Arguing for the existence of God how do you answer: the Designer needs a designer

[jcrichton]

I am sorry you feel that way.

You are caught in your own net–never being able to prove you exist since you must first prove that you exist before you prove that you exist (get the gist?).

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[jcrichton]

Kelly Perry has an interesting song… in the video, her main character discovers, towards the end of the song, that we are all chained to the rhythm (life)… sadly, you seem to want God to be part of that chain and you would not accept Him if He Exists outside of that chain… which reminds me of that old saying, ‘misery loves company.’

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[De_Maria]

How is this relevant to me? I am Buddhist, not atheist. My scriptures have a lot more gods than yours do:

Some Buddhists claim they don’t believe in God. They consider their ideology more of an atheistic philosophy. Example:

Good Questions Good Answers

Do Buddhist believe in god?

No, we do not. There are several reasons for this.
Do Buddhist believe in god?

You are the first Buddhist that I’ve ever spoken to who says you believe in god. So, either your understanding of Buddhism is defective or theirs is.

What this proves is that there is no Buddhism central. There is no one Buddhist authority to which you can appeal and say, “Hey, which is it?” So, you don’t really have one religion, you have a bunch of conflicting philosophies who can’t agree upon what Buddha taught.

Atheists deny everything and debate everything

How is this relevant to me? I am Buddhist, not atheist. My scriptures have a lot more gods than yours do:

Thanks for divulging that you follow a personal derivative of Buddha’s teachings.

Sakra, the ruler of the celestials, with twenty thousand gods, his followers, such as the god Chandra (the Moon), the god Surya (the Sun), the god Samantagandha (the Wind), the god Ratnaprabha, the god Avabhasaprabha, and others; further, the four great rulers of the cardinal points with thirty thousand gods in their train, viz. the great ruler Virudhaka, the great ruler Virupaksha, the great ruler Dhritarashtra, and the great ruler Vaisravana; the god Ishvara and the god Maheshvara, each followed by thirty thousand gods; further, Brahma Sahdmpati and his twelve thousand followers, the Brahmakayika gods, amongst whom Brahma Sikhin and Brahma Gyotishprabha, with the other twelve thousand Brahmakayika gods.

– Saddharmapundarika sutra, Chapter One

The worship of Brahman is not the philosophy of Buddha. It is more akin to Hinduism.

The triumvirate consists of three gods who are responsible for the creation, upkeep and destruction of the world. The other two gods are Vishnu and Shiva. Vishnu is the preserver of the universe, while Shiva’s role is to destroy it in order to re-create. Brahma’s job was creation of the world and all creatures.Aug 24, 2009
BBC - Religions - Hinduism: Brahma
BBC - Religions - Hinduism: Brahma

Use my avatar picture of the Prajnaparamita to remind you that I am not atheist.

If you’re not an atheist, then you are illogically arguing against your own beliefs.

Lord Brahma: The God of Creation - ThoughtCo
https://www.thoughtco.com › … › Hinduism › Gods & Goddesses
Aug 13, 2017 - Brahma is the creator of the universe and of all beings, as depicted in Hindu … in contrast to Maya, "the changing, illusory world of appearance.

 

[HarryStotle]

HarryStotle:

If a child has died and no longer exists, is the parent still a parent?

Yes. Just as if the parents die, the child is still their child.

So, the parent is still a parent if the child no longer is actual, but merely had actuality at some past time?

So why couldn’t a parent still be a parent if the child is not actual in the present, provided that they will actually have a child at some future time?

It would seem that it is merely your within-time perspective that biases your use of the term.

If a parent can be a parent both before and after a child is born, provided their child will be actualized in time, why couldn’t God be Creator – NOT both before and after the STEM universe exists in time, but – from eternity?

This seems to imply that terms like parent or Creator could be applied similarly provided the potential to bring about the actuality takes place at some instance in space-time, whether before or after it does, OR from eternity, no?

HarryStotle:

Also, If God is eternal and the universe as an entirety exists from eternity, but created things within the universe exist in time, then it would seem to make sense from an eternal standpoint that God is eternally speaking the Creator of the universe

God is not and cannot be the creator of the ATE universe, since that would mean He created Himself, and we are assured that God is not created. He did not become “creator of the STEM universe” until the moment of the Big Bang.

rossum

I am simply not seeing your point here.

