(February 7, 2018 at 9:40 pm)Grandizer Wrote:(February 7, 2018 at 9:37 pm)SteveII Wrote: If God exists, he does so necessarily (as in could not have been otherwise). Because of this, it makes no sense to ask what it the explanation of God. Either he always did exist or he does not. The question is: are there reasons to think that God does exist? I gave three categories of reasons. Incontrovertible proof? No. Reasons? Yes.
And if the universe/cosmos exists, it does so necessarily (it could not have been otherwise, especially if we include multiverses in the picture). We have clear evidence the universe exists. God, on the other hand, we have virtually nil evidence of.
Inductive arguments, by the way, doesn't mean you can invoke entities out of nowhere.
No, there is no logical reason that the physical universe/cosmos/multiverse exists necessarily. 'Necessarily' means "could not have been otherwise". We can all conceive of a state of affairs (a possible world) where nothing at all exists and another state of affairs where they do. Since we can conceive of both possible worlds as being broadly logically possible (not contradictory), the universe/cosmos/multiverse does not necessarily exist. If you are going to posit an eternal universe (or whatever), it is simply a brute fact (a fact with no explanation). That's the route most atheist philosophers would go. God is not a brute fact, because the concept of God defines it as needing no explanation (necessarily).
The natural theology inductive arguments infer an entity that shares several characteristics of God. For example, for anything to exist a first cause must be at least uncaused, immaterial, timeless and has intentionality (otherwise would have caused the cosmos an infinite time ago).
