RE: Arguments for God's Existence from Contingency
November 28, 2017 at 2:10 pm
(This post was last modified: November 28, 2017 at 2:14 pm by Neo-Scholastic.)
(November 28, 2017 at 1:52 pm)Hammy Wrote: For starters, Neo, take this from Wikipedia:
Quote:In the world we can see that at least some things are changing. Whatever is changing is being changed by something else. If that by which it is changing is itself changed, then it too is being changed by something else. But this chain cannot be infinitely long, so there must be something that causes change without itself changing. This everyone understands to be God.
I'm with this until the part I bolded. It just says all this stuff that makes sense logically and then falsely concludes "Therefore God".
Aquinas doesn't just have to say a bunch of stuff that makes sense, he actually has to say a bunch of stuff that makes sense and actually concludes logically that "Therefore God."
I can say lots of true things that are logically flawless like:
2+2=4
Squares have 4 sides.
All bachelors are unmarried.
But I can't then conclude:
"Therefore God."
And I can't simply say something true of cosmology and then conclude "Therefore God" either...You don't seem to even recognize non-sequiturs. And in my experience that is really a theist thing. How can so many theists not see that the "Therefore God" part is pulled out of nowhere?
Frozen dog shit on a stick. He doesn't say "Therefore God." He says, "this everyone understands to be God". You quoted it and you still got it wrong. It's a difference that makes all the difference. Aquinas is saying that any god having the nature of a prime mover perfectly overlaps with the nature of the Christian God given by special revelation.
Otherwise, it is good to see that you agree with the notion of a prime mover. That means you accept that the logic of the demonstration is impeccable. You've debunked nothing.
Your examples of tautologies have nothing to do with Aquinas.