Whats your favorite argument for the existence of God?

[James_S_Saint]

The idea of everlasting “Bangs” was refuted in post 187 with the kalam argument. It’s just not logical for the universe to extend infinitely back into time.

Post #187 was invalid and proved nothing.

You are merely having trouble imagining an infinite past and thus inherently implying that God did not exist an infinitely long time ago. Did he or didn’t he?

 

[1holycatholic]

I wanted to get the Summa of the Summa, I started with The Handbook of Christian Apologetics. That’s where I first encountered the kalam argument. What do you think of The Handbook? Have you read it?

I have it and I’ve referred to it, but I haven’t read the entire thing. Dr. Kreeft is generally a very good writer. I’m a convert from mainline Protestantism and I read an enormous amount of material on my way into the faith, especially the Early Church Fathers.

It’s a good thing to hear that your philosophy class isn’t starting with Descartes. It’s really important to have a historical background in philosophy.

 

[1holycatholic]

Sigh…

If there is a potential infinite future, then there is a potential infinite past.

And time is not “asymmetric”. Again, you are merely presuming.

That’s not true. Past time has not potentially occurred, it has actually occurred. Future time has not actually occurred, it can potentially occur.

There’s no presumption, August 2009 has actually occurred in reality, July 2009 has actually occurred in reality etc… October 2009 can potentially occur, November 2009 can potentially occur ad infinitum.

This should be helpful in understanding the difference between potential and actual infinities.

 

[liquidpele]

The idea of everlasting “Bangs” was refuted in post 187 with the kalam argument. It’s just not logical for the universe to extend infinitely back into time.

You’re looking at it wrong, time is just an illusion. It’s how your brain interprets change. The idea of everlasting bangs (while I don’t endorse it as I don’t know of any evidence for such a model) is not based on time, it is based on circular pattern. If you’re walking around a circle you’ll be doing it forever, as it is in that theory.

 

[James_S_Saint]

That’s not true. Past time has not potentially occurred, it has actually occurred. Future time has not actually occurred, it can potentially occur.

There’s no presumption, August 2009 has actually occurred in reality, July 2009 has actually occurred in reality etc… October 2009 can potentially occur, November 2009 can potentially occur ad infinitum.

You have no proof that the “past” actually occurred at all. You speculate that it “had to have” based on causality. But causality is merely about the potential to change.

Nothing but the present is actual, all else that was or will be is merely “potential”.

 

[James_S_Saint]

You’re looking at it wrong, time is just an illusion. It’s how your brain interprets change. The idea of everlasting bangs (while I don’t endorse it as I don’t know of any evidence for such a model) is not based on time, it is based on circular pattern. If you’re walking around a circle you’ll be doing it forever, as it is in that theory.

Time is the actual changing that is measured or perceived by noting that change. Our “illusion” involves the amount of change, not whether there has been change.

In that circle, changing is always occurring and thus time is always present even though not measurable to us.

 

[1holycatholic]

You have no proof that the “past” actually occurred at all.

If your claim that you can’t prove that past time has occurred is true, then what is your proof that past time is infinite?

 

[MindOverMatter]

Sigh…

If there is a potential infinite future, then there is a potential infinite past.

Firstly; how does one follow from the other?

Secondly; how can the past be “potentially” infinite? Do you know what the word “potential” means? You are using the term incorrectly.

 

[MindOverMatter]

You have no proof that the “past” actually occurred at all.

I guess that you believe that science is wrong about the age of the universe. In any case, one doesn’t have to know. One merely has to understand that it is logically impossible for the past to infinitely regress, since there is no such thing as an infinite number; there is no group of numbers that you can call infinite in the progressive sense of one number following after another and so on and so forth. One also has to understand that something which is not real to begin with cannot come into reality by itself. Secondly one must understand that if a being begins to exist, then it is coming “in to” a reality that already exists, since it is impossible for there to be such a thing as absolutely nothing in a positive sense. Absolutely nothing is not real; and thus the concept cannot be applied to reality, accept as a privation; e.g. the space is empty. A being cannot come into, or exist in something that is not real.

 

[mathematician]

That seems more like a semantic problem to me than a fundamental one. Of course you cannot reduce love to the bio-chemical and neurologic process it consists of. You won’t see a forest in a chopped down tree either.

The problem is far more than a semantic one. It you stick a pin in somebody they will go “Ouch!” There is no way you can share their conscious experience just by observing something they are completely unconscious of (their brain activity).

There is no way you can share somebody else’s experience. If you have them wired up to an electro-encephalograph you just might be able to infer that they are having some such experience, but even then only if you start out with a fair bit of specialised foreknowledge.

