TheGreatInfidel

How is it that a non-physical substance (i.e the omni-spook: god) can cause a physical substance (i.e the world)?


1)Non-physical substances cannot cause physical subtances or events.
2) God is non-physical.
3) The world is physical.
4) Ergo, god did not cause the world.

Spenser

Hey, you were born 4 days before me...

Welcome, you are on track but I doubt you'll get much attention from theists with this thread. God did it is usually a good enough answer for them. God is supernatural therefore he can do supernatural things yada yada, all the while you are waiting for a rational possibly natural explantion.

You may want to delve deeper into some other arguments and check out what theists will actually respond to...

L8

TheGreatInfidel

I'm not necessarily looking for what a theist would respond to, my intent with this argument is to find out the reasons why it isn't a good argument, if indeed that's the case.

By the way, what is meant by "supernatural"? Does it mean not natural....more natural?

If it's the former, then it probably lends support to the argument of the OP, since natural things are either physical or at least supervene on the physical. Therefore a non-natural substance cannot cause a natural substance.

If it's the latter, that is, supernatural means something along the lines of being natural, but in an extreme or higher degree (etc.), then the implication is that god is subject to the conditions which natural things are subjected to.

john_v_h

The argument is valid but Premises 1 and 3 are suspect. How exactly do you define "physical"?

TheGreatInfidel

How do I define it? Well I don't take it upon myself to be the one to define words. I define it as it is generally defined; that which is studied in the physical sciences: Protons, motion, atoms, photons etc.....the whole enchilada!

The fact that we're dealing with causation should clue you in in which sense I'm using "physical".

Concerning premise, 1) If you're challenging it, I would like like to hear your reasoning. I'm not a physicist, but I thought it was generally known that physical effects only have physical causes.

Violent Messiah

your ideas are not corporeal.....your brain maybe...but the ideas are intangible..........what people think often becomes reality..................somebody thought of E=mc^2 - Atomic Bomb!.............you thought that non-physical substances cannot cause physical substances or events - Boom! We're now engaged in a discussion..


Ad infinitum!

TheGreatInfidel

Well I guess you've settled it, right? You're making quite a claim. One of the biggest speculations in the philosophy of mind is whether propositional attitudes are physical, or at least supervene on the physical. In fact I'm not sure, it has been settled as to what is the nature of an idea, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

Ideas or the mind, in all instances in which it has presumably caused something physical, it has resided and supervened on the physical. So if by analogy you wish to expand this to god, i.e that He, a non-physical substance, has caused physical effects, just as ideas (as you allege) then along with the analogy you take the implication that god supervenes on the physical.

Violent Messiah

Am I making quite a claim? The same way that theists are claiming that there is a God - and the same way that atheists are claiming that there is insufficient evidence to prove an omnimax being? The same way that determinists are believing that everything can be determined and can be formulated, that there is no such thing as a free will?

Or the same way that you presented 4 premises showcasing the contradiction of the nature of God's intangibility and reality's physicality?

Are you a materialist?

TheGreatInfidel

No, not in that same way. Some of the arguments for theism, atheism, etc. are pretty sophisticated, so at least at face value, those conclusions have some plausibility. On the other hand, your claim which ran something along the lines of ...

1) Ideas aren't physical.

.........well to me, it's is akin to simply asserting that god exists and ignoring current debate in the philosophy of religion. But maybe you know something I don't, therefore I give you the benefit of the doubt.


My intention behind posting that argument is to see what feedback I would get and maybe get an idea of why people generally don't pose the physical argument. After all, the physical argument is the biggest obstacle for property dualism. Evidently, it's no problem for you.

I lean towards physicalism, but I'm not sure any more. I've considered property dualism, but the epiphenominalism deal is a problem. I'm not familiar with the field enough to go either way.

john_v_h

Human observers are physical and thus observe only physical phenomena. So how could we know that nonphysical substances never cause physical substances or events? If the mechanism were itself nonphysical, it would not be susceptible to physical detection.