What property of the universe leads us to conclude that it required a cause to exist?

[MindOverMatter2]

The cosmological argument doesn’t prove that God as described by Christianity is the first cause. It doesn’t say anything about the nature of the first cause other than it must be something which has no cause. But it does demonstrate rather clearly that the universe must have some sort of cause outside of itself.

I agree. But I don’t think that’s entirely accurate, although I do appreciate your post. The argument by itself does not speak about the attributes of God, but the cosmological argument does imply the attributes of God. The attributes of God can be deduced from the fact of a first cause once the first cause has been shown to exist. The only attribute of God that cannot be proven metaphysically, is that Jesus is God and is one person in a trinity of persons. However, I do think that God can be shown to be a community of persons with one unified nature.

 

[JDaniel]

Demonstrative logic can only produce cognent reasons why logic is consistent. That does not in any way prejudice how one should view the natural world.

With all due respect, your conception of demonstration is wholly inadequate and incorrect. A demonstration, or, demonstrative syllogism, is pretty much like the definition of science. It is “certain knowledge in terms of the proper causes of things,” even though such knowledge may be exceedingly difficult to attain. Science does not perform experiments for the distinct purpose of having fun with a microscope, or, some other piece of measuring equipment. The same is understood of demonstrative logic. The middle term, of demonstrative logic, like the middle term of a controlled experiment, must be causal. It must describe how the outcome came about and it must show that the results are repeatable.

Our intellects are informed by the results of both logic and science. Demonstrative logic and scientific investigation are then put though a wringer of analytical processing so that the entire thing becomes confidently intelligible to us. So, the only cogent reason why demonstrative logic is consistent is that it is able to report Truth to us. Repeatedly.

1. Everything has to have a cause.
2. The Universe is a definite article, and must have a cause.
3. The Universe must have an uncaused cause or you have an infinite regress.

So let’s invent an uncaused cause, call it God, and even though there is no way to demonstrate that it even exists, we’ll just make it exempt from rule 1) to keep things tidy looking.

That’s nonsense. Pure nonsense.

Well, you are herewith making a mockery of logic. You are spinning it out of control. The premises should be:

1.) Everything that comes to be (has a beginning) has a cause.
2.) The universe is a thing that had, to us, a beginning (and, apparently, an end, in the distant future).
3.) We know that caused causes cannot create and we know that not positing a first cause leads us into an absurdity.

So, actually, we didn’t have to invent an uncaused cause, we simply had to follow the inevitability of our logic, which, more than adequately, gives us the proper intelligibility.

jd

 

[greylorn]

It’s only pure nonsense because you’ve misstated the logic. I’m not a theologian or philosopher or anything, but would word it kind of like this:

1. We can observe that stuff exists
2. Stuff can’t bring itself into existence because it would have to first exist to do that, making it illogical for stuff to be its own cause
3. Stuff can’t exist in a causal loop because a loop has no beginning and stuff can’t cause itself (no infinite regress)
4. Therefore something uncaused has to exist for anything else to exist

Okay. So, keep it simple. Why not conclude that it is the “stuff” which is uncaused?

 

[jkiernan56]

Okay. So, keep it simple. Why not conclude that it is the “stuff” which is uncaused?

Pantheism …

 

[PJY86]

Greylorn,

If you read a few pages of posts back, I’ve argued that the “stuff”, matter, is the principle of potentiality in material beings. But if this is true, then it is impossible that matter also be the principle of actualization of itself. This is born out, for instance, in the case of any formal change, like the change from a sperm and an egg to a fetus. That matter of the sperm and egg persist even through the change, and so we must look to something distinct from the matter itself to adequately explain the change; that is, we must post form or essence as distinct from matter. That shows that matter is the principle of potentiality and individuation which is only actualized by the form in which that matter inheres. In other words, a thing is what it is by virtue of its nature, not its matter. Given this fact, it is absurd to think that matter is responsible for beings (form matter composites) or even itself, since apart from form matter can perform no action.

 

[rvilbig]

There is no point in time when the “stuff” that comprises the universe did not exist. Why must it have a cause? Or, why must a finite being be caused by something else in order to exist?

