Philosophical Proof of a Creator/Beats Aquinas!

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I mentioned this in passing on another thread, which really wasn’t, I realize in retrospect, appropriate. Therefore, I ‘m posting this again on its own thread as from reading here it is evident that many are interested in philosophical proofs of a creator. So here is my humble offering. Although it takes but ten minutes or so tops to read, it’s too long to post here. Therefore, I shall provide the URL.

Although it was also published on Ezine Articles, a large online publication service where one may have his or her nonfiction articles published, if accepted, I’d rather it be read in its original version at my website. In order to meet their guidelines, I had to edit it somewhat.

The proof is based upon the implications of Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity. Although it does not purport to prove the existence of God per se, I do claim to prove the existence of some sort of universal creator, a first step in the process. As I state in its conclusion, although my arguments might transpose to a typical intelligent design thesis, it transcends such and cannot be so easily dismissed because it utilizes the prevailing paradigm in which modern physics is formulated.

And, oh yes. I’m quite aware that Dr. Einstein had been a self-professed atheist. Ironic, isn’t it? If there are any atheists or agnostics reading here, can you refute my reasoning? I’m always educable.

wwwdnschneidercom.xbuild.com/#/miscellaneous-7/4526495432
 
An excellent paper and argument! I have to read it again, and let it set a bit before responding.
 
Dear Eucharisted:

Thank you for reading my essay. I in turn have read yours as noted.

I can see why you would appreciate my proof in that it is a rejoinder to an essay by an atheistic philosopher, which was a rebuttal to Hugh Ross, noted astronomer and Christian apologist, in regard to the latter’s arguments as presented within his book *The Creator and *the Cosmos. The university philosopher is Theodore Schick, Jr…

Dr. Schick purports to rebut Dr. Ross’s argument that the “Big Bang Theory” implies that the universe had a beginning, as all things do. Thus, on an *ipso facto *basis, it must have had a creator; i.e., God. Dr. Schick counters that Dr. Ross argues that the Big Bang had a cause simply by assuming it does, without putting forth any proof of such. Thus, he argues that Dr. Ross’s reasoning is circular (like Darwin’s, I would add!) and, therefore, doesn’t even prove the existence of a higher dimensional time to that in which we exist in which Dr. Ross’s positioned creator exists, let alone the existence of God.

I concluded that Dr. Schick is correct and thus attempted to provide the proof for stating that the Big Bang had a cause that Dr. Ross’s argument lacks. Your proof is similar to that of Dr. Ross’s.

You assume because matter can be neither created nor destroyed (only transformed into energy, I would add by way of clarification), that some force (you assert that that is God) must have created the universe from outside it. Like Dr. Ross, your argument rests on the unsupported assumption that matter (and the universe) once did not exist without providing any proof for such an assumption. Therefore, my proof purports to lend such logical proof to both of your lines of reasoning (which are basically the same).

In regard to your essay on evolution, you are basically using the teleological argument to prove God’s existence. If we evolve, then what is the end purpose and who has ordained that purpose? Doesn’t the concept of evolution imply an *a priori *goal and therefore an a priori goal setter?

You can easily investigate such arguments and counterarguments on the internet. I am not sufficiently well-versed in this line of reasoning to voice an intelligent opinion on the subject, though I did find your points most interesting and thought provoking.

Don
 
I’d just like to add that Einstein wasn’t really an atheist.

He wasn’t necessarily religious, he wasn’t a theist, but he believed in god as a watchmaker who constructed perfect rules.

You could say he was a deist, or maybe even an pantheist.
 
Just one point of clarification about St. Thomas’ causal arguments in the Five Ways.

The problem of infinite regress continues to puzzle many people. But one thing should be made clear regarding how St. Thomas approaches causal regress in the Five Ways, especially in the first three ways. The causal regress there is not a regress in time. The causes and effects which are found there exist simultaneously. That is why he says, “To take away the cause is to take away the effect.” Clearly, a father can die, but his son live. So that is not the kind of causality he is talking about. All movers and things moved do so simultaneously in the prima via, as do all causes and things caused co-exist in the secunda via.

I am not criticizing the argument offered by the main author of this thread, but merely clarifying a much misunderstood element in St. Thomas’ famous Five Ways.

Dennis Bonnette, Ph.D.
Author, Aquinas’ Proofs for God’s Existence (Martinus-Nijhoff: The Hague, 1972.
 
