Questions about the Cosmological Argument

[tonyrey]

It doesn’t change you

I note that you haven’t included you or your identity!

1. You assume

“A timeless person cannot create anything that begins.”
No, I don’t assume this, I argue for it.

Implausibly!

2. You believe “An unchanging being cannot go from ‘not creating’ to ‘creating’ because that would be a change”.

That’s not just what I believe, it’s standard Thomistic doctrine. Thomas of Aqiuno would agree with me on this.

Are you asserting that St Thomas didn’t believe God is immutable?

1. Even a person in this world does not change as a result of changes he or she makes.
   That is demonstrably false, and irrelevant as well.

Please explain **how **a person changes after changing something…

4. It does not follow that “the only way for an unchanging being to create is by always being creating”.

Ask Thomas of Aquino. According to him, God’s act of creation is eternal. I don’t always agree with Thomas, but this seems an inevitable consequence of Thomism.

Since God transcends and creates time it is meaningless to use “always” with regard to His activity.

5. There is no obvious reason to believe “the effect of this eternal creation is also eternal”.

Assuming timelessness, there is.

You are assuming that God is subject to - and what He has created

6. Nor does it follow that “if the universe really did begin, this eternal unchanging being cannot possibly be the creator of the universe”.

It does. If it doesn’t, just explain, not just assert, how an eternal being can be the cause of a beginning universe.

Divine causality is not** sub**sumed by the category of physical causality…

 

[belorg]

I note that you haven’t included you or your identity!

It has nothing to do with identity either. I am much older now than I was. That’s a change, isn’t it? I have a beard now. that’s also a change.

Implausibly!

I am not saying my argument is perfect, but to say I am merely assuming this, is false.

Are you asserting that St Thomas didn’t believe God is immutable?

Au contraire, Tony, I am asserting that Thomas definitely believed God is immutable.

Please explain **how **a person changes after changing something…

I take a lump of clay and make a pot out of it. During this process I apply a force to the clay. I use energy. That means that some eneryy that was present in me is now not preseent anymore. Hence I changed. Even if that is just a little chang, it is still a chnage. Moreover, I also transpired a bit. I lost sweat. That’s also a change. So, even if you belive God can somehow create without changing (something I am not dipsuting here, BTW), an ordinary person most certainly cannot.

Since God transcends and creates time it is meaningless to use “always” with regard to His activity.

OK, but that does not change anything.

You are assuming that God is subject to - and what He has created

No, I am not assuming that at all. I am just starting from the claim that God is timless.

Divine causality is not** sub**sumed by the category of physical causality…

Divine causation cannot defy the laws of logic. A non-beginning being creating a beginning universe entails a temporal gap between the creator and the effect, but there can be no such gap since there is no time.

 

[tonyrey]

I note that you haven’t included you

It’s a physical change but you are the same entity and you will always be regarded as **the same person **according to all forms of classification.

Implausibly!

I am not saying my argument is perfect, but to say I am merely assuming this, is false.

You seemed to imply there is no alternative…

Are you asserting that St Thomas didn’t believe God is immutable?

Au contraire, Tony, I am asserting that Thomas definitely believed God is immutable.

But you have also asserted that “An unchanging being cannot go from ‘not creating’ to ‘creating’ because that would be a change” - which implies that God is compelled to create…

Please explain **how **

a person changes after changing something…
I take a lump of clay and make a pot out of it. During this process I apply a force to the clay. I use energy. That means that some energy that was present in me is now not present anymore. Hence I changed. Even if that is just a little change, it is still a change. Moreover, I also transpired a bit. I lost sweat. That’s also a change. So, even if you believe God can somehow create without changing (something I am not disputing here, BTW), an ordinary person most certainly cannot.

These are all **physical **changes. If you believe you have changed it is because you assume physicalism is true.

Since God transcends and creates time it is meaningless to use “always” with regard to His activity.

OK, but that does not change anything.

It changes everything because God sustains everything!

You are assuming that God is subject to - and what He has created

No, I am not assuming that at all. I am just starting from the claim that God is timeless.

You should also take into account that God created time.

