How do I turn the table on atheists?

[babylonsfalling]

tqualey

I agree with all your comments. I think we should answer atheists point by point, <—I don’t think we should necessarily do that. as they insist on being answered. <—so do kids on a fit What I meant to say, and it probably wasn’t clearly said, is that I don’t think it serves any purpose to get into the mode of “winning” or “beating” somebody at the logic game.<— I’ve seen a good deal of that, and have committed the sin myself, much to my regret.

As Bishop Fulton Sheen once said, “Win an argument, lose a soul.”

Mark Brumley, a convert, has written a book titled “How Not to Share Your Faith: The Seven Deadly Sins of Catholic Apologetics and Evangelization” This book should be read by every Catholic apologist.

Maybe atheists would profit as well?

Making a point of answering atheists on a God-fit is comparable to making a point of answering kids on one of their fits. Humoring a fit is wrong, whether it’s being thrown by a kid or an adult. I think when you humor a fit, you just make it easier to extend the fit.

Making a point of answering these guys point by point is just going along with a pretense than they’re on some objective quest for the truth, when in fact they’re just denying the natural, inner knowledge of God that we’re all born with. It’s a case of humoring the God-fit.

 

[NonServiam]

Making a point of answering atheists on a God-fit is comparable to making a point of answering kids on one of their fits. Humoring a fit is wrong, whether it’s being thrown by a kid or an adult. I think when you humor a fit, you just make it easier to extend the fit.

You’re, of course, welcome to characterize the serious points posed by non-believers as “a fit,” but this tactic of yours is a transparent attempt to avoid addressing these points by dismissing them from the start.

Making a point of answering these guys point by point is just going along with a pretense than they’re on some objective quest for the truth, when in fact they’re just denying the natural, inner knowledge of God that we’re all born with. It’s a case of humoring the God-fit.

This is another common tactic believers use to dismiss serious inquiry: “Oh, you’re just denying what everyone knows.” Well, obviously not “everyone knows” it since we’re having the discussion to begin with.

The fact that you petulently dismiss anyone who doesn’t already agree with you and then have the gall to label those very people as “children” is absolutely hilarious.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, NonServiam

There’s no substitute for a smart atheist! Someone who not only prides himself for not getting all emotional when it comes to questions of abhorent evil, but rises to the top when it comes to logical argumentation putting theists in their proper place as nice people who are simply deluded or manipulating groups that have invented God to serve their corporate and collective agendas. Way to go!

So, if you are so confident that no proof exists as to the existence of God, tell me, how do you explain repeating patterns?

Looking forward to your response.

God bless

The problem that your side runs into is that there are also plenty of atheists out there who understand logical argumentation and who understand that the real “main objection” to the existence of gods – all gods, not just the god you worship – is that there’s no evidence whatsoever for the existence of any gods and that the default position on a claim of a being’s existence in the face of no evidence for it, is to not accept it.

Here’s an example of a really silly argument that even a child should be able to pick holes in.

First, someone can use “evil” not to mean “objectively evil” but merely “something I find abhorent,” which is a statement of individual reaction that doesn’t require a “lawgiver,” any more than I require a “lawgiver” to find the idea of eating garbage to be an unpleasant thought.

Second, even if the person accepts the idea of an “objective morality,” that in no way implies that it must be “Christian ethics.” One can hold to objective morality that is grounded in a different religion entirely or in no religion – one can believe that certain actions are “inherently” and “objectively” virtuous without thinking that a “lawgiver” had to make it so.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, NonServiam,

When I posted my first post to you … your name rang a bell, but I just could not place it… but it sounded like something from Milton. Ah, one of the realities of getting old… So, after posting, I researched it - and low … I found something really quite interesting. Here is a link: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_serviam

Just thought I would share this.

God bless

You’re, of course, welcome to characterize the serious points posed by non-believers as “a fit,” but this tactic of yours is a transparent attempt to avoid addressing these points by dismissing them from the start.

This is another common tactic believers use to dismiss serious inquiry: “Oh, you’re just denying what everyone knows.” Well, obviously not “everyone knows” it since we’re having the discussion to begin with.

The fact that you petulently dismiss anyone who doesn’t already agree with you and then have the gall to label those very people as “children” is absolutely hilarious.

