The Kalam Cosmological Argument

[cj.23]

Yrreg has asked Malerin and I to stop posting in the Evidence for God thread as we are moving off topic or similar. However in that thread i was challenged on this part of my discussion -- I'll repost it here, as it actually refers to the Kalam Cosmological Argument at one point, and then cite the questions i was asked and respond if that is ok withoiut further sullying yrreg's thread?

B. Supernatural (Transcendent)

The claim God/s (assume I'm talking generic deities of either gender here throughout) are supernatural is common to many theism but not all. As material gods which could have evolved are acceptable in theory even to Richard Dawkins, and such deities who reside in our universe, possess bodies and arose from naturalistic evolutionary processes are not normally considered to meet the usual conception of God, I shall here propose that "supernatural" is a required attribute of God.

I shall now engage in a top down examination - (the grounded theory approach can come later in the thread) and firstly discuss - a) what do I mean by "supernatural" and "natural" and "transcendent" & b) is the idea logically coherent and supportable by evidences suggested above?

Part One: Defining the Supernatural.

Many of you will already know how I define "supernatural", and "natural" and i am afraid i shall simply repeat myself here. Because I use the term in a manner that is very precisely defined, instead of it's popular usage (where it can mean almost anything) I have in the past used the term supra-natural, but people have resisted this. So supernatural it is...

Anyway, as I have said before --

"I define Natural as the universe and everything therein, and Supernatural as that existing "outside" or "above" the Universe - the literal meaning of the term."

My first contention is that any Supernatural action within the Universe is by definition therefore Natural, and will manifest in terms of Natural Law. That manifestation may be highly unusual, or extremely rare, but it would not be as in Hume's famous definition of a miracle a violation of Natural Law, as by definition anything that occurs in Nature is Natural.

Therefore, I contend that supernatural causation would be effectively invisible to our naturalistic Science, which by definition is bounded by the natural (and uses methodological naturalism, quite correctly to my mind, as an a priori prerequisite). While logic and reason (and perhaps mathematics) might be used to explore what lies "beyond" the Universe, experimental and procedural science can not. As a "supernatural event" becomes natural by definition as soon as it occurs in the universe, Science will indeed find no "miracles" - which is not to say that supernatural interventions do not occur. One could only hope to establish if this was the case by logic or reason; by rational, or semi-empirical deduction, not by empiricism alone?

Let me give a playful example. Let us assume that the Norse Trickster God Loki built the universe. His handiwork is the Laws of Nature, and any examination thereof will reveal nothing but Natural forces acting in accordance with Natural Law. Any arbitrary exception he introduced, such as the Duckbill platypus (I know it's quite explicable really, but you get my point!)would be quite Natural, and entirely explicable by Science. Then imagine a Scientist who looks at the world and says "There is no Loki". Yet equally rational is the Loki-ist theologians, who looks at the same Science and says "we can not see Loki, but we can learn the nature of Loki from his handiwork!" The Loki-ist might remark after JBS Haldane that Loki appears to have "an inordinate fondness for beetles!"

There is nothing in my definitions as far as I can see which is particularly controversial. When I use the term supernatural, I simply mean that which exists outside of our universe & space/time. So quantum vacuum fluctuations from which the universe quite possibly arose are supernatural, as are arguably the laws of mathematics, and in most forms of multiverse theory the other universes. Once one applies a logical and sensible, direct meaning to what the word says, supernatural stops being a ridiculous concept, and one can progress in critiquing the claims made. ( have similar issues with the word "paranormal", but that can wait till another time...)

So what does transcendent mean? In the case of a deity "Being above and independent of the material universe."
Let's play with some Venn diagrams.

Theism --

This one shows one classic theistic understanding. U is the universe, G is God. God is actually a bigger set than the Universe, but is not equal to the universe. God exists outside the universe, but can interact with it, and does. However, God's immanence (being in the universe) is not equal to God equating the universe -- it is possible to be in the universe, but not equal thereto, by perceiving. So divine omnipresence is a function of divine omniscience - we should not look for God in a tape worm, and can meaningfully speak of the absence of God, but not the absence of God's knowledge. This limit is a self limit in classical theology, not an absolute limit: but of God is as I will argue undifferentiated mind, then that limit is effectively absolute. Anyway, the Universe si an emergent property of God: God creates it, but is not equal to it.

While admitting my artistic masterpieces we may as well briefly address the other options -- This is Pantheism, the belief that God and the universe are identical -- I'm sure Professor Dawkins would have few issues with this, but it says little to me...

Pantheism

a world where all is God; and God is just a word"

Panentheism

This might be unfamiliar to some, so I will link the Wikipedia article - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism
There are Christian panentheist theologies: in some classical theism described fist all potentialities exist in the mind of God, and some (those which will lead to ultimately the greatest good) are realized - which sounds like panentheism, but it's beyond the scope of this discussion.

So by transcendent we mean simply a deity that is not equivalent to the universe, nature, is not bounded by or contained within . In short, theism or panentheism, but not the pantheistic conception of God. God interacts with the material universe, originates the material universe, and is not dependent upon the material universe.

So how can this be supported by our alleged evidences? I think the strongest point you cna make is that the attributes of a Creator in the classical theistic conception is capable of xxii) the logical agreements between classic theism and modern science. Since we now understand the unity of space/time, we can see that theologians since Augustine who have postulated that "what was God doing before creation?" - "there was no time before Creation" as Augustine sagely replied, were completely correct.

Do does my hypothetical Creator make sense? What can we know about them?

