By the way, I am not flatly declaring victory for no reason. Whether you refuse to see it or not, I have shown your argument to be invalid. You can resist this for the next century, but until you offer a cogent countercritique of my critique, it will not have changed. This is not to mention the fact that everyone involved in this thread, with the possible exception of Kamui–but I don’t think so–has shown to you that you are not offering, and have not at any point offered, a proof of God’s existence.
[quote]sufiandy wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]sufiandy wrote:
Pat, as we all pointed out there is a flaw in this argument. Can you fix it or at least give a new one in a similar format that we can reference, so we can stop using the flawed version?
- X exists.
- X cannot have caused itself.
- X cannot have been caused by nothing.
- Therefore, X is caused.
So this would be true for something like “An Apple” but false for “God”. A valid argument needs to be true for anything you plug into the unknown.[/quote]
Well I don’t think you have found a flaw. You ask good questions, but that does not indicate it as a flaw. Because something is a variable as in this case ‘X’ we can still know things about it. The premises tell us something about the object in question.
It’s important to understand fully what ‘uncaused’ means. It means not caused at all. So to discuss the causal properties of something that has no causal properties is absurd.
If we were talking for instance about ‘God’, I.E. and Uncaused-cause which is more appropriate in this case the premises would have to be different.
You cannot determine an uncaused entity explicitly because any attempt to establish it becomes circular. You cannot discuss the causal properties of something that has no causal properties. Like smh’s example of a circle with 90 degree angles. You cannot question the circle’s 90 degree angles because it doesn’t have any. By the very fact of a circle being round, it’s absurd to discuss properties it could not have had in the first place.
We aren’t describing the circle, we’re arguing what a circle is. By definition it has no 90 degree angles, nor flowers or pink elephants.
The thing is, and I tried to explain it to smh, but it didn’t take. An argument is a framework. It needs to be explained to understand it.[/quote]
You skipped over my more important question so I’ll reference this one
- X exists.
- X cannot have caused itself.
- X cannot have been caused by nothing.
- Therefore, X is caused.
Question…
How do you determine if #2 is true for false before moving on to 3 and 4?
[/quote]
smh, would his answer to this help you?
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
^Pat, I am going to suggest, at the risk of sounding like a dick, that you become more familiar with the basics of logical debate and counterdebate before proceeding. I am no expert on the matter, and don’t intend to imply that I am, but I’ve got a good enough understanding of classical logic to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is utterly no sense in what you just did here.
–Your original argument went 1, 2, 3, therefore 4.
–I said, “but wait, if Z, then 1, 2, 3, and ~4.”
–And your response is that “1, 2, 3, therefore Z”–an argument you arbitrarily constructed–“is invalid.”
Do you not understand that it was never averred, never even barely hinted at that Z was logically entailed by premises 1, 2, and 3? And that it does not in any possible universe need to be so entailed, in order for my critique of your original 1, 2, 3, therefore 4 argument to be spot, and I mean spot, on?
Edit: This refers to the posts directly before Sufi’s, not Sufi’s.[/quote]
Yeah, that sounds dickish and I can turn that right back on you. It’s rather uncalled for. Because I have addressed both scenarios. The problem is you don’t understand your objection is flat wrong and nonsensical. You seem to treat each premise as mutually exclusive and they are not they work together to reach a conclusion.
It goes back to one simple thing, you don’t understand what it means to be uncaused. It trashes your whole objection from the get go. Until you do, you won’t get it and you will continue to repeat this same false assertion and I will continue to tell you that you are wrong. No amount of ad hominem, or declarations of victory will change that fact.
I addressed the situation in both ways, but since you don’t get what uncaused means you don’t get why, so I will try to explain with little hope of it taking.
If Z, then 1, not 2 not 3 and not 4. Because of 1,2 and 3, Z isn’t the subject of the argument.
