danielius

Pretty much, and that a unitarian God would not be able to meaningfully define himself and would need some other thing outside of Himself to do that, which would negate the idea of God as a perfect being.

You compare the Christian trinity with the Wiccan idea of God-Goddess. This seems to me a reformulation of Yin-Yang. Do Wiccans regard this duality as two god-beings?

Additionally, Christians believe Christ was God's self-revelation of the infinite to us as finite creatures. Of course, it isn't easy for us to understand. It wouldn't be.

Assertion.

We aren't debating the Bible, which is undoubtedly a debate all in itself. We are referring to the Nicene Creed and its statements.

Just because something isn't an argument from numbers doesn't make it sound logic. Further, several of the premises are disputable, so the 'soundness' of the logic is itself disputed.

1. We are debating whether Christianity as expressed in the Nicene Creed is 'reasonable'. I was/am attempting to ascertain what 'reasonable' would mean, what are we comparing it with?

2. I was challenged on the first statement of the Creed to give evidence for a god. I have been responding to that.

Because our universe is a 'given' - it's here. We have no evidence - none - for any other previous universes. At any rate, I have already suggested the Hoyle formula as evidence for a non-random origin to our universe. This counts against any amount of mindless regression.

Well, you can certainly ignore the reasons I give if it suits your needs to be dismissive of ideas you don't like. However, your above assertion is incorrect.

The Hoyle formula is one evidence for a non-random cause of our universe. If something is caused non-randomly, it is purposefully created.

Further, a first cause would need to be meaningfully defined by something outside of itself, and the universe would be unable to provide such definition as it was at one time non-existent. The unique Christian conception of God as the first cause has God as three persons in one nature; the Father thus defined by His son, the son defined by His father, the Holy Spirit defined by father and son.

I'm more than happy to move on now and discuss the second part of the Creed, Jesus Christ as the unique Son of God. Jesus is at the very heart of the Christian religion, you can't get more on-topic than Him!

Danielius

Stephen T-B

�Because our universe is a 'given' - it's here. We have no evidence - none - for any other previous universes�
We have no evidence - none - of a god having caused it.

�... a first cause would need to be meaningfully defined by something outside of itself ...�

What DOES that mean?

I think you�ve invented it so as to justify your belief.

Dr Rick has written: �Faith is belief in the absence of or in contradiction to evidence, blind or otherwise.�

Do you have another definition of faith?

I repeat here an analogy I�ve used previously: I live in a 10th-floor apartment and tell my visitors that despite the fact that no one can see it, a stairway leads from my balcony to the ground.
That is a belief. When I open the door and step out on to it, that is faith.

At the heart of Christianity are both belief and faith: belief that an invisible god exists; faith that this invisible god loves us and redeems us of our sins, and will resurrect our bodies when the Kingdom of God is established on Earth.

These are not �reasonable� world views. They have nothing to do with reason because reason questions belief and doesn�t trust faith.

As to your assertions that the universe must have been created by god, why is your Trinity (and until Jesus was born, it was a duality) any more sensible a belief than any other belief which attributes the Creation to an already-existing, supernatural entity? You have not answered that, and the reason is, you cannot.
Once you have moved your logic into the realms of the supernatural, there is no logic, there is no reason. That is what defines the supernatural. So your hypothesis is no more logical or sensible than anyone else�s.
What you hold to be true is a belief; it is the foundation of your faith. And if it is what makes you happy, then it is a useful world view - for you.
But it�s a crap one for me, and for anyone who does not require a belief in the unprovable or faith in what it can deliver.

HRG

We have even less evidence for any personal creators.

Besides, if a testable theory predicts the emergence of our universe from a previous one, then the existence of our universe is evidence of that previous one. The most you can say is that this evidence is not compelling; this depends on the amount of properties of our universe which the theory predicts.

Come on. I thought we had left animism behind some 2500 years ago. Lightning creates nitric acid in the atmosphere quite non-randomly; do you claim that this nitric acid is thus purposefully created, e.g. by Thor ?

You are confusing behavior with function, and function with purpose. The growing of a tree is not evidence of the existence and activity of a dryad.

