Great video (: Coincidentally, I wrote down an argument just like this against Unitarianist in English class senior year. I still remember the exact day lol. I always thought it was a unique, kinda funny argument. So cool seeing you make a video about it.
(1) I'm finding it difficult to see how God could have all good properties essentially if we stipulate that God is free to refrain from creating. One good property is simply being the creator, or being our redeemer, or being our savior, or being in a meaningful relationship with a finite person. [To say these are bad properties is facially absurd; and to say they're neutral strikes me as almost equally as absurd.] If that's right, then [given God's freedom from refraining from creating] God cannot have all good properties essentially. (2) Regarding the common argument for Trinitarianism: The Unitarian simply rejects that love requires more than 1 person in existence. To assert otherwise [without further justification] is simply to assert the falsity of unitarianism, it seems to me. The unitarian says something can be perfectly loving without having an occurrent love directed towards another person, precisely because God is perfectly loving and God could have existed without another person. Love is typically dispositional -- *if* there's a person around, *then* you will their good and desire union with them [say]. I don't cease to be a loving person when I'm asleep or knocked unconscious or etc. You do say that the best kind of love is relational -- it is directed toward others. But the Unitarian simply rejects this, precisely because God is essentially perfect loving [and so essentially enjoys the best kind of love] and yet didn't have to exist alongside others. No headway is made here by insisting on the falsity of Unitarianism. [Footnote: there is actually a sense in which a Unitarian being existing alone could have love directed to others. In particular, dispositions are directed towards their manifestations even if they are not, in fact, manifested. So, for instance, a salt's disposition to dissolve in water is still [in some sense] directed toward dissolution in water even if the salt is never actually placed in water. What really matters is that the salt *would* dissolve *if* placed in water. So, the Unitarian God could exist alone and still have love directed towards another, since they could take love to be dispositional.] What's more, orthodox trinitarianism requires relations of procession among the divine persons. The Father begets the Son, the Father [perhaps with the Son, depending on your view] spirates the spirit. These are timeless relations of generation, such that the Son and Spirit in some sense derive their divinity from the Father. But now consider the 'logical moment' prior to the Father's generating the Son and Spirit. Is the Father loving in this prior moment? Well -- per the argument -- to be God requires that one is loving, and hence -- since the Father is God in that prior moment, the Father is loving. But -- per the argument -- the Father cannot be loving in this prior moment, since there is no one else in this prior moment with whom the Father can share his love. And, of course, there's the objection [on which much ink has been spilled on both sides, ofc!] that this line of reasoning would entail an endless multiplication of divine persons in the Godhead, since it is better to love 3 other people than it is to love 2 other people, better to love 4 other people than 3, and so on. (3) (a) It's not clear that being funny is a good property. The philosophy of humor is a huge field, and analyses of funny-ness/humor abound. But one typical element of funny-ness that is found in many serious analyses is an element of surprise. [Think about it! Many jokes involve surprise, broadly construed.] But, of course, God cannot be surprised. [Think about it like this. God is omniscient. He already knows the punchline. He already knows every single possible joke. There's a sense in which he's already heard every possible joke. And, in general, the more we're acquainted with and perfectly grasp and are already familiar with a joke, the less funny it becomes.] So, it's at least prima facie plausible that God isn't funny. (b) The Unitarian can, once more, analyze funny-ness as dispositional. (c) Why suppose divine funny-ness is like human funny-ness? [You gesture towards something like this response, but I'll flesh it out further. :) ] God is transcendent. We shouldn't expect our notions of humor -- which are often mired in human finitude, failings, inappropriate-nesses, etc.. -- to apply to God in the same way they do to us. So, while a single human person laughing at their own joke(s) might seem worse than multiple humans sharing in the laughter, it's not at all clear why this would translate to divine jokes. Indeed [and ignoring the points above], perhaps God is *so* funny that he doesn't *need* anyone else to laugh at his jokes. They're so funny that he is entirely self-sufficient in his own, single person to enjoy them. Indeed, it might even seem like a diminishment that a divine person needs others to laugh at their jokes or needs others to be truly or fully or perfectly funny. It's almost like they need affirmation or something. So maybe we have here an argument for Unitarianism! ;)
@@dan4271 I didn't claim that this is what the Church teaches. Rather, I pointed out that relations of procession are plausibly understood as something like 'x receives or derives its existence from y'. [This much is explicit in many orthodox thinkers throughout the tradition as well as contemporary scholarship on divine processions.] This, in turn, plausibly requires that y is logically prior to x [for otherwise, y wouldn't have 'already' been there so as to bestow or grant existence unto x]. And it is this logical priority that plausibly leads to the problem for Squared's argument, since then we can focus on y as it is logically prior to bestowing or granting existence unto x. To be sure, one could reject some step in this argument. The point isn't that the Church teaches every step in this argument. Instead, the point each step is intuitively quite plausible. [And Squared's argument relies quite heavily on things that are (i) not taught by the Church (note: this is distinct from 'whose falsehood is taught by the church'), but (ii) intuitively plausible.] [Second note: we need to be careful to emphasize that these are mere logical moments, not temporal moments.]
