RE: Theists, provide your arguments for God.
August 7, 2024 at 7:32 am
(This post was last modified: August 7, 2024 at 7:34 am by Belacqua.)
(August 7, 2024 at 7:02 am)Sheldon Wrote: hence there is starter
In the Aristotelian/Thomist First Cause arguments, the English word "cause" is an unfortunate translation of the Greek word αἰτία. This Greek word has quite a different meaning from the English word "cause."
The αἰτία of X are all the things that must be the case in order for X to be the case. Some of these may be what Aristotle called the "efficient cause," but others include simply the conditions necessary.
So for example in Lawrence Krauss's book on why there is something rather than nothing, he argues that given the laws of nature as they are, it is inevitable that the universe would exist as it does. In Aristotelian terms, the laws of nature are the αἰτία of the universe, if Krauss is correct. It sounds funny, maybe, to say that the laws of nature cause the universe, but that's just because "cause" is such a bad translation.
By definition, every contingent thing in the universe has some αἰτία on which its existence depends. (That's just tautological.) Everything that moves and changes is contingent.
What logical fallacy would you apply to demonstrate that the above description is faulty?