Melchior wrote:No, you are wrong. A 'viable' argument is one that is compelling and sound. All arguments for the existence of God are either circular or otherwise fallacious, as Kant demonstrated in the Critique of Pure Reason in 1781. [emphasis added]
Philosophy of Religion has come a long way since Kant. If the best you've got is
Pure Reason, color me unimpressed, if for no other reason than that it suggests you're unfamiliar with
Practical Reason (where Kant advances the so-called "Moral Argument"* for God). You really should catch up on your reading. That, or amend your "All arguments for the existence of God" to read "All
speculative arguments for the existence of God" (and then we can get into the work in the past 200 years that challenges that position).
You would also do well to revisit your understanding of viability. The operative definition of something that is "capable of working successfully; feasible" allows for a rather wide range of arguments, and is, thankfully, immune to your particular druthers with regard to compulsion.
Lev Muishkin wrote:No Yes., QED arguments for god being circular, are not viable.
Are you shooting yourself in the foot, or trying to shoot me in the foot?
Either way arguments for God as still unviable.
Where an argument is circular, yes, it is not viable. Absolutely no argument there. The arguments I offered are not circular, however (if you can demonstrate the circularity of the Kalam Cosmological Argument or the Argument from Contingency, you need to stop posting here immediately and get out on the debate circuit. You have untold riches awaiting you). Now, if you find that these arguments are not convincing, that's obviously fine. I think it's reasonable to ask you to show
why they're not convincing rather than simply stating an opinion to that effect, but I certainly wouldn't go so far as insist you agree with them. However, in the absence of some clear proof that the arguments do not hold on this or that ground (circularity is not the only way to disprove an argument), they are most certainly "viable." Remember that the viability of an argument is not grounded in whether you like it, or in what your 'gut' might tell you, but in whether you can find a flaw. So far, the Kalam and AfC arguments have not been disproved. I certainly will not hold that it is impossible to do so, but until such time as they are, there is little else one can do but but to at least acknowledge them as viable, even if they are unconvincing. ("viable" != "true")
(PS I am more than happy to work through arguments for why they're not viable if you've got them. As I said, I'm not insisting such a thing is impossible.)
*
Immanuel Kant in [i]The Critique of Practical Reason[/i], 'V. The Existence of God as a Postulate of Pure Practical Reason.' wrote:It follows that the postulate of the possibility of the high- est derived good (the best world) is likewise the postulate of the reality of a highest original good, that is to say, of the existence of God. Now it was seen to be a duty for us to promote the summum bonum; consequently it is not merely allowable, but it is a necessity connected with duty as a requisite, that we should presuppose the possibility of this summum bonum; and as this is possible only on condition of the existence of God, it inseparably connects the supposition of this with duty; that is, it is morally necessary to assume the existence of God.
