Argument From Causation Or Just The Five Proofs For God In General

[tinytherese]

I'm taking a six week philosophy class this summer and my professor brought up today how Einstein firmly believed in this argument, but that other scientists, such as the quantum physicists disagreed. I'd like to understand their critique of this in laymen's terms and to look at their position. I've studied St. Thomas Aquinas' five proofs in the past and have have read some of Peter Kreeft's work on the subject in another class. This is going to be discussed in my class tomorrow, along with St. Thomas' other proofs. This isn't a Catholic community college, so there will probably be diversity about the issues. Students are encouraged to participate and share their views, so it isn't just the professor standing up there giving us a lecture the whole time.

I've been curious to learn about the points that people bring up both for and against the five proofs, so I see this as a good educational opportunity.

[Didymus]

I know from sitting in class myself that it's very easy to merely criticize the 5 proofs by claiming they are not proofs because so many people aren't convinced. There's a book called [url="http://www.amazon.com/First-Glance-Thomas-Aquinas-Philosophy/dp/0268009759"]A First Glance at St. Thomas Aquinas[/url] in which the author explains that to truly and completely understand Aquinas' 5 proofs, one must spend a lifetime of observation about the world around him. A friend of mine recommended to me also that to better understand Aquinas, you should really understand the works of Aristotle. I knew that Aquinas relied heavily on the ancient Greeks, but he made it a point to truly grasp the basic concepts before using them to prove God's existence.

I don't think many philosophers come even close to accepting Aquinas' proofs because most can't even believe in objective principles and facts of life.

[Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam]

[quote name='tinytherese' date='07 July 2010 - 04:13 PM' timestamp='1278530025' post='2138990']
I'm taking a six week philosophy class this summer and my professor brought up today how Einstein firmly believed in this argument, but that other scientists, such as the quantum physicists disagreed. I'd like to understand their critique of this in laymen's terms and to look at their position. I've studied St. Thomas Aquinas' five proofs in the past and have have read some of Peter Kreeft's work on the subject in another class. This is going to be discussed in my class tomorrow, along with St. Thomas' other proofs. This isn't a Catholic community college, so there will probably be diversity about the issues. Students are encouraged to participate and share their views, so it isn't just the professor standing up there giving us a lecture the whole time.

I've been curious to learn about the points that people bring up both for and against the five proofs, so I see this as a good educational opportunity.
[/quote]

Well Thomas's understanding of Causality is quite complex. One of my professors in college had a 300 page book on one part of it. I'll approach Thomas's second proof. I would ask to see the actual text of the proofs and not just have summaries since Thomas uses very technical language.

The second proof runs thusly: "The second way is from the nature of the efficient cause. In the world of sense we find there is an order of efficient causes. There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or only one. Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God."

Something must be said of Efficient and Formal Causality. Efficient causality is finite. It is the way that finite beings cause things (though an infinite being could act in a finite way). Obviously something finite things cause other things (called the term of the cause), but such a term cannot be infinite since a finite cause cannot pass on attributes which itself does not possess. Since we know these causes and the terms are finite (since even the causes are terms of another cause), Thomas states that efficient cause it is not possible to go on to infinity. However, if an efficient cause can have an infinite term or result of the action, than it itself is obviously not finite since it has impressed into the being of a term something that it had (since that which is lacking cannot be impressed). If the cause is infinite there is no such thing as first or intermediate or ultimate cause, since the action and terms are infinite and could not be experienced or interact with anything else as intermediate or ultimate (think of the way we think of Trinity. We say that the Son is begotten of the Father, and the Spirit begotten from the Father through the Son. This implies a first, middle, and last, but since these are infinite actions of relation, there is not such thing as first, intermediate, or ultimate. God is one, God is, and God is timeless and so one cannot use the terms first, intermediate, or ultimate in terms of infinite and timelessness). This is why Thomas says to say that these things go on for infinity is to speak falsely, since it does not speak of the term accurately as the same causes and terms one originally began discussing since one is now changing the rules about which the being one originally started talking. Thus there must be a first cause who is infinite who could act in a finite manner (an absolute being who acts in creation so to speak).

