Beginning Of The Universe Evidence Of God's Existence

[Ouroboros]

No time to read all the posts at the moment. Just want to add the link I found to the wikipedia article on William Lane Craig's Kalam Cosmological Argument. It explains a few things for me and it sounds like what his people are saying, so it might serve as a good reference for anyone here who is unfamiliar with it.

 

I took a look at the entry in Wiki:

 

Premise 1: Everything that begins to exist has a cause.

 

Premise 2: The universe began to exist.

 

Conclusion 1: Therefore, the universe must have a cause.

 

Craig asserts that the first premise is "relatively uncontroversial". He defines "begins to exist" as "comes into being," and argues that we know from metaphysical intuition that things don't just pop into being uncaused. According to Craig, this establishes premise 1.

 

I have a problem with the highlighted part, since quantum mechanics is to some degree to be not part of the traditional sense of causality. Particles DO appear seemingly random, but are kept at bay by more statistical probability, rather than "A causes B which causes C..."

 

My understanding is that the Casimir Effect is a proof of this, and it would follow that the premise above is not set in stone as Craig declares. Causality only is clear and obvious on the level of human experience, but not on the level of the foundation for our world. There's even experiments where they sent a lightbeam backwards in time, which I think is called reversed causality. How does that fit into the scheme? I don't know. Maybe it does, but I think it opens up the question and it doesn't mean the first premise is given. Some scientists even reason that the superposition of nature only collapse to one, single, experience because of observation, i.e. we are causing it to become one single experience, through our existence and observation of it, which leads to the extreme thought that maybe we exist only because of some future observer (a God, created in our image), who will observe the universe and causes all the events to collapse to just one. In other words, we will be the inderect cause of our own existence. Crazy talk, I know... it'll get better later when I get a few beers. Back to my studies. (On another note: I managed to create a database and a spreadsheet in NeoOffice for my flashcards. Very cool.)

[Ouroboros]

I read the posts now. The concepts go pretty deep, esp. HanSolo's idea about the God before the thought of "let's create the world."

...

I think the original idea of "First Cause" came from Aristotle, and the maker of the Kalaam argument borrowed from him. And Aristotle posited a First Cause which was solid, fixed, non-movable, pure thought, pure mind, and pure goodness. But the only experience and knowledge we have about thoughts (and experience) is that it is a process, and so far we only know of a process through a media (brain matter etc), and to assume a dualistic view and a supernatural soul is to assume to much. How would a "God mind" exist? If we claim that God can think without a process, chain of thought, or a media for it to act in, then we are making an assumption since no one can explain how that could be. We can't just accept a soul or a non-temporal, non-embodied, mind/thought, without an explanation. So when I hear that the "First Cause" is to be the same as: a mind that can think in cause and effects, without being dependent of cause-and-effect in itself, means that I want to hear the argument to why. I can accept First Cause, I just can't accept that the First Cause is necessarily sentient.

[Jeff H]

I took a look at the entry in Wiki:

 

Premise 1: Everything that begins to exist has a cause.

 

Premise 2: The universe began to exist.

 

Conclusion 1: Therefore, the universe must have a cause.

 

Craig asserts that the first premise is "relatively uncontroversial". He defines "begins to exist" as "comes into being," and argues that we know from metaphysical intuition that things don't just pop into being uncaused. According to Craig, this establishes premise 1.

 

I have a problem with the highlighted part, since quantum mechanics is to some degree to be not part of the traditional sense of causality. Particles DO appear seemingly random, but are kept at bay by more statistical probability, rather than "A causes B which causes C..."

I have a problem with the highlighted part, but it's much more basic than that. What the hell is "metaphysical intuition"? That is the biggest piece-of-garbage term I have ever heard. In other words, the whole argument is based not on good reasoning and logic, but intuition. By his own admission. Oh boy. Mr. WLC just loves to keep digging himself into a hole here, doesn't he?

 

Edit: To put it another way, WLC is essentially saying, "It seems right to me, so therefore it is right." If that's the best argument they can come up with for some sentient First Cause....well, I don't even know how to finish that sentence.

[Ouroboros]

I have a problem with the highlighted part, but it's much more basic than that. What the hell is "metaphysical intuition"? That is the biggest piece-of-garbage term I have ever heard. In other words, the whole argument is based not on good reasoning and logic, but intuition. By his own admission. Oh boy. Mr. WLC just loves to keep digging himself into a hole here, doesn't he?

 

Edit: To put it another way, WLC is essentially saying, "It seems right to me, so therefore it is right." If that's the best argument they can come up with for some sentient First Cause....well, I don't even know how to finish that sentence.

I didn't think of that, but you're absolutely right. Is "Metaphysical Intuition" the same as divine revelation? The holy ghost speaks to me and tells me it is so, therefor it is so?

[LNC]

The following is a post that I put up on William Lane Craig’s website in response to RS Martin’s request that I respond to HansSolo’s post on this site. This is a response to a compilation of HS’s posts.

 

The only kind of God the Kalam argument can lead to is a God who, himself, has to have been created, otherwise he can not exist.

 

This does not follow from the Kalam argument as there is no reason why God should have had to have a beginning. The argument leads to an infinite regression with this view and you lose either way.