The fundamental problem any sort of reductionism has to confront is that, unlikely brain activity, SUBJECTIVE experience cannot be OBJECTIVELY observed.

 

[James_S_Saint]

Firstly; how does one follow from the other?

Secondly; how can the past be “potentially” infinite? Do you know what the word “potential” means? You are using the term incorrectly.

I don’t think that I did.

Potentiality refers actually to causality in that for something to have the potential to become, it has to have a cause preceding it such as to trigger that potential into the actual. But that inherently means that for the present to have come about, there had to be a potential in the past so as to bring about the present.

That “past potential” cannot logically have a beginning = causality.

 

[1holycatholic]

I don’t think that I did.

Potentiality refers actually to causality in that for something to have the potential to become, it has to have a cause preceding it such as to trigger that potential into the actual. But that inherently means that for the present to have come about, there had to be a potential in the past so as to bring about the present.

That “past potential” cannot logically have a beginning = causality.

The change from potentiality to actuality is called motion, not causality.

Causality is not necessarily time dependent. Cause cannot precede an effect in time, but cause and effect do not require the passage of time.

 

[James_S_Saint]

The change from potentiality to actuality is called motion, not causality.

Causality is not necessarily time dependent. Cause cannot precede an effect in time, but cause and effect do not require the passage of time.

Well, I think you will find that to not be true.

The definition of cause requires that it precede effect if you are talking about temporal causality. Situational (or static) causality does not involve time, but circumstances.

When discussing “potentiality”, they are always talking about temporal causality, especially if the past or future is involved. For something to have the potential to happen, it must have a cause preceding it, else it has no potential. Something cannot change if there is no cause for it to change.

The seed of a tree has no potential to grow if it can never have water or nutrition (opportunity and impetus, cause).

 

[MindOverMatter]

I don’t think that I did.

Potentiality refers actually to causality in that for something to have the potential to become, it has to have a cause preceding it such as to trigger that potential into the actual.

Correct.

But that inherently means that for the present to have come about, there had to be a potential in the past so as to bring about the present.

You are correct in so far as you mean that all changing beings or beings that began to exist were at some point only potential realities. However, from the perspective of the present, the past is actual not potential. Future events are potential. Something that is already actual, is no longer potential, although it was at some point in the past, in respect to its beginning, a potential reality. But when we speak of the past in respect of the future and the present, it is a mistake to apply potentiality to something that has already come to exist, since when we speak of procession we mean it in respect of that which potentially proceeds in to the future or is moving in to the future.

The context and perspective changes when we move from the abstraction of logic to ontological events themselves. Just because you know that some beings began to exist, doesn’t mean you can say that the past is potential, unless you explain that the context in which you are describing events has nothing to do with the past but rather is a logical abstraction of beings in so far as what it means for them to begin or change from one state to the next. But if you are talking about the past as the past from the context of the present moment and the future, you can only say that there were actual beings that now constitute the actual past that were at some point only potential realities; you cannot say that the past has the potential to exist (if thats what you mean). It has already become actual, and thus it is correct to apply actuality to what we understand to be past events. I don’t know how else to explain it.

It seems to me there is a severe contextual error in your understanding. You have to clearly explain in what context you are using the term “potential”, and how your arguments follow from that particular context. It seems to me that you are mixing up the context in which are using the term “potential”.

That “past potential” cannot logically have a beginning = causality.

Why? If you mean that you cannot understand how the universe could begin with out something causing it, thats a point, but it is not a proof that therefore there must be an infinite number of events.
If all events are contingent, then they ought not to exist at all, since there is no explanation for why they should exist in the first place. Their potential to exist cannot ultimately be because of a potential being. It doesn’t matter how many numbers are involved, you will never find a sufficient reason for why an infinite chain of potential beings ought to exist. If there were an infinite number of beings without a cause, then that would mean that potentiality precedes all potential beings, since there is no changing being that doesn’t potentially exist. There is no being in the infinite series that can explain why there is the potential for an infinite series of beings. You cannot get existence from mere potentiality. Potentiality is caused by existence, and in order for potentiality to make sense, existence must absolutely proceed potentiality. But an infinite number of potential events is not existence; its just potential, since every existential being in the series is dependent on the potentiality to exist, and thus is not the reason for existence itself. If you cannot find a reason for why the infinite chain exists, then you cannot claim that the universe exists because of an infinite number of events.

 

[James_S_Saint]

However, from the perspective of the present, the past is actual not potential.

I understand what you are saying, but technically, it is incorrect to say that a present thing has potential but a past thing has none.

Past things don’t exist at all, thus any discussion must refer to what potential they had in the past.

