Arguments for God's Existence from Contingency

[Whateverist]

What is wrong with saying the universe is contingent at every moment upon its prior states and we just don't know how far back those go, nor whether they extend beyond the range of what we locally call the big bang.

Your just pushing the problem back a step each time. You can't have an infinite regress, so it has to stop somewhere. For the sake of argument, "the universe" is used to hold the place of some point in the past.

But what else can one do?  The problem of deducing what makes possible what we do know intractably requires making assumptions about what we don't know.  Your hypothesis is that over and beyond the natural world there is a supernatural world which somehow gave rise to the known natural world.  My hypothesis is that there is a wider natural context which for reasons of our own limitations we cannot know which gave rise to the known natural world.  We are both speculating regarding that about which we cannot know.  The difference is you think you can deduce your way to knowledge of the unknown based on what?  Your assumption that the natural world owes us an adequate explanation?  Not sure where you get that sense of entitlement.  I prefer to let my hypothesis remain what it is, meaning the explanation remains incomplete.  The infinite regress is only a problem for those wishing to wring certainty from our hypothesizing endeavor.

[GrandizerII]

Your just pushing the problem back a step each time. You can't have an infinite regress, so it has to stop somewhere. For the sake of argument, "the universe" is used to hold the place of some point in the past.

But what else can one do?  The problem of deducing what makes possible what we do know intractably requires making assumptions about what we don't know.  Your hypothesis is that over and beyond the natural world there is a supernatural world which somehow gave rise to the known natural world.  My hypothesis is that there is a wider natural context which for reasons of our own limitations we cannot detect which gave rise to the known natural world.  We are both speculating regarding that about which we cannot know.  The difference is you think you can deduce your way to knowledge of the unknown based on what?  Your assumption that the natural world owes us an adequate explanation?  Not sure where you get that sense of entitlement.  I prefer to let my hypothesis remain what it is, meaning the explanation remains incomplete.  The infinite regress is only a problem for those wishing to wring certainty from our hypothesizing endeavor.

It is Steves God that suffers from infinite regress in eternal thinking, lol. By the way, Steve, under eternalism, there is no infinite regress problem, at least not a temporal one.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Your just pushing the problem back a step each time. You can't have an infinite regress, so it has to stop somewhere. For the sake of argument, "the universe" is used to hold the place of some point in the past.

The difference is you think you can deduce your way to knowledge of the unknown based on what?  Your assumption that the natural world owes us an adequate explanation?  

I cannot tell if you and SteveII are debating the necessity of an accidental or essential series. I do believe that distinction should be made explicit but since I do not know which it is I will not comment other that to say it is an important one.

That said, Whateverist, you raise two worthy points: 1) can people deduce knowledge of the unknown based on natural reason alone? & 2) why do people need an explanation?

Something, like the 2W in the Summa Theologica, is a cosmological argument that has as its starting point the common observation that when a change occurs some agent of that that change is always present and that at some prior point some agent had to be first. My favorite example is this: Adam buys a candy bar using a dollar he got from Bill but Bill got the dollar from Charlie who got it from Darrell who got it from...etc. In this example, Adam cannot buy the candy bar unless at some prior point, someone had the first dollar, like say the mint that printed it. The question, with regards to infinite regress then, is whether of not you can have infinite series of essentially contingent relationships such as a dollar that came from nowhere.

Why do people need an explanation. As Aristotle said, "Man by his nature desires to know." And it this case, the Principle of Sufficient Reason applies. When asking why there is something rather than nothing, people look at the physical universe and see that to all appearances is must be a contingent being; it changes and has features that seem like they could be otherwise (4 fundamental forces but not just 3 or 5 & constants that are neither more nor less that what they are). Interestingly, the multiverse theory makes the case even more poignantly since it posits that things actually could be otherwise! Now one rather incurious position is to just take all that as a brute fact. One could live life that way, and when it comes to philosophy, most people do but when the question arises some of us try to see how far we can get before reaching some kind of intellectual limit. IMHO think atheists stop short, perhaps because they fear where that next step might lead.

[The Grand Nudger]

The question, with regards to infinite regress then, is whether of not you can have infinite series of essentially contingent relationships such as a dollar that came from nowhere.

In an infinite series of regress...nothing in series comes from nowhere.  It always comes from the prior x, ad infinitum.  That's what it means for something to be an infinite series of regress.  So no, that's not the question..it's not even in the ballpark of the question.

Now one rather incurious position is to just take all that as a brute fact. One could live life that way, and when it comes to philosophy, most people do but when the question arises some of us try to see how far we can get before reaching some kind of intellectual limit. IMHO think atheists stop short, perhaps because they fear where that next step might lead.