Z is not the subject of the argument and it’s not possible for it to be the subject. The premises deal with something caused, not uncaused. It’s nonsensical to say:
-Something is uncaused.
-Something uncaused is not caused by itself. ← No, it’s not caused by anything, it’s uncaused. To say that something that is uncaused is not caused by something is self evident. Something uncaused is not caused by itself, something else, or nothing. It’s not caused at all. Causation is not part of it’s existence. It makes no sense listing all the things that didn’t cause it because causation isn’t a property of an uncaused entity. You can list an infinite number of things that didn’t cause an uncaused entity. It’s uncaused. Do you understand? If 1,2,3 then not Z, but only 4.
Probably not.
[/quote]
Yes, it was dickish. For that I apologize, and I do mean it when I express my gratitude for this debate. However, I stand by the sentiment: You are not making cogent arguments or criticisms.
Your argument is [I am substituting X for something, for simplicity’s sake]:
- X exists.
- X cannot have caused itself.
- X cannot have been caused by [nothing].
- Therefore, X is caused.
Your argument concludes that X is caused without having ruled out that X is uncaused. It is invalid. If X is uncaused, then the premises of your argument are each satisfied and its conclusion is not true. That is, if X is uncaused, then it exists, was not caused by itself, and was not caused by [nothing].
Thus, the conclusion is not necessarily entailed by the premises. This, I have explained many times, is the precise definition of invalidity.
I usually hesitate to appeal to an outside opinion, but I wonder if a poster who is not Pat or me would give his opinion on this particular matter, because we have been over it more times than I care to admit.[/quote]
I appreciate that, and simultaneously apologize for the terseness of my last post.
It wouldn’t be bad if kamui and Dr Matt weighed in,in that I trust their knowledge and education.
In Dr. Matt’s case he objected based on a lack of explanation. Which I agreed with him on that, in that the reasoning behind it was necessary to know. I gave him the reasoning behind it so now that he knows the reasoning, provided we clear up any further objections what they think.
We can deal with it in other ways. There are other arguments we can deal with.
Provided we deal with his case for causation only, not his proofs of God we can perhaps deal with causation in a more friendly way.
“A more friendly way” sounds like a good idea to me, Pat. We are really helping each other here anyway: We understand the objections to our beliefs better than we did two weeks ago.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
By the way, I am not flatly declaring victory for no reason. Whether you refuse to see it or not, I have shown your argument to be invalid. You can resist this for the next century, but until you offer a cogent countercritique of my critique, it will not have changed. This is not to mention the fact that everyone involved in this thread, with the possible exception of Kamui–but I don’t think so–has shown to you that you are not offering, and have not at any point offered, a proof of God’s existence.[/quote]
Argumentum ad populum. Having a cheering section doesn’t make your objection correct.
Nobody has demonstrated knowledge of what an uncaused entity must be to exist and be uncaused. When you get that, then you will understand why Z isn’t applicable to the discussion.
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
By the way, I am not flatly declaring victory for no reason. Whether you refuse to see it or not, I have shown your argument to be invalid. You can resist this for the next century, but until you offer a cogent countercritique of my critique, it will not have changed. This is not to mention the fact that everyone involved in this thread, with the possible exception of Kamui–but I don’t think so–has shown to you that you are not offering, and have not at any point offered, a proof of God’s existence.[/quote]
Argumentum ad populum. Having a cheering section doesn’t make your objection correct.
Nobody has demonstrated knowledge of what an uncaused entity must be to exist and be uncaused. When you get that, then you will understand why Z isn’t applicable to the discussion.[/quote]
Indeed, I don’t contend that anybody else’s opinion makes me right–though, in the event that one of the good doctors, Matt and S, holds a similar position to mine, I am comforted.
Now, I think that I can go a little farther than I have in the past. You seem to be claiming, here, that Z is impossible. That is fine–you will have to prove that, of course, but you’re perfectly within your right to try. However, until you show that Z is impossible, your argument remains invalid. I am pretty sure that you do see and understand this.
