Where does this logical argument against creatio ex nihilo break down?

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NowHereThis

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  1. As perfect being, God is actuality with no potentiality.
  2. God’s omnipotence does not require or allow God to violate the laws of logic.
  3. Nothing can come into actual existence without existing potentially first.
  4. If nothing but God exists prior to creation, then no potentiality exists outside of God prior to creation.
  5. No potentiality exists prior to creation. (from 1 and 4)
  6. If God is the only actually existing thing prior to creation, then nothing else can come into actual existence (from 2, 3 and 5)
 
NowHereThis said:
  1. As perfect being, God is actuality with no potentiality.
  2. God’s omnipotence does not require or allow God to violate the laws of logic.
  3. Nothing can come into actual existence without existing potentially first.
  4. If nothing but God exists prior to creation, then no potentiality exists outside of God prior to creation.
  5. No potentiality exists prior to creation. (from 1 and 4)
  6. If God is the only actually existing thing prior to creation, then nothing else can come into actual existence (from 2, 3 and 5)
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I’d say the main problem with this argument is that time only started to exist with the creation. Thus “prior to creation” is undefined. And so at step 4 you have a premise that is either false or meaningless.

Of course, it might be that there are other problems, but perhaps someone else will handle them (if there are any).
 
AveOTheotokos said:
Best resources for these kinds of questions:

Thomas Aquinas Summa Contra Gentiles Book 1, GOD

(Numbers 74-76 may be of help)

Thomas Aquinas Summa Contra Gentiles Book 2, CREATION

(Numbers 15-20)

They are laid out in a statement and response format so you can easily find relevant answers.
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Good advice!

For example, http://dhspriory.org/thomas/ContraGentiles2.htm#18 is almost wholly about that. Let’s say, “For creation is not a change, but the very dependency of the created act of being upon the principle from which it is produced.” or “Nevertheless, creation appears to be a kind of change from the point of view of our way of understanding only, namely, in that our intellect grasps one and the same thing as not existing before and as existing afterwards.”.
 
You have an argument for the conclusion that time only started to exist with the creation? Scientific models of the universe break down at a planck-length of space-time, so what came before is not observable by us, but that’s not the same thing as saying that no time existed before our ability to observe it began. Beginning to measure time at the planck-length does not say that time did not exist at all before any more than beginning to measure time from the birth of Jesus or the Hegira of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina means that there was no time before those events.
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Creation came from the will of God. Is the will of God Nihil?
 
If it (a potential thing) wasn’t created out of nothing then it wasn’t “created”. It just always existed.

Therefore IT didn’t need a Creator. In fact a Creator logically can’t exist because no things can be “created” (caused to exist)

Thus there is no cause - God. God does not exist. He is ‘nothing’ and nowhere.

But there’s the problem. If a’thing’ like God or the universe or a Shakespearean play can either exist or NOT exist then who or what determines which it is - exist or not exist?
 
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What is “potential existence?” It seems to me that everything that can exist has potential existence in the mind of God.

God is pure spirit. He does not exist in time or space. He has no extension in time or space. Only physical matter/energy has extension in time and space. With God there is no before; there is no after.
 
NowHereThis said:
You have an argument for the conclusion that time only started to exist with the creation?
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At this point I do not need any argument. It is sufficient that 1) I make an assertion, 2) it hasn’t been shown to be wrong, incompatible with my other beliefs, or unlikely, 3) if it is true, the argument in the original post falls apart.

But then, in fact, I do have an argument that should make the conclusion at least probable. Let’s look:
NowHereThis said:
Scientific models of the universe break down at a planck-length of space-time, so what came before is not observable by us, but that’s not the same thing as saying that no time existed before our ability to observe it began. Beginning to measure time at the planck-length does not say that time did not exist at all before any more than beginning to measure time from the birth of Jesus or the Hegira of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina means that there was no time before those events.
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You are close, but not quite. Instead of Big Bang, consider relativity of time (Special Theory of Relativity will be sufficient). For the claim that there is no “time prior to creation” is a special case of applying the “definition” of time.

As Theory of Relativity tells us, time is relative, because it depends on a frame of reference. If we change a frame of reference, time starts to flow differently. And frame of reference can only be associated with a material object. Thus if we had no material objects, we would have no frames of reference, and therefore, time is left undefined.

And “prior to creation” there were no material objects with which frames of reference could be associated. Therefore, there was no time “then”.

Not that Aristotle (http://dhspriory.org/thomas/Physics4.htm#17) needed Theory of Relativity to notice that time is “the number of motion” (that is, of change), nor did St. Thomas Aquinas (http://dhspriory.org/thomas/summa/FP/FP046.html#FPQ46A3THEP1) needed it to find out that time started with creation… 🙂
 
Relativity would be one of those models I mentioned that breaks down at the planck-length, so attempting to draw the conclusion of no time below a planck-length from it is unjustified.

