Existence of God and the Five proofs?

[michael_legna]

Ghosty:

I think this statement misses the point of the First Mover argument. The quantum fluctuation is NOT the source of its own being, and can’t be.

What is your basis for claiming that quantum fluctuation is not the source of its own being? It certainly cannot be my statement that “This quantum fluctuation does not have a underlying cause other than it being the nature of the instability of space.” because the instability of space and the quantum fluctuation is a way of saying the same thing.

Additionally, what is your source or reasoning that it cannot be the source of its own being? It certain cannot be because NOTHING can be its own source of being, otherwise this limitation would be extended to God as well.

What then do you suggest is the source of the quantum fluctuation, since it occurs in a vacuum, completely empty space?

Ghosty:

The entire point of the First Mover argument is that something must be able to account for its own being, it’s own “movement of existence”, unless it’s God.

Sorry you cannot exclude God from this requirement as you use the argument to prove His existence. That would be logically inconsistent.

Ghosty:

Quantum fluctuations are not the source of their own being, are not the source of their own existence, do not “move themselves from potential existence to actual existence” because they can’t exist before themselves and therefore can’t make themselves.

Yes, that is exactly what they do since they occur spontaneously in an area where nothing else exists to cause their coming into existence.

Ghosty:

Likewise a vacuum can’t account for itself, as it’s not a true “nothingness” since it has laws and a nature of its own. This nature must either account for itself, or it must be created. True void can’t even be spoken of, as it lacks any defining characteristics unlike the vacuum you’re describing.

No the vacuum I refer to is a true void. It is the space between subatomic particles in which nothing exists until the quantum fluctuations spontaneously occur.

Ghosty:

Your argument against the Fifth Proof is totally unrelated to Aquinas’ actual argument. The “argument from Design” has nothing to do with irreducible complexity like the watch and the watchmaker. The real Fifth Proof is actually closely related to the First in that it points out that “natural laws” operate according to a kind of mechanical certainty rather than a guided will. Since objects without a will can’t operate freely, but according to set laws, and only a will can craft laws then there must be an “ultimate will” behind the natural movements of the universe.

I disagree that the Fifth Argument is completely separate from the argument of the watch maker and the watch. But even if your understanding of it was what Aquinas intended we have other problems in our modern understanding of the nature of creation and its behavior, problems Aquinas was unaware of and which cannot be made similar to the way God works with creation and thus reveals Himself. I refer of course to chaos theory and the inability of us to ever provide a detailed enough model of certain aspects of nature to ever see an intelligent guide behind the mechanical certainty of the events. Chaos theory shows us very clearly that there are systems we CANNOT see the mechanical certainty you claim is there and if we cannot see this we cannot see the need for an intelligent guide and thus we cannot see God revealed in His creation.

 

[cpayne]

Additionally, what is your source or reasoning that it cannot be the source of its own being? It certain cannot be because NOTHING can be its own source of being, otherwise this limitation would be extended to God as well.

Chaos theory shows us very clearly that there are systems we CANNOT see the mechanical certainty you claim is there and if we cannot see this we cannot see the need for an intelligent guide and thus we cannot see God revealed in His creation.

On the first part of the quoted material: We’re talking about things which move, change, or come into being, which logically cannot be the source of their own existence. None of this applies to God, Who is impassible, unchanging, eternal, and so on. God is perhaps better described as being uncaused. But He doesn’t not REQUIRE a cause, being unchanging, eternal, and so on (repetitive, sorry).

On the second part: Let me see: Chaos theory, which is accessible to very few, “shows us very clearly” that teleology does not exist? But the everyday empirical observations Aquinas used, which are accessible to virtually everyone, do not reveal teleology? As has been shown with Newton’s laws, even the existence of subatomic variations from those laws do not take anything away from their macroscopic veracity. Likewise with Aquinas’s observations—they are empirically confirmed by our every experience.

Or maybe I’m speaking for myself, since I have never observed electron movements or any other subatomic phenomena. However, I HAVE seen blood clotting in order to stop bleeding—just one example of unintelligent agents performing intelligent operations (teleology). The fact that scientists no longer accept final or formal causation in their explanations of phenomena does not eliminate the fact that we do see it, every day.

 

[michael_legna]

cpayne:

On the first part of the quoted material: We’re talking about things which move, change, or come into being, which logically cannot be the source of their own existence.

