mattdamore

What do you mean by 'assumptions'?

I don't think I follow you. Are you arguing for the incoherency of rationally explaining the temporal state of affairs existing before the existence (or creation) of time? If so, then I think you are confusing logical priority with temporal priority. God is said to be causally/logically prior to the Big Bang. He is not 'temporally' before the Big Bang, since that is an incoherent concept. If the beginning of time happened at the Big Bang, then it makes no sense to speak of a being existing in a particular temporal frame-work. Since it would be the case that time both started and did not start at the Big Bang: a contradiction. Either it did or it didn't. I would argue that it did, and that God's existential relationship to that fact should be known to be in terms of causal/logical priority, not temporal. I may have completely understood what you were trying to communicate though. If I did, I apologize.

The view is something like this: Prior to the space-time universe, God existed. But if God existed prior to time then he cannot be a part of time. Hence, God is timeless. Some argue that God may participate in a sort of proto-time prior to the universe. Philosopher William Lane Craig believes that God can exist in a state of tranquility that is undisturbed by anything until he actually creates the universe. Also, it is important to mention, that the existence of time requires the succession of events. If only God exists and is left alone to his simultaneous thoughts, there is no opportunity to conceive of time. But if God creates something that did not exist then there is a definite succession of events ensuing. Therefore, God then enters into time at the moment of creation.

Well, then I suggest that you find the answer that question by some other means than the laws of physics, since the question in conjunction with the answer doesn't lie in the area of physics, but metaphysics. It's not a scientific question at all, it's a philosophical question.

I, again, don't think I follow you. Are you assuming that being able to change is not a necessary condition for existing within time. If so, why?

I don't think this has to be an assumption. I can understand the confusion. But, philosophically, the error lies in this misguided definition that "to exist" entails a temporal existence. And this is just false. Think of the Platonic Forms that supposedly served as the archetypes for every particular thing in this universe. Moreover, numbers exist in some way but they do not occupy any spatial or temporal areas. God could exist on the boundary of space-time (much like drawing a circle in the sand and putting a marble on the edge of the circle). In this case, God does not exist "before" the boundary or "after" it, He just exists outside of it or on the arc of the universe's boundary.

Why?

And what would this do to my argument?

Ockham's Razor will shave away further causes, since we should not multiply causes beyond necessity.

This assumes that it is in fact the case that this is only what the cause consists of. This ignores the cumulative nature of the arguments issued forth and how they further elucidate the nature and character of the cause. But aside from these other arguments theologians put forth, I think that it could be argued from within the context of Kalam Cosmological Argument that the cause could be personal.

And I believe that this is the crux. For the purposes of my explanations of the ramifications of the assumptions were not to illustrate the truth-value of the premises within the argument, but flesh out the logical implication that such premises would possess had they been more plausible than their contradictories. If you would like to open up another thread in order to discuss those truth-values, I'd be much obliged.

Don't you mean: 'All I can do is assert that this is possible'?

Again, I think you missed the whole purpose behind what I posted. The arguments I gave were not intended to provide you with existential ramifications that my assumption seem to make evidedent, but was, in fact, to draw out the logical implications that those assumptions would take given under the presumption that they did exist. Of course, I agree that the stating of these assumptions doesn't automatically make them true. I was stating the assumptions under the interpretive rubric of constructing a hypothetical. So, I just think you misunderstood me there.

If you are willing to argue whether or not these assumptions should belong in reality or not, we could start a seperate thread on that.

Wiploc

I'm with you. You're saying:
- IF the universe had a beginning ...



- If the universe had a beginning, then ... uh, stuff happens.



You're saying:
- IF the universe had a beginning, then certain stuff follows;
- but if it didn't have a beginning, then that same stuff
- doesn't necessarily follow.



- 1. Things that begin have causes.
- 2. Therefore, IF the universe began, then it had a cause.



- 1. IF things that begin have causes, and
- 2. IF the universe began,
- 3. Then the universe had a cause.



