Thorns argument from existence

[RickyReformed]

Is anyone familiar with Anton Thorn's argument from existence, which is an attempt to deny God's existence? I've seen several atheists appeal to this in various dialogues and debates with Christians (and other theists). In fact, in the Sansone-Cheung debate (link is found in the post "Christian gives a beatdown to an atheist"), Derek Sansone tries to set up Vincent Cheung with it. Has anyone responded to Thorn's so-called 'Byron-Choi dilemma'?

Thanks in advance.

Oh, and here's the link to Thorn's site:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Sparta/1019/AFE.html

[Edited on 6-11-2004 by RickyReformed]

 

[crhoades]

Would the one and the many come into play here? The Father is conscious and loves the Son etc.? Also God is a personal God not some abstract entity. So I guess the question can move toward can one *person* be CONSCIOUS of another *person* and leave *thingys* out of it altogether?

 

[RickyReformed]

Thank you Paul and Chris for your comments.

Do you guys think that Thorn's argument,even if true, cannot account for consciousness? I understand Thorn to say that for consciousness to be aware of something, it (consciousness) must exist already, therefore existence is logically prior to consciousness. We can think of something existing without any consciousness around to be aware of this existence, but we can't think of consciousness existing before existence. From this doesn't Thorn conclude that existence must therefore be *chronologically* prior to consciousness?

But how does he account for consciousness then? How does non-consciousness beget consciousness? It seems to my admittedly obtuse mind that both existence and consciousness must have existed eternally. Because existence must be *logically* prior to consciousness does not require it to be *chronologically* prior to consciousness.

An analogy from mathematics might help (at least I hope it helps - I hope it's relevant too!): if in one column we list all the whole numbers (ie 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, etc.) but in the other column we list all the prime numbers - numbers divisible by 1 and itself - (ie 2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19,23,29, etc.), which column will have the most numbers? We might be tempted to say that column with all the whole numbers will have the most numbers since whole numbers are found more frequently than prime numbers (only 25% percent of the numbers between 1 and 100, 17% of the numbers between 1 and 1000, and 7% of the numbers between 1 and 1,000,000 are prime numbers) However the number in each column is the same: infinity!

Likewise, no matter how much Thorn tries to get existence "behind" consciousness, he can't.

Does this make sense?

I didn't think so either.
Ricky "philosophical quack, at your service," Reformed

 

[RickyReformed]

Originally posted by Paul manata
he would probably try to argue from an evolutionary premise.

But the evolutionary premise cannot account for origins, and that is devastating to his worldview. Don't they resort to special pleading at this point? "If you grant me an instance of non-living matter begetting living matter, then I can show you how consciousness evolved..." Or they beg the question by saying, "well consciousness must have arised from non-consciousness or else we wouldn't be here."

I would also say that logic doesn't exist since it rests on the primacy of consciousness. Thorn says that consciousness cannot bring forth existence. Since man "invented" logic then you have man (a form of consciousness) bringing forth logic, hence, consciousness bringing forth existence. Of course one can say that logic doesn't exist...

I would argue that all his argument does, really, is to define God out of existence, e.g., "consciousness cannot create existence." Uh, but God exists and created the world. "No, that can't happen because consciousness can't create existence." blah blah

Yes, good point; his assertion (that consciousness cannot create) falls flat if he concludes that logic was invented (created) by man (a consiousness). This would be one instance of consciousness creating existence. Furthermore, would he not have to demonstrate that no category of consciousness can have the attribute of omnipotence?

Thanks for your replies, Paul.

[Edited on 13-11-2004 by RickyReformed]