No that is not a logical statement. It actually is stating your conclusion as part of your premise. It is a logically fallacious form of arguing.

cpayne:

None of this applies to God, Who is impassible, unchanging, eternal, and so on. God is perhaps better described as being uncaused. But He doesn’t not REQUIRE a cause, being unchanging, eternal, and so on (repetitive, sorry).

I accept this characterization of God, but not based on any logical argument, instead it is for me a matter of faith. But this does not have any bearing on whether anything else in nature can have these same characteristics or even just appear to have these characteristics.

cpayne:

On the second part: Let me see: Chaos theory, which is accessible to very few, “shows us very clearly” that teleology does not exist?

Yes, I accept that God is revealed through His creation. But to follow that up with the claim that we can see this because all of nature appears to us to be driven by mechanical certainty is contradicted by chaos theory.

cpayne:

But the everyday empirical observations Aquinas used, which are accessible to virtually everyone, do not reveal teleology?

Yes, because those empirical observations accessible to everyone do not correctly reflect the true nature of reality. This is the basis of all of Aquinas’ errors in these 5 points.

cpayne:

As has been shown with Newton’s laws, even the existence of subatomic variations from those laws do not take anything away from their macroscopic veracity.

Where did you learn that? Newtons laws are an approximation of reality (as are all physical laws). One example of the macroscopic failings of Newtons laws is their inability to explain the precession of the perihelion of orbiting bodies.

cpayne:

Likewise with Aquinas’s observations—they are empirically confirmed by our every experience.

No they are possibly confirmed by the everyday experience of the lay man who is not doing careful observation of the world around him, but that can hardly be a true or trustworthy representation of nature. So you in effect want us to change our belief to “God is revealed in our imperfect observation of His creation.” Not a very appealing doctrine.

cpayne:

Or maybe I’m speaking for myself, since I have never observed electron movements or any other subatomic phenomena.

No you might be speaking for all careless laymen in their idle observations.

cpayne:

However, I HAVE seen blood clotting in order to stop bleeding—just one example of unintelligent agents performing intelligent operations (teleology).

I don’t think we can lump all of chemistry and electrostatics into a claim of intelligent operations.

 

[cpayne]

No that is not a logical statement. It actually is stating your conclusion as part of your premise. It is a logically fallacious form of arguing.

Good grief, talk about missing the point. I’ll just isolate this part to respond to; the rest reminds me of Paul Churchland, who argues that when we see a red apple, we are not seeing the “real” experience of the apple, which is accessible only to skilled technicians who measure wavelengths and so on. Yeah, whatever. I’ll stick with the idle laymen who see a red apple because it’s there, and who see teleology because it’s there.

As for the “logically fallacious form of arguing”: Here it is spelled out:

Causes of effects are logically prior to the effects themselves. This statement is entailed in the definition of the terms “cause” and “effect.” Note that “logically prior” is not exactly equivalent to “temporally prior”; chemical combustion, for example, produces light with the combustion. The combustion is still the logically prior “cause” of the light.

Movement, change, or coming into existence is an effect of some cause.

The cause of something’s coming into existence is therefore logically prior to that thing’s coming into existence.

Something cannot logically exist prior to its own coming into existence.

Therefore, something cannot logically exist *as its own cause *of coming into existence.

Bedtime; night, all.

 

[punkforchrist]

Michael, thanks for the thoughtful response. Let me try and put a few points together.

michael_legna:

Do we end up willing to claim that the Hiesenberg Uncertainty Principle applies only to us, but God can see these particles? Does that even help us in this discussion?

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (HUP), at least as far as causal indeterminancy goes, is generally only accepted in the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum theory. There are particles that are unseen by us, but yet, are inferred by their effects, which is a legitimate procedure for empirical observation.

Take Dirac’s equation again for an example. The ground state, 0, is simply the level at which the least amount of energy is expected. Anything less than 0, say -2, is not in reality less than nothing. In fact, the effects of such particles have empirical merit. The only reason they are said to be less than 0 is because the amount of energy in them is less than what is expected; but that is much different than saying they are less than nothing, or even that they are empirically unobservable.

michael_legna:

The problem comes then as to whether Aquinas could argue as he does given this new view of the world. See God’s creation is suppose to reveal Him to us.

