Philosoft

If all the aforementioned counterexamples are so implausible, why would "God" be a plausible alternative if "God" has to deal with all the same absurdities? I have my hypothesis; I'm interested in yours.

In any case, the emergence of the universe is an ancient and probably unique event. Why is it surprising that it poses explanatory difficulties? You're certainly not above fanciful explanations for some of God's more esoteric characteristics.

HRG

To Irishbrutha:

The "No infinite traversal"-argument is faulty for several reasons:

1. Traversal requires a start and an end point. An infinite regress has no first element, and all actual traversals are finite.

2. An infinite regress is a collection in our minds (a set of events), not an actual event. The time between two actual events in it is always finite.

3. An infinite set (e.g. the natural numbers) can be traversed in finite time: take 1 second for "1", 1/2 second for "2", 1/4 second for "3" etc. You will be finished in 2 seconds.

4. Even if you don't accept this construction, why shouldn't an infinite set not be traversed given an infinite amount of time ?



Regards,
HRG.

luvluv

Philosoft:

Two seperate arguments are being made here.

1) Absent time, causation is unnecessary.

This is being defended, seemingly, by Thomas Metcalf.


I attempted to argue against this with the example of the "universe in a laboratory" argument that I've seen around here. If it ever were possible to create an alternate universe in a laboratory setting, in the new universe time will not have begun until someone in this universe initiates the new universe. But that does not mean that the new universe is uncaused, it's cause resides in a time outside of itself.

The other argument is:

2) Absent time, causation is impossible.

Which is what is being defended by Angrillori. I am inclined to agree with this if what we are talking about is a closed system. That is, if we have a system with no matter or energy and no dimensionality, then I would say that causation of any form is impossible if matter/energy/space/time are all that exist. Absent ALL of them, it is pretty evident that there is nothing which can cause anything.

So it seems that if there was ever really nothing, is that there would still be nothing unless there is something outside of the system, something outside of matter/energy and space/time which can initiate all matter/energy and space/time.

That something would have to be transcendant, non-physical, and poweful. Arguably, it would have to be intelligent, though that is a tougher case to make.

Now the only thing which is problematic about this is that God Himself is said to be eternal as well, and He would indeed have to be if we are to avoid an infinite regress. So if eternity means no time, then God is in the same state of affairs as nothingness in terms of causation. To be honest, I'm not really up on the solutions to this problem.

I know William Lane Craig has promoted the idea that God is atemporal prior to creation, and temporal subsequent to the creation event. I haven't read up on that view or it's implications, but that possibly is one explanation.

My own uninformed opinion, is that eternity does not really mean that time is absent, but that the arrow of time is not binding. It can perhaps be traversed much in the same way that we traverse spatial dimensions. This would enable God to cause things, but not entagle Him in an infinite regress. If eternity is truly static, then it would be difficult to see how God could cause anything or interact with anyone. But if eternity simply means that the arrow of time can be spun around in all directions, this could eliminate most of the problems.

(It could be said that if in some eternal dimension the arrow of time is not binding, that any entity could then take God's place as the role of necessary existence depends on a foward-moving arrow of time. I guess that is true, but that would not eliminate the power requirements nor the transcendance requirements, and causation would still have to follow a forward arrow of time for a very long time for the even such a topsy-turvy universe to create this universe through mindless processes. To be honest I have to think about this proposal more.)

Maybe it's hypocritical to lambast you about your ridiculous conclusions and then come up with some of my own, but in all honesty I think that any alternative to the universe popping into an ordered existence out of nothingness with no cause makes more sense, and I get aggravated when people try to blithely explain it away as if it's not a big issue. It seems to me an insurmountable obstacle to naturalism.

SRB

This is a misunderstanding. According to most Big Bang models, time has a beginning but there was never a time when there was a state of nothingness. At every moment of time, something existed. So your talk of "popping into...existence" and "a state of nothingness" is misguided. The universe did not pop into existence from nothingness, because there was no state of nothingness prior to the universe. According to the theory in question, the term "prior to the universe" has no referent, just like "north of the North Pole." Admittedly though, the misunderstanding you put forward is popularized by people like William Craig who should know better.

It should be noted that nontheists have many other models of the origin of the universe available to them, other than the one you incorrectly describe (which happens to be the one that most contemporary scientists are attracted to). In fact nontheism is compatible with almost any theory of origins whatever, except the theory that the universe was caused to exist by an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, disembodied person. That's an awful lot of theories! Perhaps the universe has always existed in some form or another. Perhaps the universe was caused to exist by something other than God. For example, maybe it was caused to exist by a finite being, an impersonal force, several beings, or a morally indifferent being, etc, etc. For cosmological arguments to get off the ground we would need some reason to prefer the theory that the universe was caused to exist by an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, disembodied person to the infinity of other imaginable theories. Given that no such reason has ever been put forward it is quite remarkable that people still put stock in cosmological arguments.

