An argument for God

[Beskar]

Would you care to explain what's wrong with Tiaexz's argument? I'm not smart enough to figure it out myself.

Being honest, I am not sure either.

Since my argument is "We do not know" and that we simply do not have enough information on the points, trying to place additions on those said-points makes no sense to me. since the said definitions are too narrow. It is akin to suggesting a drop of water is representative of the ocean.

---

On a side-note: "Operating outside laws, order and existence, etc" makes this 'God'/Creator supernatural, which basically means there is no logical reasoning behind the occurrence and doesn't operate within the natural order.

But by the virtue of doing an action, there is a cause and effect, which is explained by logic and therefore has a natural order to how it operates.

Therefore, the said creator cannot be supernatural but is part of the natural order.

I have not said that the universe cannot be self-existent, I am simply going with the scientific consensus which says that it is not, and that it had a creation from which it began.

The Universe isn't the 'end-all'. There are the likes of Stephen Hawking suggesting this is a pocket-universe within another Universe which follows a different set of physics to our own. This is why I said "at which point" in regards to your first point.

As for "What is the first Universe" to your later comment, I said it is possible that there isn't infact a start. There is also the point that 'Time' is merely the breakdown of order within our Universe via entropy. This may not affect anything greater, or be part of the said greater system.

Can a timeless being change the past and the future? Does a timeless being having direct "access" to all points in our time mean that all points in time exist simultaneously on a meta level that we cannot grasp?

If you take this a step-further, it would lead to a very sadistic 'creator', which is basically using Planet Earth for its amusement in 'The Sims: Real Life Edition' except it actually knows all the outcomes already and allows people to suffer needlessly for giggles.

[Fragony]

Since my argument is "We do not know" and that we simply do not have enough information on the points, trying to place additions on those said-points makes no sense to me. since the said definitions are too narrow. It is akin to suggesting a drop of water is representative of the ocean.

Do you mind if I borrow that one, that's a beauty

[Beskar]

Do you mind if I borrow that one, that's a beauty

Sure.

But yes, nothing is as simple as it seems. I think this .gif summarises my thoughts in many ways, you cannot simply work from a flawed assumption. Your assumption might look right look right to you, but it is not the reality before you. It is our duty to try to decipher the truth by keeping a mind open to the great many possibilities and not simply pigeonhole ourselves with a fixed viewpoint.

[Fragony]

I don't see any god to be part of possibilities, I just know that I am too stupid to understand these things.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Being honest, I am not sure either.

As PVC said, you haven't understood my argument, and because of that pretty much all my replies to you have involved me quoting my OP where I had already dealt with the counter-arguments you raised. You've also spent half your time fighting strawmen because for some reason you presume my argument goes beyond the bounds of what I said it did.

Since my argument is "We do not know" and that we simply do not have enough information on the points, trying to place additions on those said-points makes no sense to me. since the said definitions are too narrow. It is akin to suggesting a drop of water is representative of the ocean.

I have used simple logical reasoning, which, I presume you will agree, is axiomatic to any sort of philosophical/metaphysical/scientific discussion. You have to pin-point the "where" and the "why" when you feel there are gaps or errors in my argument. A general "we do not know" is useless and dismissive.

On a side-note: "Operating outside laws, order and existence, etc" makes this 'God'/Creator supernatural, which basically means there is no logical reasoning behind the occurrence and doesn't operate within the natural order.

But by the virtue of doing an action, there is a cause and effect, which is explained by logic and therefore has a natural order to how it operates.

Therefore, the said creator cannot be supernatural but is part of the natural order.

5. Since time, space and all natural laws are properties of the universe, this creator must transcend these properties and any temporal limitations.
6. In relation to the universe, this creator must therefore be timeless, formless, all-present and all-powerful.

If the creator created the natural order, how on earth can he be subject to it? The act of engaging with the created order does not mean the creator suddenly becomes subject to it.

The Universe isn't the 'end-all'. There are the likes of Stephen Hawking suggesting this is a pocket-universe within another Universe which follows a different set of physics to our own. This is why I said "at which point" in regards to your first point.

As for "What is the first Universe" to your later comment, I said it is possible that there isn't infact a start. There is also the point that 'Time' is merely the breakdown of order within our Universe via entropy. This may not affect anything greater, or be part of the said greater system.

