A Necessary Being?

[RoadRunner79]

The question is whether or not a given definition serves as the means to identify and clarify the nature of a discoverable feature of reality. It seems you would have people believe that necessary being is just an invention and not something whose presence can be deduced from common observations.

There's something a little messy with this statement. Using deduction, all we can say is that 'something' caused 'x', assuming of course that it's reasonable to conclude 'x' is not itself eternal and has a cause. Without observation absolutely nothing else can be said about this 'something'. In addition, we must also conclude that multiple 'somethings' could have produced 'x'.

The fact that I exist means that my biological parents went from contingent beings to necessary beings when I drew my first breathe. The obvious consequence, that someone mentioned early on, is that you are now faced with an infinite regression.

Alex,

I would disagree, that nothing more can be said, than their must be a cause, without direct observation.  We can deduce (or induce) attributes about the sufficiency of that cause.   I would imagine, that in your area of expertise, that there is quite a bit, that you do not observe directly.

Also, I don't think that the terms contingent and necessary in this sense, are relativistic.  Your parents would still be contingent (possible to not exist), even though they are necessary for you to exist (this "necessary" is used in a different sense).  Being the cause of you, does not change that they where dependent on something for their existence. I understand where you are coming from, in that they are necessary in one way, but I don't think this is correct as applied to this topic.


{Edit...oopos, don't know why I thought this was Alex, but still applies to Cato)