Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
(April 21, 2014 at 11:03 am)super spidey man Wrote: The First Cause Argument
If there is no first cause, then the universe is like a great chain with many links; each link is held up by the link above it, but the whole chain is held up by nothing.
Downbeatplumb already covered the fact that "I don't know" is a valid answer; certainly more valid than making things up. That being said, lets give this a go:
What created the universe? God.
What created god? God doesn't have a cause. He's eternal.
How do you know God is eternal? How do you know the universe isn't?
If you're fine believing in eternal things, you have no reason to state that the universe couldn't be eternal. In order for you to be able to insert God into the first cause argument, you need to make three assumptions: 1) God exists 2) God can create universes 3) God is eternal
If you don't assume those three things, then you can't prove God created the universe, and if you're making assumptions, then this isn't proving God. Also, I can assume any particular thing I want, if I make those three assumptions, and suddenly I've "proven" that thing.
-sigh- I usually go all out with point-by-point response, but shit I'm not doing that to another First Cause post.
Spidey, the problem that you completely failed to address is that claiming that even an infinite chain of explanations itself requires an explanation itself is just an assertion. Specifically, it's nothing but a lazy assumption that the Principle of Sufficient Reason - which claims that EVERYTHING requires a reason or cause, either externally or by necessity - is an ontological truth. The problem is on this basis I can ask "What is the reason or cause for the ontological truth of the PSR?" Hume basically realized that claiming the PSR is necessarily true can be easily refuted by showing that causal events bear out no necessary connection. Worse, saying the PSR is necessary is no different than saying the PSR is a brute fact, because no further explanation is given, nor could it even be given in principle.
And ponder this: If you're going to claim that the PSR is true because otherwise things would just pop into existence, you're begging the question. You'd be saying that the reason that things don't pop into existence is because the PSR is true. In other words, you'd be claiming that the reason things have reasons they exist is because things have reasons they exist. Round and round we go.
"The reason things will never get better is because people keep electing these rich cocksuckers who don't give a shit about you."
-George Carlin
(April 22, 2014 at 6:13 pm)MindForgedManacle Wrote: -sigh- I usually go all out with point-by-point response, but shit I'm not doing that to another First Cause post.
Spidey, the problem that you completely failed to address is that claiming that even an infinite chain of explanations itself requires an explanation itself is just an assertion. Specifically, it's nothing but a lazy assumption that the Principle of Sufficient Reason - which claims that EVERYTHING requires a reason or cause, either externally or by necessity - is an ontological truth. The problem is on this basis I can ask "What is the reason or cause for the ontological truth of the PSR?" Hume basically realized that claiming the PSR is necessarily true can be easily refuted by showing that causal events bear out no necessary connection. Worse, saying the PSR is necessary is no different than saying the PSR is a brute fact, because no further explanation is given, nor could it even be given in principle.
And ponder this: If you're going to claim that the PSR is true because otherwise things would just pop into existence, you're begging the question. You'd be saying that the reason that things don't pop into existence is because the PSR is true. In other words, you'd be claiming that the reason things have reasons they exist is because things have reasons they exist. Round and round we go.
MFM, I know you like Hume but I always think of him as a cynic without any positive position. He presents a case for divorcing causes from effects while supplying no unifying principle to reestablish the relationship. It seems to me a refutation that devolves into incoherence isn't a very compelling one.
Hume is the sort of starting point on the metaphysics of causation. It's certainly progressed beyond what Hume said, but the recognition of the importance of what Hume said on the matter is as important as ever. I don't think one necessarily needs to have a case of their own to show problems with someone else's case.
"The reason things will never get better is because people keep electing these rich cocksuckers who don't give a shit about you."
-George Carlin
April 23, 2014 at 12:49 pm (This post was last modified: April 23, 2014 at 12:50 pm by Simon Moon.)
(April 21, 2014 at 11:03 am)super spidey man Wrote: The First Cause Argument
Followed by a wall of text...
Please restate this argument in a logical syllogism so we have something to respond to.
We'll wait.....
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
@OP,
Seriously dude, do you honestly think we haven't heard this shit before? Aquinas made the argument in the 13th century, but you stroll in here and act as if it hasn't been seriously considered. MFM has already directed you to Hume.