 

Without the "God" part, the argument is valid, and one theory for what caused the Big Bang is a quantum fluctuation in the hot/dense/pre-universe state made it go unstable.

 

For Quantum fluctuations to occur you would assume that quantum energy existed and that has already been shown not to be possible due to weak energy conditions and for a variety of other reasons. It is basically question begging. You assume the existence of that which you are trying to prove

 

That's exactly what I said. God has to be made as an exception for the first premise for the syllogism to hold true, and that is special pleading.

 

This is not special pleading. Matter requires a beginning because of the laws of physics. God is not bound by the laws of physics and therefore does not require a beginning.

 

One problem with premise one is that it contains several conditions at once. A good premise should only contain A->B, and not a combination of conditions or assumptions.

 

I don't know how you come up with more than one condition; the only conditional part of the statement is "Everything that begins to exist".

 

But see the problem is that Set B is assumed to exclude God, but include the Universe, and a potential multiverse, and any 11 dimensions, and braided universe, and ... That is called special pleading, or you could call it a non-explicit assumption.

 

OK, here is a problem with the argument. Matter, according to the preponderance of the evidence from physics is not past-eternal (nor according to the 2nd law of thermodynamics) is it future eternal. For that reason and others that I have pointed out through some of the research the universe is past-finite (had a beginning). God is not made up of matter, he is spirit and therefore not bound by the laws of physics and therefore, does not require a beginning. This is why it is not special pleading. You are comparing apples and oranges.

[LNC]

Thinking further along those lines... Can we even claim that that which constitutes the universe as we know it began to exist at the big bang, or merely transitioned from some other form to the form we observe?

 

Yes, we can claim that the universe began to exist. here are some reasons why:

 

Here is a quote from "Constraints on spatial distributions of negative energy" by Borde, Ford, & Roman: "However, in the case of inflationary cosmology it has recently been found that violations of the WEC (weak energy condition) do not allow one to avoid initial singularities"

 

What that means is that in order to avoid a singularity would require negative energy density. They state "The energy density of all observed forms of classical matter is non-negative."

 

Quentin Smith states "The definition of a singularity that is employed in the singularity theorems entails that it is impossible to extend the space-time manifold beyond the singularity."

 

So, to show that matter is past eternal you must show that either another type of physics exists or show some other way that a singularity can be avoided.

 

The problem with the word "began" is that it is depending on time.

 

This is a logical fallacy as time began to exist according to physics, so it would mean that time would require time to begin, and that is fallacious. Even atheists like Quentin Smith don’t argue that spacetime didn’t begin to exist.

 

In a black hole, and also in the hot and chaotic 'blob' that existed before our universe--time doesn't and didn't exist.

 

“Well, in a certain sense it is not changed at all. If you were to enter a black hole, you would find you watch ticking along at the same rate as it always had (assuming both you and the watch survived the passage into the black hole). However, you would quickly fall toward the center where you would be killed by enormous tidal forces (e.g., the force of gravity at you feet, if you fell feet first, would be much larger than at you head, and you would be stretched apart).

Although your watch as seen by you would not change its ticking rate, just as in special relativity (if you know anything about that), someone else would see a different ticking rate on your watch than the usual, and you would see their watch to be ticking at a different than normal rate. For example, if you were to station yourself just outside a black hole, while you would find your own watch ticking at the normal rate, you would see the watch of a friend at great distance from the hole to be ticking at a much faster rate than yours. That friend would see his own watch ticking at a normal rate, but see your watch to be ticking at a much slower rate. Thus if you stayed just outside the black hole for a while, then went back to join your friend, you would find that the friend had aged more than you had during your separation.” Dr. John Simonetti, Department of Physics, Virginia Tech.

Also, I don’t know of any theory that claims that a hot and chaotic “blob” existed before our universe. Otherwise, I agree that time came into existence with the universe.

[LNC]

But the Universe "Banged" from something, it was not nothing, and that something did "do" something, in the sense of something happened. And the cause was a quantum event, which is something in our world we know (or at least currently) define as self caused (i.e. without first cause). Basically, the Kalam argument is correct, a "first cause" caused the Universe, but it wasn't a "God", and it wasn't (and isn't) alone (because it's still happening), and whatever hot plasma ball it happened it, might have come from a different state before that, which means it wasn't really the "first". But it was definitely the first for our Universe existence.

The universe banged from the singularity which is a zero volume high density particle at the edge of spacetime reality. Prior to the singularity no spacetime reality existed. The rest of the statement is complete misinformation which I believe you may be basing upon based upon quantum uncertainty. However, quantum uncertainty is an epistemological uncertainty, not an ontological uncertainty which seems to be the way that you are interpreting it. IOW, quantum uncertainty occurs within a quantum vacuum, which is existing matter; it is not something coming from nothing or uncaused. Your statement that it wasn’t a “God” is a conclusion for which you have not shown sufficient evidence. Besides, quantum events are not causes they are methods. That is to say, it is at best an efficient cause (the way it may have happened) not an effective cause (why it happened).

One theory is that new universes spawn out of black holes. The new particle collider they're powering up right now, might be able to create miniature black holes... maybe that will cause a universe into existence, and the scientists are the Gods?