<snip>

BTW, an infinite regress is not an event, but a collection of events, each of which is caused by the previous one. As such, the question "what caused the regress" is meaningless, since the "collecting" of the collection is done by our minds. There is nothing illogical about an infinite regress, and it is does not require special pleading: "Everything is caused .... wait a minute! of course, God is uncaused!"

Regards,
HRG.

emotional

Daniel, you haven't actually answered my question:

Why THREE? Why not two, or four, or seven? What is it about THREE that is so reasonable to hold?

Amaranth

That whole line of debate, save the definitions at the beginning, has been nothing more than an extended tu quoque argument. It really doesn't matter to this discussion if our beliefs are reasonable, and doesn't prove a damn thing about whether or not your beliefs are reasonable if they are not. This has been pointed out, multiple times. I'd wonder what you are avoiding, but I'm relatively sure I already know.

Heh. Yeah. Still waiting for you to define this whole god thing, let alone give an argument that doesn't contradict itself.

Bumble Bee Tuna

I apologize. I had this exact page in mind when I wrote that sentence, and yet I still managed to confuse "sound" and "valid". I meant to say it was a 'valid' argument. Obviously, as I stated in the sentences following what you quoted, I agree that the soundness is disputed.

Fair enough.

This is why you're off topic. You were asked to give evidence for God, not "a god". What you're giving evidence for right now is a "first cause" which of course is not a god. Even if you proved first cause, you have not proved (and have no way of proving) that the first cause is a god. And even if you proved it was a god, you would have to prove that the god was Yahweh.

See why you're off topic? What you're arguing over has nothing to do with Christianity.

I can understand saying that the Universe must be the final point in the regression because it is the last thing we can observe, but the second to last? That makes no sense. If there can be one cause past the universe, there's no reason to believe there can't be more than one. And of course, mathematical probability tells us that if all numbers of causes have equal chances, then 1 cause (as you claim) is incredibly improbable. This means that if your logic is valid (it's not), it actually disproves your god. You might want to stop using it.
And the Hoyle formula dealt with life, not the Universe, so I don't know where you're trying to go with that.

I'm dismissive because your logic is unsound. I just showed you that it goes against your case! But can we quit the ad hominems? "You're just dismissing my argument because you don't like it"? Please, give me a break. This is ridiculous.

Once again, WHY 3? And even if you could provide evidence for why it has to be 3...it's still a logical leap to say that the 3 deity parts must be FS&HG. Why not another religion's trinity, or even a trinity that no religion has?

I guess, since you have been trounced pretty badly on god-belief, it probably would be a good idea for you to move on. Try Jesus. I agree, that would finally be on topic for you.

-B

danielius

Assertion. There is evidence, though whether it can be called 'good' or 'substantial' or 'compelling' is another question altogether. But there is evidence and to say there is none is just intellectually dishonest.

There is nothing wrong with questioning belief, and certainly examining evidence critically. I do not agree however that reason 'distrusts' faith. There are lots of premises which the atheist takes for granted as part of their world-view, such as that other people actually exist and are not simply part of their imagination, but for which there is no compelling evidence.

Atheists regularly (and rightfully) criticise theists for their lack of scientific knowledge, but then demonstrate themselves an awful lack of knowledge of Christianity or religion in general.

The assertion: 'until Jesus was born, God would have been a duality' is completely inaccurate. Christianity says that Jesus was since ever the unique Son of God. God has always been, according to our belief and reason, in his nature One in Three. Jesus Himself says in the Bible: 'Before Abraham, I am' ('I am' translates as YHWH, in Hebrew the name for God). Jesus did not 'become' the Son of God, but became God incarnate.

And when you assert (yes, another assertion without substantiation) that I 'cannot' answer why God as trinity and not any other 'god', you are ignoring the reasons I have already given. The most simple being that were God to exist at all, we would reasonably expect His nature to be that described by trinity. God as Love must needs be a relational God. A unitarian god or any number of individual god-beings does not fit logically.

Further, a thing is always meaningfully defined by something else. A book is a book because it isn't everything. Books need to reach outside of themselves for meaningful definition, so do universes if the concept of a 'universe' is to possess meaningful identity. Only the Christian conception of God, as God being uniquely in His very nature relational, can define Himself meaningfully.

'Supernatural' doesn't necessarily need to mean 'superlogical' or 'superrational'. That is an assumption.