Divine causality is not** sub**

sumed by the category of physical causality…
Divine causation cannot defy the laws of logic. A non-beginning being creating a beginning universe entails a temporal gap between the creator and the effect, but there can be no such gap since there is no time.

I have pointed out that the distinction between the Creator and the created - as if they are separate - cannot be sustained because the Creator sustains the created! In a sense everything is eternal because it belongs to God but in another sense nothing is eternal except God because He alone is necessary and everything else is contingent.

 

[belorg]

It’s a physical change but you are the same entity and you will always be regarded as **the same person **according to all forms of classification.

Yes, but that is not what we are talking about.

You seemed to imply there is no alternative…

I don’t think there is one, but I could be wrong. However , I have made this arguments on several forums and showed it to several people and nobody has ever come up with a decent counter-argument.

But you have also asserted that “An unchanging being cannot go from ‘not creating’ to ‘creating’ because that would be a change” - which implies that God is compelled to create…

It may indeed imply that, but if it does, it just means that the Thomistic idea of God is untenable, because Thomists literally claim that ‘an unchanging being cannot go from not creating to creating because that would be a change’.

These are all **physical **changes. If you believe you have changed it is because you assume physicalism is true.

I don’t assume anything. But you claim that creating does not entail change in ordinary beings, and you are wrong. Now just admit it.

It changes everything because God sustains everything!

I am not denying it.

You should also take into account that God created time.

Which would also mean that time must be eternal.

I have pointed out that the distinction between the Creator and the created - as if they are separate - cannot be sustained because the Creator sustains the created! In a sense **everything is eternal **because it belongs to God but in another sense nothing is eternal except God because He alone is necessary and everything else is contingent.

I think we basically agree that, since ‘in a sense’ everything is eternal, the Kalam cosmological argument is completely useless.

Morevover, you should not conflate ‘contingent’ with ‘non-eternal’. A contingent entity can be eternal.

 

[thewanderer]

tonyrey -

What belorg is trying to say about a being changing when it acts does not assume that that being ceases to be the being that it was entirely, just that it has changed. The very notion of something ‘changing’ in fact necessitates that something remain in which this change takes place. For example, If I were to take a class on woodworking, I would have changed from a person that doesn’t know how to make tables, into a person that does. The fact that I call this a change shows that the ‘I’ that existed before the class still exists afterwords, but some aspect of me has changed. It is clear that I am not entirely the same after the class as before the class as I am now capable of things that I previously was not capable of. If there was no difference in me, then I could not be capable of anything new.

belorg - could you expand your argument that an eternal being could not have created a temporal world such that it has a beginning in time? I’m not sure I fully understood your argument for it and this is something I would like to think about more.

 

[JDaniel]

I see these objections, but I am not convinced about them. Please, explain why you think self-causation and lack of causation are absurd. I understand that the latter would cause serious problems for science, and is very distasteful to me (and many others), but can we discount it outright?

Sam:

Take a look at the words used to describe the action: “a thing causes itself.” Do you think that that means that the “thing” pre-existed itself? Anyway, that’s how I’d tend to think of it.

And as for self-causation, it does not seem to be such a bad idea, to me.

No, it’s not a bad idea. No “idea” is a bad idea. It’s the consequences of some of the acts spawned by some ideas that make them good or bad.

Please explain why it’s “absurd”.

It’s absurd because we know from experience, from intuition, and from science that nothing can exist before it exists. One might as well say that, A cat is dead and alive simultaneously. A contradiction thought to be Real is an absurdity. That’s what I meant by that word.

BTW, you are certainly not ignorant!

God bless,
jd

 

[thewanderer]

I just realized I never answered this.

This simple argument for God’s existence, sometimes called the Kalam argument, goes something like:

1. Anything that has a beginning has a cause.
2. The universe has a beginning
3. Therefore the universe has a cause.
   …various arguments…
   X. This cause is God.

Here go my questions:

1. Do you find this argument convincing?
2. If not, why not?
3. If you do find this argument convincing, how do you answer the objection that things may be self-caused?
4. What about the objection that something that has a beginning may not be caused?
5. Finally, what arguments do you use to go from (3) to (X), and how do you eliminate alternative causes, such as some eternal pre-universe, etc?

