How does immortality of God follow?

  • Thread starter Thread starter STT
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Did you read the whole paragraph? I said"…This is however is not the case that we are interested on…" What? When something change your mind. You are uncaused cause if there is nothing which can change your mind but yourself.
 
STT said:
You are uncaused cause if there is nothing which can change your mind but yourself.
Click to expand...
Nope you already conceded “you were caused to change your mind” hence per your own statement you can’t change your mind without that prior cause.
 
There are two cases: (1) You were caused to change your mind and (2) You were not caused to change your mind. We are not interested in first case since you were caused and no decision was involved. What do you name yourself when you are not caused and you cause? Uncaused cause.
 
STT said:
There are two cases: (1) You were caused to change your mind and (2) You were not caused to change your mind. We are not interested in first case since you were caused and no decision was involved. What do you name yourself when you are not caused and you cause? Uncaused cause.
Click to expand...
When a person changes their mind, isn’t it done so due to new knowledge on top of old knowledge and with a certain end in mind?

And here we’re only looking at accidental causes. You haven’t grasped that something can be caused to exist according to a nature with voluntary agency.
 
You’re focusing on the cause of the decision. I’m focusing on the cause of the decision making ability.

Man didn’t have to (A) have ability to freely decide. He could have had (B) preprogrammed mind without ability to freely decide. What caused him to have (A) instead of (B)? A prior cause. Hence (A) is not uncaused.
 
STT said:
The very fact that we can change our minds at any moment we want and do otherwise indicate that we are uncaused cause.
Click to expand...
No. You’re still using that term improperly. What you’re trying to express, I think, is that we’re rational beings with agency. We can cause events to happen. (However, that doesn’t imply that we, ourselves, are ‘uncaused’, which is the loop you seem to be stuck in.)
STT said:
What do you name yourself when you are not caused and you cause ? Uncaused cause.
Click to expand...
You’re misusing the terminology. Sorry… 🤷‍♂️
 
@STT I realize I am late to the conversation and have just skimmed over the thread, but I will give you a means to an answer. If you take Aquinas’s proof of God’s immortality and work backwards, he bases Gods immortality (eternity is his term) on God’s immutability. If you then look at how he shows that God is immutable, he abases that on the fact that God has no potentiality. Which is shown in his proof that God has no body (God’s simplicity). And that is based on the fact that God is the first mover.

So it seems to have taken Aquinas several steps to get provide and answer to your question. It is all there for you to read (assuming you are actually interested in an answer):

http://newadvent.org/summa/1.htm
 
Wesrock said:
When a person changes their mind, isn’t it done so due to new knowledge on top of old knowledge and with a certain end in mind?
Click to expand...
Not always. Think of a situation that you are going outside house in the morning. You have two options to go to work or cinema. You decide to go to work at first while thinking about cinema. You then change your mind, decide, turn around and go to cinema.
Wesrock said:
And here we’re only looking at accidental causes. You haven’t grasped that something can be caused to exist according to a nature with voluntary agency.
Click to expand...
Basically you need to prove that causing an uncaused cause is possible. I have an argument against that. I however think you first need to provide an argument for your claim.

My argument:
  1. Causation requires knowledge
  2. Knowledge is structured
  3. Therefore any thing which is caused is structured
  4. Any thing which is structured cannot be free (emergence is impossible)
  5. Therefore anything which is caused cannot be free
 
STT said:
Basically you need to prove that causing an uncaused cause is possible.
Click to expand...
If something is uncaused, it cannot also be caused. No need for an argument against a logical impossibility.
 
Aquinas11 said:
You’re focusing on the cause of the decision . I’m focusing on the cause of the decision making ability .
Click to expand...
I don’t understand what do you mean with the second sentence.
Aquinas11 said:
Man didn’t have to (A) have ability to freely decide. He could have had (B) preprogrammed mind without ability to freely decide. What caused him to have (A) instead of (B) ? A prior cause. Hence (A) is not uncaused.
Click to expand...
You are not talking about free decision since the decision is caused.
 
That is because human has ability to freely decide. We sometimes follow a chain of causality (like now that you are reading my post). We however have ability to break the chain of causality whenever we want. This act, breaking a chain of causality, requires a decision. The decision however cannot be related to the chain of causality since it is free. Therefor free decision is uncaused. Human however make/cause the free decision. Therefore human is uncaused cause (otherwise something who is caused, human, causes uncaused, decision, which is logically wrong as you demonstrated).
 
An uncaused cause can’t be caused… but you haven’t demonstrated that a human person or human will is uncaused.
 
You keep using that word (uncaused) incorrectly. It is as if you skimmed the intro to the Cliff’s Notes version of Philosophy for Dummies while intoxicated. Being caused or uncaused has NOTHING to do with free will.

I am done.
 
STT said:
That is because human has ability to freely decide. We sometimes follow a chain of causality (like now that you are reading my post). We however have ability to break the chain of causality whenever we want.
Click to expand...
false.
This act, breaking a chain of causality, requires a decision. The decision however cannot be related to the chain of causality since it is free.
Click to expand...
False.
Therefor free decision is uncaused.
Click to expand...
False.
Human however make/cause the free decision. Therefore human is uncaused cause
Click to expand...
False.
 
We can interrupt any chain of causality that we are following. This requires a decision. The decision is not free if it depends on the chain of causality. Therefore free decision is uncaused (since otherwise the decision depends on the chain of causality and it is caused).
 
Thanks. I was looking for a proof which is based on the assumption that God is uncaused cause.
 
STT said:
We can interrupt any chain of causality that we are following. This requires a decision. The decision is not free if it depends on the chain of causality. Therefore free decision is uncaused (since otherwise the decision depends on the chain of causality and it is caused).
Click to expand...
You are not interrupting it, you are participating in it with agency.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top