Don_Schneider said:
wwwdnschneidercom.xbuild.com/#/miscellaneous-7/4526495432
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id like to comment on your argument as i read it, i hope its ok to post parts of it here for that purpose.
… quantum electrodynamics reveals that an electron, positron, and photon occasionally emerge spontaneously in a perfect vacuum. When this happens, the three particles exist for a brief time, and then annihilate each other, leaving no trace behind. (Energy conservation is violated, but only for a particle lifetime Dt permitted by the uncertainty DtDE~h where DE is the net energy of the particles and h is Planck’s constant.) The spontaneous, temporary emergence of particles from a vacuum is called a vacuum fluctuation, and is utterly commonplace in quantum field theory.[6]
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A particle produced by a vacuum fluctuation has no cause. Since vacuum fluctuations are commonplace, god cannot be the only thing that is uncaused.
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that is one of the most common objections against causality, now you may laugh at how simple it is to invalidate this argument, but all VP requires a pre-existing vacuum, being contingent on of the existence of another thing means that we can reasonably assume a causal relationship, even though we dont know the exact causitive factors. it may not be empirical evidence

most people have very limited understanding of first cause arguments, here only MindOverMatter, Jdaniel and a few others are really proficient at it as a whole.

such inept metaphysics are the bread and butter of the common atheist, but it sounds good to the uninitiated.
In an infinite causal chain, however, there is no first cause. Aquinas took this to mean that an infinite causal chain is missing something. But it is a mistake to think that anything Is missing from an infinite causal chain. Even though an infinite causal chain has no first cause, there is no event that doesn’t have a cause. Similarly, even though the set of real numbers has no first member, there is no number that doesn’t have a predecessor. Logic doesn’t demand a first cause anymore than it demands a first number
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this one has been mentioned less commonly, this is really Jdaniels turf, but let me take a stab.

an infinite causal chain isnt impossible as a concept, it is impossible as an actual event. cause and effect has no meaning unless applied to actual causes and effects, numbers are simply concepts that need have nothing related to them.

you cant have an actual infinite causal chain, you can have a conceptually infinite causitive chain.

where as

you cant have an actual infinite number of items, but you can have a conceptual infinite number line.
The big bang argument for the existence of god is supposed to succeed where the traditional first-cause argument fails.
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the arguement doesnt fail, at least not from these refutations, people fail to understand the argument and all its implications, metaphysics is not a commonly taught subject and causality even less so. when i was in school it was ignored like a poor relative.
Premise 7 conflicts with relativity theory because the general theory of relativity claims that there was no time before there was a universe. Time and the universe are coterminous-they came into existence together. This finding of Einstein’s was anticipated by Augustine who proclaimed, “The world and time had both one beginning. The world was made, not in time, but simultaneously with time.”[9] If there was no time before there was a universe, the universe can’t have a beginning in time.
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time and causality wouldnt seem to be independent of each other, cause precedes effect. they cannot occur simultaneously.

another common arguement is that it is meaningless to speak about causality in a timeless evironment

let me point out that we can set order of events apart from time, in this case by using a reference point, like the beginning of time

i can say that first cause is prior to the BB in a timeless invironment, i cant assign a value to that, but i can assign a meaningful order.

the rest of the post is interesting, and might i say very well done. could you provide a distillation of your argument though? its a little long.🙂
 
warpspeedpetey said:
that is one of the most common objections against causality, now you may laugh at how simple it is to invalidate this argument, but all VP requires a pre-existing vacuum, being contingent on of the existence of another thing means that we can reasonably assume a causal relationship, even though we dont know the exact causitive factors. it may not be empirical evidence
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I would just amplify this a bit. A vacuum is bound by limits and is defined by them. The electrons that emerge in a vacuum are contingent on the existence of the vacuum (in order to be fluctuations in a vacuum, a vacuum has to exist). Any studies on vacuums done must be conducted in finite-sized vacuums, all of which are contingent upon the matter that exists outside of them (an infinite vacuum is not only not possible, but is not possible to ever be observed).

Thus, the electrons have a causal environment – namely, they are contingent on the existence of the vacuum.
The vacuum (all that ever could be observed) are contingent on matter (to be defined by boundaries).

Anything that is contingent cannot be self-causing since its existence is reliant on something else.

Even the terminology in the OP gives this away:
A particle produced by a vacuum fluctuation has no cause.
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If it is produced by a vacuum, then its existence is contingent on the vacuum.
i can say that first cause is prior to the BB in a timeless invironment, i cant assign a value to that, but i can assign a meaningful order.
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That’s right. If we can observe that a chain of events exists, then the concepts of before and after also exist. Since we exist today within an ordered chain of events, there must have been a beginning. Because if there was no beginnning, there would never be an “after event”.

The chain would never be able to add an additional event, because it never actually began to exist.

Since the chain of events had a beginning, then that proves the existence of God, the First Cause and Necessary Being – Creator of the concept of chain of events itself.

As I see it, quantam theory does not add anything to this argument since it is dealing with matter and energy which are both contingent elements that must have a cause.
 
