Who created God?

[flyingfish]

Casual or causal?! You believe the universe occurred casually whereas I believe it has not only a Cause but a Purpose… Where do you get purposes from?
How do you** think**?

Causal, sorry.

I was thinking about what “matter” means. We call matter the stuff that obeys certain properties (namely the laws of physics we know). In the context of the universe being created, we might call the material universe all of spacetime and everything in it.

Say there is a God that is the reason the universe exist (I can’t really say cause, because cause implies creating in time, and you can’t create time itself. Time itself would simply be).

How would God relate to the universe? Would God be made up of stuff that responds to some set of laws (maybe different laws of physics than what we have?)? How would God-stuff interact with known-universe-stuff?

In my opinion there would have to be some relation. And so in that regard God would be in the broad category of “matter” as in stuff that has some properties (say physical laws). It might not look like the kind of thing we call matter etc.

 

[RobNY]

How would God relate to the universe? Would God be made up of stuff that responds to some set of laws (maybe different laws of physics than what we have?)? How would God-stuff interact with known-universe-stuff?

In my opinion there would have to be some relation. And so in that regard God would be in the broad category of “matter” as in stuff that has some properties (say physical laws). It might not look like the kind of thing we call matter etc.

You are affirming the thesis that:

Like things may only interact with like things. (Taking “like” to mean, in similar material constitution.)

Well, why in the world ought we to hold to that thesis?

-Rob

 

[flyingfish]

You are affirming the thesis that:

Like things may only interact with like things. (Taking “like” to mean, in similar material constitution.)

Well, why in the world ought we to hold to that thesis?

-Rob

I don’t know so much that it’s “like things may only interact with like things”, but the very definition of interaction is that there is some mechanism of interaction. What does it mean to interact?

For example, if you hit your desk your hand does not go through the desk, why? Most of matter is actually empty space, but the electromagnetic force does not allow this. This is an interaction.

If for example God wants to cause the universe or make a miracle, how would God do this? How would God interact with the stuff of the universe? What would the interaction consist of? What would it suggest about the composition/properties of God?

It seems to me that generally people just assume God “magically” does this and don’t think about it. But on a fundamental level there has to be a way, the “magic” has to have some way of functioning.

 

[tonyrey]

Causal, sorry.

I was thinking about what “matter” means. We call matter the stuff that obeys certain properties (namely the laws of physics we know). In the context of the universe being created, we might call the material universe all of spacetime and everything in it.

Say there is a God that is the reason the universe exist (I can’t really say cause, because cause implies creating in time, and you can’t create time itself. Time itself would simply be).

“reason” is the significant word because matter is “unreasonable”.

How would God relate to the universe?

The closest we can get to the way God relates to the universe is the way we relate to the things we create. We use our imagination and intelligence to design and produce works of art and technology.

Would God be made up of stuff that responds to some set of laws (maybe different laws of physics than what we have?)?

If God responds to some set of laws the laws are the Ultimate Reality, not God.

How would God-stuff interact with known-universe-stuff?

God knows! We don’t and probably never shall…

In my opinion there would have to be some relation. And so in that regard God would be in the broad category of “matter” as in stuff that has some properties (say physical laws). It might not look like the kind of thing we call matter etc.

How do you think?

I think it is simpler to regard God as quite different from matter - which does not explain itself and is the lowest aspect of reality rather than the highest: without consciousness, intelligence or purpose.

 

[flyingfish]

The closest we can get to the way God relates to the universe is the way we relate to the things we create. We use our imagination and intelligence to design and produce works of art and technology.

Okay, but our thoughts, our imagination, and our intelligence are the result of (material) electrochemical brain processes. When we make technology, it is matter interacting with matter.

I think it is simpler to regard God as quite different from matter - which does not explain itself and is the lowest aspect of reality rather than the highest: without consciousness, intelligence or purpose.

What does it mean to be quite different from matter? Does it mean that the properties God-stuff would have would be quite different (say it wouldn’t have the electromagnetic force, but something wildly different), or that it wouldn’t have any properties/mechanisms at all?

