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

[Jenny A]

Either you are being disingenuous, or you don't understand the objection.  I'll explain it again.  When you say in premise 1 that all things that begin to exist have a cause, you are making an statement about the transformation of matter and energy from one form to another. If you include the universe in the set of all things that begin to exist then you are also talking about the creation of new matter.  The two  types of beginning to exist are fundamentally different. We see things in the universe transform all the time, and often can show the cause (really causes) of that transformation.   We do not see matter itself begin to exist.  We cannot say whether such a creation has a cause.  

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Changing your phrase from beginning to exist to coming into being doesn't help you, because you are still talking about to fundamentally different types of comming into existence.

Matilda gets at this problem when she asks when a snowflake begins to exist.  It's rather hard to say as it doesn't spring into existenceall at once.  The crystalline shape of the water forms becomes a snowflake bit by bit. Water is added as it forms.  Similarly, a person is formed slowly over a long gestation period during which material is is continuously added.  Even after a person comes into existence material continues to be added and subtracted.  There is no precise beginning or end to this kind of material transformation.  And all of the little bits of transformation have their own causes.

The universe began with all of its material parts and it still had all of its material parts.  It began at a discrete time, i.e the first moment of time.  Prior to that there was no time.  

Your second more precise definition actually makes the problem clearer.  Because time begins with the beginning of the universe, it makes no sense to discuss whether there was a time before the universe existed.

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What you have have here is an elementary category error, in that you have  a set which includes the set as a member of the set.  Your set incudes all material things, and the universe which is the set of all material things. Anytime you include a set in it's own set it leads to logical error.  For example, if you describe the set of all whole numbers and include set of of all whole numbers within the set then you end up with syllogisms like this.

All whole numbers are finite
The set all whole numbers is a whole number
Therefore the set of all whole numbers is finite.

I understand your point. You are pointing out the difference between inside the universe and outside the universe and then insisting that it matters. You don't give reasons why it matters. Later on, you just say it is a category error. It's not, because I don't need a specific kind of cause to be true or to create "sets" with them. All that is needed to span any difference is that a causal principle is an objective feature of reality. This would apply both in and out of the universe. There are good reasons to believe this exists and no good reasons to think that it does not.

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I'm not sure you do see my point.  We say a man painted a hose and therefore he is the cause it's new color.  Fertilization is why an embryo is formed, trees grow from nuts, erosion levels mountains, rivers cut valleys.  It is these examples of an orderly universe from which we deduce cause and effect.  None of these examples involve the creation of new matter.  No new matter is introduced into the world by the birth of a baby, the eruption of a volcano, or by building a house.  All of these things are just rearranging the molecular furniture.  And at least at the macro level, every such transformation appears to have a cause or really many causes. And as long as we are just talking about rearanging the furniture, that everything has a cause or causes is a reasonable premise.

But the beginning of the universe is a a real beginning to exist.  It is the beginning of time, matter, and energy.  In effect it is the beginning of objective reality.  Calling both (1) the creation of matter, and (2) the rearranging of matter "beginning to exist" is not inappropriate.  They are fundamentally different things.  So yes it every much matters (no pun intended).

Extrapolating the rules for matter coming into being from the rules about how to rearrange matter is not possible.  It is a category error.

(You could of course argue that the universe is made up of pre-existing matter.  But if you go that way, then you will have to add all existing matter to the set of things that did not begin to exist in which case under your formulation, matter being eternal would not need a cause.)