The argument 'everything is caused' is in fact meaningless. If we cannot point to something that is uncaused, the very definition of 'caused' becomes useless. Some atheists accept this and embrace the very modern idea that the universe is itself uncaused. I accept instead the idea that God is uncaused.

What then is the function of universes? And the function of conscious, self-aware living processes?

You keep referring to the pagans, though they never said of their myths: 'these things are', but rather, 'why are these things not?'

Danielius

Amaranth

That's just plain rediculous. Whether or not anything is uncaused, it is useful to identify what caused, for instance, these words to be printed.

I hate to have point this out to you, but the Taoist philosophy of "all things are defined by their opposite" only works for judgements. The Tao Te Ching is implicit about this.

Another nice tu quoque argument. Just don't learn...

*clap* You've just accepted this "god" (still needs to be defined) as an a priori belief. This, of course, is illogical. That, of course, is irrational. Thus, not a reasonable belief.

Done. Break out the wine.

Amaranth

danielius

Answering Brian (Bumblebee Tuna)...

Evidence of a first cause goes towards the case for the Christian God as Creator (and against the case for the atheist alternative which says that the universe was caused by an unlimited number of causes or by none).

But your very language implies a sequence for which there is no evidence. We have no other universes to compare ours with, so we know nothing for sure - zilch, nada, zero - about the formation or function or purpose (if any) of the universe. The language we use, theist and atheist alike, is the universe (definite article), implying that this is the only knowable universe. Being that the case, it is understandable to work back to the origins of this universe for clues to its meaning (if any). Logic tells us that something cannot arise from nothing. It also tells us that the universe mightn't be 'all' there is, as the definition of 'universe' then possesses no meaningful identity without any external context (referent?) This is more (cumulative) evidence for the case for the Christian God.

Unless God tells us differently, as the Christian viewpoint says. And, the option of one cause is less illogical than endless causes, and less illogical than no cause.

When I'm watching a film, it might - for all I know - be a film of a film of a film of a film etc. I assume for the sake of sanity that it's a film only (in fact, Austin Powers 3 - which was very funny - started out as a film of a film). Similarly, we assume in the absence of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, 'a' universe and not a universe of a universe of a universe, or a cause of a cause of a cause etc.

One universe - whence did it come? I say from 'something', you say from 'nothing'. I humbly submit that mine is the more logical.

Can you name a religion that predates Christianity and which possessed the doctrine of trinity (not triads/three gods etc.)?

You're making two points, I'll try to answer them both...

Why three? Well, because God is defined as being relational in His nature and the concept of an eternal Father and eternal Son and eternal Love personified by the Holy Spirit is logical, even if it is, as you describe it, a 'leap'.

Further, we see parallels in humanity - the holy trinity as represented in Mother, Father and Child.

Why are the three parts considered Father, Son and Holy Spirit? Well, clearly, that is the revelation of Christianity. Jesus speaks of himself in various places as being 'one' with the Father. John 3:16 calls Jesus the 'monogenes' son of God. Jesus explicitly calls Himself, and is called, divine in various parts of the N.T.

Assertion/opinion and in fact, untrue. The logic of the first cause, of meaningful definition in context, of a relational God, of a non-random universe still holds just fine.

Danielius

danielius

Responding to Amaranth...

Not in a world-view that possesses no adequate concept for 'causes/doesn't cause'.

Why hate pointing out? I love (really, love) pointing out to you that I've read the Tao Te Ching cover to cover and am very familiar (and quite a fan) of Taoist ideas. The Taoist would most likely not ask about 'caused' at all, but simply say 'it happened', shrug shoulders, and get on with being alive.

Atheists make themselves out to be the arbiters of 'rationality', what constitutes reasonable and what does not. I dispute such an assumption.

Which leads us to your claims on 'a priori'. As I have said before, ALL people - theist/atheist/whatever - hold premises they do not question for any number of reasons. If their world-view is based exclusively on such a premise/s, fine it's 'irrational'. Mine isn't.

I have given evidence towards the logical concept of God, and towards the specifically Christian concept of God (as trinity). If I then say that God is uncaused, I do so within logical context - that a Creator of a creator of a creator is less likely as is a Creator (or anything) from nothing. I have a rational basis for such a belief. It's not irrational.

Danielius