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!
Current time: March 28, 2024, 6:49 pm

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
William Craig's problem with actual infinities.
#1
William Craig's problem with actual infinities.
In his 2014 debate with Sean Carroll, Craig states the following:


Quote:Dr. Carroll does hold out hope that quantum cosmology might serve to restore the past eternality of the universe; but I would say that not only is there no evidence for such a hope, but I would agree with Vilenkin that if there is a quantum gravity regime prior to the Planck Time, then that just is the beginning of the universe. Dr. Carroll says you can have quantum descriptions of the universe that are eternal, and that is certainly true, but the question is: why would the universe transition to classical spacetime just 13 billion years ago? It could not have existed from infinity past in an unstable quantum state and then just 13 billion years ago transition to classical spacetime. It would have done it from eternity past, if at all.

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/god-and-c...z3yq6jszTm

What can't the same observation be made about the supposed Incarnation?  If god existed from "eternity past", as Craig claims, why didn't the Incarnation occur in "eternity past," also?  It seems like special pleading to suggest otherwise.
Reply
#2
RE: William Craig's problem with actual infinities.
(January 31, 2016 at 1:28 pm)Jehanne Wrote: In his 2014 debate with Sean Carroll, Craig states the following:


Quote:Dr. Carroll does hold out hope that quantum cosmology might serve to restore the past eternality of the universe; but I would say that not only is there no evidence for such a hope, but I would agree with Vilenkin that if there is a quantum gravity regime prior to the Planck Time, then that just is the beginning of the universe. Dr. Carroll says you can have quantum descriptions of the universe that are eternal, and that is certainly true, but the question is: why would the universe transition to classical spacetime just 13 billion years ago? It could not have existed from infinity past in an unstable quantum state and then just 13 billion years ago transition to classical spacetime. It would have done it from eternity past, if at all.

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/god-and-c...z3yq6jszTm

What can't the same observation be made about the supposed Incarnation?  If god existed from "eternity past", as Craig claims, why didn't the Incarnation occur in "eternity past," also?  It seems like special pleading to suggest otherwise.

Hate to spoil the fun, but according to many Christians, this is exactly their belief. Jesus has always been both man and God.

That said, I agree with you, it's all special pleading at the end of the day.
Reply
#3
RE: William Craig's problem with actual infinities.
(January 31, 2016 at 1:38 pm)Irrational Wrote:
(January 31, 2016 at 1:28 pm)Jehanne Wrote: In his 2014 debate with Sean Carroll, Craig states the following:



http://www.reasonablefaith.org/god-and-c...z3yq6jszTm

What can't the same observation be made about the supposed Incarnation?  If god existed from "eternity past", as Craig claims, why didn't the Incarnation occur in "eternity past," also?  It seems like special pleading to suggest otherwise.

Hate to spoil the fun, but according to many Christians, this is exactly their belief. Jesus has always been both man and God.

That said, I agree with you, it's all special pleading at the end of the day.

But, if you listen to Craig, god "changed", irrevocably, when he became Man, and yet, god waited an actual infinite to do just that. The "virgin birth," per people like Craig, happened only one time.
Reply
#4
RE: William Craig's problem with actual infinities.
The problem with Craig (well, one of many) is that he either doesn't understand how infinite sets work, or he benefits from presenting a misunderstanding of them. All an infinite set really does is describe a set without an upper or lower bound, and yet WLC seems to be asserting that progression or development of any sort is impossible due to that lack of bounds. The problem with the assertion that the universe would have transitioned to classical spacetime "from eternity past, if at all," is that the 13 billion year span that the universe has possessed classical spacetime is itself a part of "eternity past." In a very real sense, that's exactly what happened, because an eternal reality doesn't preclude the existence of progression from a given state to another state within the context of the set, just that the set itself has no beginning or end point. The universe, at least the model of it Craig mistakenly thinks his incredulity will debunk, may not have had a beginning, but it's not a crazy idea at all that it might still have taken time for the conditions within it to arrange in such a way that classical spacetime results, because a lack of a beginning or end does not preclude the notion of change within specified time frames in the set. Hell, we're not even capable of understanding how common or uncommon the conditions that led to classical spacetime may be in the context of the immediately previous state of the universe, it could simply be that what we perceive as spacetime arising is a particularly rare event that takes a certain amount of time to coalesce. Craig's contention isn't even a problem.

