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ManOnFire
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If you are admitting that God created the universe, then yes, there’s only one choice. But to those who don’t believe that God exists, then the other choice is that “nothing” created the universe, i.e. it always existed. It’s disingenuous for atheists to look for Truth, then turn around and act like answers don’t matter when it comes to the questions of when time began and will end and where space began and ends. If time and space (the universe) has always existed, then there is no possible answer, due to it’s infinitesimal nature.
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ManOnFire
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Pondering the beginning of time is a coherent question. I hope that you are not refusing to think about it simply because it is unanswerable without God. It would be disingenuous of you to deny that it is appropriate to ask the question simply because there can’t be an answer, i.e. there is no Ultimate Truth. Atheist scientists seek answers. This one is unanswerable. So, the atheist scientist’s idealogy is inherently flawed. There is no idealogy. The religious don’t live their lives believing “I only accept that which can be known,” like many atheist scientists. Therefore, how, when, why God exists isn’t important for our beliefs. He just Is.
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greylorn
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Your arguments for atheists do not apply, since I believe that our universe is created.
However, I find the existence of an omnipotent and omniscient entity to be a logically impossible proposition, and so do not believe the universe was created by the same entity who you have been taught is the Creator.
Atheist or not, so far no one has gotten very far past the concept that for the universe to exist now, changing in form as it does, it must have come from something which pre-existed. For Christians, that something is God. Because of logical constraints, I believe in a different kind of origin for the universe.
If I’ve thought of alternatives, there are certainly other, better minds who have come up with even better ideas.
I’d not propose to convince a believer otherwise, since I prefer the illogical faith of Christianity to the absurd dogmas of cosmologists and Darwinists. But times continue to change, and a thoughtful, open mind will always serve you well.
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greylorn
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I realized belatedly that you never understood my comment. In my post #728, referencing this statement from your previous post:
I replied, “That is only a single choice.” God, according to Christianity, is an infinite being. The “or” does not belong in your statement.
I.e. you are effectively saying that there is an infinity, or there is an infinity. This is not a distinction.
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itinerant1
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What allegedly makes the existence of an omnipotent and omniscient entity to be a logically impossible proposition?
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ManOnFire
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WHy would any atheist believe that the universe is created? Answer: because we exist. You have not identified yourself as an atheist, so, if you have a better idea, I’d like to hear something better than “better minds who have come up with even better ideas.” Merely stating that others have better ideas is not convincing. Let’s assume, hypothetically, that God does not exist and has never existed. Do we exist here in time and space? Yes. Since “nothing” created time and space, then the only other possibility is that time and space have ALWAYS existed, then there is no beginning nor ending. (If there were, then some non-time, non-space entity had to create it, and this entity would then exist “before” time, which is paradoxical). If one claims to believe that a non-Christian god created it, then fine, but then one can no longer claim to be an atheist. Without God, Time has always been in existence. The same is true for space. It always came from somewhere previous, but hasn’t yet reached where it is going, regardless of cosmolgy’s theories, which are all merely changes in shape of one form or another, never reaching the end. Our universe could be one of many, like a grain of sand on the cosmic beach analogy, with our lack of detection of these other universes simply not being discovered yet due to our present feeble instruments. They are already backpeddling on the Big Bang, : meta-religion.com/Physi…e_beginning.htm
Assuming the above, then science will continue to learn more and more and more. If time has no beginning nor ending, then all knowledge is simply moving forward or backward through time and macro or micro through space along a continuum, never reaching the end, because the end does not exist. Therefore, the end of knowledge, i.e. the Ultimate Truth, does not exist and is unknowable. Science is only an endless journey of learning, using the hope, faith, belief, (equal to religion) that we can one day reach Ultimate Truth.
I haven’t closed my mind. I’ve simply jumped to the end game. You seem to have faith, hope, belief that those who are more well educated than you have the answer. They don’t, as you admitted that they have theories or IDEAS.
Since Ultimate Truth is an unknowable end game without there being a godlike creation, then scientists can’t claim with certainty to be one step closer to Ultimate Truth than me. That’s the point. Religion is an equally viable choice.
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Leela
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You’ve asserted this, and your whole argument rests upon it, but I see no reason why I ought to accept it.
It is you who are insisting that all that exists needs to be explained. According to you, if the universe exists, then the universe must be explained. (Note that I equate the universe with “all that exists.” If God exists then God is part of the universe.) Then it follows then that if God exists, then God needs to be explained. If not, why not?
You assert here that the Supremem Being is infinite. Do we know that? I thought all we know so far about the Supreme Being is that it created the rest of the universe?