This is a good point. When (if I may so use that term) there was no universe, there was no time either, so there is no instant at which it was caused. Saint Augustine explained it as follows:

“Beyond all doubt the world was not made in time, but with time” (Saint Augustine, City of God, 11:6)

Nonetheless, it is still reasonable to say that the universe was caused, as Catholic physicist Stephen Barr argued in his book Modern Physics and Ancient Faith:

“ I]f one thinks about it for a while, one can see that a thing can be caused without necessarily having had any beginning in time. For example, imagine that an object is illuminated by a lamp. The lamp is the cause or explanation of the object’s being illuminated. However, nothing in that fact tells us whether the lamp has been illuminating the object for a finite time or for infinite time. If the lamp has always been illuminating the object, then the illumination of the object had no beginning, but nevertheless it always had a cause” (Modern Physics and Ancient Faith, page 33)

Even the big bang model doesn’t really have a beginning of time. Consider, at “t=0” there is no universe, so there really is no time either; in other words t is undefined. At t=.0001 seconds, for example, the universe already existed at a previous time, so it wasn’t caused at that time. Going back further, at t =.000001s, the universe already existed then too, so it wasn’t caused then either. Since time is a continuum, which is divisible ad infinitum (cf. Aristotle, Physics, Book III), we may continuously find earlier instants in time at which the universe existed, none of which will ever be the first moment. Thus there was no first instant of the universe. Nonetheless, we may say that it approaches t=0 just as a function in calculus approaches, though never reaches, its limit. Thus we may say at the limit of its existence, the universe had a beginning. Regardless, it is reasonable to assert that it is caused because even eternally static things have causes (as Barr argues).

Hope this helps/ makes sense,

-Ryan Vilbig
ryan.vilbig@gmail.com

 

[JDaniel]

I want to understand you, maybe you can elaborate a bit more?

Sorry, Windfish, I just saw this post and wanted you to know that I wasn’t ignoring you.

To answer you, much better men than I have written volumes. St. Thomas, for example, spends much time contemplating motion. Motion is one of the major gifts that God has given to us if only for the purpose that we may make the world we live in more intelligible to us. Think: if you were a spiritual creature looking in at the earth from above, and noticed a human, a cat, and a flower pot sitting on the front porch of a house, you wouldn’t know that all three of these beings were different, except for their shapes, until they moved.

By observing their activities, you would understand that they are different and you could even make some rather poignant judgments about the type of beings you were looking at. So, it is - or, at least, should be - clear, that it is motion that makes objects, and, life, intelligible to us.

Upon noticing that at least two of these objects (perceptibly) moved, and that one of them moved in rather intricate ways, we can now recognize that these things through their local motions seemed to traverse an unexplainable lapse. Your attention might then fix on that fact, that there seemed to be a before and an after to their strange activity. It might then appear to you that something was missing: there was a certain absence between the before and after. For want of a better word, that absence you would come to call, “time”.

Thus, “time” is a sort of corollary extrapolation from the fact of motion. No motion = No time. This depicts a rather intricate relationship between these exigencies.

Does this help?

God bless,
jd

 

[Moonstruck888]

2.) The universe is a thing that had, to us, a beginning (and, apparently, an end, in the distant future).

No. The observable spacetime continuum had a beginning. We do not know what the Universe outside of that is. We have no idea that can be demonstrated to be correct. The big bang may have been caused by an event ocurring in an underlying structure that we know nothing about.

Your logic is untested, and at the moment untestable. It is plausible, but very probably wrong.

 

[Moonstruck888]

C’mon, Moonstruck. You know MoM meant “everything” in the sense that every material thing has a cause. He wasn’t speaking about immaterial being(s).

God bless,
jd

Then it falls on him to explain immaterial beings.

 

[Moonstruck888]

Moonstruck,

I mean absolutely no offense to you, but you simply do not understand what is being said. That isn’t to say I am right, but that we can’t even begin the debate until we get straight the dialectic. I will just briefly address some of your misunderstandings.

No offense taken.

First, even if you restate and say that we can only judge a thing to be true once it’s empirically demonstrated, you still have to face that fact that such a claim cannot be empirically demonstrated. Thus you should withhold judgment on your principle of judgment, leaving you without an objective basis for affirming the truth of anything.

My claim has been soundly substantiated. It has given us everything from brain surgery to the cavity magnetron to the very computer that you’re typing on. It has expanded the human lifespan, it has let us probe the very smallest and very largest scales of space and time, it has let us travel anywhere on the planet in a timely fashion, it has given us the haber process that let’s us feed everyone we want to feed in the world.

That is science. Science built the modern world.