I’m not yet entirely convinced by this argument either, although I do accept the first two premises. My uncertainty is more to do with the question of what it means to say that an eternal being creates a temporal universe.

As to the idea that something can be self-caused, I think my answer has already been (essentially) given:

1. the activity of ‘causing’ implies two beings, the cause and effect, such that the effect exists only because of the action of the cause.
2. In other words, the effect does not exist before the action which caused it.
3. However the cause necessarily exists before it causes.
4. Therefore if something were to cause itself it would have to both exist and not exist at the same time.

You also ask for a response to the idea that something began to exist without being caused. At first I was inclined to respond with the principle that ‘nothing comes from nothing’, as has already been given, but the more I think about these two statements, the more I believe their relationship is actually the reverse. Why do people believe that nothing can come from nothing? The reasoning goes something like this:

1. if something came from nothing that would mean that a change took place without a cause.
2. 1. is unthinkable.
3. Therefore nothing can come from nothing.
   As has been said before, all scientific and metaphysical reasoning is based upon this principle. I realize that this response can still seem kind of like a cop out, but I suspect that if we were able to fully understand the terms ‘cause’ and ‘beginning’ we would realize that it is a self-evident statement.

In order to show how the statement ‘there is a cause of the universe’ becomes ‘God is the cause of the universe’ you have to know what you mean by the term God. Many different people believe different things about God. You could just take the step of saying that all ‘God’ means is cause of the universe. In which case the answer is clear. If you want to include other notions into the idea of what ‘God’ is you would have to have some reason to show how they are necessarily connected with the cause of the universe.

 

[Perplexity]

Ok. That is what I suspected. My question is: what have we experienced at any point in our existence that would support a b-theory of time?

Well, that depends what you mean by experience. I mean, phenomenologically speaking, we do seem to experience a ‘flowing’ of time which suggests A-theory, although it’s a common argument for B-theory that no sense can be made of a flowing of time. I’d say our observations with science equally confirm B-theory and A-theory. That is, I don’t think physics indicates B-theory as many B-theorists seem to think.

Actually…there is one kind of ‘experience’ we could take as indicative of B-theory: the common intuition that time-travel is possible. Time-travel is nonsense on A-theory, and yet such a concept is prevalent in popular media, movies, books, etc. So, we do seem to naturally have an intuition indicative of B-theory.

Would you agree with me that b-theory does not prove that the universe has perpetual existence? I think it is consistent with that view, but I do not see how it constitutes proof.

I’m not sure what you mean by ‘perpetual.’ What we can say is that B-theory doesn’t require the directions of past, and future to extend infinitely. We can consistently affirm B-theory whilst describing time as having finite boundaries in either direction.

But, as Bill Craig points out in his piece in the blackwell companion to natural theology, the first ‘moment’ of the universe is no more a ‘beginning to exist’ on B-theory than the first inch on a ruler is the ‘beginning to exist’ of the ruler.

 

[JDaniel]

But, as Bill Craig points out in his piece in the blackwell companion to natural theology, the first ‘moment’ of the universe is no more a ‘beginning to exist’ on B-theory than the first inch on a ruler is the ‘beginning to exist’ of the ruler.

Perplexed:

Does that really make sense to you? I mean, think about the two exigencies. A “ruler” exists unto itself - all of it is immediately present. All of it immediately exists. Even in its manufacturing, it is, at one point, undifferentiated wood, or plastic, and the numbers and marks are stamped on it later, simultaneously.

But, Time? Can we say anything similar to that where Time is concerned?

Time should not be that confusing. We perceive motion. What we perceive about motion is the subject’s before and after states. The subject of motion can be a child’s toy ball, or the Earth, or the center of a galaxy, or the particles of the quantum flux, or the entropy of physical things. Nonetheless, things move and change. Time is never without its correlate, which is motion. It is a way of measuring motion and a way of making change intelligible.