 

[tonyrey]

I’d say the USA is selectively secular and selectively religious. There’s no shortage of churches and mega-churches here. That’s not to say the churches are united though. Some believe they just serve their God differently than other religions, some believe they worship their God correctly and the others are incorrect. Also there are buildings of worship for non-Christian religions present too.

In a poll conducted by YouGov in March 2011 on behalf of the BHA, when asked the census question ‘What is your religion?’, 61% of people in England and Wales ticked a religious box (53.48% Christian and 7.22% other) while 39% ticked ‘No religion’.
When the same sample was asked the follow-up question ‘Are you religious?’, only 29% of the same people said ‘Yes’ while 65% said ‘No’, meaning over half of those whom the census would count as having a religion said they were not religious. (!)
Less than half (48%) of those who ticked ‘Christian’ said they believed that Jesus Christ was a real person who died and came back to life and was the son of God.(!!)
Asked when they had last attended a place of worship for religious reasons, most people in England and Wales (63%) had not attended in the past year, 43% of people last attended over a year ago and 20% of people had never attended. Only 9% of people had attended a place of worship within the last week.(!!!)

humanism.org.uk/campaigns/religion-and-belief-surveys-statistics

This gives me an idea for a simple phone app. I think I’ll make an augmented reality app for finding holy buildings (churches, synagogs, temples… ).

It might be a success in the USA but a waste of time and energy on this side of the Atlantic!

 

[JDaniel]

Actually, what I think you’ll find is that many atheists will attack the inherent contradiction in the attempt to identify any supposedly objective morality with religious morality - religions have been known to demand things that most humans would, by virtue of being human and therefore empathetic, subjective beings, find abhorrent, like sacrificing offspring to gods and wholesale slaughter of those who, for some reason, offend one’s particular god. If religious believers want to push an objective morality, they must do it in opposition to the vast majority of human subjective inclination.

Sair:

A wrong conclusion. There are 3.5 billion (give or take) adults (18 yo and up) in the world. Of those, you have about 800 million Islamics, about 1.4 billion Christians, plus about 800 million religious that are not Christians or Islamics. The total of about 2.2 billion adults indicates, generally, that that number more than likely believes in some sort of real, objective grounds for morality. IMO, based upon these numbers, I believe that the vast majority of the world’s adult population do not adhere to “human subjective inclination” as the ground for morality; and remember, I am completely excluding all 800 million non-Islamic and non-Christian adults.

I might concur that these 2.2 billion may not, in their entirety, exclude some subjective inclination, but then, I am sure that some of the 800 - 900 million adult Hindus, Buddhists, Scientologists, etc., include converts which more than likely had some previous Christian upbringing.

Be the tweakings what they may, if one is going to argue a point such as this, it is important to think it through beforehand. Otherwise, incorrect conclusions might be drawn.

God bless,
jd

 

[MindOverMatter2]

How do I turn the table on atheists?

Are you seriously asking me how to turn a table?

 

[tonyrey]

You mean, if the universe were truly irrational? Then we could say that the universe is irrational, truly.

Truth is also not conditional, as might accidentally be inferred from your comment!

Truth is certainly not conditional on an irrational universe or accidental inferences!

 

[Bobber90]

Hi, Bobber90

Not quite.

You just can not leave it there - so, let’s look beneath the surface. There is a fundamental reason why we do not like having our things taken - and that is because ownership of private property is a component of the Natural Law. None of us woke up one day and said, “Wouldn’t it be nice if I owned something?” Infants and toddlers world-wide demonstrate such a desire very early on in their lives.

Protecting our desire for private property comes in with objective morality. It really is wrong - world-wide to steal and to murder and to deprive others of what we know belongs to them (after all, they had it and we took it!)

While society can establish norms that violate various parts of objective morality - ancient Sparta is a good example in their training of soldiers - most societies try to build upon what many would consider stable values.

The idea of ownership as held in the modern west is highly codified and culturally evolved, not a product of a natural universal. There are subtle differences between owning, sharing, using and controlling belongings/resources. The Christian idea of stewardship places the earth at our disposal, as a resource for humankind, providing it doesn’t mistreat it (I may be wrong). However, other smaller hunter/gatherer cultures developed and live with much tighter notions of ownership which entail greater responsibility - in places where subsistence is more fragile. There are other tribes (and many in history) who lionise nomadic lifestyles which have taking other people’s animals as an integral part.