I'm still with you, you're saying:
- 1. Things that begin have causes, and
- 2. The universe began,
- 3. Therefore, the universe had a cause.



- IF the universe began ...



Yes, yes,
- and IF things that begin have causes,



- then stuff logically follows.



I'm not with you. If time can have a cause, then causes don't necessarily come before effects, right? And if causes don't precede effects, then ... well, anything could happen. Like the universe could be self-caused, with the end somehow causing the beginning, right?

And if we are abandoning the obvious rule about causes precede effects, why are we retaining the rule about things needing causes? Isn't that an arbitrary choice? Ah, that's right, you're saying:

- IF things need causes ...

Proceed.



Causes are entities? Maybe you're just saying "If." Is that it? Are you saying:

- IF things need causes, and
- IF causes are entities ...

Is that what you're saying, or did I miss a move?



Are you just making up more premises, or is this the part that is supposed to follow from the premises. Because if this is supposed to logically follow from something that went before, you forgot to say why it follows. This seems more like a change of topic than a conclusion.

Not to mention the serious question of whether it means anything at all. I'm not going to call it gibberish or a non-sequitur, but I am calling the problem to your attention so you can clarify, distinguishing it from both gibberish and non-sequiturs.



See, if I think something doesn't exist, and you think it doesn't exist anywhere or any time, there shouldn't be a whisker of difference between our positions.



If the universe is everything that exists, there can't be an outside. If you aren't talking about everything that exists, you aren't proving anything at all; we already know that some things have causes. If you think "universe" refers to a subset of the, uh, of the, uh --- oh heck, call it "existence" --- if you think....

I'm going to start again. The question is, as I understand it, "Where did everything come from." If you weren't addressing that question, if you were only trying to show that some things have causes, well everybody already knows that.

If you are going to divide existence into "god" and "the rest of existence," then you need a logical reason for that division. You won't be persuasive if the same logic will let me arbitrarily divide existence into say, a sea otter and the-rest-of-existence, and thereby "prove" that the sea otter created everything else.



Be sure to notify us when you get done with the givens and start with the therefores.



You already posited that time is finite. If there is a beginning to time, then nothing is eternal, and therefore there is nothing without a beginning. It doesn't matter whether god is allegedly "outside" of time; if he exists now, and didn't exist six thousand years ago, then, by definition, he began.


Again, this doesn't follow.


But that's not a relevant sense. You already posited a cause for time, and time obviously can't have antecedents. So, if the rest of the universe can have a non-antecedent cause, why can't god?



Again, this doesn't follow. There is no reason to believe it. The driver who parked Archduke Ferdinand directly in front of his assassin caused a nuclear attack on Japan, but it doesn't follow that he was powerful.



Superfluous. I'm with you.


No. The OP asks about, "Who made god," arguments. Fishbulb said they involve arbitrarily applying one rule to god and another rule to the rest of the universe. (Forgive me if I'm misrepresenting you, Fishbulb). And you undertook to show that there was a logical reason for applying one rule to god and another rule to the rest of the universe.

You haven't "establishe[d] the possibility of God existing," because we always knew that. You undertook (correct me if I'm wrong) to show that the first cause argument is logical rather than arbitrary, that it provides a reason to believe there is a god. If you can actually do that, we want to see how.
crc

Consequent Infidel

well mabe because 'god' is supposed to be eternal while the universe has a begining? thats the main difference between them.

mattdamore

Not in the sense of temporal priority, but in the sense of logical priority. When a philosopher says "prior to the big bang" one does not mean "temporally prior" but "logically prior." For example, the number one is logically prior to the number two, but it is estranged if not false to think that the number one is temporally prior to the number two for they exist simultaneously (timelessly?) in a conceptual number line.

I don't grant this hypothetical. For the reasons above, and because it's logically fallacious. I grant that the fact that within the frame-work of time, when speaking of, for instance, physical things causing other physical things, and maybe even some non-physical things, there exists a causal relation which exhibits temporal priority. But in the case of the Big Bang, I don't see how that maxim can sensibly be stated and/or applied to reality.