Wait... so do you now agree with my point 4 - that the creation of our universe shows it must have had a self-existent creator? And are you saying this creator would be an original self-existing universe, or a sub-universe of such a self-existing universe? On the one hand, you say there might not be a "start" and that time and order do not apply outside our universe, but on the other your appeal to the multiverse theory and some implied ordering in which our "pocket-universe" is a sub-creation of this greater universe.

[a completely inoffensive name]

The problem I see with your argument Rhy is that premise 2 is not proven. It is possible that the universe has always been and always will. Maybe our universe is a part of a pair of universes that popped into existence, ours being matter, another being composed of the anti-matter we don't observe and both of these universes are within a much larger multi-universe.

[Ironside]

5. Since time, space and all natural laws are properties of the universe, this creator must transcend these properties and any temporal limitations.
6. In relation to the universe, this creator must therefore be timeless, formless, all-present and all-powerful.
7. Such a figure would therefore be said to be omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and immaterial.
8. This is the Abrahamic concept of God.

...All those points also applies to anyone making a computer simulation.

I would say that anyone claiming to be omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent in their own simulation are using definitions that most people aren't. I mean, technically, I'm omniscient and omnipresent about youtube since I can see any public youtube video, yet it's impossible for me to see all videos on youtube, since much more is produced than it's possible to see (every minute there's 100 hours of new uploadings).

It's also possible to create a simulation where being omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and immaterial in any form would require you to break the simulation. So 6, 7 and 8 does not follow from 5, since they would have to be true for the creator of a computer simulation as well.

[Kadagar_AV]

Ironside, the "simulation"-theory I find quite interesting...

Rhyf, two questions:

1. If God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and immaterial, he shouldn't change... Right? Yet, the old and the new testament clearly show that this version of a god seems to be changing. Am I wrong?

2. Also, why would a omnipotent god need to rest on the 7th day? Specially if he even is immaterial? This also argues against this version of a god as being what science is looking for as answer to "the eternal question".

Also:

Genesis 32:22-32New International Version (NIV)

Jacob Wrestles With God
22 That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. 24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. 26 Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

27 The man asked him, “What is your name?”

“Jacob,” he answered.

28 Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel,[a] because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”

29 Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”

But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.

30 So Jacob called the place Peniel,[b] saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”

So god couldn't even wrestle down a man, but needed to cheat? I guess that hip breaking move was something deemed as not befitting wrestling. But Jacob STILL held on to him...





I understand that everything can be takes in whatever way anyone want, more or less. The Jacob story might just hold some moral lesson.

But IF the Abrahamic religions are correct:

A) God really has done a absolutely RUBBISH work of explaining to us humans what he wants from us.

B) Not even the people who agree with the basic premise of the Abrahamic god, can agree on any specifics.





Nah, I still can only see the Abrahamic religions as man-made... To much point to it being so, to little show any real reason as to why it would be "the real deal".


You are of course entitled to your own opinion...

However, the ONLY thing you have brought forward here is covered by the "God of the gaps" argument... Just because we don't KNOW what caused certain things, gives us no reason to believe it was your specific idea of a godlike being who did it.




So meh

[Paltmull]

Ah, the good old Kalam argument! I'm an atheist, but I must confess that due to some sort of intellectual masochism I really enjoy watching William Lane Craig's debates and become incredibly frustrated by how he always seems to win. He is really a great debater.

Anyway, what does it even mean for something to be immaterial? For me, it's hard to grasp why 'immaterial' wouldn't simply be synonymous with 'nonexistent'.

[HopAlongBunny]

Dress it up anyway you want, it is still a faith based argument.
Cosmology may sound outlandish to some, but at least it is comprehensible and adheres to what we do know.
We don't need to reach for a "God" to explain how we (might) have got here; as always the "why" eludes us, perhaps because there is no "why".

[Ironside]

Ironside, the "simulation"-theory I find quite interesting...

There's a reason some people are taking it very seriously. Now, that has more that do with if you can make one "universe simulation" then you can make several. And then you got like millions of simulations and one real world. So what the odds that this is a real world?

I don't ascribe to it though, but the idea is there. And is very useful as a framework of thought. The "real world TM" has the same creation issues though, so it's not solving the "who or what created the universe"- question.

Anyway, what does it even mean for something to be immaterial? For me, it's hard to grasp why 'immaterial' wouldn't simply be synonymous with 'nonexistent'.

I think it's the "programmer" in this context. Basically, you don't need a simulation avatar to change the simulation. You're immaterial to the simulation, but still able to do things with it.