It was that last example which recently got me thinking about morality. How could these people feel no shame in stealing others’ livestock? How could they take pride in it? That rather challenges the idea of natural law.

In any case, so what if we all hated stealing? Would that support an objectively existent morality? I think it hardly would. Morality is relational and subjective; it is predicated on harm and empathy. I think morality is a bundle of things mostly consisting of fear, desire and obligations and how to negotiate these in social life towards the best ends. If something is genuinely thought to be good by everyone, it is.

The simple thing is to agree on the fact that there are moral feelings, moral arrangements, moral language - indeed that there are concepts of morality. The thing which cannot be demonstrated (and which I think is highly unlikely anyway) is that the rules and goals within morality have objective standards.

In your own example you made an argument for the objective rule of not stealing, and this implores people to think about the feeling of having worked for something and lost it. This is precisely the kind of subjective basis which is necessary to maintain a genuine moral rule. Is it just coincidence that all the rules we affirm as objectively true are subjectively agreeable?

 

[Bobber90]

If it exists for no reason or purpose how can the universe be rational?

Truth is intangible - which is an anomaly in an entirely material universe.

These are interesting as quotes, but I don’t follow any implications here. Truth is the property of being true (stay with me), and for something to true, it must accurately correspond with what it describes. If the universe was all of those things you accuse it of being, then your statement that it is irrational and purposeless is simply true.

… surely?

 

[Earnest_Bunbury]

Earnest Bunbury:

The objection I proposed to Aquinas’ first way was that it begged the question: it assumes that the series in question needs a first cause in order to demonstrate that it has one. That is, it assumes the series is finite in order to show that it isn’t infinite.

In response to this objection, I can only discern two replies in your post.

…(cut, EB)

To (ii):

As Fergus Kerr notes in After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism, the five ways have many different powerful and persuasive interpretations. He notes, frequently, that the neo-thomist’s have introduced new readings of the arguments utilizing metaphysical principles. This is contrasted by the French interpretation heralded by theologians like the Jesuits Marcel Chossat (1862–1926) and Henri de Lubac (1896-1991). The prestigious Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique describes this position clearly:

“As for the argument of the prime mover such as Saint Thomas understood it, it is a long time since it has been taught, even in the Thomist camp. . . If the argument is taken in the sense in which Saint Thomas borrowed it historically from the Arabs, it is not conclusive, and the criticism offered by Scotus is decisive . . . The Neo-Thomists, by adverting to metaphysical considerations . . . actually abandon the physical argument of the prime mover, just as do all the other members of the Thomistic school . . . [The argument has only] survived in the ranks of Protestant scholasticism, among certain philosophers and well-intentioned apologists’.” - Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 4 (Paris: Letouzet et Ané, 1939): col. 932–5. As cited by Fergus Kerr, After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism. Malden (Ma.): Blackwell, 2008. p. 53.

So, I don’t think it’s at all clear that Aquinas was talking about essential causation. But, no matter. You can just make a new argument specifying the causation as essential. Does this rebut my objection? No.

Why? Because you’re still begging the question: assuming the series is such that it requires a first cause in order to demonstrate that it has a first cause.

You make the claim that the series requires a first cause (or unmoved mover) several times:

And why does this series require an unmoved mover?

Because. If it didn’t, then

That’s it. That’s the only reason you provided for thinking the series requires an unmoved mover. But this is precisely what I’m objecting to. So you’ve merely repeated the argument I’m objecting to, in response to my objection. Why can’t the series regress infinitely? Because, then, it wouldn’t have an unmoved mover! Of course it wouldn’t.

As Sobel says:

“[T]he First Way is vulnerable to the apparent possibility of self-moving things that have always been in motion, for Aquinas’s premise that “whatever is moved is moved by another” (ST I q2,a3 p. 22), is presumably meant to be a statement of strict metaphysical necessity. But it seems that at least things in perpetual motion could be self-movers. It seems, in Aquinas’s Aristotelian terms, that they could be at every moment things actually in motion and potentially in motion in the immediate future, their changing potentialities being continuously actualized by the action of their immediately antecedent actualities. This conception of a self-moving perpetual mover does not involve its being “in the same respect and in the same way…both mover and moved” (ST I q2,a3, p. 22).” - Sobel, Jordan Howard. Logic and Theism: Arguments for and against Beliefs in God. Cambridge

To say that neo-Thomists have changed the argument to essential causation inconsistent with Aquinas’ thought is silly, as demonstrated in the conclusion that he was obviously “question begging”. The Church would not ground the understanding of Her theology on such a philosophy this dubious. The view of Aquinas as being this superficial in his philosophical arguments is an indictment of the philosophy the opposes it.