Not much. We know nothing about what came before the big Bang, to the best of my knowledge. What we do know is what came afterwards...

Firstly, in our universe Space and Time are a continuum - Space/Time. So to talk about Time without Space is simply meaningless - there is none. So the Creator is therefore eternal, timeless, and the same today as yesterday.

If they are outside of Space/Time...

So let us imagine the Creator as a scientist looking at a box. The Box is the universe, in which we all live, where natural law always exists. The Creator is outside of it, yet they can see and examine every part of it - so in a sense they are in it.

Now the supernatural God hypothesis says that when I decide to pray and ask God for something, "he" effectively reaches in to the box, suspending natural law. A miracle occurs.

Yet this is simply unnecessary. The Scientist outside is outside of time, remember? So they know from the first instance of the box how it ill turn out. Natural laws can therefore be designed in such a way as to allow my request for intervention in the box to happen, because of naturalistic forces working from the very beginning of the Box. It can simply be accounted for in the design.

No supernatural action is required or predicated. God's action in nature is by definition natural, and utilizes 'his' laws of nature. It does not necessarily falsify intervention.

Before the idea of the universe as a contingent entity, none of this would have made any sense. Now it can be logically argued - which is NOT to say it is correct.

That was my original post - the response was

cj x - one quick question...

If the supernatural truly exists, yet we reside as totally natural creatures (with the limitations imposed by natural law and sensory input) within the universe, then how does one detect the supernatural?

Ergo, how can one prove - using evidence - the existence of the supernatural?

Please outline an experiment that can address this question.

and

I'm still waiting for cj to come up with an experiment or protocol that can test for or otherwise detect the supernatural when, by cj's own definition, we are purely naturalistic beings limited by natural laws and sensory organs.

Anyone else care to take a whack at it? Got any way to detect that dragon in the garage?

** Crickets chirping... **

I shall just post this then formulate my reply. I hate to keep anyone waiting...

cj x

 

[cj.23]

Yes, I agree "we are purely naturalistic beings limited by natural laws and sensory organs". Do most people doubt that? Of course that does not preclude say ESP - if ESP exists it will be natural. If ghosts or bigfoot exist in our universe, they will be natural. Anything found in nature will be natural! Therefore if such things exist they presumably follow natural laws, and are therefore susceptible to rational scientific enquiry.

The issue comes with my supernatural category - entities outside of nature, that is "external" to the universe, outside of our space/time. MM has asked me how we would theoretically detect such entities, given that their action in nature in my model would become natural, as surely as a pebble tossed in a pond becomes wet.

The reply is simple: we already deal with supernatural entities in our science. The quantum vacuum fluctuations from which the Big Bang is speculated in some models to have arisen are clearly supernatural: in most multiverse theories the other universes are supernatural; hell you can argue our mathematics system by which we interrogate nature is actually supernatural, in the sense it may be a "platonic ideal" independent of any physical reality.

So to MM, how do we detectthe dragom in the garage? We have to move beyond empiricsm, to rationalism. Rationalism uses logical deduction to establish a chain of argument; modern scientific method combines rationalism and empriricsm, just as theology does. We will have to forumulate a semi-empirical hypothesis -- start with our observed reality, then argue backwards using logic and deductive reasoning. If I am correct those things stand like mathematics independent of our universe and space/time: so we would simply test wether observed phenomena in our universe which appear naturalistic are best explained in terns of a theistic model. That help?

cj x

 

[athon]

The reply is simple: we already deal with supernatural entities in our science. The quantum vacuum fluctuations from which the Big Bang is speculated in some models to have arisen are clearly supernatural: in most multiverse theories the other universes are supernatural; hell you can argue our mathematics system by which we interrogate nature is actually supernatural, in the sense it may be a "platonic ideal" independent of any physical reality.

I have to admit, I'm quite disappointed. I expected better, cj.

This isn't far from appealing to the layman's view of quantum mechanics as 'spooky' and therefore somehow a field related to the supernatural. No theoretical physicist I know (and yes, I do know a few) who deals in quantum mathematics sees it as supernatural.

'Multiverse' models are fun, but are purely speculative at best, presenting a possible answer as to why gravity is so weak. Yet even if such models did present us with something solid, the same problems arise - if they impact on our universe in any way, shape or form (such as absorb gravitational energy), they still act in a natural fashion, complete with laws which can be observed.

No matter what the field is - Platonic metaphysical realms, metaverses, other dimensions - if it acts on our observations in some way, it subscribes to a system. You're free to say that system's laws aren't symmetrical, or they don't subscribe to parsimony...but it's up to you then to say why. Sadly it also means all bets are off, and there is no way to even begin to address those observations in a useful, meaningful way.

So to MM, how do we detectthe dragom in the garage? We have to move beyond empiricsm, to rationalism. Rationalism uses logical deduction to establish a chain of argument; modern scientific method combines rationalism and empriricsm, just as theology does.

I beg to differ, and so does several centuries of science philosophy. Logical deduction has major problems, something which has been understood since the days of Francis Bacon. Theology relies heavily on deductive reasoning, true, as it's useful with a priori conclusions. The scholastics were great fans of this thinking...I don't see many of them around any more.

We will have to forumulate a semi-empirical hypothesis -- start with our observed reality, then argue backwards using logic and deductive reasoning. If I am correct those things stand like mathematics independent of our universe and space/time: so we would simply test wether observed phenomena in our universe which appear naturalistic are best explained in terns of a theistic model. That help?

cj x

Nope. If you wish to use 14th century Aristoltlean philosophy to attempt to address such issues, you'd be forced to state why you're wishing to ignore every criticism of it made in the past six-odd centuries.