The past HAD the potential of causing the present. The present HAS the potential of causing the future. The future WILL HAVE the potential for causing more future.

 

[James_S_Saint]

Why? If you mean that you cannot understand how the universe could begin with out something causing it, thats a point, but it is not a proof that therefore there must be an infinite number of events.

The very definition of cause is the proof.

* Main Entry: **cause**
* Pronunciation: \ˈkȯz\
* Function: noun
* Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin causa
* Date: 13th century

1 a : a reason for an action or condition : motive b : something that brings about an effect or a result c : a person or thing that is the occasion of an action or state; especially : an agent that brings something about d : sufficient reason

The reason it must be an infinite series is that every infinitely small fraction of time leads to the next and from the last. These things are true by their definitions.

No matter what brought about the universe, that thing would be the “cause”. But no matter what that cause was, whatever brought it about would also be a cause, ad infinitum.

None of this is contrary to any Scripture, btw.

 

[MindOverMatter]

There is no such thing as an infinite chain of causes that can exists without an ultimate cause outside of time. This is because an infinite chain of causes is really an infinite chain of effects. What I mean to say here is that all causes which had the potentiality to exist are really just the effects of other entities, and in-so-far as they cause some other effect, one can only say that they serve as “causal-mediums”. This means that each individual effect takes on the nature of a cause only by accident; they are not “cause” by nature of being. In other words, they are not ultimately responsible for any potentiality or being that might come to exists. That is to say, their ability to give causality is not irrespective of their existential environment or that which precedes their being. Hence; if the universe is an infinite chain of contingent events, then it is an infinite chain of potentiality; which means that every effect in the chain is a potential event that is not in itself—by itself—necessary.

But if every effect in the chain is unnecessary, if there is no ultimate cause in which the potentiality of a given chain of events ultimately rests and is given the necessity of being, then the potentiality in question is left unexplained as if to come out of nothing. Thus, one cannot say that the present event exists merely because of the sum total of all past events, since all past events are existentially dependent in principle on the notion of potential; and potentiality cannot meaningfully precede and infinite number of events, given that the potentiality to be is dependent on beings. One must admit that an actual infinity of events ultimately precedes the potential to be, in so far as it must precede potentiality in order to be actual. But as I have said already, an event does not exist outside of the potential to exist, and all potentiality must be grounded on being; especially when it comes to infinities. In reality, you have an infinite effect with out a cause, and a reasonable person would say that out of nothing comes nothing. Therefore there is no reason for the potentiality of any conceivable event to exist; therefore an infinite chain of events ought not to exist in the first place, logically speaking; unless we invoke a timeless-creator.

To try an explain existence by making the past infinite, is to give potential events a false sense of necessity. Whether the past is infinite or not, it doesn’t have to exist. So there must be something outside of it that is making it exist.

 

[AnAtheist]

The fundamental problem any sort of reductionism has to confront is that, unlikely brain activity, SUBJECTIVE experience cannot be OBJECTIVELY observed.

Yes, and that applies to one’s own experiences too. One cannot observe oneself objectively. We cannot analyse ourselves, therefore I’d be very cautious with statements like “From my own expereince I know exactly how the human mind works”.

 

[James_S_Saint]

This means that each individual effect takes on the nature of a cause only by accident; they are not “cause” by nature of being. In other words, they are not ultimately responsible for any potentiality or being that might come to exists. That is to say, their ability to give causality is not irrespective of their existential environment or that which precedes their being. Hence; if the universe is an infinite chain of contingent events, then it is an infinite chain of potentiality; which means that every effect in the chain is a potential event that is not in itself—by itself—necessary.

But if every effect in the chain is unnecessary, if there is no ultimate cause in which the potentiality of a given chain of events ultimately rests and is given the necessity of being, then the potentiality in question is left unexplained as if to come out of nothing. Thus, one cannot say that the present event exists merely because of the sum total of all past events, since all past events are existentially dependent in principle on the notion of potential; and potentiality cannot meaningfully precede and infinite number of events, given that the potentiality to be is dependent on beings.

One must admit that an actual infinity of events ultimately precedes the potential to be, in so far as it must precede potentiality in order to be actual.

But as I have said already, an event does not exist outside of the potential to exist, and all potentiality must be grounded on being; especially when it comes to infinities.

Haha… You are seriously getting lost in your own words. Try saying those assertions much slower without using “potentiality”, “necessity”, or “actuality”.

 

[James_S_Saint]

If you can’t fake’em with the facts, then baffle’em with the bull?

"Son, obviously Santa Claus is real else the actuality of the potential for his actuality would be an uncaused necessity of potential reality, so nothing else could be possible."

Sounds like something I might be tempted to say to a 5 yrold.