God bless,
jd

 

[belorg]

tonyrey -

What belorg is trying to say about a being changing when it acts does not assume that that being ceases to be the being that it was entirely, just that it has changed. The very notion of something ‘changing’ in fact necessitates that something remain in which this change takes place. For example, If I were to take a class on woodworking, I would have changed from a person that doesn’t know how to make tables, into a person that does. The fact that I call this a change shows that the ‘I’ that existed before the class still exists afterwords, but some aspect of me has changed. It is clear that I am not entirely the same after the class as before the class as I am now capable of things that I previously was not capable of. If there was no difference in me, then I could not be capable of anything new.

Indeed

belorg - could you expand your argument that an eternal being could not have created a temporal world such that it has a beginning in time? I’m not sure I fully understood your argument for it and this is something I would like to think about more.

Well, If God is an unchanging being, He cannot go from not-creating to creating, because that would entail a change.
God’s will is a sufficient condition for the occurence of the universe (and time) and since God’s will did not begin, the universe cannot have begun either.

Now Craig claims that God’s will is not a sufficient condition for the universe, but that, in order for the universe to occur, God must also exercise His will. Fine, but then, since God cannot change, God’s will is sufficient for the exercise of His will, which means the universe should still be co-eternal with God’s will and God’s exerciwe of his will.

Now, in order to avoid this, Craig claims that God is capable of changing. IOW Thomas of Aquino has it all wrong.
Fine, so God can change and , as Craig puts it 'is timeless sans the universe but enters time ‘when’ the universe occurs.
However, this runs into the same problems. Because it is still a fact that God’s will is a sufficient condition for His exercise of His will and hence, the universe and time should still be co-eternal with God’s eternal will.
So, if the second premsise of the KCA is correct, God ,as defined by Craig (and by Aquinas et al.) is not just very implausible, but downright impossible.

 

[thewanderer]

Just for clarification’s sake, how do you understand eternity?

 

[Shike]

Well, If God is an unchanging being, He cannot go from not-creating to creating, because that would entail a change.

Correct, God could not create in the normal everyday sense we understand “to create”. But there’s something about “to create” that means bringing about something new that didn’t exist before. And why change is essential to that notion is beyond me; I see no logical contradiction in it.

God’s will is a sufficient condition for the occurence of the universe (and time) and since God’s will did not begin, the universe cannot have begun either.

Why can’t an eternal being from eternity will something contingent into being? It is only a problem because your conception of God seems to be time dependent.

Now Craig claims that God’s will is not a sufficient condition for the universe, but that, in order for the universe to occur, God must also exercise His will. Fine, but then, since God cannot change, God’s will is sufficient for the exercise of His will, which means the universe should still be co-eternal with God’s will and God’s exerciwe of his will.

Good point!

But I think how you understand some of your terms is messing up what you take away from your argument. When we say that God cannot change, we don’t mean that God is a static unchanging being in the normal sense of those words. Under the aristotelian metaphysical framework, change is understood to be the interaction of two principles, actuality and potentiality. When we say God cannot change, far from being a limitation, it is more along the lines of He doesn’t need to since He is the fullness of Actuality.

And the fullness of Actuality wouldn’t need anything else to create. And since time is a measure of change, God would be timeless. All of what has been said is already demonstrably (in the strong scholastic sense) established if you follow and fully work out any one of the first three of Aquinas’ Five Ways.

Perhaps we don’t fully understand what it means for God to create from eternity something contingent… I grant that we do not fully comprehend. But it doesn’t change the fact that there is no contradiction once the terms are understood in their proper context (aristotelian metaphysics).

Now, in order to avoid this, Craig claims that God is capable of changing. IOW Thomas of Aquino has it all wrong.

Yes, Craig is wrong.

So, if the second premsise of the KCA is correct, God ,as defined by Craig (and by Aquinas et al.) is not just very implausible, but downright impossible.

Heh. So Criag, who you’ve just said thinks God is capable of changing, has the same conception as Aquinas, who you’ve just said thinks God is not capable of changing… and that this means their conceptions are the same? This is a pretty big difference; so big that I would contend it is the difference between God and not-God.