Athon

 

[cj.23]

Hey athon, I have only just started my response so you might be cheered by the later bits. Unfortunately I am off now and won't be back online till tonight. And you are very correct to notice my 13th century scholastic biases -- I'd say 13th century more than 14th century though! I'm very impressed you noticed where i was coming from with my medievalist perspectives on empiricism and rationalism.

I'll have to reply properly to MM tonight: I was merely starting out here. I'll also respond properly to your post - I was just shocked someone else actually realized that I was thinking in terms of medieval metaphysics!

cj x

 

[cj.23]

Incidentally, in response to your critique of my employment of supernatural as relating to thse things: check how i'm using supernatural (I reposted it above -- I'm employing it in a VERY specific sense) and by that definition I think it works fine as a claim. Generally when people say "supernatural" they can mean anything - the concpt seems almost meaningless to me.

So does your critique still hold given the very limited and precise definition I'm employing here? Anyway off to refute some of those new fangled New Aristotle fans, and tell off that brat Tom Aquinas.

cj x

 

[athon]

Hey athon, I have only just started my response so you might be cheered by the later bits.

Hm, I hope so. I must admit, I normally find you rational enough in your arguments to want to read your posts. I'd hate for that to change.

And you are very correct to notice my 13th century scholastic biases -- I'd say 13th century more than 14th century though! I'm very impressed you noticed where i was coming from with my medievalist perspectives on empiricism and rationalism.

Hehe. Oddly enough, I had 13th century then deleted it and put 14th in light of feeling scholasticism hung on until then, in spite of acts like the 1277 Condemnation.

Although I am damn curious now to know why you choose to return to such philosophy. Science isn't like art - you can't simply pick an era because you finding its philosophies aesthetically pleasing. Otherwise I'd be happy to embrace pre-Socratic dialectic, when all it came down to was how well you could spin rhetoric.

I'll have to reply properly to MM tonight: I was merely starting out here. I'll also respond properly to your post - I was just shocked someone else actually realized that I was thinking in terms of medieval metaphysics!

cj x

Well, history of science is something of a personal field of study. Gotta know where we've been in order to understand the context of why science is such a useful tool, afterall.

Athon

 

[athon]

Incidentally, in response to your critique of my employment of supernatural as relating to thse things: check how i'm using supernatural (I reposted it above -- I'm employing it in a VERY specific sense) and by that definition I think it works fine as a claim.

I think I grasp your definition. If I understand correctly, you're implying that the defining features of 'natural' are our 'space-time'. Simply put, you're using the term 'space-time' where I would go one step further and describe it as 'any system which causes directly or indirectly an observable event'. Either way, I have no real problem with your definition of 'natural' as an equivalent to those things that take place in our space and time.

I also appreciate that you're contending that anything that does not occur within nature cannot, by its own very definition, create an observation. To do so it would need to interact with our spacial dimensions and with reference to time (in order to be a 'cause').

Therefore, I contend that supernatural causation would be effectively invisible to our naturalistic Science, which by definition is bounded by the natural (and uses methodological naturalism, quite correctly to my mind, as an a priori prerequisite).

I also agree that methodological naturalism is a priori in itself - it relies on the assumption that our observations relate to one another and arise from more fundamental laws that persist in time and space. Parsimony is also something of an assumption - we can't be sure an army invisible fairies aren't acting in chorus behind the scenes. So I won't argue that assumptions have no place in any monistic or naturalistic method.

The difference is within those assumptions. Plato's vast metaphysical foundation, Aristotle's causes...neither adds value to an idea, but rather simply creates uneeded complications. You might find some appeal in the view, as a deist might with a non-interventionalist god, and I'll support your right to hold that philosophy. Yet science has since settled into a more pragmatic sphere - it no longer deals in describing 'reality', and hasn't done so for quite some time.

One last thing - I know you're trying to describe supernatural in a different way, however the term does still refer to observations. If it didn't, it would not be possible to even discuss, IMO.

One could only hope to establish if this was the case by logic or reason; by rational, or semi-empirical deduction, not by empiricism alone?

Well, I must confess, I have no idea what 'semi-empirical' means. It's like being half pregnant. Either you use observations to arrive at a conclusion, or you don't. You can't half use them, just like you can't half use some flour to make bread.

Now, Aristotlean deductive logic has massive problems, as it presumes not just that its fundamental philosophies are correct (which is acceptable - it would be difficult to have a field of thought if you did not rely on some basic assumptions and axioms), but also that the deductive rules it is using are correct. If you state 'All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is a mortal', you'd better be damn sure that Socrates had balls and that men can't die.

A string of quite valid arguments against the old methods have been made since Aristotlean philosophy took a nose-dive in post-scholastic Middle Ages. That's not to say they didn't have their place, but we left them behind because they weren't very useful.

So does your critique still hold given the very limited and precise definition I'm employing here? Anyway off to refute some of those new fangled New Aristotle fans, and tell off that brat Tom Aquinas.

cj x

I'm afraid it does. But we have a focus for the discussion - I don't see how reason alone can be used to decide between a range of equally 'reasonable' arguments that attempt to describe our universe.

Athon

 

[AkuManiMani]

Especially as the God of the Bible is said to be uncaused.

Even assuming that we accept the premise that the universe is "caused" it doesn't logically follow that said "cause" was a deliberate agent like 'god', or what have you.