I know that this is being said as the logical implication of the above quote, but I think it needs to be said that this quote simpliciter is, I believe, incoherent.

I wouldn't generalize fallaciously from the particular entity I'm describing as being the cause of the universe to the truism that 'all entities are causes'. At least in the sense that I'm using the word 'cause'. I'm using it to denote the causation of a brand new ontology of existence. Ontology is being used here not in a quantitative sense (the sense of adding a new existent into the world, for even two people can come together and have a baby), but in the qualitative sense( along the lines of creating a new color maybe, etc. . . Of course I don't want to give the impression that I'm equivocating on the word 'cause'. I agree with philosopher Craig when he says, "I'm using the word cause here simply to mean something that produces something else, and in terms of which that other thing, called the effect, can be explained. " It's the nature of the effect which distinguishes the 'nature' of the causes I'm attempting to explicate.

So, all entities are causes of 'something' in a sense.
Some entities are causes in the sense explained above.
Some causes are not entities (you could maybe think of some counterexample).

The sub-conclusion of the cause/entity transending space and time was seen to be necessary consequent of 'causing' the existence of space and time at the Big Bang. I said 'For For as the cause of space and time , this entity must transcend space and time'.

Draw a circle on a piece of paper. Label the circle "space-time." Now draw a dot on the outside of the circle. That dot exists "outside" of the "space-time" circle. There's nothing noncognitive about that even if such a view turns out to be false (note: only meaningful statements can be false).

This presupposes that the existence of time is a necessary condition for existence. I don't believe that this is true. It is not incumbent upon me to explain why temporality is not a necessary attribute of existence. Since you are the one suggesting that the two are necessarily linked, I am within my epistemic rights to inquire a reason. As of now, I see no reason to think that time is necessarily linked to existence even if being in time is a sufficient condition for existing.

And I'm assuming that when you say 'anywhere', your maybe assuming that a necessary condition for existence is that one must be physical. I don't believe this is true either. As I said above, the Platonic Forms that supposedly served as the archetypes for every particular thing in this universe do not occupy any spatial or temporal areas. . Moreover, numbers exist in some way but they do not occupy any spatial or temporal areas.

I don't think that this is the relevant question in the context of the deductive argument I'm making. It's not 'where did everything come from', for that presupposes the non-existence of what the conclusion of the Kalam Cosmological Argument makes evident. The question is that if it is in fact the case that the whatever begins to exist has a cause, and the universe (the sum total of all time, space, matter and energy) began to exist, then the universe has a cause. And what the Kalam Argument does is flesh out the logical implications of the nature of that cause by extrapolating what it's nature would have to consist of by making certain observations about the effect that was procuced. If what I said a couple of posts up (about the nature of cause being all those ' 'less's, then it doesn't look like one can sensibly ask the question of where it came from, since it's nature makes evident that the buck of existence stops there).

In order to avoid invalid presuppositions, you have to go to the premises of the argument (since the argument is valid) and either prove that the premises are false, or that their contradictories are more plausible.

I don't think I'm making that division.

Ah, but the sea otter can empirically be seen to be physical and not the same as the nature of the cause of all that is physical.

I believe this just makes the presuppostion that time is a necessary condition for existence. But you also acknowledge that God is timeless, but that it doesn't make a difference. Explain to me how you would interpret 'outside of time', so I can make a more effective response without misunderstanding.

This wasn't made explicit, for that I apologize. The causeless nature of God was derived from the philosophical argument brought forth to establish the truth value of the second premise of the argument. So, IF the arguments for the truth-value of the second premise are true, then it's follows that God is causeless.

There is an equivocation on the term 'antecedent causal condition'. Remember the logical/temporal distinction I brought up. The former relates to the cause of time. So, when you say 'time obviously can't have antecedents', I would agree with you in the rubric of temporality. But that's not what's being said here. It's said that God is a logical antecedent to for the existence of time.