No, even if a black hole spawned a new universe, which is only theory at this point, it would be of a different nature than the meta universe which came from nothing. They would still be scientists, sorry.

Right. Even if we take a less purely materialistic view and admit the concept of things beginning to exist within our universe, any beginning of existence of the universe as we know it, is a completely different sort of phenomena than beginning of existence of the universe itself. Causality within our universe is at best an analogy to causality of our universe. I don't see any particular reason to think it is a valid analogy.

Quantum Events are said to be without first causes, i.e. self-caused. That makes every quark a God. Every particle in our body consists of at least one or two quarks, which means we're full of trillions and trillions of gods.

Except that the research available does not allow for a past-infinite universe, so the first paragraph doesn’t really address what we know about how the universe came to be.

Quantum events are theorized by some to be without a cause; however, that is one of approximately ten possible explanations of how quantum works, and it is not the majority view by any means at this point. So the rest of the statement is moot.

 

My understanding is that the Casimir Effect is a proof of this, and it would follow that the premise above is not set in stone as Craig declares. Causality only is clear and obvious on the level of human experience, but not on the level of the foundation for our world.

I am not sure how you get to your conclusion using the Casimir Effect. You would have to read up on that and explain how. I think you again are confusing epistemological certainty with ontological certainty. This, based upon the rest of the answer given, including “How does that fit into the scheme? I don't know. Maybe it does, but I think it opens up the question and it doesn't mean the first premise is given.” Makes me think that maybe you are uncertain about your answer. It appears to be a red herring thrown into the mix. You then apparently get into a discussion of tensed versus non-tensed time. Is that what you are hinting at?

I think the original idea of "First Cause" came from Aristotle, and the maker of the Kalaam argument borrowed from him. And Aristotle posited a First Cause which was solid, fixed, non-movable, pure thought, pure mind, and pure goodness. But the only experience and knowledge we have about thoughts (and experience) is that it is a process, and so far we only know of a process through a media (brain matter etc), and to assume a dualistic view and a supernatural soul is to assume to much. How would a "God mind" exist? If we claim that God can think without a process, chain of thought, or a media for it to act in, then we are making an assumption since no one can explain how that could be. We can't just accept a soul or a non-temporal, non-embodied, mind/thought, without an explanation. So when I hear that the "First Cause" is to be the same as: a mind that can think in cause and effects, without being dependent of cause-and-effect in itself, means that I want to hear the argument to why. I can accept First Cause, I just can't accept that the First Cause is necessarily sentient.

So logic and math do not exist prior to them being processed through a medium? That would be news to every philosopher on the planet. This is simply materialistic reductionism and question begging. You are assuming a materialistic worldview to prove that nothing exists beyond matter. That is circular reasoning.

[R. S. Martin]

Welcome LNC! We'll see what people here can do with your questions/ideas/challenges. As LNC mentions, we met on William Lane Craig's forums where I had posted this same question. In consultation with HanSolo the invitation was extended that he could post here where his questions would be subjected to a different set of ideas.

 

Just to be clear, I don't think there is any intention on anyone's part for anyone to convert anyone to anything. The single goal, so far as I know, is to discuss ideas. This issue was raised and I think everyone is clear on this.

[Asimov]

Welcome LNC! We'll see what people here can do with your questions/ideas/challenges. As LNC mentions, we met on William Lane Craig's forums where I had posted this same question. In consultation with HanSolo the invitation was extended that he could post here where his questions would be subjected to a different set of ideas.

 

Just to be clear, I don't think there is any intention on anyone's part for anyone to convert anyone to anything. The single goal, so far as I know, is to discuss ideas. This issue was raised and I think everyone is clear on this.

 

I don't see the need to debate science topics on issues that are so theoretical we could find professional support on virtually every basic cosmological model. From what I've read (Tegmark and Susskind), there is a lot of talk regarding Multiverse theories.

 

There is no reason beyond a baseless assertion that everything which begins to exist requires a reason for its existence.

 

I don't see any problem with an infinite regress of time intervals.

 

This is a logical fallacy as time began to exist according to physics, so it would mean that time would require time to begin, and that is fallacious. Even atheists like Quentin Smith don’t argue that spacetime didn’t begin to exist.

 

Space and time are coordinate functions, dependent upon the reference point of any individual object.

 

This does not follow from the Kalam argument as there is no reason why God should have had to have a beginning. The argument leads to an infinite regression with this view and you lose either way.

 

Why would we lose with an infinite regression? Of course there is no reason why God should have had to have a beginning because he is inherently ad hoc. You can make up whatever you want about him to fit whatever science happens to devise.

 

This is not special pleading. Matter requires a beginning because of the laws of physics. God is not bound by the laws of physics and therefore does not require a beginning.

 

That is the very definition of special pleading. You're fabricating a being that supersedes any supposed issues.

[Ouroboros]

Asmiov,

 

I so totally love it when we find ourselves on the same side of a subject.

 

LNC,

 

I'm not going to write long essays to defend a position which I know I share with well established and intelligent philosophers. But I will try to take us through the steps very slowly, and hopefully we can find common points on agreement, se we can build our discussion from there. One of my philosophy dictionaries states that one of the problems with the cosmological argument is that its based on vagueness. So I wish to start there, lets get rid of the vague formulations and see if we can understand each other. Unfortunately we're forced to dig into the minuscule details, here the first one:

 

First premise: Everything that begins to exist has a cause.

