A Necessary Being?
September 2, 2016 at 7:36 am
(This post was last modified: September 2, 2016 at 7:55 am by LadyForCamus.)
(September 1, 2016 at 5:59 pm)ChadWooters Wrote:(August 31, 2016 at 3:49 pm)Cato Wrote: 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.
An accidentally ordered sequence of efficient causes could extend into the infinite past of an eternal universe. Where infinite regress becomes a problem is with respect to any essentially ordered series. I presented this interpretation of Aquinas here (debate).
To quote that post - "The members in an essentially order sequence exist because of ontologically dependency. This stands in contrast to a temporal and accidental series.
Gavin Kerr illustrates the ontological relationship as (v-->(w-->(x-->y))) and a temporal series as (v-->w)-->(w-->x)-->(x-->y).* Remove the unchanged changer/first cause/necessary being and all dependent members of the essentially ordered series disappear. Thus every essentially ordered series is sustained by a first member."
The only alternative to having a first member is an impossible infinite regress.
I know you have me on ignore, but in case you get curious enough to glance at this: what makes an infinite regress impossible? For us dummies who aren't logicians, that is...
Edit/addition:
From my limited understanding, logical absolutes are only absolutely true in THIS universe, right? So, if there can exist some universe or reality where, say, A does not equal A, why can't there exist some universe or reality where infinite regress is logically possible? How can we possibly extrapolate what we know about our own universe to whatever may or may not lie beyond it? I don't see how anyone could be justified in even trying to presume such a thing.
Nay_Sayer: “Nothing is impossible if you dream big enough, or in this case, nothing is impossible if you use a barrel of KY Jelly and a miniature horse.”
Wiser words were never spoken.
Wiser words were never spoken.