Now, say you do show that Z is impossible–that proof will be added to argument A, and then argument A will be valid. But it won’t be the original argument A anymore.
Thus, whether because you can correct it, or add to it, to prove ~Z, or because you cannot correct it and the entire contention is abandoned, argument A, as it is in its precise present form, is not a valid argument.
The problem now, of course, is that you must prove ~Z. From scratch, of course. This will entail a logical proof the conclusion of which is: X cannot be uncaused, X being the [something] identified earlier.
Why not just restate the argument in question much more easily:
- X exists
- X cannot have caused itself
- X cannot be un-caused (the point in question)
- Therefore, X is caused
This is much easier for me to look at than “X cannot be caused by [nothing]” as smh_23 writes because it seems as if the nomenclature [nothing] is a causative agent named “nothing” and not the absence of anything, which is how it is being used logically. Semantic, undoubtedly. But easier to read :).
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Why not just restate the argument in question much more easily:
- X exists
- X cannot have caused itself
- X cannot be un-caused (the point in question)
- Therefore, X is caused
This is much easier for me to look at than “X cannot be caused by [nothing]” as smh_23 writes because it seems as if the nomenclature [nothing] is a causative agent named “nothing” and not the absence of anything, which is how it is being used logically. Semantic, undoubtedly. But easier to read :).
[/quote]
#2 is also unnecessary so you can remove it and the argument will always be true.
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Why not just restate the argument in question much more easily:
- X exists
- X cannot have caused itself
- X cannot be un-caused (the point in question)
- Therefore, X is caused
This is much easier for me to look at than “X cannot be caused by [nothing]” as smh_23 writes because it seems as if the nomenclature [nothing] is a causative agent named “nothing” and not the absence of anything, which is how it is being used logically. Semantic, undoubtedly. But easier to read :).
[/quote]
Good question.
Pat introduced the notion of “caused by nothing.” It is a derivation of the argument that ex nihilo nihil fit, and it argues that X cannot have been caused by [nothing] because [nothing] is without extension or property and thus without causal power.
Thus, ex nihilo is not related to the proposition of uncausality–because it assumes that X is caused and then eliminates the possibility that [nothing] can be that cause.
So, while the premise that you added is absolutely where we are headed, it is not interchangeable with the one you exchanged it for.
Correctly, the argument will look like this:
- X exists
- X cannot be un-caused
- X cannot have caused itself
- X cannot have been caused by nothing.
- Therefore…
Now the thing will be to prove 2, if it is not an assumption (which I contend it is).
[quote]pat wrote:
Nothing will ever be settled. People will always disagree to the absurd. We do after all, still have flat earthers. I just have to go with what the logic dictates.[/quote]
the only people that are flat earthers are the ones that also deny there was ever a historical Jesus.
those people are one and the same.
Wow this discussion looks like a mess. I am unaware of what went on in the previous thread and will only response to what went on the first three pages. I have read three of Craig’s books and am a moderator of http://www.reddit.com/r/ReasonableFaith
Even though I think the Leibnizian Cosmological argument Alexander Pruss's Blog: Leibnizian cosmological arguments is more philosophically clear cut I don’t mind defending the Kalam.
To OP, I know that you are responding to someone else but lets say you are critiquing the Kalam.
Craig doesn’t see his arguments as proof of God but merely that they are good arguments in such that the conclusions follow from the premises and where the premises are more plausible than their negation.
He would also never structure the argument as you have in the OP but construct it this way.
- That which begins to exist has a cause or sufficient reason for its existence.
- The universe began to exist.
- Therefore the universe has a cause or sufficient reason for its existence.
This is a valid argument.
God is then inferred/entailed from what kind of properties the cause or sufficient reason must have.
You seem to say that premise one is an assumption and that one can be equally rational in affirming it or denying it. I am only defending this as a good argument, not as a proof so I will provide some support where the affirmation of premise 1 is more plausible than its denial.