 

Our first goal is to define what we mean with: Exist

 

Lets discuss these questions:

 

Does the universe exist?

 

Does God exist (your opinion, a yes or no will suffice)?

 

If you answered yes to both questions, are those two existences the same kind of existence, or two different kinds?

 

If you consider them different, then in what aspects are they different, and in what aspects are they the same? For instance, does God's existence include time, space, and is God's existence affected by cause and effect (within it's own existence--i.e. can God experience, and can he come up with new ideas, based on previous thinking)?

[Legion]

Hans it seems clear to me that LNC does believe that the universe exists and that God exists but that they have a different kind of existence. He claims that God is spirit and therefore is not bound by the laws that govern the universe (i.e. God is supernatural).

 

But I predict that this discussion will go no where because neither of you have read and understood the work of theoretical biologist Robert Rosen who tries to explain that organisms have something to teach us about the nature of the universe. I also predict that many of you grow weary of my frequent references to Rosen’s work. Tough. I think all those who consider themselves scholars would do well to read his work.

 

LNC do you grow weary of sparring with materialistic reductionists? Do you want a real challenge? If so, then read Rosen’s Life Itself.

[R. S. Martin]

LR, a person who builds all of his life philosophy on, and draws all of his conclusions from, a single author develops by definition an extremely narrow view of life. By the time I was half-way through my thesis I knew by instinct that one has to read at least three books from three different angles on any topic to get a half-decent view of it. And that's only on the MA level. LR, if you want to speak as an Authority on Life, just get yourself out of your Middle Ages Mindset and into a liberal university library catalogue and find some authors and READ. You need to BROADEN YOUR HORIZONS like you need little else. Rosen is NOT god.

 

I can understand if you need to study this one author for a specific project but you should not be instructing the rest of humanity to live and die by said author. I think I have 99.999% of liberal academia behind me on that.

[Legion]

LR, a person who builds all of his life philosophy on, and draws all of his conclusions from, a single author develops by definition an extremely narrow view of life.

I agree completely Ruby, but sometimes one comes across a pioneer. And in my opinion Robert Rosen was a first class pioneer.

 

... get yourself out of your Middle Ages Mindset and into a liberal university library catalogue and find some authors and READ. You need to BROADEN YOUR HORIZONS like you need little else. Rosen is NOT god.

Of course Rosen wasn't a god, bitch. And while we're busy telling each other what we need to do... You need to kiss my ass.

[Asimov]

First premise: Everything that begins to exist has a cause.

 

Our first goal is to define what we mean with: Exist

 

While I think it is a good question to force the person to define what they mean by existence, another question on the first premise would be "why should we hold this as true?"

[LNC]

Welcome LNC! We'll see what people here can do with your questions/ideas/challenges. As LNC mentions, we met on William Lane Craig's forums where I had posted this same question. In consultation with HanSolo the invitation was extended that he could post here where his questions would be subjected to a different set of ideas.

 

Just to be clear, I don't think there is any intention on anyone's part for anyone to convert anyone to anything. The single goal, so far as I know, is to discuss ideas. This issue was raised and I think everyone is clear on this.

 

 

Thanks, I look forward to the interaction.

[Ouroboros]

First premise: Everything that begins to exist has a cause.

 

Our first goal is to define what we mean with: Exist

 

While I think it is a good question to force the person to define what they mean by existence, another question on the first premise would be "why should we hold this as true?"

Agree.

 

Btw, did you talk about the whole premise, or just the part of defining "existence?" Either or, I still agree.

[LNC]

I don't see the need to debate science topics on issues that are so theoretical we could find professional support on virtually every basic cosmological model. From what I've read (Tegmark and Susskind), there is a lot of talk regarding Multiverse theories.

 

There is no reason beyond a baseless assertion that everything which begins to exist requires a reason for its existence.

 

I don't see any problem with an infinite regress of time intervals.

 

I would be interested if you could show some research that would allow for a past-infinite universe, multiverse or otherwise. The concept of an infinite regress is philosophically problematic as you run into logical absurdities.

 

Space and time are coordinate functions, dependent upon the reference point of any individual object.

 

Which is the point, objects (matter) has to exist for time to be meaningful. No matter, no time.

 

Why would we lose with an infinite regression? Of course there is no reason why God should have had to have a beginning because he is inherently ad hoc. You can make up whatever you want about him to fit whatever science happens to devise.

 

First you have to show how an infinite regress could be logically possible, I don't see how. Hilbert showed the absurdity of the concept with his hotel illustration. It can be shown logically that God is necessary and not just an ad hoc explanation. If we can show that matter is past-finite, it would require a supernatural causation. That is not an ad hoc explanation, it follows logically unless you can think of another possible explanation.

 

That is the very definition of special pleading. You're fabricating a being that supersedes any supposed issues.