[Rhyfelwyr]

This is merely an attempt to address the notion that infinite regress is impossible. Is it?
The First Cause is a contradiction to the argument of "everything has a cause". You designed the argument with "everything that begins". But everything that is, whether material or immaterial begs a beginning? If you allow for something to be uncaused, why choose God? Why can't the universe be the uncaused non-contingent being?
At least we know that it exists.

In addition to the Aquinas argument, you must also show:

1. The First cause is either personal or mechanical.
2. The First cause is not mechanical.
3. Therefore, the first cause must be personal

(Universe vs. God)

Well, if the first cause was mechanical (lets call it a "creator universe"), then presumably it could only create our universe by an accidental mechanical process rather than intelligent design. And if this creation is a mechanical process, then wouldn't this mean that this "creator universe" acts according to [at least some of] the laws of our own universe, since it would be creating our universe through a sort of 'cause and effect' of mechanical action/reaction. To be self-existent, the first cause would have to be totally transcendent of all our natural laws including cause and effect. The very idea of mechanicity entails a sort of inner working of cause and effect.

The problem I see with your argument Rhy is that premise 2 is not proven. It is possible that the universe has always been and always will. Maybe our universe is a part of a pair of universes that popped into existence, ours being matter, another being composed of the anti-matter we don't observe and both of these universes are within a much larger multi-universe.

The current scientific consensus is that our universe began to exist. From what I can see, even all the atheists who debate the cosmological argument accept this point. I would have thought that it would be the least contentious point of the argument.

...All those points also applies to anyone making a computer simulation.

As I said it is of course possible to have total control over an artificially created sort of sub/simulated universe. But this is not omnipotence or omniscience according to the pure, philosophical meanings of the terms; not least because of the basic fact that the simulated universe would strictly speaking not be a distinct universe, but in fact a part of the universe of its creator.

And as you said in a later post, the objection you raise here doesn't address the fundamental question of how the first universe was created.

Rhyf, two questions:

These questions are concerned with the particular God of the Bible, which as I have already said, requires going beyond the scope of my argument here.

Once again, the aim of this argument is not to prove that the God of the Bible is true. The aim is only to show that a broadly Abrahamic concept of God, in the sense of a omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and immaterial God is true.

[Husar]

Once again, the aim of this argument is not to prove that the God of the Bible is true. The aim is only to show that a broadly Abrahamic concept of God, in the sense of a omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and immaterial God is true.

But the self-existent creator in point 4 kind of contradicts point 1, does he not?

[Kadagar_AV]

These questions are concerned with the particular God of the Bible, which as I have already said, requires going beyond the scope of my argument here.

Once again, the aim of this argument is not to prove that the God of the Bible is true. The aim is only to show that a broadly Abrahamic concept of God, in the sense of a omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and immaterial God is true.

But it's not true.

It is ONE theory of what could be "true" among many, if it's even worth being called a theory - as it makes no real scientific effort.

Also, I think it's worth arguing the premise of your argument about Omniscient, Omnipresent and Omnipotent. If that were true, why would prayers be needed, as an example?



Endnote: I think you PVC is a bit harsh on Tiaexz... The Massively Powerful Being is just a way to say that the "force" doesn't really have to be godlike in its characteristics, and it ties in well with the simulation theory.

Depending on the purpose of the simulation, the massively powerful being running or starting it barely need to know or care we exist, maybe his hardware just alerts him when something INTERESTING happens.

[a completely inoffensive name]

The current scientific consensus is that our universe began to exist. From what I can see, even all the atheists who debate the cosmological argument accept this point. I would have thought that it would be the least contentious point of the argument.

The current scientific consensus is that there was a big bang which emerged from a singularity some time ago. This is when the laws of nature as we know them began to exist, but it is another leap to say that is when the universe itself began. I don't think anyone is arguing that the inside of a black hole does not exist simply because we cannot model what happens inside of one.

[Sigurd]

Well, if the first cause was mechanical (lets call it a "creator universe"), then presumably it could only create our universe by an accidental mechanical process rather than intelligent design. And if this creation is a mechanical process, then wouldn't this mean that this "creator universe" acts according to [at least some of] the laws of our own universe, since it would be creating our universe through a sort of 'cause and effect' of mechanical action/reaction. To be self-existent, the first cause would have to be totally transcendent of all our natural laws including cause and effect. The very idea of mechanicity entails a sort of inner working of cause and effect.

The current scientific view of the Big Bang is of a mechanical nature of which the singularity transcends natural laws and time as they have no meaning in a singularity.
You have to show using logic statements how you move from mechanical to personal creator.