Why does the first cause have to be God?

[polytropos]

That is a more restrictive definition than the one I was using. So does not change my point.

Your point (in the part I quoted, in my interpretation - so correct me if I am wrong) was that it could not be claimed that God simultaneously exists and is not in the universe, ie. if your point is to be valid, it is because it is inconsistent to say that God both exists and is outside the universe. The definition of the universe that I proposed (the totality of physical being) does change your point because it excludes God. In one case, you are arguing for the logical inconsistency of the Catholic position (God cannot both exist and be outside of the universe), and in the other case, you are shifting the burden of proof onto me to define what I mean by God’s “existence” (as you do later in your post).

I think a common problem in these debates is that theists start with a lot of assumptions about God - that he exists, obviously, and a lot of points like yours, giving him special status. So they then fail to see how this colours their language, and that as a result, from the atheist’s perspective, they have skipped over essential steps in their argument, effectively slipping in those preconceptions as unstated axioms, and so have not proven their argument. At best they have shown that their concept of God is internally coherent.

Actually I did not think (and certainly did not claim) that I had proved God’s existence, and I do not intend to join the argument. I actually was just showing that the Catholic concept of God is internally coherent. (Hence the fact that I was correcting an assumption you were making about the Catholic argument that would make it internally incoherent, rather than refuting your whole argument.) As I just pointed out, you were suggesting that God cannot both exist and be outside of “the universe.”

I do not suggest that this invalidates your argument. It allows you to argue against the Catholic position rather than what you merely think the Catholic position is.

These preconceptions can also colour their perception of atheists’ comments. For example: without such preconceptions, the conclusion that ‘everything that exists’ must include any existent cause of ‘everything that exists’ is obvious - the confusion is caused (I assume) by the preconception that God is somehow seperate and not ‘part of the Universe’ even when I had clearly defined ’ Universe’ as ‘everything that exists’!

And the tacit assumption here, when we are talking about existence, is that ‘everything that exists in the way we understand matter to exist’ must include any existent cause of ‘everything that exists in the way we understand matter to exist.’ In this way, it is easy to establish that God must exist in the way we understand matter to exist, must likewise have a cause Himself; therefore, the Catholic argument is incoherent, because God can’t have a cause. I get that your intention in establishing such a definition for the universe is to make it incoherent for anyone to claim that God exists and is outside of it, or in fact, for a God with the properties that Catholics attribute to Him to exist at all. Catholics know that it is impossible for the first cause to be part of the the universe, since that would require the “first” cause to have a cause as well.

So at that stage of the conversation the theist has slipped in the assumption that ‘God exists and is seperate from the Universe’ without proving it and apparently without considering its coherence, given the definition of ‘universe’ being used.

I apologize if it seemed like this was what I was doing. I think that you’ve established terms of the argument that do not allow the Catholic position to be actually argued. Your motive is to disprove the Catholic God; I am making sure that you don’t waste any time disproving something that is not the Catholic God. But I don’t think any Catholic cares to argue that a first cause that is part of the universe is the Catholic God, because that would not be true.

Oh dear, it appears I am getting sucked in.

 

[DrTaffy]

Your point (in the part I quoted, in my interpretation - so correct me if I am wrong) was that it could not be claimed that God simultaneously exists and is not in the universe, ie. if your point is to be valid, it is because it is inconsistent to say that God both exists and is outside the universe.

‘The Universe’ as I defined it when I was pressed about what I think, yes. I have, on the whole, resisted making assertions about what I believe (as opposed to questions or criticisms about what catholics believe) due to the nature of this forum, but on this occasion what I wrote explicitly referred to what I think and what catholics therefore had to prove to convince one who did not share their beliefs.

You might want to start at post #90 and refresh your memory of what we are talking about.

In that post, in response to a direct question, I asserted that:

The Universe (literally ‘everything that exists’) clearly ‘exists under its own causal power.’

Note that I am clear about what I mean about ‘the Universe’ - possible aside, should I have been clearer about what I mean by ‘exists’ or ‘causes’? Do ‘the laws of logic’ count as ‘existent things’ and can they be counted as ‘causes’?

So no - this is not about how I misunderstood what the catholic argument is. If anything you have misunderstood what my argument is and what is lacking from yours for it to be convincing to one who is not already convinced.

The definition of the universe that I proposed (the totality of physical being) does change your point because it excludes God.

Which is a perfect example of what I mean by your preconceptions colouring your language.

