Finite past proves God exists

[Candide_West]

Right on, JDaniel ! *
*
I would add what I’ve said before.
*
Anything in the natural order could only have the power to *“create” or bring about something that has something in common with it’s own existence. *

Ok, so perhaps you’d like to support this assertion this time? Why can things in the “natural order” only create something “that has something in common with it’s own existence.”.

.But nothing that is not its own necessary existence can be eternal,*

Again, go ahead and support this. You may need to define your terms here too by the way.*

because anything that does an act did so a finite time ago. *This rule includes “quantum flux” or anything else somebody may dream up. *Even God could not have done something an infinite time ago, never mind something in the natural order.

I’m happy to accept for the sale of argument that time is finite. So all events happened at a point on a finite timeline.
*

Therefore, only an eternal being could create from nothing,*

Again, this does not follow. It’s one of the points you need to support. Why can only an eternal being create from nothing?*

For that matter why are you convinced that nothing existed before the universe?

and it would have to have omnipotence to do this,*

This is another of those points you still need to support. Why is infinite power is required to create something finite?

since whatever it created would not be like itself, that is, be eternal and necessary.

You still have the key points to support here. Why not pick one to start off with and target that one alone.

 

[empther]

Candide wrote:

Why can things in the “natural order” only create something “that has something in common with it’s own existence.”.

In writing anything, the writer must presume the reader will understand some things on his own. But A-team co-captian Candide keeps asking the same kind of questions to cast doubt.

Can an acorn sprout a banana tree or a blue whale?
How could anything in the natural order create something that has nothing in common with its own nature?
To do this, it would have to have omnipotence, which Candide also denies.

If this simple concept is still not understood, I can’t help you.

 

[Ben_Quincy]

Warning: discuss issues, not each other

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Can an acorn sprout a banana tree or a blue whale?

No. And I think we have observed enough instances of biological reporoduction to state as a general rule that organisms produce sightly differentiated versions of themselves. But beyond biological reproduction does this statement still have applicability?

How could anything in the natural order create something that has nothing in common with its own nature?

I’m actually not sure what is meant here by “it’s own nature” in this context. For example, if a beaver builds a dam would the dam be of the same nature as the beaver? When people build nuclear powered space probes are those space probes of the same nature as the people that have produced it?

 

[Relinquish]

The universe could not have existed through an infinite past. Therefore, God had to start it.

Can you demonstrate this to be true?

Did any event happen an infinitely long time ago? Obviously not.

I agree, but this does not imply that the past is not infinite. There is a HUGE difference between an event an infinite span into the past, and there being an infinite cardinality of the collection of past events. These are two entirely different things–please do not equivocate over them.

So yes, please demonstrate that the collection of past events cannot be bijectively mapped to the set of natural numbers. If you don’t know what that means, then you have no idea what it means for something to be finite or infinite and your whole claim is nonsense. I would suggest you go and study these concepts before answering.

 

[Candide_West]

Candide wrote:
*
In writing anything, the writer must presume the reader will understand some things on his own. But A-team co-captian Candide keeps asking the same kind of questions to cast doubt.

Nope, I’m asking the questions because in order for your “proof” to be worth anything, you need to support your assertions, not just state them. My questions are to invite you to do so.
*

Can an acorn sprout a banana tree or a blue whale?
How could anything in the natural order create something that has nothing in common with its own nature?*

Well, I’ve provided a couple examples already (me making cakes and machines), and offered you some ideas for how to resolve these examples to help you along. But you didn’t reply. Feel like doing so now?*

To do this, it would have to have omnipotence, which Candide also denies.

Not exactly, I’m asking you to support this assertion. And the others you keep making too. This seems eminently reasonable in a discussion of proofs.
*

If this simple concept is still not understood, I can’t help you.

Then your “proof” has failed. All you have done is regurgitated Aquinas’s old attempt and stopped at the same point he did.*

 

[empther]

From post 179

Did any event happen an infinitely long time ago? Obviously not.

I agree, but this does not imply that the past is not infinite. There is a HUGE difference between an event an infinite span into the past, and there being an infinite cardinality of the collection of past events. These are two entirely different things–please do not equivocate over them.

