Good Books on, and in refutation of, Atheism

[Wesrock]

So it is logically necessary that a decision was made to cause or not to cause (I will not accept a plea that it was ‘in the uncaused cause’s nature’ because that is likewise an assumption and nothing has been said to this point that could allow for it).

You really like to pretend you understand the cosmological arguments, given that all these things are actually logically demonstrated as conclusions and are not starting premises, right?

And a decision requires change.

You’re the one attributing discursive and ratiocinative processes to God, not me. In essence, you’re the one anthropomorphizing and apply pre-conceptions to what God is rather than seeing where the starting premises take you.

Notwithstanding that if you follow your line of reasoning to where you want it to go and we end up with God then unless God is utterly indifferent then He must change from concern to anger to love to any number of emotions. Are we not obliged to do what pleases God and avoid what angers Him?

God has no passible emotions (well, we can attribute them to God by virtue of the Incarnation, but I hope you take my meaning as a reference to the Divine Nature directly). This is not by virtue of positive demonstration, but through negative demonstration that these can’t be present in God, following the demonstrated immutability and so on. This is not indifference, however, for we still have demonstrations of the likeness of things towards God, things being ordered to the good, and God willing the good of things, yadda yadda. But this is Intellectual, not emotion.

If anything I do does not change His attitude to me then He cannot care what I do.

Again, you’re applying anthropomorphic conceptions to God, as if he experiences successive moments, and so on. Talk about being guilty of starting with a conception of God (assuming the conclusions) and using that to make counter demonstrations…

 

[Wozza]

If I say a decision is required, I am NOT talking about God. We are still at the ‘uncaused cause’ stage. Yet you cannot help but to bring the conclusion to the forefront.

IF something caused the universe to come into existence (forget God - we haven’t arrived anywhere near anyone’s concept of God yet), do you accept that whatever it was (assuming intelligence) could have made a choice as to the matter. Or was it obliged to do so?

At this stage of the process there are no other options.

 

[Wesrock]

If I say a decision is required, I am NOT talking about God. We are still at the ‘uncaused cause’ stage. Yet you cannot help but to bring the conclusion to the forefront.

IF something caused the universe to come into existence (forget God - we haven’t arrived anywhere near anyone’s concept of God yet), do you accept that whatever it was (assuming intelligence) could have made a choice as to the matter. Or was it obliged to do so?

At this stage of the process there are no other options.

It was not obliged to do.

“But then it must have went from non-action to action, from undecided to decided.”

No, you’re throwing ratiocinative and discursive thinking into the mix, along with corporeal processes in general, likening the act of the First Cause to human processes and committing an error of anthropomorphism. As there is no body, no parts, no admixture of act or potency, no thinking (for that would imply change), there is no process of decision making, there is no duration of not acting and acting.

I mean, really, again, I touch on this in the argument I posted and it’s quite systematically addressed by Aquinas and subsequent Thomists. Even Augustine, well before the Schoolmen, understood this.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

If I say a decision is required, I am NOT talking about God. We are still at the ‘uncaused cause’ stage. Yet you cannot help but to bring the conclusion to the forefront.

IF something caused the universe to come into existence (forget God - we haven’t arrived anywhere near anyone’s concept of God yet), do you accept that whatever it was (assuming intelligence) could have made a choice as to the matter. Or was it obliged to do so?

At this stage of the process there are no other options.

It was not obliged to do.

As there is no body, no parts, no admixture of act or potency, no thinking (for that would imply change), there is no process of decision making, there is no duration of not acting and acting.

So your premise at this point is that there was an uncaused cause that we will accept at this point was intelligent (and you accuse me of anthropomorphising - maybe you need another term other than intelligent) that wasn’t compelled to create but which did. And where in the starting premises is there anything whatsoever that denies that there could have been something we would understand as a thought process? That you state that there is none is completely out of the blue. It is, at this stage, an assumption. Which is rejected.

Q: Was it compelled?
A: No.

Q: Did it choose?
A: No.

Forget about whatever anyone else may or may not have said about God (which we are not talking about). At this point the discussion has reached a dead end. There is nowhere to go if there are only 2 logical choices and you reject both.

 

[lordjules]

Wow, something of a tirade. Maybe it’s not either/or but both/and?
Getting back to the original question. One way of engaging with atheism is reading what it has to say. A while ago I did a course by a guy called Pete Rollins called Atheism for Lent’. The idea was to strip away any untenable ideas one had about God, a form of kenosis if you will. We basically read atheist authors and mystics. In the process we learned of functional atheists, that is people who although seemingly religious we’re only so on a Sunday
Somev of the authors we read were
David Hume, Anthony Flew, Bertrand Russell, Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, Meister Eckhart, Margerite Porette, Mother Theresa. Feuerbach, Schleiermacher

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

Wozza:

If I say a decision is required, I am NOT talking about God. We are still at the ‘uncaused cause’ stage. Yet you cannot help but to bring the conclusion to the forefront.