I would actually agree that I do not like the idea of something ‘just existing’ without a cause of any kind. (But I would not confuse that with thinking that I have proven that something existing without a cause is impossible, as I might have done by logically showing that such an assumption necessarily lead to a logical contradiction.)

By excluding, without explanation, ‘God’ from the set of things which ‘cannot’ exist without a cause, you are begging the question. You have committed a fallacy and the ‘proof of God’ is invalid. It doesn’t prove that God does not exist, it just fails to prove that he does.

And no, it does not change my argument. You cannot go through someone else’s argument and redefine their terms to invalidate their argument.

I do not suggest that this invalidates your argument. It allows you to argue against the Catholic position rather than what you merely think the Catholic position is.

No - what it does is try to clarify to catholics why their argument fails to non catholics. As I put it back in post #90:

So the question is whether it is justifiable to subdivide the Universe into one bit (or more) that ‘exists under its own causal power’ and the rest that relies on part A. And then there is the question of what the nature of part(s) A would be - which gets us back to the actual topic of the thread, if anyone cares.

So why is it impossible for everything else to ‘exist under its own causal power’, but not so for ‘God’?

I get that your intention in establishing such a definition for the universe is to make it incoherent for anyone to claim that God exists and is outside of it, or in fact, for a God with the properties that Catholics attribute to Him to exist at all. Catholics know that it is impossible for the first cause to be part of the the universe, since that would require the “first” cause to have a cause as well.

You don’t get to tell me what my intentions are.

For that matter do you disagree that it is incoherent for anyone to claim that God exists and is outside of ‘everything that exists’ or not?

If not, how do you justify splitting ‘everything that exists’ into two parts and claiming that only one part can ‘exist under its own causal power’?

I apologize if it seemed like this was what I was doing.

Not you specifically (although you do do so explicitly above) but theists in general.

I think that you’ve established terms of the argument that do not allow the Catholic position to be actually argued.

I have stripped it of preconceptions that are not generally accepted, especially by atheists. If your argument cannot proven without those preconceptions, implying that you cannot prove those preconceptions from first principles, then you do not have a proof of the existence of God.

Your motive is to disprove the Catholic God;

Again, you do not get to dictate to me what my motives are. I know that far better than you, and the one you attribute to me is both insulting and arguably against the rules of this forum.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

‘The Universe’ as I defined it when I was pressed about what I think, yes. I have, on the whole, resisted making assertions about what I believe (as opposed to questions or criticisms about what catholics believe) due to the nature of this forum, but on this occasion what I wrote explicitly referred to what I think and what catholics therefore had to prove to convince one who did not share their beliefs.

You might want to start at post #90 and refresh your memory of what we are talking about.

In that post, in response to a direct question, I asserted that:

Note that I am clear about what I mean about ‘the Universe’ - possible aside, should I have been clearer about what I mean by ‘exists’ or ‘causes’? Do ‘the laws of logic’ count as ‘existent things’ and can they be counted as ‘causes’?

So no - this is not about how I misunderstood what the catholic argument is. If anything you have misunderstood what my argument is and what is lacking from yours for it to be convincing to one who is not already convinced.

Which is a perfect example of what I mean by your preconceptions colouring your language.

I would actually agree that I do not like the idea of something ‘just existing’ without a cause of any kind. (But I would not confuse that with thinking that I have proven that something existing without a cause is impossible, as I might have done by logically showing that such an assumption necessarily lead to a logical contradiction.)

By excluding, without explanation, ‘God’ from the set of things which ‘cannot’ exist without a cause, you are begging the question. You have committed a fallacy and the ‘proof of God’ is invalid. It doesn’t prove that God does not exist, it just fails to prove that he does.

And no, it does not change my argument. You cannot go through someone else’s argument and redefine their terms to invalidate their argument.

No - what it does is try to clarify to catholics why their argument fails to non catholics. As I put it back in post #90:

So why is it impossible for everything else to ‘exist under its own causal power’, but not so for ‘God’?

You don’t get to tell me what my intentions are.

For that matter do you disagree that it is incoherent for anyone to claim that God exists and is outside of ‘everything that exists’ or not?

If not, how do you justify splitting ‘everything that exists’ into two parts and claiming that only one part can ‘exist under its own causal power’?

Not you specifically (although you do do so explicitly above) but theists in general.