I kinda feel like (1) is mostly a technical problem with defining a MGB. Regarding (2), I personally think that construing love/funniness as dispositional is the strongest objection to my argument. However, I have a response! We should agree that there are some things which are funny and some things which are not funny. However, if we construe funniness in terms of dispositions, we run into a problem: It seems that for any event or thing, X, God could create ex nihilo any one of infinity persons which would find X funny, and God could also make any one of infinity persons which would find X not funny. So, we're not going to get anywhere by analyzing funniness by the modal claim, "X is funny iff possibly some person finds X funny." Rather, it seems that X's funniness ought to be construed as "X is funny in world w iff there is some world near to w, w', such that an agent in w finds X funny in w'." However, this means that the only agent which can find God funny is God in the world where He creates nothing, which seems wrong. Regarding the point about logical moments, I personally don't feel much force behind this. There was a logical moment where God was not omnipotent, one where God was not omniscient, and one where God didn't even exist! Regarding (3a), I have three responses. First, on some models of God's omniscience, He knows every proposition but in some sense is not "aware" of every proposition, which would allow God to have some element of surprise. Second, it seems that there are a good deal many cases where surprise is not needed (e.g. you have difficulty telling your friend a joke because you're laughing at the joke). Thirdly, maybe divine Persons tell each other jokes before the logical moment where they know the punchline! Regarding God's just being *so* funny, that He doesn't need other persons, this seems to assume that the sheer intensity of funniness removes the need for other persons, which I find questionable. Regarding your attempt to turn the tables... first of all, that's funny. Anyways, I think that as long as the Unitarian has an analysis of humor that accommodates God's funniness despite being one Person, then the Trinitarian can use that too, and then by the Unitarian's own analysis the three Persons would still be funny if per impossible they existed alone. It's just that they in fact are funny together. Always appreciate your thoughts! :)
A few counters: Love is always defined as a relationship between two persons which is why the argument works for love. However, funny is not a characteristic of relationship, it is a characteristic of the nature of something. Suppose, someone you consider funny wakes up one morning and everyone else in the world has died except for him. The funny man would not somehow become unfunny just because everyone else died. So the God of Judaism or Islam could still be funny even with no one to enjoy the joke. You make the point that it would be sad for someone to just think themself to be funny without anyone else enjoying it, however, this is because humans are not perfect while God is. For example, God desires worship and many atheists argue this is bad because they compare it to humans desiring worship. But we counter by saying that because God is perfect he can desire worship since he objectively does deserve worship. Humans aren’t perfect and therefore don’t desire worship. Similarly, God can think himself to be funny while being perfectly right because he is truly perfect And then we could even argue if humor would even be a thing between 3 divine persons if they are all omniscient. Humor is so much about the surprise of the punchline for the audience, if they knew the punchline since eternity would it even be humor to them? Or would they just appreciate the other persons as being funny by nature even if they can fall for a joke? If it’s just about appreciating the nature of being funny and not about telling jokes then it would not require multiple persons For theses reasons I think the argument fails compared to the love argument
In your first counter, it seems the only reason the funny man could be considered funny in the first place was because there used to be others to recognize him as funny. In the Unitarian God’s case, there is nobody else to recognize Him as funny. Also, if you believe in an afterlife, you could say that the people who have died still recognize him as funny. In your second counter, it doesn’t seem like the scenarios are symmetrical, in one case, God is worship-worthy because He meets the normal criteria for being worshiped. But, in the second case, God is not considered funny because He meets the normal criteria for funniness, but rather He is considered funny because He meets His own standard of funniness. As to your third counter, while surprise is part of many (or even most) things that are funny, it doesn’t seem to be necessary for being funny. For instance, we find things we ourselves have said and jokes we have heard many times before to be funny, but there doesn’t seem to be any element of surprise in those scenarios.
You are humanizing god! Being funny is not a good property, might be for humans but not God, nor does loneliness is bad property, God isn’t needy as humans. This argument will fall miserably against Muslims simply because you don't understand how superior the concept of God in Islam is. You believe in the existence of 3 persons, each is God, love each other, one makes a joke and the others laugh, and then feels satisfied that the others understood his joke and thought it’s funny… and then concluding irrationally that it’s 1 God. I cannot pass that, tell us you believe in 3 Gods, and then let’s talk about the argument/video. You can’t have your cake and eat it too!
@@vinnygiggidy God. And because there's no such thing as a "selfless jerk." My turn for a question. Most of the world has a wrong definition of love. What will you do about it?
@@vinnygiggidy Love is selfless, man. That's the whole thread. Are you an atheist? Do you realize that atheism is useless to humanity? Do you realize that self-love is such a nonsense term that even atheist professionals quit using it? They call it self-compassion, not self-love. Because even atheists know self-love is a nonsense term.
I don't know how serious this argument is supposed to be, but I don't think it succeeds. You say we find it sad if someone is the only one to laugh at his jokes. While this may be true, the underlying reason we find it sad (there is nothing wrong with laughing at your own jokes and finding them funny) isn't because of the coincidence of being the only one to laugh, but because it implies no one else finds it funny, and hence that person has a messed up or otherwise weird sense of humor. Here is an analogy as to why I think the video's argument fails: imagine Person A. Person A is very affable, funny, loving, patient, and is a great guy to have around. But let us say that one day he is unjustly thrown into prison, and put into solitary confinement for heinous crimes he never committed. He's very patient and takes the good and the bad from God's hand, and so it doesn't bother him and he is not traumatized, etc. Does this affect his affable character, or is it just a coincidence that he cannot now at this moment make others laugh? I would say his affable and funny character remains despite being alone, but that he simply cannot express his "funniness" to others. Thinking in this way, the character of "funniness" does not depend upon making others laugh, but is merely the occasion of expressing the "funniness." The love argument works better because the common definition of love is to will the good of the other, but this can only be if there is an "other," so on the face if it it looks impossible to love if there is no other. But I wonder if a similar argument can be made to the joke argument, namely that lacking opportunity doesn't take away from one's character or attributes. But this also can also invite further contemplation into God's attributes. If God is omniscient, that means He always knew He would create, and if immutable, He always had the Will to create. Now, creation is a good thing, and so in fact He has always willed the good of the other. Even though creation is unnecessary for Him He must have always found it fitting, and this even just by itself implies His Love. There is a long line of philosophical thought that finds the Trinity, the key Mystery of the Christian Faith, to be a matter of Revelation instead of a matter able to be discovered by pure reason alone, and I am partial to that view if you cannot tell. Don't take me as a teacher or anything. I'm just putting my thoughts out there.
