My proof for God. Critiques please.

[coolduude]

Before I show my proof for God, I just want to say that I'm building on the Kalam argument. This isn't an original argument, just my expansion on a pre-existent one.

1) The past is finite
2) There was a point when the universe did not exist
3) Something had to create the universe
4) That something is God

Therefore,
5) God exists.
_____________________________

Premise 1). The past is finite.
Support: a) an actual infinite cannot be created by succesive addition (add one, add one, add one, etc.)
b) the past was created by succesive addition of events. Take, for example, your birth. At one time, it was in the future (i.e., when you were concieved). At the moment of your birth, it was in the present. Today, it's in the past. So, the past was created by sucessive addition of events
c) Therefore, the past is finite.

Premise 2). There was a point when the universe did not exist.
Support: Based on the above proof (finitude of the past) there was a point when the universe did not exist. This conclusion is only logical once one accepts that the past had a definite beginning, and is therefore not infinite. There was a point when there was no existence then there was. Creation ex nihilo (sp.) if you will.

Premise 3). Something had to create the universe.
Support: Again, this is a logical conclusion once the finitude of the past is accepted. The universe could not have created itself if there was nothing there in the first place. Therefore, there must have been an outside force to create the universe. How am I doing so far?

Premise 4). That something is God.
Support: What else could it be? I know the support is lacking some on this premise, but I really don't know how to formulate support. Once objections are raised, however, I'll show better support. I just seem to be at a loss right now.


Premise 5). Therefore, God exists.
Support: After examining (sp.) the other 4 premises, this is a logical conclusion that can be drawn.




So, what are some objections and/or critques for this proof? I'm all ears!

[Redratfish]

Originally Posted by coolduude

Before I show my proof for God, I just want to say that I'm building on the Kalam argument. This isn't an original argument, just my expansion on a pre-existent one.

1) The past is finite
2) There was a point when the universe did not exist
3) Something had to create the universe
4) That something is God

Therefore,
5) God exists.
_____________________________

Premise 1). The past is finite.
Support: a) an actual infinite cannot be created by succesive addition (add one, add one, add one, etc.)
b) the past was created by succesive addition of events. Take, for example, your birth. At one time, it was in the future (i.e., when you were concieved). At the moment of your birth, it was in the present. Today, it's in the past. So, the past was created by sucessive addition of events
c) Therefore, the past is finite.

Premise 2). There was a point when the universe did not exist.
Support: Based on the above proof (finitude of the past) there was a point when the universe did not exist. This conclusion is only logical once one accepts that the past had a definite beginning, and is therefore not infinite. There was a point when there was no existence then there was. Creation ex nihilo (sp.) if you will.

Premise 3). Something had to create the universe.
Support: Again, this is a logical conclusion once the finitude of the past is accepted. The universe could not have created itself if there was nothing there in the first place. Therefore, there must have been an outside force to create the universe. How am I doing so far?

Premise 4). That something is God.
Support: What else could it be? I know the support is lacking some on this premise, but I really don't know how to formulate support. Once objections are raised, however, I'll show better support. I just seem to be at a loss right now.


Premise 5). Therefore, God exists.
Support: After examining (sp.) the other 4 premises, this is a logical conclusion that can be drawn.




So, what are some objections and/or critques for this proof? I'm all ears!

Sounds good, its almost exactly like the argument I use

[Bob Crowley]

It seems pretty good to me. The main problem you've got now is defining "God". How much power does He have? What's His nature? Has He just set up the clock and is now merely letting it run down? Etc.

I'm also intrigued by the sum-zero energy universe. This means literally that the universe still adds up to zero, or nothing. In other words, it's total energy content is what it started with - zero.

I remember discussing this with my old Protestant pastor. We ended up concluding that God wouldn't give the human race a really solid universe, so He's set up a stage prop for the human drama to be played on. At the end of the show He'll wrap it up and it will merely disappear back into its original nothingness, which is what Scripture states anyway. (It will 'Vanish').

Link refers.

http://www.astrosociety.org/pubs/mer...2/nothing.html

[OriginalJS]

This is one of he classical arguments that God exists; I think I heard it about the 5th grade.

[Call Me V]

I'll take a whack at it.

Originally Posted by coolduude

Premise 1). The past is finite.

Originally Posted by coolduude

b) the past was created by succesive addition of events. Take, for example, your birth. At one time, it was in the future (i.e., when you were concieved). At the moment of your birth, it was in the present. Today, it's in the past. So, the past was created by sucessive addition of events

I would dispute that the past, if infinite, was created by successive addition. This is kind of hard for me to articulate over the compute, so bear with me. I agree that you can't start with a finite number, and then continue adding finite numbers, and reach infinity. However, I don't think anyone is claiming the past was formed that way. If the past truly was infinite, than it was always infinite. It did not become infinite as a result of successive addition. It did not start out finite and then become infinite. It was simply always infinite. Certainly an infinite amount of time wold contain a successive addition of events, but it would not have been formed by successive addition, the infinite would have been infinite from the beginning. No actual infinite would have been formed by successive addition. Am I making sense?