I have stripped it of preconceptions that are not generally accepted, especially by atheists. If your argument cannot proven without those preconceptions, implying that you cannot prove those preconceptions from first principles, then you do not have a proof of the existence of God.

Again, you do not get to dictate to me what my motives are. I know that far better than you, and the one you attribute to me is both insulting and arguably against the rules of this forum.

Whatever the case, it is clear that no one could prove to you that God exists. That does not mean he does not exist. Neither you nor anyone else can prove that. Again we ( many here and elsewhere ) have given good reasons which are reasonable enough to open minds. Linus2nd

 

[polytropos]

You don’t get to tell me what my intentions are.

Again, you do not get to dictate to me what my motives are. I know that far better than you, and the one you attribute to me is both insulting and arguably against the rules of this forum.

I apologize. I supposed that you had an interest in the logical conclusion of the first cause not being God, but that was unwarranted.

Note that I am clear about what I mean about ‘the Universe’ - possible aside, should I have been clearer about what I mean by ‘exists’ or ‘causes’?

I don’t think I would expect you to have been clearer about what you mean by “exists,” although I do think it’s relevant.

Do ‘the laws of logic’ count as ‘existent things’ and can they be counted as ‘causes’?

You may have your own thoughts on this, but I would say that the laws of logic are not existent in the way that matter (or God) is. They are not things and they do not cause things to happen; they do accurately account relations between real things and can be abstracted and applied.

I would actually agree that I do not like the idea of something ‘just existing’ without a cause of any kind. (But I would not confuse that with thinking that I have proven that something existing without a cause is impossible, as I might have done by logically showing that such an assumption necessarily lead to a logical contradiction.)

That is where I find the definition of “exists” to be relevant. We think, “Everything that exists has a cause.” Those who find infinite regress problematic go on to say that something must not have a cause, hence something must exist in another analogical way.

By excluding, without explanation, ‘God’ from the set of things which ‘cannot’ exist without a cause, you are begging the question. You have committed a fallacy and the ‘proof of God’ is invalid. It doesn’t prove that God does not exist, it just fails to prove that he does.

I was not advancing a formal argument. However, I would not begin by saying that “what I would like God to be” is absolved from having a cause. I would argue that everything material has a cause so some cause has to be immaterial and not have a cause. (I also would not claim at this point that such a cause is God.)

No - what it does is try to clarify to catholics why their argument fails to non catholics. As I put it back in post #90:

So why is it impossible for everything else to ‘exist under its own causal power’, but not so for ‘God’?

As I understand it, the argument for a first cause is more: If all ‘existent’ things have a cause outside of themselves, and if infinite regress is impossible, then the must exist something that does not have a cause outside of itself. Those who (like you?) do not find infinite regress problematic would not agree that there is a contradiction. But as the argument goes, you assume that everything has a cause, and by impossibility of infinite regress, conclude that something must not have a cause. Proving that this is God would be another argument (the subject of this thread, but not what I have been arguing).

For that matter do you disagree that it is incoherent for anyone to claim that God exists and is outside of ‘everything that exists’ or not?

Yes, I disagree, and this is why I was nitpicking about language. Such a question implies that disagreement violates the principle of non-contradiction; it does not because I disagree insofar that I would say that God and ‘everything that exists’ do not exist in the same way.

If you are using the same predicate for ‘God’ and for ‘everything,’ then I agree, the statement is incoherent, since nothing could exist like everything else and simultaneously not be part of ‘everything else’ (and because God does not exist in the same way as everything else). I disagree in the sense that if I were making the statement, I would be more precise about what I mean by ‘exists’ so the statement would not be a logical contradiction. (It would also, obviously, not be a full argument containing my reasoning for using different definitions of existence.)

If not, how do you justify splitting ‘everything that exists’ into two parts and claiming that only one part can ‘exist under its own causal power’?

Assume: The existence of everything is contingent upon something else for its causal power (ie. we will not split ‘everything that exists’ into two parts). Then the universe does not exist under its own causal power. Then there is something other than the universe that causes the universe. But the universe is ‘everything that exists’ so nothing exists outside of it. This is a contradiction. Therefore the existence of something is not contingent upon something else.

Determining that the ‘something’ is God is another argument, which is the subject of this thread but which I’m not arguing here.

 

[DrTaffy]

I apologize. I supposed that you had an interest in the logical conclusion of the first cause not being God, but that was unwarranted.

You are doing it again. You do not get to tell me what my intentions are, nor what my motives are, nor what my interests are, with or without blatantly insincere ‘apologies’.