I agree, but there is a difference between our knowledge of God by remotion and our knowledge of God by complete comprehension. The latter, as I am sure you agree, is impossible for finite beings like ourselves.

michael_legna:

If we have to accept virtual particles as not being observable to us and thus quantum fluctuations as being not just a minimum but actually arising from nothing (from our point of view) then we have to say Aquinas argument from the similarities with nature fails due to a bad premise.

I am not sure what you mean by “similarities with nature”. Could you clarify? In any case, the scientific evidence suggests that quantum vacuums are not actually nothing, but that they have a rich physical structure, even if they are more subtle than the usual tangible things.

michael_legna:

If we accept that these are real things with an underlying cause (one we can never observe because of limits on sensitivity of instruments) then we have to admit that God is not truly revealed in His creation (at least not the part we can ever see).

I sympathize with your point, but divine revelation need not be comprehensive in order to be known. There are some things that God has not revealed to us, like the answer to the problem of pain, but that does not mean there are no answers. However, with quantum fluctuations, I do not see any comparison, since they are not causeless in the sense that they pop into being out of nothing. Something may be random, but it never arises from non-being.

michael_legna:

Since I believe the Church I do not accept that God cannot reveal Himself to us in His creation. I just understand that to mean what the Catechism says - that these are not true proofs, but more converging and convincing arguments.

Please bear with me on this point, since there is a lot of ambiguity with the word “proof”. I agree with you that there is no absolute metaphysical certainty of any of these arguments. However, I do think that the best explanation by far is that God exists, and can be known to exist by these arguments (especially by Thomas’ first way). The contrapositive of any of the premises, (1), (2), or (3) is highly unlikely to be true.

Since being can only arise from being, as opposed to non-being, and this cannot proceed to infinity, then there must be some Prime Mover, or purely actualized being. I admit that I could be wrong, but I just honestly do not see any alternatives forthcoming.

Blessings

 

[Montalban]

C.S. Lewis has a book Mere Christianity that has some chapters on the existence of God. I think it is only a couple hundred pages long. (have not read it in awhile)

"My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it? A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man is not a water animal: a fish would not feel wet. Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too - for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist - in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless - I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality - namely my idea of justice - was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know if it was dark. Dark would be a word without meaning.
Lewis, C. S., (2002), “Mere Christianity” in “The Complete C S Lewis”, (Harper; San Francisco), p30.

He came to faith after being an atheist.

 

[cpayne]

Hey (to Michael Legna): I just belatedly realized what the name “Michael Legna” stands for. That’s rather clever.

 

[michael_legna]

cpayne:

the rest reminds me of Paul Churchland, who argues that when we see a red apple, we are not seeing the “real” experience of the apple, which is accessible only to skilled technicians who measure wavelengths and so on. Yeah, whatever. I’ll stick with the idle laymen who see a red apple because it’s there, and who see teleology because it’s there.

You simple analogy is of course an attempt to make the argument look foolish (a reductio ad absurdem argument - which is fallacious of course). We can see that by inserting a different example - one I provided earlier of the understanding of lightning or eclipses. One would hopefully never stick with the idle laymens opinion on those events of nature.

cpayne:

As for the “logically fallacious form of arguing”: Here it is spelled out:

Causes of effects are logically prior to the effects themselves.

No that is not a necessary logical requirment else God is not logical and we cannot study Him by applying logic to His creation. The whole point to Aquinas’ argument is that there is something which is a cause which does not have a prior cause. Is Aquinas arguing illogically? I am merely showing that if we think nature is going to reveal God to us by never having any cause that does not have a prior cause (except God) then we must never see such an event in nature. We cannot assume that everything we see has a prior cause because we are then assuming the antecedent, that is a fallacious form of argument and cannot be used to support Aquinas’ five points.

 

[michael_legna]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1e/C.s.lewis3.JPG

"My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it? A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man is not a water animal: a fish would not feel wet. Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too - for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist - in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless - I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality - namely my idea of justice - was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know if it was dark. Dark would be a word without meaning.
Lewis, C. S., (2002), “Mere Christianity” in “The Complete C S Lewis”, (Harper; San Francisco), p30.

He came to faith after being an atheist.

A nice converging and convincing argument, just as the Catechism tells us exists, but it is one that is not formally or logically conclusive as it relies on man’s relative perception of his environment which is subjective. I am sure CS Lewis would have recognized this though. It is not that this line of reasoning is not useful, it is just that it cannot be considered a proof.

