(July 24, 2016 at 3:45 pm)Stimbo Wrote: So why are scriptures brought up at all? I'm not under the impression that the bible is a "treatise on metaphysics", remember; none of this is my claim. I'm questioning the proposal that scriptures contain this kind of information.
Asuming that reality is intelligible and reason is effective is one thing, but that's not the part under examination. It's the "general revelation" part. Let's posit a person coming to this for the first time, with no prior conceptions or anyone interpreting meaning and telling him what to believe - what about the bible, general revelation and the classical "God" can possibly lead to the conclusion that reality existed before time began?
I don't know whether time began or always was. Either way the conclusion is that God is eternally present. It starts with the recognition that there is something rather than nothing. Next is the observation that some things that exist could possibly not exist. If it was possible for all things to not exist then it could be that they could all simultaneously not exist. Then there would be nothing. Nothing comes from nothing so if at any prior moment there was nothing then nothing now would be. Therefore there must be something that is both necessary and capable of sustaining everything else, I.e. a necessary being.
