St. Thomas Aquinas’ five proofs of the existence of God

[STT]

Surely that is wrong. Every act is formed by a decision which is preceeded by a cause. It’s not conceiveable to make a conscious decision for no reason at all.

Of course we have options when we want to decide. The decision is not free if your decision is affected by one option.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

Surely that is wrong. Every act is formed by a decision which is preceeded by a cause. It’s not conceiveable to make a conscious decision for no reason at all.

Of course we have options when we want to decide. The decision is not free if your decision is affected by one option.

I don’t think that answered my point. How can a decision be uncaused?

 

[IWantGod]

The purpose of which you speak is that which is part of an intellligently designed plan. Going back to our plants in the fire zone, your contention is that there has been a conscious intelligent decision for some plants to survive. Whereas most people would simply see a natural tendancy that has emerged via random rolling of the genetic dice.

It’s just strawman after strawman with you.

 

[IWantGod]

me going to the fridge

What you have just written here, that is what I’m talking about, the goal directed qualities of your behavior… Forget the other strawmen stuff you like to produce.

If you cannot see evidence of goal direction and an “acting for a purpose” in your behavior, then anything i say that remotely challenges your atheism is going to be wasted on you. That however doesn’t change the fact the such goal direction is in conflict not with science but with the philosophical belief that physical reality is all there is, and the fundamental processes that make up everything, are blind, unguided, and do not act for a purpose in it’s activity. Any evidence of Goal direction contradicts metaphysical naturalism. Now you can say to yourself that teleology or goal direction is just a brute fact that doesn’t need explaining, or you can accept where the argument is going, the fact that physical reality behaves the way it does according to an intelligent plan and that’s why we see goal directed behavior in nature…

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

The purpose of which you speak is that which is part of an intellligently designed plan. Going back to our plants in the fire zone, your contention is that there has been a conscious intelligent decision for some plants to survive. Whereas most people would simply see a natural tendancy that has emerged via random rolling of the genetic dice.

It’s just strawman after strawman with you.

Don’t hIde behind straw man accusations. If what I have stated is not your position then your presentation of it is not clear enough for me to understand.

How about something more constructive so we can proceed?

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

me going to the fridge

What you have just written here, that is what I’m talking about, the goal directed qualities of your behavior… Forget the other strawmen stuff you like to produce.

If you cannot see evidence of goal direction and an “acting for a purpose” in your behavior, then anything i say that remotely challenges your atheism is going to be wasted on you. That however doesn’t change the fact the such goal direction is in conflict not with science but with the philosophical belief that physical reality is all there is, and the fundamental processes that make up everything, are blind, unguided, and do not act for a purpose in it’s activity. Any evidence of Goal direction contradicts metaphysical naturalism. Now you can say to yourself that teleology or goal direction is just a brute fact that doesn’t need explaining, or you can accept where the argument is going, the fact that physical reality behaves the way it does according to an intelligent plan and that’s why we see goal directed behavior in nature…

That’s better. Let me respond shortly.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

me going to the fridge

What you have just written here, that is what I’m talking about, the goal directed qualities of your behavior… Forget the other strawmen stuff you like to produce.

If you cannot see evidence of goal direction and an “acting for a purpose” in your behavior, then anything i say that remotely challenges your atheism is going to be wasted on you. That however doesn’t change the fact the such goal direction is in conflict not with science but with the philosophical belief that physical reality is all there is, and the fundamental processes that make up everything, are blind, unguided, and do not act for a purpose in it’s activity. Any evidence of Goal direction contradicts metaphysical naturalism. Now you can say to yourself that teleology or goal direction is just a brute fact that doesn’t need explaining, or you can accept where the argument is going, the fact that physical reality behaves the way it does according to an intelligent plan and that’s why we see goal directed behavior in nature…

This is quite a long bow you are drawing. Me getting a beer from the fridge (which I just did to maintain a sense of reality) leads to an intellgent plan. Presumably God’s as opposed to mine.

You appear to think that we have an either/or situation as regards metaphysical naturalism. But there are different ‘levels’ of existence and one cannot use expressions and deduce meaning at one level whilst considering another. What happens at say a quantum level does not necessarily translate into the microscopic. And from there into the molecular and then into biological and macro levels into individuals and on upwards to personal interactions and groups and societies up to mankind and beyond.

So to say that we are just collections of atoms is only true when we consider the microscopic level. To say that a person is just a biological entity is only applicable at the level of biological constraints. And to imply that my immediate decision to get a little drunk can be extrapolated to claim that there is an ultimate purpose of life is nonsensical.

But unless I am very mistaken (in which case your last post is not as clear as you would like it to be), that is indeed what you are suggesting. That goal direction contradicts metaphysical naturalism - it doesn’t (for reasons just explained), and that goal direction implies something more than simply that particular goal - it doesn’t. I really only want to get a little drunk.