Aquinas’ First Way refers only to essential series in nature, and not to accidental series.

This is Aquinas’ First Way:

 

[tonyrey]

These are interesting as quotes, but I don’t follow any implications here. Truth is the property of being true (stay with me), and for something to true, it must accurately correspond with what it describes. If the universe was all of those things you accuse it of being, then your statement that it is irrational and purposeless is simply true.

… surely?

You are assuming that rationality exists but in an irrational universe it would be an anomaly. Since rationality is necessarily purposeful purposeless rationality is a self-contradiction. Truth must be a human delusion and total scepticism is the only possibility…

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Bobber90,

The idea is NOT ownership in the codified modern west - it is ownership throughout the history of mankind. It is obviously a developed concept - moving from hunter/gatherer to iPhone-Man… But, it is all there for anyone to see if they look. Yes, some groups really do share common items - but, this does not negate that individual members of that same group having personal property. Different cultures express the concept of private property differently - but, this is not the issue. The fact is that they do express this concept - and as we on the outside look at it being expressed by different people at different times - we just can not attribute to coinsidence. There is something really going on here - and it is objective.

To dismiss objective morality (e.g., stealing and murder are always viewed by others as wrong - especially if you are stealing my stuff and are trying to kill me in the process! Laws in all societies were developed initially to deal with this. Now, going out to steal and kill from a competing tribe may be seen as acceptable - but doing this within one’s group is a tabo.

The act of ‘subjectivizing’ morality puts all of morality on the path to destruction. Because everything now becomes relative - with me in the center, and this just spins out of control into chaos. Here is a very contemporary example - with the short-term ending yet to be decided. Look at the so-called ‘Occupy’ phenomenon - beginning in NY, then London, Rome and , last I heard…Oakland. here you have unemployed (?) people who claim a grievance against capitalism in general and some individuals in particular. Puble space is being taken over - occupied - and the rights of other innocent individuals working /living in the area have been totally disprespected. Now, we have a societal conflict that is not going away because this ‘Occupy’ group is leaderless, devoid of specific goals and is facing increasing hostility from authority figures who have been confounded with how to go back to the status quo. While I am personally surprised this has lasted as long as it has - it really can not last much longer. Eventually, the parks will be given back to the community - but, then the question will come up, was there some objective moral law that was being violated.

I submit that the community’s sense are requirement for their community property has been taken over, trashed (literally and figuratively) and innocent people have been intimidated. The vandalizing of Roman churches, Oakland buildings and privately owned autos is another example of objective morality being trampled by some and observed by all who care to witness.

There may be some who wonder about the agrieved ‘Occupy’ protestors - but, therir grievance does not give them the objective right to steal (time, space, private property, etc.) from others. While this has never happened before (and local mayors were unprepared for it) I do not think it will continue into a cold winter - and when they leave, there will be restrictions on such action happening again. This is the nature of an organized society… of objective morality put within the context of daily reality.

God bless

The idea of ownership as held in the modern west is highly codified and culturally evolved, not a product of a natural universal. There are subtle differences between owning, sharing, using and controlling belongings/resources. The Christian idea of stewardship places the earth at our disposal, as a resource for humankind, providing it doesn’t mistreat it (I may be wrong). However, other smaller hunter/gatherer cultures developed and live with much tighter notions of ownership which entail greater responsibility - in places where subsistence is more fragile. There are other tribes (and many in history) who lionise nomadic lifestyles which have taking other people’s animals as an integral part.

It was that last example which recently got me thinking about morality. How could these people feel no shame in stealing others’ livestock? How could they take pride in it? That rather challenges the idea of natural law.

In any case, so what if we all hated stealing? Would that support an objectively existent morality? I think it hardly would. Morality is relational and subjective; it is predicated on harm and empathy. I think morality is a bundle of things mostly consisting of fear, desire and obligations and how to negotiate these in social life towards the best ends. If something is genuinely thought to be good by everyone, it is.