IF something caused the universe to come into existence (forget God - we haven’t arrived anywhere near anyone’s concept of God yet), do you accept that whatever it was (assuming intelligence) could have made a choice as to the matter. Or was it obliged to do so?

At this stage of the process there are no other options.

It was not obliged to do.

As there is no body, no parts, no admixture of act or potency, no thinking (for that would imply change), there is no process of decision making, there is no duration of not acting and acting.

So your premise at this point is that there was an uncaused cause that we will accept at this point was intelligent (and you accuse me of anthropomorphising - maybe you need another term other than intelligent) that wasn’t compelled to create but which did. And where in the starting premises is there anything whatsoever that denies that there could have been something we would understand as a thought process? That you state that there is none is completely out of the blue. It is, at this stage, an assumption. Which is rejected.

Q: Was it compelled?
A: No.

Q: Did it choose?
A: No.

Forget about whatever anyone else may or may not have said about God (which we are not talking about). At this point the discussion has reached a dead end. There is nowhere to go if there are only 2 logical choices and you reject both.

I already said I’m not going spend another ten hours typing up a new demonstration. I linked you to a topic I wrote in my own words demonstrating the necessity of a First Cause which includes demonstration of why this must necessarily be analogous to what we call an Intellect or Knowledge. There was also an explanation of what is meant by omniscient. I can direct you to other arguments as well, not in my own words.

There is nothing in the starting premises that the First Cause must not have ratiocinate or discursive processes. That’s not something you can take as a starting premise. Once the first cause is demonstrated as necessary, and once it’s demonstrated to be unchanging and non-composite, then it’s a simple reductio argument to show that if it did think it would be both changing and unchanging, both composite and non-composite, both of which are absurd, so therefore discursive and ratiocinate processes cannot belong to the first cause.

I didn’t state that God did not choose. I simply intended to disabuse you of a notion thinking that this was temporal or done by human-like processes or making an error conceiving of God as a body.

 

[Wesrock]

IWantGod:

A brute fact is an unnecessary object that exists for no rational reason, much like your idea of the universe. That is not how we define God.

The universe is necessary in that its opposite: “total nothingness” cannot exist ontologically, only as a concept. And you cannot “define” God into existence.

What is this but an ontological argument for the universe? The main point here, I would say, is that we would agree that the alternative of non-being is not possible. Existence, is therefore necessary (God is defined, after some argumentation and not as a starting point, as Subsistent Being, or Existence Itself, after all, though certainly that requires expansion). The issue is that this universe (any any individual thing in it) is clearly conditioned to exist in such-and-such a way (extended through space, composite, contingent, changing, etc…), and simply stating that “existence is necessary” is not sufficient explanation for why we have this universe.

It is a recurring error these days that as soon as a skeptic criticizes some purported attribute of God, the answer is: “but that is not how we define God”!

More often than not that answer ends up being true, though. The purported attribute is just that, one purported (perhaps through an honest misunderstanding) by the skeptic.

 

[IWantGod]

The universe is necessary in that its opposite: “total nothingness” cannot exist ontologically, only as a concept.

You cannot define the universe into existence either. You can only claim that something must necessarily be actual, and that which is necessarily actual is not comprised of a sequence of actualized potential, and cannot be under pain of contradiction. So your assertion that the universe is ontologically necessarry is unreasonable and unintelligible. But i doubt that you care whether or not your position is rational to begin with.

 

[IWantGod]

The concept of “necessary being” rests on the concept of “possible world”. A “possible world” is simply a “state of affairs”, which is different from our existing world in some respect. A necessarily existing object is understood as an object which exists in ALL the possible world. A “contingent object” is one, which exists in some possible worlds, but NOT in all of them.

Redefining the parameters by which we define something as being necessarily actual to the number of possible worlds in which a thing exists, is not going to help you. There is no possible world where a necessary being is comprised of potential states or actualized potential. It’s a logical contradiction, like a square circle.

 

[Wesrock]

Maybe you are aware of correct definition of necessary being, though I have doubts. The concept of “necessary being” rests on the concept of “possible world”. A “possible world” is simply a “state of affairs”, which is different from our existing world in some respect. A necessarily existing object is understood as an object which exists in ALL the possible world. A “contingent object” is one, which exists in some possible worlds, but NOT in all of them.

The word “contingent” is NOT understood in the colloquial sense - namely that the object needs some other object as an explanation for its existence. It only means that is does not exist in ALL the possible worlds.