And in any case, you are only discussing goal oriented behaviour. I can’t recall you mentioning conscious thought. Or perhaps it has been implied. But I’d guess you’d only be thinking of human thought. If not then you are suggesting that any conscious decision implies an overall plan of some sort. So a squirrel deciding to get another nut from its store is akin to me getting another beer from the fridge is an argument for some sort of plan.

As I said, it’s a very long bow.

 

[Delusioned]

This has got to be one of the most repressive, intolerant message boards that I’ve ever seen. People get suspended, and posts get removed for the most insignificant of reasons. Which hasn’t been the case for most of my many years here.

If this is an example of normal Catholic intolerance, then it’s understandable why so many people find the Catholic Church to be self-righteous, even if most of the people in it aren’t. You can preach love and tolerance, but if you don’t practice it, then people will recognize the hypocrisy in your words.

This post has but one purpose, to get whomever is in charge of this website to learn to block IP addresses. And please, let mine be first.

 

[IWantGod]

This is quite a long bow you are drawing. Me getting a beer from the fridge (which I just did to maintain a sense of reality) leads to an intellgent plan. Presumably God’s as opposed to mine.

Straw man

There is goal direction in your behavior in so far as you are acting for a purpose. In this case you are seeking a beer for the goal of what ever pleasure you get from that behavior. This is nonsensical if metaphysical naturalism is true. If metaphysical naturalism is true, then physical reality does not act for a goal or a purpose, for there is no purpose or goal;’ thus purposeful ends cannot truly exist in such a world.

Clearly you do act for purposeful ends such as the preservation of your being, involving things like the consumption of food or protecting your family…

If we are nothing more than the sum-total of blind directionless physical activity then this cannot be true because it would contradict what we are fundamentally.

 

[IWantGod]

So to say that we are just collections of atoms is only true when we consider the microscopic level. To say that a person is just a biological entity is only applicable at the level of biological constraints. And to imply that my immediate decision to get a little drunk can be extrapolated to claim that there is an ultimate purpose of life is nonsensical.

But these different levels, if metaphysical naturalism is true, are not separated by a void. In the end, doing anything is nothing more than the sum total of all the blind physical processes occurring in your body. If it is clear that goal direction exists in your behavior, then it is not reasonable or rational to reduce this activity to blind physical directionless processes alone, because that is the complete opposite of goal directed activity. If a thing is acting for a purposeful end, then it makes intelligible sense to attribute this to intelligent information which can only be the product of an intelligent being; not blind physical processes.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

This is quite a long bow you are drawing. Me getting a beer from the fridge (which I just did to maintain a sense of reality) leads to an intellgent plan. Presumably God’s as opposed to mine.

Straw man

There is goal direction in your behavior in so far as you are acting for a purpose. In this case you are seeking a beer for the goal of what ever pleasure you get from that behavior. This is nonsensical if metaphysical naturalism is true. If metaphysical naturalism is true, then physical reality does not act for a goal or a purpose, for there is no purpose or goal;’ thus purposeful ends cannot truly exist in such a world.

Clearly you do act for purposeful ends such as the preservation of your being, involving things like the consumption of food or protecting your family…

If we are nothing more than the sum-total of blind directionless physical activity then this cannot be true because it would contradict what we are fundamentally.

Did I not just explain why I believe you are wrong? Did you not read it? If you had then surely you would have addressed it and corrected it as you see fit. But you have ignored it completely.

We are NOT the sum-total of physical activity at a human level. At that level we are human. Period. We CONSIST of molecules. Which CONSIST of.particles. Which CONSIST of sub atomic particles. Down to heaven knkws where. And humans are Part of larger familes. Which are lart of larger groups which are.part of societies which are part of mankind whicb js part of life itself which is part of existence.

If we wanted to know what makes you tick then it would be useless emplying a molecular physicist to tell us. Or even a biologist. Or even a socialogist. These peolpe deal with levels other than the individual. We’d need a psychologist. Who would be next to usless if you had a cell disease.

You cannot jump from one level to another extrapolating as you go and expect to draw conclusions at every stage. So the point I am making, which is the one I made earlier which you seemed to have missed, is that you cannot extrapolate from the individual choices an organism makes, whether it is goal orientated or not, into some ultimate plan for humanity.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

So to say that we are just collections of atoms is only true when we consider the microscopic level. To say that a person is just a biological entity is only applicable at the level of biological constraints. And to imply that my immediate decision to get a little drunk can be extrapolated to claim that there is an ultimate purpose of life is nonsensical.

But these different levels, if metaphysical naturalism is true, are not separated by a void. In the end, doing anything is nothing more than the sum total of all the blind physical processes occurring in your body. If it is clear that goal direction exists in your behavior, then it is not reasonable or rational to reduce this activity to blind physical directionless processes alone, because that is the complete opposite of goal directed activity. If a thing is acting for a purposeful end, then it makes intelligible sense to attribute this to intelligent information which can only be the product of an intelligent being; not blind physical processes.

