The Cosmological Argument for God.

Would anyone like to bat this one about? I thought I'd leave it before going on vacation. Please, one response per person, until I get back! The crude argument is first, the formal, more complete, is down below.

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause of it's existence.


I am willing to ascribe to the Big Bang theory, as the method of creation of the cosmos. Which, to recapitualate, states that the cosmos, everything that is, came from an incredibly small, highly dense 'mass', which exploded, about 12 billiion years ago, creating all the cosmos. For me, it's hard to swallow, all the mass in the cosmos condensed to one very small point, but since it is the leading theory, I will work from there.

You don't see any explanation on how that mass came to be there. To state it just always was, is absurd. Nothing comes into being with something causing it to come into being. The whole cosmos based on nothing?! The evidence for this is abundantly clear and overwhelming. Things don't just pop into existence from nothing; nor do they cause themselves to come into being on their own. That would be like you impregnating your mother before you were born.

The formal argument goes as follows (forgive the crude argument above):


1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its
existence.
2. The universe began to exist.

2.1 Argument based on the impossibility of an
actual infinite.

2.11 An actual infinite cannot exist.
2.12 An infinite temporal regress of
events is an actual infinite.
2.13 Therefore, an infinite temporal
regress of events cannot exist.

2.2 Argument based on the impossibility of
the formation of an actual infinite by
successive addition.

2.21 A collection formed by successive
addition cannot be actually infinite.
2.22 The temporal series of past events
is a collection formed by successive
addition.
2.23 Therefore, the temporal series of
past events cannot be actually
infinite.

3. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its
existence.


It will be remembered that an essential property of a necessary being is eternality. If then it could be made plausible that the universe began to exist and is not therefore eternal, one would to that extent at least have shown the superiority of theism as a rational world view.


------------------
"It was there, at the edge of the black abyss, that I found myself."
-Patrick Ashley

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Pash--

Regarding the first three points--I can certainly accept them as a perception of the Universe.

However, I look to the phrase "The univere began to exist."

Is Creation the event that set the process of the Universe in motion? Or is the Universe the event of Creation?

"Began" ... Beginning, middle, end? What part are we in? Time itself seems to be ficticious, something that only exists when perceived. All else is a single moment.

I'll meet you on the Big Bang, and go so far as to call that moment of eruption God's will. The moment of destabiliazation might well be a physical presence of God in the Universe.

Would you call an incomplete building in a downtown area ugly? Perhaps. But are you going to rail against the architect? He'll tell you to wait until the damn building's finished, and then get back to him.

I propose a little of the same about God. Our part in the Plan, as such, is as vital as we choose to make it, but the actual achieving of God's will specifically occurs when the whole of the event of the Universe is complete.

Who before us has been "right"? Sure, maybe Christ; for the sake of argument, I'm willing to make the umbrella-statement. So, if Christ was right, and gave his followers the way to God, who before us has figured it out? I assert that nobody's figured it out, resting that assertion on two points: 1) There is much debate concerning the status of "the Kingdom of God" ... is it at hand? Is it occurring now? Is it past or in some distant future? 2) If the Kingdom of God has already occurred in the sense of the redemptive promise, I'm inclined to ask where its effects are visible, lest we have a horribly Pollyana vision of What God Wants.

If I might ....

Therein lies a major problem with any human endeavor. For my own personal testament, let me say that once upon a time, when I was fourteen, a Lutheran preacher threw a Bible at my head, knocked over two tables, spilled four chairs, and adjourned a confirmation class when that question was applied to God.

For science's sake, to call the Big Bang the absolute holy grail of Universal creationism is shortsighted. Frankly, and I don't know quite how to not make it sound like a jab at religion, but once I left the guided portion of my life-tour behind, such notions became anemic. That isn't when I left the church, but when I was gone from the church, from a Catholic school, and had nobody pushing God as a counterpoint to my actions. I cannot say that leaving this behind is how I transcended the question of what before God/Big Bang. But I can say it was at least coincidental; it is entirely possible that I had at a coincidental point absorbed enough information to see from a new perspective. But my central point is that right now it isn't important to what came before the Big Bang because ....

Once we figure out a couple more questions about the Big Bang, we'll have a better regarding the actual how it happened. To call the Big Bang "God", as such--that is, imply that it is the as opposed to a truth--would be to simply abandon the pursuit and make that portion of science into a religion. We have to know what questions to ask before we can figure what came before the Big Bang. But I'm quite sure that at least one or two of those will be fluently known within the span of my lifetime; I read a Scientific American article on metallic hydrogen which implied that our observational capabilities on the processes of the Big Bang have reached within a microsecond of advent.

Now, if I look down to point 3, I cannot argue except to ask for your thoughts on the nature of this cause. I'm quite sure our philosophical roads will branch, but for now there's little to argue with, unless I assume cause=God. I don't want to proceed, though, without clarifying the status of that assumption.

