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IWantGod
Guest
England has not reached the semi-finals. England lost to Panama. What universe are you from?
Why you should think that the First-Cause has to be an Intelligent Cause
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STT
Guest
Truth is eternal therefore there is no need for First Cause to be Intelligent or the act of First Cause to be Intelligent. Just have a spark or creates the spark, the rest just follows.
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IWantGod
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Premise 1: Out of nothing comes nothing.
Premise 2: Something exists. Therefore something must have always existed if premise 1 is true.
Premise 3: Something necessarily exists and therefore it does not potentially exist if premise 1 and 2 is correct.
Premise 4: If something necessarily exists, then every aspect of its being is necessarily actual and therefore does not change. Its being is not potentially actual, it does not become potentially more than what it is because it is eternally everything that it is and ever will be. There is no potency in it.
Premise 5: Physical reality changes. It is potentially more, it is in a continuous state of evolution and becoming. Therefore Physical reality or activity and the laws that govern its being is not necessary reality because it has potency/potential in its being.
Premise 6: Potential/potency cannot be actualised from nothing according to premise 1 and as such neither can physical laws since physical laws are intrinsic to the nature of potential physical beings.
Premise 7: Therefore physical activity or physical being and physical laws require an existential cause according to premise 1 .
Premise 8: If physical being or physical activity requires a cause according to premise 1 then its cause is not physical being or physical activity or any of the laws that govern it according to premise 4, 5 and 6 .
Premise 9: According to premise 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 and 8 , necessary being is the necessary cause of anything that has potency/potential in its being. And according to premise 8 , we can see that necessary being is not physical activity or physical being. Therefore necessary reality cannot be defined as having moving parts or dimensions. Also it must follow that such a being is not governed by physical laws.
Premise 10: Therefore physical reality cannot have a “natural” cause as that would require moving parts or dimensions. It would require potency/potential.
Premise 11: Necessary reality must therefore be a super-natural cause. However since it has no parts from which physical reality and it laws can be formed naturally – having no potency in its being – then there is only one other kind of cause that can actualise physical potential and the laws that govern it . An intelligent cause.
Premise 12: According to premise 1 , out of nothing comes nothing. Thus a necessary being is also an intelligent cause. Everything that has potency and therefore - contingent laws of activity - must therefore exist and have its being in something like an intelligent mind.
Premise 13: If necessary reality has an intelligent mind and we exist in its intellect, then it is self-knowing or self-aware, and all that which has potency including ourselves and the laws of nature is a creation of its self-knowledge and is sustained within its self-knowing.
Conclusion: Ultimate reality is an intelligent necessary cause.
Premise 2: Something exists. Therefore something must have always existed if premise 1 is true.
Premise 3: Something necessarily exists and therefore it does not potentially exist if premise 1 and 2 is correct.
Premise 4: If something necessarily exists, then every aspect of its being is necessarily actual and therefore does not change. Its being is not potentially actual, it does not become potentially more than what it is because it is eternally everything that it is and ever will be. There is no potency in it.
Premise 5: Physical reality changes. It is potentially more, it is in a continuous state of evolution and becoming. Therefore Physical reality or activity and the laws that govern its being is not necessary reality because it has potency/potential in its being.
Premise 6: Potential/potency cannot be actualised from nothing according to premise 1 and as such neither can physical laws since physical laws are intrinsic to the nature of potential physical beings.
Premise 7: Therefore physical activity or physical being and physical laws require an existential cause according to premise 1 .
Premise 8: If physical being or physical activity requires a cause according to premise 1 then its cause is not physical being or physical activity or any of the laws that govern it according to premise 4, 5 and 6 .
Premise 9: According to premise 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 and 8 , necessary being is the necessary cause of anything that has potency/potential in its being. And according to premise 8 , we can see that necessary being is not physical activity or physical being. Therefore necessary reality cannot be defined as having moving parts or dimensions. Also it must follow that such a being is not governed by physical laws.
Premise 10: Therefore physical reality cannot have a “natural” cause as that would require moving parts or dimensions. It would require potency/potential.
Premise 11: Necessary reality must therefore be a super-natural cause. However since it has no parts from which physical reality and it laws can be formed naturally – having no potency in its being – then there is only one other kind of cause that can actualise physical potential and the laws that govern it . An intelligent cause.
Premise 12: According to premise 1 , out of nothing comes nothing. Thus a necessary being is also an intelligent cause. Everything that has potency and therefore - contingent laws of activity - must therefore exist and have its being in something like an intelligent mind.
