Lexicon of Arguments

 

II 221
Sophism/Feyerabend: Argument form: if A, then either B or C. Neither B nor C, and therefore not A. E.g. the arguments of Zenon have this form.
Sophism/Feyerabend: E.g. God:
1) God must be one. If they were many and they were the same, there would only be one. If they are unequal, then there are some and these are one. And the others are not, and therefore do not count.
2) God cannot have emerged. If He had emerged, he would have emerged either from equal or from unequal things. The emergence from of equal things means to stay the same. Emergence from the unequal is impossible, for what is cannot come from what is not.
3) God must be omnipotent: an omnipotent God comes from equal or unequal things. In the first case, He remains the same, i.e. does not emerge. In the second case, He comes either from stronger or weaker things. He cannot come from stronger things, for then the stronger thing must still be exist. Nor can He come from the weaker things, for the weaker thing has no power to do that.
"Conservation Principles"/Theology/God/Feyerabend: the conservation principles are included in these arguments and are used in proving non-B and non-C. They assume that the only property that a God possesses is his being or his power. Differences are differences in being, i.e. between being and non-being.
Feyereabend: this is a very dilute and completely inhuman concept of God.