All of these proofs are highly technical. Obviously one can get something out of reading it cold, but I do find it incredibly hubristic to think one can understand fully Thomas's language by approaching it without having studied Aristotle or the rest of the framework Thomas is basing his structure on nor understanding the complex philosophic concepts which Thomas conveys in one word through using such technical language. I think that to claim one understands and rejects them by reading them once and reading only them to be incredibly simplistic, proud, and ultimate not intellectually honest. But that is just me (who needed and still needs help understanding such topics). This was the best I could do. I hope it helps though there is much more that could be gleaned from this and other proofs.

[tinytherese]

Class will sure be interesting tomorrow. I hope that I can endure practically two hours worth of this topic in a classroom like I did earlier today, only the topic was Marxism for that amount of time.

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote]Quote

Depends on the level of proof you want, and how you define God. But ultimately, if you define God in any meaningful terms, or with substantial level of proof, God's existence cannot be proven.

incidentally. I believe in God's existence, but I don't claim it's definitive proof.
the act of faith -- of its very nature -- involves man's free choice libero arbitrio


CAUSATION
everything we know has a cause. but we also have to recognize that we don't come across God phenomenon everyday, so to speak. if the first cause is God, wouldn't he required a cause too? God doesn't necessarily solve the problem.
if God can just be, the universe can just be.


Atheists often talk about how the spaghetti monster disproves God, cause we could have been formed by it. This is not analogous completely, but it makes an important point. That an intelligence made is is reasonable, that something specific like spaghetti did is random. But, it's still the point that it's arbitrary, like the spaghetti monster, to say intelligence is necessary.

Now, It does make sense say something caused us. If you see a bike rolling, that something pushed it makes sense. Ultimately this analogy does not necessarily fly either though, because a bike is specific, whereas the world is something that could have always been. (if god can alway have been, the world could always have been) we'd expect something specific to have a specific cause, but in something that's unique unto itself like existence as we know it, that isn't necessarily expected- we know bikes roling have causes cause we see it all the time it's the only thing to conclude at that level of specificity, and they're (creation v. bike) different things that could reasonably be treated different per anaysis.
So we have the spaghetti monster on the one side and the bike on the other, ha.

In broader terms, there is the argument a fortiori. if there's an unending chain of events back in time, something must have made that chian- if existance is, even if infinte, it has to be here as an effect of something.
but, as i was saying, not necessarily. If God can just be argumentally, so can that chain.

Some people insist there's "something" that just "has" to be. As Ronald Knox put it, you can add as many links and as large as you like to a chain, but at some point you have to have a peg to hang it on, reiterating the point of an infinite chain argument. Some people like to hang their argument on this "thing" that must just be.
it seems like this peg, or this thing that must just be regardless of existance is just extra fluff that theists use to say he must exist. cause if God an just be, existance can just be.
to say soemthing more needs to be is not necessary. ockham's razor, the simplest solution is prob right.
and even if there was oemthing more, it does't have to be God so much as the fabric of existance. it's just there and just is. that seems like part of existance to me, not soemthing separate from it. to use the metaphor, the peg is part of existance not soemthing separate from it.
and you can call it God, if it's even allowed to be argued that this just being is needed (which i don't think you can do) but that's not saying much.