Another issue here is that Craig's terminology is so fucked up and loaded with assumptions that it can't even really be considered a cogent thought. On the one hand, Craig acknowledges that classical spacetime is a phenomenon with a concrete beginning, and then he goes right on to assume that the state of reality prior to that behaves exactly like an ordered, linear progression such that he can apply his baseless ideas about actual infinites to that... but there's no reason for this to be so. Notions like "eternity" may not even be applicable, we have no way of knowing yet, and yet Craig is happy to just assume that for his own benefit.

So, the problem- aside from the special pleading, which isn't surprising from Craig- is that he's using a willfully ignorant understanding of infinities, to ask a fundamentally mangled and malformed question, which itself has a more parsimonious answer even within the framework of its ridiculous, fucked up premises.

... Pretty standard Craig argumentation, if you ask me.
"YOU take the hard look in the mirror. You are everything that is wrong with this world. The only thing important to you, is you." - ronedee

Want to see more of my writing? Check out my (safe for work!) site, Unprotected Sects!
Reply
#5
RE: William Craig's problem with actual infinities.
(January 31, 2016 at 2:52 pm)Esquilax Wrote: The problem with Craig (well, one of many) is that he either doesn't understand how infinite sets work, or he benefits from presenting a misunderstanding of them. All an infinite set really does is describe a set without an upper or lower bound, and yet WLC seems to be asserting that progression or development of any sort is impossible due to that lack of bounds. The problem with the assertion that the universe would have transitioned to classical spacetime "from eternity past, if at all," is that the 13 billion year span that the universe has possessed classical spacetime is itself a part of "eternity past." In a very real sense, that's exactly what happened, because an eternal reality doesn't preclude the existence of progression from a given state to another state within the context of the set, just that the set itself has no beginning or end point. The universe, at least the model of it Craig mistakenly thinks his incredulity will debunk, may not have had a beginning, but it's not a crazy idea at all that it might still have taken time for the conditions within it to arrange in such a way that classical spacetime results, because a lack of a beginning or end does not preclude the notion of change within specified time frames in the set. Hell, we're not even capable of understanding how common or uncommon the conditions that led to classical spacetime may be in the context of the immediately previous state of the universe, it could simply be that what we perceive as spacetime arising is a particularly rare event that takes a certain amount of time to coalesce. Craig's contention isn't even a problem.

Another issue here is that Craig's terminology is so fucked up and loaded with assumptions that it can't even really be considered a cogent thought. On the one hand, Craig acknowledges that classical spacetime is a phenomenon with a concrete beginning, and then he goes right on to assume that the state of reality prior to that behaves exactly like an ordered, linear progression such that he can apply his baseless ideas about actual infinites to that... but there's no reason for this to be so. Notions like "eternity" may not even be applicable, we have no way of knowing yet, and yet Craig is happy to just assume that for his own benefit.

So, the problem- aside from the special pleading, which isn't surprising from Craig- is that he's using a willfully ignorant understanding of infinities, to ask a fundamentally mangled and malformed question, which itself has a more parsimonious answer even within the framework of its ridiculous, fucked up premises.

... Pretty standard Craig argumentation, if you ask me.

He applies to the Cosmos what he refuses to apply to god.  And yet, if god had no beginning, then god waited an infinite amount of time, in which he had an infinite amount of thoughts, to create the Universe 13.8 billion years ago.
Reply
#6
RE: William Craig's problem with actual infinities.
(January 31, 2016 at 3:40 pm)Jehanne Wrote: He applies to the Cosmos what he refuses to apply to god.  And yet, if god had no beginning, then god waited an infinite amount of time, in which he had an infinite amount of thoughts, to create the Universe 13.8 billion years ago.