I might have to disagree on this one. Say for example, there is a man who is patient. I would argue that he doesn't need to be enacting his patience all the time to be called a patient man. The attribute of love and compassion is the same as well. It is a property or attribute that can intrinsically exist in an entity, which has the potential to be expressed if this being wishes to do so. A person may carry the attribute of compassion and love, as it being embedded in their DNA or brain, even if they were the only living person on an island. Now carrying this to God, there is no problem in saying that God has all the eternal attributes of perfection, and he has the divine will to manifest those attributes whenever and however he wishes. Now this would also assume a temporal aspect, but we can try to imagine that God has already created contingent beings since pre eternity, and has always manifested his attributes in infinite different ways across universes.
Couldn’t you just say that the quality of All Loving in Unitarianism understanding to God is an ability that doesn’t need to be acted out necessarily for it to exist? The same way quality of All Merciful could stay in tact within God without being exercised as Mercy is also relational. Why does the properties of God need to be exercised eternally to exist?
When a comedian is writing their own material, and sifting between which jokes of his are funny or not, wouldn't the property of 'being funny' apply to him when he does in fact produce jokes that he finds to be funny?
I think an objection could be raised that if something like Atonement is a good property (hard to dispute), then it proves that God can be with good properties without actualizing them. (Since obviously atonement occurred after creating)
@@khitir1500 I see, I thought I saw another comment here that suggested otherwise. Thanks for clarifying. I presume you are a Unitarian? What do you make of the argument?
@@MatthewFearnley Hadith mentions laughing/smiling at goodness. An example is a man for whatever reason killing another but they both enter heaven together (where everyone btw becomes friends). That does seem to have some irony in a good sense in it. But still describing God as speaking gags and whatever is not being respectful to God. But God is not just love. He is also just. But it gets "weird" to say father is doing justice with son and hs just like how it gets "weird" to say God loves himself. And I find counter arguments for trinity stronger like God has aseity but the 2nd and 3rd persons don't seem to have aseity. You might get around the problem by giving complex explanations or something. But so can muslims or jews. Why can't God for example love those who will come in the future or something by being outside having linear perception of time?
@@condorianonegdiffsgoku Hi. I can probably agree that God can love beings that don't exist yet, but not ones that never exist. His love is contingent on their existing at some point. Each member of the Trinity of course treats one another justly and righteously. But I guess ultimately we have to say that unless sinful beings exist necessarily, condemnation and forgiveness and long-suffering cannot be necessary attributes of God, but are merely facets of God's other attributes, like holiness, righteousness or love. I'm not necessarily opposed to a "heirarchy" within the Trinity. Perhaps one person is "necessarily/eternally contingent" on another. I don't think that we can claim the same thing about ourselves though.
According to st. Augustine, the son is the father's knowledge of himself and the holy spirit is the love between them, so God can be seen as a comic duo and the holy spirit is the humor that flows between them
You are taking good things for humans and trying to compare it it to a god it doesn’t work. you cannot take good human traits and fit it into a god. Imagine it like this we are a 1d drawing just aline and god is a 3d cube. thats just an example its more deep than that but you get the point
What if one were to say that being funny is an emergent or dependent property? That is to say, funniness is not truly a distinct quality, but more of a composite of underlying qualities and circumstances. Maybe funniness requires a certain level and kind of intelligence, and a certain intention, and a certain environment before it can manifest. Could you then truly consider God to be lacking an essential good quality? If so, why don't we hold it against God that He is not nutritious? Being nutritious is a good quality too, but similarly to funniness, nutritiousness is a dependent / emergent property and therefore God is not required to possess the quality of being nutritious since it is not an essential quality.
I don't think this argument holds water, I'm afraid. All three persons are omniscient. What makes humor possible is that the punchline is unexpected. Think of listening to a truly funny person telling you a bunch of jokes but you know the punchlines to all of them. Not so funny. The love argument definitely works imo, though
As Jesus set aside some of the attributes of God in the incarnation, such as omniscience, perhaps members of the Godhead do it for the sake of a really good joke 😀.
Is it the case that every good property is essentially and necessarily predicable of God? For example, it seems that smelling good is a good property, but to say that God smells good sounds... odd, at best.
I disagree that another person has to be around to appreciate or perceive the joke-teller as funny in order for the joke-teller to be funny. I don't think it would be "sad" in a manner of speaking. For instance, people can imagine scenarios in their head, and they may laugh at it to themselves because they find it funny. In a sense, they are funny individuals because they've concocted something funny. We may not share those things either because it may be hard to articulate such scenarios out loud. At the very least, I've had moments like this, but then again, I'm a pretty sad individual, so I could be very wrong about this. So I think the unitarian has a way out of the argument. Plus, I think that this argument may entail certain problems for the theist. If funniness requires other conscious beings to be around the joke-teller, couldn't we also apply similar logic to moral goodness? Normally for instance, when we say that a person is good, we think they're good because of certain actions they perform and how they interact with beings around them. However, if you want to argue that God has free will, then there are worlds in which he's alone. How could God be said to be morally good in those "alone" worlds if he hasn't performed any actions which are praiseworthy? It seems that God is no longer morally good out of metaphysical necessity.
What about God’s perfect justice and wrath? Even under trinitarianism you would have to believe that the persons of the Trinity judged or had wrath against each other.
@@j.gstudios4576 What about wrath, or for that matter, mercy? It seems both wrath and mercy require sin in order to be exercised, but without the creation there would be no sin, which means God would be dependent upon creation for His perfection.