So I guess the poster is saying an infinite cardinality ( or number ) of past events don’t have to span in infinite past? Is that what he’s saying?

Well, first of all there cannot be an infinite number of events.
And second,
…actually there is no second. The first point takes care of post 179.

 

[Gorgias]

empther:

How could anything in the natural order create something that has nothing in common with its own nature?

No. And I think we have observed enough instances of biological reporoduction to state as a general rule that organisms produce sightly differentiated versions of themselves. But beyond biological reproduction does this statement still have applicability?

I’m actually not sure what is meant here by “it’s own nature” in this context. For example, if a beaver builds a dam would the dam be of the same nature as the beaver? When people build nuclear powered space probes are those space probes of the same nature as the people that have produced it?

Candide and empther got hung up on this question a few pages back, but since the question died down, I didn’t revive it. Since it’s come back on its own, though…

The reason ya’ll aren’t seeing eye-to-eye is that you’re using “create” in different ways. empther seems to be using it in the sense that the Scholastics used it: by “create”, they didn’t mean the type of creation in which a beaver takes existing stuff (e.g., mud and trees) and transforms them into something else (e.g., a dam). Rather, creation speaks to the kind of “change” that’s a coming into being.

In this sense, then, any “natural being” can only “create” something that’s like it in form. Dogs create dogs, oak trees create oak trees, amoebae create amoebae, and people create people.

Now, when you’re talking about a purely non-physical being (in this case, “God” or “the PM”), you’ve got an interesting dilemma. How can a non-physical being “create” something unlike himself in nature? (I suspect that this might help fuel argument for the requirement of “omnipotence”, but I’m going to defer getting into that, right now.)

So, in this context, what’s being asserted is simply that a “natural” (i.e., “physical”) being can only created something like it in its nature. If you have a counter-example, it would be interesting to take a look at it.

Is it reasonable, then, to dispense with the objections about natural beings and generation?

 

[Gorgias]

So yes, please demonstrate that the collection of past events cannot be bijectively mapped to the set of natural numbers.

Are we stipulating that there was a “Big Bang”, in which space was “created” (so to speak)?

 

[Relinquish]

Are we stipulating that there was a “Big Bang”, in which space was “created” (so to speak)?

Yes of course I accept modern cosmology. Though nothing in science says that space was created, but that it was caused. There is a large difference. A causal relationship is only considered creation when a person is the cause. I see no reason to believe that a person was the cause of the big bang.

 

[Gorgias]

Yes of course I accept modern cosmology. Though nothing in science says that space was created, but that it was caused. There is a large difference. A causal relationship is only considered creation when a person is the cause. I see no reason to believe that a person was the cause of the big bang.

I’ll defer responding to your argumentation about cause/creation for the moment, since I don’t want us to get off track.

By saying that space was “caused”, you’re still saying that space did not exist prior to its initiation, right?

 

[Candide_West]

Candide and empther got hung up on this question a few pages back, but since the question died down, I didn’t revive it. *Since it’s come back on its own, though…

The reason ya’ll aren’t seeing eye-to-eye is that you’re using “create” in different ways. *empther seems to be using it in the sense that the Scholastics used it: by “create”, they didn’t mean the type of creation in which a beaver takes existing stuff (e.g., mud and trees) and transforms them into something else (e.g., a dam). *Rather, creation speaks to the kind of “change” that’s a coming into being. *

In this sense, then, any “natural being” can only “create” something that’s like it in form. Dogs create dogs, oak trees create oak trees, amoebae create amoebae, and people create people.

Ok, you seem to be trying to use the term “create” in two different ways. Firstly, when a beaver takes existing matter and creates a dam. And secondly when a beaver takes existing matter and creates another beaver.*

Sure the process of “creation” is different but if you just make creation to mean biological creation then you’ve excluded God from “creating” the universe (since neither is biological). I see no other substantial difference between the beaver creating a dam and the beaver creating a beaver.*

Of course if it’s just about the final product then humans can “create” beavers too, using a lab and test tubes.*

I did consider the possibility that Empther meant “creation” as in creation ex nihilo, but of course that makes no sense either.