The first premise is constantly verified in everyday experience and we have no examples of things beginning to exist without a cause or having a sufficient reason for its existence. Not even quantum events which are non deterministic/probabilistic on a Copenhagen interpretation. A common example for uncaused events cited are from quantum mechanics like the appearance of virtual particles or the emission of a photon but on closer inspection these events have a cause or sufficient reason why they occurred. For example the appearance and disappearance of virtual particles from the quantum vacuum result from the fluctuation of energy in the vacuum or a photon that is emitted from the energy transition an electron has in an atom.
Second suppose the first premise is false. We would expect a much different world than the one we experience such as the inexplicable appearance of 20 foot rabbits with bowties and other strange things.
Despite your protestations of “being comes from being” and “out of nothing, nothing comes” being circular, it makes metaphysical sense and isn’t something that atheistic philosophers of religion critique (Quentin Smith, Graham Oppy etc…) since it is a variant of a weak principle of sufficient reason. Those philosophers actually try to argue against premise 2.
As James Sinclair summarizes ““Nothing,” so defined, has no properties or constraints. If things can pop into being, then anything and everything can, without restriction and with no probability attaching to the fact. Thus you can’t say, “It can happen, but only for universes.” You can’t say, “It can happen for universes, but we can’t see the other ones because they don’t interact.” You can’t say, “It can happen, but it is rare; hence, I don’t expect a universe to appear in my breakfast bowl this morning (or a pink elephant with a bow tie).””
I probably won’t have time to respond but you can post your critique of “Ex nihilo nihil fit” on there where someone can respond to it.
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
Craig doesn’t see his arguments as proof of God but merely that they are good arguments in such that the conclusions follow from the premises and where the premises are more plausible than their negation.
[/quote]
I was also late into this thread but from what I gathered someone implied all this was more of a proof than a good argument. Hearing that its hard not to follow up to see what their proof is, but it turned out to be nothing more than a good argument as expected.
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
Wow this discussion looks like a mess. I am unaware of what went on in the previous thread and will only response to what went on the first three pages. I have read three of Craig’s books and am a moderator of http://www.reddit.com/r/ReasonableFaith
Even though I think the Leibnizian Cosmological argument Alexander Pruss's Blog: Leibnizian cosmological arguments is more philosophically clear cut I don’t mind defending the Kalam.
To OP, I know that you are responding to someone else but lets say you are critiquing the Kalam.
Craig doesn’t see his arguments as proof of God but merely that they are good arguments in such that the conclusions follow from the premises and where the premises are more plausible than their negation.
He would also never structure the argument as you have in the OP but construct it this way.
- That which begins to exist has a cause or sufficient reason for its existence.
- The universe began to exist.
- Therefore the universe has a cause or sufficient reason for its existence.
This is a valid argument.
God is then inferred/entailed from what kind of properties the cause or sufficient reason must have.
You seem to say that premise one is an assumption and that one can be equally rational in affirming it or denying it. I am only defending this as a good argument, not as a proof so I will provide some support where the affirmation of premise 1 is more plausible than its denial.
The first premise is constantly verified in everyday experience and we have no examples of things beginning to exist without a cause or having a sufficient reason for its existence. Not even quantum events which are non deterministic/probabilistic on a Copenhagen interpretation. A common example for uncaused events cited are from quantum mechanics like the appearance of virtual particles or the emission of a photon but on closer inspection these events have a cause or sufficient reason why they occurred. For example the appearance and disappearance of virtual particles from the quantum vacuum result from the fluctuation of energy in the vacuum or a photon that is emitted from the energy transition an electron has in an atom.
Second suppose the first premise is false. We would expect a much different world than the one we experience such as the inexplicable appearance of 20 foot rabbits with bowties and other strange things.
