In defence of Strong Ignosticism

[McCulloch]

Strong Ignosticism (also known as Theological Noncognitivism) is the argument that religious language, and specifically words like God, are not cognitively meaningful. [Wikipedia]

Some definitions of God, such as "God is that which caused everything but God" is clearly circular.

Question for debate: Can anyone invalidate the Strong Ignostic position by providing a coherent, meaningful definition for the word God?

[Divine Insight]

Question for debate: Can anyone invalidate the Strong Ignostic position by providing a coherent, meaningful definition for the word God?

I don't know if this would invalidate Strong Ignosticism or not, but here are my "definitions" of "God". I offer two definitions only in that they were worded slightly differently, but they basically mean the same thing:

def. 1 - God is the ground of all being.

def. 2 - God is the fundamental essence of all that exists.

I would like to make note further that this definition of God is considered in a philosophy of "holism" where all of reality is imagined to be a single holistic substance, matrix, or entity which is then "God".

Of course given this definition of God, we are then clearly an inseparable part of God. Nothing exists "outside of God". And God does not exist "outside" of reality because God is the essence of all that exists.

In this sense God is perfectly natural. God is nature in ever possible way.

My argument to the Ignostics is to simply state that this is a meaningful and comprehensible definition. So for them to try to claim that this is not a meaningful concept is not a valid argument on their behalf.

If they want to argue that there is no evidence for "holism" that's fine. I would argue in return that any argument for reductionism is equally without sufficient evidence.

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I would also argue that once this holistic concept of God as the essence or ground of all being is accepted, we can then move forward to considering precisely what that ground of being might actually entail. I would even argue that we currently have physics that suggests possible scenarios. I won't go into those here in this thread. But I'm just saying that not only do I feel that we can go beyond Ignosticism but I feel that we can actually create hypotheses based upon this view that may ultimately prove to be testable at some future time.

So it's not only a meaningful definition of "God" but it may even be a definition that can be brought into the scientific realm at some point.