Christopher13

Hello, Theli. I don't understand your second objection. As for the others, I think I mentioned that Aquinas proves God's personality, for example, in a separate proof. The Prime Mover argument, as I mentioned, does not rule out an infinite regression of movers, or let's call them causes. An eternal universe is a possibility. The Unmoved Mover can sustain it just as easily as a universe with a beginning. What jump have I made from 10 to 0? No matter the series of causes you care to imagine, the proof only requires that you posit a mover outside the series, so to speak, that gets the ball rolling, that itself must not require a mover. This "all men call God" is simply like the phrase Aquinas uses to suggest that this Prime Mover is what most men understand to be like the God they know. Don't let it distract you. Like I said, God's other attributes require other proofs. My last statement was supposed to be funny. I'm not seeking converts.

joedad

Christopher13,

Nietzschean implications notwithstanding, how would you know the difference between your god and a supernatural atheist with the same powers?

joe

philechat

As far as what I read, what Nietzsche is really arguing against is reductionism--the idea that the entire universe can be fit in one tiny metaphysical system, which in his opinion is some sort of "gross answer". As he wrote in his Ecce Homo:

"I do not by any means know atheism as a result; even less as an event: it is a matter of course with me, from instinct. I am too inquisitive, too questionable, too exuberant to stand any gross answer. God is a gross answer, an indelicacy against us thinkers--at bottom merely a gross prohibition for us: you shall not think!"

He has a lot to criticize against the doctrine of Christianity, and is very suspicious of those who took a "leap of faith" during the pursuit of knowledge, and he asks all of us (believer or not) to question our own convictions. He is certainly no advocate of faithfulness or religious adherence from my understandings of his works.

Theli

I haven't seen this proof yet, so it is still up to you to provide it.
If the amount of movers traced backwards is infinite, then there can't be a "first mover" to speak of, as that first mover must have a cause of it's own. You mentioned a mover outside the series, but here is another flaw, the mover cannot be outside the series and cause it at the same time, as the series doesn't exist at that point. And if this mover did start the series of events then it is very much a part of it.
And about jumping from 10 to 0, if you don't know of the first stages of this universe, or the first stages before this universe came to be, then how can you determine a first cause if you cannot determine a second, third or a fourth?


And about my second objection, if we don't want to be drawn into infinite regress (as that brings alot of problems), then we must conclude that events can be uncaused. Right?
So, why should an uncaused event only happen once, as in a "first mover"?

Christopher13

Joedad, only one infinite being can exist. You explain how that being could also be an atheist.
Theli, I am not going to offer Aquinas' proof of God's personality since we have our hands full with the Prime Mover proof. Besides, I will have to consult it again before trying to please you.
Now, maybe I can clear things up here. Aquinas' proof begins with what we see in nature, that things do not move unless moved by another. (By the way, one problem with this proof to modern ears is that it is adopting Aristotle's scientific beliefs in celestial spheres and Intelligences and so forth. This is why I suggest you read mover as cause. This makes it overlap Aquinas' second proof from efficient causality, but they are similar . . .) I hope I don't confuse the issue by introducing the classical terms act and potency, but, essentially, though an object, for example, has the ability to move from A to B, it cannot do so unless moved by another or by some part of the whole of itself (as in the case of living things). What this proof ultimately is at pains to demonstrate is that nothing can be what it is not or give to itself what it does not have to give--to be simultaneously cause and effect in the same respect and at the same time.
Thus, even in an eternal universe, a Prime Mover must be posited to explain any movement whatsoever. Thinking, if you will, of the universe as one thing, it could not move or change, if something were not behind it, so to speak, to initiate movement. This is the Mover without its own Mover. Events cannot be uncaused as you suggest. This is a contradiction of what we see in nature, and, as explained above, of the relation of act and potency. The Prime Mover explains how anything can exist at all. Once again, this is not at all the Christian God, merely what pagan philosophers such as Aristotle came up with using natural reason alone. We, too, should be able to settle this.

Theli

That whole claim is a contradiction. If everything requires a cause then there can be no prime mover as it would require a cause itself. And if something (like the prime mover) can "move" without a cause, then everything does not require a cause, and thus doesn't require a prime mover.

If you cannot show this prime mover, trace all events back to it, and eliminate any other uncaused events then there is no argument.

Hawkingfan

Faith in something that you cannot see, hear, touch, feel, smell, observe, test, or prove with mathematics is rational? Whatever.
So therefore, belief in Santa Claus is reasonable, too?
There is no reason to disprove anything that cannot be proven first. Existence of angels breaks the laws of science and is therefore unreasonable. Non-existence of angels does not violate any laws and is therefore reasonable.

Christopher13

Ahh, Theli, my gadfly.
"Everything that moves is moved by another." Perhaps it is best to understand this as an induction based on observation of nature that merely jump-starts the proof. A more strict rendering of the same idea states that 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. Try, for a moment, not to think of this as a demonstration relying on finding individual causes and tracing them back scientifically via a Big Bang. This is a logical proof to which the object of the natural sciences is irrelevant. What is shown is that the universe requires a Prime Mover, an Uncaused Cause. It is you who must explain how anything exists without an Ultimate Cause that is its own cause. You will not be able to.

Wyz_sub10

You're making an unwarranted jump here. "The cause of its own being" sounds like a retrospective insertion to explain why god doesn't need a mover.

Why assume that god is the cause of his own being when we do not assume that of anything else? I could very well argue that the quantum flux that produced the universe was the cause of its own being.

Nor will you be able to demonstrate how this implies god (instead of anything else one can imagine) is an uncaused cause.

All you are saying here is that everything requires a cause except god. Why? Because he's god?

If there is indeed an "uncaused cause", there is no need for it to be god instead of a quantum fluctuation. Maybe there are several uncaused causes?

Silent Acorns

Sorry, but nature has shown us that events CAN be uncaused (radio-active decay, for example). And there is another problem with Tommy's "proof": the terms "cause" and "effect" inherently include the concept of "time", and it makes no sense to talk about the cause of time using terms that require time to make sense (or are you saying that time has always existed?).

And if that isn't enough, why should I accept that the Unmoved Mover is sufficient explanation for itself? Why do you find it so easy to accept the concept of an uncaused god, but not an uncaused universe? And how does changing the mystery of the origin of the universe to the mystery of the origin of god improve things?