RE: First order logic, set theory and God
December 5, 2018 at 9:04 pm
(This post was last modified: December 5, 2018 at 9:09 pm by Belacqua.)
(December 5, 2018 at 8:11 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: Which PSR are we accepting and for what reason?
The PSR being discussed in this thread is stated this way:
Quote:P1. The principle of sufficient reason: All phenomena are either self-caused (i.e. A->A) or other-caused (B->A; B is not equal to A) but not both. Put another way, this principle says that the question "why?" is always meaningful. Everything happens for a reason.
Whether you accept it or not, and for what reasons, is what I'm asking.
(December 5, 2018 at 8:37 pm)Grandizer Wrote: Happy to oblige. It seems reasonable enough to me.
Good. That's step one. For the purposes of the current thread, P1, the PSR, seems to make sense.
Quote:Now is there something about God that makes it satisfactory to argue he is "self-caused" that one cannot apply to Existence/Reality itself?
I think maybe that comes at the end of the argument instead of the beginning. I have a vague idea what other versions of the argument would answer, but since I'm reviewing not asserting, I'll let that be.
What was dron3's response to your question? Did he get to that point?
And to continue my ploddingly baby-steps review: does P2 also makes sense?
Quote:P2. The potency principle: If A -> B then for all C element of B, A -> C. In other words if A is the cause of B then A is the cause of every part of B. There are several notions of causality in philosophy. Hatcher's notion of causality is total causality; i.e. it is not the straw that breaks the camel's back but the 1000 straws before it, the camel, gravity, and so forth, that give rise to the camel breaking its back.