If God can be an uncaused cause, then so can the universe.
If anything as complex as God (with his remarkably great intelligence and detailed personal qualities and convenient powers) can exist without explanation, then so can something as simple as a singular undifferentiated quantum state, which gave rise to the Big Bang (or a Big Bang, eventually giving rise to ours).
There is no other logical possibility.
Either some things are caused, or nothing is.
If nothing is caused, then I never wrote this. But I did write this, so at least some things are caused.
If some things are caused, either their causing is the result of a previous cause, or it isn't. In other words, either something caused it to cause, or nothing caused it to cause.
If every cause is the result of a previous cause, or, if everything is caused by something else, then we have an "infinite regress" of causes.
An infinite regress of causes is logically incoherent. To suggest that there have been an infinite regress of past causes is to suggest that we have come to the end of an infinite series. An infinite series, however, is by definition a series with no end. So this would mean that we have come to the end of a series with no end, which is logically incoherent.
Infinite regress would mean that we have iterated, one-by-one, through every single item of an infinite series. But an infinite series always has more items than those that have been iterated through. We would have iterated through something that cannot be iterated through, which is logically incoherent.
If we were to go backwards through each previous cause, and there were an infinite number of past causes, there would necessarily be some cause in the set of previous causes that we would never, ever get to. If that were not the case, it would not be infinite. If there is some supposed prior cause in the set of previous causes that we could never get to while iterating backwards through all previous causes, then, iterating forward from that cause to the present state, we would never arrive at the present state for the same reason that going backwards we could never arrive at the previous state -- namely, the infinite (or unending) number of causes in between the two.
Infinite regress would mean that we have completed something that cannot be completed. We have traversed something that cannot be traversed. We have itemized what cannot be itemized, counted what cannot be counted, spanned what cannot be spanned.
Infinite regress is logically incoherent. Therefore, not everything is caused by a previous cause.
This means, necessarily, that EVERY series of causes has its own first cause, and since this first cause is a FIRST cause, it is uncaused.
What we also see is that since this first cause is never the result of a prior cause, since it is in fact a FIRST cause, it does not cause involuntarily. In other words, nothing made it cause: it did it voluntarily -- on its own. The first cause, in every series of causes, is therefore necessarily volitional: it is willful; it has personhood.
Every uncaused first cause, since it is uncaused, either began to exist without cause, or else it did not begin to exist, and is therefore self-existent.
If it began to exist without cause, then having nothing, adding nothing to it, something results. Or, in other words:
0 + 0 > 0.
This is the same as claiming that zero is not zero, which is logically contradictory. I like to call this "Atheist Math".
Therefore, since nothing can be caused by nothing, every uncaused first cause is self-existent. It is eternal, permanent, and not subject to change over time. It simply... is.
When anyone talks about some kind of uncaused, self-existent, willful, eternal, personal entity that is the first cause of things, the label generally applied to such an entity is "God".
So we see that not only must some type of God necessarily exist because of the impossibility of the contrary, but also that He must be an uncaused first cause for the same reason.
In fact, Christianity is the only worldview that is logically coherent. All other worldviews fall victim to inherent logical contradictions within their most basic presuppositions, particularly wherever they diverge from Christianity.
For example, due to the lack of divine sacrificial substitutionary atonement in Islam, when Allah, who is always just, forgives, He is not just.
Due to the prophecies of the Messiah in the Hebrew Bible, Jewish prophecy is rejected by the Jews.
Due to the multiplicity of disagreeing gods in polytheism, wherever there is divine disagreement, things are and are not at the same time and in the same way.
The Christian God never contradicts Himself (2 Timothy 2:13); He fulfills the prophecies of the Jews (Acts 3:18); and the sacrifice of Christ makes it possible for the Christian God to be both just and forgiving at the same time (Hebrews 2:17).
Ultimately, only the Christian worldview provides a coherent understanding of reality and is not inherently contradictory.
God bless.
Comments
End quote.
For others, here is a detailed commentary I had with Tim a while ago on a similar topic: http://qw.quakephil.com/mccabe/ I obtained Tim's permission to publicize it for what it is. Tim, if you want it taken offline let me know.
Cheers
Phil
Thanks for removing the phone number. Very thoughtful of you. It is just part of the signature on my email profile. But yes, if you feel some pressing need to call me, you are welcome to.
Just don't harass me or I'll have to get the number changed...
;o)
Can you elaborate on what you mean by this?
I'm just a little confused as to how you end up concluding that the first cause is willful/has personhood. I'm not quite following your logic here. Thanks.