But the driver utilized a material cause (parked Archduke Ferdinand directly in front of his assassin) in the instantiation of the powerful effect, therefore there is no analagous relation. Remember, I said 'it created the universe without any material cause. '.

Thank you for your helpful comments in 'hopefully' clarifying my position.

Bill

But that is exactly the point: why can't the universe be eternal (and the God finite), anyway?

This is a formally unresolvable question, for the reasons explained in Jim Still's essay (which you really ought to read) The Mental Discomfort of “Why?”

The theist claims that God is the one true eternal as a matter of faith, and similarly dismisses questions of the origin of God as violations of his faith. You can't argue these matters with theists as to even consider such an argument violates the faith that the theist has committed to uphold.

But there is no logical (philosophical or otherwise) reason for refusing to ask the question of "why does God exist?" It is part of the peculiar nature of "limiting questions" that there cannot be any terminus to such an inquiry, as is clearly demonstrated in Jim Still's essay. To ask such a question is to embark upon an endless journey; a journey which can be abandoned only as a matter of faith, which of course cannot be justified as a matter of sense.

== Bill

fishbulb

I think I understand just fine. But it is a case of garbage in, garbage out. The whole argument is based on assumptions which cannot be verified or even investigated. The logic may be sound, but a logical examination of a fanstasy world that might or might not happen to coincide with the real one -- we have no idea -- has no bearing on reality. If your premises are not drawn from observations about the real world, then your conclusions cannot be about the real world. It is true that we could propose a possible universe in which God could exist, and in which that damned leprechaun was always thwarting my attempt to eat a sugary cereal for breakfast, but unless you have some actual evidence to link that possible world to the real one, you aren't shedding any light on the real world.

This is the very core of the issue. All metaphysical arguments are contingent on a certain set of assumptions. Until those assumptions are shown by evidence to be true, or at least are established as probably true, the conclusions are meaningless. All first cause arguments rest on assumptions that we have no compelling reason to accept. It is not that the evidence is weak or ambguous; it is that the evidence is nonexistent. If there is no evidence to support them, one ought not accept the premises. If one does not accept the premises, the argument has no persuasive merit, regardless of its logical consistency.

There is a big difference between saying that it is logically possible that a creator god created the universe and saying that you can prove that a creator god created the universe. The first statement is obviously true, but it is the second statement that actaully asserts something non-trivial, and which creator god proponents make.

Wiploc

I think you are giving away too much. This was no valid argument.
crc

mattdamore

fishbulb,

As long as you understand that I wasn't arguing for the argument's soundness, but for it's validity.

I don't know what you mean by 'verified' or 'investigated'? If by them you mean accumulated rational support for, then I would disagree. Of course, this has yet to be brought up. If you want to start discussing the truth-value of one of the premises then I'd be obliged.

Of course, the 'whole arguement' you speak of is derived from the hypothetical truth-value that the Kalam Argument would exihibit if valid and sound. So, I admit that it's soundness might be up for grabs, since we haven't discussed that yet. But if we start from the hypothetical soundness of Kalam, since it's valid (wiploc disagrees), then my argument about the nature of the cause seems to be substantiated. The conclusions are definitely valid, but, as you say, we still don't know if one can justifiably apply those conclusions to the real world.

Right. So the next step in our discussion would be to discuss reasons for and against the idea that would my arguments were referring to was a fantasy world or not. We do with by examining the truth-value of the premises. So, pick a premise, and let's discuss it.

Right.

Agreed. But, again, my aim wasn't soundness, but validity. So as long as we agree on validity we can move on to soundness.

The rest of your post kind of repeats itself, so I'll stop here.

Would you like to discuss the truth value of Premise 1, 2, or 3.

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Thanks for you comments.

mattdamore

wiploc,

While fishbulb and I discuss it's soundness, we could discuss it's validity. What part of the Kalam argument to you find makes an invalid, logically fallacious move?

TiredJim

No one has ever witnessed anything "begin to exist." All we've done is rearrange matter and energy that already exists. Therefore, we have no evidence that everything that exists has a cause and you can't claim it's true.