If God-stuff is completely different from observable universe stuff, how does God-stuff interact with observable-universe stuff? Say God wanted to move my computer 10 inches to the left, how would that be done on the microscopic level?

 

[RobNY]

I don’t know so much that it’s “like things may only interact with like things”, but the very definition of interaction is that there is some mechanism of interaction. What does it mean to interact?

For example, if you hit your desk your hand does not go through the desk, why? Most of matter is actually empty space, but the electromagnetic force does not allow this. This is an interaction.

If for example God wants to cause the universe or make a miracle, how would God do this? How would God interact with the stuff of the universe? What would the interaction consist of? What would it suggest about the composition/properties of God?

It seems to me that generally people just assume God “magically” does this and don’t think about it. But on a fundamental level there has to be a way, the “magic” has to have some way of functioning.

I wouldn’t say “magically.” I would just say “directly” and not mediately. God is unlike us in that He need not use instruments to cause anything.

If we want to understand God’s causation, we would do better to understand our causation (agent causation) than to abstract to event causation.

Consider that even your example takes ‘a hand hitting a desk.’ This is an example of event causation.

But there is also agent causation.

If your paradigm of causation is event causation, you will undoubtedly be misled concerning God’s causation.

-Rob

 

[flyingfish]

I wouldn’t say “magically.” I would just say “directly” and not mediately. God is unlike us in that He need not use instruments to cause anything.

If we want to understand God’s causation, we would do better to understand our causation (agent causation) than to abstract to event causation.

Consider that even your example takes ‘a hand hitting a desk.’ This is an example of event causation.

But there is also agent causation.

If your paradigm of causation is event causation, you will undoubtedly be misled concerning God’s causation.

-Rob

What is agent causation? Is it when a conscious mind causes something? The only example of this I have are our minds, which boil down to “event causation” if you want to call it that, since the workings of our minds boil down to events.

 

[RobNY]

What is agent causation? Is it when a conscious mind causes something?

I think you have the idea, but I think the emphasis on “consciousness” for being an agent is an (unfortunate) modern Cartesian problem.

The only example of this I have are our minds, which boil down to “event causation” if you want to call it that, since the workings of our minds boil down to events.

We only know event causation by analogy. With Thomas Reid, I hold that ‘event causation’-- which because it is so commonly observed, we wrongly think it is the primary example we know of causation-- is actually analogically dependent on our direct knowledge of our own agent causation.

I’m sure that a physicalist, such as yourself, could attempt to reduce agent causation to event causation, but it would be an after-the-fact theory (and as far as I can see, no even somewhat successful account of such a reduction has really been given). The problem, remains, then. At the very least, God is released from custody pending such a trial.

God bless,
Rob

 

[flyingfish]

I’m sure that a physicalist, such as yourself, could attempt to reduce agent causation to event causation, but it would be an after-the-fact theory (and as far as I can see, no even somewhat successful account of such a reduction has really been given).

We would both agree that agent causation can lead to event causation, right? (Such as God causing things to happen in the universe, or if you are a dualist our minds causing us to act in the universe).

This to me is the fundamental issue, and the same issue as with God creating/interacting with the universe.

My fundamental problem is: What does the boundary between “agent causation” and “event causation” look like? How does agent causation affect events on this boundary?

If they are made of fundamentally different things with no interaction mechanism, such a thing would seem an impossibility.

Thoughts?

 

[Lee_Aaronaldo]

Dear friends in Christ, indeed this is a very interesting thread to discuss about. Though many arguments about Who created God have been long refuted (If you were to accept!), yet people keep arguing about it due to the human’s nature of dissatisfaction.

Well for me I would like to give this simple explanation by first ask yourself this question:“Who created you?” Without a doubt, you answer will be: "My parents! (physical realm) or God! (spiritual realm).

I don’t think you will answer me like this:" My another parents created me!"or “My another God created me?” Does my explanation make sense or not? Feedback are all welcomed!