now, the big bang actually helps verify the dogma of God's existence as certainty, because we stop talking about the never ending chain as much. But was there anything before the big bang? We shouldn't assume so, and if scientists are allowed to make presumptive deductions like this based on observations as a degree of proof, inductive while not deductive, the theologian should be able to too.
So, we see empiracally that there was a first cause, the big bang. if the big bang just happened as it were, is the first particles or group of particles that pushed the next ones then God? Or if it was random chance, is that God? To make God's existence mean anything, that is not God. If you define God as some abstract first cause, you're not defining him as much if it could just be a bunch of particles or random chance, or whatever.
-for example- imagine a 'primordial soup', just a bunch of things swirling around- that of it's nature just explodes producing the big bang. or some other ticking time bomb sceniario, that just is- like God can just be. or, the big bang wasn't the beginning absolutely, but really just the beginning from somewhere or sometime else considering dimensions etc.
-with a qualification. primordial soup, etc, has a sense of not being most intuitive. 'something about a ticking time bomb-ish scenario has too much inferential effect that something set it to explode'- 'even if something could just exist, like God- it's too much to expect a ticking time bomb would'--- this is a strong intuitive point for sure. and i think it does deserve respect, regardless of my thesis in this essay.
-if God can just be... then particles and those other scenarios can just be, or random chance can just occur.
So if particles etc and random chance are possible, then God's existence isn't proven. Even if we assume nothing before the big bang.


you'd just be stomping your foot saying that a first cause, ie God, can just be without a cause, cause he's the first cause and can't have a cause before him. it's like a leap of logic that's not necessarily warrnated or based on anything we've seen as humans empiracally.

definitive proof would be proving either logically that there was a first cause, beyond particles and random chance. proving that there wasn't anything before the big bang that went back on and on. as of now we just have evidence for God. like if you see a dark spot, you have evidence that it's a shadow and thus would need an object causing it, but it could also be a natural dark spot where the sun don't shine. (no i'm not saying in anyone's behind.....) i think it'd be techincally inductive proof not deductive.


ORDER AND INTELLIGENCE
same for intelligence. that there is order to hte universe doesn't prove God.
First, you're arguing that something complex, ie existance, was created by something that would be presumably even mroe complex?
where'd complexity of God come? if God complexity can just be, the universe can.
ockham's razor. The simplest solution would be the most probable.
and even if you conceive of God as nearly pure simplicity, it's still in principle if not more complex in the sense of complicated nature, existence is more complex in the sense that God is just an extra layer. again, ockham's razor.

that order could just be could mean that order just happened to occur, if we assume random chance and particles.
if you define intelligence as order then sure, but that's not saying much. you have to give the intelligence consciousness to mean anything substantial.

same with somethign complex like a watch. it's just proof, even more proof, but not exhaustive. when you look at something complex like a watch, it didn't spring up out of nowhere. it got here as an end product of earth formation, and evolution, and trial and errors and all that. if it did just spring up, you'd have something.
if life can form from elementary particles, that would eventially give rise to evolution to complexity.



but, order, to the magnitude that exists with humans etc, tends to be almost miraclous to some. i don't think it's unreasonable to argue that order is so complex as to be almost miracalous, and put it in the proof for God category. but, i think that it could have just evolved to what it is supports the no definitive proof argument. the ultimate question remains, that why would something complex require something even more complex?

high order is indicative of "irreducible complexity" see wikipedia, and so inteligent consciousness but not definitively.

----
as a side note... a word on presumptive proof. if a population who has a distinguishing characteristic... say they grow third arms. and the only thing that makes those people different than the population at large is that they believe in God, then it's very good "proof". the flaw in modern atheism is that they say "their mind could be growing the arm and it's related to their belief but that doesn't indicate God". this is true, it's not definitively proven, but the atheistic mindset is not the most obvious. when you see a population, it's the distinguishing thing itself. you could argue the belief is distinguishing, but when something apparently outside occurs, indicates an outside entity, on its face anyway, that's most plausible.
i never hear of flesh growing when it shouldn't on atheists as it does on theists etc. maybe cancer remissions, maybe.
anyway, you could argue that miracles are proof, but, still, why would something complex ie miracles require something even more complex, ie God? This goes with the argument about about order and how it's almost miraclulous…. It's not definitive proof but at least with miracles, it's much closer.
www.nderf.org another presumpive indication of God without explanation.
**remember: you don't presume the least obvious explanation
----

"God as existance". a catharisis so theists can certainly claim God exists. no one would deny existance, rational people anyway. and you can call that God if you want, but it's not saying much

-as a final point, as a theist, from the order and causation sections respectively -- i do use the following for proof og God's existence, in the sense of 'evidence' but not in the sense of 'definitive proof', given how intuitive they are: the 'creation eg people are too complex', and 'ticking time bomb, needs something to set it to explode- that's just too intuitive'.