Second, I did not say that my argument was self-evident, but that (1) was self-evident. Do you deny that only the actual can act?

No. Now, do you deny that there could be underlying structure to space and time that we cannot currently observe, and that we have no way to determine the nature of that structure?

A necessary Being is one who cannot not exist.

Excellent. So where is it?

All of this may seem like mere words to you, but I ask you to at least consider the possibility that you may simply not understand what I am saying. I hope this consideration prompts you to study, and hopefully talk more with me in the future.

My field is in science and engineering. The study of Philosophy would be as much use to me in it as the study of Newtonian mechanics and trigononmetry would be to Cliff Thorburn.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

My field is in science and engineering. The study of Philosophy would be as much use to me in it as the study of Newtonian mechanics and trigononmetry would be to Cliff Thorburn.

Then why do you participate on a philosophy forum if you have no interest in philosophy. You have made it obvious that you have know interest in understanding philosophy or the philosophy of those you debate with. So what’s your problem? Your attitude is not much different from somebody who enjoys trolling.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Then it falls on him to explain immaterial beings.

I don’t have to explain anything. It has already been explained. Any being which begins to exist or proceeds potentially in to being, has a cause independent of its being.

 

[Hooding_Trees]

I don’t have to explain anything. It has already been explained. Any being which begins to exist or proceeds potentially in to being, has a cause independent of its being.

However all being that exist ARE dependent on a cause that is independent of their being, INCLUDING YOUR GOD!

Cha-ching!

 

[JDaniel]

However all being that exist ARE dependent on a cause that is independent of their being, INCLUDING YOUR GOD!

Cha-ching!

Not so. Otherwise we’re headlong into an absurdity. And, you know what that is if you understand the meaning of infinity.

jd

 

[JDaniel]

No. The observable spacetime continuum had a beginning. We do not know what the Universe outside of that is. We have no idea that can be demonstrated to be correct. The big bang may have been caused by an event ocurring in an underlying structure that we know nothing about.

Your logic is untested, and at the moment untestable. It is plausible, but very probably wrong.

And, your assertion is exceptionally untested and untestable. Likewise, your assertion is more like a knee-jerk defense to our position. “An underlying structure!” You are hopelessly grabbing at any lifeline that you can barely hold onto…

jd

 

[Hooding_Trees]

Not so. Otherwise we’re headlong into an absurdity. And, you know what that is if you understand the meaning of infinity.

jd

Well you cant have your cake and eat it… Either all beings comes from another, or they don’t, including your god. When you exempt him you break the premise on which your argument is based.

 

[Hooding_Trees]

And, your assertion is exceptionally untested and untestable. Likewise, your assertion is more like a knee-jerk defense to our position. “An underlying structure!” You are hopelessly grabbing at any lifeline that you can barely hold onto…

jd

The skeptical viewpoint that what underlies space and time is unknown can hardly be described as an assertion. It is a factual statement of knowledge and this preposterous attempt at a rejoinder underscores your lack of critical analysis in a manner that damages your indefensible position far more than the most vehement attack ever could.

 

[JDaniel]

Well you cant have your cake and eat it… Either all beings comes from another, or they don’t, including your god. When you exempt him you break the premise on which your argument is based.

With the one and only presupposition which is that: "things exist and there cannot be an infinite regress - or, things would not exist.

 

[awatkins69]

However all being that exist ARE dependent on a cause that is independent of their being, INCLUDING YOUR GOD!

Cha-ching!

God is not contingent being. God is necessary being. I hope you understand the difference. God is being, being in the truest sense. Let’s look at Saint Thomas’ argument from contingency in syllogistic form. Tell me what’s wrong in your estimation with the premises:

(1) Contingent things exist.
(2) Each contingent thing has a time at which it fails to exist (contingent things are not omnipresent).
(3) So, if everything were contingent, there would be a time at which nothing exists (call this an empty time).
(4) That empty time would have been in the past.
(5) If the world were empty at one time, it would be empty forever after (a conservation principle).
(6) So, if everything were contingent, nothing would exist now.
(7) But clearly, the world is not empty (premise 1).
(8) So there exists a being who is not contingent.
(9) Hence, God exists.

 

[Hooding_Trees]

With the one and only presupposition which is that: "things exist and there cannot be an infinite regress - or, things would not exist.

Interesting.

In your blind, flailing, burbon fulelled stupor, you have just succeeded in cementing the position that God requires a creator…

Kudos to you sir.