Then, as you pointed out, there is the problem that many theistic position assume an un-caused deity creating the universe. But then this begs the question: why can't the universe be similarly 'un-caused'?

 

[Darat]

....snip...

That's not to say they didn't have their place, but we left them behind because they weren't very useful.

I'm afraid it does. But we have a focus for the discussion - I don't see how reason alone can be used to decide between a range of equally 'reasonable' arguments that attempt to describe our universe.

Athon

I've highlighted a critical part of what you posted. Whilst it can be fun to discuss these historical ideas, the reason they are historical is that they did not work, they did not do what they said they would do i.e. provide explanations that matched the world around us. I'm not someone who believes that "science" has all the answers or is even the only way that humans will ever understand the world we find ourselves in (I'm a non-philosophical pragmatist to my bones) however we do know (in any meaningful sense of the word know) that the older "schools of thoughts" simply failed. There is no reason at all to resurrect them apart from a discussion as to how we have got to where we are today.

 

[Darat]

...snip....

Therefore, I contend that supernatural causation would be effectively invisible to our naturalistic Science, which by definition is bounded by the natural (and uses methodological naturalism, quite correctly to my mind, as an a priori prerequisite). While logic and reason (and perhaps mathematics) might be used to explore what lies "beyond" the Universe, experimental and procedural science can not. As a "supernatural event" becomes natural by definition as soon as it occurs in the universe, Science will indeed find no "miracles" - which is not to say that supernatural interventions do not occur. One could only hope to establish if this was the case by logic or reason; by rational, or semi-empirical deduction, not by empiricism alone?

...snip...

Given your assertions then I would agree with the highlighted part however whilst the causation may be invisible its effects in the non-supernatural domain wouldn't be. So to use a simple religious analogy: whilst we may never know why a pray was answered we would still know a prayer had been answered.

And this is where your chain of assertion falls down. As Athon puts it " ..Parsimony is also something of an assumption - we can't be sure an army invisible fairies aren't acting in chorus behind the scenes...". So far there is no evidence that prayers are answered (to re-use the analogy) and we have no evidence nor any reason that supposes such a supernatural domain is required to explain the world around us.

 

[Ausmerican]

This seems, on its face, a ridiculous discussion. Of course the universe has a cause. Well, more than one actually. This part was, of course, created by the highly talented Mr. Slarti Blartfast. It says so, right there on the fjords.

 

[MattusMaximus]

So to MM, how do we detectthe dragom in the garage? We have to move beyond empiricsm, to rationalism. Rationalism uses logical deduction to establish a chain of argument; modern scientific method combines rationalism and empriricsm, just as theology does. We will have to forumulate a semi-empirical hypothesis -- start with our observed reality, then argue backwards using logic and deductive reasoning. If I am correct those things stand like mathematics independent of our universe and space/time: so we would simply test wether observed phenomena in our universe which appear naturalistic are best explained in terns of a theistic model. That help?

cj x

cj, I agree with Athon - I'm rather disappointed in your response.

I asked you for an experimental protocol, and you respond with Cartesian thinking along the lines of pure deduction. What you are essentially saying is that God is the creative hand behind natural law, so any and all effects of natural law would confirm the existence of God. There is no way to falsify your God/supernatural hypothesis when stated in this manner - thus, you have not proposed anything testable in the modern scientific sense. This is why Bacon's contribution of empiricism, as Athon points out, was so critical to the development of modern science - pure reason simply isn't enough, as we've learned time and time again in the last few hundred years.

Call it philosophy if you will, but science it isn't.

Get back to me when you design or outline an actual experiment, as opposed to word-salad.

ETA: And since when does modern theology contain any aspect of empiricism? Are you telling me that modern theologians are running experiments within their seminaries to test for angels, saints, and Jesus? Or are you referring to analysis of Biblical texts? Please say the latter...

 

[cj.23]

ETA: And since when does modern theology contain any aspect of empiricism? Are you telling me that modern theologians are running experiments within their seminaries to test for angels, saints, and Jesus? Or are you referring to analysis of Biblical texts? Please say the latter...

I'll reply properly in a while, just off to shop -- but this is not an experiment for God, but it is one you can try at home - please do!

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=4253788#post4253788

cj x

 

[arthwollipot]

What an interesting discussion this has been. Thanks all!

 

[cj.23]

I'll get back to the replies to me in a minute; Silentknight came up with one of the best critiques of the Kalam Cosmological Argument i have seen in a long while. However I have not had time to reply, so I'm going to now, because his post deserves acknowledgement - indeed if quality not language was the criterion for nomination I would have nominated it by now. Now on to the discussion -- and as you may have hguessed i am going to disagree strongly.

I posted this a couple months ago.
1) Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2) The universe began to exist.
3) Therefore the universe has a cause.
4) God is the most likely cause of the universe.

The fourth item is almost always going to get tacked on, and there are several forms of the basic cosmological argument that include it anyway. It turns out this argument is built on enough fallacies to make one's head spin. I'll try to get them all.

Four is however not really part of the argument, but yes. It is an argument for a cause for the universe, which strikes me as perfectly sensible, but apologists always seem to see their deity reflected in it somehow.

Fallacy of composition - The argument is based on the assumption that the universe has the same properties as the parts that make it up. However the universe is the name of a set and a set is not a member of itself. This does not necessarily rule out the set having the same properties as its components, but it does not conclusively prove it either. Besides the universe arose from a quantum state, in which there is a very different set of rules and properties regardless. Just because we see some things having a cause, how can we leap up a level and assume that everything has a cause?