Now, when you’re talking about a purely non-physical being (in this case, “God” or “the PM”), you’ve got an interesting dilemma. *How can a non-physical being “create” something unlike himself in nature? *(I suspect that this might help fuel argument for the requirement of “omnipotence”, but I’m going to defer getting into that, right now.)

Yes, I suspect it may be problematic to make God an exception by anything other than bald assertion. But at the moment we haven’t even established that “things in the natural order can only create things like themselves” so let’s not get ahead of ourselves.*

So, in this context, what’s being asserted is simply that a “natural” (i.e., “physical”) being can only created something like it in its nature. *If you have a counter-example, it would be interesting to take a look at it.

Is it reasonable, then, to dispense with the objections about natural beings and generation?

I think definition of terms is required. In what way is the difference between “creating” offspring and “creating” other things defined? I think this needs to be carefully defined so we can establish shared terminology.

 

[inocente]

So, in this context, what’s being asserted is simply that a “natural” (i.e., “physical”) being can only created something like it in its nature. If you have a counter-example, it would be interesting to take a look at it.

What started out as slime eventually become dogs, oak trees and people after a long, long time.

Or what about music? Music can be created direct from the mind without any transformation from something else, and if you read music it is meaningful of itself, without having to be played. So Bach created something of a different nature, and out of nothing.

 

[Gorgias]

I think definition of terms is required. In what way is the difference between “creating” offspring and “creating” other things defined? I think this needs to be carefully defined so we can establish shared terminology.

I agree.

On one hand, what the beaver does, vis-a-vis a dam, is “creation” in its weakest sense. The beaver is simply taking existing materials, manipulating them, and and transforming them to another form, with another purpose. He hasn’t “created” the materials themselves, nor has he “created” the dam; rather, he has collected components and assembled them. From an Aristotelian perspective, there certainly has been “change”; however, that change isn’t generation (i.e., coming into being). There is an aspect of it that’s a change in form: the tree is transformed into a wooden dam.

On the other hand, when a beaver (or any other living being) “creates” offspring, we see an entirely different kind of process. Here, there’s the transformation of a part of one’s being, into something that has the potential to become part of the process of generation: an oak tree creates an acorn, an amoeba splits and transforms itself into two amoebae, or an animal creates a sperm cell or egg cell. Having set the process in motion, then, using already existing materials (per se), there is more than just transformation taking place: instead, there is the generation of a new individual, of the same genus and species as the parent. Where there was one individual, now there are two. Aristotle would identify this as a “change”, noting that the change was a “coming into being”.

Finally, we have the notion of creation ex nihilo. This is radically different than either of the previous two processes. It is unlike the first: the materials do not exist previously, and are not generated from existing beings. They are not simply transformed, but truly created. In addition, the process is not one of generation from parent to child: God does not have a physical being, so there is no physical generation. (A theological explanation would also likely note that there is the creation of a soul in humans; although there is an affinity between the human soul and the spirit of God (“image and likeness”, as it goes), this is also not an instance of generation: God isn’t splitting part of himself off in order to create humans.)

The first two, I don’t have to posit – we can agree they exist, right? I could see where you might want me to provide some sort of assertion for the third, but for the moment, since we’re just defining terms, can we defer that consideration?

For the sake of argument, then, let’s call the first “construction”, the second “generation”, and the third “creation”. Fair enough?

Of course if it’s just about the final product then humans can “create” beavers too, using a lab and test tubes.

(Note that, when a human makes a “test tube beaver”, this isn’t really the human participating in “generation”: that generative capacity still remains something that belongs to a beaver, but the human simply acts as a catalyst – in fact, I think we could say that the human engages in “construction”, setting up the conditions (but not actually performing) the “generation” that takes place by virtue of the potency of the living beaver cells.)

 

[Gorgias]

What started out as slime eventually become dogs, oak trees and people after a long, long time.

Do we have examples of beings that have transformed from one genus to another? Not just one species of bird that grows a longer beak in order to more efficiently feed, but a “slime to oak tree” or “slime to dog” example? We certainly can demonstrate that there are similiarities, and posit that macro-evolution exists, but do we have proof? (I’m asking that seriously – I’m a techie, not a biologist.)