-also, a lot of this boils down to 'proof', and 'prove'. there's evidence which supports a case, proof, and there's evidence which definitely proves the case. and then there's arguing what 'definitiely' means. id argue t's possible to say it's proven from either camp, much in the same way it's possible for jurors to come to different conclsiosn in a court room. 'the case has been proven'. etc. and, if one uses intutitive inductions, instead of logical/scientific necessary deductions (not that inductiosn aren't logical or scientific), it makes sense to be more skeptical and say 'the case has not been proven'
[/quote]

Edited July 9, 2010 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

looks like the author of this thread has already seen this thread, but it bears inserting again
http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?showtopic=96494&view=&hl=causation&fromsearch=1

i dont think one has to read aristotle and all these authors to get a good grasp of what's going on. there's something to be said about humility when one has not, but the arguments, even if not in the same terms, can for the most part be understood without having read all of them. im all for not being simplistic, but there's the opposite coin to that argument as well.

[Sirklawd]

[quote name='tinytherese' date='07 July 2010 - 03:13 PM' timestamp='1278530025' post='2138990']
I'm taking a six week philosophy class this summer and my professor brought up today how Einstein firmly believed in this argument, but that other scientists, such as the quantum physicists disagreed. I'd like to understand their critique of this in laymen's terms and to look at their position. I've studied St. Thomas Aquinas' five proofs in the past and have have read some of Peter Kreeft's work on the subject in another class. This is going to be discussed in my class tomorrow, along with St. Thomas' other proofs. This isn't a Catholic community college, so there will probably be diversity about the issues. Students are encouraged to participate and share their views, so it isn't just the professor standing up there giving us a lecture the whole time.

I've been curious to learn about the points that people bring up both for and against the five proofs, so I see this as a good educational opportunity.
[/quote]

Hi There!

I'm not a master of either Aquinas or Quantum theory, but I've heard many debates in which the later was used to counter the former. The essential argument is that, in relation to the Big Bang, Aquinas attributes the cause to God, others attribute the cause to something I've heard referred to as "a quantum sea" or "quantum layer" - a place from which protons and neutrons and the big bang came from.

Like when the Big Bang is stated to be the thing that created everything, the question is, what created the big bang? We say God, while some scientists say Quantum particles, existing in a quantum plane or sea or something. But the problem of course is what, then, created all the quantum particles? Essentially, Aquinas keeps going backwards to find the start, insisting that causes cant be traced back infinitely. Its the question you can keep asking "well who made that?", "well what made that?", etc etc.

Here's a cool link that breaks the proofs down more easily. (It took me 8 tries to understand the 3rd proof)

The other thing though, is that its hard to encapsulate an argument on the existence of God into pure material things when our existence clearly relies on non-material things just as much. Most people trying to argue away God are also trying to argue away moral standards - or more specifically, a moral standard they disagree with. The problem is that to argue away God is to argue away moral standards, period, and in doing so it argues away purpose.

All things were created to BE as they were created.

long story short, "why" is just as important to human beings as "who/what" created the universe.

[tinytherese]

Yesterday went well. One of the objections brought up was, "Who made God?" which resulted in the well then who made the person who made God and on and on, so again somebody had to start it all, which ironically took us back to St. Thomas' argument in the first place.

I've noticed that some people just are not satisfied with someone telling them that God has no beginning and no end, so He has always been around. "You're just saying that as an excuse because you really don't know!"