@@landonhaire3903 wow nice thought provoking questions. I honestly have never heard something like this and don't know how to answer lol. Maybe apologetics squared can answer tho but only time will tell I guess
I would say that wrath isn't *intrinsically* good. It's only good if there's something bad to be wrathful towards. And, justice isn't only about punishment. It can be about reward if a party is praiseworthy.
God could still have the intrinsic property of being loving and funny and whatever. Sure, in an empty universe he won't be displaying it currently. Even a trinitarian God wouldn't be displaying some good making attributes in an empty world. Like being good at playing football. But counterfactually, if there was a football field he would be good. Same with funny, same with loving or anything else. He has the intrinsic nature of being good at these things, he just isn't currently displaying that prowess.
The best kind of love is relational? That is an assertion I would like you to defend. Why is relational love better than self love exactly? Also you seem to imply that if there is no additional conscience beings to love, God has nothing to love so love can not exist. Does God not love heaven? If not why? If so then that is 1 example of a way God can love and express that love without additional conscience beings. Also funny is subjective. So to say God is funny because funny is a good thing to be sounds arbitrary, which begs many questions. Is god the standard of funny? Is god a maximally funny being? If God finds something funny does that mean it must be funny? If I find something funny that God does not did I just go against God's nature? And if so did I commit a sin?
Wait, god could have refrained from creating things? Then why didn't he omit suffering? Child Cancer? Genetic diseases? Why didn't he just not create Satan? Just seems weird that in this video you'll say he can refrain but in others you argue he can't because "it has to be that way."
I prefer existance eith temporary pain. Than not existing. And most people who kill themselfs would find the next life (and therefore existamce) much better than unexistance
It sounds like you’re imagining an argument along the lines of: “Why did God create Satan? Well, he is Creator, so if a thing can exist, God must create it, and so it must exist.” I’ve not heard an argument like that, but yes, you could argue against it by claiming that God can refrain from creating things.
@@ShouVertica As in, God could not have not created the Universe - implying the Universe is necessary, rather than contingent? I don’t remember him making that argument like that. Can you provide a reference?
It seems that certain definitions funniness and humor would be incompatible with other properties God is taken to have. The superiority theory couldn't work because none of the members of the trinity could rightly feel superior over the others because they are coequal. The relief and incongruity theories are arguably incompatible with God's omniscience, since nothing can be unexpected for an all knowing diety. The only theory of humor I can think of that is compatible with God being funny would be one in which humor is a form of play. Perhaps the case for the virtue of playfulness can be made. However, it seems to me that someone could plausibly adopt the position that playfulness is only instrumentally good because of the benefits it offers in social interaction, not intrinsically good. Thus, God might not need to be funny to have all intrinsically good properties
I agree that this argument wouldn't work with the superiority theory, but it's false so whatever. :P Regarding relief/incongruity, I don't think omniscience causes any problems for humor. It's possible to have difficulty telling a friend a joke because you're already laughing at the joke and unable to get it out. In that case, your knowledge of the joke doesn't diminish the humor, because of the communal dynamic.
@@ApologeticsSquared Fair enough. By the same token, we also seem to bring to our own mind certain jokes and sometimes laugh at them. Yet we are one person, not three people. Could something like this be possible on the unitarian view of God?
@@nickolashessler314 Yes! I was trying to be very specific in my argument. On Unitarianism, God could have feelings of humor, but He couldn't be *funny* :)
I do not accept your definition of love. Someone can be a loving person on a deserted island but have nobody to love whatsoever. Likewise, I can say that God wholely loves himself. You are actually saying the exact same thing by saying the persons love each other: 1. The Father loves the Son (pick any persons in the Trinity that have a loving relationship, it does not matter). 2. The Father = God. 3. The Son = God. 4. Therefore, God loves God. 5. If God loves God, then God loves himself. 6. Therefore, God loves himself. You say "the best kind of love is relational and directed to others", what is your evidence for that? All of these versions of this argument depend on the notion that possession of an attribute necessarily entails expression. Muslims deny that notion. God does not have to eternally or always express a certain attribute in order for us to say that God has said attribute/character trait.
4, 5, and 6 are false because they commit the word-concept fallacy. Using the same term does not entail that it is the same referent. You're confusing nature and person (as do all anti-trinitarians)
I didn't realize that we Trinitarians were square heads. Joy ;-)
The thought about the Godhead having inside jokes never crossed my mind
Great video (: Coincidentally, I wrote down an argument just like this against Unitarianist in English class senior year. I still remember the exact day lol. I always thought it was a unique, kinda funny argument. So cool seeing you make a video about it.
(1) I'm finding it difficult to see how God could have all good properties essentially if we stipulate that God is free to refrain from creating. One good property is simply being the creator, or being our redeemer, or being our savior, or being in a meaningful relationship with a finite person. [To say these are bad properties is facially absurd; and to say they're neutral strikes me as almost equally as absurd.] If that's right, then [given God's freedom from refraining from creating] God cannot have all good properties essentially.
(2) Regarding the common argument for Trinitarianism:
The Unitarian simply rejects that love requires more than 1 person in existence. To assert otherwise [without further justification] is simply to assert the falsity of unitarianism, it seems to me. The unitarian says something can be perfectly loving without having an occurrent love directed towards another person, precisely because God is perfectly loving and God could have existed without another person. Love is typically dispositional -- *if* there's a person around, *then* you will their good and desire union with them [say]. I don't cease to be a loving person when I'm asleep or knocked unconscious or etc.
