It’s refreshing to know Buddhists believe “Mind precedes all conditions” and
Context is very important. What do you mean by contingent. It what sense are you using the word?
Your parents are actual and they are not contingent on you as you have admitted. Therefore causes are not contingent on effects as you claim.
My parents are now actual. They were not my parents before I was conceived. Two human beings existed but at that time they were not my parents. The description “parents” is contingent.
I mean “dependent on something else”. Being an actual cause is dependent on having caused some effect or other. A thing which has never caused any effect cannot properly be described as a cause.
That is what I am saying. The description “cause” cannot be applied to everything, only to things that have had an effect.
There is no “cause” before there is an effect. The two labels can only be applied simultaneously. See Nagarjuna’s Mulamadhyamakakarika, Chapter One for more details.
For the purposes of this argument I am not talking about the existence of something. I am talking about the applicability of particular labels to things.
However, before that effect is actually produced, the cause is only a potential cause, not an actual cause. A two year old child may be a potential parent but she is not an actual parent. Being an actual parent may come later.
This I do not accept. It it had a beginning then it did not always exist. If it always existed then it did not have a beginning. One or the other, not both.
Such a reality is possible, but nothing else would exist since an eternal God could not change from potential cause to actual cause.
I take the universe to be “all that exists”. If God exists then He is included in that definition. If you take the universe to be “everything that exists except God”, then you can call my version the ‘Godiverse’ to differentiate it.
This I do not accept. Our current material bubble universe started 13.5 billion years ago in time.
If they are simultaneous then how can you tell one from the other? Which is the effect and which is the cause? If the cause comes before the effect then we can tell them apart easily. If they are simultaneous then we cannot do that.
I agree.
I agree
That depends on what you mean. If you are saying that an entity cannot be considered a cause until it has caused something, then yes that is correct.
I’ll pass.
Yes. There is no necessary reason why we should consider something a cause until it has caused something.
Yes, because they are potential beings in time, they follow the rules of time.
This is true of imperfect entities, because they have not fulfilled their potentiality. They require change in-order to fulfil their potentiality.
It depends on what you mean by eternal. Yes, because it is imperfect it requires change in-order to actualise the potentiality in its being.
Whether you like it or not, a beginning does not necessitate a “temporal existential beginning”. Because time is an intrinsic aspect of the universe, we cannot say that there was a time when the universe did not exist. Time does not have a beginning in Time. That is logically impossible, and to imply that it did is self refuting. When people say there was a beginning they are using analogous terms and do not intend to imply temporal extensions. Rather, there is a point which has no physical extension; this is to say there is no “beyond” or before that point and thus no change/potentiality; there is nothing physical. The word “before” requires temporality in so far as we are describing a temporal change from nothing to something. There is only that which proceeds. The first smallest part of physical change has always existed because there is no before its existence. But there is a true “beginning”, the starting point of change, even though it has always existed. Its just not a temporal beginning, and there is no real reason why we should limit contingency or finiteness to temporal definitions. Something can be contingent upon something else for its existence without there being a temporal beginning. For example contingency can express itself in a hierarchical manner, such as the table holding up the TV or the bridge stopping the cars from falling into the river. These are temporal events but there are evidently extra-temporal aspects to them that have nothing to do with change but rather is to do with having a sufficient foundation. Words such as beyond and before are temporal concepts describing temporal experiences, but these words can also be used to express logical limitations in physical things in so far as their existence is concerned. A thing might have always existed, but that doesn’t mean that it is not dependent on something else for its existence; there is nothing which you can point to that would necessitate the idea that the length of time or change is synonymous to its ability to exist. Time is logically contingent, because it is made up of changing finite parts which cannot explain their own existence. Out of nothing comes nothing, and thus you cannot get change or potentiality from nothing regardless of whether or not change has always existed. That is why time needs a non-temporal first cause; and we mean it in a non-temporal sense; first symbolising that which is existential superior to all the contingent and finite beings which are dependent on it for their existence. Such doesn’t have to be demonstrated as a temporal dependency. Change cannot exist by itself because it does not have the power or the explanation of its existence in its own nature. The first cause argument is not a scientific argument. It is not because time had a beginning that we are saying that we need a first cause. When somebody says that the universe began to exist and thus needs a cause, they are saying that change is finite and thus it needs an explanation that is not bound by temporal physical limitations. There is a finite quantity of change that cannot be accounted for. They are not saying that change has a temporal beginning.
The description is contingent on the describer not on the effect. We do not even need an actual object to exist in order to invent a description for it, like the term “squared circle”. Hence, the description is not contingent on an effect it is entirely contingent on the describer. **Thus, cause is not contingent on effect as you have claimed, not even as a description. **
It did not have a temporal beginning, but that doesn’t mean that change is not finite or does not require a cause.
A being that is actus purus does not need to change since its will to create is identical with its being; this is to say that its will is a perfect expression of its being. I explained this already. This is what we mean by God. You can keep you straw-man definitions to yourself.
The universe is everything that is physical. Why is your definition relevant? Why should I consider it to be anything more than the assertion that it is.
This is true, but its beginning is not a temporal beginning. There is not a time when the universe did not exist.
One is made up of finite changing contingent parts, the other is not.
There are many versions of the kalaam argument. You should not assume that we are using any particular one, if any of them. You keep making the assumption that all existential dependencies have to be temporal dependencies. This is not true.
In order to be accurate the existence of at least one child is required. We can dismiss inaccurate descriptions out of hand.
That is an inaccurate description and can be dismissed.
Any entity, whether perfect or imperfect, requires change to move from potential to actual. Since potential is not the same as actual then X(potential) =/= X(actual) so X has changed.
X is eternal iff for all times T, X exists at time T.