We can't. However the Universe as an entity appears to have a beginning, and things that begin have causes in nature- in fact you have identified the cause, as the quantum state, above???

Flawed premise - There is no scientific theory, including the Big Bang, which says there was ever a time when there was nothing. This is a deliberate distortion by apologists. It may very well be impossible for there to be "nothing." But even assuming this is possible then the laws of thermodynamics or principle of causality would not exist either. Non-being can't prevent being any more than it can cause it.

Um, sort of. The notion as I understand it favoured by most current Big Bang theories is that there was a quantum field fluctuation, involving both positive and negative forces that balanced out at a value of zero. These represent not nothing agreed, but something. I would not say it was a deliberate distortion by apologists though - in fact cosmologists talk in these terms all the time, in terms of free lunches and i have lost count of how many times the atheist cosmologist Victor Stenger uses the phrase "nothing" in his arguments. You can not say it is an intentional deceit, as both "sides" and those with no religious baggage either way use it constantly.

Bad analogy - There are several bad analogies in this argument. The first is that "begins to exist" is a meaningless ad hoc. We do not observe things coming into existence rather we only observe changes in states of matter and energy.

No so. Here we see the creation of matter and energy. There was prior to the Big Bang no matter, and no energy - that is pretty much the point as i read the cosmologists. Matter and energy actually come in to existence with the Big Bang: before we have quantum field fluctuation acording to most theorists, which involves neither matter or energy - a photon field with a value of zero - no photons, no energy, no matter, no space, no time?

There is no logical basis to make this assumption. Now if it were possible to scientifically observe things blipping into existence then the argument might have a leg to stand on, but then one might as well just assume that the same happened with the things that make up the universe. No intangible god required.

Er, but we do see things coming in to existence all the time. I used to live with a quantum physicist and from that I learned this is in fact not uncommon at that level - I may be wrong, but it is certainly a claim we see quite a bit in anti-apologetics stuff from physicists. Anyone establish the truth here for me?

Proponents of the argument claim that the first cause must be personal in order to have willed everything into existence. Yet this is based on the analogy that humans sometimes act as personal causes to certain effects. Impersonal causes are much more common and therefore more probable.

This is an interesting one, but I think there is a fallacy there. In regard to the causation of garden gnomes personal (teleological) forces are far more common than impersonal ones. To return to your own first point, we can not estimate the set's origin from any subset of entities?

The causal agent is assumed to be intelligent, personal, or free willed. Yet intelligence, personality, and a will are all human traits that originate from the brain.

This assertion, while on the face of it common sense, is actually deeply problematic and unproven. We have to add another prerequite based upon an epiphenomenalist theory of mind/brain here, which is an unproven tenet.

The brain is a complex system of chemicals, which is subject to cause and effect. If God has these traits then he is also subject to cause and effect. If not then he needs to grow a brain, which would certainly explain a lot.

Boltzmann Brains? I think that falsifies this.

Special Pleading - The argument resorts to this fallacy more than ever. First it is implied that existence requires a cause.

No special pleading there - causality is central to Science, and materialism after all, and a key assumption of methodological naturalism. To claim otherwise would be special pleading: here the theist merely plays by the extablished rules.

However theists will argue that God is the only exception to the rule since he came first, and that he does not need a cause. Unless they can come up with other examples of things that exist without cause and then find a way to eliminate them without eliminating God, the category of uncaused things is meaningless and is just another way of saying "God."

Not so: the category of uncaused things is the category of Necessary entities. The only historically commonly postulated Necessary entities were a) a God, being part of the traditional arguments therefore from Aristotle through Aquinas to modern theology and b) the universe itself. If you look at the history of atheistic thought the claim the universe was a necessary entity can be found for many centuries as a key argument -- it has only been abandoned as scientific evidence falsified it in the last fifty or so years, Fred Hoyle being one of the last to resist this. However there is no necessity for the Necessary entity to resemble any given theisms God, except in as far as many theism have defined God as the causa causans, the unmoved mover. In that limited sense a ncessary entity is God, but not necessarily in any other way like anyones conception of God.

Now we actually could argue that we have an endless sucession of turtles, an infinite chain of events, as we can have an infinity of odd numbers. In which case we simply have eternal regress. That would falsify the argument, but still this universe has a cause as the theologians predicted.

The kalam argument is based on the reasoning that infinity does not exist in reality, only as a concept. It never actually manages to prove this mind you.

Agreed.

However God is allowed to be infinite, which is a blatant contradiction. An infinite god would itself be merely a concept, not real, which is probably not what the argument is intended to prove. Otherwise God also began to exist, in which case the argument self-refutes.

Not so - God has to be Necessary - but that does not necessarily constiture infinite. We could have a single necessary electron for instance, which would in no way be infinite, but would be Necessary not Contingent. Eternal yes: infinite, no.

If simultaneous causation is assumed then there is no way to rule out the possibility that the universe created God. There is in fact good reason to think that it did, and not the other way around. Humans have invented hundreds of thousands of deities throughout their history, and this creator god certainly reads like any other primitive human construct.

a) simultaneous creation?
b) nope, it just shows that human perceptions of the deity are constructed; that tells us nothing about the deity itselfs existence. Human constructions of Mount Everest are culturally mediated - the mountain is there though.

Begging the Question - Again there are several instances where this fallacy shows up. This is supposed to be a proof for God's existence, and if at any time God is part of the definition of any premise then the argument becomes circular. God is assumed to exist externally and uncaused, which is exactly what the argument is setting out to prove. This is no different from saying "everything except God is caused."

But God is not part of the definition of any of the premises?

