Jackalope

Actually, this spot is where I said, "WTF?". I've heard theists use the idea that something is "necessary," but I have yet to have them actually explain that idea and have it make any sort of sense. Anyone want to give it a go? It'd make it easier for those of us who have mostly forgotten our courses on formal logic to argue with the "intellectual" apologists.

Actually, perhaps the problem is that "logic" is the wrong word to describe what's being used for this type of christian apologetic...

Goober

No, the point of the argument is that if god does not need a cause, the premise "all events have causes" fails because god does not have a cause. If "all events have causes" is false, then the universe does not need a cause. To say "but god is metaphysical, not physical" is just special pleading. Why should metaphysical events not need causes? Why couldn't you classify the beginning of the universe as a metaphysical event? Why should god be metaphysical?

If you want to continue this discussion, it might be wise to start a new thread, I think this is getting off topic here.

Normal

The beginning of the world IS a metaphysical event, at least in my belief, in that it was caused by something outside the bounds of physics as we know it. Occam's razor takes god out of the picture, but our lack of understanding of anything metaphysical in this nature leads me to doubt the reality of that conclusion.

I doubt another thread on this would lead to any new discoveries on First Cause debates.

Unbeliever

I found a place on-line that gives these arguments verbatim, so I don't have to take so much time typing them in here. The next one is the Argument from Degrees of Perfection:

This is also known as Aquinas' Forth Way, which he formulated from an observation about tha qualities of things. One may say, for example, that of two statues one is more beautiful than the other. This is referred to as "degrees of gradation of a quality". From this "fact" Aquinas concluded that for any given quality there must be a perfect standard by which all such qualities are measured. According to him, these perfections are contained in God.

But to say that God is perfect is to say nothing at all about God. Is he perfectly good, or perfectly evil? Is he perfectly large, or perfectly small? Is he perfectly non-existent?

We do not naturally think of things "on a scale approaching most and least", but even if we did it would not mean that "most" and "least" represented any kind of "perfection", which is an abstract term that cannot be applied to any real thing. There is no "perfect whiteness", or a "perfect heat".

But then the argument, as presented in the link, tries to say that qualities like "goodness" are in some way similar to physical qualities like color or temperature! Those are objective, quantifiable qualities; but "goodness" is a completely subjective term, and therefore relative. In the example of two statues, who is to say which is the more beautiful? "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder", after all, and so is goodness.

So this argument fails miserably as proof of God's existence, since it has not demonstrated the existence of "degrees of perfection", nor that perfection even exists as a real quality of anything, much less God. I find it hard to believe that anyone still tries to put forth such babble as a valid philosophical argument!

Phanes

I've always thought this one was particularly odd. Is there something perfectly evil? Perfectly big? Perfectly small? Perfectly smelly? Perfectly red? Perfectly sexy? (Okay, no comments from the peanut gallery on that one )

Just a poor man's version of Platonism.

PaladInChrist

How exactly can these cycles of universes regress infinitely back in time?

IF that were the case, we would never even exist due to the fact that an infinite set can not be traversed.

Volker

This would be a usefull proof for the nonexistence of god. If he exists for an infinite time, he would never even exist due to the fact that an infinite set can not be traversed.

Not really: The logic is flawed, so this is neither a proof for the nonexistence of god nor a proof that the universe can't exist for an infinite period of time. It is a proof that we can't understand infinity so easily.

PaladInChrist

Nope, sorry, God exists outside of time, no infinity doesn't apply to Him.

Unbeliever

I've never understood how God (or anything else, for that matter) could exist outside of time. How could he ever do anything at all? Any action requires time in order to be accomplished. There would have to be a "before the action" and an "after the action", wouldn't there? The same applies to any decision he might make, so he could never have decided to create the universe. Hence there would have to be time. The whole concept of being "outside of time" is meaningless, nothing but sophistry.

beastmaster

Even if you give this argument more credit than it deserves, at best it proves the existence of static Platonic forms. It does not prove the existence of a volitional, personal Creator/Savior God who acts upon the physical universe, which is, after all, the only God that matters at the end of the day.