Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Unas,
...tilting at windmills.



Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Silent Acorns

I suppose a theist could just say that "God is a quantum fluctuation with a Great personallity".

Christopher13

Is Unas still listening?
Silent Acorns, explain how something can pass from state A to state B without an explanation of its change. If something moves, it is moved by something. Events CANNOT be uncaused. Please, no one object that God must then have a cause. The whole point of this Thomistic proof is that there must be a Cause that is Uncaused. And, Wyz, I make no assumptions about God at all. The proof runs this way, in brief:There must be a Prime Mover, this Prime Mover corresponds to what most men call God, therefore there is a God. I am only being fair in stating that this is how Aquinas lays it out. But before objections can be made about the syllogism, what is most important in this proof is that the very idea of Prime Mover be accepted. This is the major work done in this proof. The rest follows.
Now, your question about several uncaused causes is valid as Aquinas answers this in another proof:Whether God be One or Many. Save that for a rainy day. As for now, it might be easier to remember that I am not talking about God only about the need for a Prime Mover or Uncaused Cause. And all you need acknowledge by the terms of this proof is that there must be this Uncaused Cause at the root of the universe. Do not assign it any properties at all yet. Forget about quantum fluctuations and such. Think only in terms of the proof--causes and caused.

Silent Acorns

Christopher13:

I can accept that Thomas more or less proves that there must have been at least one uncaused event in the history of the universe. It's the labeling of this event "Yahweh" that I have a very big problem with. Without the additional proof that there is only one uncaused event and that this event is in fact the same thing as Yahweh, Thomas' proof isn't much more than saying "something happened once". Hardly a reason to believe in Yahweh.

Silent Acorns

Christopher13, I also have a problem with your definition of faith as "rational acceptance on the authority of another". When is it rational to accept the authority of another? Only when the authority's argument is itself rational. How do we know that the authority's argument is rational? Only by analyzing the argument to see if it is rational. But if we do this, then we are no longer merely accepting the argument of an authority, we are figuring it out for ourselves. The authority may have given us a little insight and saved ourselves years of work searching false leads, but in the end the argument will only stand if it can be shown to be rational.

So, does your version of faith require us to analyze the argument of the authority? If yes, then this is no different from the garden variety of reason being re-labeled "faith" because someone else figured it out first. If no, then your definition of faith is basically "faith is the acceptence of another's opinion because he seems to be smart" which looks pretty darn close to "belief in the absence of evidence" to me.

diana

Sorry, I haven't read up the entire thread to this point, so someone may have already made this point:

As to the self-contradictory prime mover argument:

Everything has to come from somewhere.
Except God.
Therefore, God had to have caused everything.

God caused everything.
Except himself.
Therefore, everything came from God.



Really, now. You can spring into tangents about how infinite regression isn't possible (an unprovable assertion, IMO), but if you plan to just come back to positing an infinite being, you're leaping into the same boat you just sank.

No matter how much chaff you throw into the air to divert your enemy, it still boils down to the fact that you are defining "everything" so as to exclude God for the express purpose of making him free to create "everything."

It is impossible to formulate this argument for God's existence without presupposing God's infinite existence, as it isn't possible to define "everything" in such a way as to exclude God unless you first assume a God.

It's really embarrassingly simple.

The Christian definition of "everything," oddly enough, only automatically omits something/anything when "proving" God logically. I doubt a Christian goes into a storage shed to help a friend move, listens to the friend's direction that everything needs to go, then mistakes this to mean "except those two boxes there." No. He knows what "everything" means. "Everything" excludes nothing.

If everything requires a mover, that would necessarily include God himself. Furthermore, the assertion that everything requires a mover is inseparable from the idea of infinite regression.

Anyone who's convinced themselves that both (1) everything requires a catalyst, and (2) infinite regression is impossible probably doesn't know what it's like to not experience cognitive dissonance, and therefore has no basis for comparison that would otherwise alert them that that discomfort they feel could be alleviated if they confront the contradictory ideas and ferret out the imposter.

Also, Aquinas' proof begins with what we see in nature, that things do not move unless moved by another.

You do realize, of course, that the idea that "things do not move unless moved by another" is, in the same sense as evolution, just a theory.

Don't you?

d

diana

Christopher,

Just so you know, I'm not ignoring you.

Until you answer my basic questions on page one directed at you, I'll simply assume you've lost interest in continuing this discussion with me.

d

Theli

Your argument is clearly contradictory, regardless of how you obtained it.
No, I never said that. Why should I have to prove an assertion I haven't even made. I was just pointing out the fallacy in your argument, not offering a substitute.
And as far as I see, the contradiction in your argument still exists.