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote]Now, It does make sense say something caused us. If you see a bike rolling, that something pushed it makes sense. Ultimately this analogy does not necessarily fly either though, because a bike is specific, whereas the world is something that could have always been. (if god can alway have been, the world could always have been) we'd expect something specific to have a specific cause, but in something that's unique unto itself like existence as we know it, that isn't necessarily expected- we know bikes roling have causes cause we see it all the time it's the only thing to conclude at that level of specificity, and they're (creation v. bike) different things that could reasonably be treated different per anaysis.
So we have the spaghetti monster on the one side and the bike on the other, ha.[/quote]

id add in there somewhere. we dont see 'uncaused causes' everyday. so, a bike rolling could indeed be different than existence as we know it, given theres no uncaused situaion with bikes rolling. and, assuming the uncaused cause is God, that is just as bad as saying something else is the uncaused cause, a 'primordial soup', or something. if the bike analogy would apply to 'no God', it'd apply to 'God', 'who made God', etc. and so the 'no God' argument is just as valid.

as i said in my intial sentence or so.
'everything we know has a cause. but we also have to recognize that we don't come across God phenomenon everyday, so to speak'

i really like that the poster above is knowledgeable about the more scientific concepts about the alterantive to God, not just the layman spouting of 'primordial soup' stuff i talk about.
id suspect we'd come to, 'who created that original soup', etc, or the 'a fortioir' stuff (unending chain, needing a creator?) i t alked about. but, the scientiric stuff if it amounts to anything, is a good alterantive to the necessity of 'God'

Edited July 9, 2010 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote]a good questio you should ask, is whether the for and against, "God" people, agree that there's an 'uncaused cause'.
i dont think most antiGod's in this arugment, would say there's no uncaused caused. and, on the other hand, i know many a catholic who contents themself with saying 'all we're saying is there's an uncaused cause'. i dont think that's enough to call it "God", so i take the 'nay' position on the God issue per definitive proof. it's just playing word games.
but, if they agree on that much, there's really not much that is being disagreed upon, really.

sure most would say 'you can't prove deductively that the big bang, or other things, is an uncaused cause, so it's not proven'. but, most would say effectively speaking that 'uncaused cause' is provable. [/quote]

[TeresaBenedicta]

I also like Anselm's Ontological proof. Many people are dissatisfied with it, but I've yet to hear a good argument against it.

[dairygirl4u2c]

i liked it a lot too when i first heard it, but it didn't take long for me to realize that's pretty much just smoke and mirrors, trying to sound clever, that's all. maybe ya think it's a cop out, but.. "God is that which is higher than a person can conceive". it's a cop out cause we by definition couldnt disprove this, and why call that God? Just because there's something higher than we can conceive, doesn't mean it's God. it's arbitray to call that God, and it could be called anything else. And, that higher thing that we can't conceive, could just be a bunch of stuff that we're by definitio not able to conceive. it doesn't follow that just because we can't conceive of something, that it's God, and that it's responsible for existence. i mean, what is responsible for us, is surely out of our conception, and would be responsible for our existence, but it's sorta flaky to call that God. again, just definitional word games. unjustifiable.
"The argument is often criticized as committing a bare assertion fallacy, as it offers no supportive premise other than qualities inherent to the unproven statement. This is also called a circular argument, because the premise relies on the conclusion, which in turn relies on the premise."
"The ontological argument has been a controversial topic in philosophy. Many philosophers, including Gaunilo of Marmoutiers, [b]St. Thomas Aquinas[/b](founder of the causational theories, and idea that CC uses to say God can be proven), David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell, have openly criticized it."
"[T]here is an evident absurdity in pretending to demonstrate a matter of fact, or to prove it by any arguments a priori. Nothing is demonstrable, unless the contrary implies a contradiction. Nothing, that is distinctly conceivable, implies a contradiction. Whatever we conceive as existent, we can also conceive as non-existent. There is no being, therefore, whose non-existence implies a contradiction. Consequently there is no being, whose existence is demonstrable."
cop out, for sure.

