(December 4, 2018 at 8:09 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: Most fundamentally, both operate from the premise that the universe, the totality of existence, needs an explanation.
I don't think this would be an accurate summary of the motives behind the First Cause argument. But since we don't have the ability to discern the personal motives of people who are long dead, neither of us really knows.
Rather than beginning with the fact that something needs to be explained, Aristotle began with very simple observable facts and built logically from there. We notice motion, we notice causality. Given these facts, where does the logic lead?
Quote:This is stipulated, not demonstrated. It may be that the universe merely is and makes the explanation of any particular thing possible and interesting.
That may be so. The fact that it may be so doesn't mean that a First Cause argument is incorrect. It doesn't affect the quality of the logic employed to demonstrate a first cause.
To address the argument, we'd have to begin with what the argument actually says.