Despite your protestations of “being comes from being” and “out of nothing, nothing comes” being circular, it makes metaphysical sense and isn’t something that atheistic philosophers of religion critique (Quentin Smith, Graham Oppy etc…) since it is a variant of a weak principle of sufficient reason. Those philosophers actually try to argue against premise 2.
As James Sinclair summarizes ““Nothing,” so defined, has no properties or constraints. If things can pop into being, then anything and everything can, without restriction and with no probability attaching to the fact. Thus you can’t say, “It can happen, but only for universes.” You can’t say, “It can happen for universes, but we can’t see the other ones because they don’t interact.” You can’t say, “It can happen, but it is rare; hence, I don’t expect a universe to appear in my breakfast bowl this morning (or a pink elephant with a bow tie).””
I probably won’t have time to respond but you can post your critique of “Ex nihilo nihil fit” on there where someone can respond to it.[/quote]
Thank you for the detailed post.
As you are aware, the OP was a continuation of an earlier thread, in which I was merely responding to the arguments offered to me. If I’m not mistaken, the poster with whom I was debating is explicitly critical of the Kalam and was not offering it up at all. However, things blended together pretty quickly.
First of all, this:
[quote]
Craig doesn’t see his arguments as proof of God but merely that they are good arguments in such that the conclusions follow from the premises and where the premises are more plausible than their negation.[/quote]
This is exactly my contention and has been from the start. I make no judgement as to whether someone is equally rational in affirming or denying it. [More on this in a moment.] I describe myself as an agnostic theist precisely because I find certain arguments for God’s existence to be strong, or convincing, or “good.” The point of contention came when Pat declared these to be more than good arguments–to be certainties or proofs.
So, it would appear that you and I are in agreement. It should also be noted that all of my criticism of these premises came within the context of debating someone who thinks them purely unassailable, and that I was thus forced to take up a hostile posture toward them despite the fact that I am generally amenable to them. That said, I’ll push back on a few points.
–I contend that premise 1 is an assumption, whether Smith–with whom I’ve never been impressed anyway–and his kind have any interest in it or not. I do not contend that it is a bad or unjustified assumption, but I contend that it is an assumption. If you can give me a logical, nonassumptive proof of premise 1, then my contention will be dropped. But it seems to me that that cannot be done: That the PSR is such that, despite the fact that we couldn’t get ourselves through a day without it, it is not something that can be shown to have held true in all cases and at all instances. Try to prove it, and you’ll find yourself with another assumption–another maxim that needs proving–and so on into eternity. In other words, without commenting at all on the degree to which it is a justifiable assumption, it is an assumption, and therefore the argument on which it rests is an assumptive argument.
–I contend that ex nihilo nihil fit is not only not successful in ruling out acausality, it is not even apropos of it. That is, it doesn’t even address the issue, because the proposition that X is uncaused does not in any way imply that X was caused by [nothing]. Indeed, it denies any proposition that begins with the words, X was caused by.
–20-foot rabbits with bowties: It is again assumptive to suggest that things are now as they were once, or that they were once as they are now. That, for example, the initial singularity was uncaused, would not in any way necessarily entail the existence of uncaused events in front of my eyes on this particular night, or in our particular lifetimes, or in the span of human history. [Again, a good assumption–but an assumption.]
–As for one being equally rational in subscribing or not subscribing to a particular argument for God’s existence: I don’t think that this is a useful measurement. This is more of an opinion than a contention, but I think that we are fooling ourselves when we dare to believe that in the 8 inches between our ears we’ve carved out enough space to hold and pass judgement on these questions of God, being, and eternity. I enjoy debating them, and one can be enlightened by them, but to think that, in matters so large and strange, what seems rational to me has any connection with what is–this is not a notion that I would be willing to bet my life on.
Ah I see this is about a different argument altogether and the discussion will focus mainly on PSR whether one is dealing with the older Contingency argument or the Leibnizian argument.
