How do Cosmological Arguments/Aquinas' Ways prove a *Personal* God?

[tafan2]

Why do you assume that Aquina’s stopped after his 5 ways. He went on to show arguments for many ttributes of God

 

[IWantGod]

It’s seems to me that one only has to show that physical reality as a whole is not a natural property of existence ( and is therefore an ontological artefact ) in-order to prove that the un-caused cause has an intellect…

I can accept that, but the problem is that you haven’t established that physical reality isn’t a natural property of existence. And until you can do that any argument that purports to prove that the uncaused cause has an intellect, is unsubstantiated.

When talking about Natural causes we are talking about physical events. Emergent properties are said to be a result of processes occurring in natural phenomenon.

If you wish to argue that physical existence can naturally arise from physical processes occurring in the intrinsic nature of a non-physical uncaused cause, that’s fine. But there are two problems with that.

1. There are no physical processes in non-physical natures. It makes sense that physical things naturally emerge from physical things because they share the same intrinsic and fundamental nature in the sense that they are physical. But to suggest that a non-physical nature can naturally transform into a new physical nature is to suggest that it can transform into what it fundamentally lacks, which doesn’t make rational sense.
2. A being that is existentially necessary is not potentially something else, otherwise what it is would not be necessarily actual which would contradict it’s existential necessity. Therefore physical reality cannot be an emergent property that naturally arises from the nature of the un-caused cause, and the being of physical reality cannot be considered a natural property of existence since it begins to exist or is a contingent reality. Therefore it’s nature is artificial.

Thus your claim that the idea of an intelligent un-caused cause is unsubstantiated is not true.

 

[Roseeurekacross]

Firstly with Aquinas. he gave us 5 arguments for the proof of God. One of them is contingency. Do you understand what contingency means?

 

[IWantGod]

Just something to add to the discussion.

 

[IWantGod]

Actually, this premise is just as much a problem for you as it is for me. Because it means that for your conclusion to be true, you have to prove that at its most fundamental level reality is physical. You and I would probably agree that the evidence strongly suggests that at its most fundamental level reality is quantum in nature, and that physical reality as we perceive it emerges from this underlying quantum reality.

I would also argue that this underlying quantum reality can’t rightly be described as " physical" because the physical laws which govern the macro world don’t apply to it, but rather emerge from it. Thus the quantum world from which the physical world emerges can’t itself be described as physical. As far as we know, it’s natural, but it’s not physical.

So premise 1 doesn’t hold true until you can prove that at its most fundamental level, reality is physical. Otherwise it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that physical reality naturally emerges from a non-physical quantum reality.

Quantum events are physical events, it’s the fundamental building block, it’s what physical beings are made of, and to suggest otherwise is to play a semantic game. Non-physical things don’t have parts, they have no dimensionality to them. Non-physical beings do not occupy space. So if you want to say that quantum events are not physical then that is something that you have to prove which you can’t because your definition is nonsensical in the first place.

Secondly if quantum events are not physical in nature, then physical reality cannot naturally emerge from it for the same reason that non-physical beings cannot transform into physical beings. So your argument fails for that reason alone.

You can’t just redefine things to suit your cause. I can only assume either a lack of understanding or dishonesty.

 

[tafan2]

I think what I’m asking about is a more direct way that connects the Five Ways to God as personal.

It perhaps is not as direct as you would like, but if you want the connection, you simply have to read through the first part of the Summa, The One God:

http://newadvent.org/summa/1.htm
After showing God’s existence, Aquinas continues his logic so show that God is simple, good, perfect, infinite, omnipresent, immutable, eternal.

Then he shows aspects of Gods intellect, will, and power.

This is all done through reason alone, not relying on revelation. I think Aquinas would agree with you, I certainly do, that we need to get that far through natural theology before we rely on revelation.

 

[IWantGod]

But basically the problem boils down to the fact that anything that exists must have attributes that distinguishes its existence from non-existence. So we have to determine what those attributes are, and whether they by necessity contain everything else.

We don’t need to know a-pior what a nature is essentially made of in-order to know that it must exist. One only needs to show that something is dependent on it existing. In other words if we can identify a contingent effect we can infer the necessity of an existing cause even if we cannot observe or quantify it’s nature.

 

[IWantGod]

then physical laws should apply to it, but they don’t, they emerge from it.

The supposition is in the idea that just because things on the quantum scales behave according to different rules that we are not still talking about physical laws or physical beings. Your interpretation of quantum-physics is neither scientific or philosophically meaningful. In fact it’s pseudo-science.

 

[IWantGod]

you can’t have a necessary being without the contingent beings that distinguish it from nothing.

Wrong. You can’t inductively know that a necessary being exists without identifying the existence of contingent beings. We observe contingent beings, and that is how we know that a necessary being must exist. That in itself does not necessitate that a necessary being cannot exist without contingent beings. That’s clearly nonsense.

 

[IWantGod]

How are you defining physical?

Have you ever read a science book or better yet have you ever taken a look at the philosophy of science. Maybe yo should take into consideration what a physical being is not, and then from there make a comparison to quantum physics.

And how can you prove that the quantum realm is physical?

The responsibility is not on me to prove that quantum-physics is a study of physical reality. You are the one making outlandish claims that are inconsistent with science and any competent philosophy.

But i forget, you think it’s all possibly in your head so you are bound to blur the line between your imagination and reality.

 

[RealisticCatholic]

would have to be something analogous to a mind in-order to be a sufficient cause?

Still having trouble seeing how this kind of argument doesn’t first start with the assumption that all reality is either Mind or Matter.

Many people, atheists etc., would just say that’s a false category (human minds are just physical, and so any idea of Minds other than human are just anthropomorphic, anyway).

Do we argue that Mind as non-material exists, to begin with? Or do we argue first that the First Cause cannot be matter, and then just say this non-material Reality must have mind–like qualities through some other argument?