Also, Thomas and Aristotle disagree on this point, because Aristotle did believe in an eternal universe, and Thomas did not because of revelation…
 
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According to classical theology, God is fully actual with no potential. The ideas in the mind of God would be platonic ideas, which are also fully actual. To claim that there is potential within God out of which things can be created is the doctrine of creatio ex deo, which is not the view I’m arguing against.
 
NowHereThis said:
Relativity would be one of those models I mentioned that breaks down at the planck-length, so attempting to draw the conclusion of no time below a planck-length from it is unjustified.

Also, Thomas and Aristotle disagree on this point, because Aristotle did believe in an eternal universe, and Thomas did not because of revelation…
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And all that is completely irrelevant.

First, at this point it is you who have to give an argument. You have to show that my claim is at least “improbable”. If it is merely “badly proved”, “unproved” or “uncertain”, your argument falls apart just as well. There is a reason why I only aimed at “at least probable”. 🙂

Second, my claim (the one you have to disprove) is not about Big Bang (I get an impression that you think it is). In fact, it is about relationship between time and Universe (change, material objects, etc.).

Third, therefore, singularity at Big Bang is irrelevant. Take “1 year before Creation/Big Bang”, if you wish. There is no singularity there - and, if that’s the only problem, our Physics could be expected to work. But there is no Universe. And, as our Physics tells us, there is no time “then”.

Fourth, since beginning of Universe as such is irrelevant here, opinions about it are irrelevant too.
 
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  1. If “before creation” is meaningless or false, then God has always been creating.
  2. If God has always been creating, then the universe has always actually existed.
  3. Things which have always actually existed need no creator to bring them from potential to actual existence,
  4. Contradiction between 1 and 3.
Conclusion: “before creation” is not meaningless or false.
 
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NowHereThis said:
  1. If “before creation” is meaningless or false, then God has always been creating.
  2. If God has always been creating, then the universe has always actually existed.
  3. Things which have always actually existed need no creator to bring them from potential to actual existence,
  4. Contradiction between 1 and 3.
Conclusion: “before creation” is not meaningless or false.
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You just couldn’t imagine time not existing, could you? 🙂

Yes, imagining time not existing is hard. That’s why you shouldn’t use your imagination here. Use just reason.
NowHereThis said:
  1. If “before creation” is meaningless or false, then God has always been creating.
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Let’s take an analogy. Do you see a problem with such statement: “If ‘natural number less than 1’ is meaningless or false, then all natural numbers are 1.”?

Yes, in that case it is easy to see that conclusion doesn’t follow. Well, neither does the conclusion follow here.

If you don’t believe me, try to split this step. In fact, your steps in many cases seem to be a bit too “large”, “splitable”. Just compare your steps with what can be seen in, let’s say, Natural Deduction | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (“Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy” article on natural deduction, linear proofs).
 
The answer lies in the question of what makes something a potential in the first place and what it means for something to potentially exist.

I could tell you the answers of course but that wouldn’t be fun at all.
 
No, actually, I don’t have a problem with that statement, because natural numbers do move by single positive whole increments, so in a sense, they are all “one” in themselves. They only receive different labels in relation to how many other increments there are around them.

Look, if God is infinite and eternal, then it makes no sense to start his timeline with creation. He has a straight, undivided horizontal line of time that runs on forever. It’s b-series time. The universe has A-series time: split up into moments, divisible into past, present and future, with only one moment existing at any given time, and drawn parallel to God’s timeline. But I’m not going to pretend that only the a-series time of the universe counts as “time”, and that there was no “before creation” in God’s timeline from the perspective of the universe. If you draw it out, you’ll see that there clearly was.
 
NowHereThis said:
No, actually, I don’t have a problem with that statement, because natural numbers do move by single positive whole increments, so in a sense, they are all “one” in themselves. They only receive different labels in relation to how many other increments there are around them.

Look, if God is infinite and eternal, then it makes no sense to start his timeline with creation. He has a straight, undivided horizontal line of time that runs on forever. It’s b-series time. The universe has A-series time: split up into moments, divisible into past, present and future, with only one moment existing at any given time, and drawn parallel to God’s timeline. But I’m not going to pretend that only the a-series time of the universe counts as “time”, and that there was no “before creation” in God’s timeline from the perspective of the universe. If you draw it out, you’ll see that there clearly was.
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God does not move from one moment to the next. There is no such thing as God-time.
 
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Sure there is, it’s just a block of non-beginning, non-ending B-series time. But its still time. The defining feature of b-series time is that there are no “moments” to move between because it exists all at once as a chunk
 
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In “b-series” time, tenses like “past”, “present” and “future” aren’t used, because the whole series exists equally at once.
 
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