mirage

There is a distinction between a universe where cause is not a fundamental principle and no consistent behaviour at all. Some things can be so unlikely that they never occur. You can generate a macroscopically causal system from a probabilistic micro one.

mirage

I agree, I don't like the concepts one bit, they are useless.

But they can be atemporal.

You just say object A is eternal and unchanging and that all other objects are contingent upon its existence at all times.

That way, you are not focusing on a creation "event" at the start, and can have all the boundarylessness you want.

Wiploc

You must not understand it.



Yikes! Let me summarize the argument:

P1: Premise two is false.
P2: Premine one is false.
C: Conclusion unrelated to the premises.

You have picked up, apparently, on the fact that the premises don't lead to the conclusion, but have somehow overlooked that contradictory premises can't lead to any conclusion at all. Also, there is no reason to believe either of the premises. Also, the argument equivocates (contradicts itself) about what is meant by the word "universe." Also "beginning." Also it equivocates on whether causes precede beginnings.

If you'll set out the cosmological argument that you think has merit, I'll be happy to trash it for you.



No, the cosmological argument cannot be granted at all. It has no virtue. Other than smoke and mirrors, there is nothing to it.

crc

luvluv

wiploc:

That would only be logic, right? I mean, what else limits an Omnipotent Being?

Then what the heck are they? I don't see any non-logical limitations to how God can interact with the world. He's omnipotent, so by definition any non-logical barriers there are He can break at will.

If "everything" is taken to include God, then I don't think such an argument has ever been made. If "everything" is taken to include logic, then such an argument has been made very rarely, at least within the Judeo-Christian tradition. (Muslims, I'm told, do hold that God created even the "laws" of logic, and could rescind them if He so desired.)

When, exactly, did we reduce God to a powerful alien? And it's far from clear that such a being would be "just another cause" in his own "little" timeline. He could be the only cause and the only thing sustaining His timeline; the timeline could, if you will, be an epiphenomenon of His existence. Not created by Him, perhaps, but having it's existence dependent on Him.

I don't think we've yet established that anyone needed to make Him. Again, if we're talking about the Judeo-Christian God, the question of who or what made Him is nonsensical.

Personally, I don't see it. But at any rate, most theists nowadays just stick to the creation of the physical universe as evidence for God's existence. Richard Swinburne, for example, uses a probalistic cosmological argument in his Bayesian argument for God in the book The Existence of God. It's not necessary to promote the cosmological argument with something like the Principle of Sufficient Reason or some idea of the impossibility of an infinite regress. Some folks, like Swinburne, Howard Van Till, and others, promote the argument almost entirely on the basis of scientific evidence for an origin event in this universe.

HRG

I don't see how you would distinguish on the basis of today's observations between an infinite regress and a set of "first causes". And there is a second gap in the C.A. (which is seldom discussed): why should there be only a single uncaused cause ?

Of course, I agree with the rest of your argumentation.

Regards, HRG.

HRG

Are you sure ? AFAIK, homogenous universes with negative curvature (Omega>1) are always infinite, while flat universes (Omega=1) can be infinite or finite: e.g. a 3-dimensional torus.

Regards, HRG.

KleinGordon

Awk, sorry you are correct of course! It should read flat and infinite not just infinite. Thanks for pointing that out.

I think the toroid being ruled out for other reasons, but I can't find the link right now. Here is one about another shape that was thought to be consistent with the WMAP data for awhile - the soccer ball appears to be ruled out,

http://www.montana.edu/commserv/csne...p?article=1304

Like I mentioned before, the WMAP year two data has been delayed for a long time now so who knows what surprises lie ahead.

Regards,
KG

Wiploc

Me? You aren't quoting me. In fact, I don't even find where you are quoting from. But okay.

Logic would be the only thing that limits a punk-omnipotent being, so I'll assume that is what we're discussing.


Note that the cosmological argument is supposed to be about, "Where did everything come from?" about, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" In which context, it is often fraudulent to use the word "universe" to refer to just part of what exists.

