Why can't matter be Self-Existent (the "First Cause")?

[RealisticCatholic]

And then I also talked about Big Bang cosmology, as an indication that physical reality is contingent, but then he said science is always changing and so the Big Bang can shown to be false one day…

I just feel like there was no way to win with him…

Of course the existence of God does not depend on how long the Universe has existed, but I was using the scientific evidence to show that the Universe as we know it is not actually necessary.

 

[IWantGod]

I just feel like there was no way to win with him…

Your right. Take badgerhoney for example. I imagine that he or she would say that there is no such thing as truth if he or she thought that they could avoid the conclusion that God exists.

It doesn’t matter how solid your argument is, they will never accept it and will imagine some way to find fault with it.

 

[IWantGod]

I will use a mathematical concept: “prime numbers” versus “composite numbers”. If there would be no way to find out if a specific number is a “prime” or “composite”, the definition would still be valid, but totally useless. In other words, the metaphysical distinction of “essence” and “accident” is a useless distinction if there is no epistemological method to “fill up” the empty categories. Suppose that some crazy mathematician would introduce the concept of “pretty” numbers as opposed to “ugly” numbers. Without an epistemological method to decide if “X” is pretty or ugly, the definition would still exist, but it would be an empty one - just like the “essence” and the “accident”.

Your good at making assertions. When you are ready to actually address my argument, i will reply.

 

[RealisticCatholic]

And the theist, using these arguments, is at least offering an explanation: God has an explanation within Himself.

And because everyone operates with the assumption, at least implicitly, that everything has an explanation, the theist is on the more sensible tract than someone who is just randomly deciding that the Ultimate Reality is “brute fact” (whereas everything else has an explanation!)

 

[niceatheist]

RealisticCatholic:

Why can’t “matter” like an atom or some fundamental particle be self-existent? And therefore be the ultimate explanation for existence?

Because even an atom has specific characteristics X (e.g. size of 62-520 pm, charge neutral, mass 1.67×10−27 to 4.52×10−25 kg, etc) and we know from logic that anything with characteristics X had a prior cause which caused it to have characteristics X, instead of characteristics Y. Just look at color of our hair, our skin, etc = all characteristics X caused by prior cause (our parents)

And yet somehow the logic is suspended when talking about the Prime Mover.

 

[CelticWarlord]

Father Robert Spitzer, PhD Physics, goes into this in depth. Physics can point to a finite beginning to the universe. Most of his video presentations are pretty long and you have to listen to a lot of them to glean the answers to this issue. Or get hold of some of his books. But here is a very good starting point that only takes a couple of minutes.

 

[RealisticCatholic]

Sorry, that is not an explanation. An explanation is to go from something which is reducing “something currently unknown or not understood” to something that is “already known or understood”. As for positing God as an explanation for the existence of the universe, the proper way to do it is: “An unknowable being, using unimaginable means made it somehow happen.” And that is as far from being an explanation as it can be.

What I’m saying is that everyone at least implicitly agrees (even in science) or operates daily life (how did this elephant get in my backyard?!) that everything has an explanation. Therefore, the theist’s account is more sensible because we say God has an explanation while many agnostics (maybe not you, but my friend, for example) would say ultimate reality is just “brute fact.”

And, the theist gets to God as self-explanatory through various arguments, like the ones that lead to God as fullness of being, or Pure Act, or the necessary reality.

Anything less, posited as ultimate reality, would lack self-explanation by the very arguments themselves.

 

[RealisticCatholic]

Arguments to God do not claim everything has a cause.

Rather, everything with parts has a cause. Or every contingent thing has a cause. Or everything whose essence is distinct from its act of existence has a cause. Or anything that is an admixture of potency and act (not fully actual) has a cause. etc.