Edited July 10, 2010 by dairygirl4u2c

[Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' date='09 July 2010 - 02:52 PM' timestamp='1278697929' post='2139942']
i dont think one has to read aristotle and all these authors to get a good grasp of what's going on. there's something to be said about humility when one has not, but the arguments, even if not in the same terms, can for the most part be understood without having read all of them. im all for not being simplistic, but there's the opposite coin to that argument as well.
[/quote]

Clearly you have not read much heavy philosophy that takes days and legitimately tires you from having to follow someone's train of thought. You can read it but you miss alot. If you have not read the structure which makes a work possible, the only way to understand is to have someone explain it or guide you through it. The opposite side of the coin to this is nothing but a feel good theory of ignorance. One has seen without truly understanding, has grasped a small amount of knowledge which one feels good about declaring one "understands" when he doesn't. Seeing a facet, while valuable once something is understood as a whole, is not seeing the whole thing.

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' date='09 July 2010 - 07:00 PM' timestamp='1278712828' post='2140139']
id add in there somewhere. we dont see 'uncaused causes' everyday. so, a bike rolling could indeed be different than existence as we know it, given theres no uncaused situaion with bikes rolling. and, [b]assuming the uncaused cause is God[/b] (the bolding is mine-AMDG), that is just as bad as saying something else is the uncaused cause, a 'primordial soup', or something. if the bike analogy would apply to 'no God', it'd apply to 'God', 'who made God', etc. and so the 'no God' argument is just as valid.

as i said in my intial sentence or so.
'everything we know has a cause. but we also have to recognize that we don't come across God phenomenon everyday, so to speak'

i really like that the poster above is knowledgeable about the more scientific concepts about the alterantive to God, not just the layman spouting of 'primordial soup' stuff i talk about.
id suspect we'd come to, 'who created that original soup', etc, or the 'a fortioir' stuff (unending chain, needing a creator?) i t alked about. but, the scientiric stuff if it amounts to anything, is a good alterantive to the necessity of 'God'
[/quote]

Thomas defines God as an absolute being who as such is the first cause, the uncaused cause. That is His definition and that is who he worships. The same was true for Aristotle, but Aristotle called his absolute being The Nous (the Mind, which is the same as saying the soul or the spirit since for Aristotle all of them were what he lumped into "the animating principle of a being"). I have studied biology and physics and most of us on Phatmass know of these theories. However, I do not believe that there is a scientific alternative to God. "Providing and alternative to God" is not what science does or attempts to do. A friend once asked one of our atheist physics professors "what happened before the big bang?' He smiled and replied, "That is a philosophic or theological question, not a scientific one. You are asking 'why' as much as you are asking 'what' when you say that." He explained some theories of the cause of the Big Bang, but he was right. He was making a statement about the distinction between the purposes of science and philosophy and what they set out to do as much as he was answering our questions.

[quote name='TeresaBenedicta' date='10 July 2010 - 07:38 PM' timestamp='1278801538' post='2140945']
I also like Anselm's Ontological proof. Many people are dissatisfied with it, but I've yet to hear a good argument against it.
[/quote]

Anselm's proof is very logical (I am also a fan of it). There is only one problem with it as near as I can tell. Anselm makes the jump from knowledge to being. "I can conceive of the best possible being in such a way that it is a necessary being. Since it is the greatest being and as being that must exist, it exists." The only being I know who in knowing something makes it real is God. Thus the only one who could make that logical step is God (since what God knows is and if it is God knows it). It is still a great proof but one can't really make that logical move of knowledge to independent being that does not exist as part of one's mind.

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote]Clearly you have not read much heavy philosophy that takes days and legitimately tires you from having to follow someone's train of thought. You can read it but you miss alot. If you have not read the structure which makes a work possible, the only way to understand is to have someone explain it or guide you through it. The opposite side of the coin to this is nothing but a feel good theory of ignorance. One has seen without truly understanding, has grasped a small amount of knowledge which one feels good about declaring one "understands" when he doesn't. Seeing a facet, while valuable once something is understood as a whole, is not seeing the whole thing.[/quote]