You do say that the best kind of love is relational -- it is directed toward others. But the Unitarian simply rejects this, precisely because God is essentially perfect loving [and so essentially enjoys the best kind of love] and yet didn't have to exist alongside others. No headway is made here by insisting on the falsity of Unitarianism. [Footnote: there is actually a sense in which a Unitarian being existing alone could have love directed to others. In particular, dispositions are directed towards their manifestations even if they are not, in fact, manifested. So, for instance, a salt's disposition to dissolve in water is still [in some sense] directed toward dissolution in water even if the salt is never actually placed in water. What really matters is that the salt *would* dissolve *if* placed in water. So, the Unitarian God could exist alone and still have love directed towards another, since they could take love to be dispositional.]
What's more, orthodox trinitarianism requires relations of procession among the divine persons. The Father begets the Son, the Father [perhaps with the Son, depending on your view] spirates the spirit. These are timeless relations of generation, such that the Son and Spirit in some sense derive their divinity from the Father. But now consider the 'logical moment' prior to the Father's generating the Son and Spirit. Is the Father loving in this prior moment? Well -- per the argument -- to be God requires that one is loving, and hence -- since the Father is God in that prior moment, the Father is loving. But -- per the argument -- the Father cannot be loving in this prior moment, since there is no one else in this prior moment with whom the Father can share his love.
And, of course, there's the objection [on which much ink has been spilled on both sides, ofc!] that this line of reasoning would entail an endless multiplication of divine persons in the Godhead, since it is better to love 3 other people than it is to love 2 other people, better to love 4 other people than 3, and so on.
(3) (a) It's not clear that being funny is a good property. The philosophy of humor is a huge field, and analyses of funny-ness/humor abound. But one typical element of funny-ness that is found in many serious analyses is an element of surprise. [Think about it! Many jokes involve surprise, broadly construed.] But, of course, God cannot be surprised. [Think about it like this. God is omniscient. He already knows the punchline. He already knows every single possible joke. There's a sense in which he's already heard every possible joke. And, in general, the more we're acquainted with and perfectly grasp and are already familiar with a joke, the less funny it becomes.] So, it's at least prima facie plausible that God isn't funny.
(b) The Unitarian can, once more, analyze funny-ness as dispositional.
(c) Why suppose divine funny-ness is like human funny-ness? [You gesture towards something like this response, but I'll flesh it out further. :) ] God is transcendent. We shouldn't expect our notions of humor -- which are often mired in human finitude, failings, inappropriate-nesses, etc.. -- to apply to God in the same way they do to us. So, while a single human person laughing at their own joke(s) might seem worse than multiple humans sharing in the laughter, it's not at all clear why this would translate to divine jokes. Indeed [and ignoring the points above], perhaps God is *so* funny that he doesn't *need* anyone else to laugh at his jokes. They're so funny that he is entirely self-sufficient in his own, single person to enjoy them. Indeed, it might even seem like a diminishment that a divine person needs others to laugh at their jokes or needs others to be truly or fully or perfectly funny. It's almost like they need affirmation or something. So maybe we have here an argument for Unitarianism! ;)
There is no “moment prior to the Father begetting the Son”. That’s not what the Church teaches.
@@dan4271 I didn't claim that this is what the Church teaches. Rather, I pointed out that relations of procession are plausibly understood as something like 'x receives or derives its existence from y'. [This much is explicit in many orthodox thinkers throughout the tradition as well as contemporary scholarship on divine processions.] This, in turn, plausibly requires that y is logically prior to x [for otherwise, y wouldn't have 'already' been there so as to bestow or grant existence unto x]. And it is this logical priority that plausibly leads to the problem for Squared's argument, since then we can focus on y as it is logically prior to bestowing or granting existence unto x. To be sure, one could reject some step in this argument. The point isn't that the Church teaches every step in this argument. Instead, the point each step is intuitively quite plausible. [And Squared's argument relies quite heavily on things that are (i) not taught by the Church (note: this is distinct from 'whose falsehood is taught by the church'), but (ii) intuitively plausible.] [Second note: we need to be careful to emphasize that these are mere logical moments, not temporal moments.]
You're just salty that more people don't find you swindburn imitation funny.
@@wesleybasener9705 ahaha
I kinda feel like (1) is mostly a technical problem with defining a MGB.
Regarding (2), I personally think that construing love/funniness as dispositional is the strongest objection to my argument. However, I have a response!
We should agree that there are some things which are funny and some things which are not funny. However, if we construe funniness in terms of dispositions, we run into a problem: It seems that for any event or thing, X, God could create ex nihilo any one of infinity persons which would find X funny, and God could also make any one of infinity persons which would find X not funny. So, we're not going to get anywhere by analyzing funniness by the modal claim, "X is funny iff possibly some person finds X funny." Rather, it seems that X's funniness ought to be construed as "X is funny in world w iff there is some world near to w, w', such that an agent in w finds X funny in w'." However, this means that the only agent which can find God funny is God in the world where He creates nothing, which seems wrong.
Regarding the point about logical moments, I personally don't feel much force behind this. There was a logical moment where God was not omnipotent, one where God was not omniscient, and one where God didn't even exist!
Regarding (3a), I have three responses. First, on some models of God's omniscience, He knows every proposition but in some sense is not "aware" of every proposition, which would allow God to have some element of surprise. Second, it seems that there are a good deal many cases where surprise is not needed (e.g. you have difficulty telling your friend a joke because you're laughing at the joke). Thirdly, maybe divine Persons tell each other jokes before the logical moment where they know the punchline!
Regarding God's just being *so* funny, that He doesn't need other persons, this seems to assume that the sheer intensity of funniness removes the need for other persons, which I find questionable.
Regarding your attempt to turn the tables... first of all, that's funny. Anyways, I think that as long as the Unitarian has an analysis of humor that accommodates God's funniness despite being one Person, then the Trinitarian can use that too, and then by the Unitarian's own analysis the three Persons would still be funny if per impossible they existed alone. It's just that they in fact are funny together.