In any case, we would have examples of “generation”, not “creation”. Remember, we’re talking about a particular act: from one parent to offspring, do we have the generation of one species to another? You might argue that the net affect, over “a long, long time” is one of the creation of new genuses (geni (?)), but that’s not what’s in play here. We’re talking about direct generation or creation. We might want to expand on that, to account for evolution, but let’s defer that for the moment, until we have a handle on generation – fair enough?

Or what about music? Music can be created direct from the mind without any transformation from something else, and if you read music it is meaningful of itself, without having to be played. So Bach created something of a different nature, and out of nothing.

This is an example by analogy, not substance. Bach didn’t “create” anything, per se. Certainly, he assembled notes (which themselves don’t have physical substance, although there is a representation of them, physically, in the form of sound waves). “Notes”, per se, might be argued as simply abstractions (or ideas, if you will). Therefore, Bach neither created nor generated anything; you’re even stretching it a bit if you want to claim that he constructed something. If you want to make an argument about what he wrote on paper, you’d still have a problem: what he took was paper and ink, and what he ended up with was paper and ink. There is a convention that we share that allows us to impute meaning to the finished product, but there’s nothing that was constructed or assembled, however…

 

[Candide_West]

I agree. *

On one hand, what the beaver does, vis-a-vis a dam, is “creation” in its weakest sense. *The beaver is simply taking existing materials, manipulating them, and and transforming them to another form, with another purpose. *He hasn’t “created” the materials themselves, nor has he “created” the dam; rather, he has collected components and assembled them. *From an Aristotelian perspective, there certainly has been “change”; however, that change isn’t generation (i.e., coming into being). *There is an aspect of it that’s a change in form: the tree is transformed into a wooden dam.

Right, so you are saying that the wooden dam is “coming into being”. By assembling components, in this case a relatively “simple” set of components.

On the other hand, when a beaver (or any other living being) “creates” offspring, we see an entirely different kind of process. *Here, there’s the transformation of a part of one’s being, into something that has the potential to become part of the process of generation: an oak tree creates an acorn, an amoeba splits and transforms itself into two amoebae, or an animal creates a sperm cell or egg cell. *Having set the process in motion, then, using already existing materials (per se), there is more than just transformation taking place: instead, there is the generation of a new individual, of the same genus and species as the parent. *Where there was one individual, now there are two. *Aristotle would identify this as a “change”, noting that the change was a “coming into being”.

Ok, I’ve already agreed that the process is different. Unless your definition of the difference between the two is that one process is biological and the other is mechanical then I’m not sure I see a major difference.*

(Note that, when a human makes a “test tube beaver”, this isn’t really the human participating in “generation”: that generative capacity still remains something that belongs to a beaver, but the human simply acts as a catalyst – in fact, I think we could say that the human engages in “construction”, setting up the conditions (but not actually performing) the “generation” that takes place by virtue of the potency of the living beaver cells.)

(I’ve put this here because it makes replying a bit easier rather than jumping around. )

If we have to call a human in a lab growing a beaver "construction " then I fear that we will have to call what the beavers do in creating a beaver construction as well. After all the lab process is just doing the same as the beavers do but in a different environment.*

Unless the difference between the two forms of creating is just where it occurs (in the body of a beaver or in a lab)?

Finally, we have the notion of creation ex nihilo. *This is radically different than either of the previous two processes. *It is unlike the first: the materials do not exist previously, and are not generated from existing beings. They are not simply transformed, but truly created. *In addition, the process is not one of generation from parent to child: God does not have a physical being, so there is no physical generation. *(A theological explanation would also likely note that there is the creation of a soul in humans; although there is an affinity between the human soul and the spirit of God (“image and likeness”, as it goes), this is also not an instance of generation: God isn’t splitting part of himself off in order to create humans.)

Ok, that is all common to my understanding of ex nihilo.

The first two, I don’t have to posit – we can agree they exist, right? *I could see where you might want me to provide some sort of assertion for the third, but for the moment, since we’re just defining terms, can we defer that consideration?