i admit i usually dont get into days of reading. i do plenty of reading of philsopyers (which over time probably amounted to days of reading.... im usually more systematic in reading purposefully, not spending days on one piece, sorta like how lawyers do research) and read plenty on the matter, and definitely do days of thinking, and arguing, and etc, though. it's not that i can't read them, it's just that most writers smell of elderberries at writing. my main appraoch is to read for, or wait for in disucssion, for people to explain to me how i'm wrong, or for folks such as you, to show what i'm missing in that array of material. so far you haven't shown how im missing anything. sure, there's concepts that help clarify the arguments, that im missing, but the bottomline isn't missed, as far as i can tell.
for example, 'primary efficient cause', and other such terminology. usually these are just ways of expressing, 'uncaused caused', etc. or, what's even worse, is that they use all that jargon to conflate their argument--- i call something the primary efficient cause or whatever, and that proves that there's an uncaused cause, and thus that God exists. i suppose in this instance, sure i would agree that there's an uncaused cause. but that doens't mean that it should be called "God", as that's just definitional word games. as ive said many times, i think there's not as much disagreement in this argument, many if not most atheists and theists would both agree there's an 'uncaused caused'. you can call that God if that floats your boat, but it's not sayin much.


[quote]Thomas defines God as an absolute being who as such is the first cause, the uncaused cause. That is His definition and that is who he worships. The same was true for Aristotle, but Aristotle called his absolute being The Nous (the Mind, which is the same as saying the soul or the spirit since for Aristotle all of them were what he lumped into "the animating principle of a being"). I have studied biology and physics and most of us on Phatmass know of these theories. However, I do not believe that there is a scientific alternative to God. "Providing and alternative to God" is not what science does or attempts to do. A friend once asked one of our atheist physics professors "what happened before the big bang?' He smiled and replied, "That is a philosophic or theological question, not a scientific one. You are asking 'why' as much as you are asking 'what' when you say that." He explained some theories of the cause of the Big Bang, but he was right. He was making a statement about the distinction between the purposes of science and philosophy and what they set out to do as much as he was answering our questions.[/quote]

that is the being that i worship, too. but, id reinsert here, all that stuff about how it's just definitional words games amounting effectively to the less attractive notion, 'i worship the logically necessary uncaused cause'. there's an uncaused cause, and i have many reasons to think it's God, so i worship him. that's the better approach.


[quote]
Anselm's proof is very logical (I am also a fan of it). There is only one problem with it as near as I can tell. Anselm makes the jump from knowledge to being. "I can conceive of the best possible being in such a way that it is a necessary being. Since it is the greatest being and as being that must exist, it exists." The only being I know who in knowing something makes it real is God. Thus the only one who could make that logical step is God (since what God knows is and if it is God knows it). It is still a great proof but one can't really make that logical move of knowledge to independent being that does not exist as part of one's mind.[/quote]

if one likes definitional word games, sure, we can call many logical concepts God. eg, 'a greast conceiveable being must exist, therefore that's God". or, cue my last post on the jumps in logic about saying God is 'that which higher cannot be conceived', just by virtue of there necessarily being a highest being, andor a being higher than be conceived.
it seems like the even the highest of calibur of those arguing "God can be proven", such as Aquanis or augustine or whatever, including the last poster too, fall back to word games, ultimately, to prove that God exists. their proofs are very important, in establishing that God exists, and why we should believe in him, but not trying to insist that God must exist, and all that that usually implies.
but in anycase, 'the uncaused cause is God', sure, just keep in mind everything ive mentioned per caustions and concerns about that sort of thinking.

Edited August 21, 2010 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

"as ive said many times, i think there's not as much disagreement in this argument, many if not most atheists and theists would both agree there's an 'uncaused caused'. you can call that God if that floats your boat, but it's not sayin much."

actually more clearly i think most of the problem comes down to people not realizing that there's no disagreement at the heart of the matter.
that's why i posted that post a couple posts back, about asking theiss and atheists if they believe there's an uncaused cause. maybe i should go find an atheist forum and give em a poll....
incidentally i think many if not most arguments, espeically political philo and deeper issues, are just word games, or psychologocial disagrements on approach. as one philsopy professors said, being a philsopher just means being good at breaking it all down, good at words, etc.