How do we know our soul is immaterial?
Because we conceptualize. Animals do not do this. Animals communicate, but do not possess language.
Animals have instinct, sensory, phantasms, memory, emotions, and reasoning.
Humans form concepts, propositions and arguments.
The mind is immaterial, not an evolutionary product.
Syllogism for the Immateriality of the Intellect
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Formal thought processes can have an exact or unambiguous conceptual
content.
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Nothing material can have an exact or unambiguous conceptual content.
- Therefore, formal thought processes are not material.
Answers to Common Objections
Matter has mass and occupies space; thoughts have neither. The mind depends on the brain to function in the material world.
Damage to the brain affects the mind.
This does not prove the mind to be material.
Tracking neural activation patterns of bile secretion, flexing of a tendon, does not make a full human being or his intellect.
The number of neural phenomena is finite, the number of concepts we might form is infinite. Concepts outnumber concrete entities in the natural world.
In order to capture all the info that is to be unified, a structure at the top of the hierarchy would have to exhibit greater neural capacity. We have yet to pinpoint a structure. Brain plasticity poses another dilemma.
There is always some simultaneous neural activity in the brain anyway. So we can't assume that we have some unity occurring that represents a mind in continuous neural activity.
How could we determine God exists with reason alone?
Metaphysical argument- A philosophical reasoning that explores the fundamental nature of reality,
existence, being, and the universe, delving into questions beyond the scope of physical science.
Syllogism for God
- Is change a real feature of this universe?
- Is change the actualization of a potential?
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Can no change be actualized unless something already actualizes it?
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Such changes observed would constitute a hierarchical causal series.
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Such a series cannot regress infinitely due to that being an
absurdity.
- There must be a primary mover/pure actualizer.
- We can draw conclusions about this primary mover.
The conclusion we draw from such an argument.
One
There can only be One God. One single cause to start the universe. Multiple gods would imply a difference. One would have something missing or one would be perfect while the others are not. This is why the trinity is consubstantial, of the same God.
Changeless
Change implies a cause. But God is the first cause so He does not change.
Outside of Time
Existence inside time demands changeability. Thus God exists outside of time. Because God cannot change. Outside of time would be considered eternity since there is no beginning or end in this space.
Immaterial
Materiality implies changeability. But God cannot change, He is a constant force and no change caused Him. Thus God is immaterial.
Perfect
Whenever we say something is imperfect we mean that some unactualized potential remains in a thing. But the first cause has no potency. He is being itself fully. “I AM WHO AM.”
All-Good
Grant that evil or badness is just a privation (a lack of good). All evil and bad things are defective in some sense short of what is needed to be found good. A liar’s speech is deficient in the truth. But God is perfect and does not lack, thus He is all-good.
All-Powerful
To have power is to be able to change things or actualize potentials. The more things you are able to change, the more power you have. All causal changes end with the first, which is God. Thus God is the ultimate cause of all effects. Thus He is all-powerful.
Rational
What is in an effect is in the cause in some way. Example: What is in fire is the ability to cause fire like friction or fire itself. Since God is the ultimate cause to all things, all things must exist within Him abstractly. Material things cannot exist within an immaterial being completely. But abstracts can only exist in the mind. Abstracts like math or shapes. So God knows all His creation and has a rational mind.
All-Knowing
Since what is in all effects exist in the mind of God. Then there is nothing in the universe that can exist outside the range of that mind.
But to say that nothing can exist outside a range of a mind is just to say that the mind is all-knowing. Thus God is all-knowing.
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