(May 9, 2016 at 10:32 am)SteveII Wrote:(May 9, 2016 at 6:43 am)Jörmungandr Wrote:SteveII Wrote:Regarding explanatory power, I think you are forgetting we are talking metaphysics and not lab experiments. The KCA is an inductive argument, and as such the premises are providing strong evidence for the conclusion in a probabilistic sense. In contrast, a deductive argument would be certain. In addition, when discussing explanatory power, you are usually comparing two or more theories. When you compare God creating the universe to "I don't know", I would say that the God hypothesis is superior--especially since there are no logical errors in the argument.
Logical arguments and logical explanations are two different things. You're conflating one with the other. The fact that there are metaphysical arguments which may point toward God being a necessary assumption does nothing to enhance the quality of that explanation in terms of explanatory power. If all you mean to say is, "It's magic, so it doesn't have to explain anything" then I think you've lost before you've started. Metaphysical concepts have to explain, too. And when they don't, it is regarded as a failure. Regardless, this is just an attempt to exclude God from the same consideration that other hypotheses have to face. And it fails.
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... Regarding the constant objection to excluding God from having a cause, you are missing the whole point of this particular inductive argument which is to investigate if the universe has a cause and what properties must that cause have. Since the universe and its cause are not the same thing and they obviously have different properties, there is nothing illogical about inferring those properties.
I wasn't saying that you were excluding God from having a cause, but rather that you are trying to make exception to how well the God explanation illuminates the phenomenon (explanatory power) by pointing out that this isn't a lab experiment, yada yada. Regardless of the context of the phenomena, either your chosen explanation makes it greatly more understandable and coherent or it does not. Claiming metaphysics does nothing to get you out from under that burden.