Amusingly, infinite regress isn't a problem in any sense other than that it makes it impossible for a system designed around terminus to reach a conclusion.  If there were an infinite series of regress in the universe, there would be an infinite series of regress in the universe, we simply couldn't use reason to determine the terminus (  ) ...firstly because there isn't one, and secondly because reason as a system cannot reach conclusions from infinite regress.  

That's a limit of the system, and an expression of it's inability to fully satisfy mans desires.  The universe, however, is under no obligation to fully satisfy mans desires...and making some bninding assuption about the universe because our system is incapable of operating otherwise and it leaves us unfulfilled is...frankly, irrational by reference to that very same system.  

Say it with me.,...Neo.  "We don't know, we don't even know if we could know".  In your example of Adams dollar bill, we could stop at any possessor in the chain and declare it the First Possessor...doing so may satisfy our need for fullfilling terminus...and maybe we actually can;t discrn any previous possessor - for reasons™...but your example also shows hat doing so would not actually demonstrate that there is no previous possesser.  No Steve, behind Adam, no Bill..behind Steve..so on and so forth....ad infinitum.  This, in effect, is what we do when we propose a god or a first mover.  It does not answer the question..and if we invoke a rule requiring some previous x for no reason other than to solve it by saying "enough, no further, it must stop here or the system wont work!" all we've done is immediately contradict the assertion upon which our assumption is based.

We have produced a god  (or mover) from the machine.  An explanation of the universe that reduces to dues ex machina.  Now, how fulfilling is that?

[Neo-Scholastic]

If there were an infinite series of regress in the universe, there would be an infinite series of regress in the universe, we simply couldn't use reason to determine the terminus ..firstly because there isn't one, and secondly because reason as a system cannot reach conclusions from infinite regress. 

You're proposing a universe that doesn't actually exist, i.e. one having no content. An infinite regress without members is nothing at all.

[The Grand Nudger]

No, I'm just commenting on a limit of the system with regards to infinite regress. A universe with an infinite series of adams and steves and bills would seem to have a hell of -alot- of content and members. Infinitely more content and members..in fact, than a universe in which there is some adam terminus.

So that's twice you've been trivially wrong about something true by definition of either concept. Are we going to have a "hmn, guess I didn't think that through" moment..or will we flit off to a third, a fourth, a fifth..ad infinitum...? Do we really have an objection to infinite series if we employ an endless list of other things and claims to make?

[Whateverist]

The difference is you think you can deduce your way to knowledge of the unknown based on what?  Your assumption that the natural world owes us an adequate explanation?  

I cannot tell if you and SteveII are debating the necessity of an accidental or essential series. I do believe that distinction should be made explicit but since I do not know which it is I will not comment other that to say it is an important one.

That said, Whateverist, you raise two worthy points: 1) can people deduce knowledge of the unknown based on natural reason alone? & 2) why do people need an explanation?

Something, like the 2W in the Summa Theologica, is a cosmological argument that has as its starting point the common observation that when a change occurs some agent of that that change is always present and that at some prior point some agent had to be first.  My favorite example is this: Adam buys a candy bar using a dollar he got from Bill but Bill got the dollar from Charlie who got it from Darrell who got it from...etc. In this example, Adam cannot buy the candy bar unless at some prior point, someone had the first dollar, like say the mint that printed it. The question, with regards to infinite regress then, is whether of not you can have infinite series of essentially contingent relationships such as a dollar that came from nowhere.

My bolded is specifically what I was challenging.  Again, you're arguing that if we are to have an explanation ... but you can't just assume that there was a beginning from nothing to something.  This is what is unknown and the wish to have a tidy result does not make it so.

Why do people need an explanation. As Aristotle said, "Man by his nature desires to know." And it this case, the Principle of Sufficient Reason applies. When asking why there is something rather than nothing, people look at the physical universe and see that to all appearances is must be a contingent being; it changes and has features that seem like they could be otherwise (4 fundamental forces but not just 3 or 5 & constants that are neither more nor less that what they are). Interestingly, the multiverse theory makes the case even more poignantly since it posits that things actually could be otherwise! Now one rather incurious position is to just take all that as a brute fact. One could live life that way, and when it comes to philosophy, most people do but when the question arises some of us try to see how far we can get before reaching some kind of intellectual limit. IMHO think atheists stop short, perhaps because they fear where that next step might lead.

Yeah, we want to know but if we are ever to know, we have to admit what we do and don't know and not just assume things.