A beginning may be in space: “Canada begins two miles north of here.” Argument from analogy is dangerous, especially with concepts like God, which are unlike anything in our usual experience.
In discussing cause and effect we use time to distinguish one from the other. The cause exists previous in time to the effect. When the effect begins in time the cause changes from potential cause to actual cause.
I am also talking about contingency. In order for an actual cause to exist there must be an effect. If there is no effect then there is no actual cause, at most there is a potential cause. Claims that there is an eternal actual cause are hence required to show an eternal effect to justify the description “actual cause”.
If it is eternal and simultaneous with its effect then the effect is also eternal. If both are eternal how do we determine which of the two is the cause and which is the effect?
I do not accept an actual eternal cause without an eternal effect. If there is no effect then the cause cannot be an actual cause, only a potential cause.
Beware of using science in philosophical discussions. String theory has time existing before the Big bang.
Is God made up of parts (whether finite or infinite)? We see the “hand of God” mentioned in the bible.
I agree, but for the purposes of this discussion it is easier to use temporal dependency as an example, rather than repeat the same argument for all other possible dependencies.
All descriptions, even “accurate” or inaccurate descriptions, are contingent on the describer and not the effect. Therefore cause is not contingent on effect even for an “accurate” description, as you claim. Are you now ready to admit that causes are not contingent on effects as you had claimed?
Rossum:
But, the ‘universe’ is not creative. It is ‘causative’, at least in the sense that a large part of it consists of secondary material causal “stuff.” The Laws of Thermodynamics see to this. And, the Laws of Thermodynamics do not apply to a Creative being. (I need not have told you this - you already knew it.)
No. We can never be “in the middle of” an eternal (infinite) non-being. If God were not a being, per se, we could not be in any sense correlative with Him. The finite cannot be correlative with infinity. There is only one way. (Despite your denials, you also know this.)
Rossum:
Good: anything (including anything that is not per se a “thing” or “object,” e.g., a fleeting thought, an idea, a perception, a mood) that is pleasing, welcome, desired, approved of, beneficial, advantageous, and so forth and so on, consistently by the vast majority of non-aberrant humans.
But one can ask: “Is good good?”
That’s not something that Scripture would rule on. And, on that topic, science can but merely conjecture, i.e., in the same way as any of us can conjecture the existence of a fight between Rodan and Godzilla on the island of Japan.
First may be a mere heuristic context. The “dependence” you postulate is merely to make such relationships intelligible to you and me. David Hume would completely disagree with your insistence on the use of the word, “dependence.”
Almost any horse (except perhaps for the very young or the very aged) can be tethered to a cart and known as a “carthorse.” Almost-any-horse certainly existed before carts. Our naming convention is not essential to the horse’s beingness.
You are limiting ‘power’ to mean ‘strength’. Certainly ‘power’ has a relationship: the child has not the power to cause a baby – at least not yet. The “power relation” between father and son changing is inconsequential. Any such relationship is merely an “idea,” i.e., a conceptual exigency, i.e., one that is devised of the juxtaposing of two (or more) differing mental pictures (such as, the conflating of the mental picture of a horse with the mental picture of a narwhal, into the mental picture of a unicorn).
Scientology, which is ( as I have been told) the offspring of Buddhism, sees the human being (person) quite a bit more enigmatically than Buddhism. Scientology sees the body as merely a temporary housing for at least one Thetan [up to perhaps billions of Thetans – one (or more) for each cell]. I find the concepts of the Thetan (soul) in Scientology much more satisfactory than the concepts of it in Buddhism – at least so far. Interestingly, Hubbard decided not to place his ideas in such precariousness. For example, he limits the universe/multiverse (existence of Thetans) to only 95 trillion years; almost long enough so that the average person will not care to look back any further. Besides, if one postulates the existence of the universe and “life” to a mere 95 trillion years, one does not have to try to work one’s way out of the dilemmas of finitude negotiating within infinity. (Scientology may be something you should look into.)
Christians believe Scripture is true because of its extensive internal consistency. An argument can be made that this idea of “consistency” doesn’t hold as there are almost 40,000 Christian sects. On the other side of that argument is the argument that the differences between the sects are so minuscule as to be little more than personal preferencing: i.e., my booboo hurts me more than your booboo hurts you. In fact, most of the differences revolve around the intractable unwillingness of many Christians to recognize the authority of the Church.
Rossum:
The fact that time does not have a beginning in time is perfectly in line with the concept of a non-temporal non-physical first cause. Creation is necessarily non-temporal in the fact that time begins with time and not in it. Your refusal to accept that there are other ways of understanding existential contingency and creation outside of the conceptual limitations of temporality, is a flaw on your part. It has been pointed out to you that the creation event is analogous to but not synonymous to temporal causes and effects. It is analogous in that the effect is dependent on its cause for existence. Time has to be rooted in an ultimate reality which does not change because it is eternal existence. This must be the case because out of nothing comes nothing. At most you have demonstrated only that the first cause cannot be physical. Thus your issue about time having a beginning is mute and irrelevant. I have explained to you how actus purus can be a cause without changing. You have ignored it in favor of more baseless assertions.
By what cause? (Even here Scientology lacks something: it postulates no urgency, no causation, and no rules, to the comings and goings of STEM and spiritual matter. It’s just purely postulational.)
By what rules?
How do we know that it will?
Not even there, if such be an ontological urgency. It would have to be very different! The “…standard material universe (electrons, protons and neutrons) that we are used to…” are all subject to (the universe’s) expansion/entropy. (That the universe/multiverse can undergo expansion/contraction cycles infinitely is a violation of the laws of physics: a contracting universe is a violation of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. So, it cannot happen this way. And, if one postulates merely an infinite multiverse, one violates the rules of actual infinity, as Hilbert points out.)
David Hilbert doesn’t.
