Atheism Undermines Knowledge

[Mister Agenda]

Is the modern atheist belief that only efficient causes exist consistent with the reliability of observed physical laws on which the acquisition of knowledge depends? No.

You answered your own question correctly with 'no'. Can you give an example of an efficient cause inconsistent with the reliability of observed physical laws on which the acquisition of knowledge depends?

The two cornerstones of modern atheism are:

Neither atheism nor theism have cornerstones. If you can't correctly name the philosophy you're criticizing, maybe you should study up a bit more first.

1) the physical universe is causally closed, i.e. devoid of any influence apart from the deterministic chain of cause and effect

The rationalist position (guessing at the position that you're actually critiquing) is that belief that the physical universe is causally open has to be justified.

and 2) dependant on nothing outside itself its continuity or regularity.

This is merely another way of saying '1)'.

The modern atheist removes from consideration teleology, final causes and intentionality.

A rationalist would contend that teleology for physical laws hasn't been sufficiently supported to reasonably warrant acceptance.

In practice, atheism presupposes that everything we know can be described in terms of ‘material’ interactions by means of efficient causes.

In practice, atheism is not believing in any God or gods. And at this point, the philosophy you seem to be critiquing has become materialism. It's not presupposition to not assume something can't be explained in terms of material interactions.

This excludes any type of formal or final causes that would lead one to posit divine influence.

Only if you define the divine as necessarily non-material, a sufficiently uncommon definition that I cannot find it. I can think of conceptions of the divine that are compatible with being material. For instance, God is made of a form of energy not yet detected that permeates the physical universe, like the Higgs field permeates our own cosmos. To define the divine as something so immaterial that it can never and will never be apprehendible to mortal detection is the same thing as saying we can never have evidence for it.

However, this cannot be the case.

I don't see anything in your post that supports this assertion.

An infinite series of ever smaller intermediate causes and effects separates each cause from its corresponding effect.* In order to avoid this paradox, there must be a smallest possible finite unit. You can stack small finite units (of time, space, etc.) to fill a finite gap. In quantum physics, you have a smallest possible unit of time, Plank time or tP. Yet no efficient cause links one tP to the next.

Just because you don't know of an efficieint cause that links them doesn't mean there isn't one. We have a long history of the gaps in our knowledge of causes being filled by natural ones.

They just happen to be ‘next’ to one another. Either relationship between one tP and another is random OR a transcendent order links one tP to all others.

OR a nontranscendet order.

If random, the physical universe would have no logical continuity.

And if it is partially random it would have some logical continuity.

In such a universe, no knowledge would be justified.

In a partially random universe, some knowledge would be justified.

Since the modern atheist denies any transcendentally imposed order he must accept that the universe has no logical continuity on which the base his knowledge.

You had to exclude the middle to get to only a transcendental order rather than any other possible order being necessary, so the foundation of your assertion is fallacious. You did nothing to exclude a natural order, you simply ignored the possibility.

Therefore, the atheist cannot also believe in the valid acquisition of knowledge without contradiction.

I believe you're capable of better work than this, but to produce it you have to be able to anticipate obvious objections to your statements. You can't claim to be making serious inquiry and just spitball it. You're a little too attached to your ideas I think, that is, you invest too much hope in them. They should be held lightly and let go of if they aren't sufficient.

Were I you, I'd let go of the idea of making serious inquiry and go with throwing things out for us to take potshots at so you wind up with something more sturdy. I saw half a dozen thoughts in your post that would have been worth a thread of their own, each.