In classic theism, from Aristotle (Cockney form of Harrystotle) to Aquinas, God exists a se or, variously, as the Subsistent Act of Existence Itself, Ipsum Esse Existens, or Actus Purus. This implies that the fact that all things, I.e., all existents in the ATE universe, have in themselves some potentiality warrants that there must exist Being (Existence Itself or God) who is simple actuality and perfection, Actus Purus, who enables and actualizes that potentiality.

To speak of some mechanism such as the multiverse that, in some sense, spins off baby universes seems to miss the point that the multiverse either describes some kind of brute fact necessary mechanism, which itself must be explained or that the entire claim is simply asserting that a nominal change should be made – I.e., that the pure act of being itself, Actus Purus, within which exists all actuality and perfection, should herewith be referred to as “the Multiverse” which simply has the infinite capacity to create all that can potentially exist. I am not seeing how that is different from claiming God (under the different referent, “multiverse”) exists.

Continued…

 

[HarryStotle]

A “mechanism” would not seem to have the capacity to determine when and why new universes ought to be spun off unless there is some other independent mechanism by which that would occur. It does seem to require an awfully complex random generator to create the array of intricate and distinctive qualities which make up any sophisticated universe randomly. On the other hand, if the pure act of being itself has within it something like intentionality or purposeful intent, as an aspect of the essence of being or existence itself, then the when and why become foundational within the essence of existence.

 

[rossum]

Yet, regardless of the argument; God’s Omnipotence, Omniscience, and Omnipresence is not contingent upon Creation.

All I am saying is that Hi\s status as “Creator” is contingent. I am not arguing here about His other qualities.

rossum

 

[rossum]

God Himself does not change.

I disagree. It is obvious that God’s actions have changed: the Red Sea is not parted today as it was in the past. Something triggered that action in the past and is not triggering it today. Hence that trigger must have changed. Trace that change in the trigger back through however many meta-triggers you want, and the requirement for a change goes back with it.

Either the ultimate trigger is uncaused – eliminating God from the chain, or the chain ends at God. That means some internal change within God from non-triggering to triggering. That means a changing God.

Any unchanging entity cannot act differently in time, because change is defined as difference in time. The God of the Bible acts differently in time.

God may be static in some non-time dimension, but in time He is not static and does change.

rossum

 

[rossum]

You are caught in your own net–never being able to prove you exist since you must first prove that you exist before you prove that you exist (get the gist?).

The Heart Sutra tells me that I do not exist the way that I think I exist:

“Here, O Sariputra, form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form; emptiness does not differ from form, form does not differ from emptiness, whatever is emptiness, that is form, whatever is form, that is emptiness, the same is true of feelings, perceptions, formations, and consciousness.”

In Buddhist analysis, form, feelings, perceptions, formations and consciousness constitute the entire human being.

Most people make a mistake about the nature of their existence. The most obvious one is to imagine that they have a permanent soul. They do not.

rossum

 

[rossum]

The worship of Brahman is not the philosophy of Buddha. It is more akin to Hinduism.

Buddhism has a great many gods. They are not particularly important and worshipping them is optional. If you want to win the lottery, then by all means pray to the god of your choice. If you want enlightenment then praying to any god is useless; no god can enlighten you. If you want enlightenment you have to do it for yourself.

If you like, Buddhist gods are roughly equivalent to Christian angels. They exist, but are of secondary importance and can safely be ignored.

rossum

 

[rossum]

So why couldn’t a parent still be a parent if the child is not actual in the present, provided that they will actually have a child at some future time?

Because past and future are not the same, they are different. What applies to one may not apply to the other. You will be dead in the future; does that make it OK to kill you here and now?

In classic theism, from Aristotle (Cockney form of Harrystotle) to Aquinas, God exists a se or, variously, as the Subsistent Act of Existence Itself, Ipsum Esse Existens, or Actus Purus.

I am not Aristotelian. My philosophy follows Nagarjuna, who rejects a number of the Aristotelian assumptions. Specifically, those words you have capitalised: “Existence” and the rest. Capitalising a word like that usually indicates reification of a concept. That is an error. Nagarjuna rejects many forms of reification, “Existence” among them. Aristotle’s “Existence” was an attempt to impose permanence and fixity on a world that is impermanent and changing.