Agreed. But the intelligence concerned with me getting that beer is mine and mine alone. If you wanted to say that intelligence or self awareness is proof of God then why on earth didn’t you say that in the first place and I could have addressed that with no problem.

 

[IWantGod]

We are NOT the sum-total of physical activity at a human level.

If all that exists is blind physical directionless activity, then we are precisely the sum total of this and couldn’t possibly be anything else since nothing else exists… It’s nonsensical to suggest otherwise. It is you who chooses to ignore the problem with metaphysical naturalism.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

We are NOT the sum-total of physical activity at a human level.

If all that exists is blind physical directionless activity, then we are precisely the sum total of this and couldn’t possibly be anything else since nothing else exists… It’s nonsensical to suggest otherwise. It is you who chooses to ignore the problem with metaphysical naturalism.

Good grief. How difficult it is to agree with someone. Yes, we are, at one level, a collection of chemicals. But on another we have ingelligence which allows us control of the world in which we live. There is no dichotomy here.

Now again, if you want to declare that intelligence or self awareness proves God, then say so. Becuase goal orientated behaviour certainly doesn’t.

 

[IWantGod]

Agreed. But the intelligence concerned with me getting that beer is mine and mine alone.

I suppose you think that goal directed information is just a brute fact? If you agree that it is not the product of blind unguided physical processes, then the only other way that such a thing could exists is by the power and intentionality of whatever caused physical reality to exist. Otherwise the potential emergence and existence of goal directed behavior or intelligent information is unintelligible

 

[IWantGod]

There is no dichotomy

Yes there is. If reality is fundamentally blind unguided directionless physical processes then it follows necessarily that it’s effects are nothing more that the sum total of those processes. This contradicts the existence of goal directed or purposeful activity, because such things are fundamentally a product of intelligence, and cannot be reduced to anything else. You are simply assuming that metaphysical naturalism is true and ignoring the glaring contradiction in saying that physical reality acts for a purpose or a goal directed end.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

Agreed. But the intelligence concerned with me getting that beer is mine and mine alone.

I suppose you think that goal directed information is just a brute fact? If you agree that it is not the product of blind unguided physical processes, then the only other way that such a thing could exists is by the power and intentionality of whatever caused physical reality to exist. Otherwise the potential emergence and existence of goal directed behavior or intelligent information is unintelligible

Some goal directed behaviour is without doubt the result of the blind processes involved in evolution. There is no thought or consciousness involved. Such as a flower turning to the sun. Other goal directed behaviour (we’re back to the beer) is a combination of instinct (needing to quench a thirst) and a deliberate goal directed decision (to get drunk). Then we have definite goal directed decisions like picking a career path.

The first doesn’t require intelligence and neither does part of the second. The rest does. So we can skip goal orientated behaviour because it doesn’t cover all bases. Which intelligence does. The type of behaviour you want to discuss requires intelligence and forethought.

So we are at a stage where we need to decide if intelligence and forethought requires God. Is that reasonable?

 

[Delusioned]

So we are at a stage where we need to decide if intelligence and forethought requires God.

Excellent. Now you’ve come to the crux of the argument.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

There is no dichotomy

Yes there is. If reality is fundamentally blind unguided directionless physical processes then it follows necessarily that it’s effects are nothing more that the sum total of those processes.

I’m not arguing that at all. As I keep trying to get across, we are a collection of chemicals but have reached a point where we are self aware so we need not be contrained to follow blind physical processes. We have a choice.

Your mission is to convince people that this self awareness cannot emerge naturally.

 

[Delusioned]

Your mission is to convince people that this self awareness cannot emerge naturally.

You begin with water flowing downhill to the ocean. Is that goal directed? IWantGod would probably agree that it’s not.

Then we come to the flower turning to face the sun. Is that goal directed? IWantGod might argue that it is, or he might argue that it’s not. On the one hand it’s simply a somewhat sophisticated chemical process, but on the other hand the flower has begun to demonstrate goal directed behavior. Turning to face the sun promotes the flowers survival.

Eventually of course, you come to us…humans. We demonstrate goal directed behavior all the time. Because we’re intelligent. But what about that flower? Or trees? Or worms? Or all the other beings that demonstrate goal directed behavior, surely not all of them are intelligent.

But therein lies the conundrum. Intelligence doesn’t just emerge whole and complete. It’s a process. Beginning with things such as that flower, that act toward their own survival. We wouldn’t call the flower intelligent, but it carries the fundamental seed of intelligence. It’s beginning to act in it’s own self-interest. Not consciously of course, that comes later. But it does have goal direction.

So we begin with mindless water, and we eventually arrive at us, and somewhere in between the two, emerges intelligence. It’s in this process that IWantGod argues for the need of an unnatural cause. Because he doesn’t seem to believe that intelligent agents can emerge from unintelligent processes.

Personally, I think that he’s wrong. Or at least he hasn’t demonstrated that he’s right.