Hi Don, I read this over on Friday so forgive my memory if I get something wrong. But is the essence of the argument as follows: current science teaches that there are an infinite number of independent sequential moments in spacetime. Therefore since no single moment is caused by another, that the Cause of spacetime cannot come from within the system of spacetime.

Correct?
 
reggieM said:
I would just amplify this a bit. A vacuum is bound by limits and is defined by them. The electrons that emerge in a vacuum are contingent on the existence of the vacuum (in order to be fluctuations in a vacuum, a vacuum has to exist). Any studies on vacuums done must be conducted in finite-sized vacuums, all of which are contingent upon the matter that exists outside of them (an infinite vacuum is not only not possible, but is not possible to ever be observed).
Thus, the electrons have a causal environment – namely, they are contingent on the existence of the vacuum.
The vacuum (all that ever could be observed) are contingent on matter (to be defined by boundaries).
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Dear Marco,

My time is pressed right now, but I shall answer later today all who were kind enough to have read my essay and addressed comments towards me and asked questions of me. For now, I’ll just answer yours because it’s a fairly good summation of what I was trying to argue.

You wrote:

“But is the essence of the argument as follows: current science teaches that there are an infinite number of independent sequential moments in spacetime. Therefore since no single moment is caused by another, that the Cause of spacetime cannot come from within the system of spacetime.

“Correct?”

Yes. Do you agree or disagree with my logic, assuming you accept the implications of STR as I presented them?

Please advise.

Thanks.

Don
 
Don_Schneider said:
Yes. Do you agree or disagree with my logic, assuming you accept the implications of STR as I presented them?

Please advise.

Thanks.

Don
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I’m not a scientist but have dabbled in physics books and philosophy. If all your assessments are correct about science teaching independent moments, then I think your argument is sound. 🙂
 
MarcoPolo said:
Hi Don, I read this over on Friday so forgive my memory if I get something wrong. But is the essence of the argument as follows: current science teaches that there are an infinite number of independent sequential moments in spacetime. Therefore since no single moment is caused by another, that the Cause of spacetime cannot come from within the system of spacetime.

Correct?
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If you are correct in your assumption, that would mean the annihilation of the time-as-a-continuum concept. In other words, time, of the sort you describe, would be some sort of grouping of loosely “bound” together but completely separate “now” events. What would relate them? How could they ever get to be sequential? And, how do you mean “sequential”?

jd
 
reggieM said:
warpspeedpetey;5327515:
That is an excellent point. Science deals only with the most superficial aspects of reality. It cannot understand origins of existence. In fact, science cannot explain its own existence or prove that it is rational, correct or meaningful. It is a very contingent method and must rely on physical-nature to provide its datum.
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thanks.

if there is no possible natural explanation, than atheism can carry no weight as a rational postion, and simply becomes personal opinion.
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JDaniel said:
If you are correct in your assumption, that would mean the annihilation of the time-as-a-continuum concept. In other words, time, of the sort you describe, would be some sort of grouping of loosely “bound” together but completely separate “now” events. What would relate them? How could they ever get to be sequential? And, how do you mean “sequential”?

jd
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The OP goes deeper into the science. My 2 sentences were a very brief summary of what he wrote.
 
Dear Quailman:

Einstein, like a lot of folks, often used metaphorical references. In addition to your reference to a quote of his, he also lambasted Bohr with: “God doesn’t play dice with the universe!” From neither of these statements can it be construed that Einstein had been a theist or even a deist as you state. They were merely figures of speech drawing upon Western archetypes.

In an angry letter to a Jesuit who had made a baseless claim that the priest had successfully converted Einstein from atheism, Einstein retorted that from a Jesuit point of view, he was indeed an atheist. He also referred to Biblical stories as silly superstition, and that he couldn’t be dissuaded from that view with even subtle interpretations. He also said he saw nothing “chosen” about his own ethnic group.

There are many conflicting claims about what his actual beliefs were. From the weight of the evidence, I would say he was an atheist, though you and others are free to disagree. It’s unlikely we will definitely settle the issue now.

Don
 
Dear Dr. Bonette:

You said:

“The problem of infinite regress continues to puzzle many people. But one thing should be made clear regarding how St. Thomas approaches causal regress in the Five Ways, especially in the first three ways. The causal regress there is not a regress in time. The causes and effects which are found there exist simultaneously. That is why he says, “To take away the cause is to take away the effect.” Clearly, a father can die, but his son live. So that is not the kind of causality he is talking about. All movers and things moved do so simultaneously in the prima via, as do all causes and things caused co-exist in the secunda via.”

Your grasp of Aquinas’s theology/philosophy is evidently more profound than my own. From your above statement, are you suggesting that my offered proof is exactly the same as Aquinas’s, only that mine is updated in accordance with scientific advances and discoveries since his time? When you speak of his viewing events to be simultaneous, this is what it sounds like to me.

Thanks.

Don
 
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