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The Jewish point of view is that studying all realms of existence and FAITH is required for that step to be made.I don’t know what God consists of. But even so, if matter/energy exists without any causation, then God need not be “the” causation. So again, his thesis is that his little syllogism necessarily proves that God exists. But that conclusion obviously doesn’t follow from his premises.
I don’t claim that God does exist; nor do I claim that God doesn’t exist. In reality, I happen to believe in God. But that doesn’t answer my question. How does the syllogism in the OP show that God exists? (It doesn’t.)
If anything, it shows that there is no necessary implication that God exists.
God is infinite qualitatively speaking. When we say that God is infinite in classical theology, we mean that God's greatness is perfect and superlatively incomparable.God is infinite.
That is what I meant and you summed it up superbly.God is infinite qualitatively speaking. When we say that God is infinite in classical theology, we mean that God's greatness is perfect and superlatively incomparable.
God is not an actual infinite as that would pertain to a physical/material quantity, namely, a boundlessly large, indeterminable number or amount of something. God is not a physical/material entity or quantity. An actual infinite quantity does not and cannot exist as anything more but an idea in minds, i.e., an ever-growing amount of something, potentially infinite but never actually infinite.
Yes, That's because to Aristotle's pagan mind a being ontologically preceding, having primacy over, and, thusly, being beyond spacetime was anathema.The Jewish point of view is that studying all realms of existence and FAITH is required for that step to be made.
Aristotle, for instance, who is regarded as a genius by Jews as way ahead of his time, could not get past the fact that God would have had to change, so to speak, His mind, in order to spontaneously create something from nothing.
I am incapable of grasping it but I can acknowledge it.Yes, That's because to Aristotle's pagan mind a being ontologically preceding, having primacy over, and, thusly, being beyond spacetime was anathema.
BackAgain's problem is that he can't grasp or won't acknowledge the metaphysical potentialities of being long enough to distinguish the difference between nothing, as in the absence of material/physical being, and nothingness, as in nonexistence.
Wrong forum. Reported so it can be moved. This is Politics, not ReligionQuestion: how do we know that God necessarily exists?
Short Answer: because the imperatives of logic, mathematics, and metaphysics tell us that God necessarily exists. The Cosmological Argument is bullet proof.
The Cosmological Argument1. That which begins to exist must have a cause of its existence.2. The cosmos began to exist.3. The cosmos has a cause of its existence.
The thoughtless fail to grasp the cogency of the Cosmological Argument because (1) they fail to grasp the fundamental imperatives of existence itself and because (2) they fail to grasp the minor, necessarily attending premises linking the major premises of the argument. To grasp the latter especially requires the thought of an open and logical mind. While the first major premise in the above is a given, one begins by observing the fundamental ontological imperatives of being:
1. Something does exist rather than nothing. 2. Existence cannot arise from nonexistence. Absurdity!3. Hence, something has always existed.We can now move on to regard the minor, necessarily attending premises linking the major premises of the argument. Happy reading.
2. The cosmos began to exist.
Argument based on the impossibility of an actual infinite.2.11. An actual infinite cannot exist.2.12. An infinite temporal regress of events is an actual infinite.2.13. Therefore, an infinite temporal regress of events cannot exist.AND
Argument based on the impossibility of the formation of an actual infinite by successive addition.2.21. A collection formed by successive addition cannot be actually infinite.2.22. The temporal series of past events is a collection formed by successive addition.2.23. Therefore, the temporal series of past events cannot be actually infinite.(In other words, an infinite regress of causality/temporality cannot be traversed to the present. Absurdity!)
3. The cosmos has a cause of its existence.
3.1. If the cause of the universe's existence were impersonal, it would be operationally mechanical.
3.2. An operationally mechanical cause would be a material existent.3.3. The causal conditions for the effect of an operationally mechanical cause would be given from eternity.
3.4. But a material existent is a contingent entity of continuous change and causality!
3.5. An infinite temporal series of past causal events cannot be traversed to the present.
3.6. Indeed, an actual infinite cannot exist.
3.7. Hence, a temporal existent cannot have a beginningless past.
3.8. Hence, time began to exist.
3.9. A material existent is a temporal existent.
3.10. Hence, materiality began to exist.
3.11. The universe is a material existent.
3.12. Hence, the universe began to exist.
3.13. Hence, the cause of the universe's existence cannot be material (per 3.10.).
3.14. Hence, the cause of the universe's existence cannot be operationally mechanical (per 3.2., 3.10.).
3.15. Hence, the eternally self-subsistent cause of the universe's existence is wholly transcendent: timeless, immaterial and immutable (3.13.).
3.16. The only kind of timeless entity that could cause the beginning of time sans any external, predetermining causal conditions would be a personal agent of free will (per 3.3., 3.14.).
