Reply #171: Your argument [View All]

It originally stated this:

Another way of looking at this is that any god who claims to have created everything else that exists either is lying or mistaken

Let's say there is just one god, and this god created everything else. Let's say that this god claims to be the only god, and the creator of everything else. How would that be a lie, or a mistake? It's true, upon the hypothesis stated.

So your argument must be to the conclusion that even if it is true, and hence the god is not lying or mistaken, he couldn't know this.

Ok. Let's say I think I made a painting. I hang it on a wall, and tell my friends, "Look at the painting I made". Suppose one of my friends objected, saying, "How do you know that you didn't pop into existence a minute ago, with the thought that you had made that painting already in your head. You might have been deceived by an evil demon."

How does one answer him? Does one concede that one does not know? Or does one provide an argument that an infinite regress of deceptive creation is incoherent in some way?

I say the latter. An infinite regress of deception is incoherent. The concept of deception presupposes that a contrast with knowledge is possible. But if knowledge is possible, then there can be no such thing as an infinite regress of deception.

But it is this incoherent notion of infinite deceptive regress that you're relying on in your argument to the conclusion that a god couldn't know that he wasn't lying or mistaken.