Now in order to find out if there is a "necessarily existing object, one needs to examine ALL the possible worlds (of which there are infinitely many) and find out if that object exists in ALL of them. This is clearly impossible. However to prove that there cannot be a necessarily existing object is very easy. All one needs to do is to find two possible worlds, which have nothing in common, and the proof is done.

Thomas Aquinas simply used the term necessary for something that did not tend towards corruption and contingent for something that did.

Other philosophical contexts speak of a necessary being as something that could not fail to exist.

Possible world analysis is not required.

 

[IWantGod]

I am not defining the universe into existence. I am experiencing it. The word: “universe” is a simple term, “everything that exists”.

You are assuming that it’s everything that has existence. In other-words you are merely defining it that way without providing reason for thinking so, and you are ignoring every argument that collapses your position.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

More often than not that answer ends up being true, though. The purported attribute is just that, one purported (perhaps through an honest misunderstanding) by the skeptic.

Except those attributes are not suggested by the skeptics, they come from the apologists.

Admittedly, there’s been various positions on the subject and different schools of thought. I maintain, as do many Thomists, that we do not hold that God exists without reason, only without cause.

 

[IWantGod]

You are the one who attempts to play fast and loose with the colloquial and the philosophical meaning of “necessary” existence. I will stick with the correct, philosophical usage.

You are using the term necessary in a different sense. It is you who doesn’t understand what you are talking about. And the fact remains, whether you like it or not, something that is ontologically necessary cannot not exist and therefore cannot be comprised of potential states or actualized potential full stop. In other-words this idea that our universe is existentially necessary is meaningless just like a square circle. It’s impossible. Your use of possible worlds, and defining something as necessary if it exists in all possible worlds is irrelevant; it doesn’t help your agenda.

 

[IWantGod]

Wow! I am assuming that everything that exists IS everything that has existence ???

I am not defining the universe into existence. I am experiencing it. The word: “universe” is a simple term, “everything that exists”. Whether any element of it is necessary (in the sense that it exists in ALL the possible worlds) is irrelevant.

Straw-man. You are assuming that everything that exists is physical reality

 

[Wozza]

I didn’t state that God did not choose. I simply intended to disabuse you of a notion thinking that this was temporal or done by human-like processes or making an error conceiving of God as a body.

Ye gods and little fishes. Will you PLEASE stop referring to God. We are nowhere NEAR reaching any point at all where the Abrahamic God can make an appearance.

This is the ultimate problem. One cannot have a discussion about any potential ‘uncaused cause’ without the other person CONSTANTLY referring to any points made AS IF tbey were discussig God. We are NOT.

 

[IWantGod]

I really don’t care what you “maintain”, though I care what you can substantiate.

I think you can be safely ignore from now on.

 

[IWantGod]

If we can PROVE that there are at least two possible worlds, which have nothing in common (in other words the intersection of which is the “null-world” - mathematically speaking), then we refuted the notion of “necessary existence”.

You cannot coherently speak about possible worlds without there first being an actual reality that necessarily exists. If no being necessarily exists, there is no reason for anything to be possible.

 

[IWantGod]

I never said anything about “physical” reality. So much for your comprehension skills.

Lets look at what you said again.

I am not defining the universe into existence. I am experiencing it. The word: “universe” is a simple term, “everything that exists”. Whether any element of it is necessary (in the sense that it exists in ALL the possible worlds) is irrelevant.

Are you suggesting that you are not only talking about physical reality when you talk about the Universe. That you are perhaps experiencing something that is not physical?

These are your words.

Unless of course you are take the word universe to mean something else.

 

[IWantGod]

Hehe, the hope was really “false”. You keep on returning. Oh well… at least you are amusing.

I guess that you are unaware that the phrase “possible world” designates a “state of affairs” (another technical term in philosophy), which is different from our existing reality in some respect . In my back yard there is a cherry tree. In another possible world it could be a pear tree, or maybe no tree at all. The only requirement is that a possible world is without contradiction.

A possible world does not have be actual. It is just a thought experiment. And - as I said - it is childishly simple to imagine two possible worlds, which have nothing in common, and thereby refute the concept of “necessary existence”.

You cannot coherently speak about possible worlds without there first being an actual reality that necessarily exists. If no reality necessarily exists, there is no reason for anything to be possible.

Things are not possible for no reason or because you imagine them to be.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

I didn’t state that God did not choose. I simply intended to disabuse you of a notion thinking that this was temporal or done by human-like processes or making an error conceiving of God as a body.

Ye gods and little fishes. Will you PLEASE stop referring to God. We are nowhere NEAR reaching any point at all where the Abrahamic God can make an appearance.

This is the ultimate problem. One cannot have a discussion about any potential ‘uncaused cause’ without the other person CONSTANTLY referring to any points made AS IF tbey were discussig God. We are NOT.

Semantics, bro. Deal with the argument.