3.17. Hence, the eternally self-subsistent cause of the universe's existence is a personal agent of free will.
Broadly summarized
The eternally self-subsistent cause cannot be natural (or material), as no continuously changing entity of causality can be beginningless. The latter would entail an infinite regress of causal events, which cannot go on in the past forever. There must be a first event, before which there is no change or event. In short, given that an infinite regress of causal events is impossible, the material realm of being cannot be the eternally self-subsistent ground of existence. The eternally self-subsistent cause cannot be abstract either. An abstract object has no causal force, and, in any event, abstractions contingently exist in minds. Hence, the uncaused cause is a wholly transcendent, unembodied mind.
Distinctively summarized
By the nature of the case, the cause of the universe cannot have a beginning of its existence nor any prior cause. Nor can there have been any changes in this cause, either in its nature or operations, prior to the beginning of the universe. It just exists changelessly without beginning, and a finite time ago it brought the universe into existence.
Now this is exceedingly odd. The cause is in some sense eternal, and yet the effect which is produced is not eternal but began to exist a finite time ago. How can this be? If the necessary and sufficient conditions for the production of the effect are eternal, then why is not the effect eternal? How can all the causal conditions sufficient for the production of the effect be changelessly existent and yet the effect not also be existent along with the cause? How can the cause exist without the effect?
We know that the first event must have been caused. The question is: How can a first event come to exist if the cause of that event exists changelessly and eternally? Why is the effect not coeternal with its cause?
Answer: the only way for the cause to be timeless but for its effect to begin in time is for the cause to be a personal agent who freely chooses to bring about an effect without any antecedent determining conditions.
Philosophers call this type of causation 'agent causation,' and because the agent is free, he can initiate new effects by freely bringing about conditions that were not previously present. Thus, a Creator could have freely brought the world into being at that moment. In this way, the Creator could exist changelessly and eternally but choose to create the world in time. By exercising his causal power, he therefore brings it about that a world with a beginning comes to exist. So the cause is eternal, but the effect is not. In this way, then, it is possible for the temporal universe to have come to exist from an eternal cause: through the free will of a personal Creator.
Oh, I understood you to making the very same distinction. I've read you before. You know what you're about. I wrote post #42 to set up post #44.That is what I meant and you summed it up superbly.
It's not in the Political Forum. It's in the Philosophy Forum where it belongs. The issue pertains to the metaphysics of being, i.e., ontology. Strictly speaking, ontology is not a theological or religious issue. Now send another message to the monitor and tell him/her to never mind and apologize for wasting his/her time. Pay attention next time.Wrong forum. Reported so it can be moved. This is Politics, not Religion
He may not be ready.He's been insufferably snarky to me over something he doesn't grasp.
You poor pathetic hypocritical twat. It’s obvious you have no handle on any of the nuances. Go get a tissue. Dab your eyes.He's been insufferably snarky to me over something he doesn't grasp.
I’m plenty ready; disagreement is a different thing. But Ringtone is unable or unwilling to answer a question. So, it’s more likely that he isn’t ready.He may not be ready.
On the other hand, he's not a Liberal.
It has not always existed.I’m plenty ready; disagreement is a different thing. But Ringtone is unable or unwilling to answer a question. So, it’s more likely that he isn’t ready.
Once again, he says that matter/energy doesn’t require creation “because” it has “always existed.” And I challenged him with a perfectly fair question:
If it doesn’t require something to create it in order to “exist,” then how does that “prove” the existence of God? That’s his initial claim. But, he apparently recognizes that he is incapable of answering the question.
When I pulled it up, it was in Politics because I would never read anything in the Philosophy forum. I apologize!It's not in the Political Forum. It's in the Philosophy Forum where it belongs. The issue pertains to the metaphysics of being, i.e., ontology. Strictly speaking, ontology is not a theological or religious issue. Now send another message to the monitor and tell him/her to never mind and apologize for wasting his/her time. Pay attention next time.
I don’t know. But ringtone has claimed otherwise. And the syllogism he points to concludes that it has to have always existed. On that basis he further argues that it is logically derived that God must exist.It has not always existed.
Once again, he [Ringtone] says that matter/energy doesn’t require creation.I’m plenty ready; disagreement is a different thing. But Ringtone is unable or unwilling to answer a question. So, it’s more likely that he isn’t ready.
Once again, he says that matter/energy doesn’t require creation “because” it has “always existed.” And I challenged him with a perfectly fair question:
If it doesn’t require something to create it in order to “exist,” then how does that “prove” the existence of God? That’s his initial claim. But, he apparently recognizes that he is incapable of answering the question.
No. Not wrong. Quite entirely correct. For your answer to that question was that it “always” existed. You might not get it, but if it “always” existed, then it wasn’t created.Once again, he [Ringtone] says that matter/energy doesn’t require creation.,
Wrong! That's not what I'm saying at all!
It was! I read it because I thought it was strange that it was in Politics. Again, my apologies!That's weird.