And I don't want to play semantics, but your points two-dot-etc might take as fact certain assumptions. I'm looking at 2.21 - 2.23 and wondering if the only reason those are true is because we cannot observe the "beginning" of that process; unless we can answer the same questions about God as we can about the Big Bang (not necessarily the physical properties, but those of age, precession, &c.) then we are left with the same quandary.

thanx,
Tiassa

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

------------------
We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and important to us. (Ranier Maria Rilke)

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Tiassa,

So where do I begin?

Well, your "begin" issue. I can't understand why you are challenging the concept, "begin". It is simply the start of an action, event or object. What's the big deal?

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

You go on to say, from what I can sort out, that we will have answers to what caused the explosion of the big bang. But one thing I don't see them ever solving (and this is the real point of the argument) is who created that first piece of mass. Regressions only go back so far, like a chain of dominoes falling.

Now, what was the first cause? We call it God. Why do I call it God? It has the attributes God has: Omnipotence and Eterneality (sp?) for one. He is the uncaused cause; something that always was.

Now, people generally jump on my back and say, "Well, that's circular reasoning! You say everything has a cause. Well God is included in that'everything'So He must have a cause too!" And they get into infinite regressions.

A good question, and I'll weasel out of it for now, until I get back from vacation!



------------------
"It was there, at the edge of the black abyss, that I found myself."
-Patrick Ashley

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Pash--

That's exactly the issue. Nothing ever begins. Sure, we might say that my birth or my conception is my "beginning", but that's only within the frame of reference of our minds. For instance, did my "spirit" exist "before" my body was conceived? Was my soul created ex nihlo, or by the will of God? What, then, of words like spirit or before.

But, as humans must put alphas and omegas on everything (but God), we might say, sure ... there is a point which we might call "The Beginning."

And, for lack of anything better, we might call that concept "God", just as we describe a certain set of wavelengths as "blue", or a certain rock composition "granite". In this case, God is a label to a concept that cannot be represented in other words.

Anything besides this context is feldergarb.

I wanted to pick out a point for obscure academic consideration: "Well God is included in that'everything'."

I just wanted to mention that God is not necessarily included in everything. Greek, Hebrew, Christian, and Muslim scholars have beaten themselves stupid over this at various times through history. I might dredge up a Muslim idea:

There's a couple of things there. Briefly:

* God transcends human language. I assert that for God to "begin" anything does not look like a normal human undertaking; the nature of sequence itself was not "real" until after God had already "began".

* God Is Not in a way that everything else is. (Armstrong's picture of the Muslims is not the limit of God as "nonbeing". The idea pops up in Christian diabology, and probably shares some roots with the Hebrew concept of No-Thing.)

Emanations, pouring forth of love ... such possibilities exist and don't exist.

So ... omnipotent and eternal. I won't suggest infinite, though. But here we are at a place I find quite familiar, and don't know what to do.

We're in your territory now, conceptually. I would ask that you at least surprise me.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Have a nice vacation. I'll be around ...

thanx,
Tiassa

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

PS--Why is it that when a religious body forms a cosmology or attains a sense thereof, from that moment on, said cosmology centers around that religious body? Just a curious notion; I cite the Hebrews, the Hopi, the Cherokee, and many other tribal creation stories. (thanx

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

)

------------------
We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and important to us. (Ranier Maria Rilke)

 

okay, pashley, here's another one for you:

god is love.
love is blind.
ray charles is blind.
therefore ray charles is god.

i do admit, this is crude and stupid, but i would say no less than making the stretch between the big bang and there being an overriding entity that had a son named jesus christ and wants you to worship him on sundays.

i'm going to try not to go deep into cosmology as i don't get the impression that you are really too concerned with that angle.

let's start with the "beginning." i have to agree with tiassa here, there is no reason we have to assume that there must be a beginning to what we know. this is like taking a sphere and asking how long it would take to run to the end. how would you know when you were done? what would be the end? what would be the beginning? just because there are neither of those two things does not mean that there cannot be spheres, and does not mean we cannot run around them. it is perfectly reasonable to describe the universe as a "sphere" with no real beginning and no real end. the big bang can even be a part of this sphere.

more to come.

samus

 

One thing I could never understand about such arguments, is why people assume that if there ever was something uncaused in a finite regression, then that something must be intelligent, omniscient, all-powerful, and in addition anthropomorphic to an extereme. What is wrong with an uncaused hyper-universe, which just exists and that's that -- just like a purported God just exists? Furthermore, what's wrong with infinite regressions? In my view, an infinite regression of causal agents is not any less or more reasonable than even a mindless and purposeless acausal source of existence, not to mention an acausal God.

------------------
I am; therefore I think.

 

Boris--

Thank you. If there's one thing I can always count on, it's that when you speak, you cut to the place I wish I could take the argument, even if I disagree. In this case, you have summed up the critical point very nicely.

Samus--

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

What ... you mean, Ray Charles isn't God?

Right. Now I suppose you're gonna tell me that Clapton's not coming to save my soul.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Ah, the disappointment ...

thanx much,
Tiassa

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

------------------
We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and important to us. (Ranier Maria Rilke)

 

When you see a cloud rising in the west you say immediately that it is going to rain - and so it does; and when you notice that the wind is blowing from the south you say that it is going to be hot - and so it is. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky; why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

------------------
This is The Word of God

 

Oh, I wish I had the time...

