GunnerJ

It's posted by many theists on the board, most obsetnsibly CyberShy, the God exists because there must be a first cause for, well, you know... everything.

Athiests can play merry-go-round about possible definitions and infinate regression, but why? I propose that the First Cause argument, even if true, that the Universe had to have a first cause, does not prove the existence of god.

Oh, sure, we could quibble about definitions. Looking at things from kind of very "limited god" deism, if we define "god" as the First Cause, and nothing more, then we prove the first cause, we've proved god. But I can define "god" as my left shoe, then I can show you my left shoe, and thereby prove god. So it's important that we talk about a specific kind of God. Is it Yhwh? Trinity? Jesus? Allah? The Bramha? The IPU?

This is the crux of my argument: if you include "First Cauase" as one of the properties of "God," then you have not proved that "God," because "First Cause" is a property that can be atributed to many different god concepts. It makes no sense to say that since the universe has a first cause, we must recognize your god as a first cause. It makes even less sense to say that Xian dogma is thereby validated. We don't even have to call the first cause god; it could be some natural function which we have no knowledge of.

So, in essence, the First Cause argument cannot prove any meaningful, specific concept of god. Much less the Judeo-Christian god. At best all it can prove is... a First Cause. Theists, can you stop throwing this old chesnut into the mix to prove your various interpretations of "God?"

theophilus

I agree that Christians are misdirected when they make this argument - that's why I don't make it.
1. It does not prove the God of the Bible - the only one we're concerned with.
2. It legitimizes disbelief unless God can be "proven" to the satisfaction of men who are declared to be sinful and rebellious.
3. It assumes (against scripture) that unbelief is an intellectual problem rather than an ethical condition.

I'm sure this isn't what you were aiming at, but I like to agree whenever I can, even if for different reasons.

Amos

First cause is love, second cause is life. Love is the essence of life and therefore exhausted by the second cause and the second cause is contingent upon the first cause.

Gen.1 is the essence of creation by God and Gen.2 is where this created essence takes form in Lord God.

Bible says God is love and Lord God is life and Lord God is needed to make God known. Gen.3 is the third cause by "like god" and is needed to make Lord God of Gen.2 known.

Amos

GunnerJ

Theophilus: Yes. VERY different reasons. My objection comes fromm logic. Yours comes from the contradiction of First Cause arguments and Xian dogma.

Amos: Very, er, interesting. I'll try to respond when I pin down just what it is you mean.

Ed

Hello Rim. Actually the law of causality in conjunction with its corollary the law of sufficient cause does strongly point to the Christian God. First, the universe contains personal beings, since throughout all of human experience only persons can produce the personal then it is logical to assume that the cause of the universe has a personal aspect to it. In addition, the cause of the universe must be "outside" it, in other words transcendent to it. This fits the Christian God. Also, the primary characteristic of the universe is that it is a diversity within a unity. According to the law of sufficient cause it is rational to assume that the cause of the universe has a similar characteristic. And only the Triune Christian God has that characteristic.

Datheron

Ed,

Didn't we already go over this before, Ed? Me, in complete detail? The first (personal blah blah) is a tautology; the second (outside blah) is a non-sequitur assumption; the third (diversity unity blah) is just pure crap.

critical thinking made ez

No, according to your statement here, it would be more logical to assume a human person created a person.

It must? "Outside" now there is a concept and location we will never find.

That is a useless try at grouping. It has no benefit nor any common characteristic therefore, it is not a meaningful group or unity.

Which would be something similar to the universe, not a god which is not similar to a universe. A God is a God. A universe is a universe.

Many define God as love, I have never heard of anyone defining the universe as love. So much for the Triune Christian God having similar characteristics with rocks and gas. Unless God suffers from gas and has gall stones. Then I couldn't argue the point.

[ November 27, 2001: Message edited by: critical thinking made ez ]

CyberShy

Rimstalker is right:
the first cause argument doesn't prove the existance of god, and it does for sure not prove the existance of the biblical god. period.

I think I've never claimed something like that.
If I did, I regret (quote me if you want to hear more 'sorry' from me, if you can't quote me, apologize)

2nd,
I've never claimed god IS the first cause.
My claim is that our first cause can't be caused by something that's a part of the universe (as we know it)

Since the first cause did happen it must have been caused. In that case it must be either self-causing or caused by something that's not a part of this universe.

Since it's impossible to be self-causing (if it is: explain) there must be something 'outside' our universe that caused our universe, or at least our 'first cause'.

Whatever that outside-our-universe thingy is..... I can't prove it. I believe it's God.
The most important thing about this is that everyone must admit that there is SOMETHING that started it all. Right now most people believe that everything we can observe has been self-caused.

If atheists admit this, they can't be atheists anymore sine atheism means being sure about the non-existance of God. Well, since atheists can't be sure that this 'something' is not god, they can only be weak atheists or agnosts.

CS

[ November 28, 2001: Message edited by: CyberShy ]

Tercel

"There is an interdepency between the cosmological argument (the argument to a first cause) and the design argument (the argument to a cosmic designer/creator). The two arguments are much stronger in tandem than they are when taken individually. We will look at this in more detail when we consider the design argument, but I want to foreshadow that discussion before launching into the cosmological argument.

If the cosmological argument is successful, it provides the means for answering certain important objections to the design argument. For example, a common and serious objection to the design argument is the threat of an infinite regress. The world is highly organized, so we infer a designer. But, every intelligent designer we know (i.e., human beings) are themselves highly organized systems. So, it seems that we need to infer a designer of the designer, and so on to infinity. Apparently, we haven't gained anything, so we should stop at the first step, and assume that the cosmos has no designer.

The cosmological argument, if successful, provides a powerful reply to this objection. The cosmological argument tells us that there is an uncaused first cause of the world. If the world bears the signs of intelligence, it is reasonable to attribute intelligence to the first cause. There is no threat of infinite regress, because we know that the first cause is uncaused. It provides the natural stopping point.

Secondly, the results of the cosmological and design arguments are complementary. As we shall see, the cosmological argument gives us good reason to infer that the first cause has such characteristics as eternity, infinity, unity and necessity. It gives us much weaker reasons, if any, for thinking that the first cause is personal, intelligent or purposeful. In contrast, the design argument gives us good reason to attribute intelligence and purpose to the creator, but it gives us little reason for assuming that the creator is eternal or infinite. Each argument tends to make up the deficiencies of the other." -Robert Koons

Amos

Just read without preconceived ideas and it will make sense.