Note that it is perfectly possible to be interested in the logical conclusion of whether or not the first cause was God without in any way justifying you claiming that “your intention in establishing such a definition for the universe is to make it incoherent for anyone to claim that God exists” or that “Your motive is to disprove the Catholic God”.

Now if you cannot continue this conversation in an adult manner without any further personal comments about me, we are done.

You may have your own thoughts on this, but I would say that the laws of logic are not existent in the way that matter (or God) is. They are not things and they do not cause things to happen; they do accurately account relations between real things and can be abstracted and applied.

Yet the laws of logic do influence, concretely, both matter and (allegedly) God. how is this not ‘causation’ in the way that the many ‘causes’ of Aristotle and Aquinas are ‘causes’?

DrTaffy;10807383:

By excluding, without explanation, ‘God’ from the set of things which ‘cannot’ exist without a cause, you are begging the question. You have committed a fallacy and the ‘proof of God’ is invalid. It doesn’t prove that God does not

exist, it just fails to prove that he does.

I was not advancing a formal argument.

So what are you doing? If you are not defending the assertion that the argument from first causes, in whatever form, ‘proves’ God’s existence (but, for example, only shows that God as a first cause is logically consistent, if not proven to be true or necessary) then we have no disagreement.

I would argue that everything material has a cause so some cause has to be immaterial and not have a cause. (I also would not claim at this point that such a cause is God.)

(emphasis added)

Why do you add ‘material’ to that assertion? Sure, let us say that it is, taken literally, true that we do not observe any material thing that is uncaused. (For the sake of this section of the argument, I am ignoring quantum mechanical arguments for ‘uncaused’ events). But neither do we observe immaterial uncaused things, so adding in the qualification ‘material’ serves only to set you up for the unjustified assertion that the uncaused cause must be immaterial.

i) This is an empirical argument. It is not therefore rigorous. If I see 100, or 1000000 or 1000000000 white sheep and no black sheep, that does not prove that there are no black sheep
ii) it is deliberately skewed. If we see nothing that is uncaused, and nothing that is immaterial, this does not justify linking ‘being uncaused’ with ‘being immaterial’ - at best the parsimonious empirical conclusion is that nothing is uncaused and nothing is immaterial.
iii) you have not, of course, shown that merely accepting this empirical conclusion that nothing is uncaused is not a perfectly logical course.

Yet another way of putting it. If a pastafarian (assuming that you are familiar with the flying spaghetti monster) started his argument by saying that “we do not observe any thing that is not made of sentient levitational pasta and that is uncaused”, this is also true (taken literally, unless you are on drugs) and yet you would presumably say “hold on, why do you add that ridiculous restriction?”

In this case you can probably see that the pastafarian is trying to lead the argument and evidence to the conclusion he wants, rather than the more parsimonious conclusion that is actually justified. The same holds true of your argument.

As I understand it, the argument for a first cause is more: If all ‘existent’ things have a cause outside of themselves, and if infinite regress is impossible, then the must exist something that does not have a cause outside of itself.

You contradict yourself. If all existent things have a cause outside of themselves, nothing that does not have a cause outside of itself can exist.

Those who (like you?) do not find infinite regress problematic would not agree that there is a contradiction.

I do not see a logically rigorous objection to infinite regress, despite many requests to those who object to it. I don’t like it, but that is no argument.

Yes, I disagree, and this is why I was nitpicking about language. Such a question implies that disagreement violates the principle of non-contradiction; it does not because I disagree insofar that I would say that God and ‘everything that exists’ do not exist in the same way.

So what? If they exist they exist. You can postulate different modes of existence without in any way invalidating the logical argument I posed.

Assume: The existence of everything is contingent upon something else for its causal power (ie. we will not split ‘everything that exists’ into two parts).

You just did. That is the ‘everything’ in ‘The existence of everything’ and the ‘something else’ upon which ‘everything’ is contingent.

 

[polytropos]

You are doing it again. You do not get to tell me what my intentions are, nor what my motives are, nor what my interests are, with or without blatantly insincere ‘apologies’.

Hold on. I apologized and stated why I was in the wrong. Accept the apology or do not. I won’t beg. But in the same way that I was unjustified in stating my assumptions about your intentions, you are unjustified in questioning my sincerity.