God Bless You all.

 

[RobNY]

We would both agree that agent causation can lead to event causation, right? (Such as God causing things to happen in the universe, or if you are a dualist our minds causing us to act in the universe).

This to me is the fundamental issue, and the same issue as with God creating/interacting with the universe.

My fundamental problem is: What does the boundary between “agent causation” and “event causation” look like? How does agent causation affect events on this boundary?

If they are made of fundamentally different things with no interaction mechanism, such a thing would seem an impossibility.

Thoughts?

flyingfish,

You are right to ask for “thoughts.” I need to adopt a more ‘dialogue’ tone here, and I haven’t been. My apologies. I’ll be a better philosophical partner from here on out.

In the modern era a very important thesis was proposed:

(A) No action at a distance.

The old, and messy, accounts of causation on the Aristotelian scheme had to be rejected based on this thesis. The model of physical causation was to be something like billiard balls. Force transfers upon the contact of two bodies. (Let’s ignore for now that thesis (A) seems to be even doubtful in our physical world. After all, gravity and fields of force don’t seem to be easily accommodated to such a thesis.)

Perhaps the ‘interaction’ problem which you propose suffers from assuming thesis (A). Asking what the interaction mechanism would have to be assumes that two things must ‘meet’ for the one to exercise causality on the other. ‘Meet’ is a word which connotes spatial contiguity. But such a thing is unnecessary unless you are already assuming (A).

At this point, let’s assume that we no longer hold to (A). What then is agent causation like? Whatever it is, it is certainly not imaginable if it is not spatial. But nothing non-physical is imaginable. After all, the faculty of imagination is a faculty which manipulates images, which are of physical qualities of things.

But that it is not imaginable is not sufficient reason for saying that it is incoherent or inconceivable.

If agent causation is “direct” as I suggested above, and not mediated, then it cannot be explained in physical terms. But neither can we take this as a weakness for any theory holding it.

What are your thoughts?

-Rob

 

[coolduude]

This might help solve the problem:

leaderu.com/truth/3truth11.html

I just don’t understand the actual infinte part. Craig tries to explain it but I really don’t understand what an actual infinite is and how it is relevant to an infinite regress.

take a look at this site and let me know what everyone thinks

 

[coolduude]

This might help solve the problem:

leaderu.com/truth/3truth11.html

I just don’t understand the actual infinte part. Craig tries to explain it but I really don’t understand what an actual infinite is and how it is relevant to an infinite regress.

take a look at this site and let me know what everyone thinks

Sooooo… anyone take a look yet?

 

[flyingfish]

If agent causation is “direct” as I suggested above, and not mediated, then it cannot be explained in physical terms. But neither can we take this as a weakness for any theory holding it.

What are your thoughts?

-Rob

I don’t make the distinction between “physical” and “non physical”. The concept of matter that I have is: something, we don’t quite know what, that seems to follow certain properties (namely the laws of physics). Our brains interpret our interactions with this “stuff”, and we get the “feel” of matter.

Personally, if I were to believe in God, I would think it was also made of something that would follow certain properties (maybe these would be the necessarily-true properties), that these properties would through interactions within God give rise to its mind, and that in order for God to cause/intervene in the universe it would have to have some ability to interact with our “stuff”. The interaction could be mediated by something we can’t conceive, but it would still have to be mediated by something.

I have a fundamental problem with 2 entities (the known universe and God), that are made of fundamentally different stuff with no connection. As long as a connection exists, it’s not really 2 distinct entities, but really 1.

I hope I am able to explain myself, it’s kind of like abstracting the concept of matter to mean not necessarily what we experience in our limited section of the universe, but to include a general category of things that are described by some set of properties.

 

[tonyrey]

Okay, but our thoughts, our imagination, and our intelligence are the result of (material) electrochemical brain processes. When we make technology, it is matter interacting with matter.