These kinds of arguments, respectfully, end up saying that – therefore – ultimate reality:
-lacks parts of any kind, so is purely simple
-is not contingent so unrestricted
-is the fullness of being itself, or the “subsistent act of to be itself”
-is fully actual with NO potential, unchangeable

 

[niceatheist]

It looks like Aristotlean special pleading to me. Since we know nothing of the initial conditions, “parts” seems so generic and undescriptive as to be meaningless.

 

[TrueRomanCatholic]

I’m not sure what you’re asking, but it sounds like new age Christian science mumbo jumbo!

I’ll just sit in my corner and pray my rosary! Lol!!

 

[IWantGod]

it was an example to show that concept of essence is bogus.

No, you tried your best to give an example of how a categorisation can be objectively meaningless and then you asserted that this applies to essences and accidents. But that is not an argument.

It is true that somebody might be mistaken that some thing or other is an essence or an accident, but that is irrelevant. I argued that in general it is self-evident that there are different kinds of beings in terms of what they are, and that it must therefore be true that there are essences and accidents, because if there were not then all beings would be identical. It therefore follows necessarily that there are different natures in the world; and the Thomist categorises these natures in terms of essence and accident.

You have yet to actually prove that essences do not substantially exist. In fact reality becomes absurd if there are none.

 

[RealisticCatholic]

Something with parts presupposes a principle that “combines” those parts (not necessarily in time!). This is not just physical parts. If you follow Aristotle, then it counts for form and matter. If you follow Aquinas as well, then essence and existence. But you can follow neither and be fully materialist and reductionist, and it would still apply. Bottom-level reality cannot have parts, or else you’d just pass on explanation again.

Unless you give up and just claim brute fact.

 

[RealisticCatholic]

If @BadgerHoney didn’t agree that at least SOME essences exist, then he could not be forming an argument to the contrary, for he must presuppose his mind as a distinct “what” from other realities in the Universe.

So his very argument that there are not essences actually paradoxically presupposes that there are, if we are to take his argument seriously.

 

[niceatheist]

I think my point is more that since we know nothing about starting conditions, we can draw no meaningful conclusion at all. The idea that some physicists float (which at this point is just as much an expression of unevidenced metaphysics as claiming a Prime Mover) that the sum of all matter and energy in the Universe is 0, and the Universe exists because of some sort of primordial quantum instability, really says something similar, but without invoking any kind of independent entity custom-made to fit an Aristotlean argument. I’m not defending the quantum instability claim, since even the physicists who make it don’t pretend that has any kind of supporting evidence (beyond what we already know about quantum systems), but 0 or nothing would seem to fit the argument just as well as God.

 

[IWantGod]

Universe exists because of some sort of primordial quantum instability

How is this a metaphysical explanation for why the universe exists?

Do you understand the difference between a physical explanation and a metaphysical explanation?

 

[niceatheist]

Considering a primordial quantum instability idea has absolutely no evidence, and in a way predisposes some sort of prior time-space of some kind, I’d say it’s just about as metaphysical as invoking God. It’s sort of a Deism-lite.

 

[IWantGod]

Considering a primordial quantum instability idea has absolutely no evidence

Not only is there no evidence, it is not a metaphysical explanation for why physical reality exists even if it’s true.

 

[niceatheist]

Of course it’s an explanation, or at least just as much an explanation as invoking God. We still can’t say where the previous space-time came from, so can just as easily invoke “eternal” as any advocate of God would. At the end of the day, I’ll stand by what I always say; no one, not you, not me, not Aristotle or Aquinas as the mental hardware to actually comprehend true infinity and true nothingness.

 

[IWantGod]

Of course it’s an explanation

It’s not a metaphysical explanation. It’'s a physical explanation for what proceeds physically if it is correct. But it is not a metaphysical explanation for why physical reality exists at all. One would have to prove that physical reality is existentially necessary and is all that there is. Science cannot tell you anything about that.

Your materialism/metaphysical naturalism is a belief and nothing more.

 

[niceatheist]

I think you’re invoking of the word “proof” might be an example of unintentional irony.