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IntegraCatholic
Guest
It doesn’t seem that this can be demonstrated by reason alone. I highly recommend St. Thomas Aquinas’s (and the other Scholastics’) quaestiones disputatae relating to the eternity of the world.
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IntegraCatholic
Guest
This is not actually true. There are several proofs for the existence of God that are absolutely true and can be demonstrated by reason. Not everyone will understand these proofs (just as not everyone will understand calc 2, even if he understands 2+2=4) because they are about elevated things, and not everyone’s intellect is capable of understanding it, and even when it is understood, it is mixed with error. This former statement is defined infallibly by Vatican I. For a greater explanation, I highly recommend the first several chapters of BOOK I of the Summa Contra Gentiles of St. Thomas Aquinas (particularly 1-5), as well as QUESTION II of the Prima Pars of the Summa Theologiae, particularly article 2.
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bonzerdad
Guest
I think that Cadellin is right: your first premise is seriously faulty. I think also that the difficulty arises because you have not carefully thought through the question of the nature of time.
The entire Classical Western tradition of Greco-Roman philosophy assumed that time is infinite. Aristotle included. In general, before Christianity came along no one had any problem believing the past infinite and no one in that tradition believed in creation out of nothing. To this day it is perfectly sensible for us to speak of what existed BEFORE time existed (ie God existed in that “time” before time existed). Without such language as this, this discussion we’re in could not occur at all, period. This means that temporal concepts like “before” and “after” have to be applicable in discussions about infinity.
Time is a useful human concept, even a crucial one. But it is still a human concept. There is no reason why it cannot be treated as infinite in a way similar to the way a straight line can be extended into infinity in plane geometry. Problems arise in trying to make it into some sort of fourth physical dimension. This attitude is in the air today. Scientists themselves sometimes lose track of the fact that they are using metaphors in trying to explain relativity theory (which is mathematical description of the way things may work in the universe) in everyday language. This can provide a happy creative error resulting in wonderful time travel stories but, to paraphrase Oswald Spengler’s elegant summation: Time has only one function of itself: to pass.
Even with this modern “timeline attitude”, time is generally admitted to be theoretically infinite, the past into the past, the future into the future, the present as a defined and very slippery moment not past but not yet future. The only reason for positing some finite limit to the past is a belief in a created universe which once wasn’t. A belief in a “time” before time existed. Which makes for a circularity in the rest of your argument if you are wrong in your first premise.
In his arguments for the existence of God, Aquinas, ignores temporal considerations in favor of logical priority thereby skillfully and legitimately avoiding such issues.
And if I am wrong and you are right, and time should be treated after all as a created “THING” to which discrete addition functions apply?
Then St.Thomas would probably say something like “but why? My ‘first Mover itself Unmoved’ argument covers literally everything of that material nature.” It claims logical necessity for that concept and ASSERTS but does not ARGUE, that it is then valid for theists of all sorts to equate the uncaused cause with the concept of god. God is to be understood only in the limited ways that philosophy can understand the idea of god, as opposed to the revealed God of Christians. Simple. Elegant. Cogent for many, including me.
In short, your proof as it stands now is circular if time is not a created thing. In Thomist terms God is it’s ultimate but not its proximate cause. That “proximate cause” role belongs to human nature and the nature of human languages. If time IS a directly created ‘”thing” your proof is entirely dependant on, not adjunct to, Thomas’s argument about the logical necessity of an uncaused cause. You will need to work very hard on the wording of your first premise. Unless you intend this only for the already converted, your assumptions about the nature of time need to be examined carefully. Can we really get rid of language like “before God created the world, God was?” The concept of time has to extend in a real way into infinity or you render that statement nonsensical and have made it meaningless.
The entire Classical Western tradition of Greco-Roman philosophy assumed that time is infinite. Aristotle included. In general, before Christianity came along no one had any problem believing the past infinite and no one in that tradition believed in creation out of nothing. To this day it is perfectly sensible for us to speak of what existed BEFORE time existed (ie God existed in that “time” before time existed). Without such language as this, this discussion we’re in could not occur at all, period. This means that temporal concepts like “before” and “after” have to be applicable in discussions about infinity.
Time is a useful human concept, even a crucial one. But it is still a human concept. There is no reason why it cannot be treated as infinite in a way similar to the way a straight line can be extended into infinity in plane geometry. Problems arise in trying to make it into some sort of fourth physical dimension. This attitude is in the air today. Scientists themselves sometimes lose track of the fact that they are using metaphors in trying to explain relativity theory (which is mathematical description of the way things may work in the universe) in everyday language. This can provide a happy creative error resulting in wonderful time travel stories but, to paraphrase Oswald Spengler’s elegant summation: Time has only one function of itself: to pass.
