A
AdamC
Guest
I’ll give my two cents:
First, I will define “being” as I will be using it: anything that exists, either matter or energy. A “being” is one of anything. A speck of dirt, a photon, or anything.
- Yes, I do. (And no, Descartes, I don’t worry that I’m being deceived.)
- Yes, I do.
- Yes, my dad is in the other room.
- Yep, either a being which does exist by some cause, or that as well as a being which exists without need for cause is the cause of my existence.*
- This is where we go off the track. Why can’t contingent beings be the only cause for other contingent beings? If the causes are infinite in time, and at least self-perpetuating in number, no necessary being is required. At least, seemingly so.
- Wrong, if the loop is closed, there is no “need” for a “necessary being”.**
- No. There is no proof for a necessary being in this line of reasoning.***
*I believe in God, the Lord. God of Israel, from whom was sent the Savior who died for the sins of humanity. Just being clear, I am a Christian.
**Matter cannot be destroyed, only converted. Energy cannot be destroyed, only converted. This means that the subatomic level (and lower) that is essential to all things has always existed, and will always exist. Logically speaking, that is. If energy comes from the conversion of matter, and matter comes from the conversion of energy, then it is a closed loop. There is no reason to assume that either had a beginning, because all matter then becomes the cause of its own existence, and the same can be said of energy. Energy becomes matter becomes energy becomes matter becomes energy, and so on for eternity. It’s forced in the battery in your car. Matter converts, energy is released. Energy is converted, matter reforms. (Acid is made again.) Even the Big Bang is assumed to be not the beginning of the universe, but just a stage in a cycle, by many scientists. All matter and energy eventually collapses under its own “weight” into a single point in space, and at the instant the singularity is formed, the matter and energy instantaneously explode back out again into another “universe” Notice, though, that the space continues to exist. Maybe space is nothing, maybe it has some fundamental nature as well. I’ve heard both ideas.
So…There is no evidence to assume that the universe “began” at the Big Bang, only that it occurred, and the universe has been expanding since. In other words, it can be safely assumed, within the limits of modern theory, that the universe itself is eternal, and it exists in some kind of self-perpetuating cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.
***There is no proof for a necessary being in ANY line of reasoning. Consider how little it is really know, just about the world we live on. We barely have an inkling of what there is to know. What we know is next to nothing compared to what we don’t, and that’s just this one planet. Now extrapolate that, and apply it to the Solar system. Now to the Milky Way galaxy. Now to the entire universe of galaxies, quasars, nebulae, etc. If God is beyond(in status, nature, etc.) the universe that we are able to see with our own eyes, how can we ever come to know God through sheer reason? The answer: We can’t. Ever. Not in this lifetime. The only, single way we can know of God’s existence is through His revelation of Himself to us. And we will fully known Him when He is fully revealed, at the point at which we join Him in Heaven.
Through scripture and prayer, we come to know God’s personality. We understand that He is both all-loving, but also a jealous God, never allowing for worship of anyone or anything but Him. And rightfully so, why worship the created when you can worship the creator? (There’s a scripture that goes along these lines, but I don’t know where.)
Yes, we have an inherent desire to know God, but that doesn’t mean we DO know Him inherently. (Consider the world full of false gods and religions for evidence of this.) So how do we know Him? The prophets told us of Him, through His direct revelation to them, and we all know the rest of the story.
But I’ve asserted that the universe is an eternal cycle. There is no “first cause” in the sense that we think of it. (Move pool cue, hit cue ball, hit other ball, which hits other balls, etc, until it all comes to a stop.) I’m not suggesting that the universe always has existed without the necessary action taken by God to create it, but that the universe always has existed because God created it to be so.
cont’d below