I agree that breeding and building do indeed occur, but I think we still need to define the boundary between them and why it is significant to the use of the term “creating” in the OP’s argument.*

At the moment the OP’s statement*

Anything in the natural order could only have the power to “create” or bring about something that has something in common with it’s own existence.*

would appear to mean*

“when animals reproduce their offspring are biologically similar to them”

Which I’m fine with, but it does make the conclusion:

…Therefore, only an eternal being could create from nothing

A complete non-sequitur.

For the sake of argument, then, let’s call the first “construction”, the second “generation”, and the third “creation”. *Fair enough?

Doesn’t sound unreasonable, (although currently “generation” sounds like it might as well be called “reproduction” or “breeding”)*but let’s finish defining the boundaries first if thats ok?

 

[Gorgias]

Right, so you are saying that the wooden dam is “coming into being”. By assembling components, in this case a relatively “simple” set of components.

Not really. A dam comes into existence; it doesn’t have “being”.

Ok, I’ve already agreed that the process is different. Unless your definition of the difference between the two is that one process is biological and the other is mechanical then I’m not sure I see a major difference.*

I would say that there are two critical differences: in “generation”, a new being – identical in nature to its parent – is “created”, while in “construction”, a builder is creating a thing. Secondly, in construction, existing materials are collected and transformed; in generation, we have living materials that are brought from potency (in the parent) to actuality (in the child).

I would assert that these are pretty major differences.

If we have to call a human in a lab growing a beaver "construction " then I fear that we will have to call what the beavers do in creating a beaver construction as well. After all the lab process is just doing the same as the beavers do but in a different environment.*

Let me think about this. Intuitively, I want to disagree, but I’d like to have a chance to kick the idea around a bit, and come up with a reasonable way of expressing what I’m thinking…

Unless the difference between the two forms of creating is just where it occurs (in the body of a beaver or in a lab)?

That’s part of it, but not all of it.

I agree that breeding and building do indeed occur, but I think we still need to define the boundary between them

Does my attempt at distinguishing between them (above), do the trick?

and why it is significant to the use of the term “creating” in the OP’s argument.

Right. And I think that we can further distinguish between those two and “creation”.

At the moment the OP’s statement would appear to mean “when animals reproduce their offspring are biologically similar to them”

Which I’m fine with, but it does make the conclusion a complete non-sequitur.

Hmm… well, I think there’s some steps that are left out of his description, which is why I’m hoping that, with some well-defined terms, we can get from point A to point B…

although currently “generation” sounds like it might as well be called “reproduction” or “breeding”

Right – I’m just using the term that I’m familiar with (from my recollection of Aristotle’s Physics)…

 

[Micorhizea]

The universe could not have existed through an infinite past. Therefore, God had to start it.

Assuming God is, these are still both assumptions.

Did any event happen an infinitely long time ago? Obviously not.

How can you legitimately include all of God’s possibilities in your acceptance of the astoundingly limited human perspective of “time?”

Now the atheists will try to talk about “non-linear time” or “imaginary time” or some nonsense like that. What they can’t do is say how this takes the place of the linear time we experience. In fact it’s nonsense.

Not only atheists, but many others will also put this forth, though not necessarily in the terms you restrict yourself to. And none of them say it takes the place of linear time as we appear to experience it, but they simply have our particular mode of perception in a larger context. It might be said that our mental notions of God are like our sense of time–they are supported by an infinitely more complete reality.

The atheists will try to say there was some other cause of the universe.

…than the way we Christians might “explain” it in traditional terms, or other cosmologies might do something similar. We Christians are arrogant in a sense, as we think that atheist are denying* our* postulations about God, as distinct from any sort of God. It only looks that way because when we are dealing with an atheist, we are presenting from the position of believing in a Abrahamic meme.

But another cause would in fact be part of the universe.

Even a “First Cause?”

Perhaps before the Big Bang there was something else. What? We can’t imagine. And before that there may have been something else. And so on. But we can’t go back to infinity. At some point we must arrive at a time when there was absolutely no universe in whatever form we want to think of it.

Therefore, there had to be a God to start it all.

That’s fine, but can you define “God” and “start?”