 

[cpayne]

I think I will leave it as: Read what I wrote; read what Michael and everyone else wrote; anyone reading can decide for yourself. Off to work I go.

 

[michael_legna]

Read what the Catechism says too.

 

[john_doran]

Ah but once again we get back to the form of argument Aquinas used, that of simile. If there exists the possibility even of a self generating or propagating event which can generate movement, it can in principle be recognized as a potential candidate within nature for this prime mover and Aquinas’ simile (basing theology on observed nature and its behavior) falls apart.

but it’s ***not ***possible that there be a “self-generating or propagating” event - it is logically impossible for any event to cause itself.

michael_legna:

True but you really don’t want to try to bring hidden variables and many worlds theory into a discussion of God as originator as it will only hurt the approach of Aquinas to use similarities as justification for his conclusions.

well, i certainly want to bring hidden variables theories into the discussion (but not many worlds theory, or even the sum over histories approach, either) - if you can bring the highly counterintuitive copenhagen interpretation of QM into the discussion, why shouldn’t i bring in the much more reasonable bohmian model?

and how, exactly, does its inclusion hurt aquinas’ reasoning? thomas said that everything that changes needs a separate cause for that change; hidden variables theories give pride of place to precisely the same principle…

michael_legna:

I don’t think identifying a possible first cause is a jettisoning of the casual principle, otherwise identifying God as the first cause would also be jettisoning the casual principle. Instead I am saying that this possible first cause, that does not fit Aquinas’ claimed characteristics of a first cause would not be recognized as God by anyone, so Aquinas’ proof does not satisfy.

space came into being with the big bang, so it can’t be the cause of the big bang…

and if you think that space can “just come into being” and itself then be the first cause of everything else, then you are indeed rejecting the causal principle.

michael_legna:

I said these were not disproving Aquinas, they are merely showing that his argument, being based on similarness as it is, does not cover all the aspects of nature it needs to in order to come to the conclusion it does.

an argument does not need to be exhaustively proleptic in order to be sound. that is, a proof doesn’t need to anticipate and answer every possible response or objection to its premises or conclusion in order to be a (good) proof.

michael_legna:

I am not an expert in this area, so I could not tell you exactly how, but have seen the talks by those capable of doing the applicable mathematics . It has a positive cosmological constant which cause inherent, unavoidable expansion which results in the generation of mass.

perhaps, but the math still doesn’t explain where the de sitter space itself came from…

michael_legna:

Oh really, then what is it? What is the media you propose as an ether to support this quantum fluctuation?

1. what do you mean what is it? it’s the QM vacuum.
2. i don’t know about any kind of embedding media - i would just say that there are causes for the fluctuations of which we are simply not yet aware. as per hidden variables theories.

michael_legna:

Sure it does if the reason they are not convincing is because Aquinas has describe nature incorrectly or inadequately and then developed similes on those false understandings. His conclusion cannot help but be unconvincing to those who have a deeper understanding of how God’s creation really behaves.

merely proposing bizarre, counterintuitive interpretations of physical theories is not necessarily to “have a deeper understanding of how god’s creation really behaves”, and the mere existence of these “possibilities” doesn’t make belief in theistic proofs any less reasonable, or their rejection any more reasonable.

look, there is some possible world that is identical with this one up until 5 minutes from now, at which point, say, gravity suddenly and arbitrarily ceases to function. that’s logically possible, and no argument about the way thee world works can ever eliminate that possibility. do you think that makes it unreasonable for me to believe that gravity will continue to function 5 minutes from now?

 

[john_doran]

No that is not a necessary logical requirment else God is not logical and we cannot study Him by applying logic to His creation.

this makes no sense…

1. it is a straightforward logical requirement that causes logically and causally precede their effects - that’s what it means to be a cause of some effect;
2. this logical priority, far from impeding our ability to study god via logic, actually enables it: it is precisely because causes logically precede their effects that we are able to reason from current effects back to the logically necessary First Cause.

 

[michael_legna]

Part 1 of 2
john doran:

but it’s ***not ***possible that there be a “self-generating or propagating” event - it is logically impossible for any event to cause itself.

No, that is not true.