Here it is in your own words:
"...everything requires a sufficient explanation of itself, that is, if it is not the cause of its own being, then something else causes it to be. The Prime Mover is simply that which is its own cause."

If a cause is not a necessity (as you stated above), then why would every event need a "prime mover"?
If you cannot trace the events backwards or prove the existence of this prime mover, then your argument fails, as it is based on the supposed need for a prime mover.

Ehhh... I just read your latest post, and here the fallacies are even more apperant.

C13 1: "Events CANNOT be uncaused"
C13 2: "...there must be a Cause that is Uncaused"
You must have missed this contradiction when writing the post.
Ad populum and wrong at the same time. Most people do not believe in your god, and even if they did it would not make it true.
And ofcourse, "prime mover" still needs to be straighten out and have all contradictions removed.

Christopher13

Are there now two threads here? Faith vs. Reason and Prime Mover?
I'll try the first briefly and then leave it up to Scotsmanmatt. My position is that faith is reasonable. The Thomistic position is that "articles of faith" concern things revealed by God, that is not knowable by unaided human reason. But they are not absurd. This is basically it. I don't care really to get into the theology of why faith is not an embarrassment to "rational" people. You could suggest another thread perhaps.
Diana and Theli, I will treat you together. Maybe re-read my above posts if you want to be bored. But it seems that Diana has a point I have not previously alluded to, namely that the Prime Mover proof presupposes a vague notion of God. Do not be premature with your A-hahs. The mind must know what it is looking for before it can find it. This is how it works.
So, let me start the proof over with this in mind. I think all the cards are on the table now. If you are still not convinced, it is because you cannot accept realist epistemology (read Aristotelian if you prefer). Thomas argues elsewhere that "knowledge begins in the senses." But, contrary to some moderns, it does not end there. All five Thomistic proofs begin with natural observation. Things are seen to move. The mind spontaneously understands this movement as involving the notion of act and potency (though these notions are made explicit only upon reflection as is the case with concepts). It understands that something that moves must be acquiring a new actuality (or perhaps a deficiency). This actuality can not be given to itself but requires a mover. (Again, I wish I had jumped to the second proof which is less confusing to us now as it involves causes of being instead of just causes, moving causes, of simple motion . . .)
Here you go, now. The proof agrees that there cannot be an infinite regression of causes (Aristotle) in the sense that if a series of intermediate causes were infinite in number, none of them being the uncaused cause, they could never have been moved at all, therefore nothing would now exist. This is plainly contrary to fact--things do exist--therefore, there must be an Uncaused Cause. (This is still independent of the question of an eternal universe just to confuse us all, as I was at pains to show above, but try to forget this.)
Now, the middle term of this proof is that the Prime Mover, above established, is what most men call God. This is Thomas' language. But what it means is that, despite what you all claim, men have always and everywhere had a vague notion (Aristotle says this comes from the wonder of looking into one's soul and up at the stars) of God, whatever its foggy content. You, too, know what is meant by God. Don't fool yourselves into denyint it. This admission does not make you a theist, don't worry. This is what I meant above when I said that the mind must know what it is looking for before it can find it, even if only vaguely.
So:There is a Prime Mover;this all men understand to be God (or this is roughly what most men would agree is an acceptable first definition of God);therefore, there is a God. Now, attack if you will, the logic if you feel up to it, but if you do not accept the major premise of a Prime Mover, don't even go there. You've got work to do. (And, Theli, don't take my jests so literally, please.) (You guys are killing me.)

P.S. Silent Acorns, I am nowhere near proving the identity of this Prime Mover and the Christian God. All you can do after acknowledging this proof is start your own Church of the Prime Mover if you are so inclined. For some reason, this has never caught on . . . .

Silent Acorns

Just so that we understand each other, I object to the phrase "Prime Mover" in the context of Thomas' proof. The most we can say is that Thomas has proven that at least one uncaused event has occured, or that our common sense notion of "cause" doesn't apply to the origin of the universe and time. Without something more one can't justify any talk of a "mover" since this implies that the uncaused event is a being of some kind.

There's nothing in Thomas' proof that rules out an "uncaused big bang" or an "uncaused quantum fluctuation" or an "uncaused ______" (fill in the blank).

Saying "something happened, I call this God, therefore God exists" is no more legitimate than saying "there is a Sun, I call this God, therefore God exists".