Reification takes an internal human mental concept and projects it out into the world as if it had real external existence. It does not; it is an internal human mental construct and has as much real external existence of the ‘water’ we see in a mirage. That ‘water’ only exists as an internal mental idea. It is not part of the external world.

rossum

 

[IWantGod]

It depends on whether the designer is physical or not. If we are talking about a being made of parts then yeah it would require a designer because by having parts that is want causes it to be complex in the first place. But i would not call God a designer if i were you. God is the Creator.

 

[jcrichton]

Hi, Rossum!

But that’s only through our definition of what God’s Omnipotence and Omniscience and Omnipresence means…

Since God is the Eternal ‘I AM’ He exists outside of our linear plane… to Him a day could be as a thousand year and a thousand years as yesterday… so the fact that the Universe did not come into being till He spoke the Word does not mean that he is not the Creator until and when there’s visual evidence of Creation.

Look at our finite existence… science understood life through the narrow scope of the biological experimentations and discoveries… assumptions were made; there were people who did extensive research (again, within the limits of our tech) and there were people who made absolute claims about certain conditions not being able to sustain life… what they lacked was the tech to advance past their self-appointed limitations and the opportunity to encounter a different reality than what was known when their determinations were made… Life, as was later revealed, can and does exists outside of the norms we’ve gotten used to and have studied for decades… hyper eco systems proved their claims wrong; even absolute darkness was proven to be teaming with life… not just life but life that produced its own light!

Creation was not being redirected; Creation was being experienced from a perspective that man had not considered before Life hit him in the face.

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[jcrichton]

I think I see your game plan… you think that I am God so when I change my mind about something or take a different route to “xyz” or fall ill or get into an accident… all of this, to you, is proof that God changes.

No. God does not change because the accidents of the Universe take place.

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[jcrichton]

My friend, we are arguing grapes vs grapefruit… yes, there’s commonality involved… but no, these factors alone do not make them one and the same.

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[phil19034]

I’ve heard it argued that the universe can’t come from nothing - something with such functional complexity has a Designer. The response to this then is that the Designer also has a functional mind, one that has to be more complex than it’s creation, so then doesn’t the Designer need a designer (“if nothing comes from nothing, and God comes from nothing, then it follows that God is nothing”)? It makes this argument (complexly designed universe = Designer God) for the existence of God circular. How would you answer this?

If the “designer needs a designer” argument is true, then it becomes an infinite hierarchy of cause and effect, because then you have a designer of the designer and his designer and his designer and his designer … all the way into infinity.

A “designer needing a designer” theory ultimately doesn’t work because every action must have a first cause (the “Argument from Efficient Cause”). It also breaks the “Argument from Motion” which states that there must be an “unmoved mover”

I suggest that you look up St. Thomas Aquinas’ philosophical 5 ways to demonstrate the existence of God:

1. Argument from Motion
2. Argument from Efficient Cause
3. Argument from Possibility
4. Argument from Degrees of Being
5. Argument from Design

Here you can read Aquinas in the Summa regarding this topic: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1002.htm#article3

God Bless

 

[Wesrock]

Perhaps, but that doesn’t make Him ontologically contingent.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

How would simultaneity make them indistinguishable?

Two entities X and Y appear at the same time. Did X cause Y? Did Y cause X? How can you tell?

rossum

Two points: Yes, one could still be the cause of the other. If one was metaphysically simple and the other not, it’d be a pretty good clue as to which one was dependent on the other. If not, still, analysis of the two might yield results.

But I think you misunderstand. There was no time before the start of the universe, but only the universe began to exist. God never began to exist. He simply just is.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

Question for you, have I actually changed?

Yes. You are older by the amount of time it took point-rossum to move along the line. In your analogy both Wesrock and point-rossum share the same time dimension.

Has my action changed, rossum? Don’t distract from the point of issue. Did I start touching the line at point 5 and stop touching at point 7 in a way that implies I’ve moved? And you missed the point of the illustration, I’m not part of their one-dimensional timeline. I’m not “holding” my fingers there as time passes for me as it passes for them in the timeline. What they see as a period from 5 to 7 is just an instant touch. And it is an illustration. God isn’t a body. He has one action, and in that one action, He always is touching that point between 5 to 7. He never changed from not touching it to touching it, He has always touched it.

Wesrock:

Uncaused. His actions have eternally been so.