Aquinas noticed that in nature he never saw something that was self generating. He then used that as a premise, that everything needs a first cause or prime mover. This is similar to the idea that one relies on the meaning of the word effect to require a cause or the meaning of the word motion to require a prime mover. But those words and their meanings do not make it logically impossible for an event to cause itself, all they do is reflect that our language is based on our observation of the macroscopic and low energy world we interact with most regularly. A proof that it is logically impossible for an event to cause itself has never been presented.

So this idea is merely his premise and because it is only a premise - to say that even though we cannot see how something is generated we can still assume it is generated by something else is not a fair claim to save our argument. It is making the antecedent into the consequent. To put it another way the consequence of Aquinas’ argument is that only God is without cause or mover. To claim that by definition everything else does have is to assert the consequence, so this is also called the fallacy of affirming or asserting the consequent. Under either name it is a fallacious way of arguing.

The reason lack of self-generation is a premise of Aquinas’ argument, is because he does not see it occurring in nature. It is not a premise, because he had proven it earlier. That is why we can point to events in nature which he was unaware of and question his premise.
john doran:

well, i certainly want to bring hidden variables theories into the discussion (but not many worlds theory, or even the sum over histories approach, either) - if you can bring the highly counterintuitive copenhagen interpretation of QM into the discussion, why shouldn’t i bring in the much more reasonable bohmian model?

Well I have been fortunate enough to speak personally with David Bohm, not just on this issue but primarily on the EPR experiment and the Aharonov-Bohm effect, which of course means we did discuss his attempts to circumvent the problems with hidden variables. My interest lay in the Coulomb Gauge theory issues and so we focused on discussing scalar potentials (I mention this only because of its relationship to deSitter space)

I ended up still disagreeing with him on this issue (along with the vast majority of Physicists in the world) so I don’t think you and I are going to agree on the reasonableness of his theory.
john doran:

and how, exactly, does its inclusion hurt aquinas’ reasoning? thomas said that everything that changes needs a separate cause for that change; hidden variables theories give pride of place to precisely the same principle…

True it does give pride of place, but the reason I would think you would not want to bring the theory of hidden variable into this discussion is because it brings along with it a host of other causality and time’s arrow problems.
john doran:

space came into being with the big bang, so it can’t be the cause of the big bang…

Not true of deSitter space. It is postulated by many as the source of the big bang, through its scalar inflation due to the field being potential energy instead of kinetic.
john doran:

and if you think that space can “just come into being” and itself then be the first cause of everything else, then you are indeed rejecting the causal principle.

No, not the whole causal principle, but the idea contained within it that there can be no uncaused, cause or unmovable, mover. But then anyone who believes in God also rejects those ideas. I am just saying that the proofs offered which rely on the non-existence of these characteristics in nature, are not rigorous proofs when we can see events in nature without observable causes or movers.

The reason we can claim this is because the argument is about God revealing Himself to us through His creation. Clearly that is not possible if we have to imagine a mover underneath those things moving even if we cannot see it. These unseen movers must be revealed to us if we are to argue that God is revealing Himself to us through creation. The postulated, or unseen CANNOT reveal anything to anyone.

End of Part 1

 

[michael_legna]

Part 2 of 2
john doran:

an argument does not need to be exhaustively proleptic in order to be sound.

That is true, an argument is either sound or it is not. But once one applies it to a specific set of events it is judged as either capable of applying to them and thus valid, or it is fallacious.

The argument about shooting an arrow at the wall of the edge of universe was a sound argument in the era of thinking the universe was Euclidian. But once we knew space time was curved the same argument becomes unsound. The same has happened to Aquinas’ arguments.
john doran:

that is, a proof doesn’t need to anticipate and answer every possible response or objection to its premises or conclusion in order to be a (good) proof.

Yes it does if you want to continue to apply it as the subject matter is better and better understood.
john doran:

perhaps, but the math still doesn’t explain where the de sitter space itself came from…

Then we have an unseen first cause, and it is not true that creation reveals God. I don’t believe that. I just believe that the argument to prove God’s existence (if one can even be formed) must be based on a different set of ideas than exists in Aquinas’ five points.
john doran:

1. what do you mean what is it? it’s the QM vacuum.
2. i don’t know about any kind of embedding media - i would just say that there are causes for the fluctuations of which we are simply not yet aware. as per hidden variables theories.