You say that God is necessary to the universe but presumably the universe is not necessary to God. How do we know that the universe isn’t necessary? How do we know that God is necessary?
I don’t know of anything that has only one single cause.
No you haven’t. You’ve just made that a premise of your argument that I am supposed to simply accept.
It is no more of a cop out than it is to say that God create the universe as an answer to the question “why does the universe exist?” I still then wonder why God exists. Your cop-out here is to say that God is necessary. Well, yeah, but the question about why God exists amounts to asking WHY is God necessary?
If all you mean by God is existence or love or something, then sure, God exists.
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tonyrey
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itinerant1
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I have not read the series of post but I can see right away a major problem. That is, to understand and respond to any such argument for the existence of God, it is required that the terms employed be correctly understood. For instance, you asked “How do we know that God is necessary?”. That question is actually moot because the demonstration is to show that there must be some Necessary Being, and this being we call God.
The problem is not whether God is necessary. The problem instead, is whether the existence of a necessary being is required to explain the universe or some fact about the universe; and does that argument logically constitute a successful philosophical demonstration.
Also, the term “universe” normally does not include God unless one is speaking in the context of pantheism. “Universe” is the total physical world. So, we can stipulate a working definition of universe as “the totality of consistently interacting things.”
The nature of physical things, from all human experience, is they do not have within their natures the reason or sufficient cause for their existence. That is, everything has an existence that is contingent. In other words, things are dependent on other things for their coming into being and passing away. The things or beings in the world are dependent on a series of antecedant causes. And those causes may be few or numerous.
One will never encounter a physical thing in nature that has within its being (or intrinisically), the reason for its existence. This fact is due to the very nature of physical matter and energy.
This is an extremely brief explanation of contingent being and I could say much more on the subject, but I will present an organized, traditional argument for a necessary being. It is an argument from possiblility (contingency) and necessity.
"We find in nature things that are possible to be and not to be, since they are found to be generated, and to corrupt, and consequently, they are possible to be and not to be. But it is impossible for these always to exist, for that which is possible not to be at some time is not. Therefore, if everything is possible not to be, then at one time there could have been nothing in existence. Now if this were true, even now there would be nothing in existence, because that which does not exist only begins to exist by something already existing.
“Therefore, if at one time nothing was in existence, it would have been impossible for anything to have begun to exist; and thus even now nothing would be in existence — which is absurd. Therefore, not all beings are merely possible, but there must exist something the existence of which is necessary. But every necessary thing either has its necessity caused by another, or not. Now it is impossible to go on to infinity in necessary things which have their necessity caused by another, as has been already proved in regard to efficient causes. Therefore we cannot but postulate the existence of some being having of itself its own necessity, and not receiving it from another, but rather causing in others their necessity. This all men speak of as God.”
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Leela
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I don’t deify anything that I know of.
I define the universe as “all that exists.” I don’t think that all that exists needs to have a physical description. The universe never exhausts description. Why everything CAN have a physical description, that doesn’t mean that everything ought to ONLY have a physical description.
I’m not presuming anything. I was just told that the universe must have an explanation. I don’t know why it must. I was then told that a Supreme Being created the universe, I still wonder why if all that exists is thought to need an explanation (not by me, by you and that other guy) then why wouldn’t you think a Supreme Being ought to have an explanation? It just seems like you are saying a Supreme Being doesn’t because by definition a Supreme Being just doesn’t. The Thing That Made The Things For Which There Is No Known Maker has just been redefined as The Thing That Made The Things For Which There Is No Known Maker And Doesn’t Itself Need A Maker. This is just a word game where you define the Supreme Being as whatever you want.
I don’t know if your Supreme Being is infinite or not. I’m just wondering how you know it is infinite. I think your argument now amounts to saying that The Thing That Made The Things For Which There Is No Known Maker And Doesn’t Itself Need A Maker And Is Also Infinite is in fact infinite by definition.
I don’t know if it is or not. It is you you say that the Supreme Being is necessary. Now we have a new definition of the Supreme Being as The Thing That Made The Things For Which There Is No Known Maker And Doesn’t Itself Need A Maker And Is Also Infinite And Necessary.
Ever hear of begging the question?
Of course ignorance is not evidence. I’m just looking for the evidence that you are not ignorant of what you claim to know. How do you know that there is just one cause for everything when it seems like everything we know about has lots and lots of causes?
Ignorance is no refuge. But if I don’t know something I don’t want to pretend I do. I also don’t have any real doubt about the matter that would motivate me to inquire further. I just don’t wonder why the universe exists. It isn’t a question that I have. It doesn’t even sound like a question to me since existence precedes essence as the existentialists say. I think that people who are asking about the meaning of life are seeking the experience of being alive. That experience is something no one who is alive can escape.