The simple thing is to agree on the fact that there are moral feelings, moral arrangements, moral language - indeed that there are concepts of morality. The thing which cannot be demonstrated (and which I think is highly unlikely anyway) is that the rules and goals within morality have objective standards.

In your own example you made an argument for the objective rule of not stealing, and this implores people to think about the feeling of having worked for something and lost it. This is precisely the kind of subjective basis which is necessary to maintain a genuine moral rule. Is it just coincidence that all the rules we affirm as objectively true are subjectively agreeable?

 

[Mystic_Banana]

Actually, what I think you’ll find is that many atheists will attack the inherent contradiction in the attempt to identify any supposedly objective morality with religious morality - religions have been known to demand things that most humans would, by virtue of being human and therefore empathetic, subjective beings, find abhorrent, like sacrificing offspring to gods and wholesale slaughter of those who, for some reason, offend one’s particular god. If religious believers want to push an objective morality, they must do it in opposition to the vast majority of human subjective inclination.

It’s the subjectivity which causes the problems, though, isn’t it? And it’s more often those faiths revived as models for Pantheisms (e.g. Druidism) which were biggest on human sacrifice - and not short on aggression against those who oppose their beliefs. Something Communists (the most prevelant form of effectively atheistic government) are also quite big on -

Having had quite a lot of experience of ‘human subjective inclination’, not least knowing where my own has led me as I’ve “freethought” my moral behaviour in the past (heavily influenced, inevitably, by the thinking of the collective ‘human subjective inclination’ - AKA dominant cultural ideologies of our time), I’m more skeptical of that than the wisdom commonly attributed to having been passed down from God

 

[Mystic_Banana]

Sair:

A wrong conclusion. There are 3.5 billion (give or take) adults (18 yo and up) in the world. Of those, you have about 800 million Islamics, about 1.4 billion Christians, plus about 800 million religious that are not Christians or Islamics. The total of about 2.2 billion adults indicates, generally, that that number more than likely believes in some sort of real, objective grounds for morality. IMO, based upon these numbers, I believe that the vast majority of the world’s adult population do not adhere to “human subjective inclination” as the ground for morality; and remember, I am completely excluding all 800 million non-Islamic and non-Christian adults.

I might concur that these 2.2 billion may not, in their entirety, exclude some subjective inclination, but then, I am sure that some of the 800 - 900 million adult Hindus, Buddhists, Scientologists, etc., include converts which more than likely had some previous Christian upbringing.

Be the tweakings what they may, if one is going to argue a point such as this, it is important to think it through beforehand. Otherwise, incorrect conclusions might be drawn.

God bless,
jd

whoops! Missed the fact this had already been answered… sorry! :doh2:

 

[Perplexity]

Earnest BunBury:

I:

You say the idea that neo-Thomists have fiddled with the original argument is silly and support this by claiming the Church wouldn’t base her theology on the original argument if this were true. At this point, it’s you v. the Thomists I cited, and I’ll side with them. (and learned from when I was in seminary)

II:

You didn’t interact with my points, instead you quoted a logically invalid representation of the first way whose fifth premise begs the question.

1. An essentially ordered series of elevations from potency to act cannot be in infinite regress, because the series must be actualized by something that is itself in act without the need for elevation from potency.

Why must this series be actualized by something that is itself in act without the need for elevation from potency, rather than each member of the series continuously being actualized by something in already in act? Who knows lol. It doesn’t seem like that answer will be forthcoming anytime soon.

 

[tdgesq]

You say the idea that neo-Thomists have fiddled with the original argument is silly and support this by claiming the Church wouldn’t base her theology on the original argument if this were true. At this point, it’s you v. the Thomists I cited, and I’ll side with them. (and learned from when I was in seminary)

Maybe it is a time to step back for a moment (to all involved) and consider a couple of points. To paraphrase Quine: A philosopher may invoke the teachings of Aquinas, but by doing so must also incur the penalty of being contradicted by others of the School. While Lubac, Swinburne and others may have their own views regarding the five ways, it is not necessarily the definitive interpretation - take Maritain, for example. Perhaps the method to move forward is to give one’s own interpretation of any, some or all of Aquinas’ five arguments, and then conduct an investigation as to whether they meet the the requirements of logic and reason. Just a suggestion.