Always appreciate your thoughts! :)
A few counters:
Love is always defined as a relationship between two persons which is why the argument works for love. However, funny is not a characteristic of relationship, it is a characteristic of the nature of something. Suppose, someone you consider funny wakes up one morning and everyone else in the world has died except for him. The funny man would not somehow become unfunny just because everyone else died. So the God of Judaism or Islam could still be funny even with no one to enjoy the joke.
You make the point that it would be sad for someone to just think themself to be funny without anyone else enjoying it, however, this is because humans are not perfect while God is. For example, God desires worship and many atheists argue this is bad because they compare it to humans desiring worship. But we counter by saying that because God is perfect he can desire worship since he objectively does deserve worship. Humans aren’t perfect and therefore don’t desire worship. Similarly, God can think himself to be funny while being perfectly right because he is truly perfect
And then we could even argue if humor would even be a thing between 3 divine persons if they are all omniscient. Humor is so much about the surprise of the punchline for the audience, if they knew the punchline since eternity would it even be humor to them? Or would they just appreciate the other persons as being funny by nature even if they can fall for a joke? If it’s just about appreciating the nature of being funny and not about telling jokes then it would not require multiple persons
For theses reasons I think the argument fails compared to the love argument
In your first counter, it seems the only reason the funny man could be considered funny in the first place was because there used to be others to recognize him as funny. In the Unitarian God’s case, there is nobody else to recognize Him as funny. Also, if you believe in an afterlife, you could say that the people who have died still recognize him as funny.
In your second counter, it doesn’t seem like the scenarios are symmetrical, in one case, God is worship-worthy because He meets the normal criteria for being worshiped. But, in the second case, God is not considered funny because He meets the normal criteria for funniness, but rather He is considered funny because He meets His own standard of funniness.
As to your third counter, while surprise is part of many (or even most) things that are funny, it doesn’t seem to be necessary for being funny. For instance, we find things we ourselves have said and jokes we have heard many times before to be funny, but there doesn’t seem to be any element of surprise in those scenarios.
YAYYYYYYY Man you are doing a great job on these! Please upload more (as much as you can) :)
I think humor is good and all good things come from God.
You are humanizing god! Being funny is not a good property, might be for humans but not God, nor does loneliness is bad property, God isn’t needy as humans.
This argument will fall miserably against Muslims simply because you don't understand how superior the concept of God in Islam is.
You believe in the existence of 3 persons, each is God, love each other, one makes a joke and the others laugh, and then feels satisfied that the others understood his joke and thought it’s funny… and then concluding irrationally that it’s 1 God.
I cannot pass that, tell us you believe in 3 Gods, and then let’s talk about the argument/video. You can’t have your cake and eat it too!
How can a person love him/herself given that love is selfless?
Who decided that love is selfless?
@@vinnygiggidy no one. Love just is selfless.
@@vinnygiggidy God. And because there's no such thing as a "selfless jerk."
My turn for a question. Most of the world has a wrong definition of love. What will you do about it?
@@lkae4 I was unaware that most of the world's definition of love was wrong. Whats the correct one?
@@vinnygiggidy Love is selfless, man. That's the whole thread.
Are you an atheist? Do you realize that atheism is useless to humanity? Do you realize that self-love is such a nonsense term that even atheist professionals quit using it? They call it self-compassion, not self-love. Because even atheists know self-love is a nonsense term.
This is fun you’re videos are fun
PS sorry for the comment spam it’s cause I am sleepy
So... The purpose of creation was a cosmic joke? Kinda makes sense. Do I smell a new theodicy?
What's the difference between a being and a person?
I don't know how serious this argument is supposed to be, but I don't think it succeeds. You say we find it sad if someone is the only one to laugh at his jokes. While this may be true, the underlying reason we find it sad (there is nothing wrong with laughing at your own jokes and finding them funny) isn't because of the coincidence of being the only one to laugh, but because it implies no one else finds it funny, and hence that person has a messed up or otherwise weird sense of humor.
Here is an analogy as to why I think the video's argument fails: imagine Person A. Person A is very affable, funny, loving, patient, and is a great guy to have around. But let us say that one day he is unjustly thrown into prison, and put into solitary confinement for heinous crimes he never committed. He's very patient and takes the good and the bad from God's hand, and so it doesn't bother him and he is not traumatized, etc. Does this affect his affable character, or is it just a coincidence that he cannot now at this moment make others laugh? I would say his affable and funny character remains despite being alone, but that he simply cannot express his "funniness" to others.
Thinking in this way, the character of "funniness" does not depend upon making others laugh, but is merely the occasion of expressing the "funniness."
The love argument works better because the common definition of love is to will the good of the other, but this can only be if there is an "other," so on the face if it it looks impossible to love if there is no other. But I wonder if a similar argument can be made to the joke argument, namely that lacking opportunity doesn't take away from one's character or attributes.
But this also can also invite further contemplation into God's attributes. If God is omniscient, that means He always knew He would create, and if immutable, He always had the Will to create. Now, creation is a good thing, and so in fact He has always willed the good of the other. Even though creation is unnecessary for Him He must have always found it fitting, and this even just by itself implies His Love.
There is a long line of philosophical thought that finds the Trinity, the key Mystery of the Christian Faith, to be a matter of Revelation instead of a matter able to be discovered by pure reason alone, and I am partial to that view if you cannot tell. Don't take me as a teacher or anything. I'm just putting my thoughts out there.