I think you are just here taking a big shit in our foyer, but if you are sincerely interested read the content of the following link. This conversation has only been going on for seven centuries; you could put a little effort into catching up.
(April 23, 2014 at 12:42 pm)MindForgedManacle Wrote: Hume is the sort of starting point on the metaphysics of causation. It's certainly progressed beyond what Hume said, but the recognition of the importance of what Hume said on the matter is as important as ever. I don't think one necessarily needs to have a case of their own to show problems with someone else's case.
Except in the case of Hume he wants to have his cake and eat it too.If causation becomes a matter of pure induction then a knowing subject is needed to recognize the pattern. And for Hume the knowing subject itself can be deconstructed into descrite parts, I.e. personal identity is also induced.
(April 21, 2014 at 11:03 am)super spidey man Wrote: The First Cause Argument ...
If there is no first cause, then the universe is like a great chain with many links; each link is held up by the link above it, but the whole chain is held up by nothing.
The most famous of all arguments for the existence of God are the "five ways" of Saint Thomas Aquinas. One of the five ways, the fifth, is the argument from design, which we looked at in the last essay. The other four are versions of the first-cause argument, which we explore here.
The argument is basically very simple, natural, intuitive, and commonsensical. We have to become complex and clever in order to doubt or dispute it. It is based on an instinct of mind that we all share: the instinct that says everything needs an explanation. Nothing just is without a reason why it is. Everything that is has some adequate or sufficient reason why it is.
Philosophers call this the Principle of Sufficient Reason. We use it every day, in common sense and in science as well as in philosophy and theology. If we saw a rabbit suddenly appear on an empty table, we would not blandly say, "Hi, rabbit. You came from nowhere, didn't you?" No, we would look for a cause, assuming there has to be one. Did the rabbit fall from the ceiling? Did a magician put it there when we weren't looking? If there seems to be no physical cause, we look for a psychological cause: perhaps someone hypnotized us. As a last resort, we look for a supernatural cause, a miracle. But there must be some cause. We never deny the Principle of Sufficient Reason itself. No one believes the Pop Theory: that things just pop into existence for no reason at all. Perhaps we will never find the cause, but there must be a cause for everything that comes into existence.
If there is no first cause, then the universe is like a great chain with many links; each link is held up by the link above it, but the whole chain is held up by nothing.
Now the whole universe is a vast, interlocking chain of things that come into existence. Each of these things must therefore have a cause. My parents caused me, my grandparents caused them, et cetera. But it is not that simple. I would not be here without billions of causes, from the Big Bang through the cooling of the galaxies and the evolution of the protein molecule to the marriages of my ancestors. The universe is a vast and complex chain of causes. But does the universe as a whole have a cause? Is there a first cause, an uncaused cause, a transcendent cause of the whole chain of causes? If not, then there is an infinite regress of causes, with no first link in the great cosmic chain. If so, then there is an eternal, necessary, independent, self-explanatory being with nothing above it, before it, or supporting it. It would have to explain itself as well as everything else, for if it needed something else as its explanation, its reason, its cause, then it would not be the first and uncaused cause. Such a being would have to be God, of course. If we can prove there is such a first cause, we will have proved there is a God.
Why must there be a first cause? Because if there isn't, then the whole universe is unexplained, and we have violated our Principle of Sufficient Reason for everything. If there is no first cause, each particular thing in the universe is explained in the short run, or proximately, by some other thing, but nothing is explained in the long run, or ultimately, and the universe as a whole is not explained. Everyone and everything says in turn, "Don't look to me for the final explanation. I'm just an instrument. Something else caused me." If that's all there is, then we have an endless passing of the buck. God is the one who says, "The buck stops here."
If there is no first cause, then the universe is like a great chain with many links; each link is held up by the link above it, but the whole chain is held up by nothing. If there is no first cause, then the universe is like a railroad train moving without an engine. Each car's motion is explained proximately by the motion of the car in front of it: the caboose moves because the boxcar pulls it, the boxcar moves because the cattle car pulls it, et cetera. But there is no engine to pull the first car and the whole train. That would be impossible, of course. But that is what the universe is like if there is no first cause: impossible.