Even with this modern “timeline attitude”, time is generally admitted to be theoretically infinite, the past into the past, the future into the future, the present as a defined and very slippery moment not past but not yet future. The only reason for positing some finite limit to the past is a belief in a created universe which once wasn’t. A belief in a “time” before time existed. Which makes for a circularity in the rest of your argument if you are wrong in your first premise.
In his arguments for the existence of God, Aquinas, ignores temporal considerations in favor of logical priority thereby skillfully and legitimately avoiding such issues.
And if I am wrong and you are right, and time should be treated after all as a created “THING” to which discrete addition functions apply?
Then St.Thomas would probably say something like “but why? My ‘first Mover itself Unmoved’ argument covers literally everything of that material nature.” It claims logical necessity for that concept and ASSERTS but does not ARGUE, that it is then valid for theists of all sorts to equate the uncaused cause with the concept of god. God is to be understood only in the limited ways that philosophy can understand the idea of god, as opposed to the revealed God of Christians. Simple. Elegant. Cogent for many, including me.
In short, your proof as it stands now is circular if time is not a created thing. In Thomist terms God is it’s ultimate but not its proximate cause. That “proximate cause” role belongs to human nature and the nature of human languages. If time IS a directly created ‘”thing” your proof is entirely dependant on, not adjunct to, Thomas’s argument about the logical necessity of an uncaused cause. You will need to work very hard on the wording of your first premise. Unless you intend this only for the already converted, your assumptions about the nature of time need to be examined carefully. Can we really get rid of language like “before God created the world, God was?” The concept of time has to extend in a real way into infinity or you render that statement nonsensical and have made it meaningless.
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PJM
Guest
Ed I like this. THANKS!
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zamboni
Guest
42 God transcends all creatures. We must therefore continually purify our language of everything in it that is limited, image-bound or imperfect, if we are not to confuse our image of God–“the inexpressible, the incomprehensible, the invisible, the ungraspable”–with our human representations.16 Our human words always fall short of the mystery of God.
370 In no way is God in man’s image. He is neither man nor woman. God is pure spirit in which there is no place for the difference between the sexes. But the respective “perfections” of man and woman reflect something of the infinite perfection of God: those of a mother and those of a father and husband.
239 By calling God “Father”, the language of faith indicates two main things: that God is the first origin of everything and transcendent authority; and that he is at the same time goodness and loving care for all his children. God’s parental tenderness can also be expressed by the image of motherhood,62 which emphasizes God’s immanence, the intimacy between Creator and creature. The language of faith thus draws on the human experience of parents, who are in a way the first representatives of God for man. But this experience also tells us that human parents are fallible and can disfigure the face of fatherhood and motherhood. We ought therefore to recall that God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. He is neither man nor woman: he is God. He also transcends human fatherhood and motherhood, although he is their origin and standard:63 no one is father as God is Father.
2779 Before we make our own this first exclamation of the Lord’s Prayer, we must humbly cleanse our hearts of certain false images drawn “from this world.” Humility makes us recognize that “no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him,” that is, "to little children."30 The purification of our hearts has to do with paternal or maternal images, stemming from our personal and cultural history, and influencing our relationship with God. God our Father transcends the categories of the created world. To impose our own ideas in this area “upon him” would be to fabricate idols to adore or pull down. To pray to the Father is to enter into his mystery as he is and as the Son has revealed him to us.
scborromeo.org/ccc/ccc_toc.htm
Since “She,” the Church, just did all the heavy lifting for me, I dedicate this song to her: causeofgood.org/Gold/nor-manservant-maidservant.html
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zamboni
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“As for the donkeys you lost three days ago, do not worry about them; they have been found. And to whom is all the desire of Israel turned, if not to you and all your father’s family?” 1 Samuel 9:20
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Marc_Anthony
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coolduude
Guest
Not quite sure what you’re tying to say here, sorry
But how is my concept of time faulty? It’s pretty straight forward, I think.
- An actually infinite number of things cannot be created by successive addition
- The past has been created by successive addition
- Therefore, the past is finite.
(reference.com/browse/deductive)
So really, I don’t see how my argument is flawed. Premises one and two are both true. Therefore, 3 must be true as well. There’s no way around it, unless you want to bend one of the premises.
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zamboni
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“If I said something wrong,” Jesus replied, “testify as to what is wrong…” John 18:23
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Marc_Anthony
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I didn’t say you wrote anything incorrect. I just want you to explain what you mean.
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zamboni
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“Their children will see it and be joyful; their hearts will rejoice in the LORD.” Zechariah 10:7
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zamboni
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“He who has ears, let him hear.” Matthew 11:15
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Marc_Anthony
Guest
The Catholic Church is pretty big on properly interpreting Scripture. Apparently you’re not, so I’m just ingnoring your posts from now on. Sorry.
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BostonSteamer
Guest
You’ve simply labeled the cause of the Universe “God”. You have not proven the Christian God, who sent his only son and answers prayers, exists.
Also, by your argument, something had to create God.