Does it? The fact that we exist doesn’t necessarily mean that we ought to exist let alone that we must exist.
I have no idea whether existence is necessary or unnecessary. Necessary to who? Necessary for what?
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greylorn
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Leela,
Excellent arguments.
So many atheists engage questions regarding religion at the level of words. You manage to do that when necessary, while pushing the conversation to the level of honest conceptual understanding.
This suggests that you might be an unsettled atheist, seriously looking for useful ideas. Yes?
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greylorn
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You must be very young, so I will compensate by being nice, and by addressing only your fundamental incorrect hypotheses. No point in addressing the nonsense you subsequently derive from theories which are wrong.
You wrote, “Let’s assume, hypothetically, that God does not exist and has never existed.” I decline that assumption, unless you insist that the Christian-modern definition of God is the only possible correct description. But I’m hoping that you could replace “God” in the above statement with “Creator.”
You also wrote, “Do we exist here in time and space? Yes. Since “nothing” created time and space, then the only other possibility is that time and space have ALWAYS existed,”
You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Do you know anything about time or space? Have you taken a serious physics course? If not, at least start watching the documentary channels, which have an occasional insight. Stephen Hawking wrote a book, The Brief History of Time, which you could probably borrow from someone’s coffee table.
Nothing I can say will help, but simply acquiring a modicum of education may give you the insights essential to a more clear level of misunderstanding.
By way of example, here is a “blond” story, presented with no intention to offend blonds. I’m one (but male, alas) and know many wonderful people with golden hair.
Two blonds were out for a casual drive through the countryside. Suddenly the driver pulled over to the side of the road, saying, angrily, “Will you look at that!” Her passenger glanced outside the window where a beautiful young blond in a bikini was paddling her canoe, through a soybean field.
Her passenger said. “Yes, I see what you mean. Blonds like her give all of us a bad name.”
The driver said, “You got that right. I’m so mad! Why, I’d go out there and smack her one, if I knew how to swim.”
Nothing does not create anything. Statements like that give religion a very bad name.
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itinerant1
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This discussion has certainly degenerated into sloppy thinking trying to pass itself off as reasonable argument. So sad!
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greylorn
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I’ve explained that on other threads. The CAF provides a fairly useful search function, which any genuinely interested person could use to examine ideas. I started a thread on this subject, long since terminated. Searching on my name would do the job.
I’d re-explain, but doubt that doing so would engage a useful conversation.
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Leela
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Hi itinerant and all fellow sloppy thinkers,
Necessary for what? For who?
For the universe itself? The universe has needs???
As another example, I assert that all there is to know about the desk I am sitting at is that certain sentences are true about it. It has no essence that I can be in touch with or out of touch with in terms of knowledge. It is brown, it is made of wood and metal. It has drawers. It hurts my toe when I stumble into it in the dark. All such sentences just put the desk in relation to other things. They are all true and none captures or ever could capture “the essence” of the table. What else do I need to know about my desk? There is no essence to speak of.
The point is that it is only in your Aristotelian vocabulary does this issue of “necessary beings” come up, and using that vocabulary is not the only way we can speak. That vocabulary is itself, as you say, “contingent.”
To me, the problem with the whole enterprise of asking why the universe exists is the presupposition that this question is found somewhere “out there” floating free of all human needs and interests. It is asked as though the question about why we exist itself precedes our own existence. It is asked as though it reflects something more than our own needs. In my view, the answer to his question is only necessary if we need it. An answer is only desirable if we want it, and it ceases to be desirable as soon as we stop wanting it.
As I keep suggesting, we may just be asking the wrong question. Even if some of us desire an answer, an answer may not be what we really need. Personally, I think it is a bad question. That is to say that the best I think you can expect is a really disappointing answer that doesn’t get to whatever your needs are that underlie your asking it.
But here goes. Are you ready for the answers to these profound questions? Brace yourself…
Why does the universe exist? Because it is necessary. Is the universe really necessary? Yes, we really need it.
Satisfied? I doubt it, because what you are really looking for is a meaningful life which is something you won’t get merely by asking a couple of supposedly deep questions.
Best,
Leela
What do you mean by necessary?
Necessary for what? For who?
For the universe itself? The universe has needs???
It seems obvious that a necessary being is, by definition, required. That can’t be “the problem.” That just begs the question.
I’ve suggested a definition of the universe, the world, reality, etc. as including “all that exists.”