SRB

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by luvluv :

You think that something could be created if it always existed, that is, if it never didn't exist. Forgive me, but that's absurd. Suppose I'm making a cake, and I put flour, sugar, and eggs into a bowl, and start mixing them. According to you, if I read you correctly, there was a point at which I added the yolks to the eggs.

Wiploc

Nice trick. Lemmesee if I can do it:

1) God is either contingent, impossible, or necessary
2) God is not impossible (as it may exist), it is not necessary (because it may not exist). therefore,
3) God is contigent.

How's that? Is it as strong as your argument?



Why? Isn't it your point that some things don't need causes? Are you saying that necessary things need causes and contingent things don't? All of them? (That is, every single necessary thing is uncaused and every single contingent thing is caused?)

If that's what you're saying, why are you saying it?



Would it take a miracle? Doesn't god do miracles?

Let's compare the argument from abstract entities: William Lane Craig says that if we think of a number, somebody else must have thought of it first. And then he says the person who thought of them had to be god, because anyone else would have had to do them one at a time (which he says is impossible), but god can do them all at once.

If god can think of an infinite number of numbers all at once, why can't he make an infinite number of times all at once. I don't know if you think god is outside time (myself, I think that's a nonsensical concept) but if you do, and if you think god can think of an infinite number of numbers, then I don't see how making an infinite amount of time should present a difficulty.

In any case, the problem of infinite regress is not a greater problem then the problem of uncausedness. If I were to say that we must have an infinite regress because we can't have anything uncaused, that would be exactly as persuasive as your argument that we must have something uncaused because there can't be an infinite regress.



I am currently counting numbers; therefore the set of all numbers is finite.



Again, this is absolutely dependent upon the claim that contingent things need causes and non-contingent things don't. Give us a reason to believe that.



"Not contingent" equals "necessary." That's by definition, right? Or am I overlooking something?

But "necessary" equals "uncaused?" That doesn't seem right. They aren't the same at all. If a necessary thing can just happen to be, for no reason, then why can't an unnecesary thing?



Nope. I am unpersuaded, but I don't see any reason to take this detour now. And I do think I understand the argument. I just don't see it as persuasive. We may have to address it later. I certainly do grant that an infinite amount of time could not be traversed in less than, you know, an infinite amount of time.



I don't understand. Does god no longer exist, or is he currently contingent, or C, none of the above? I've never run across this argument before.



I don't understand at all.



Very good!



1. What if the last moment of time caused the first moment? Circular causality.

2. What if it's true that things don't need causes, and therefore nothing has a cause; cause is an illusion?

3. What if there are multiple uncaused causes, just as anti-evolutionists say life started with multiple "kinds?"

4. What god2 caused god1, and god3 caused god2, and so on in an infinite chain of non-temporal causation?

5. What if there's no such thing as a necessary being?

6. What if there's no such thing as contingent substance? (One time it's energy, another time it's matter, another time it's who knows what, but always it exists.)



If you get to arbitrarily make a rule like that, so do I. I declare that everything needs a cause except my left hand. Thus do I prove that my left hand created the universe.



If we have lots of uncaused causes, then we don't have *a* cause to the universe.



That's not how it works. Infinity is a realm, not a place. It is like outside. If I go twenty feet, I'll be outside. If I go another ten feet, I'll still be outside. There are lots of different magnitudes of infinity.



I still don't understand this at all. Does the problem have to do with you sneaking time back in there? ("every time a new god is created"?)



Cool.



Isn't this a complete refutation of your argument? If we don't assume causes, why should we assume a first one?



If we don't really mean "entity" or "being" then couldn't the big bang itself be the uncaused first cause?



Again, doesn't this refute your entire argument? If things need causes, then you don't get to have an uncaused thing. If they don't need causes, we don't need your single cause of everything else. You want us to believe in cause right up to a particular moment --- and then quit. I figure we should believe in cause for everything or for nothing. It seems to me entirely arbitrary that you want to make a rule, and then make an exception without justifing either the rule or the exeption.

If you say, "We have really good reasons to believe that causality is a consistent occurrence in the actual world," I can set aside my knowledge of quantum mechanics in order to play in your arena. If you then introduce uncaused stuff, you are changing the rules on me; you aren't playing in your own arena; you aren't accepting the axioms you asked me to accept.

And I guess, since you keep bringing it up, that I do have to ask you to explain why we can't traverse infinity even in an infinite time.



No I don't. Since we observe certain uniformities; we get to make predictions based on them.



How is that different from you deducing that I can't traverse infinity from the fact that you've never seen me do it?



How do you figure?



This is begging the question. If we posit that things don't need causes, why do you assume that contingent things need causes?



This strikes me as your most lucid and cogent paragraph. Two thumbs up.