I appreciate your thoughts on the matter!

 

[JDaniel]

God’s Perfect Will wills Himself necessarily while, in the same act, He wills creatures freely. This way of willing creatures does not put any composition in God’s will-act. For this way of willing is due to the things willed and not to the one willing. What makes God will creatures is His divine essence as communicable, which is one with God (perfect willing by Him who has a perfect will). Therefore, God wills creatures from all eternity by an act identified with His being, which does not mean that He isn’t free to will them or not will them. From all eternity God wills that creatures should begin to be at different times, and, to be sure, this is according to His perfect will, which presumes perfect knowledge of all things outside of Him. When creatures begin to be, God does not change. Change is on the part of the creature. The only thing affected is the object of God’s will, which, in this case, is the creature.

This is a summary that is indeed less than a full explanation of this topic. Aquinas provides an extensive discussion of this topic in the first part of the Summa Theologica, Question 14 , Of God’s Knowledge – if anyone really cares to know and understand what is meant by the immutability of God, including how Perfect Knowledge cannot be perfected any further, by any outside act.

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

Well, If God is an unchanging being, He cannot go from not-creating to creating, because that would entail a change.
God’s will is a sufficient condition for the occurrence of the universe (and time) and since God’s will did not begin, the universe cannot have begun either.

Belorg:

God’s essence is His Knowledge and His Will. Anything God wills is willed from all infinity. But, as I have explained in another post, if God wills that creatures come to be at different times, this too must be willed from all infinity. God’s Supreme Knowledge means that He knows all things, including His own Infinity. He also knows what “time” is. Time is not a thing, per se. IOW, it has no being, per se. It has an imperfect reality as it exists only in minds. Motion exists outside of minds (and inside as well).

Lock a person in a room with no windows or clocks, shove food and drink under the door sporadically, then ask him if he can tell you what time it is. He can’t. But, as there is motion in him, if in nothing outside of him, he knows that time is transpiring. He wants to be able to measure his interior motions, but has no mechanical method to do so.

I see nothing wrong with your opening premise. So, I agree, God has been creating things for all eternity. But that does not mean that He cannot sequence them to occur from all eternity, despite himself not being in time.

Now Craig claims that God’s will is not a sufficient condition for the universe, but that, in order for the universe to occur, God must also exercise His will.

This is an anthropomorphism. If God is Infinite, and wills this and that from all infinity, He must surely be able to will the spacings between His creations’ beginnings. Sequence does not equal “time.” Time is an aggregating succession of non-contemporaneous distension. Distension is expansion, that is, pure increase. Time is postulated because of mobile beings moving. So, God can do this yet remain firmly outside of time, as anything infinite must.

Fine, but then, since God cannot change, God’s will is sufficient for the exercise of His will, which means the universe should still be co-eternal with God’s will and God’s exercise of his will.

The conclusion you draw is incorrect. It should be, Creation is co-eternal with God’s Will (and the exercise thereof).

Now, in order to avoid this, Craig claims that God is capable of changing. IOW Thomas of Aquino has it all wrong.

Here WLC has it wrong again: clearly he fails to understand the meaning of Perfect Knowledge and Perfect Will. If God is Infinite and, therefore, perfect in every determinant, then He must also be perfect in these two things, particularly because they are His essence.

Fine, so God can change and, as Craig puts it 'is timeless sans the universe but enters time ‘when’ the universe occurs.

Wrong conclusion. What is providence? Now, what is Providence? Providence is Perfect Knowledge tandem with Perfect Will. Providence is willing (from all eternity) things to begin at non-contemporaneous points by its perfect exercise, as its inclination.

However, this runs into the same problems. Because it is still a fact that God’s will is a sufficient condition for His exercise of His will and hence, the universe and time should still be co-eternal with God’s eternal will.

To some extent, this is true. What is untrue is confining that which must be co-eternal with God’s will to the universe (and time). Replace “universe” with “creating” and you have a winner! Further, it is Catholic philosophy that even though we are not infinite, we are eternal from the points of our beginnings.