To clarify, perhaps I got the sense that you were arguing against God’s existence from this quote:

Again, unless you are claiming** that “God does not exist” (welcome to the fold, brother!)** then God would be part of “the Universe”, so even by your worldview “the Universe” exists under its own causal (not casual) power - you just claim that that causal power is all vested in one specific, sentient part of it.

Emphasis added. I wrongly presumed that you were trying to prove that in this topic, which evidently you are not.

Yet the laws of logic do influence, concretely, both matter and (allegedly) God. how is this not ‘causation’ in the way that the many ‘causes’ of Aristotle and Aquinas are ‘causes’?

What do you mean by “influence” and by “concretely”? I don’t think I would agree that the laws of logic concretely influence matter and (allegedly) God. How sure are you that the laws of logic are a thing that “cause” what we call “cause and effect” (or any other logical relationship)? There are reliable and consistent relationships between things; that is not enough to claim that the relationships are what is influencing the things.

So what are you doing? If you are not defending the assertion that the argument from first causes, in whatever form, ‘proves’ God’s existence (but, for example, only shows that God as a first cause is logically consistent, if not proven to be true or necessary) then we have no disagreement.

I am arguing that the argument from first causes proves the existence of an immaterial first cause. By immaterial I mean it differs from matter in that it is uncaused but can cause and is external to matter and time.

Not really what I was doing when I first entered the conversation. More generally I took issue with the definition of the universe as “everything that exists” (which I understand now was what you were claiming for your own definition of the universe). I won’t argue with that now, since I think I can work with it if I am clear about what I mean by existence.

Why do you add ‘material’ to that assertion? Sure, let us say that it is, taken literally, true that we do not observe any material thing that is uncaused. (For the sake of this section of the argument, I am ignoring quantum mechanical arguments for ‘uncaused’ events). But neither do we observe immaterial uncaused things, so adding in the qualification ‘material’ serves only to set you up for the unjustified assertion that the uncaused cause must be immaterial.

i) This is an empirical argument. It is not therefore rigorous. If I see 100, or 1000000 or 1000000000 white sheep and no black sheep, that does not prove that there are no black sheep

Fair objections. I cannot claim immateriality in this way.

However, any applied philosophical argument works with empirical premises in the sense that philosophy is not mathematics, and I think it’s understood that we are relying on induction for any such premises, so that at least we might reach a point where one denies the argument only by denying the premises.

You contradict yourself. If all existent things have a cause outside of themselves, nothing that does not have a cause outside of itself can exist.

I think what I intended in this short form is made clear in the proof at the end of my last post. Assuming infinite regress is impossible, one obtains a contradiction by assuming that all existent things have a cause outside of themselves, as that requires “everything that exists” to have a cause outside of itself. Therefore, something exists without being caused.

I do not see a logically rigorous objection to infinite regress, despite many requests to those who object to it. I don’t like it, but that is no argument.

I would not really claim to have a logically rigorous objection to it (I think certain logical claims against it are flawed), but I have not seen a model of the universe that supports it.

You just did. That is the ‘everything’ in ‘The existence of everything’ and the ‘something else’ upon which ‘everything’ is contingent.

I see your point. I stated that premise incorrectly. I should have begun with “Nothing is uncaused,” which as you note, has not been shown to be illogical.

Assume: Nothing is uncaused.
Every thing has a cause external to itself.
The existence of every thing is contingent on some other thing. (This some other thing is caused, by assumption.)
The universe (“everything that exists”) has a cause external to itself.
This is a contradiction.
Therefore something is uncaused.

 

[Portofino]

Is there anyone here who believes that the existence of a *loving * God can be proven through reason? Or is that necessarily based on faith?

As I see it – and as some other posters appeared to have pointed out – one can attempt a logical proof for the existence of an uncaused cause, why it necessarily exists.

From there, one cannot prove that the uncaused cause is a single will, and is omnipotent, but one can argue that conceiving of it as a single, omnipotent will is “more plausible” than conceiving of it otherwise. I’m not sure whether one can also prove that the uncaused cause would have to be conscious, either.

But what I don’t see as being demonstrable through reason is that the uncaused cause would have to be all-loving. That, to me, is an article of faith – though, in a way, it is the most relevant question of all.

All of the traditional explanations as to why God is all-loving, despite apparent evidence to the contrary, goes farther afield from mere logic and philosophy, taking us into the realm of theology and belief – Adam and Eve, original sin, and the Fall; Satan as a fallen angel.

