Invitation for Atheists to Debate a Christian via Skype

[SenseMaker007]

Causality, in the sense that Aristotle used it, is not about time. 

I've tried to describe this before, but apparently I haven't done a good job. I'll take another stab at it.

For A to be the case, B must be the case. In Aristotle's use of the word, B is therefore a cause of A. They could be sequential in time, or they could be simultaneous. 

Simultaneity means "happening at the same time". I don't see how anything happening can avoid temporality.

For cats to exist, space/time must exist. Therefore space-time is a cause of cats. If space-time went away, the cats would also disappear. But the same is not true the other way -- space-time would continue to exist even if all the cats disappeared.

Yes ... but how can anything exist without space and time?

Something that never exists anywhere is identical to something that doesn't exist.

I know this isn't how we normally use the word "cause" these days. But that's what Aristotle meant. 

This is important in Aristotelian philosophy and in theology. Traditional Christian theology holds that God is First Cause because he holds the world in existence constantly, not because he started it at a point in time.

I don't think it's right to say that the cat always existed, when all that existed was its material. 

We only say that the cat hasn't always existed because when it was another form we don't consider it to be a cat.

Raw materials are not the thing. Maybe the atoms always existed, but for the cat to exist it has to have the form and functionality of the cat. Good old hylomorphism.

Michelangelo existed, and his atoms still exist, but Michelangelo no longer exists.

The point is it's not an example of something coming out of existence out of nothing. Energy changes from one thing to another but nothing is created or destroyed in a deep sense.

If that's true, then reality is the First Cause. (I suspect, though, that the term "reality" is going to give us trouble down the road.)

You could say that the beginning of reality is the first cause.

But I think it's more accurate to say that there is ultimately only one thing. That thing is reality. It has expanded. And things like electrons are, say, something like rips in space-time. Steven Wienberg suggested this years ago.