We have no evidence of extraneous extra-temporal entities because we are not exposed to them. How could we be? There is no logical basis to assume (or deduce) them. In order for any argument to remain logical we must work with what we know, not with what we are trying to prove.

If we did not use the hypothetico-deductive method of modern science, combining rationalism and empiricism (often referred to these days as semi-empiricist) we would not have any theory of evolution, any cosmology, any Big Bang hypothesis, or much else. There are loads of logical bases to check for extraneous extra-temporal entities, as a moments thought should establish.

The universe is by definition the totality of existence, and time is a property of the universe. All actions require time to carry out. Any extraneous extra-temporal being would not be able to act on the universe without itself being a part of the universe.

Not so. In fact, modern cosmology is replete with supernatural hypotheses -- multiverse theory, quantum field fluctuation, etc, etc. The universe is not the sum total of existence - the natural realm of the universe comes in to existence with the Big Bang and creation of Space/Time. Secondly, how many time dimensions do you want to allow? If the answer is more than one, and there is no reason for that to be so (though some physicists in the last few months have started to think there may only be one after all) the issue vanishes. Hypertime and two time physics are hardly that eccentric?

Argument from incredulity - Proponents of the argument will try to refute the above by saying that a personal God is not "god of the gaps" but that he is deduced for the role of first cause from the premises. In other words they claim God is the only possible answer. Give me a break. This is the same as saying that the only way to fill a hole in the ground is to use concrete, when you could also plant a tree, fill it with water, or cover it back over with dirt. Just because the arguer is unable or unwilling to imagine anything else doesn't mean they don't exist or aren't just as valid. Besides an unknown cause is no different from a natural cause.

An unknown cause is not the same as a natural cause, as by definition a cause for the universe is supernatural. You would be better off attacking the idea that the Necessary entity postulated had any of the other attributes ascribed to God: this one seems solid.

Illicit quantifier shift - The Aristotelian prime mover argument on which cosmological arguments are based commits this fallacy. It says that since every effect has a cause, it follows that there must be one cause ultimately responsible for every effect. Excuse me while I laugh. This is the logical equivalent of saying that everybody loves somebody; therefore there is somebody that everyone loves! (Though I'll bet this isn't God either.)

You answered this in your first point - everything in nature has a cause - (though as i have said I have seen it argued that events at a quantum level can have no discerbible causal relation, rather arising from a probabilistic one, though that is still causal) - but the cause for nature is not necessarily caused. That si all the argument says. One allows one of two options -an infinite regress of causality, or a first cause.

So really this is only an argument for god in as far as historically God has often ben defined s the first cause. The weight of the argument is that for many centuries non-theist tended to argue the universe was uncaused, and ridicule the notion of causality applying to the universe, believing it to be an eternal uncaused necessary entity. That is now known not to be so...

Let's assume now that the argument is true. If it is possible for God to exist as an uncaused causal agent, then it should also be possible for other uncaused agents to exist. If theists were to limit the category to God, then they would have to admit that the whole category of uncaused things exists only to give them room to posit God. What is there stopping a multitude, or even an infinite number of agents from existing uncaused? (I've said it before, monotheism certainly owes a lot to paganisms.)

There can not be other Necessary entities according to logic. A Necessary entity s one that must exist, and is not contingent - can be no other way. if other entities existed it could be something else, hence becomes contingent, and hence is no longer Necessary.

What exactly is required of the first cause? The only thing the first cause had to do was set off the Big Bang and that's it. It could just as easily have been the tantrum of a cosmic baby as it was the will of an intelligent personal agent. If God can be made an exception simply by saying he is, then it ought to work on any other causal agent one can imagine. Perhaps the causal agent was a giant cosmic rectum whose flatulence set off the Big Bang. Nothing in the argument says the first cause still has to exist, so maybe afterwards it was all pooped out.

correct.

Furthermore let's assume that the causal agent does exist externally and uncaused. If it's outside the universe then it certainly is not inside. If any part of it exists inside at all, then there is no reason to think that it is not a part of the universe itself. Any external agent would certainly not be any god worth concerning ourselves with. In other words it can't be a worshipped entity, therefore it is not a god at all. The cosmological argument could just as easily be an endorsement of polytheism, or point to a naturalistic origin. How odd.

An entity which is external to our space/time could know all of our space/time, and by being able to set the starting considitos could be effectively "within" space/time with regards to intervention (see previous post).

1) If God can exist as an uncaused agent, how can the existence of other uncaused agents be ruled out?

See above. A necessary entity can be no other way: that rules out all other possible necessary entities.

2) For that matter how do we know that it was God and not some other agent or deity? For example, how does one rule out the possibility of design by committee?

The god defined here is simply the causa causans, so by definition this one. We can't say anything about its other attributes from this argument.

3) The universe contains just as much disorder, chaos, and disarray as it does order. How does one rule out the possibility that God created the universe by accident, or that he was too inept or stupid to know what he was doing?

We can't from this argument.

4) Any good scientific theory must make testable predictions. How can the design hypothesis be tested, and why hasn't this designer ever been observed in the act?

The cosmological question of ultimate questions is NOT a scientific question, because of a weakness inherent in our science. Our science predicates causality true, but it also prediates methodological naturalism, which fails when one has to postulate supernatural entities. So we either have to change our science, or accept it is a metaphysical question not a scientific one, any more than say the origins of World War 2 is a scientific question.

5) For all intents and purposes, how is a creator of unknown properties any different from a natural event?

Because it is by definition as originator of nature supernatural.

