Disproving Odin - An Experiment in arguing with a theist with Theist logic

[SteveII]

Your last sentence is the proof.



A novel or a symphony is something newly created that is not the same as the material object that might contain them. It did not exist before, it is not a reformulation of matter. It is new information. There is no way around this, you have a newly created immaterial object. Insisting that it is material because it relies on material things to exist is just pointing out a feature of our universe.

Goodness no one is saying that the symphony is made of the same material as the object that might create them, just like no one is saying that a symphony is brain matter re-arranged.  If I create a Mandelbrot on my computer and print it out or look at it on the screen would you claim I was inferring that the computer had re-arranged it's matter ?

but a symphony just like the Mandelbrot is entirely created in, stored and distributed by the material world, if not, when does it leave those confines ?   Music is simply a re-arrangement of notes, just because it's the first time we have heard it in that arrangement does not mean we have not heard its constituent parts before, in fact it's probably vital for our enjoyment of it.

Our universe and everything in it is material (so far as we know) to say it's a feature really is redundant.

I'll use your post to summarize several of them.

Yet, the new thing, whether it be an idea, a novel, a symphony or a Mandelbrot is created. It begins to exists. They are not the same thing as the material that is holding the information (Therefore we have examples of things beginning to exits that are not themselves material. So, a material cause is not needed, only an efficient cause is needed. 

• Matter: a change or movement's material "cause", is the aspect of the change or movement which is determined by the material that composes the moving or changing things. For a table, that might be wood; for a statue, that might be bronze or marble.
  
  
• Form: a change or movement's formal "cause", is a change or movement caused by the arrangement, shape or appearance of the thing changing or moving. Aristotle says for example that the ratio 2:1, and number in general, is the cause of the octave.
  
  
• Agent: a change or movement's efficient or moving "cause", consists of things apart from the thing being changed or moved, which interact so as to be an agency of the change or movement. For example, the efficient cause of a table is a carpenter, or a person working as one, and according to Aristotle the efficient cause of a boy is a father.
  
  
• End or purpose: a change or movement's final "cause", is that for the sake of which a thing is what it is. For a seed, it might be an adult plant. For a sailboat, it might be sailing. For a ball at the top of a ramp, it might be coming to rest at the bottom.
  

The four "causes" are not mutually exclusive. For Aristotle, several answers to the question "why" have to be given to explain a phenomenon and especially the actual configuration of an object. For example, if asking why a table is such and such, a complete explanation, taking into account the four aitias, would sound like this: This table is solid and brown because it is made of wood (matter), it does not collapse because it has four legs of equal length (form), it is as such because a carpenter made it starting from a tree (agent), it has these dimensions because it is to be used by men and women (end).

So, the only type of cause that every effect has is an efficient cause. Read that sentence again. This is the key. 
Why are we talking about this and why does it matter? Because the objection of the KCA that most of you wanted to debate was that you think all causes mentioned in Premise (1) have material causes and then you observe that Premise (3) is not talking about a material cause. If this were true, that would be equivocating. However, as I have shown above, not all causes in Premise (1) have material causes. But all causes do have a sufficient cause. So using that sense of the word cause, both premises are talking about the same thing. No equivocation. 

For reference, the KCA:
1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.