The Best Logique Evidence of God Existence

[polymath257]

And I see the problem as assuming there is a *cause* for everything to exist. Since, for example, any cause must exist prior to causing anything else to exist, there is ultimately no cause for why things exist.

The Aristotelian/Thomist argument uses "prior" in an essential way, not a temporal way.

It would be clearer to get rid of the modern English word "cause" and write it like this: "Everything that exists requires that something else is the case -- right now -- in order to exist." 

As an example we could talk about human life. Human life requires, among many other things, the warmth of the sun. If the warmth of the sun suddenly disappeared, we would freeze and there would be no more human life. 

It's true that the sun existed before people, but that's not crucial to this essential chain. We say that the warmth of the sun is "prior," in this case, because if it stopped people would stop. But if people stopped, the warmth of the sun wouldn't stop. That's essential priority. 

The warmth of the sun depends for its existence on the sun. The sun depends for its existence on hydrogen atoms. 

So hydrogen atoms are essentially prior, because if they disappeared the sun would disappear. But if the sun disappeared, there would still be lots of other hydrogen atoms, elsewhere. 

The hydrogen atoms depend for their existence on space-time. Even if hydrogen and space-time appeared together, we would still say that space-time is essentially prior, because if it disappeared hydrogen would disappear too. But if hydrogen disappeared, we'd still have space-time. 

I don't know if the OP is aware of this, or if he's arguing the temporal Kalam argument. But traditional First Cause arguments are not about time.

Sorry, but yes, causality *is* all about time. In fact, causality only makes sense within time (and therefor only within the universe).

The 'priority' you are wanting is a confused conglomerate of *logical* necessity and physical causality. The problem with logical necessity is that *nothing* is logically necessary. Not even existence. Logic only works when we have prior *assumptions* that may or may not correspond to reality.

The point is that Aristotelianism (and later Thomism) are attempts to do metaphysics that do not correspond with the 'facts on the ground', so to speak.

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And I see the problem as assuming there is a *cause* for everything to exist. Since, for example, any cause must exist prior to causing anything else to exist, there is ultimately no cause for why things exist.

The Aristotelian/Thomist argument uses "prior" in an essential way, not a temporal way.

It would be clearer to get rid of the modern English word "cause" and write it like this: "Everything that exists requires that something else is the case -- right now -- in order to exist." 

As an example we could talk about human life. Human life requires, among many other things, the warmth of the sun. If the warmth of the sun suddenly disappeared, we would freeze and there would be no more human life. 

It's true that the sun existed before people, but that's not crucial to this essential chain. We say that the warmth of the sun is "prior," in this case, because if it stopped people would stop. But if people stopped, the warmth of the sun wouldn't stop. That's essential priority. 

The warmth of the sun depends for its existence on the sun. The sun depends for its existence on hydrogen atoms. 

So hydrogen atoms are essentially prior, because if they disappeared the sun would disappear. But if the sun disappeared, there would still be lots of other hydrogen atoms, elsewhere. 

The hydrogen atoms depend for their existence on space-time. Even if hydrogen and space-time appeared together, we would still say that space-time is essentially prior, because if it disappeared hydrogen would disappear too. But if hydrogen disappeared, we'd still have space-time. 

I don't know if the OP is aware of this, or if he's arguing the temporal Kalam argument. But traditional First Cause arguments are not about time.

I'm going to elaborate a bit more.

The sun is 'prior' to people in your sense because if the sun stopped, so would people. Why is that true? Because of the causal nature of physical reality and the way that fusion reactions in the sun produce energy that is conveyed by light to the earth, promoting photosynthesis and thereby production of foods that humans eat. I tis NOT a *logical* priority, but a priority that is due to the laws of physics.

Similarly, the hydrogen atoms are prior to the sun only in the sense that stars like the sun are made of hydrogen atoms. But they are made so only because of the physical laws that govern how hydrogen acts (especially that it has mass, so is subject to gravity, that the nuclei can undergo fusion, thereby giving energy, etc). There is nothing *logically* necessary in this, only *physically* necessary because of the natural laws that are operative.

Similarly, spacetime is also subject to physical laws and those laws are partly responsible for the production of hydrogen nuclei in the early universe. Once again, it is a *physical* causality that is based on the existence of *time* that is underlying the 'necessity'.

To the extent that the First Cause arguments are not about time, they are not about causality at all. To the extent that they are, they only apply within the universe and so are irrelevant to the existence of anything outside of the universe.

ALL known 'effects' (i.e, events that are caused) are caused by things within the universe.