Expert: Austin Cline - 3/2/2010

Question
dear Austin Cline,


first, thank you for answering my previous question.

Apologetics have brought a new argument, which is the Transcendential Arguments for God (TAG).

logical absolutes which are fundamental objective rules for logic are as follow:

law of identity,
1.Something is what it is, and isn't what it is not. Something that exists has a specific nature.
2.For example, a cloud is a cloud, not a rock. A fish is a fish, not a car.


law of non-contradiction:
1.Something cannot be both true and false at the same time in the same sense.
2.For example, to say that the cloud is not a cloud would be a contradiction since it would violate the first law. The cloud cannot be what it is and not what it is at the same time.

and Law of Excluded Middle:

1.A statement is either true or false, without a middle ground.
2."I am alive" is either true or false. "You are pregnant" is either true or false.
they are involved in apologetics' thesis.



their arguments goes like that:

1. There are some objective logical absolutes.
 2.they are true everywhere and everytime, even if the Universe didn't exist.

 3.We can have concepts of these logical absolutes.

 4.People's minds are different. What one person considers to be absolute may not be what another considers to be absolute. People often contradict each other. Therefore, Logical Absolutes cannot be the product of human, contradictory minds.

 5.If Logical Absolutes were the product of human minds, they would cease to exist if people ceased to exist, which would mean they would be dependent on human minds. But this cannot be true.

6. These logical absolutes are not physical (you can't find them within the natural world). These logical absolutes are therefore conceptual.

7. But, Concepts require a mind.

8.Since the logical absolutes are true everywhere they must exist within an infinite mind, and transcedant mind.

9. That mind is God.
10. God exists.




let's disregard points 9 and 10; and make as if that argument was designed to prove ONLY the existence of an infinite and transcendant mind.   

Does this argument contain any fallacies? (personnally, I feel it does, but I can't manage to identity them and finding where they are and imagine how drastically they can invalidat the argument).


thank you

Answer
The argument makes several errors, for example the idea that principles of logic are "Absolutes," that they would be true even if the the "Universe" didn't exist, that the are purely conceptual without any connection to material reality, etc.

Here are some resources to read on TAG:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theism/transcendental.html


Also, beware of anyone who capitalizes random nouns in an argument without giving clear definitions which differ from the usual senses of those words. Otherwise, it's an indication that they are just trying to sound deep without having to do any serious work at it.