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zamboni
Guest
Saul approached Samuel in the gateway and asked, “Would you please tell me where the seer’s house is?”
“I am the seer,” Samuel replied.
1 Samuel 9:18, 19
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BostonSteamer
Guest
Nonsense. Atoms didn’t even exist until hundreds of thousands of years after the big bang.
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BostonSteamer
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The definition is nothing more than an assertion.
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Lazy8
Guest
I assumed that this discussion pre-supposed that there is only one God, including the Christian God. If we’re talking about multiple Gods, then I’d imagine that this discussion would diverge wildly into something entirely beyond the original assertions and attempts at proof.
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stephe1987
Guest
There could be a number of reasons for this:
To teach us about sin and misuse/abuse of free will.
To teach us to depend on God.
It could also be argued that good comes from evil. Without evil, how would we know what good was? Would we appreciate good? How could humans improve as a group if we couldn’t learn from our mistakes? If there are no diseases, there are no cures, and in finding cures we expand our knowledge of science and the world around us.
Natural disasters allow us to come together and help each other. We can learn from other people, and by helping people who have been wronged we are doing good works which can prove we’re worthy to go to heaven.
In criminal cases, we are being tested and judged on how we help victims and how we deal with criminals or people who seem to be ‘beneath’ us.
God wanted to create (and did create) humans, not robots. He created us with free will so we could make our own choices and choose right OR wrong.
We are also mortal beings and will die someday. It’s not in our nature to be immune from sickness or to live forever. Because we will die, there is no reason known to us as to why one sick person was saved, or why God chose to take another ill person’s life.
Not to mention the biggest flaw which is them complaining about “misery”. What is “misery”? Why is it wrong? Because you say so? That’s nice, but unhelpful. Atheists don’t have objective moral standards, nor do they believe absolutes exist. Everything is relative, and so “misery” is also relative.
Hatred comes from greed, which is a sin according to the Bible. It could also be argued that the historical murderings were not done by true Christians. Murdering is not consistent with the teachings of the Bible. Saying God “wants” you to kill someone is explicitly breaking a commandment, since it is making God in your own image, a false god. The God in the Bible tells us “thou shalt not kill” and “love thy enemy.”
There have been Darwinists who killed weak people and persecuted Christians, Jews, etc. to make a “master race” and believed they were helping humans along. Some of these Nazis appeared to be Christians, but they weren’t really… in fact Hitler followed “The Prince” which stated that a Prince should APPEAR religious in order to gain followers. By appearing religious, people thought he was doing something good/holy and so they followed him in a crusade to help the human race (survival of the fittest, kill the sick/elderly/weak/etc.) under a false god.
The Soviet Union, whose goal was atheism and to get rid of all religion, outkilled the so-called “Christian” crusades by hundreds of millions of people… and in less than 1/10th the amount of time!
It was also Christians (and Christian values) who helped end slavery, wrote the U.S. Constitution, etc.
Yes, there have been religious leaders who have abused their power in the past. But they are only human after all, and even political (not religious) leaders can abuse their power. That is why there are democracies and the people can discuss and petition policies.
As for “suppression” … the suppression of what? Sexuality? Sometimes it’s good to learn inner strength and self-control. What if your spouse is ill, and you didn’t learn to control your urges? Is it okay to cheat? What if your spouse will be in pain for MONTHS at a time because they had surgery or got injured? Adultery, separation, divorce etc. often lead from the selfishness of people not being able to control themselves. And what if someone is a pedophile… do they have a “right” to molest children because they have “urges” to do so? Of course not! Learning to control one’s sexuality is a good thing. And nobody is denying that consenting married couples should be allowed to have sex.
This is true. If everyone followed the teachings of the Bible (which, btw is not intended to be a book on science), there wouldn’t be nearly as many problems in the world today. However, there are people who are either going to 1) abuse the Bible and pretend God tells us to kill (He specifically tells us not to) or 2) reject the Bible for various reasons: it’s a religious book, it’s “outdated,” makes people “superstitious,” etc. In fact, Einstein believed that Christianity and Judaism would solve the world’s problems, so one of the brightest minds of all time agrees with that statement.
The correct form of the argument is that something that BEGAN TO EXIST had to have a cause. God by definition exists both inside and outside of time. He has always existed, so never began to exist, so does not need a creator or cause.
Until the Big Bang theory and theory of relativity, atheist scientists believed the universe was infinite, so it didn’t need a cause, an infinite amount of time was given for life to create itself, etc.
As far as the Christian God goes, or the divinity of Jesus, there are several books on this topic, as well as y-jesus.com which answers a lot of questions. If you want to believe, the answers are out there. If not, I guess we can’t help you.
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zamboni
Guest
“I am the LORD your God …”
causeofgood.org/Gold/iAmTheLordYourGod.html
“… but he rested on the seventh day”
causeofgood.org/Gold/he-rested.html
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