Good posts...good thread!

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

I would like to attack the first premise of this thread

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

with the Emergentist philosphy argument that proposes something like Incomplete determinism.

(1) There are no transformation mechanisms which unambiguously turn the causes into the effects; causes and effects are coupled in a way that allows different causes to have the same effect and the same cause to have different effects.

(2) Little changes in the causes may lead to big changes in the effects.

(3) The more complex a system, the less probable the return of a certain state in the future.

Causa non aequat effectum, actio non est reactio !

------------------
"If I have been able to see further, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants."
Isaac Newton

 

Theword--

Huh?

Oh, nevermind.

--Tiassa

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

------------------
We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and important to us. (Ranier Maria Rilke)

 

I have spoken publicly to the world.

In secret I have said nothing.

Ask those who heard me what I said to them. They know what I said.

If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong; but if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?


------------------
This is The Word of God

 

As I said before ....

--Tiassa

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

------------------
We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and important to us. (Ranier Maria Rilke)

 

pashley -

Some logical flaws..

**pashley: "1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence.", "2.11 An actual infinite cannot exist.", "It will be remembered that an essential property of a necessary being is eternality."

So what you are saying is that a deity does not have a cause to its existence, and is eternal. That means that the being exists infinitely in the temporal dimension, and you state that an infinite cannot
exist.

**pashley: "You don't see any explanation on how that mass came to be there."

Nor do we see any explanation on how that deity came to be there.. it simply 'always was'.

**pashley: "2. The universe began to exist."

I refer you to our argument in the other thread. Your evidence for a deity is the universe. Your evidence for the universe is a deity. I believe an argument like this would lead to one of those infinite regressions you mentioned..

Finally,

**pashley: "2. The universe began to exist"

Were you there with a camcorder? Prove it! If your theoretical deity can be eternal and uncaused, your 'it just can't' argument is invalidated.

Looking forward to your response

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Sincerely,
FyreStar

 

Theword -

**Theword: "You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky; why do you not know how to interpret the present time?"

Well, its almost 11pm here and I need to get up early, so I interpret the present time as meaning I should get to bed soon.

I'm going to have to go with tiassa here..

FyreStar

P.S. Which word?

 

Pashley: I thought I'd leave a comment or two for you. For the most part I agree with you, we come from the same place (if you know what I mean [inside joke]). However, the scientific rebuttal would be that the universe has been a series of Big Bang/Big Crunches time immemorial. Philosophically the rebuttal would be the fallacy of composition. Since all things in the known universe had a being we attribute a beginning to the universe as a whole. This is known as the fallacy of composition in logic and is the classic rebuttal to your argument. However, there is a way to construct the cosmological argument to make it lead one to accept the high possibility of God. A strong argument. If I get the time and I feel it is warranted I'll share it.

Theword: There is a disease called "religious delusion". People who have it are unbalanced and out of touch with reality. I am not saying that you have it but your posts, while certainly true, could lead people to think that you are mentally unstable. I offer this to help you understand how people may perceive you. That will not help whatever you are trying to do unless you are trying to make people think you are nuts and I hope you aren't trying to do that. I appreciate your posts, but perhaps it might be better if you tried to be a bit more "real". Just a suggestion.

 

Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves, so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves. But beware of people, for they will hand you over to courts and scourge you in their synagogues, and you will be led before governors and kings for my sake as a witness before them and the pagans. When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say. For it will not be you who speak but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.


------------------
This is The Word of God

 

Theword--

I'm curious you really believe you're making any positive difference in God's eyes? Curiosity killed the cat, but thankfully we have laws against crucifixion. So I'm curious ... do you have a point that isn't solely intended to be disruptive?

First off: have a point. Secondly: make it relevant. Third: Some people spend considerable time learning to ignore your ilk. Read some of the posts on this board from last summer and fall and try to feel some of the enmity that bled all over the forum.

If you can't see the counterproductivity of your conduct, that's not my problem. However, if you really want me to strike you, fly out to Seattle and bring a crowbar. I'm generally disposed against violence, but if you really, really have a need to feel persecuted, I can accomodate you for a short time. Say, long enough for you to learn the difference between sticking your nose in and getting it whacked.

get medication,
Tiassa

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

(Edits ... well, apparently I have no syntax.)
------------------
We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and important to us. (Ranier Maria Rilke)

[This message has been edited by tiassa (edited May 11, 2000).]

 

To all ...

I hereby defer back to the topic. Apologies for the digression; I have had my say regarding its reasons.

thanx,
Tiassa

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

------------------
We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and important to us. (Ranier Maria Rilke)

 

Everyone,

With respect to Themaniac, I would plead with you all to stop goading this person on. Do not respond to their posts, let them vent in silence. When they have something intelligent to contribute, then perhaps they will have deserved an answer. Until then, I do not think it's healthy for either them or you to continue these exchanges. It appears this person has some internal issues to work out, and I do not believe they can do it through confrontation with you (unless you are a professional councellor.)

------------------
I am; therefore I think.