God bless,
jd

 

[belorg]

Correct, God could not create in the normal everyday sense we understand “to create”. But there’s something about “to create” that means bringing about something new that didn’t exist before.

That’s the point. God cannot bring about something that didn’t exist before because He is timeless, so there is no ‘before’ for anything to not exist.

And why change is essential to that notion is beyond me; I see no logical contradiction in it.

The contradiction is that for nothing God creates there can be a ‘before’ at which it doesn’t exist.

Why can’t an eternal being from eternity will something contingent into being?

He can will something contingent into existence, but the contingent thing He wills into existence does not begin to exist, it is co-eternal with its creator.

It is only a problem because your conception of God seems to be time dependent.

No, actually it is a problem because God is NOT time-dependent.

But I think how you understand some of your terms is messing up what you take away from your argument. When we say that God cannot change, we don’t mean that God is a static unchanging being in the normal sense of those words. Under the aristotelian metaphysical framework, change is understood to be the interaction of two principles, actuality and potentiality. When we say God cannot change, far from being a limitation, it is more along the lines of He doesn’t need to since He is the fullness of Actuality.

That’s not true. The Aristotelean God not only does not need to change, but HE cannot change because He has no potentiality.

And the fullness of Actuality wouldn’t need anything else to create. And since time is a measure of change, God would be timeless. All of what has been said is already demonstrably (in the strong scholastic sense) established if you follow and fully work out any one of the first three of Aquinas’ Five Ways.

I understand Aquinas’ five ways.

Perhaps we don’t fully understand what it means for God to create from eternity something contingent… I grant that we do not fully comprehend. But it doesn’t change the fact that there is no contradiction once the terms are understood in their proper context (aristotelian metaphysics).

There is no contradiction in God creating something contingent. But there is a contradiction in God creating something beginning.

Yes, Craig is wrong.

That’s one thing we agree about.

Heh. So Criag, who you’ve just said thinks God is capable of changing, has the same conception as Aquinas, who you’ve just said thinks God is not capable of changing… and that this means their conceptions are the same? This is a pretty big difference; so big that I would contend it is the difference between God and not-God.

No, Craig’s God is not the same as Aquinas’ God, but if the KCA is correct, both concepts are impossible.

I appreciate your thoughts on the matter!

I appreciate there is at least someone here willing to give it some thought.

 

[belorg]

God’s Perfect Will wills Himself necessarily while, in the same act, He wills creatures freely. This way of willing creatures does not put any composition in God’s will-act. For this way of willing is due to the things willed and not to the one willing. What makes God will creatures is His divine essence as communicable, which is one with God (perfect willing by Him who has a perfect will). Therefore, God wills creatures from all eternity by an act identified with His being, which does not mean that He isn’t free to will them or not will them. From all eternity God wills that creatures should begin to be at different times

,

He cannot will that creatures should begin at different times, because His will is a sufficient condition for creatures to exist and there can be no time between His will and the creatures He wills.

 

[belorg]

Belorg:

God’s essence is His Knowledge and His Will. Anything God wills is willed from all infinity. But, as I have explained in another post, if God wills that creatures come to be at different times, this too must be willed from all infinity. God’s Supreme Knowledge means that He knows all things, including His own Infinity. He also knows what “time” is. Time is not a thing, per se. IOW, it has no being, per se. It has an imperfect reality as it exists only in minds. Motion exists outside of minds (and inside as well).

Eevn if He could create a sequance of creatures all appearing at different times, the first of those creatures does not begin., because that would presuppose a laps of time in a timeless state.

I see nothing wrong with your opening premise. So, I agree, God has been creating things for all eternity. But that does not mean that He cannot sequence them to occur from all eternity, despite himself not being in time.

Even if He can, the first one (or the set, if you like) goes back all the way into eternity.
Which means, the universe did not begin. So, my argument still stands.

The conclusion you draw is incorrect. It should be, Creation is co-eternal with God’s Will (and the exercise thereof).

OK, but it doesn’t chnage things at all.

Here WLC has it wrong again: clearly he fails to understand the meaning of Perfect Knowledge and Perfect Will. If God is Infinite and, therefore, perfect in every determinant, then He must also be perfect in these two things, particularly because they are His essence.