How do you **know our thoughts, our imagination, and our intelligence are the result **of (material) electrochemical brain processes. There is evidence that they are related but not that they are caused by those processes.

What does it mean to be quite different from matter? Does it mean that the properties God-stuff would have would be quite different (say it wouldn’t have the electromagnetic force, but something wildly different), or that it wouldn’t have any properties/mechanisms at all?

Quite different. Why do you assume everything is material?

If God-stuff is completely different from observable universe stuff, how does God-stuff interact with observable-universe stuff? Say God wanted to move my computer 10 inches to the left, how would that be done on the microscopic level?

How do you move your computer? (I don’t mean with your hands but with your decision to move it.)

 

[Flatty10]

"There are only 2 ways to exist

Contingent - receiving existence

or

Necessary - being existence itself

A contingent being cannot be the ultimate cause of the existence of something else since it has only received existence, The only explanation for the contingent beings is a necessary being. The necessary being is given the name God

The Law of Causality states that : “Anything which begins to exist must have been brought into existence by something distinct from itself.”

If we consider all created things(called creatures for example) something caused the existence of every single one of them. It could be a plant, a giraffe human being etc.

so what caused the giraffe…its parents…and what caused them…its parents, this is an infinite cycle which cannot work. Something has to have started off the whole process for it to exist. for every receiver there has to be a giver. So for the 1st receiver there has to be a first giver who never received existence because he or God is existence itself."

Paul Kelly

 

[flyingfish]

How do you **know our thoughts, our imagination, and our intelligence are the result **of (material) electrochemical brain processes. There is evidence that they are related but not that they are caused by those processes.

The evidence that mind=brain activity is overwhelming. Certain brain injury takes away a person’s morality, medications affecting the brain can change personality, pretty much all functions of the human being like language, like movement are tied to particular areas of the brain, memory is located in the brain, and damage can take away memory and strip a person of much of what they are and so on.

I certainly don’t know that there isn’t a ghost in our heads that’s really controlling everything, but it seems like an extraneous and unnecessary proposition. There is no evidence of it.

Quite different. Why do you assume everything is material?

Because the natural world is the only thing that I’ve ever experienced. There is no evidence that there’s anything else.

 

[RobNY]

I don’t make the distinction between “physical” and “non physical”.

Materialism makes explaining almost anything extremely difficult.

Personally, if I were to believe in God, I would think it was also made of something that would follow certain properties (maybe these would be the necessarily-true properties), that these properties would through interactions within God give rise to its mind, and that in order for God to cause/intervene in the universe it would have to have some ability to interact with our “stuff”. The interaction could be mediated by something we can’t conceive, but it would still have to be mediated by something.

If I thought that God would have to be made out of matter if He were to exist, I too would be an atheist. St. Augustine excoriates his younger self for believing a theory by which God was simply extremely rarefied matter. It is a philosophically incoherent view (somewhere around books 5-6 in the Confessions, I think).

I recommend that you read St. Augustine’s Confessions. Besides being great literature, and very insightful about human psychology, you might find his treatment of this problem helpful.

I have a fundamental problem with 2 entities (the known universe and God), that are made of fundamentally different stuff with no connection. As long as a connection exists, it’s not really 2 distinct entities, but really 1.

God is not made of stuff. Perhaps there is a problem with two things made of very different stuff of interacting, but God is not made of stuff.

The evidence that mind=brain activity is overwhelming. Certain brain injury takes away a person’s morality, medications affecting the brain can change personality, pretty much all functions of the human being like language, like movement are tied to particular areas of the brain, memory is located in the brain, and damage can take away memory and strip a person of much of what they are and so on.

There are two theses which are equally compatible with such evidence.

I. The mind is wholly material.

II. The mind requires something material for its operation.

Note that under either of these theses your counterexamples are completely accounted for. If it is necessary for me to have a functioning brain in order to think (take thinking in the broad Cartesian sense to include everything else), despite also having an immaterial intellect (this is the classical Aristotelian position), then it would be the case that whenever my brain is damaged, I would be impeded in my ability to think.