Notice that Aquinas’s Summa Theologica,
after discussing the nature of theology and why it’s worth studying,
BEGINS BY DISCUSSING GOD’S EXISTENCE.

sacred-texts.com/chr/aquinas/summa/sum005.htm

**Later, **
he discusses other subjects such as the nature of evil and all those things.

But the athesits jump over the question of God’s existence and try to confuse you with tons and tons of deceiving verbiage about the other issues such as the existence of evil, and things like that that understandably bother people.

That sentence would constitute an “allness” error in the discipline of General Semantics. Do “all atheist do precisely that? Or d you wish to address a particular tactic of some atheists? I say that because none of the atheists of the few I know “jump over” the question of God’s existence; they begin on the premise of categorically denying it. That’s what makes them atheist, yes? So at least some atheist don’t do that, so not"all” atheists do that

**We should follow Aquinas’s example. First determine if God exists. Then work out the later problems later.**Excellent. How do you propose to do that with an atheist? As I said somewhere else, it is easy enough to get nearly anyone of any persuasion to agree that 2+2=4 in the base 10 system of counting we most usually use, no matter what persuasion–theistic or not–someone is. Do you think, given centuries of arguments, that we have such an equally effective intellectual proof? “Proofs” are wonderful for those who already believe. For those Lovers of God who have gone beyond belief, no proof is necessary or warranted.

 

[empther]

I cut out a small portion of post 192 to make a point:

Perhaps before the Big Bang there was something else. What? We can’t imagine. And before that there may have been something else. And so on. But we can’t go back to infinity. At some point we must arrive at a time when there was absolutely no universe in whatever form we want to think of it.

Therefore, there had to be a God to start it all.

That’s fine, but can you define “God” and “start?”

“God” and “start” have already been defined many times on these forums.

This is how the A-team works. They keep going back to square one to make it look like elementaty ideas have never been discussed, although they have.

When anybody writes anything, he has to assume the reader knows something. He has to assume the reader has done his homework. He has to assume the reader is not brain dead.

In a story I wrote, the main character and her husband move into a house especially built for them on West Point Military Academy. The only thing I say about West Point is that it has 16,000 acres 26 miles from NYC. I assume the reader knows what West Point is, and what NYC is. I treat the reader like he has a brain.
Not so the A-team who treats everybody like they’re brain dead.

Last summer, I worked with foreigner college here in the United States for three months. One of them was “Ben” from mainland China. You would think this 20 year old kid would know nothing about the United States. He knew about Harvard and M.I.T. He knew what courses they offered in his major. He actually went on a day trip to Boston to visit. the two schools. He knew more about these schools than the average American high school guidance counselor.
People know a lot more than you might think. Don’t insult them by asking for definitions of God and start. .:banghead:

 

[Micorhizea]

I cut out a small portion of post 192 to make a point:

“God” and “start” have already been defined many times on these forums.

This is how the A-team works. They keep going back to square one to make it look like elementaty ideas have never been discussed, although they have.

When anybody writes anything, he has to assume the reader knows something. He has to assume the reader has done his homework. He has to assume the reader is not brain dead.

In a story I wrote, the main character and her husband move into a house especially built for them on West Point Military Academy. The only thing I say about West Point is that it has 16,000 acres 26 miles from NYC. I assume the reader knows what West Point is, and what NYC is. I treat the reader like he has a brain.
Not so the A-team who treats everybody like they’re brain dead.

Last summer, I worked with foreigner college here in the United States for three months. One of them was “Ben” from mainland China. You would think this 20 year old kid would know nothing about the United States. He knew about Harvard and M.I.T. He knew what courses they offered in his major. He actually went on a day trip to Boston to visit. the two schools. He knew more about these schools than the average American high school guidance counselor.
People know a lot more than you might think. Don’t insult them by asking for definitions of God and start. .:banghead:

Oh, dear, Empther, that wasn’t meant to make you mad, and it was asked in all sincerity, and definilty* not* from a position of ignorance about religious beliefs, particularly my own Catholic beliefs.

I’m just kind of surprised by the repeated insistence of many humans that they actually fully know God and how He works! Maybe I underestimate you. and maybe I’m really really dumb. But after many decades of religious studies, I still don’t know, or know even less, about God in terms of definitions and limits. Neither do I feel privy to all the infinitudes of possibility and finesses of God’s ways. Stupid me. Sorry to have riled you with my ignorance.