I don’t think that we should only talk about “physical things” as dependent on other things. I would say that regardless of what we are talking about, we are always talking about that being’s relations to other things. Everything we say about a thing is to put it into relation with something else. For example, even a non physical thing like 17 is nothing outside of its relations to other things. 17 is 15+2, 51/3, 200-183, etc. None of these relations is any more the essence of 17-ness that any other. So it is with everything as far as I can tell.
As another example, I assert that all there is to know about the desk I am sitting at is that certain sentences are true about it. It has no essence that I can be in touch with or out of touch with in terms of knowledge. It is brown, it is made of wood and metal. It has drawers. It hurts my toe when I stumble into it in the dark. All such sentences just put the desk in relation to other things. They are all true and none captures or ever could capture “the essence” of the table. What else do I need to know about my desk? There is no essence to speak of.
The point is that it is only in your Aristotelian vocabulary does this issue of “necessary beings” come up, and using that vocabulary is not the only way we can speak. That vocabulary is itself, as you say, “contingent.”
The first sentence is true in my book only because I don’t ever find the need to talk about physical things or matter or energy as having intrinsic natures or essences. Is there something wrong with my way of talking? Is your Aristotelian way of talking the language in which the universe demands to be spoken of? Are you saying all those things that the universe demands be said about it? I don’t recognize any such demands made by “the world.” The only duty I have is to my fellow sentient beings. I read your criticism of “sloppy thinking” and your stipulation of a definition of “universe” in this thread as a demand for others to speak YOUR language rather than some language that gets to The Way Things Really Are that is independent of all human needs and interests. I don’t think that there is such a language. We only speak at all because we have the needs and interests that we have. We only make the particular descriptions and interpretations we do because we have the desires we have and because we hope to satisfy those desires with the scratches and noises that we make.
To me, the problem with the whole enterprise of asking why the universe exists is the presupposition that this question is found somewhere “out there” floating free of all human needs and interests. It is asked as though the question about why we exist itself precedes our own existence. It is asked as though it reflects something more than our own needs. In my view, the answer to his question is only necessary if we need it. An answer is only desirable if we want it, and it ceases to be desirable as soon as we stop wanting it.
As I keep suggesting, we may just be asking the wrong question. Even if some of us desire an answer, an answer may not be what we really need. Personally, I think it is a bad question. That is to say that the best I think you can expect is a really disappointing answer that doesn’t get to whatever your needs are that underlie your asking it.
But here goes. Are you ready for the answers to these profound questions? Brace yourself…
Why does the universe exist? Because it is necessary. Is the universe really necessary? Yes, we really need it.
Satisfied? I doubt it, because what you are really looking for is a meaningful life which is something you won’t get merely by asking a couple of supposedly deep questions.
Best,
Leela
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tonyrey
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If you regard physical energy as the source of everything it must be the supreme power in your scheme of things…
In that case scientists who are seeking a theory of everything are wasting their time… It is certainly not self-evident.
I don’t know how “ought” is applicable in this context. Science is based on the assumption that there are explanations to be discovered. “physical” seems to be a flexible term indefinitely extensible to accommodate new discoveries. The criteria of physicality are by no means clear.
No one knows it must but it is reasonable to believe it does - unless you believe it is an inexplicable fact and impose an arbitrary limit on the causal chain …
Because you accept that or accept an infinite regress of explanations or regard the universe as self-explanatory…
The Supreme Being is not a “thing” like other things; otherwise the term “Supreme Being” is nonsensical. Whether you believe or not it is an intelligible concept but beyond the comprehension of our finite intelligences. We cannot comprehend infinity but there is evidence that it exists.
Your continued use of “thing” reveals your inability or unwillingness to accept the concept of uniqueness and supremacy. We do not know but believe… just as you disbelieve…
What is your alternative? A Universe that Made The Things For Which There Is No Known Maker And Doesn’t Itself Need A Maker And Is Also Infinite And Necessary?
Ever hear of answering the question?
The history of science is replete, not with the multiplication of causes, but with their reduction to the bare minimum. Occam’s Razor…
It is not a matter of pretence or of claiming to know but of accepting the most adequate explanation.
An attitude which is both unscientific and unphilosophical.
If you are devoid of wonder you are in the wrong forum…
Perhaps you don’t want it to be a question! In that way you can confine yourself to what interests you but you are being unrealistic.
On the contrary. Their experience of the richness of being alive inspires them to seek what lies beyond their eyes, ears and noses.
I did not say “ought” or “must” but “suggests”…
You obviously have no idea of the distinction between necessity and contingency - which is based on the principle of causality. Do you ask “Caused for whom?” or “Caused for what”? I don’t think you do because you believe that the question “Why does anything exist?” is unnecessary and superfluous.