I might have to disagree on this one. Say for example, there is a man who is patient. I would argue that he doesn't need to be enacting his patience all the time to be called a patient man. The attribute of love and compassion is the same as well. It is a property or attribute that can intrinsically exist in an entity, which has the potential to be expressed if this being wishes to do so. A person may carry the attribute of compassion and love, as it being embedded in their DNA or brain, even if they were the only living person on an island.
Now carrying this to God, there is no problem in saying that God has all the eternal attributes of perfection, and he has the divine will to manifest those attributes whenever and however he wishes. Now this would also assume a temporal aspect, but we can try to imagine that God has already created contingent beings since pre eternity, and has always manifested his attributes in infinite different ways across universes.
Couldn’t you just say that the quality of All Loving in Unitarianism understanding to God is an ability that doesn’t need to be acted out necessarily for it to exist? The same way quality of All Merciful could stay in tact within God without being exercised as Mercy is also relational. Why does the properties of God need to be exercised eternally to exist?
When a comedian is writing their own material, and sifting between which jokes of his are funny or not, wouldn't the property of 'being funny' apply to him when he does in fact produce jokes that he finds to be funny?
Nice one
Thanks! :)
Polytheists (which Trinitarians would be if they were intellectually honest) laugh.
I think an objection could be raised that if something like Atonement is a good property (hard to dispute), then it proves that God can be with good properties without actualizing them. (Since obviously atonement occurred after creating)
but Atonement is an action not a quality
I am not an expert, but it seems likely to me that Islam would happily say that concepts like humour are beneath the dignity of Allah.
We have ahadith that affirm that God laughs
@@khitir1500 I see, I thought I saw another comment here that suggested otherwise. Thanks for clarifying.
I presume you are a Unitarian? What do you make of the argument?
@@MatthewFearnley
Hadith mentions laughing/smiling at goodness. An example is a man for whatever reason killing another but they both enter heaven together (where everyone btw becomes friends). That does seem to have some irony in a good sense in it. But still describing God as speaking gags and whatever is not being respectful to God.
But God is not just love. He is also just. But it gets "weird" to say father is doing justice with son and hs just like how it gets "weird" to say God loves himself. And I find counter arguments for trinity stronger like God has aseity but the 2nd and 3rd persons don't seem to have aseity. You might get around the problem by giving complex explanations or something. But so can muslims or jews. Why can't God for example love those who will come in the future or something by being outside having linear perception of time?
@@condorianonegdiffsgoku Hi.
I can probably agree that God can love beings that don't exist yet, but not ones that never exist. His love is contingent on their existing at some point.
Each member of the Trinity of course treats one another justly and righteously. But I guess ultimately we have to say that unless sinful beings exist necessarily, condemnation and forgiveness and long-suffering cannot be necessary attributes of God, but are merely facets of God's other attributes, like holiness, righteousness or love.
I'm not necessarily opposed to a "heirarchy" within the Trinity. Perhaps one person is "necessarily/eternally contingent" on another.
I don't think that we can claim the same thing about ourselves though.
What does 1 equal?
Jews: 1.
Christians: 3.
Love this.
So why can't God be a comedic duo instead? :)
According to st. Augustine, the son is the father's knowledge of himself and the holy spirit is the love between them, so God can be seen as a comic duo and the holy spirit is the humor that flows between them
You are taking good things for humans and trying to compare it it to a god it doesn’t work. you cannot take good human traits and fit it into a god. Imagine it like this we are a 1d drawing just aline and god is a 3d cube. thats just an example its more deep than that but you get the point
Good explanation, but I feel this kinda breaks the concept of Trinitarianism tho.
What if one were to say that being funny is an emergent or dependent property? That is to say, funniness is not truly a distinct quality, but more of a composite of underlying qualities and circumstances.
Maybe funniness requires a certain level and kind of intelligence, and a certain intention, and a certain environment before it can manifest. Could you then truly consider God to be lacking an essential good quality? If so, why don't we hold it against God that He is not nutritious? Being nutritious is a good quality too, but similarly to funniness, nutritiousness is a dependent / emergent property and therefore God is not required to possess the quality of being nutritious since it is not an essential quality.
I don't think this argument holds water, I'm afraid. All three persons are omniscient. What makes humor possible is that the punchline is unexpected. Think of listening to a truly funny person telling you a bunch of jokes but you know the punchlines to all of them. Not so funny.
The love argument definitely works imo, though
Well, arent some jokes so good we find funny even when we already know the punchline?
@@alexandremotkalyuk7184 true, I probably laugh at my own jokes an inordinate amount...lol
As Jesus set aside some of the attributes of God in the incarnation, such as omniscience, perhaps members of the Godhead do it for the sake of a really good joke 😀.
Is it the case that every good property is essentially and necessarily predicable of God? For example, it seems that smelling good is a good property, but to say that God smells good sounds... odd, at best.
God is Omnihilarious
I disagree that another person has to be around to appreciate or perceive the joke-teller as funny in order for the joke-teller to be funny. I don't think it would be "sad" in a manner of speaking. For instance, people can imagine scenarios in their head, and they may laugh at it to themselves because they find it funny. In a sense, they are funny individuals because they've concocted something funny. We may not share those things either because it may be hard to articulate such scenarios out loud. At the very least, I've had moments like this, but then again, I'm a pretty sad individual, so I could be very wrong about this. So I think the unitarian has a way out of the argument.
Plus, I think that this argument may entail certain problems for the theist. If funniness requires other conscious beings to be around the joke-teller, couldn't we also apply similar logic to moral goodness? Normally for instance, when we say that a person is good, we think they're good because of certain actions they perform and how they interact with beings around them. However, if you want to argue that God has free will, then there are worlds in which he's alone. How could God be said to be morally good in those "alone" worlds if he hasn't performed any actions which are praiseworthy? It seems that God is no longer morally good out of metaphysical necessity.