Hope helps!

cj x

 

[Frozenwolf150]

We can't. However the Universe as an entity appears to have a beginning, and things that begin have causes in nature- in fact you have identified the cause, as the quantum state, above???

I said it arose from a quantum state. I didn't say the quantum state was itself the cause. That would be like saying that the location of a thing is the agent that caused it. This however isn't the focus of my criticism.

Um, sort of. The notion as I understand it favoured by most current Big Bang theories is that there was a quantum field fluctuation, involving both positive and negative forces that balanced out at a value of zero. These represent not nothing agreed, but something. I would not say it was a deliberate distortion by apologists though - in fact cosmologists talk in these terms all the time, in terms of free lunches and i have lost count of how many times the atheist cosmologist Victor Stenger uses the phrase "nothing" in his arguments. You can not say it is an intentional deceit, as both "sides" and those with no religious baggage either way use it constantly.

The problem is that the Big Bang theory doesn't say "out of nothing, something" it says that the universe expanded from a singularity. This is very different from a literal nothing. The universe as we know it today certainly wasn't around, but it would be more accurate to say that it existed in a different state, rather than to say nothing existed at all. Besides, in articles such as this one Stenger is not postulating this as an explanation for the universe, rather he's addressing the very same claim I was, by discussing tools and models that could be used to explain the theoretical "nothing."

No so. Here we see the creation of matter and energy. There was prior to the Big Bang no matter, and no energy - that is pretty much the point as i read the cosmologists. Matter and energy actually come in to existence with the Big Bang: before we have quantum field fluctuation acording to most theorists, which involves neither matter or energy - a photon field with a value of zero - no photons, no energy, no matter, no space, no time?

Again, a singularity is not the same as nothing.

Er, but we do see things coming in to existence all the time. I used to live with a quantum physicist and from that I learned this is in fact not uncommon at that level - I may be wrong, but it is certainly a claim we see quite a bit in anti-apologetics stuff from physicists. Anyone establish the truth here for me?

I seriously doubt that pair production factored into the reasoning of Islamic theologians from 1,000 years ago. I was stating a logical objection. Even if we take that into account, it still demolishes kalam because no supernatural agency is needed for this to occur.

This is an interesting one, but I think there is a fallacy there. In regard to the causation of garden gnomes personal (teleological) forces are far more common than impersonal ones. To return to your own first point, we can not estimate the set's origin from any subset of entities?

You missed my point. I was saying that the majority of cause-effect relationships we observe have impersonal natural causes. Things that have personal causes, such as the tools humans design and the purposes we use them for, constitute a very small fraction of the effects in the world. Yet these are what the analogy of design is based on.

This assertion, while on the face of it common sense, is actually deeply problematic and unproven. We have to add another prerequite based upon an epiphenomenalist theory of mind/brain here, which is an unproven tenet.

Please read up on all the debates on idealism, dualism, monism, etc. and pay close attention to the "hammer applied to cranium" test. Besides, the fact that the workings of the mind are not fully understood is no excuse to shoehorn a divine or supernatural explanation into the gaps, nor does it conclusively prove the existence of one.

Boltzmann Brains? I think that falsifies this.

No, I'm pointing out why the "designing mind" analogy falls apart. The argument for God involves a non-corporeal mind that is somehow able to think things into existence (without motor neurons, muscles, appendages, tools, or raw materials to work with). We don't have any minds that work like that.

No special pleading there - causality is central to Science, and materialism after all, and a key assumption of methodological naturalism. To claim otherwise would be special pleading: here the theist merely plays by the extablished rules.

I was referring to the assumption, which kalam relies heavily on, that just because something exists it must have been caused into existence out of nothing. A variation on this is when some apologists ask, "Where did the matter and energy come from?" This is very different from scientific causality.

Not so: the category of uncaused things is the category of Necessary entities. The only historically commonly postulated Necessary entities were a) a God, being part of the traditional arguments therefore from Aristotle through Aquinas to modern theology and b) the universe itself.
(snip)

You missed my point. In order to avoid being a question-begging synonym for God, the category of uncaused things must be shown to accomodate more than just the conclusion the argument is aiming for, namely God. I didn't say it was impossible for the category to contain a single entity, however one cannot prove that it does simply by asserting it or appealing to popular beliefs. On a somewhat unrelated note, you're right that there's absolutely no need to call a requisite first cause "God." Something that triggers the Big Bang and then sputters out, disappears, or moves on is seriously no different from a natural event.

Not so - God has to be Necessary - but that does not necessarily constiture infinite. We could have a single necessary electron for instance, which would in no way be infinite, but would be Necessary not Contingent. Eternal yes: infinite, no.

I was referring to the reasoning that kalam uses. If you disagree, that's great, let's move on.

a) simultaneous creation?
b) nope, it just shows that human perceptions of the deity are constructed; that tells us nothing about the deity itselfs existence. Human constructions of Mount Everest are culturally mediated - the mountain is there though.

I admit this point was more of a tangent into a related philosophical topic, that it's far more likely that humans created their gods than the other way around. For starters, kalam personalizes the first cause (and names it God) and I've already explained why this is stupid. Regardless, mountains can be observed and measured.

But God is not part of the definition of any of the premises?

Yes it is, but you have to look back on the premises more closely. When the first premise says "that which begins to exist" it's actually a clever way of saying "everything that is not God" given the way the rest of the argument's reasoning is put together. In other words, it's creating a convenient hole to plug God into from the very beginning.