 

No, I think you are confused about the definition. Special pleading would be saying that something that shares all the characteristics of the group that you are trying to explain would for some special reason be excluded from the rules of that group. God is not part of the grouping including matter, space, and time, all of which by the laws of physics, require a beginning point. You have committed a category error fallacy by including God in the grouping of those things requiring a beginning. Unless, of course, you can think of some other reason that God would require a beginning. However, P1 of Kalam states "Everything that has a beginning has a cause." P2 says "The universe had a beginning" which is what the laws of physics tell us. Now, if you know of some law that would apply making it necessary for God to have had a beginning, I would be happy to entertain such interact with you on that topic.

[LNC]

First premise: Everything that begins to exist has a cause.

 

Our first goal is to define what we mean with: Exist

 

Lets discuss these questions:

 

Does the universe exist?

 

Does God exist (your opinion, a yes or no will suffice)?

 

If you answered yes to both questions, are those two existences the same kind of existence, or two different kinds?

 

If you consider them different, then in what aspects are they different, and in what aspects are they the same? For instance, does God's existence include time, space, and is God's existence affected by cause and effect (within it's own existence--i.e. can God experience, and can he come up with new ideas, based on previous thinking)?

 

Yes, I believe that the universe exists. Of course, philosophically we cannot come to any absolute certainty about even our own existence; however, we go with our intuitions and sense perceptions and trust that they are accurate in coming to that conclusion.

 

I also believe that it is accurate to say that God exists.

 

Your third question needs more specificity as existence has many different aspects to it. In regard to the basic question of existence vs. non-existence, then yes it is the same in that aspect. However, they differ in many ways as well. God is a personal being, the universe is not; therefore, their existence is different in that aspect. God is eternal, the universe is not. So, overall, you would have to define what you mean by the question because I could show differences and similarities for a long time.

 

Regarding God, space, and time, even that is an answer that would take some time. I believe that God existed outside of time before time was created; however, at this point I am still thinking through how God exists in relationship to time, so I would have to get back to you on that one. Regarding space, God is a spiritual being who occupied no space prior to the incarnation of Jesus when Jesus came into space and time. The resurrection body of Jesus is of a different nature which I won't expound on at this point. The last question I would say is also a bit too vague, but I will take a shot at the last part. God cannot think new thoughts as he is omniscient, he knows all truth. Sorry, you would have to be a little more specific about what else you are thinking about in regard to God being affected by case and effect.

[Ouroboros]

Yes, I believe that the universe exists. Of course, philosophically we cannot come to any absolute certainty about even our own existence; however, we go with our intuitions and sense perceptions and trust that they are accurate in coming to that conclusion.

 

I also believe that it is accurate to say that God exists.

We will stay on this issue until we come to some form of agreement.

 

Basically, we exist, the world exist, and God exist, in some shape or form.

 

Your third question needs more specificity as existence has many different aspects to it. In regard to the basic question of existence vs. non-existence, then yes it is the same in that aspect. However, they differ in many ways as well. God is a personal being, the universe is not; therefore, their existence is different in that aspect. God is eternal, the universe is not. So, overall, you would have to define what you mean by the question because I could show differences and similarities for a long time.

Right.

 

I mean in the sense, if I say: Everything that Exists, would God be included or excluded from "Everything that Exists"?

 

Regarding God, space, and time, even that is an answer that would take some time. I believe that God existed outside of time before time was created; however, at this point I am still thinking through how God exists in relationship to time, so I would have to get back to you on that one. Regarding space, God is a spiritual being who occupied no space prior to the incarnation of Jesus when Jesus came into space and time. The resurrection body of Jesus is of a different nature which I won't expound on at this point. The last question I would say is also a bit too vague, but I will take a shot at the last part. God cannot think new thoughts as he is omniscient, he knows all truth. Sorry, you would have to be a little more specific about what else you are thinking about in regard to God being affected by case and effect.

What about the rest of the spirit world? Demons, angels, heaven, and hell, is cause and effect/time/space applicable to that part of the spirit world, but not to the spirit world of God? Or in other words, is there two levels of spiritual existence? One which is un-caused (God), and one that is caused (heaven, hell, angels...)?

 

And secondly, if God never make a decision or reason his way to do something, then how could he "make" the world as one point in time? There would never be a point in time when he decided to create time. A timeless being doesn't have a timeline on to where he can act. It's like saying ∞ is a discrete number.

[LNC]

We will stay on this issue until we come to some form of agreement.

 

Basically, we exist, the world exist, and God exist, in some shape or form.

 

Sure, I can go along with that.

 

Right.

 

I mean in the sense, if I say: Everything that Exists, would God be included or excluded from "Everything that Exists"?

 

Sure, since God exists he would be included in that category of everything that exists.

 

What about the rest of the spirit world? Demons, angels, heaven, and hell, is cause and effect/time/space applicable to that part of the spirit world, but not to the spirit world of God? Or in other words, is there two levels of spiritual existence? One which is un-caused (God), and one that is caused (heaven, hell, angels...)?

 

And secondly, if God never make a decision or reason his way to do something, then how could he "make" the world as one point in time? There would never be a point in time when he decided to create time. A timeless being doesn't have a timeline on to where he can act. It's like saying ∞ is a discrete number.

 

I would say that within the spirit realm there is the creation and the creator. God being the creator and the rest of the spiritual realm being his creation. I think that is what you are driving toward, if I have missed some aspect, please clarify.