But if that’s the case, then strictly speaking none of your examples count as “evidence” for thesis I over thesis II. Thus the claim that there is “overwhelming evidence” that the mind is only material is spurious. In fact, there is no evidence that the mind is wholly/only material.

Because the natural world is the only thing that I’ve ever experienced. There is no evidence that there’s anything else.

Note that there is a distinction between your two sentences. If by, “that’s all I’ve ever experienced” you mean that you’ve literally never had sense experience of something immaterial, then you’re absolutely right. Strictly speaking nothing immaterial is susceptible to being taken in by any of the senses.

But that doesn’t mean that one cannot have evidence of such things.

-Rob

 

[flyingfish]

I recommend that you read St. Augustine’s Confessions. Besides being great literature, and very insightful about human psychology, you might find his treatment of this problem helpful.

I actually read it a while ago.

God is not made of stuff. Perhaps there is a problem with two things made of very different stuff of interacting, but God is not made of stuff.

I guess you’d say God is made of spirit, right? But spirit is also a kind of stuff. Some arguments for the existence of God is that God’s existence is necessary and self explanatory, where would these properties be contained? Why not in whatever God is made out of? How would God’s mind function?

Why are you so opposed to having God be made out of something?

Note that under either of these theses your counterexamples are completely accounted for. If it is necessary for me to have a functioning brain in order to think (take thinking in the broad Cartesian sense to include everything else), despite also having an immaterial intellect (this is the classical Aristotelian position), then it would be the case that whenever my brain is damaged, I would be impeded in my ability to think.

But if that’s the case, then strictly speaking none of your examples count as “evidence” for thesis I over thesis II. Thus the claim that there is “overwhelming evidence” that the mind is only material is spurious. In fact, there is no evidence that the mind is wholly/only material.

Well, I agree with you. You can certainly say that there is an immaterial component to the mind that requires the brain to function (like say a soul interacts with the brain matter, which again to me is the interaction problem), and when the memory part of the brain fails the soul still has the memories and you’d get them back when you die, but you can’t get them in life.

It would be consistent to think this way, but in my opinion it is an extraneous proposition. There is no evidence that it’s needed to explain how the mind works, there is no evidence that it exists.

 

[RobNY]

I guess you’d say God is made of spirit, right? But spirit is also a kind of stuff. Some arguments for the existence of God is that God’s existence is necessary and self explanatory, where would these properties be contained? Why not in whatever God is made out of? How would God’s mind function?

No, I wouldn’t. I would say that God is not made out of anything.

Spiritual ‘substances’ (don’t let the colloquial 21st century usage of ‘substance’ mislead you, as a philosophical term it does not mean or imply material stuff) are not made out of anything. That’s what it means to be a spiritual substance. To assume that something must be made out of stuff to be or to function is simply to beg the question in favor of materialism.

Why are you so opposed to having God be made out of something?

If God were made out of some material, He would be limited by the limits of that material.

Well, I agree with you. You can certainly say that there is an immaterial component to the mind that requires the brain to function (like say a soul interacts with the brain matter, which again to me is the interaction problem), and when the memory part of the brain fails the soul still has the memories and you’d get them back when you die, but you can’t get them in life.

It would be consistent to think this way, but in my opinion it is an extraneous proposition. There is no evidence that it’s needed to explain how the mind works, there is no evidence that it exists.

Ah, well, but I think it’s an important first step. At this point, you are now philosophically open to being shown evidence that there is such a sort of mind. x

The usual argument from the Aristotelian tradition is that concepts are the sorts of things which need an immaterial organ to have (i.e., concepts not being material, the intellect must not be material as well). I don’t have any problem with this argument, but it is difficult to formulate it without begging the question.

There is also an argument to be made from the imbalance of possible thoughts as compared to possible brain states, i.e., that since the number of possible thoughts outruns the number of possible brain states, that at least some thoughts must be immaterial.

But I’m not sure now is the time to get into these arguments.

-Rob