If we did not use the hypothetico-deductive method of modern science, combining rationalism and empiricism (often referred to these days as semi-empiricist) we would not have any theory of evolution, any cosmology, any Big Bang hypothesis, or much else. There are loads of logical bases to check for extraneous extra-temporal entities, as a moments thought should establish.

Do you have any examples, evidence, or proposed means of testing for the particular extraneous extra-temporal entity that kalam assumes is there? Evolution, cosmology, and the Big Bang all make testable predictions, for example, we can detect the microwave background that an expansion 14 billion years ago would have resulted in. How are we supposed to test for God-- sorry, the Aristotelian "prime mover"? If a hypothesis fails to withstand scientific scrutiny, it tends to be discarded.

I recently proposed something having to do with a field expedition into heaven and a giant tranquilizer gun, but no one's been willing to assist me. It's for science, for chrissake!

Not so. In fact, modern cosmology is replete with supernatural hypotheses -- multiverse theory, quantum field fluctuation, etc, etc. The universe is not the sum total of existence - the natural realm of the universe comes in to existence with the Big Bang and creation of Space/Time.
(snip)

An unknown cause is not the same as a natural cause, as by definition a cause for the universe is supernatural. You would be better off attacking the idea that the Necessary entity postulated had any of the other attributes ascribed to God: this one seems solid.

Read what Athon said. You're imposing the word "supernatural" onto something that, well, isn't. I know you're using the word a different way, but personal definitions tend to make discussions more difficult due to equivocation unless they're explicitly defined. I'm referring to the common definition of supernatural, i.e. the one most theists would use.

You answered this in your first point - everything in nature has a cause - (though as i have said I have seen it argued that events at a quantum level can have no discerbible causal relation, rather arising from a probabilistic one, though that is still causal) - but the cause for nature is not necessarily caused. That si all the argument says. One allows one of two options -an infinite regress of causality, or a first cause.

Or multiple causes, or retrocausality, or a causality loop. These are all fair game considering that the prime mover argument is based on speculative reasoning.

So really this is only an argument for god in as far as historically God has often ben defined s the first cause. The weight of the argument is that for many centuries non-theist tended to argue the universe was uncaused, and ridicule the notion of causality applying to the universe, believing it to be an eternal uncaused necessary entity. That is now known not to be so...

Agreed. Leave "God" out of the equation until we know more about it. I have no problem with God being used as a placeholder or metaphor, but once we do find out more, God has to back off.

There can not be other Necessary entities according to logic. A Necessary entity s one that must exist, and is not contingent - can be no other way. if other entities existed it could be something else, hence becomes contingent, and hence is no longer Necessary.

An entity which is external to our space/time could know all of our space/time, and by being able to set the starting considitos could be effectively "within" space/time with regards to intervention (see previous post).

See above. A necessary entity can be no other way: that rules out all other possible necessary entities.

That's not how causality works in science. Effects tend to have multiple causes. What is the cause of rainfall? Of sunlight? Of natural selection? In order for the analogy to hold when carried up a level in logic, this possibility of multiple causes must remain open.

The cosmological question of ultimate questions is NOT a scientific question, because of a weakness inherent in our science. Our science predicates causality true, but it also prediates methodological naturalism, which fails when one has to postulate supernatural entities. So we either have to change our science, or accept it is a metaphysical question not a scientific one, any more than say the origins of World War 2 is a scientific question.

Because it is by definition as originator of nature supernatural.

See previous objections to your definition of "supernatural." It's strange that you would refer to our understanding of the Big Bang, which is a scientific theory, to support the design argument, and then say that the design argument is beyond the reach of science. Also, are you implying that the tools and methods of science have no application to studying or answering the questions of history? I was under the impression that evidence gathering and critical analysis was a pretty important part of understanding history.

 

[Radrook]

This seems, on its face, a ridiculous discussion. Of course the universe has a cause. Well, more than one actually. This part was, of course, created by the highly talented Mr. Slarti Blartfast. It says so, right there on the fjords.

Your "....because-it-says-so!"counterargument is strawman.

 

[gjpogiatzis]

"Faith comes from hearing the word of God" (Romans 10:17) and is a gift of God, not from silly philosophical arguments by Aquinas, Descartes, and others. The Old Testament proves the New Testament and vice versa if you read carefully with an open mind and with God's enlightenment as I have with great care for years.

 

[RandFan]

"Faith comes from hearing the word of God" (Romans 10:17) and is a gift of God, not from silly philosophical arguments by Aquinas, Descartes, and others. The Old Testament proves the New Testament and vice versa if you read carefully with an open mind and with God's enlightenment as I have with great care for years.

Hi gjpogiatzis,

Welcome to the forum. I've read the Bible with an open mind. I've read it a number of times. From cover to cover at least twice. I served a two year mission and I was very open minded and a true believer.

I don't believe anything in the bible proves much of anything other than it is a collection of writings from people who lived during the bronze age and believed it was ok to own other human beings, kill their children, commit genocide, kill people for working on Sunday, disassociate from women while they are on their menstrual cycle, torture and kill women who are not virgins on their wedding night, engage in racism and xenophobia, etc.

There are some good things in there. As a work of literature it's an interesting piece of work. Some parts are really quite beautiful. It's not the best work of literature ever produced but not bad. It's misleading from an historical aspect and it tells a lot of lies and contains a lot of contradictions but I own several copies. My favorite is KJV. You?

Please to enlighten us on any aspects that you think prove anything.

Thanks,

RandFan

 

[Mashuna]

"The Old Testament proves the New Testament and vice versa.

It's rare to get such an explicit example of circular reasoning.