>>11385687When I perceive a slice of pizza I am struck only with ideas of a pizza-like fashion. For instance, the appearance of cheese, the smell of tomato sauce, and the feeling of hot grease. Nowhere in these ideas is to be found anything material. Of course if there are ideas, then there must be minds to perceive them, so we can see that, as empiricists, we really only need two ontological commitments: ideas exist and minds exist.
Great, so that's out of the way. Now we must ask wherein the source of these ideas lies? After all, given the consistency between my ideas of the world and the apparent consistency between my experiences and the experiences of other minds, it stands to reason that their must be some common source behind them.
Maintaining the ontological simplicity that we already have, there are three possibilities. First, the source of the ideas is my mind. Second, the source of these ideas is some other idea or ideas. Third, the source of these ideas is some other mind.
The first possibility is implausible, for I do not have the mental capacity to imagine the whole world, yet ideas of the world exist even when I'm not think of them. As well, I cannot help but notice that I have no power to change the ideas the strike me. I cannot force myself to perceive a pizza in the way that I perceive my keyboard in front of me. So I am not the source of the ideas.
The second idea is unhelpful since it opens us up to an infinite regress with no real explanation in sight.
That leaves us with only one possibility, that the source of these ideas is some other mind. A very great mind, in fact, that would be capable of imagining all of creation at once. But what could such a mind be besides God? There is nothing else it could be, therefore God exists.