 

There is a difference between willing something to happen and reasoning one's way to do something. When I get up in the morning I don't necessarily reason my way to the bathroom, to get dressed, etc. I believe that God knew from eternity past that he would will the universe into existence and all aspects of what would happen from that point on. I don't believe that he reasoned his way to that point as that would violate his omniscience, IOW, he would be thinking thoughts that he had never thought prior, and would know new knowledge. I think that when you talk about a "time" when God chose to create the universe it is a category error as time didn't exist at that point. When God willed the universe into existence time began with that act. God remained in a changeless state until he created the universe.

[Ouroboros]

Sure, since God exists he would be included in that category of everything that exists.

Good.

 

Lets try to distinguish between cause as an action, and cause as a causator (actor). In the premise it's referring to things that exist, because they have been caused to exist. Which means either: cause as an event, like kinetic energy, a decision by a person caused a chain reaction which eventually led to... etc. That's events, or actions. While cause as in First Cause, is an actor, a being, entity, or object that causes something. Do you see the difference?

 

If you do, lets make a little descriptive language here for the purpose of explaining things:

 

All things (objects, entities) that exist (or have existed in the past, or will exist in the future) are of one set, lets say: E_t

 

And an entity, or element of that set is e.

 

e ∈ E_t

 

God is a special entity in E_t, or more specifically, the elements can be divided in two separate sets: one set of entities that are (was/will be) created/caused, and the one set of entities that are (was/will be) un-caused.

 

E_c - caused entities

 

E_u - un-caused entities, like God

 

And for the sake of simplicity, lets u be what we identity as an item of the E_c, and u as an item of E_u.

 

c ∈ E_c

 

u ∈ E_u

 

And furthermore, lets denote a "causal" link between an item to another with an arrow, like this e₀ -> e₁.

 

Are we good with that?

 

What about the rest of the spirit world? Demons, angels, heaven, and hell, is cause and effect/time/space applicable to that part of the spirit world, but not to the spirit world of God? Or in other words, is there two levels of spiritual existence? One which is un-caused (God), and one that is caused (heaven, hell, angels...)?

 

And secondly, if God never make a decision or reason his way to do something, then how could he "make" the world as one point in time? There would never be a point in time when he decided to create time. A timeless being doesn't have a timeline on to where he can act. It's like saying ∞ is a discrete number.

 

I would say that within the spirit realm there is the creation and the creator. God being the creator and the rest of the spiritual realm being his creation. I think that is what you are driving toward, if I have missed some aspect, please clarify.

What I'm saying is that Angles were created too, so in the domain of angles, that spiritual world also must be causal dependent, like ours. In other words, there are TWO (or more worlds which are created by God. So we have to separate the God-Spirit-World and Angel-Spirit-World, and also God-Spirit-World and Universe-World, and Angel-Spirit-World and Universe.

 

This leads to a question:

 

If an Angel created the Universe, then it wasn't the First Cause that created the Universe but the n-th cause, granted that somewhere, way back there, a First Cause could exist, but what guarantees that the First Cause DIRECTLY that caused the Universe and not an Angel or any other spiritual being? Lets say it was an Angel, granted again that it still doesn't invalidate the possibility of a creator or a possible distant First Cause, but... the problem is that the Cosmological Argument doesn't account for this, but states that the UNIVERSE was caused directly by the FIRST CAUSE. So either the argument must account, or argue, why it must have been a direct influence, i.e.uc₀ -> Universe, rather than u₀ -> c₀ -> c₁ -> ... -> Universe. What's the argument here?

 

There is a difference between willing something to happen and reasoning one's way to do something. When I get up in the morning I don't necessarily reason my way to the bathroom, to get dressed, etc. I believe that God knew from eternity past that he would will the universe into existence and all aspects of what would happen from that point on. I don't believe that he reasoned his way to that point as that would violate his omniscience, IOW, he would be thinking thoughts that he had never thought prior, and would know new knowledge. I think that when you talk about a "time" when God chose to create the universe it is a category error as time didn't exist at that point. When God willed the universe into existence time began with that act. God remained in a changeless state until he created the universe.

So he is a slave to his own foreknowledge? Does he really ever act, or is he merely a machine that just acts upon a set, fixed, pre-knowledge that has existed from infinity? How can he be a he, or a person, without the ability to experience, learn, change, be moved? What you're describing is nothing more than a robot with a hard-coded program.

 

 

(As you see, my top part is the beginning of developing a formal system for us to work with, while the latter part was a mere verbal response. We'll develop the formal system until we can start using some real logic on it, without the risk of misunderstanding.)

[Asimov]

I would be interested if you could show some research that would allow for a past-infinite universe, multiverse or otherwise. The concept of an infinite regress is philosophically problematic as you run into logical absurdities.

 

Max Tegmark - The infinite sea

Leonard Susskind - The Cosmic Landscape

Works by Veneziano

 

I don't see how the concept of infinite regress is philosophically or mathematically problematic, nor do I see any logical absurdities.

 

Which is the point, objects (matter) has to exist for time to be meaningful. No matter, no time.

 

Glad we agree on that.

 

First you have to show how an infinite regress could be logically possible, I don't see how. Hilbert showed the absurdity of the concept with his hotel illustration. It can be shown logically that God is necessary and not just an ad hoc explanation. If we can show that matter is past-finite, it would require a supernatural causation.