Premise 13: If necessary reality has an intelligent mind and we exist in its intellect, then it is self-knowing or self-aware, and all that which has potency including ourselves and the laws of nature is a creation of its self-knowledge and is sustained within its self-knowing.
Conclusion: Ultimate reality is an intelligent necessary cause.
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STT
Guest
I am saying that the First Cause could be or could not be intelligent (I refer intelligent to a being). Truth is eternal. All potentialities which turn into actualities have to follow Truth. That is why forms are subject to some rules. That is why we have the chance to follow forms and find Truth.
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AlNg
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I thought that one atheistic idea was that if there was a cause for the whole universe to exist, then that cause lies within the universe itself and not outside it.
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AlNg
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I thought that Newton replaced the potentials of Aristotelian thought with science based on precise quantitative relations between masses , forces and motions.
Water is necessary for animal life but it can change from ice to water to steam. the fact that it is necessary for life does not mean it cannot undergo a change in phase. IOW, water is necessary and it changes.
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o_mlly
Guest
A being that is “not very intelligent” is an admission that the being possesses the faculty of intelligence. “Not very intelligent” <> unintelligent.
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Hugh_Farey
Guest
Far too many premises. Most of them are not premises at all, but inferences, deductions, corollaries or conclusions.
Your premises are those ‘facts’ which you will assume, unjustified, for the sake of the subsequent development of your argument. You will not bother to justify them because, at least in this case, you will assume that they are self-evident, and that your interlocutors will not query them.
Fair enough.
1) Nothing comes from nothing.
2) Something exists.
Those are premises. I agree with them.
3) Therefore, something must have always existed. This is a valid deduction, although the word ‘always’ may need to be clarified to deal with a-temporal existence.
4) The “something” which must have always existed is unchanging. I think this is a valid corollary, as far as it goes, in that a changed state has obviously not always existed, as it has changed from something else.
5) Physical reality changes. A premise. Which I agree with. Physical reality cannot always have existed. (But do bear in mind the necessity to watch the definition of any measure of temporal eternity. Time also started.)
6) And so on. Sure, the something which must have always existed, outside of time, must be the cause of that which changes (physical reality), and the laws which govern it (the laws of nature). In that sense, we may call this cause, “super-natural”, or, if that is too loaded with cultural overtones, “extra-natural”. But then somewhere along the line you hit us with:
11) However since [that which has always existed] has no parts from which physical reality and its laws can be formed naturally – having no potency in its being – then there is only one other kind of cause that can actualise physical potential and the laws that govern it. An intelligent cause. Well, I’m sorry, but I just don’t follow that bit at all. Suddenly lobbing in “intelligent”. Maybe it depends on your definition of “intelligent”, but I can’t see Bradskii falling for that one!
Your premises are those ‘facts’ which you will assume, unjustified, for the sake of the subsequent development of your argument. You will not bother to justify them because, at least in this case, you will assume that they are self-evident, and that your interlocutors will not query them.
Fair enough.
1) Nothing comes from nothing.
2) Something exists.
Those are premises. I agree with them.
3) Therefore, something must have always existed. This is a valid deduction, although the word ‘always’ may need to be clarified to deal with a-temporal existence.
4) The “something” which must have always existed is unchanging. I think this is a valid corollary, as far as it goes, in that a changed state has obviously not always existed, as it has changed from something else.
5) Physical reality changes. A premise. Which I agree with. Physical reality cannot always have existed. (But do bear in mind the necessity to watch the definition of any measure of temporal eternity. Time also started.)
6) And so on. Sure, the something which must have always existed, outside of time, must be the cause of that which changes (physical reality), and the laws which govern it (the laws of nature). In that sense, we may call this cause, “super-natural”, or, if that is too loaded with cultural overtones, “extra-natural”. But then somewhere along the line you hit us with:
11) However since [that which has always existed] has no parts from which physical reality and its laws can be formed naturally – having no potency in its being – then there is only one other kind of cause that can actualise physical potential and the laws that govern it. An intelligent cause. Well, I’m sorry, but I just don’t follow that bit at all. Suddenly lobbing in “intelligent”. Maybe it depends on your definition of “intelligent”, but I can’t see Bradskii falling for that one!
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Wesrock
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This is as bad as someone saying “Darwin taught that one day a monkey gave birth to a human baby.” It’s just so far off the mark and starting off on the wrong foot I’m almost speechless and just want to bash my head into a wall.IWantGod:
I thought that Newton replaced the potentials of Aristotelian thought with science based on precise quantitative relations between masses , forces and motions.