Seems to me your attempt to conflate the two concepts of caused and unnecessary under the single word contingent is our biggest difficulty. If you address that and also address your presumption that uncausedness is less plausible than eternality, I think we'll make progress. I certainly don't expect you to address everything I wrote in this entire ramble.

You said something about not having time to use the codes. Let me show you my best trick. It's not a cure-all, but it helps. I make a block of text like this at the bottom of the text I am responding to:

[/-B] [/-QUOTE]





[-QUOTE] [-B]

(I put hypens in it so it will show up without executing.) I select the block, and then do <control>X or <control>C. And then I just insert my cursor whereever I want to insert a comment, and do <control>V. Like I say, that doesn't cover every situation, but it simplifies things a lot.



Does that mean all those worlds necessarily exist?
crc

luvluv

SRB:

Like I said, that's double-talk and I don't buy it. The universe did indeed pop into existence out of nothing. The argument you are using is a philosophical linguistic one, not a cosmological one. Cosmologists seem to be very aware what the implications are, which is why they resisted the theory for so long, and why they consistently attempt so many end-runs around the obvious conclusion. Einstein, Hawkings, Hoyle, all have tried their dead level best at one point or another to overturn Big Bang Cosmology because they know precisely what the implications of it are, clever atheologians and anti-theists notwithstanding.

I'm not arguing that the C.A. provides a sound proof of the existence of the Christian God, but it is evidence in favor of theism/deism in general.

Thomas Metcalf:

In all honesty, at this point, I have no idea what you are talking about.

SRB

How do you refute this argument?

(1) According to Big Bang models, time itself is of finite duration, and at every moment of that time something existed.
(2) Therefore, according to Big Bang models, there was no moment of time when nothing existed. [from (1)]
(3) For the universe to pop into existence from nothing, there would have to have been a moment of time when nothing existed.
(4) Therefore, according to Big Bang models, the universe did not pop into existence from nothing. [from (2) and (3)]

This argument is deductively valid, so please tell us which of the premises you reject.

I never mentioned Christianity. The god of theism is an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, disembodied person. For cosmological arguments for the existence of the theistic deity to get off the ground we would need some reason to prefer the theory that the universe was caused to exist by an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, disembodied person to the infinity of other imaginable theories. Given that no such reason has ever been put forward it is quite remarkable that people still put stock in cosmological arguments for the existence of the god of theism.

SRB

rainbow walking

Irishbrutha: You’re missing the point of what it means to be a necessary being. My parents are necessary entities if I exist. If I’m a son then I must have a father. “Must have” is the quality by which we call something necessary.


rw: Yabut necessity is itself contingent upon circumstances. Necessary to whom and for what. In your example above your existence is the circumstance that determines the necessity of your father. The non-existence of your father is equally a logical possibility but then your circumstances would change because you’d cease to exist. You are determining the non-contingency of your father based on your existence and this makes perfect sense and is logical, but the cosmological argument is designed to determine the existence of a god and represents a different set of circumstances altogether. To say the universe is not necessary based on the circumstances of a god is begging the question. We know that we exist and that our existence is contingent on the existence of the universe. Thus, in relation to our circumstances, the universe is more of a non-contingency than your father. If the universe ceases to exist, so do we. We can be reasonably confident that the universe existed long before we did and would not cease to exist if we did. What we are trying to determine is the existence of a godlike being. If, and only if such a being existed could we logically declare the universe to be contingent. Declaring the universe to be contingent before we establish the existence of a god is disingenuous.

This whole contingency argument is a clever shell game that switches circumstances in mid-stride. Theists start off focusing on our existence in determining the existence of the universe and then switch the circumstances to a god whose attributes render the existence of a universe unnecessary to its alleged existence. Thus the universe becomes contingent and can be shuffled to the position of needing a causative agent to exist. To say it is logically possible for the universe to not exist is as big a leap of faith as it is to say a god exists and caused the universe. I would ask the theist to describe how the non-existence of the universe would entail. It is even more logically possible that the universe could change in such a way as to make our existence impossible, it is logically possible that the universe once existed in a configuration that was overly prohibitive to our existence, but to say it is logically possible for the universe to cease to exist moves me to ask of the claimant more substantiation than just his say-so. I need to examine the possibility by having something akin to a state of affairs in which the universe no longer exists with which to compare. I defy the theist’s claim that it is logically possible for the universe to cease to exist as much as I defy the theist’s claim that there was a period before which the universe existed. He must give me some explanation of this logic by example or analogy. To say that a god existing before the universe is his logical explanation further begs the question because he has not established the existence of this being in the first place, logically or otherwise.




Irishbrutha: The necessity of the first cause’s existence is in the very fact that the universe can be called contingent.