Here is one more analogy. Suppose I tell you there is a book that explains everything you want explained. You want that book very much. You ask me whether I have it. I say no, I have to get it from my wife. Does she have it? No, she has to get it from a neighbor. Does he have it? No, he has to get it from his teacher, who has to get it. . . et cetera, etcetera, ad infinitum. No one actually has the book. In that case, you will never get it. However long or short the chain of book borrowers may be, you will get the book only if someone actually has it and does not have to borrow it. Well, existence is like that book. Existence is handed down the chain of causes, from cause to effect. If there is no first cause, no being who is eternal and self-sufficient, no being who has existence by his own nature and does not have to borrow it from someone else, then the gift of existence can never be passed down the chain to others, and no one will ever get it. But we did get it. We exist. We got the gift of existence from our causes, down the chain, and so did every actual being in the universe, from atoms to archangels. Therefore there must be a first cause of existence, a God.
If there is no independent being, then the whole chain of dependent beings is dependent on nothing and could not exist.
In more abstract philosophical language, the proof goes this way. Every being that exists either exists by itself, by its own essence or nature, or it does not exist by itself. If it exists by its own essence, then it exists necessarily and eternally, and explains itself. It cannot not exist, as a triangle cannot not have three sides. If, on the other hand, a being exists but not by its own essence, then it needs a cause, a reason outside itself for its existence. Because it does not explain itself, something else must explain it. Beings whose essence does not contain the reason for their existence, beings that need causes, are called contingent, or dependent, beings. A being whose essence is to exist is called a necessary being. The universe contains only contingent beings. God would be the only necessary being—if God existed. Does he? Does a necessary being exist? Here is the proof that it does. Dependent beings cannot cause themselves. They are dependent on their causes. If there is no independent being, then the whole chain of dependent beings is dependent on nothing and could not exist. But they do exist. Therefore there is an independent being.
Saint Thomas has four versions of this basic argument.
First, he argues that the chain of movers must have a first mover because nothing can move itself. (Moving here refers to any kind of change, not just change of place.) If the whole chain of moving things had no first mover, it could not now be moving, as it is. If there were an infinite regress of movers with no first mover, no motion could ever begin, and if it never began, it could not go on and exist now. But it does go on, it does exist now. Therefore it began, and therefore there is a first mover.
Second, he expands the proof from proving a cause of motion to proving a cause of existence, or efficient cause. He argues that if there were no first efficient cause, or cause of the universe's coming into being, then there could be no second causes because second causes (i.e., caused causes) are dependent on (i.e., caused by) a first cause (i.e., an uncaused cause). But there are second causes all around us. Therefore there must be a first cause.
Third, he argues that if there were no eternal, necessary, and immortal being, if everything had a possibility of not being, of ceasing to be, then eventually this possibility of ceasing to be would be realized for everything. In other words, if everything could die, then, given infinite time, everything would eventually die. But in that case nothing could start up again. We would have universal death, for a being that has ceased to exist cannot cause itself or anything else to begin to exist again. And if there is no God, then there must have been infinite time, the universe must have been here always, with no beginning, no first cause. But this universal death has not happened; things do exist! Therefore there must be a necessary being that cannot not be, cannot possibly cease to be. That is a description of God.
Fourth, there must also be a first cause of perfection or goodness or value. We rank things as more or less perfect or good or valuable. Unless this ranking is false and meaningless, unless souls don't really have any more perfection than slugs, there must be a real standard of perfection to make such a hierarchy possible, for a thing is ranked higher on the hierarchy of perfection only insofar as it is closer to the standard, the ideal, the most perfect. Unless there is a most-perfect being to be that real standard of perfection, all our value judgments are meaningless and impossible. Such a most-perfect being, or real ideal standard of perfection, is another description of God http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/first-cause.htm
Theoretically, matter can spontaneously come from nothing. It's a very 'live' topic in Theoretical Physics right now. It's an incredibly technical theory which I have attempted to make more accessible in a previous post (as much as I can).
"The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions" - Leonardo da Vinci
"I think I use the term “radical” rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one ... etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously." - Douglas Adams (and I echo the sentiment)