However you must admit that existence is necessary for us to experience enjoyment and fulfilment. It must therefore be valuable in itself. So at the very least it is reasonable to believe that the immense value of life is a fact that should not be taken for granted. And to accept that fact without further investigation leads nowhere and is a sterile procedure. Even if we cannot attain certainty probability is the very guide of life. (Butler)
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Leela
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You are just making stuff up. I never said that any one thing is the source of everything.
You keep getting hung up on the word “thing.” Thing can mean an object or a being or entity of any sort. A thing can mean anything.
I keep saying that you are asking a bad question, which means you will be disappointed with the answer which I already gave you. The universe, which I equate to “all that exists” is necessary. Where else would I keep all my stuff?
You must be reading different books than what I read. From what I gather, the more we inquire, the more questions we have, and there seem to be an inexhaustible number of hypotheses to explain every result.
I wonder about a lot of things, but as I keep telling you, this one is a bad question.
Right. I would never say “caused for whom?” I would say “caused by what?” and if you say “is it necessary?” I’ll ask “necessary for who?”
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itinerant1
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These questions are irrelevant. This irrelevancy could have been avoided if you had considered my post in which I stressed the need to first grasp the meanings of the words being used. I also explained “necessary” and its relation to possible or contingent being. You should go back and first review the stipulated meaning of “necessary” and then ask questions about it, otherwise your posts will continue to be off the mark. (This is one of the reasons why I thought things were getting a little “sloppy”. No offense intended.)
Contrary to your assertion, there is no *petitio principii *because “necessary being” was not assumed at the beginning of the argument but posited subsequently, rather, as ontologically necessitated by the premisses. I can lay out another argument in a way that will enable you to more easily see the steps
I realize you used that meaning and that is the problem with defining “universe” in a way that does not work for most people. How does the possibility of the existence of a being that transcends the universe fit into your definition? The majority of people do not use “universe” to include an utterly transcendent being outside of space and time. That is why I proposed a workable and logically consistent definition as an alternative your highly problematic definition.
Relation is not the only property or characteristic of things. There is also what things are in themselves. Nonetheless, you cannot arbitrarily limit the kinds of relations things have with each other without talking nonsense. Common sense and the sciences depend on the understanding of the real dependency things have on other things. A tree is absoultely dependent for its existence on the atmosphere, sunshine, and so on to survive. That is the real world. See how long you can hold your breath underwater and that will put you in immediate physical touch with the notion of dependent being.
The mathematical relations of numbers is a different order of relations, and should not be confused with things in nature. But if we want to stretch dependency by means of analogy we can say the existence of “17”, which is a discrete number and admits of neither more nor less, would not exist if there were no prior numbers 1 through 16. So we can say 17 is logically dependendent on the prior series of numbers.
If there were no essence that can be known then you would not be able to refer to the object as a “desk”, which has many things in common with other objects customarily defined as desks. What they have in common, abstracts from the individual notes, and allows us classify certain objects as desks.
You have the situation absolutely backwards. “Necessary being” is not an articifical product of any particular vocabulary. It refers to a concept arrived at in pursuant of an analysis of the nature of things in common human experience. Philosophical analysis discloses that nothing in human experience has within itself the reason or sufficient cause for its own existence. A useful and accurate term for this fact is “contingent being”. From there we look for a deeper explanation of their nature and existence as contingent being.
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itinerant1
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If you are limiting yourself to the emperiological realm of the natural sciences, then there is no need to speak of the determinations of being such as nature, essence, existence, substance, accident, and so on. However, once you begin to talk about ultimate matters such as pertain to the existence of the universe or God, then you have stepped outside the competence and limitation of the natural sciences and into the arena of metaphysics, which of necessity has its own concepts, terms and methods.
Science limits itself, as it should, to the emperiological, studying the quantitative properties of things and their interactions. But there are more to the being of physical things than just what appears to our five senses. In Kantian terms this is a difference between phenomenal and noumenal being.
You miss the point. I explained above (previous posts) what is inadequate with your definition of the universe and I proposed one that has less problems and more consistent with how people noramlly think about universe. The point is that one must first make sure they are using terms that are suitable in their meanings in order to discuss any topic. And the interlocutors must agree on the meanings if they hope to accomplish anything more than talking past one another.
You got that last part right…your questions and answers were not the least bit satisfying…
History is filled with the quests of individuals who have a genuine need to know, and they endeavored, as much as the human reason can, to discover the answers to the really interesting questions about reality. Not everyone is capable of, or has the time, or is willing to expend the intellecual effort necessary in pursuit of the truth.
True philosophers know well that the unexamined life is not worth living.
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