I see no way of proving the existence of Satan, coupled with an all-loving God, as opposed to just as well positing the non-existence of Satan, and a God that is not all-loving (or a God that has both attributes within itself, love and hatred, the desire to create and the desire to destroy).

But proving the existence of Satan?.. Not sure anyone has tried Again, one could just as well use the existence of the phenomena that Satan is supposed to explain as evidence that the Godhead is not omni-benevolent – and that would be a simpler, more obvious explanation (at least according to an “Ockham’s Razor” kind of mentality).

 

[tafan]

Is there anyone here who believes that the existence of a *loving * God can be proven through reason? Or is that necessarily based on faith?

As I see it – and as some other posters appeared to have pointed out – one can attempt a logical proof for the existence of an uncaused cause, why it necessarily exists.

From there, one cannot prove that the uncaused cause is a single will, and is omnipotent, but one can argue that conceiving of it as a single, omnipotent will is “more plausible” than conceiving of it otherwise. I’m not sure whether one can also prove that the uncaused cause would have to be conscious, either.

But what I don’t see as being demonstrable through reason is that the uncaused cause would have to be all-loving. That, to me, is an article of faith – though, in a way, it is the most relevant question of all.

All of the traditional explanations as to why God is all-loving, despite apparent evidence to the contrary, goes farther afield from mere logic and philosophy, taking us into the realm of theology and belief – Adam and Eve, original sin, and the Fall; Satan as a fallen angel.

Aquinas did not stop, he only started, with his 5 proofs of God’s existence. He then went on to prove, from our reason and experience alone, what we can know about God. It is certainly not the only way to come to know God, but it certainly is a possibility of getting quite far.

Simplicity of God: newadvent.org/summa/1003.htm
His Goodness: newadvent.org/summa/1006.htm
His Perfection: newadvent.org/summa/1004.htm
His infinity: newadvent.org/summa/1007.htm
His Omnipresence: newadvent.org/summa/1008.htm
His immutability newadvent.org/summa/1009.htm
His eternity: newadvent.org/summa/1010.htm
His knowledge: newadvent.org/summa/1014.htm
The life of God: newadvent.org/summa/1018.htm

Here it seems to be Aquinas’ precise answer to your question: newadvent.org/summa/1012.htm#article12

Article 12. Whether God can be known in this life by natural reason?
…
I answer that, Our natural knowledge begins from sense. Hence our natural knowledge can go as far as it can be led by sensible things. But our mind cannot be led by sense so far as to see the essence of God; because the sensible effects of God do not equal the power of God as their cause. Hence from the knowledge of sensible things the whole power of God cannot be known; nor therefore can His essence be seen. But because they are His effects and depend on their cause, we can be led from them so far as to know of God “whether He exists,” and to know of Him what must necessarily belong to Him, as the first cause of all things, exceeding all
things caused by Him.

Hence we know that His relationship with creatures so far as to be the cause of them all; also that creatures differ from Him, inasmuch as He is not in any way part of what is caused by Him; and that creatures are not removed from Him by reason of any defect on His part, but because He superexceeds them all.

From our reason alone: no, but because we have our senses and the experience of the world to learn from (our natural knowledge), we can learn about him from the effects of His traits that are apparent in the natural world.

I see no way of proving the existence of Satan, coupled with an all-loving God, as opposed to just as well positing the non-existence of Satan, and a God that is not all-loving (or a God that has both attributes within itself, love and hatred, the desire to create and the desire to destroy).

But proving the existence of Satan?.. Not sure anyone has tried Again, one could just as well use the existence of the phenomena that Satan is supposed to explain as evidence that the Godhead is not omni-benevolent – and that would be a simpler, more obvious explanation (at least according to an “Ockham’s Razor” kind of mentality).

Here, I suspect you are right, we are dependent on divine revelation for the existence of Satan. A quick glance on some of Aquinas’s writings on angels and the fallen angels seems to confirm what you are saying.

 

[DrTaffy]

Hold on. I apologized and stated why I was in the wrong. Accept the apology or do not. I won’t beg.

I’m not asking you to beg. I’m not even asking you to apologise. An apology without reformation of behaviour is insincere, whereas if the behaviour is reformed the apology is needless.

But neither am I intending to offend you, and I apologise for having evidently done so. I am asking you to stop telling me what I think, believe, intend or am interested in, and the point of that last post was that (after what I thought was a very blunt and obvious request that you stop doing so) your apology included a statement that I am not interested in the logical argument for whether or not the first cause has to be God.