What about God’s perfect justice and wrath? Even under trinitarianism you would have to believe that the persons of the Trinity judged or had wrath against each other.
Wouldnt you believe that all 3 are just and fair not that they have to judge eachother
@@j.gstudios4576
What about wrath, or for that matter, mercy? It seems both wrath and mercy require sin in order to be exercised, but without the creation there would be no sin, which means God would be dependent upon creation for His perfection.
@@landonhaire3903 wow nice thought provoking questions. I honestly have never heard something like this and don't know how to answer lol. Maybe apologetics squared can answer tho but only time will tell I guess
I would say that wrath isn't *intrinsically* good. It's only good if there's something bad to be wrathful towards. And, justice isn't only about punishment. It can be about reward if a party is praiseworthy.
@@ApologeticsSquared What about mercy/forgivingness, which is dependent on there being sin, would it also not be intrinsically good?
God could still have the intrinsic property of being loving and funny and whatever.
Sure, in an empty universe he won't be displaying it currently.
Even a trinitarian God wouldn't be displaying some good making attributes in an empty world. Like being good at playing football.
But counterfactually, if there was a football field he would be good.
Same with funny, same with loving or anything else. He has the intrinsic nature of being good at these things, he just isn't currently displaying that prowess.
May Allāh (AWJ/عَزَّ وَجَلَّ) bless you. You are clearly brainwashed, I feel bad for you.
Lol
The best kind of love is relational? That is an assertion I would like you to defend. Why is relational love better than self love exactly? Also you seem to imply that if there is no additional conscience beings to love, God has nothing to love so love can not exist. Does God not love heaven? If not why? If so then that is 1 example of a way God can love and express that love without additional conscience beings.
Also funny is subjective. So to say God is funny because funny is a good thing to be sounds arbitrary, which begs many questions.
Is god the standard of funny?
Is god a maximally funny being?
If God finds something funny does that mean it must be funny?
If I find something funny that God does not did I just go against God's nature? And if so did I commit a sin?
Heaven was created for what I know. And being ignorant isnt a sin, or is it? (If you find an heavenly joke not funny you must be ignorant at least)
Wait, god could have refrained from creating things?
Then why didn't he omit suffering? Child Cancer? Genetic diseases? Why didn't he just not create Satan?
Just seems weird that in this video you'll say he can refrain but in others you argue he can't because "it has to be that way."
I prefer existance eith temporary pain. Than not existing. And most people who kill themselfs would find the next life (and therefore existamce) much better than unexistance
It sounds like you’re imagining an argument along the lines of: “Why did God create Satan? Well, he is Creator, so if a thing can exist, God must create it, and so it must exist.”
I’ve not heard an argument like that, but yes, you could argue against it by claiming that God can refrain from creating things.
@@alexandremotkalyuk7184 would you prefer an existence without child cancer?
@@MatthewFearnley Squared has made several videos in which he states that God could not have done otherwise.
@@ShouVertica As in, God could not have not created the Universe - implying the Universe is necessary, rather than contingent?
I don’t remember him making that argument like that. Can you provide a reference?
Jokes disprove omniscience. They would always see the punchline coming...
It is one of the positives to surprise.
It seems that certain definitions funniness and humor would be incompatible with other properties God is taken to have. The superiority theory couldn't work because none of the members of the trinity could rightly feel superior over the others because they are coequal. The relief and incongruity theories are arguably incompatible with God's omniscience, since nothing can be unexpected for an all knowing diety.
The only theory of humor I can think of that is compatible with God being funny would be one in which humor is a form of play. Perhaps the case for the virtue of playfulness can be made. However, it seems to me that someone could plausibly adopt the position that playfulness is only instrumentally good because of the benefits it offers in social interaction, not intrinsically good. Thus, God might not need to be funny to have all intrinsically good properties
I agree that this argument wouldn't work with the superiority theory, but it's false so whatever. :P
Regarding relief/incongruity, I don't think omniscience causes any problems for humor. It's possible to have difficulty telling a friend a joke because you're already laughing at the joke and unable to get it out. In that case, your knowledge of the joke doesn't diminish the humor, because of the communal dynamic.
@@ApologeticsSquared Fair enough. By the same token, we also seem to bring to our own mind certain jokes and sometimes laugh at them. Yet we are one person, not three people. Could something like this be possible on the unitarian view of God?
@@nickolashessler314 Yes! I was trying to be very specific in my argument. On Unitarianism, God could have feelings of humor, but He couldn't be *funny* :)
I find myself very funny. Am I multypersonal?
Hid point was that finding yourself funny doesnt make you funny, because beung funny entales other persons finding you funny
@@alexandremotkalyuk7184 if I were funnier, maybe you would've known I was joking. I think that helps to prove his point actually.
I do not accept your definition of love. Someone can be a loving person on a deserted island but have nobody to love whatsoever. Likewise, I can say that God wholely loves himself. You are actually saying the exact same thing by saying the persons love each other:
1. The Father loves the Son (pick any persons in the Trinity that have a loving relationship, it does not matter).
2. The Father = God.
3. The Son = God.
4. Therefore, God loves God.
5. If God loves God, then God loves himself.
6. Therefore, God loves himself.
You say "the best kind of love is relational and directed to others", what is your evidence for that? All of these versions of this argument depend on the notion that possession of an attribute necessarily entails expression. Muslims deny that notion. God does not have to eternally or always express a certain attribute in order for us to say that God has said attribute/character trait.
4, 5, and 6 are false because they commit the word-concept fallacy. Using the same term does not entail that it is the same referent. You're confusing nature and person (as do all anti-trinitarians)
Theology
/θɪˈɒlədʒi/
noun
The study of something that has never been proven to exist in the history of world.
Like studying fairies lol.