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ORIGINAL: PromiseLander

Circular reasoning is a pitiful excuse that secularists use to attempt to negate the truths found in the Bible. OK, if you're going to play by those rules, then tell me that 2+2 = 4 without using mathematics - that's circular reasoning. You're saying that 2+2 is 4 because the laws of mathematics dictate that it must be so. Hmmm...

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ORIGINAL: PromiseLander
find me one thing in this universe that is independant of everything else in the universe.

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ORIGINAL: swan42

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ORIGINAL: PromiseLander

Circular reasoning is a pitiful excuse that secularists use to attempt to negate the truths found in the Bible. OK, if you're going to play by those rules, then tell me that 2+2 = 4 without using mathematics - that's circular reasoning. You're saying that 2+2 is 4 because the laws of mathematics dictate that it must be so. Hmmm...

We don't know that 2+2 = 4, we assume 2+2 = 4. It is an axiom.

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By definition, isn't an axiom a "truth?"

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If you insist...

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there is nothing at all in the cosmological argument to indicate that the being would have any of the properties of humans that are projected into the concept of the deity of any particular religion.

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We don't know that 2+2 = 4, we assume 2+2 = 4. It is an axiom.

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By definition, isn't an axiom a "truth?"

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One molecule of anything is more than enough evidence to prove the existence of God, because if something "is" rather than "is not" then somehow, somewhere, something MUST exist that has the power of being. If nothing had the power of being, then nothing would exist... It's that simple.

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Something out of nothing philosophy is as repugnant to Theology as it is to Science because it is utterly irrational.

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ORIGINAL: essentialsaltes

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ORIGINAL: PromiseLander
find me one thing in this universe that is independant of everything else in the universe.

Virtual particles.

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find me one thing in this universe that is independant of everything else in the universe.

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Virtual particles.

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ORIGINAL: hammurabi

Having a "power of being" doesn't actually say anything, however. Can you expand on what power this being possesses? or what power to affect this being would have. I think it's clear that before you can say things must have gradients of power of being, you need to first explicate what you mean by power and by being. Do you mean Being as the ability of beings to exist, or as that which substantiates beings?

It appears to me that you are invoking substance arguments from first cause, or from continual efficient causes. This is the way Spinoza understood God: as the immanent efficient and formal cause of all necessary effects. The problem is, that if you want this God to resemble anything other than immanence as such, then you are left with the logical possibility that God existed only for the temporally nonexistent moment at which all extant being exists; and haven't demonstrated the possibility of this Being existing at any other time, unless you attribute to him logical necessity of continual existence. So yes: your argument works if God resembles nothing other than the immanent efficient and formal cause; but you would have a hard time arguing to first cause from this God, since it allows for the logical possibility of an infinite regress; or the logically infinite regress of causation (which does not mean temporal).

This is the problem with your argument:

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One molecule of anything is more than enough evidence to prove the existence of God, because if something "is" rather than "is not" then somehow, somewhere, something MUST exist that has the power of being. If nothing had the power of being, then nothing would exist... It's that simple.

There is no reason why anything other than the formal and efficient reasons for the effect of the molecule's existence to exist; which implies nothing other than the existence of Being itself; which implies that God understood traditionally is not logically necessary. Aquinas' proof from degrees of perfection is ridiculous and easily refuted; Plato from he Form of the Good, similarly. But neither of them during the course of these arguments attempted to do anything other than demonstrate that either a first; immanently efficient or formal; transcendentally efficient or formal; or temporally progressive efficient cause, existed. Demonstrate is the key word, and must be understood provisionally as a logical necessity - not of God, but of something possessing the causal properties we attribute to God.

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Something out of nothing philosophy is as repugnant to Theology as it is to Science because it is utterly irrational.

Not true. The problem is in the designation of nothing. Nothingness is the state of being something without a thing, or without a thing attached to the some. Hence it could be a some. Or the possible "some." Virtual realities of possible beings qua Being understood as the temporal lack of Being is how some interpreters of Spinoza (and some religious existentialists) have interpreted this doctrine. Other than that, I question your ability to talk about nothing.

It's probably important to understand that "power" is usually equivalent to "perfection" in Scholastic philosophy too, which complicates the argument through metaphor.

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Do you come with a commentary?

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ORIGINAL: PromiseLander

Circular reasoning is a pitiful excuse that secularists use to attempt to negate the truths found in the Bible. OK, if you're going to play by those rules, then tell me that 2+2 = 4 without using mathematics - that's circular reasoning. You're saying that 2+2 is 4 because the laws of mathematics dictate that it must be so. Hmmm...

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This is not really a proper comparison. Mathematics certainly exists, just as certainly as religion exists. The axioms that they are based upon, however, arent necessarily equal.

Your confusing numbers with what they represent. The numbers 2 and 4 arent tangible entities, they are simply symbols. They really do not exist, except on paper, and in our minds. Outside of mathematics, 2 + 2 = 4 is complete meaningless gibberish.

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1. If there is a cause for everything then what caused the first cause (god).

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The numbers 2 and 4 arent tangible entities, they are simply symbols.

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First causes have logical, not temporal, necessity and eternity. It's a logical cause, and hence isn't affected by temporal sequence.

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ORIGINAL: drmark

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The numbers 2 and 4 arent tangible entities, they are simply symbols.

Ah, just the sucker I've been looking for! Please PM me your mailing address and I will send you two one-hundred dollar bills in exchange for four of your one-hundred dollar bills. That way we can exchange collectible symbols. You can count to four, right drj?

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No. I generally follow the simple assumption (axiom) that is the logical starting point for most math: 1 = 1. Its worked out so far.

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True, but as the universe has a beginning, it would seem that sequence is of importance.

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My point was that we consider causation in first cause arguments to be temporal. So the regress of causes occurs under Time; but the logical necessity to avoid infinite regress is to attribute infinite causal power to a first cause. Because it is infinite, it need not have a regress of causal sequence (or be infinitely generative, which is the same thing in a different way).