Rw: Calling the universe contingent is an unsupported assertion. Please establish the contingency of the universe. Simply pointing to the finitude of various aspects of the universe does not therefore render the universe itself finite. Matter and energy change forms within this universe. They do not come into or cease to exist. So, on what basis do you declare it logically possible for the universe to cease to exist?

Irishbrutha: Now we have to establish the universe’s contingency. That contingency is adduced through another argument. I’ll give it below:

1) All existence is either contingent, impossible, or necessary

Rw: And necessity is the shell game that allows the theist to introduce their imaginary god. Necessary to whom. Name anything that exists and I can show it to be necessary to something else that exists. Just as Irishbrutha used his existence to demonstrate the non-contingency of his father. But let’s look at how he wiggles out of the obvious.


Irishbrutha: 2) The universe is not impossible (as it exists), it is not necessary (because its nonexistence is logically possible).


Rw: And this logic is based on? Show me the logic that renders the universe unnecessary before you declare its nonexistence a logical possibility. If necessity is circumstantial, (and you brilliantly demonstrated this above by arguing your father into a state of non-contingency), and circumstances are contingent on the existence of a universe for their existence, I invite you to demonstrate the logic in the possibility of a non-existent universe as your substantiation of “not necessary”.


Irishbrutha: therefore,
3) The universe is contigent.

Rw: And what might that contingency be? A logical possibility? And this god is also a logical possibility? But he is depicted as being non-contingent? And the reason for this arbitrary assignment?



Irishbrutha: If it is contingent then it must have a cause.



Rw: Iff you can establish its contingency, with contingency based, as it is, on necessity and necessity being based on circumstance, what set of circumstances have you offered that support your claim of contingency? Logical possibility? And how would you describe such a state of affairs in which the universe does not exist? Nothingness? Then nothingness is “something”? What, exactly?


Irishbrutha: Because there cannot be an infinite regress of causes (for the temporal causal argument I’ll use a different argument than the one I used previously but I do deal with that below) because an infinite set cannot be traversed.

Rw: An infinite set cannot be traversed in its entirety. We mustn’t omit the obvious. The traversal of an infinite set can be accomplished for a finite period which doesn’t render the set any less infinite, just establishes the finitude of the traversee. I can step foot on a road that runs infinitely in both directions and traverse it until I die. My death doesn’t render the road any less infinite. I cannot establish any solid position of where exactly I am on that road other than to place a marker at where I started and begin to count my footsteps. Just because I’ll never reach and end to that road doesn’t, in any way, mean that such a road is a logical impossibility. It only means that a finite traversee will never traverse an infinite road. (and neither would an infinite traversee) That is only logical.

Irishbrutha: We currently traverse the set of causes and their effects, therefore the universe is not eternal.



Rw: And how did we draw this conclusion? We can just as easily be part of an infinite sequence of events in an eternal universe. Under these circumstances we’d never precisely establish anything more than a probable sense of where we are in relation to both time and space. But this wouldn’t prohibit our participation nor limit our ability to enhance and extend our journey for as long as possible. An infinite universe would in no way be prohibitive to our traversing a finite set of events within it. Nor would our traversal render it any less infinite.


Irishbrutha: If the universe is not eternal, then there must be a cause at some point which is not contingent. If at some point there is a cause that is not contingent, then it must be necessary. Therefore, the First Cause of the Universe is both Uncaused and Necessary. (That an actual infinite set cannot be traversed is another argument that is fairly well established, yet if you would like me to illustrate further, ask and I’ll do it in another post).

Rw: And this entire edifice hinges on this big “if”. And this big “if” now appears to hinge on a claim that an infinite set cannot be traversed. The problem here is that this statement omits some very important facts. It is true that an infinite set cannot be traversed in its entirety, especially by a finite traversee. What this really means is that an infinite set cannot be traversed ENTIRELY, for if it were it would cease to be infinite. It does not mean that a traversee, as part of the set of events ANYWHERE within that infinite set, cannot traverse it for an unspecified distance, whether you measure that distance in time or space. So it is not impossible to traverse an infinite set, it is just impossible to traverse an infinite set in its entirety.It is also imposible to establish a beginning or end to the set itself, but it is not impossible to establish a beginning or end of SPECIFIC events within that infinite set. Under these circumstances everything within such a set gradiates from the possible to the probable and nothing is inevitable. Under these circumstances many events can occur simultaneously as well as sequentially. Under these conditions events themselves become infinite in scope. But a finite being in an infinite universe needn’t concern himself with all events, just those he chooses and those that appear to choose him. Under these circumstances infinity itself becomes the only necessary non-contingent factor. And this is far more logically possible than a god. It’s a beautiful thing and not to be feared.

Wiploc

[QUOTE]Originally posted by SRB
You might point out that god and the rest of the universe are on the same standing, both having existed since the beginning, and not having existed before that. Therefore, if the universe popped out of nothing, so did god.
crc