The Argument from the Origin of the Idea of God - Refuted

These are the standard objections to argument #12 on the list provided here...

http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/20_arguments-gods-existence.htm

The argument goes like this...

1 We have ideas of many things.

2 These ideas must arise either from ourselves or from things outside us.

3 One of the ideas we have is the idea of God—an infinite, all-perfect being.

4 This idea could not have been caused by ourselves, because we know ourselves to be limited and imperfect, and no effect can be greater than its cause.

5 Therefore, the idea must have been caused by something outside us which has nothing less than the qualities contained in the idea of God.

6 But only God himself has those qualities.

7 Therefore God himself must be the cause of the idea we have of him.

8 Therefore God exists.

Objections to the argument

The argument states that because we have an idea of God, and god is infinite and perfect, the idea had to come from outside of us since we, imperfect beings, couldn’t create something perfect. This conflates God with our idea of God. If the argument is to work, our idea of God has to be infinite and perfect, which is impossible according to the argument that our minds are limited.

The second premise is false. "Things outside us" can cause us to have ideas, but the ideas themselves arise as a product of our minds. It's true that we can hear about other people's ideas which may give us new ideas, but those ideas are coming from people, not "things".

Premise 3 says that one of the ideas we have is the idea of God - but actually there are millions of ideas about God or gods, and they all originate from people.

Premise 4 is factually incorrect. We may indeed be limited and imperfect - but that doesn't prevent anyone having an idea about God, including a perfect God. I can easily have an idea about an infinite, all-perfect pink unicorn - and if you've read this you've just had the same idea without wanting to. That doesn't mean infinite, all-perfect pink unicorns exist.

The argument is also circular in that it assumes God has the qualities of being perfect and infinite in order to demonstrate that only God can be infinite and perfect.