Originally Posted by coolduude

Premise 2). There was a point when the universe did not exist.
Support: Based on the above proof (finitude of the past) there was a point when the universe did not exist. This conclusion is only logical once one accepts that the past had a definite beginning, and is therefore not infinite. There was a point when there was no existence then there was. Creation ex nihilo (sp.) if you will.

Technically, I think your premise one only proved that time began to exist (assuming the proof was correct). Even if it was correct, you would still have to prove that matter, for example, began to exist, which I don't think your premise one does.

Originally Posted by coolduude

Premise 3). Something had to create the universe.
Support: Again, this is a logical conclusion once the finitude of the past is accepted. The universe could not have created itself if there was nothing there in the first place. Therefore, there must have been an outside force to create the universe. How am I doing so far?

Sure, assuming your previous two premises are correct.

Originally Posted by coolduude

Premise 4). That something is God.
Support: What else could it be? I know the support is lacking some on this premise, but I really don't know how to formulate support. Once objections are raised, however, I'll show better support. I just seem to be at a loss right now.

Saying that it was God because we don't know what else it could have been is known as a God-of-the-Gaps argument, and is considered flawed by virtually every philosopher and scientist I've ever heard including the Christian ones). However, you might want to check out William Lane Craig's version of the argument you're using (The Kalam Cosmological Argument, I believe it's called?), he actually gives some arguments to try and show that the Universe must have a personal, powerful, sentient creator. I just thought I'd throw that out there, your argument might be stronger of you incorporate some of his arguments. Just a thought.

Happy to hear your rebuttals, I'm rather tired right now, so I'm sure I'll wake up tomorrow, read this, and realize I said something stupid or incoherent, but I've been wanting to test myself against this argument for a while, and I couldn't pass up the opportunity. I look forward to your response.

V

[coolduude]

V, I'll address your first and last points right now. I don't have the time
for everything else.

On time: you do make sense, don't worry

Alright, another philosophical proof for a finite past is this: that an infinite set can't be transversed. I'm bad a phrasing stuff like this, so I'll borrow from a website.

"The third mathematical argument for the claim that the universe has a beginning draws on the idea that actual infinites cannot be traversed.
If I were to set out on a journey to an infinitely distant point in space, it would not just take me a long time to get there; rather, I would never get there. No matter how long I had been walking for, a part of the journey would still remain. I would never arrive at my destination. Infinite space cannot be traversed.
Similarly, if I were to start counting to infinity, it would not just take me a long time to get there; rather, I would never get there. No matter how long I had been counting for, I would still only have counted to a finite number. It is impossible to traverse the infinite set of numbers between zero and infinity. This also applies to the past. If the past were infinite, then it would not just take a long time to the present to arrive; rather, the present would never arrive. No matter how much time had passed, we would still be working through the infinite past. It is impossible to traverse an infinite period of time.
Clearly, though, the present has arrived, the past has been traversed. The past, therefore, cannot be infinite, but must rather be finite. The universe has a beginning. This is the third mathematical argument for the second premise of the kalam cosmological argument."

(http://www.philosophyofreligion.info...e-of-the-past/)

Get it?

On God: I think you're right here. The God cop out approach I used wasn't the best. But think about it for a minute. If the past is finite (which it very likely is) then something had to create the universe. If not God, what is it? Try to answer that one.

[coolduude]

V:

I also meant to say that I think you're missing the main point in regards to the time argument. You're assuming that if the past was infinite, then this would happen, etc. But (this is what I think) you have to look at what we know about time and the past: that the past was formed by sucessive (sp.) addition, and therefore cannot be an actual infinite, because actual infinites cannot be formed by sucessive addition. See what I'm saying? I hope so

[Moonstruck888]

Originally Posted by coolduude

Premise 4). That something is God.
Support: What else could it be? I know the support is lacking some on this premise, but I really don't know how to formulate support. Once objections are raised, however, I'll show better support. I just seem to be at a loss right now. !

You're not at a loss, quite the opposite. There is no support for the argument that an arbitrary God that no one can describe in any definitive or verifiable way can be used to explain the Universe. The fact that the argument is inherently unsupportable demonstrates that the argument is invalid.

[Moonstruck888]

Originally Posted by coolduude

On God: I think you're right here. The God cop out approach I used wasn't the best. But think about it for a minute. If the past is finite (which it very likely is) then something had to create the universe. If not God, what is it? Try to answer that one.

Gaea,Ymir, Allah, Mbombo, Mangala, Enkai, Mawu-Lisa, Nana Buluku, Olurun, Unkulunkulu, Kamui, Hwan-Ung, Lama, Buddha Sakyamuni, Buga, Daodejing, Ilmatar, Brahma...