You didn’t interact with my points, instead you quoted a logically invalid representation of the first way whose fifth premise begs the question.

While I tend to be more of an advocate of the second way, if we are really viewing Aquinas in the “correct” historical context can we in good faith accuse him of begging the question? It might seem quite reasonable today to make statements like “each member of a series may continuously be actualized by something in already in act” or “it is possible to have an infinite series of efficient causes,” Aquinas very well could have taken these as given (intermediate) premises. If everyone would agree then no debate.

On the other hand, I think most will find it difficult to make the metaphysical commitment to an actual infinite in the material universe. In fact, some (not the poster to whom I am responding) seem quite reticent to make such a commitment.

 

[Perplexity]

Maybe it is a time to step back for a moment (to all involved) and consider a couple of points. Perhaps the method to move forward is to give one’s own interpretation of any, some or all of Aquinas’ five arguments, and then conduct an investigation as to whether they meet the the requirements of logic and reason. Just a suggestion.

I think that’s a great idea tdgesq, unless we’re interested in the history of the argument rather than the veracity of it, I think we should proceed as you outlined. That’s partly why I say “But, no matter. You can just make a new argument specifying the causation as essential.” to Earnest Bunbury.

While I tend to be more of an advocate of the second way, if we are really viewing Aquinas in the “correct” historical context can we in good faith accuse him of begging the question? It might seem quite reasonable today to make statements like “each member of a series may continuously be actualized by something in already in act” or “it is possible to have an infinite series of efficient causes,” Aquinas very well could have taken these as given (intermediate) premises. If everyone would agree then no debate.

As I (and Mackie etc.) understand ‘begging the question’ with reference to the 1st way, it means something like this:

A premise of an argument begs the question when it presupposes the conclusion it’s intended to demonstrate.

If Aquinas’ (sub)conclusion is that the relevant series isn’t infinite and a premise of his argument to demonstrate that subconclusion is that the relevant series is finite, then that premise begs question accordingly.

On the other hand, I think most will find it difficult to make the metaphysical commitment to an actual infinite in the material universe. In fact, some (not the poster to whom I am responding) seem quite reticent to make such a commitment.

Sure, intuitions on the matter seem to vary.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Perplexity,

If you thinks this is such a great idea … then please return to post #61 and see how you would address this.

Looking forward to your reply.

God bless

I think that’s a great idea tdgesq, unless we’re interested in the history of the argument rather than the veracity of it, I think we should proceed as you outlined. That’s partly why I say “But, no matter. You can just make a new argument specifying the causation as essential.” to Earnest Bunbury.

As I (and Mackie etc.) understand ‘begging the question’ with reference to the 1st way, it means something like this:

A premise of an argument begs the question when it presupposes the conclusion it’s intended to demonstrate.

If Aquinas’ (sub)conclusion is that the relevant series isn’t infinite and a premise of his argument to demonstrate that subconclusion is that the relevant series is finite, then that premise begs question accordingly.

Sure, intuitions on the matter seem to vary.

 

[Perplexity]

Sorry tqualey, the reason I didn’t reply to your post then was because I didn’t really understand what you were saying.

My objection was simply that Aquinas’ first two ways begged the questions. I didn’t really see a response to that objection in what you said. For instance you say:

I do not think anyone has ever claimed that humanity, earth or the entire universe is infinite. Being around for a long time is just a long time - but, infinite is without end. And, this is where your argument fails - God alone is infinite.

I never claimed anything was infinite. To say God alone is infinite isn’t just to equivocate the word ‘infinite’ as Aquinas and I would understand it, but would just beg the question again, if it was univocal (or analogous I suppose).

You did allege that my objection was circular but the way you explicated that (e.g., with reference to ‘dating’ etc.) didn’t make sense to me, so I can’t really respond to that.

I mean you bring up things like Big Bang cosmology and entropy etc. I’m not sure what that has to do with whether Aquinas’ arguments beg the question. I don’t understand your use of the word ‘logic’ either, it’s quite foreign to me.

So, rather than take shots in the dark, I suppose I’d just ask you to clarify your response: why doesn’t Aquinas’ first two ways beg the question in the way I claimed?