Water is necessary for animal life but it can change from ice to water to steam. the fact that it is necessary for life does not mean it cannot undergo a change in phase. IOW, water is necessary and it changes.
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Wesrock
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I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude, but I’m near speechless. Why would mathematical physical modeling do away or be contrary to actualities and potentials? And what you stated about being necessary for life (as we know it on Earth) has absolutely nothing to do with what was meant by “necessary” in the post you responded to.
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Wesrock
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Alright, I had just woken up from a nap, and now my brain is warmed up a little.
Actuality and Potential is an Aristotlean metaphysical statement on what causality and change in the natural world is.
Physical equations don’t provide any opinion or statement about what causality is. They just provide is with ways to accurately model and predict things about the physical world. It’s descriptive of what happens with causality without addressing what causality actuall is
They don’t really overlap or contradict each other, any more than physics overlaps with Alfred Whitehead’s process philosophy.
Actuality and Potential is an Aristotlean metaphysical statement on what causality and change in the natural world is.
Physical equations don’t provide any opinion or statement about what causality is. They just provide is with ways to accurately model and predict things about the physical world. It’s descriptive of what happens with causality without addressing what causality actuall is
They don’t really overlap or contradict each other, any more than physics overlaps with Alfred Whitehead’s process philosophy.
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AlNg
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Water is necessary for life. If you say it is not necessary, please explain what is meant by saying water is not necessary.
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AlNg
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This is not an accurate description of evolution.
Aristotelian philosophy has been shown to be faulty on several points. For example, according to his philosophy, Aristotle said that the rate of speed of a falling object is proportional to the weight of the object. He also makes unwarranted assumptions. For example:
Translation: “The tame animals are for the use and nourishment of mankind, while the wild ones, if not all, most of them, are on account of nourishment and help, in order that clothes and other tools come to be from these. And therefore, if nature does nothing in vain or without a purpose, it is necessary that nature made all of these on account of humans (Aristotle, Politics, 1256b10-22)
BTW, didn’t Aristotle say that the earth existed for all eternity?
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Wesrock
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It is not a logical/metaphysical necessity that water should have actually existed in all possible worlds, whether referring to a specific H2O molecule or H2O in general.Wesrock:
Water is necessary for life. If you say it is not necessary, please explain what is meant by saying water is not necessary.
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Wesrock
Guest
Yes, it’s a terrible description of evolution that is based on a completely misunderstood premise. I likened what you said comparing actuality and potentiality to Newtonian physics with it, because it is similarly off base.Wesrock:
This is not an accurate description of evolution.
Aristotelian philosophy has been shown to be faulty on several points. For example, according to his philosophy, Aristotle said that the rate of speed of a falling object is proportional to the weight of the object. He also makes unwarranted assumptions. For example:
Translation: “The tame animals are for the use and nourishment of mankind, while the wild ones, if not all, most of them, are on account of nourishment and help, in order that clothes and other tools come to be from these. And therefore, if nature does nothing in vain or without a purpose, it is necessary that nature made all of these on account of humans (Aristotle, Politics, 1256b10-22)
BTW, didn’t Aristotle say that the earth existed for all eternity?
As for the rest, you’re mixing up Aristotlean physics with Aristotlean metaphysics.
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Wesrock
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Furthermore, it is a mistake to assume that Aristotleanism or Thomism have “stood still”.
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IWantGod
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But surely you would agree that there are only two types of cause. A natural cause. and an intelligent cause. Natural causes are what scientists look for. By an intelligent cause, I mean something that has the knowledge, intentionality, and a will and power to create. This is a very general definition.
If natural cause an effect relationships are strictly temporal and therefore physical reality is distinct in nature from the nature of that which has a necessary act of reality, I think it reasonably follows that how a necessary being would cause something to exist could not be reasonably described as a physical process. I think this reasonably removes the possibility of the universe naturally arising or emanating from the nature of the uncaused cause. And also, as I have argued elsewhere, a necessary act of reality is the only reality that ought to exist, because there is no other reason for anything else to exist that doesn’t already exist because of its own nature.
I think this provides a very strong foundation for me to infer the existence of an intelligent-cause because a natural cause cannot be described as being anything but contingent. All possibility of a natural cause has been removed, and by process of elimination, I have only one possibility left. An Intelligent-cause.
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