 

Good sir, you are the one who maintains the claim that an infinite regress is impossible, so why should I have to disprove your claim when you haven't provided support for it? I merely responded that I don't see why an infinite regress is impossible.

 

If you wish, though:

 

Using Hilbert's Hotels paradox is invalid because

 

1) an infinity of things is different from an infinity of events

2) Hilbert's Hotel is actually impossible because of finite signal velocity, not because an actual infinite is automatically impossible.

 

 

God is not part of the grouping including matter, space, and time, all of which by the laws of physics, require a beginning point.

 

By all means keep repeating this, but you so far haven't provided an iota of support for it.

 

God must be a part of time, or he isn't able to act.

[LNC]

Lets try to distinguish between cause as an action, and cause as a causator (actor). In the premise it's referring to things that exist, because they have been caused to exist. Which means either: cause as an event, like kinetic energy, a decision by a person caused a chain reaction which eventually led to... etc. That's events, or actions. While cause as in First Cause, is an actor, a being, entity, or object that causes something. Do you see the difference?

 

If you do, lets make a little descriptive language here for the purpose of explaining things:

 

All things (objects, entities) that exist (or have existed in the past, or will exist in the future) are of one set, lets say: E_t

 

And an entity, or element of that set is e.

 

e ∈ E_t

 

God is a special entity in E_t, or more specifically, the elements can be divided in two separate sets: one set of entities that are (was/will be) created/caused, and the one set of entities that are (was/will be) un-caused.

 

E_c - caused entities

 

E_u - un-caused entities, like God

 

And for the sake of simplicity, lets u be what we identity as an item of the E_c, and u as an item of E_u.

 

c ∈ E_c

 

u ∈ E_u

 

And furthermore, lets denote a "causal" link between an item to another with an arrow, like this e₀ -> e₁.

 

Are we good with that?

 

OK, so far…

 

What I'm saying is that Angles were created too, so in the domain of angles, that spiritual world also must be causal dependent, like ours. In other words, there are TWO (or more worlds which are created by God. So we have to separate the God-Spirit-World and Angel-Spirit-World, and also God-Spirit-World and Universe-World, and Angel-Spirit-World and Universe.

 

This leads to a question:

 

If an Angel created the Universe, then it wasn't the First Cause that created the Universe but the n-th cause, granted that somewhere, way back there, a First Cause could exist, but what guarantees that the First Cause DIRECTLY that caused the Universe and not an Angel or any other spiritual being? Lets say it was an Angel, granted again that it still doesn't invalidate the possibility of a creator or a possible distant First Cause, but... the problem is that the Cosmological Argument doesn't account for this, but states that the UNIVERSE was caused directly by the FIRST CAUSE. So either the argument must account, or argue, why it must have been a direct influence, i.e.uc₀ -> Universe, rather than u₀ -> c₀ -> c₁ -> ... -> Universe. What's the argument here?

 

I don’t know where you come up with the concept that an angel created the universe. The Bible would say that God created the universe in the second person of the Trinity, IOW, Jesus. There is no indication in the Bible that angels had anything to do with the creation of the universe; and in fact, it is not clear from the Bible when angels were created in relation to the universe. So, that is not pertinent to Kalam.

 

So he is a slave to his own foreknowledge? Does he really ever act, or is he merely a machine that just acts upon a set, fixed, pre-knowledge that has existed from infinity? How can he be a he, or a person, without the ability to experience, learn, change, be moved? What you're describing is nothing more than a robot with a hard-coded program.

 

 

(As you see, my top part is the beginning of developing a formal system for us to work with, while the latter part was a mere verbal response. We'll develop the formal system until we can start using some real logic on it, without the risk of misunderstanding.)

 

No, God is a free being. That would be like saying that God is a slave to his omniscience, it is nonsensical. If you decide that you are going to go to a movie a week ahead of time, and then follow through and go to the movie, are you a slave to the decision? Just because God knew from eternity past that he would and when he would create the universe in no way makes him a slave to his foreknowledge.

 

Can a perfect being become more perfect? Can an all-knowing being learn? Can an omniscient being experience something that hasn’t been experienced? The logical answer to all of these questions would be no. Just because God possesses these traits, it in no way follows that he is therefore a robot. That is a non-sequitur.

[LNC]

Max Tegmark - The infinite sea

Leonard Susskind - The Cosmic Landscape

Works by Veneziano

 

I don't see how the concept of infinite regress is philosophically or mathematically problematic, nor do I see any logical absurdities.

 

I will check out some of their works.

 

Good sir, you are the one who maintains the claim that an infinite regress is impossible, so why should I have to disprove your claim when you haven't provided support for it? I merely responded that I don't see why an infinite regress is impossible.

 

If you wish, though:

 

Using Hilbert's Hotels paradox is invalid because

 

1) an infinity of things is different from an infinity of events

2) Hilbert's Hotel is actually impossible because of finite signal velocity, not because an actual infinite is automatically impossible.

 

The problem is that the concept actual infinites produce a number of logical paradoxes. Included would be the problem of spanning an infinite amount of time. Second, would be that you cannot arrive at an infinite by adding one unit at a time. There are a number of other paradoxes that have not been solved which, I believe, make the concept of actual infinites philosophically problematic at best, and logically untenable at worst.

