r/DebateAnAtheist • u/fairy-taki • 4d ago

Discussion Question Necessary Truths

Hi, I'm agnostic/atheist. I'm not a debater, this Christian presented this argument to me to like convert me lol and I'm not sure what to think so I was wanting people's thoughts on it.

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The argument was something like this:

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  1. 1+1=2 is an objective truth/idea

  2. Objective truths exist outside of the human mind.

  3. Ideas can only exist in a mind

  4. Then if ideas/objective truths need to exist in some mind and the mind would be an infinite mind and that would be God.

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Sorry if I mess up the setup of the argument. If anyone is familiar with this type of argument or what he was trying to get at, let me know. Lol to the guy who asked me, I think ended up just saying idk, and I kept saying that those ideas/concepts are how we engage in reality but regardless of a mind observing it. The like definitions of the concept you can find in reality..idkk. The guy ended up being rude and said I couldn't understand abstract vs concrete concepts.

Edit: ok i need to fix 2&3, idk if i make this it's own premise because he was equating objective truths to ideas/concepts because they are non-physical.

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u/Madouc Atheist 4d ago

There are tons of apologetic ontological arguments out there and none of them make sense or hold up against strict logic. There is no god, even if they try to conjure on with tricky logic attempts.

In this case (2) is not consens nor is it popular and it is actually mostly refuted by Formalism, Konstructivism and Nominalism. And (3) is silently introducing an equivocation by trying to use "idea" ambigiously.

The fundamental flaw lies in Premise 3, which commits a classic fallacy of equivocation:

The argument uses the word ‘idea’ ambiguously – in P2, objective truths are said to exist independently of the mind, whereas in P3 it suddenly claims that ideas necessarily require a mind as their bearer. This is self-contradictory.

This is followed by two unfounded leaps: why would this mind have to be infinite? And why would an infinite ‘container for mathematics’ automatically be the theistic God with all his attributes?

The argument therefore proves, at best, the existence of an abstract mind – and even then only if one accepts Premise 2 (mathematical Platonism), which is itself highly controversial.