Scientific argument for God's existence

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REASON rules the day…

1 Surely vain are all men by nature, who are ignorant of God, and could not out of the good things that are seen know him that is: neither by considering the works did they acknowledge the workmaster;

2 But deemed either fire, or wind, or the swift air, or the circle of the stars, or the violent water, or the lights of heaven, to be the gods which govern the world.

3 With whose beauty if they being delighted took them to be gods; let them know how much better the Lord of them is: for the first author of beauty hath created them.

4 But if they were astonished at their power and virtue, let them understand by them, how much mightier he is that made them.

5 For by the greatness and beauty of the creatures proportionably the maker of them is seen.

6 But yet for this they are the less to be blamed: for they peradventure err, seeking God, and desirous to find him.

7 For being conversant in his works they search him diligently, and believe their sight: because the things are beautiful that are seen.

8 Howbeit neither are they to be pardoned.

9 For if they were able to know so much, that they could aim at the world; how did they not sooner find out the Lord thereof?
 
rossum said:
Your argument is not specific to the Abrahamic God, it could just as well be an argument for Vishnu’s existence. It applies to all creator gods.

$0.02
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Philosophy takes you to the uncaused cause which we call God. Theology tells us who He is, and given personal names.
 
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buffalo said:
Philosophy takes you to the uncaused cause which we call God.
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The problem is that any cause is contingent on there being an effect that the cause has initiated. Being a parent is contingent on having children. The ‘creator of the universe’ cannot exist unless there is also a universe that he/she/it/they created.

You claim a “cause”; I ask you for the effect which that cause has caused. If there is no effect then there was not a cause. If there is a first cause, then there must also be a ‘first effect’.

Then ask yourself which came first.
 
IWantGod said:
The cause.
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If there was as yet no effect, then what you claim to be the cause was not then a cause. At best it was a cause-in-waiting or a potential cause, not an actual cause. Twenty billion years ago there was no actual existent cause of the universe.

Cause and effect are mutually contingent; you cannot have one without the other.
 
rossum said:
If there was as yet no effect, then what you claim to be the cause was not then a cause.
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In temporal terms, causes produce effects which in turn become causes. God is not necessarily a creator in the sense that nothing caused him to create. God exists in his own right, and chooses to cause something purely as an act of will rather than as a deterministic outcome of some process. So God exists and is not essentially a cause, but at the same time he did cause something to exist and eternally did so.

So long as God is not forced to be a creator it cannot be said that he cannot exist without his effect. The only thing left to debate is why he created. Unless you assume that choosing to be a cause can only be a possibility of change, there is not much to debate.

In any case, if a thing begins to exist, it necessarily follows that it has a cause, and therefore your rebuttal doesn’t amount to much more than a puzzle. It certainly does not negate the existence of the uncaused cause and the fact that such a being is required to bring effects into existence.
 
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rossum said:
Cause and effect are mutually contingent; you cannot have one without the other.
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You cannot have an effect without something bringing it into existence; something has to exist in order to create an effect. But to suggest that this makes the cause contingent on the effect seems to me to be a play on words. Witty semantics at best, and in the best case scenario it leads to absurdity. If the cause doesn’t exist in it’s own right, then it too needs a cause, this dependency cannot go on forever because then only actualised potential would exist, and since you cannot get something out of nothing, there has to be a being that is not dependent on anything for it’s existence, and can give existence.
 
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IWantGod said:
In temporal terms, causes produce effects which in turn become causes.
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Cause and effect is temporal, because there is a temporal relationship between the two of them.

It is difficult for an atemporal entity to be a cause. If God is atemporal then He does not change. He is still parting the sea as He did in Moses’ day and simultaneously He is still not parting the sea as He did in Abraham’s day and as He is doing now.

An atemporal entity has a great difficulty with change. Is God parting the sea now? Then He has changed since the time of Moses?
MOSES: Lord, please part the sea so your people may cross.

YHWH: I am sorry, Moses. I did not part the sea yesterday, so since I am unchanging I cannot part the sea today.
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IWantGod said:
God exists in his own right, and chooses to cause something purely as an act of will
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But He is not a creator until He makes that act of will. How long did God exist before He created the universe? For all that time He was not the creator of the universe. You are also implicitly admitting that God’s will (which changes in time) is not a part of God (who does not change in time).
 
IWantGod said:
But to suggest that this makes the cause contingent on the effect seems to me to be a play on words.
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So, I rossum can correctly claim to be a creator of universes. I haven’t actually created a universe yet, but despite that my claim to create universes is correct. Any denial of my claim is merely a “play on words” as you say.
 
rossum said:
Cause and effect is temporal, because there is a temporal relationship between the two of them.
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Well this is the assumption under discussion isn’t it. Your whole argument depends on that being true. But logic dictates that temporal relationships cannot in principle explain why there is something rather than absolutely nothing. And something has to exist before there can be the possibility of an effect. Ultimately there has to be an uncaused cause that cannot fail to exist, and the fact that the effect comes into being is proof that it doesn’t necessarily exist, and so your argument is necessarily wrong.
 
rossum said:
The problem is that any cause is contingent on there being an effect that the cause has initiated. Being a parent is contingent on having children. The ‘creator of the universe’ cannot exist unless there is also a universe that he/she/it/they created.
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Untrue. The universe does not exist of necessity.
 
buffalo said:
Untrue. The universe does not exist of necessity.
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That depends on your definition of “universe”. In philosophical terms, the Universe is “All that exists.” The only way that universe cannot exist is if nothing at all exists. Since we observe that things exist, then that universe necessarily also exists.

If the material (STEM) universe is not necessary, then the creator of that universe is not necessary either. If the creator/cause were itself necessary, then the effect (the STEM universe) would therefore be necessary. If God had a choice whether or not to create the STEM universe, then His status as “creator of the STEM universe” is not necessary – He could have decided not to do it.
 
IWantGod said:
Well this is the assumption under discussion isn’t it. Your whole argument depends on that being true.
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I have two entities A and B. How do I decide if one caused the other if time does not exist, or cannot be measured?
 
rossum said:
I have two entities A and B. How do I decide if one caused the other if time does not exist, or cannot be measured?
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The conditioned reality is caused by the unconditioned one. One exists inside the frame of reference, the other is outside.
 
rossum said:
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IWantGod:
Well this is the assumption under discussion isn’t it. Your whole argument depends on that being true.
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I have two entities A and B. How do I decide if one caused the other if time does not exist, or cannot be measured?
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If the universe runs down and all matter ceases to exist then there is nothing to change. So time doesn’t exist. Distance doesn’t exist. We are at the identical point where we were a few billion years ago.

Rinse and repeat. No need for an infinite sequence if the process is cyclical.
 
Unless reality (i.e. the universe) is cyclical. And then we have no infinite chain of causality. Argument collapses at first hurdle.
 
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