Well, of course I am interested in that, otherwise I would not be on this thread. But that does not mean that I am trying to proselytise in contravention of the rules of this forum. I am, for the record, far more interested in understanding the catholic point of view than in converting any catholics to mine - what might be seen as a fundamental difference between the scientific and the religious (or at least the missionary) approach to debate.

To clarify, perhaps I got the sense that you were arguing against God’s existence from this quote:

I don’t believe that God exists, but that does not mean that I have any interest in dissuading you from believing that he does. If anything I would not want you to change your mind until after you had explained your viewpoint, as afterwards your recollection may not correctly reflect the viewpoint of a true current believer.

What do you mean by “influence” and by “concretely”?

That the behaviour of, well, anything, follows the rules of logic. Nothing is not itself, for example.

I don’t think I would agree that the laws of logic concretely influence matter and (allegedly) God. How sure are you that the laws of logic are a thing that “cause” what we call “cause and effect” (or any other logical relationship)?

To be clear, I personally do not. I think this is an abusive use of ‘cause’, especially in the context of the phrase ‘cause and effect’, which adds nothing to the debate and only obfuscates the matter.

But many theists do extend ‘cause’ to such meanings - I think Aristotle himself refers to the octave being ‘caused’ by numbers and ratios. If you extend ‘cause’ to such meanings, why not say that the laws of logic ‘cause’ pretty much everything?

I am arguing that the argument from first causes proves the existence of an immaterial first cause. By immaterial I mean it differs from matter in that it is uncaused but can cause and is external to matter and time.

I don’t think that that is what most people would mean by ‘immaterial’. Why not just call it ‘uncaused’, which is both shorter to type and less ambiguous?

Fair objections. I cannot claim immateriality in this way.

So how do you justify linking ‘immaterial’ to ‘uncaused’ other than by redefining ‘immaterial’ to mean uncaused?

I refer again to my example of the argument that:

• we see nothing that is uncaused and not made of sentient levitating pasta
• there must be an uncaused cause (as we assert that an infinite regress is impossible)
• therefore there must be an uncaused thing made of sentient levitating pasta
• therefore the flying spaghetti monster exists

Clearly nuttier than squirrel poo, but substitute ‘made of sentient levitating pasta’ for ‘immaterial’ or ‘supernatural’ and it is an argument that theists do appear to make to prove that God exists and is ‘supernatural’ or ‘immaterial’. Are you making such an argument, and if so how do you justify the necessary link between ‘immaterial’ and ‘uncaused’?

However, any applied philosophical argument works with empirical premises in the sense that philosophy is not mathematics, and I think it’s understood that we are relying on induction for any such premises, so that at least we might reach a point where one denies the argument only by denying the premises.

If the premises are false, the argument is invalid. So a ‘proof of God’ whose premises are questionable is no proof.

I would not really claim to have a logically rigorous objection to it (I think certain logical claims against it are flawed), but I have not seen a model of the universe that supports it.

A physical model of the universe? There are many. Even assuming you mean a model that is still current (you must have heard of the steady state model, for example) there are many, such as the various eternal inflation models.

But without a logical proof that infinite regress is not possible, surely the Cosmological Argument is missing its foundation? It is not a proof of God’s existence?

Assume: Nothing is uncaused.
Every thing has a cause external to itself.
The existence of every thing is contingent on some other thing. (This some other thing is caused, by assumption.)
The universe (“everything that exists”) has a cause external to itself.
This is a contradiction.
Therefore something is uncaused.

Isn’t that what I was saying when you came in? If you define ‘cause’ such that only existent things count as causes, then ‘everything that exists’ cannot have a cause outside of itself.

More generally, the set of ‘all causes’ cannot have a cause outside of itself. But its individual elements could all be caused, even if the whole set (or individual subsets) could be self-caused.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

By the Light of Reason you can know Him

---

I. The Desire for God ( CCC)

27 The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for:

The dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God. This invitation to converse with God is addressed to man as soon as he comes into being. For if man exists it is because God has created him through love, and through love continues to hold him in existence. He cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and entrusts himself to his creator. ( Vat. ll)

II. Ways of Coming to Know God

31 Created in God’s image and called to know and love him, the person who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming to know him. These are also called proofs for the existence of God, not in the sense of proofs in the natural sciences, but rather in the sense of “converging and convincing arguments”, which allow us to attain certainty about the truth. These “ways” of approaching God from creation have a twofold point of departure: the physical world, and the human person.