Of course WLC has it wrong.

Wrong conclusion. What is providence? Now, what is Providence? Providence is Perfect Knowledge tandem with Perfect Will. Providence is willing (from all eternity) things to begin at non-contemporaneous points by its perfect exercise, as its inclination.

To some extent, this is true. What is untrue is confining that which must be co-eternal with God’s will to the universe (and time). Replace “universe” with “creating” and you have a winner! Further, it is Catholic philosophy that even though we are not infinite, we are eternal from the points of our beginnings.

That’s great. Which means that Catholics should reject the KCA.

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

,

He cannot will that creatures should begin at different times, because His will is a sufficient condition for creatures to exist and there can be no time between His will and the creatures He wills.

Belorg:

Why would “sufficient condition to exist” trump God willing creatures to come to be at various points in the aggregating succession of non-contemporaneous distension intrinsic to changeable reality which limits a conditioned reality’s existence?

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

Eevn if He could create a sequance of creatures all appearing at different times, the first of those creatures does not begin., because that would presuppose a laps of time in a timeless state.

No, it presupposes nothing of the sort. Motion began at the first Planck epoch on this side of the Big Bang. At that same Planck epoch, motion spawned its correlate, which is time. So, creatures would have been initially created inside time, but, even if they weren’t, upon the first creature’s first motion, time would have begun. So, you choose. (I pick the first explanation.)

Even if He can, the first one (or the set, if you like) goes back all the way into eternity.
Which means, the universe did not begin. So, my argument still stands.

No. You are simply denying that God can and did will creatures to exist within a time-bound roll-out, from all eternity.

OK, but it doesn’t chnage things at all.

Not if you are going to merely deny.

Of course WLC has it wrong.

We agree on something!

That’s great. Which means that Catholics should reject the KCA.

I’m a little slow this evening. Could you reason that out for me?

Sorry to be so short, with my answers, please do not confuse it for curtness or disrespect. I’m am just sleepy.

God bless,
jd

 

[Shike]

That’s the point. God cannot bring about something that didn’t exist before because He is timeless, so there is no ‘before’ for anything to not exist.

Time is a relative thing; it seems like you are treating it like an objective entity that could apply to God but just happens not to.

The contradiction is that for nothing God creates there can be a ‘before’ at which it doesn’t exist.

Your acceptance of what JDaniel said about creation is good enough for me on this point. If that is the case, there is no longer any problem (but methinks you don’t understand what you have conceded).

He can will something contingent into existence, but the contingent thing He wills into existence does not begin to exist, it is co-eternal with its creator.

Now that doesn’t fly. Something contingent must, by pain of contradiction, have a beginning.

By the way, I have no problem with the universe being necessary and so existing infinitely into the past… but that is something altogether different than the eternity ascribed to God. It’s the difference, say, between an actual infinity versus a potential infinity.

No, actually it is a problem because God is NOT time-dependent.

No, you’re treating God like it is possible that He can be subject to time but just happens not to be in fact. That is not what thinkers like Aquinas mean when they ascribe eternity to God.

That’s not true. The Aristotelean God not only does not need to change, but HE cannot change because He has no potentiality.

Correct. My reply was not meant to deny this, but only correct the misguided conception of God which arises when those terms are separated from their metaphysical framework.

I understand Aquinas’ five ways.

That’s wonderful! Then we have much to discuss…

There is no contradiction in God creating something contingent. But there is a contradiction in God creating something beginning.

Perhaps under your conception of time.

No, Craig’s God is not the same as Aquinas’ God, but if the KCA is correct, both concepts are impossible.

This doesn’t follow. Aquinas thought the universe couldn’t be proved philosophically to have a beginning, that there was no contradiction with a universe extending infinitely into the past–he just believed otherwise based on revelation.

Which means although Craig’s conception would be disproven, Aquinas’ would not.

As I said I don’t like the KCA and don’t think it works. But I think I need to revisit it to remember exactly why I don’t like it–it was something fishy with time…

Take care.