 

By all means keep repeating this, but you so far haven't provided an iota of support for it.

 

 

God must be a part of time, or he isn't able to act.

 

That is debatable among philosophers and is actually unsolved as a question. That is why I am still pondering both sides of the argument. I have read good arguments on both sides. William Lane Craig would argue as you do, that God entered time at the creation of the universe. Others say that God remains outside of time. BTW, you say that I have not provided one iota of support for my position, which seems to equal the amount that you provided for your final assertion. So we are equal on this point.

[Ouroboros]

...

Are we good with that?

 

OK, so far…

Good. I will continue later this week, Monday-Wednesday are pretty busy.

 

What I'm saying is that Angles were created too, so in the domain of angles, that spiritual world also must be causal dependent, like ours. In other words, there are TWO (or more worlds which are created by God. So we have to separate the God-Spirit-World and Angel-Spirit-World, and also God-Spirit-World and Universe-World, and Angel-Spirit-World and Universe.

 

This leads to a question:

 

If an Angel created the Universe, then it wasn't the First Cause that created the Universe but the n-th cause, granted that somewhere, way back there, a First Cause could exist, but what guarantees that the First Cause DIRECTLY that caused the Universe and not an Angel or any other spiritual being? Lets say it was an Angel, granted again that it still doesn't invalidate the possibility of a creator or a possible distant First Cause, but... the problem is that the Cosmological Argument doesn't account for this, but states that the UNIVERSE was caused directly by the FIRST CAUSE. So either the argument must account, or argue, why it must have been a direct influence, i.e.uc₀ -> Universe, rather than u₀ -> c₀ -> c₁ -> ... -> Universe. What's the argument here?

 

I don’t know where you come up with the concept that an angel created the universe. The Bible would say that God created the universe in the second person of the Trinity, IOW, Jesus. There is no indication in the Bible that angels had anything to do with the creation of the universe; and in fact, it is not clear from the Bible when angels were created in relation to the universe. So, that is not pertinent to Kalam.

You're missing the point.

 

Keyword: "IF". Meaning, conditional statement based on something like "lets say this was the case, what would it mean to our little discussion." You do know what it means when someone talks "hypothetical?"

 

If God created a proxy who in turn created the Universe, the Cosmological Argument would fall, since it assume that God was the direct actor. There's nothing in nature or causal relationships that demands that assumption.

 

So he is a slave to his own foreknowledge? Does he really ever act, or is he merely a machine that just acts upon a set, fixed, pre-knowledge that has existed from infinity? How can he be a he, or a person, without the ability to experience, learn, change, be moved? What you're describing is nothing more than a robot with a hard-coded program.

 

 

(As you see, my top part is the beginning of developing a formal system for us to work with, while the latter part was a mere verbal response. We'll develop the formal system until we can start using some real logic on it, without the risk of misunderstanding.)

 

No, God is a free being. That would be like saying that God is a slave to his omniscience, it is nonsensical. If you decide that you are going to go to a movie a week ahead of time, and then follow through and go to the movie, are you a slave to the decision? Just because God knew from eternity past that he would and when he would create the universe in no way makes him a slave to his foreknowledge.

You're being nonsensical here. God, from all eternity time, being without time, always would do exactly what he already knew he would do. He can't change his mind, because if he did, he would have been WRONG!

 

After 1 comes 2, after 2 comes 3, and never will -1 come after 3. It doesn't change. It's a fixed sequence.

 

Being "Free" means that he can change his mind. How can he change his mind if he knew that he wouldn't? If you knew that in 5 minutes you would type the letter A on the keyboard, and then you decided to not type the letter A, it means your foreknowledge was wrong!

 

Can a perfect being become more perfect? Can an all-knowing being learn? Can an omniscient being experience something that hasn’t been experienced? The logical answer to all of these questions would be no. Just because God possesses these traits, it in no way follows that he is therefore a robot. That is a non-sequitur.

Wow. You really don't see it. I don't know how to explain it to you, but to me it's clear as crystal. I think we'll stick to the formal language we'll developing above instead.

 

And it's not non-sequitor at all. You like to throw fallacy buzzwords around, don't you? A being who already have set his decisions in stone from eternity past, he can't make a new choice or different choice tomorrow. He must abide to his set path (like a robot), or he is breaking his foreknowledge. But I'm not going to dive into this discussion too here, it's going to be too much.

 

--edit--

 

Just a side note:

 

On the other hand if God is a being, he must be able to act upon will, which inherently means he has to exist in some form of time line. But if he's timeless, maybe you see God as the collection of all fundamental laws, and a preset destination of being a non-thinking existence that were "forced" (in the sense of: he had no choice) to create the world. He was destined to be the creator, and he couldn't do squat about it. In other words, he's nothing but a slave to his own existence. He must create the world, because it was his destiny. He must act according to the set plan, because it is his nature. Or we could say, he's just a machine that follows the order of creating a universe. It reminds me of the story how Brahman opened his eyes, and the world came to be, then he closed his eyes and the world ended, then he opened his eyes and a new world came into existence, and so on... Nothing but a switch button that goes on and off. Why would anyone ever consider to pray to this monotonous automaton?