(August 17, 2010 at 2:53 am)rybak303 Wrote: I have often heard creationists say that everything in existence must have been caused by something else thus leading to a chain of causes all the way to God Himself. To which atheists respond, “Then what caused God to be in existence?” But this passage from a prominent Christian theologian refutes this common atheist counter to creationism.”
“For instance, it is a mistake to view everything as needing a cause, for in this case there would be an infinity of causes and even God would need a cause. Only limited, changing, contingent things need causes. Once one arrives at an unlimited, unchanging, necessary being, there is no longer any need for a cause. The finite must be caused, but the infinite being would be uncaused.”
Furthermore. . . . .
Since the Big Bang definitely demonstrates the beginning of all time for Nature, that is (the universe, the closed box/system of everything). And being that time began because of a definite beginning (The Big Bang) therefore infinity, that without beginning or end, cannot exist within Nature itself but rather must exist beyond Nature. Within Nature everything is in relation to everything else, everything is interdependent, nothing is independent of the system as a whole, nothing can be truly added or taken away. Therefore within Nature things must exist as spontaneously regenerating patterns and designs, including life. Nothing save that which is outside Nature can operate independently of the system as a whole. Nothing except for mankind with his freewill which enables him to act independently of the system as a whole. Freewill cannot emerge from this system because it is independence in a system of total interdependence. Therefore, freewill, like the causation of time and Nature, is beyond time and Nature, it is not Natural but supernatural. Since mankind has freewill which is supernatural, he is therefore at least partly supernatural. Mankind is therefore both Natural and supernatural, the body and the spirit.
Hmm...sounds like some William Lane Craig reasoning.
First:
Where does this "unlimited, unchanging, necessary being" notion come from? Why do we have the need to bring him/her/it into the picture? Just because everything that we know needs a cause doesn't suggest that we should introduce an unlimited and unchanging being into the equation. That would seem to complicate the situation (Occam's Razor).
Second:
That "infinity, that without beginning or end, cannot exist within Nature itself but rather must exist beyond Nature" is an assumption on the idea of the nature of the universe. We don't know whether it's finite or not. My guess, based on what we know of Earth, is that in its greatness, it is finite, even though our minds might not be able to grasp the length, breadth and height to which the universe extends. It seems to me that to say the universe is infinite would be to compare it to an infinite loop or perhaps an equation with a non-definitive value, like pi.
I've only gotten through the first part. lol. I'll try to address the rest of it tomorrow.
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We have lingered in the chambers of the sea | By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown | Till human voices wake us, and we drown. — T.S. Eliot
"... man always has to decide for himself in the darkness, that he must want beyond what he knows. ..." — Simone de Beauvoir
"As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again." — Albert Camus, "The Stranger"
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We have lingered in the chambers of the sea | By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown | Till human voices wake us, and we drown. — T.S. Eliot
"... man always has to decide for himself in the darkness, that he must want beyond what he knows. ..." — Simone de Beauvoir
"As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again." — Albert Camus, "The Stranger"
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