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    Carmelics

    A reasoning platform. Break down any belief into clear reasons, explore both sides, and weigh the evidence honestly.

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

    It is not the case that The First Being has existed without beginning and will exist without end, and has no potentiality for not existing.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Necessary existence, as Kant argued in the Critique of Pure Reason, is a logical category that cannot be coherently applied to an existing being.
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    • 2.The concept 'X cannot not-exist' is analytically empty because existence is not a predicate that admits of modal qualification in the relevant sense.
      ?

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    • 3.Therefore, claiming the First Being 'has no potentiality for not existing' conflates logical necessity with ontological necessity without justification.
      ?

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    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion establishes that whatever can be conceived as existing can equally be conceived as not existing.
      ?

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    • 2.If the First Being is a coherent concept at all, its non-existence must be conceivable, which entails its non-existence is genuinely possible.
      ?

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    • 3.A being whose non-existence is genuinely possible cannot be said to lack all potentiality for not existing, undermining al-Farabi's modal claim.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.The First Being cannot be dependent on anything for its existence or continuation in existence.
      ?

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    • 2.A being that could cease to exist or fail to begin existing would depend on something for its existence.
      ?

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    Next step

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    Strongest counterpoint
    Explore the most compelling reason on the other side.