In another instance of Craig supporting two mutually exclusive ideas, apparently in the expectation that neither of them will be compared to the other, he actually just straight up believes that god didn't have an infinite amount of thoughts, that instead god's mind is changeless (itself a reaction to a contradiction in a third position he holds, wherein matter cannot be timeless and eternal on the basis that it changes, and is thus temporal in nature). So we're to believe, if one were to take seriously every claim Craig makes, that the universe cannot be eternal because infinity is logically problematic, but that god can be eternal just because, and that this god is necessarily changeless, it just so happened to change when it made the universe, and change when it became Jesus, and change a bunch of other times, but it's still changeless because... well, because that is the claim Craig needed to make in order to dismiss objections to previous claims that Craig has made.

That's why you don't need to take any single thing WLC says terribly seriously: skill as an orator aside, Craig's position is actually staggeringly light on content. Any individual argument he makes can be relied upon to contradict at least one past argument, and to in turn be contradicted by a future one, because despite all the pretensions to intellectual rigor that Craig puts up, he rather depends on his audience never taking his stated positions outside of the singular forum in which they are currently being stated, nor outside of their service to their true aim, which is to get to the conclusion that god exists by any means necessary. Is he playing two sides against the middle by asserting that god is a changeless mind when confronted with a rebuttal to his statements about matter, then asserting that god changed in some other context? Yes, of course, but interpreting that as a failure just misunderstands the game Craig is playing: he wins at that game because in both isolated instances he came to the conclusion that god exists, and that is what matters to him. That's what brings in the money.

And we can expect, just as sure as the sun rises in the east, that if we were to take these two statements to Craig in a public venue where he can't just sweep it under the rug, he'll come up with some tapdance or another such that both statements can be true, in the process violating one or two other positions within his ramshackle worldview that we won't discover until after the fact when it's too late. Again, all that matters is that within the moment his worldview gives off the appearance not of being correct, but of being sciency and truthy. If it feels right in the moment of presentation, facts be damned, then Craig has accomplished his goal.
"YOU take the hard look in the mirror. You are everything that is wrong with this world. The only thing important to you, is you." - ronedee

Want to see more of my writing? Check out my (safe for work!) site, Unprotected Sects!
Reply
#7
RE: William Craig's problem with actual infinities.
(January 31, 2016 at 4:18 pm)Esquilax Wrote: Again, all that matters is that within the moment his worldview gives off the appearance not of being correct, but of being sciency and truthy. If it feels right in the moment of presentation, facts be damned, then Craig has accomplished his goal.

If you watch his interview on Closer to Truth, he admits that god, in fact, did change, irrevocably, with the Incarnation:

http://www.closertotruth.com/contributor...ig/profile

If so, his whole "actual infinities" argument goes right out the window.  I'm sorry that I don't have the exact time in the interview where Craig makes that statement.
Reply
#8
RE: William Craig's problem with actual infinities.
(January 31, 2016 at 5:43 pm)Jehanne Wrote:
(January 31, 2016 at 4:18 pm)Esquilax Wrote: Again, all that matters is that within the moment his worldview gives off the appearance not of being correct, but of being sciency and truthy. If it feels right in the moment of presentation, facts be damned, then Craig has accomplished his goal.

If you watch his interview on Closer to Truth, he admits that god, in fact, did change, irrevocably, with the Incarnation:

http://www.closertotruth.com/contributor...ig/profile

If so, his whole "actual infinities" argument goes right out the window.  I'm sorry that I don't have the exact time in the interview where Craig makes that statement.