Then you are positing change without a cause. That I do not accept. Are you saying that the sea just happened to open for no reason at that particular time and place? You are prescribing a recipe for a world that does not match the world we live in. In the real world macroscopic actions have causes. Even direct divine intervention in miracles is described as “caused by God”. Are you in fact denying that God can cause miracles?

Any denial of God as an eternal metaphysically simple being is positing a reality without a law of causation. You continue to not understand eternal action. God isn’t a being that sits outside watching something move without Him, reaching in when He pleases, walking away when He pleases. He is the foundation upon which reality rests and upon which it would not exist, not just because he set it in motion, but because it could not exist right now as it is on its own apart from Him.

God doesn’t change. The world does. God is always touching yesterday, and tomorrow, and all points that ever exist all at once as part of one action He’s taken. He knows yesterday is ordered before tomorrow, but yesterday never passes and tomorrow never comes to Him, it always is present to Him.

Wesrock:

The problem is you’re putting the cause into time alongside the effect,

That is not a problem, it is a requirement. The action takes place within time, not in some meta-dimension beyond time. You cannot separate the either the cause or the action in time from time.

rossum

And this is where it breaks down, you think I’m proposing some type of higher order of time, where God looks down on our four dimensional reality from his five dimensional space in which our time appears as a solid object but He has some fifth-dimensional version of time. That’s exactly NOT what we’re proposing. That’s not eternity. Eternity isn’t dimensional at all.

 

[Wesrock]

HarryStotle:

So why couldn’t a parent still be a parent if the child is not actual in the present, provided that they will actually have a child at some future time?

Because past and future are not the same, they are different. What applies to one may not apply to the other. You will be dead in the future; does that make it OK to kill you here and now?

In classic theism, from Aristotle (Cockney form of Harrystotle) to Aquinas, God exists a se or, variously, as the Subsistent Act of Existence Itself, Ipsum Esse Existens, or Actus Purus.

I am not Aristotelian. My philosophy follows Nagarjuna, who rejects a number of the Aristotelian assumptions. Specifically, those words you have capitalised: “Existence” and the rest. Capitalising a word like that usually indicates reification of a concept. That is an error. Nagarjuna rejects many forms of reification, “Existence” among them. Aristotle’s “Existence” was an attempt to impose permanence and fixity on a world that is impermanent and changing.

Reification takes an internal human mental concept and projects it out into the world as if it had real external existence. It does not; it is an internal human mental construct and has as much real external existence of the ‘water’ we see in a mirage. That ‘water’ only exists as an internal mental idea. It is not part of the external world.

rossum

Aristotle’s philosophy proposes that there is a principle of similarity between what I am at the moment I type this NOW and what I am at the moment I type this NOW. A principle of similarity between me as an infant and me as I am now. However, he also proposes a principle of difference, such that I am not the same now as I was then.

So answer me: Is there any connection between you now and when you made your prior post?

 

[HarryStotle]

Reification takes an internal human mental concept and projects it out into the world as if it had real external existence. It does not; it is an internal human mental construct and has as much real external existence of the ‘water’ we see in a mirage. That ‘water’ only exists as an internal mental idea. It is not part of the external world.

You KNOW that, how?

I suppose the proclamations you keep making about what is or is not part of the external world – as if you have some kind of privileged insight into the workings of the external world to begin with – count as “reification” of a different sort, no?

A person could, as part of attempting to understand what is reasonable, make claims or assertions about the external world as propositions about it.

Yet, here you are claiming to know with certainty what is or is not part of the external world while dismissing anyone else’s speculation as “reification.”

Here is another example…

Most people make a mistake about the nature of their existence. The most obvious one is to imagine that they have a permanent soul. They do not.

How do you know for certain that people do not have a permanent soul? What is the privileged perspective from which you can declare that with certainty to be so?

Seems to me that some do engage in reification of ideas, but that seems quite innocuous compared to the reification of their entire perspective or position in the universe such that they can make absolute pronouncements about the permanency of souls and what is or is not part of the external world.

You said, “Reification takes an internal human mental concept and projects it out into the world as if it had real external existence.” Aren’t you taking not just a mental concept and projecting it into the external world, but your entire internal human mind and projecting that into an absolute position of external existence by claiming with certainty to know what is or is not part of that world?

Again you seem not merely to be reifying “internal human mental concepts” but your entire internal human perspective or point of view from which you make absolute pronouncements about reality.

I would think that the only valid judge of when reification of any sort has actually occurred is someone with an absolute perspective. God perhaps?