I don’t understand the question.
1 Like
That’s fine. Perhaps I can ask a similar question…what is truth? I know it may seem unrelated to the OP but if one worships truth instead of god then then it’s kinda of pertinent.
Truth isn’t a single thing or concept. What counts as truth can differ depending on whether we mean a correspondence with reality, logical coherence, practical usefulness, or lived experience. So “truth” can be understood as a family of related ideas rather than one universal definition. If you’re talking about capital T truth, you are likely in a metaphysics I don’t hold.
1 Like
I’d like to put it out there that I’m on a quest for truth … whatever that may be hence why I’m on this forum. The kind of truth that is currently of interest to me is the correspondence type you mentioned.
Also kinda of curious about what you mean regarding Capital T truth what is that ?
That would be the kind you’re looking for. Not empirical or contingent truths.
Perhaps I was not aware that I was looking for such truths, if it’s not contingent or empirical then what could it be. Btw I must also state I want truth for truths sake and I will not accept any compromise when it comes to it. The worst thing that can happen is to accept some falsehood as truth which is why I sometimes overexamine certain positions.
Well, maybe I made an unwarranted assumption. There seem to be loosely two types of searchers: those who seek truth in the formula of wanting to believe as many true things and as few false things as possible (most of this via science and reason), and those who are looking for capital-T Truth, the nature of reality and transcendent matters.
Ah gotcha ! you mean metaphysical truths? I love a bit of Kant.
Not just Kant, but any systems or schools of thought that seek to uncover ultimate or transcendent truth: from Vedanta to Neoplatonism.
To paraphrase Nietzsche: truth is the useful fictions we can’t live without. 
2 Likes
It’s the central problem, I think. How can we search for a thing which isn’t defined?
I don’t think we chase God so much as we chase a definition of God.
1 Like
Nice. There is now a growing literature around Ax.5 and Df.2 and the modal collapse that results. Given this structure, for any p, if p is true then ☐p. it’s too powerful, since it shows not just that God is necessary, but so is this post and your cup of coffee.
1 Like
Anselm’s argument is for the greatest thing in the universe. It doesn’t apply to islands although islands perfectly illustrate the point - an existing island is greater than a nonexisting one.
Arguments about the existence of something unknown sounds, will never end, and will never get very far.
The reasoning is just as fallacious. You can’t get from “an X in reality is greater than an X in my mind” to “therefore, if there isn’t an X in reality then I can imagine a greater X”, and you can’t get from this to “therefore, there is an X in reality”.
It doesn’t matter whether X is “greatest thing imaginable” or “greatest stone imaginable” or “greatest island imaginable”; the inferences are invalid in every case.
1 Like
Are you sure?
To me, a bottle of water in my hand is quite greater than the same in my mind.
Again, what does “greater” mean?
And still; that you can imagine a bottle of water in your hand does not entail that there is a bottle of water in your hand, and that you can imagine a God who exists in reality does not entail that there is a God who exists in reality.
1 Like
To spell out the issue more clearly, consider these, where the bracketed term is the thing imagined:
- I imagine [a God] who exists only in the mind
- I imagine [a God who exists only in the mind]
- I imagine [a God] who exists in reality
- I imagine [a God who exists in reality]
Anselm’s argument conflates (1) and (2) and conflates (3) and (4), and argues that because the thing I imagine in (4) is “greater” than the thing I imagine in (2), and because God is the “greatest” thing imaginable, then (3) is true. But this inference is invalid, born from this conflation.
It is entirely possible that (4) is true and that no God exists in reality.
In Kierkegaard’s idea, God is “an absolute paradox and a personal reality requiring an individual, passionate “leap of faith” beyond human reason”. Under the definition, God exists in the mind of an individual, who has passionate “leap of faith” for God.
God is not some existence in the world or universe.
While I agree generally with that, I think we humans build concepts, elaborate metaphors, and I enjoy building a God metaphor or two from time to time.
It passes the time.
Maybe the trick—to keep us sane and unconfused—is to remember that it is a metaphor.