Oh, I've never for a moment doubted you when you described his position there, since it's well within his character to take ownership of two contradictory positions whenever it's convenient. God doesn't change when it's better for Craig that he doesn't, and god does change whenever the reverse is true. That's the trouble with addressing his arguments: you're disagreeing on the basis that the argument is flawed, but Craig didn't make the argument because he believes it to be true, or even that it's a particularly consistent statement of his beliefs. Indeed, he doesn't even believe that argumentation is required, since his belief in god doesn't rest on argument or evidence, but on the presupposition that his god is real (his "inner witness of the holy spirit.") He made the argument because it leads to his preferred conclusion.
"YOU take the hard look in the mirror. You are everything that is wrong with this world. The only thing important to you, is you." - ronedee

Want to see more of my writing? Check out my (safe for work!) site, Unprotected Sects!
Reply
#9
RE: William Craig's problem with actual infinities.
(January 31, 2016 at 1:28 pm)Jehanne Wrote: In his 2014 debate with Sean Carroll, Craig states the following:


Quote:Dr. Carroll does hold out hope that quantum cosmology might serve to restore the past eternality of the universe; but I would say that not only is there no evidence for such a hope, but I would agree with Vilenkin that if there is a quantum gravity regime prior to the Planck Time, then that just is the beginning of the universe. Dr. Carroll says you can have quantum descriptions of the universe that are eternal, and that is certainly true, but the question is: why would the universe transition to classical spacetime just 13 billion years ago? It could not have existed from infinity past in an unstable quantum state and then just 13 billion years ago transition to classical spacetime. It would have done it from eternity past, if at all.

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/god-and-c...z3yq6jszTm

What can't the same observation be made about the supposed Incarnation?  If god existed from "eternity past", as Craig claims, why didn't the Incarnation occur in "eternity past," also?  It seems like special pleading to suggest otherwise.



Hi Jehanne,

I'm an atheist and new here so I hope you don't mind me chipping in.

If you're going to critique Craig amongst those who accept his arguments (but not all believers do mind you and some of them who do, don't understand the logical implications of Craig's own position) then you need to bear in mind that Craig doesn't believe that God has existed from "eternity past".  In this context a "past eternity" is the same as a temporal, infinite regress of time and Craig strenuously argues (unsuccessfully, I think) that such a thing is impossible.  Rather, he holds that God is timelessly without beginning and that when God creates, he becomes temporal with the universe.  At that point, time starts to pass for God too.  But because God is timeless without the universe, there is no "waiting around" for God to do.
Reply
#10
RE: William Craig's problem with actual infinities.
I wouldn't trust WLC to count to five.
Feel free to send me a private message.
Please visit my website here! It's got lots of information about atheism/theism and support for new atheists.

Index of useful threads and discussions
Index of my best videos
Quickstart guide to the forum
Reply



Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Peterson's 12 Rules for Life v2.0-- actual book discussion bennyboy 238 16815 October 8, 2018 at 3:20 am
Last Post: GrandizerII
  Actual Infinity in Reality? SteveII 478 62562 March 6, 2018 at 11:44 am
Last Post: Anomalocaris
  Actual infinities. Jehanne 48 9229 October 18, 2017 at 12:38 am
Last Post: Succubus
  William James and Belief In Belief Mudhammam 0 616 November 2, 2016 at 7:13 pm
Last Post: Mudhammam
  Craig, Van Inwagen, and Bridges Mudhammam 13 1538 April 3, 2016 at 8:37 pm
Last Post: BrianSoddingBoru4
  If beauty doesn't require God, why should morality? (Bite me Dr. Craig.) Whateverist 94 15686 August 11, 2014 at 3:21 am
Last Post: bennyboy
  The foundations of William L. Craigs "science" proven wrong? Arthur Dent 5 1275 July 25, 2014 at 1:08 pm
Last Post: Rabb Allah
  Using the arguments against actual infinites against theists Freedom of thought 4 2236 May 14, 2014 at 12:58 am
Last Post: Freedom of thought
  william l. craig justin 22 5240 March 6, 2013 at 5:08 pm
Last Post: CapnAwesome
  William Rowe vs. Evolutionary Universalism Nimzo 2 1332 May 18, 2011 at 2:28 pm
Last Post: Nimzo



Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)