RE: Tentatively Christian; looking for a reasonable discussion
March 21, 2015 at 1:22 pm
(This post was last modified: March 21, 2015 at 1:25 pm by Delicate.)
(March 20, 2015 at 8:09 pm)abentwookie Wrote:(March 20, 2015 at 7:33 pm)Delicate Wrote: I'm sorry, but almost everything here is absolute garbage so far as refuting the first-cause argument.
Argh... Okay, I didn't want to get into this discussion but I will make a brief post. I haven't really bothered to read through the previous posts about Kalam so I don't know if anyone has already addressed these issues.
If the argument is that everything that exists has to have a cause and the theist insists that the cause is God, this is how I would respond.
#1. For the sake of brevity, I will just accept the claim that "everything must have a cause" and avoid going down that path entirely.
#2. I will also accept the claim that the universe has a cause. However, if everything MUST have a cause, then what created God? What created the entity that created God? You get the idea. This creates an infinite regress and the only option the theist has is to claim that God didn't need a cause, which completely invalidates his entire argument. You can't claim that everything must have a cause and then say, "Oh wait, everything except...." That is special pleading. Kalam is based on a fundamentally flawed idea and is not a sound logical argument.
The claim isn't "everything must have a cause" but "everything that begins to exist must have a cause." The sets of objects under discussion are different in both propositions.
As for your second point, I think the theist would say that God, by definition, has been defined as an uncreated being, like a bachelor is, by definition, unmarried. If you're talking of a being that has all of God's properties, except it was created, then it couldn't be God (just like someone that's like a bachelor in every way except he's married, he isn't really a bachelor). If you want to attack the notion of God qua uncaused cause, your best bet would be to concede that there must be an uncaused cause, and then ask "Why must the cause be a person, as opposed to a force of some other kind."
(March 20, 2015 at 7:42 pm)Surgenator Wrote: Why is it garbage? Please elaborate.
It takes a lot more time to correct errors than it takes to make errors.
So I'll let you pick what you think is the strongest argument against the first cause. Or maybe even the top three, and I'll respond to them here.
In fact, if they are good objections, I'll even apologize and eat my hat.
