around work the same philosophically/logically? Some one goes to a believer claiming they have “Sensus Atheisticus (I made up the word)” and the believer don’t so they should trust him when he says there is no God. Just wondering.
Not really actually. As he says in one of his interviews the majority of the world and people throughout history have had a theistic belief. It is the more natural belief. I don’t think the argument would work for various reasons actually.
This video also goes over some issues of why I think the reverse argument wouldn’t work:
ua-cam.com/video/_Ii-bsrHB0o/v-deo.html
What I am saying is that Plantinga’s indirect knowledge argument is fallacious in this context as it makes a category mistake. Someone reporting that sees a computer and someone reporting that senses God are not in the same category. A computer is something that most people has experienced and knows it to exist. So it’s perfectly reasonable to believe that your friend sees one in front of them unless they are purposely misleading you. Someone asking a non-believer to believe in God because they can sense It is different. For definition, the non-believer hasn’t experienced God so they don’t know It to exist. A much higher bar of trust which can just be called faith, not indirect knowledge.
The statement that most people has a religion and everyone allegedly is looking for meaning in their lives does not logically lead to the conclusion that God exists or that everyone is theist. The only conclusion it leads to is that a need for transcendence might be natural in human beings and that people find different ways to fulfill this need be that in religion, fighting for social justice, protecting the environment, enjoying art, intellectual work, family life, etc.
@@musicman0943 I don’t think that works as a category mistake. Because his point regarding the sense of the divine goes beyond that and it isn’t just mere transcendence. I would recommend reading his book Warranted Christian Belief I think it is called. But a better book that goes over common misconceptions regarding God, but also I think would show why that criticism wouldn’t work even though it isn’t directly addressing that is the book “Experience of God: Being Consciousness, Bliss” by David Bentley Hart. Although I do see how difficult it is for someone who isn’t a believer or doesn’t have that type of sense that he is expounding on to just claim it as mere transcendence or a category error. But I think when you look at how God is defined in great religious traditions (why I recommend the latter book) that you’ll see it goes beyond that.
If if if ..that little word if.
this is why I love philosophy: gets you thinking.
God does exist. Undoubtedly; under the roof of every believer’s skull where he resides and should be protected by all means because once he ascends from these extremely narrow surroundings he’s bound to dissolve in thin air :).
Faith or belief is only required if you want to accept a sensation with no proof or evidence! You don't need to belief of the squirrels existence if you saw it, but your friend only accepts your word if they trust your honesty! They are willing to believe you.
What would it take to make you believe in God's experience?
@@Semitic_from_Mesopotamia I experience and enjoy Christian values when they pop up! That does not entail ascribing those actions to a fictitious diety? I don't need to be told or educated in what is good behaviour or what is best for society to be a good person? Why do you? And f you don't, why bother with god's and saints and idolotry?
Great video, thanks for posting. I don't see that Plantiga has answered the first question, namely "what is belief" . The response proceeds to explain the difference between basic and based on (aka first hand and second hand belief). This assumes we already have an understanding of the meaning of belief, and I am not convinced everyone shares the same understanding of what it means. Aside from this, excellent use of analogy here..
So some people have this ‘ census divinitatis’ ( believers) and others( non-believers) don’t. How do they ‘acquire’ this ‘sense’?
By believing.
great video! And the squirrel was cute too!
Ha! Thanks!