Have you ever heard of Zeno's paradoxes? What is your solution to the race between Achilles and the tortoise? The distance Achilles is infinite, since you can divide distances an infinite amount of time. According to your logic, he would never catch the tortoise. Yet, that clearly is not so. So what's the deal?
Unfortunately, you infinity quite oddly (and causation, for that matter), so this whole conversation may be pointless.
I address Zeno here:
http://www.godcontention.org/index.php?qid=96
"The distance Achilles runs is infinite...an infinite amount of times."
"...you view infinity quite oddly..."
Any first cause causes without being forced to. Its causing of whatever it causes is the result of nothing more than itself. It is self-motivated and self-directed, thus volitional or willful.
Therefore it is personal... it has personhood.
I'm not sure I can explain it any better than that, but I hope this clarifies what I mean, at least a little.
God bless.
"Any first cause causes without being forced to."
Can you elaborate on this part for me please? (I want to take it one part at a time, so i can understand.) It seems obvious that a first cause causes without being forced to *by an outside force* (Because there would be no other outside causal force at that point.)
But what if the First Cause's very nature "forced" it to cause? (I don't necessarily believe in this example, but here is something like I'm talking about: An eternal set of laws or something, which is bound by itself, just runs routinely according to its nature, without any will or anything. It just is. And because of its nature, it causes things (like giving rise to universes, etc.) It's forced to by its nature, so forced by itself, but without a conscious will to do so. It just "is" and "does."
If the First Cause is immutable;
If the First Cause *does* ONLY because it *is*;
If what the First Cause *does* is temporal;
Then temporal progression is immutable: we have an infinite regress of time.
Please let me know if this does not fully address your concern. If you'd prefer a more in-depth conversation, feel free to use the Contact Us page.
I don't really see how you have an infinite regress of time with the example I brought up. The First Cause would be eternal, not bound by time, not temporal. Time is just a dimension of our universe, and begins at the formation of our universe. Since time has a beginning in this example, there would be no infinite regress. I don't see how "we have an infinite regress of time" follows logically from your other statements.
Ultimately, I am trying to work out how you got to the point of saying that the First Cause must be a conscious personal agent as opposed to "a singular undifferentiated quantum state" like what Richard Carrier brought up in his view, or something similar.
Due to character restraints and the nature of the comments section, I am trying to be brief. Sometimes brevity makes my arguments unclear.
Below, x is the *being* of the First Cause (God or the quantum whatzits); y is the *doing* of the First Cause (the creation event or the Big Bang); z is temporal progression, or vectoral movement through time (the process of one moment following the next).
If I'm not mistaken, the position you are presenting goes as follows:
If x, then necessarily y.
If y, then necessarily z.
This means that if x, then necessarily z.
The Christian position, due to the willful nature of x, goes as follows:
If x, then optionally y.
If y, then necessarily z.
(continued)
So, under the position you are presenting, the existence of the First Cause is bound necessarily to the passage of time. If x is, then so is z. If z had a beginning, so did x, which is to say that 0 + 0 > 0. If x did not have a beginning, then neither did z, which is to endorse infinite regress. So this position is incoherent, unless I misunderstood your question.
In Christianity this is not the case due to the optional (willful) relationship between x and y.
God bless.
As Carrier said, if God can be an uncaused cause, then so can a singular undifferentiated quantum state.
Your are presupposing that it is unjust to forgive without a divine sacrificial substitutionary atonement. On the Christian set of presuppositions, this may be true. But under the Islamic set of presuppositions, it is not. So your claim that Islam is inherently contradictory because of this is false. Allah need not be held to your imaginary god's standards. Your claim would be like claiming Christianity is inherently contradictory because it doesn't conform to Islamic, Hindu, or some other religious standard for forgiveness.
You could be completely correct. I have not gotten a good answer on this concern from anyone I have raised it to.
In Islam, please define "justice" and please also define "forgiveness", or more importantly, please explain the Arabic words translated as such.
http://www.godcontention.org/index.php?qid=327
It seems to me that to forgive is to overlook sin, whereas justice demands vindictive retribution and merited punishment, therefore never overlooking sin. These would just be English definitions of English words. If there is no substitutionary atonement, with these definitions, they are mutually exclusive.
I would love to have a clean and coherent Muslim response to this.
Thanks.
Justice: Broadly, in Islam, the concept of justice is simply giving everyone his due.
Forgiveness: The Qur’an says that Allah is the Absolver of sins. Absolve means to set free from guilt. When someone is forgiven, what they are due changes. They are no longer due punishment.