Then we are back to an unseen revealer.
john doran:

merely proposing bizarre, counterintuitive interpretations of physical theories is not necessarily to “have a deeper understanding of how god’s creation really behaves”,

It does if you accept the scientific approach of selecting the theory with the most predictive power. If you don’t then how do you propose to select the best method for doing proper observation? Because after all proper observation is required if we are to make use of the idea that God is revealed through His creation.
john doran:

and the mere existence of these “possibilities” doesn’t make belief in theistic proofs any less reasonable, or their rejection any more reasonable.

It does if you want to premise your whole proof on the fact that we pull our definitions of causality from similes of nature. And how else would we expect to behave as it is how our language is formed and all our thinking and judging skills are developed?
john doran:

look, there is some possible world that is identical with this one up until 5 minutes from now, at which point, say, gravity suddenly and arbitrarily ceases to function. that’s logically possible, and no argument about the way thee world works can ever eliminate that possibility. do you think that makes it unreasonable for me to believe that gravity will continue to function 5 minutes from now?

If you can show this theory to offer some superior predictive power to the ones science currently uses then yes you should worry about gravity functioning in 5 minutes. But this is just a hyperbole on your part and there is no such planet and no such theory which has anything to recommend it to us. That is not the case with the theories of high energy physics which have massive predictive power, which is of course why we use them.

End of Part 2

 

[vz71]

What then do you suggest is the source of the quantum fluctuation, since it occurs in a vacuum, completely empty space?

Space is never empty.

 

[michael_legna]

Space is never empty.

What evidence do you have for this claim?

 

[davidv]

What evidence do you have for this claim?

Our world and our experience with it. From dictionary.com

Space: the unlimited or incalculably great three-dimensional realm or expanse in which all material objects are located and all events occur.

Whether we speak of local, outer, or deep space, space contains something., be it my body, the moon, or a galaxy respectively.

 

[michael_legna]

davidv:

Our world and our experience with it.

Our common personal subjective experience should never be relied upon as evidence for anything of a technical nature.

davidv:

From dictionary.com

Whether we speak of local, outer, or deep space, space contains something., be it my body, the moon, or a galaxy respectively.

See it is these simplistic definitions that get the layman in so much trouble discussing reality.

What would they say about the region of space inside the atom between the orbit of the inner most electron and the surface of the nucleus? What is fills that space? That is the type of truly empty space I am referring to and it represents the vast majority by volume of all space.

What about the

 

[cpayne]

Aquinas noticed that in nature he never saw something that was self generating. He then used that as a premise, that everything needs a first cause or prime mover. This is similar to the idea that one relies on the meaning of the word effect to require a cause or the meaning of the word motion to require a prime mover. But those words and their meanings do not make it logically impossible for an event to cause itself, all they do is reflect that our language is based on our observation of the macroscopic and low energy world we interact with most regularly. A proof that it is logically impossible for an event to cause itself has never been presented.

So this idea is merely his premise and because it is only a premise - to say that even though we cannot see how something is generated we can still assume it is generated by something else is not a fair claim to save our argument. It is making the antecedent into the consequent. To put it another way the consequence of Aquinas’ argument is that only God is without cause or mover. To claim that by definition everything else does have is to assert the consequence, so this is also called the fallacy of affirming or asserting the consequent. Under either name it is a fallacious way of arguing.

Hi again, everyone. I know I bowed out a while back, but now I’m bowing back in. I am just not catching this at all.

Let’s say that something (S) comes into existence at point E. Before point E, S does not exist.

Anything that causes something to exist must itself exist; in other words, a non-existent cause cannot produce a really existing phenomenon. I would take this as axiomatic.

If S causes itself to exist, that means at a point before point E, S would have to exist as the cause of its own coming into existence. In other words, at the point prior to point E, (S & ~S). S would have to exist as a cause in order to be the cause of its own coming into existence: again, leading to S & ~S. This cannot logically be true.

Okay, why exempt God from this? It’s simply that there is no point E for God; there is never a point at which God does not exist or comes into existence. Something that exists either exists eternally or comes into existence. If it exists eternally and unchangingly, it requires no cause.

Now I would be the first to admit that, although I like reading the interaction between Michael and John, I am not up to that level of scientific literacy. However, if the science actually does lead to (S & ~S), I would reject it and say a different theory is called for. What do you all think?