Let me suggest that, logically speaking, there is no difference between something that doesn't exist at any time and something that doesn't exist, and likewise between something that doesn't exist in any place and something that doesn't exist.

And if you don't incline to call any of those "logical limitations," then why shouldn't we call effects-not-preceding-causes a non-logical problem? You have to do that anyway if you're going to call time part of the "universe" and say that god (a cause) created time (an effect) without being before time (being before time is logically impossible).

So if you say logic requires causes to precede effects, then god can't have caused the "universe" (assuming "universe" includes time). And if you don't say that causes must precede effects, then you have disposed of the basis of the cosmological argument. If causes don't precede effects, then the beginning of the universe needn't be caused by anything "outside" of it. Either way, the cosmological argument spins its wheels without actually going anywhere.


"God created himself." That's what my mother taught me.


We're talking about nutso self-contradictory doctrines that different people are going to rationalize different ways. People will be all over the map on this regardless of what church they are in.


People try to sneak in some particular god disguised as the "first cause." That's usually the whole point of the cosmological argument. Otherwise, we could say, "Yes, the big bang is the first cause," and put this controversy to bed. So, proposing the first cause as an alien isn't "reducing" god to anything.


Not according to the first premise of the cosmological argument. Not according to logic. You can only get to your result by arbitrarily picking some of the fluctuating and contradictory descriptions of this evolving god and calling your arbitrary picks the definition of the god. There's nothing nonsensical about suggesting that the creator of our universe could have had a creator of his universe, nor that the creator of Adam could have had a creator himself. In fact, even if the first cause argument did work, it wouldn't favor a single creator god over any finite sequence of creator gods, any more than it favors Jehovah over an alien.


Some do it one way; some do it another. They all do it wrong. The job of the rationalist is not to refute some ideal or standard or orthodox version of the cosmological argument. Our job is to correct the error of the particular person we are talking to at the time.

crc

mirage

You won't get rid of me that easily! I know my own nonsense when I see it quoted.
He was removed to this external time context specifically because creation of spacetime from something within it is impossible. So he can't create his own external spacetime for the same reason.
Either God is dependent on his spacetime to exist or he is not. If he isn't, then what is this external spacetime for? If he is, then how did can create/sustain it?
It's not nonsensical. You clearly understand the question. It's just ruled out a priori. This does not make the Judeo-Christian conception of God coherent by itself. The Cosmo argument argues (fallaciously) that a first cause is a necessity. Yet here we have this "cause" nestled within his own spacetime, which he cannot have created.
"Physical universe" is a meaningless term. It's cheating.
And their efforts are most amusing from what I've seen. I would argue with Van Till but he maintains that I can't even reason, being a non believer.

luvluv

mirage:

My bad.

Not on an absolutist account, but on a relationist account he assuredly could.

I'd probably conceive of it as merely a relationalist account of his own acting, or the sequential ordering of His thoughts (if such there be). I'm a relationalist, I don't think time is a real thing for us, I certainly don't think it's a real thing to God. God acts, and those acts can be put in sequential order, and thus to that extent it could be said that He operates in time. But time relationally exists merely as a consequence of His actions.

Relationally, in a sense, He certainly can have "created" it, or at least, it's existence is dependent on Him.

It's a completely coherent term, you just demand that everyone else adopt your definition of "the universe = everything" because it automatically supports your position. You win today's Spinoza Award for cooking initial definitions so that they inevitably lead to your preffered conclusions..

The idea of a physical universe as encompassing matter-energy, space-time as something whose existence is and can be seperate from the question of the existence of the things that made it (if such there be) is totally acceptable.

Have you ever actually read them from the horse's mouth? What's the amusing part of Swinburnes probalistic cosmological argument?

You're thinking of Cornelius Van Til. I'm talking about Howard Van Till. Two different guys, and on totally opposite ends of the theological specturm. Howard Van Till is a PhD'd physicist and is more of a liberal, theistic evolutionist, who makes teleological and cosmological arguments based on the latest in cosmology. Other differences between he and Cornelius include the facts that Howard argues against Creationism, and is still alive.