Have you heard of “the taxicab fallacy”?
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
Ah I see this is about a different argument altogether and the discussion will focus mainly on PSR whether one is dealing with the older Contingency argument or the Leibnizian argument.
Have you heard of “the taxicab fallacy”?[/quote]
Yes, in the context of complaints about atheist appeals to scripture, but it doesn’t have a formal expression and I have never seen it used with any measurable utility.
The simple fact is that Craig and his kind drop premise 1 on the table and then do everything they can to shuffle, jig, and play hot-potato with the burden of truth (which lies with the maker of the claim), just so as to avoid admitting what is plainly true: That they cannot prove it logically. I invite you to formulate a logical proof of it if you believe this to be in error.
What we get instead is, for example, this [from Craig]:
[quote]
So what reason might be offered for thinking that premise 1 is true? Well, when you reflect on it, premise 1 has a sort of self-evidence about it. Imagine that you’re hiking through the woods one day and you come across a translucent ball lying on the forest floor. You would naturally wonder how it came to be there. If one of your hiking partners said to you, “It just exists inexplicably. Don’t worry about it”, you’d either think that he was crazy or figure that he just wanted you to keep moving. No one would take seriously the suggestion that the ball existed there with literally no explanation.[/quote]
Now, we are talking about the way of things. We are talking about what is, and what is not–i.e., what can be proved to be, and what can be proved to be not. Here’s what we’re not talking about: things that have “a sort of self-evidence” about them, things that make hikers think their hiking partners are “crazy,” and things that William Lane Craig thinks no one takes “seriously.”
It is to passages like the one above that I refer when I say that Craig is really a second-rate polemicist and a third-rate philosopher at best, despite the fact that I enjoy watching him debate and tend to agree strongly when he describes the inherent amorality of physicalism.
I do not claim to have a logical proof for PSR, merely that it is more plausible than its negation for the reasons I made in my long post.
Ironically he makes that same quotation in where he talks about “the Taxicab fallacy” where people who hold the truth of PSR dismiss it once they arrived at their destination i.e. the universe. The fallacy doesn’t apply to people who don’t hold PSR to be true though.
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
I do not claim to have a logical proof for PSR, merely that it is more plausible than its negation for the reasons I made in my long post.
Ironically he makes that same quotation in where he talks about “the Taxicab fallacy” where people who hold the truth of PSR dismiss it once they arrived at their destination i.e. the universe. The fallacy doesn’t apply to people who don’t hold PSR to be true though.
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/argument-from-contingency[/quote]
This refers to a hypothetical debater who believes that the PSR governs, for example, the outcome of the Superbowl, but then calls it into question as it figures into the first premise of a logical argument for God’s existence?
Yes; there is a nice discussion of PSR in the second link which I posted in my first response here which I admit have not read thoroughly but have skimmed.
Also here.
https://bearspace.baylor.edu/Alexander_Pruss/www/papers/LCA.html
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
Yes; there is a nice discussion of PSR in the second link which I posted in my first response here which I admit have not read thoroughly but have skimmed.
Also here.
https://bearspace.baylor.edu/Alexander_Pruss/www/papers/LCA.html[/quote]
I will look through both. I will also explain why I reject the taxi cab line tomorrow.
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
Ah I see this is about a different argument altogether and the discussion will focus mainly on PSR whether one is dealing with the older Contingency argument or the Leibnizian argument.
Have you heard of “the taxicab fallacy”?[/quote]
Joab! Glad you are here!!! When you get familiarize with your surroundings, I would ask that to take a moment to look at the exchange between smh and I and render an opinion on the matter. Just an opinion. I am curious what you think…
Unfortunately, I think you have to go back to page 6.
It’s not as messy as you think. We’re actually dealing with one premise of the cosmological argument. Goal, to establish causation as a necessary condition for the existence of all else save for the uncaused-cause. Right now we are dealing with causation, just causation, only causation and nothing else.