Invitation for Atheists to Debate a Christian via Skype

[LadyForCamus]

You said the First Cause is not a thing, but then you go on to say, “without it.”  

Yes, reasonable questions. The whole thing goes outside our daily experience of the world, and is hard to picture. And pushes the limits of English.

By thing in that sentence, I mean a tangible, separable object. As if when you see the First Cause and the universe, you're seeing two objects. But the world and the First Cause do not make two.

Then why would a first cause be necessary in the first place? Why would the cosmos require something in addition to itself in order to exist?

I guess if we say "this cat exists," then we're not talking about a cat and something else. The cat exists. And existence -- the fact that things exist -- is necessary for that cat to exist. And everything else.

Sure, I agree with that. I would even say the word “exists” is redundant in the sentence. We could simply point to the animal and and say, “this cat”.

Those who argue for a First Cause say that existence per se is necessary for anything at all to exist. And they have elaborate arguments as to why existence itself must be uncaused and unchanging. Things change, but existence itself remains existence.

I keep coming back to the same problem in my mind. They seem, then, to be insinuating that existence is in some way separate, or beyond, or ontologically different from that which exists. I feel like that’s unnecessary. Existence is simply a state of being. The cosmos exist. Earth exists. This pencil exists. Do you think that there is a good reason why we shouldn’t accept existence as a brute fact?  Is there a good reason to believe that “the cosmos” and “existence” can’t be synonymous terms? I’m not arguing anything here. Just picking your brain. 😉

When they posit a First Cause, they are hoping to answer your question here: for anything contingent, changing, and tangible to exist, we require the precondition of something non-contingent, unchanging, and intangible -- namely, existence.

Hmm. I’m not persuaded that that is true. I think that things exist necessarily, because there is no logical alternative to existence.  If existence exists necessarily, then a prior cause or condition would be superfluous.

You may not be a philosopher, but here you've stated an important part of the argument as to why there must be a First Cause.

The standard thinking says that if there were absolutely nothing, then existing things couldn't come to be. But obviously some things exist. Therefore there must be something which doesn't need to come to be.

Bold mine. The problem is that there could never be nothing. That sentence itself is a logical contradiction. Absolute nothingness is incoherent. Even the word “nothingness” is an attempt to describe some thing. We try to hold a vague concept of “nothing” in our minds, but the second we attempt to use language to explain what nothing “is”, we’ve already defined it into existence. Anytime we use language like, “nothing instead of something” or “nothing is”, or, “if there was nothing”, we are talking, tacitly, about something. This is why I think that existence is necessary. I apologize in advance if none of that makes any sense, lol.