These concepts are perfectly coherent with each other. Allah can alter someone’s due (through forgiveness) and give people what they are due in the end (through justice.)
On your view, it seems that you think when Allah doesn’t punish, he is failing to give them their due. But on my view, Allah gives them their due. Its just that their due changed because of repentance and forgiveness. So forgiveness happens, and justice is still done. Perfectly coherent.
"Punishment is due for his sin, but I choose not to punish him."
Rather, it means:
"No punishment is due for his sin."
Is that correct?
According to Wikipedia, it is caused:
"Usually, radioactive decay happens DUE TO a process confined to the nucleus of the unstable atom, but, on occasion (as with the different processes of electron capture and internal conversion), an inner electron of the radioactive atom is also necessary to the process."
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_decay
But let's assume Wikipedia is wrong and no cause is actually known. All this means is that the cause is unknown -- not that there isn't one. Of course there's a cause... if there weren't, knowledge would be impossible (and math wouldn't work). If observation hasn't found the cause, that's a weakness of empiricism -- not Christianity.
God bless.
2. The sequence never shows the two successive numbers where one number includes "infinity" and the next number includes no "ifninity". This is because there are no such two successive numbers.
2a. This is the context switch referred to - commence with numbers that include "infinity" and then change context to numbers that do not include "infinity".
3. proof: The sequence would be: -in, -(in-1), -(in-2) .... -(in-m), -n, .... -3, -2, -1, 0. Hence -(in-m) = -(n+1). Hence in = n + m + 1. So infinity is a finite number? This is why negative infinity cannot be used as a number for the purposes of counting to zero.
A. It's special pleading (everything needs a cause...oh, except god. Oh yeah, why? Oh...um...*crickets*)
B. If god doesn't need a cause, then the premise that "everything needs a cause" is therefore false, and the argument fails.
C. Its asserted but never demonstrated or proven that the alleged first cause must necessarily be a wilful personal entity.
"Its asserted but never demonstrated or proven that the alleged first cause must necessarily be a wilful personal entity."
You didn't even read the essay, did you?
"Since it is in fact a FIRST cause, it does not cause involuntarily. In other words, nothing made it cause: it did it voluntarily -- on its own. The first cause, in every series of causes, is therefore necessarily volitional: it is willful; it has personhood."
That's not a mere assertion, but a demonstration or proof. Does it work? Dunno, but your condemnation is pure straw.
See, Tim says "either some things are caused, or nothing is". So OK then, lets accept that some things are caused, yeah? If some things are caused, they necessarily didn't cause themselves, so in order to be, they necessarily have to have *been* caused. You with me? So...some things *need* a cause.
Since that's the fallacy that the whole argument is based on, you can see that the rest of it, the whole "wilful voluntary personhood" thing is just a load of theological hooey.
So when Tim says "some things are caused", what he REALLY means is "everything needs a cause".
And when he says "since this first cause is a FIRST cause, it is uncaused" and "since this first cause is never the result of a prior cause, since it is in fact a FIRST cause, it does not cause involuntarily", what he REALLY means is "God doesn't need a cause because... *crickets*".
Wow you sure are smart! Wish I knew how to read like you do! Then I could easily use straw men and ad hominems to prove any arbitrary claim I want!
Initial composition of boundless space from the point of view of element:
1.It is suffucient to declare existence of two elements, SIMPLE and COMPLEX, possesing closed systemic appearance in order to imagine different (homogenous) and completed one.
2.It is sufficient to declare existence of Lord and Almighty in other element, possesing non-closed systematic appearance in order to imagine it as different and incomplete as heterogenous (in other words: various type).
It is not difficult to presume that simple and complex compression is happened in possible minimal widening from permanent widening level, first, inclination to descending, from material component of God from non-material component of Divine Spirit/separation happened as maximum possible diversity (1H) on essence of God on minimum possible numeric homogeneity regarding with blockage of start of non-material components, permanently widening, inclined to their
The point of the argument is that there MUST logically be two categories of being, commonly called 'Contingent' and 'Necessary'.
Contingent means that this type of being depends upon something else for its existence. It receives existence from somewhere else. In other words, it is "caused"
Necessary means that this type of being DOES NOT depend on something else for its existence. It does not receive existence, it has existence by it's very nature.
The usual Atheist construct of reality is that reality is a closed system of contingent being, but this is logically impossible. It's like saying you can have a ring of people constantly passing a Dollar bill around between them when no one had a Dollar bill to begin with.
In order for anything to exist at all, there must be a being which is self-existent. This being, by definition transcends observed reality.