32 The world: starting from movement, becoming, contingency, and the world’s order and beauty, one can come to a knowledge of God as the origin and the end of the universe.

As St. Paul says of the Gentiles: For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.( ( Rom.1:19-20)

33 The human person: with his openness to truth and beauty, his sense of moral goodness, his freedom and the voice of his conscience, with his longings for the infinite and for happiness, man questions himself about God’s existence. In all this he discerns signs of his spiritual soul. the soul, the “seed of eternity we bear in ourselves, irreducible to the merely material”, ( Gaudium et Spes 18 , 1 ) can have its origin only in God.

34 The world, and man, attest that they contain within themselves neither their first principle nor their final end, but rather that they participate in Being itself, which alone is without origin or end. Thus, in different ways, man can come to know that there exists a reality which is the first cause and final end of all things, a reality “that everyone calls God”. ( St. Thomas, S.T. 1,2,3)

35 Man’s faculties make him capable of coming to a knowledge of the existence of a personal God. But for man to be able to enter into real intimacy with him, God willed both to reveal himself to man, and to give him the grace of being able to welcome this revelation in faith.(so) the proofs of God’s existence, however, can predispose one to faith and help one to see that faith is not opposed to reason.

III. The Knowledge of God According to the Church

36 "Our holy mother, the Church, holds and teaches that God, the first principle and last end of all things, can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural light of human reason."11 Without this capacity, man would not be able to welcome God’s revelation. Man has this capacity because he is created “in the image of God”. ( Vat. 1, Dei Filius 2 - De Fide )

These teachings are part of the Doctrine of the Church that Catholics are to believe. " The Catechism of the Catholic Church…is a statement of the Church’s faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition, and the Church’s Magisterium. I declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion. " (JP ll, CCC, Apostolic Constitution Fidei Depositum, para 3…not included on online copies of CCC)

I have written this for the benefit of Catholics and other Christians so that they will be strengthend in the certainty with which they hold that the existence of God can be known by the natural light of reason, and that he is the creator of the world, the first principle and last end of all things, and that he is a personal God. So stand fast against the voices of unreason no matter what they say - no matter how clever and sophisticated they seem…

The current argument has gone from one sophestry to another and to another, etc.
In the end Faith thrumphs, for it is absolutely certain. Obviously, skeptics, agnostics, atheists, cultists, ideologues, etc. won’t accept that. Don’t let that bother you, they will not accept anything, however small or seemingly insignificant, which threatens their world view, their particular idiology, whatever that may be.

We know that there can be no real conflict between Faith and science and reason because all three have the same author, God who created, maintains, and guides all things that exist.

This particular discussion is going no where, it is past time to let it die.

Linus2nd

 

[polytropos]

I don’t think that that is what most people would mean by ‘immaterial’. Why not just call it ‘uncaused’, which is both shorter to type and less ambiguous?

…

So how do you justify linking ‘immaterial’ to ‘uncaused’ other than by redefining ‘immaterial’ to mean uncaused?

I refer again to my example of the argument that:

• we see nothing that is uncaused and not made of sentient levitating pasta
• there must be an uncaused cause (as we assert that an infinite regress is impossible)
• therefore there must be an uncaused thing made of sentient levitating pasta
• therefore the flying spaghetti monster exists

Clearly nuttier than squirrel poo, but substitute ‘made of sentient levitating pasta’ for ‘immaterial’ or ‘supernatural’ and it is an argument that theists do appear to make to prove that God exists and is ‘supernatural’ or ‘immaterial’. Are you making such an argument, and if so how do you justify the necessary link between ‘immaterial’ and ‘uncaused’?

There is no need to repeat yourself. You made a valid point about claiming immateriality so I dropped it after I said, “Fair objections. I cannot claim immateriality in this way.” Probably would have been clearer if I had gone back at that point and removed claims about immateriality that I’d written earlier in that post.

Again, you’ve made a number of valid points so I will rethink about what qualities can be proven through this sort of argument. Nice talking to you.

 

[DrTaffy]

There is no need to repeat yourself. You made a valid point about claiming immateriality so I dropped it after I said, “Fair objections. I cannot claim immateriality in this way.”

Fair enough. I wasn’t quite clear if I had fully understood you at that point, or indeed if I had made myself clear.

Nice talking to you.

And to you.