Here's one of my favourites, the Buddhist take on creation.

The Buddha regarding the origin of life has said "Conjecture about the origin of the world is an unconjecturable that is not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness & vexation to anyone who conjectured about it."

There are many more distinct creation myths where the Universe was created by distinctly different God and Goddesses using distinctly different methods.

[JohnDamian]

This is just a varient on cosmological arguments for God's existence -- I am afraid if you want to convince anyone you have to do more than demonstrate an unmoved mover.

[Hooding Trees]

Nothing like a proof for god, all you have done is said something caused the universe then you labeled that something god. You might as well say here my proof for god, pull a pen out your pocket and say "this is god!", for both thing you have labeled as god lack almost all of the attributes one would associated with a god.

If people's reasoning skills lead them to believe that such an argument is actually a proof for a god, i am not surprised they believe in gods.

[OriginalJS]

In grade school we were taught several classical arguments that God exists. That something had to create the universe was one, that it couldn't have just "happened." The teacher told us to look around our bedroom and see that everything we saw had to be created by someone. An offshoot was the argument by design. "Could your wristwatch just have happened?" was the example I recall. Another was that most people seem to believe in God in one form or another. These are, however, arguments, not scientific proofs as that term is understood.

[MindOverMatter2]

Originally Posted by Call Me V

Certainly an infinite amount of time wold contain a successive addition of events, but it would not have been formed by successive addition, the infinite would have been infinite from the beginning. No actual infinite would have been formed by successive addition. Am I making sense?

No. You have just admitted that an actual infinite cannot be formed by successive additions. You then go on to say that there is an infinite that is not infinite because of the succession of numbers. But an actual infinite number of additions is by definition infinite because of a successive number of additions, or because the sum total of numbers involved when added together successfully add up to an actual infinite. An infinite number is infinite because there is an infinite "number". The infinity in question is defined by the "amount" of numbers. Outside of that definition an actual infinite number is meaningless; its not real.

If you cannot possibly have an actual infinite by addition, it doesn't make any logical sense to then say that there is an actually infinite regress of past additions, because you are then saying that you can make an infinite by a succession of additions. In other words, you are saying that if you have a enough numbers, you can have an infinite; but an infinite that can be defined by a finite number is not a true actual infinite. It is only potentially infinite, as in, it can go on forever in to the future, but it will never actualize an infinite number.

A past that has no beginning has to add up to an infinite by necessity of having no beginning, since if it does not, then the past will be finite, which is a contradiction. You cannot have a potentially infinite past. If its logically impossible for there to be an actually infinite number of additions; how can there be an infinite number of past events?

In other-words, an actual infinite number transcends all logically possible additions and thus an infinite cannot be a number.

[Call Me V]

Originally Posted by MindOverMatter2

No. You have just admitted that an actual infinite cannot be formed by successive additions. You then go on to say that there is an infinite that is not infinite because of the succession of numbers. But an actual infinite number of additions is by definition infinite because of a successive number of additions, or because the sum total of numbers involved when added together successfully add up to an actual infinite. An infinite number is infinite because there is an infinite "number". The infinity in question is defined by the "amount" of numbers. Outside of that definition an actual infinite number is meaningless; its not real.

If you cannot possibly have an actual infinite by addition, it doesn't make any logical sense to then say that there is an actually infinite regress of past editions, because you are then saying that you can make an infinite by a succession of editions. In other words, you are saying that if you have a enough numbers, you can have an infinite; but an infinite that can be defined by a finite number is not a true actual infinite. It is only potentially infinite, as in, it can go on forever in to the future, but it will never actualize an infinite number.

A past that has no beginning has to add up to an infinite by necessity of having no beginning, since if it does not, then the past will be finite, which is a contradiction. You cannot have a potentially infinite past. If its logically impossible for there to be an actually infinite number of additions; how can there be an infinite number of past events?

I think you're probably right, I was rather incoherent in my post. I shouldn't have tried to respond to a post when I was so sleepy . Anyways, forget what I said there, I've revised my argument below.

V

[Call Me V]

All right, here was the mistake I made in my last post. I forgot that my arguments assumed the truth of the B-Theory of Time . Bear with me here, I don't know how much you know about the different theories of time, and I myself have only a thoroughly layman knowledge of them, so hopefully what I'm saying will make sense. The entire kalam argument is built on the A-Theory of Time, rather than the B-Theory, without the A-Theory, the kalam, and all first cause arguments, for that matter, fail (this is acknowledged by all defenders of the kalam, including William Lane Craig, its most prominent defender). So, if the A-Theory fails, the kalam and all first cause arguments fail. For example, the argument that you gave about the inability to to transverse an infinite amount of time only succeeds in an A-Theory of time. In a B-Theory of time, there is no need to transverse any infinite series of events, even if time is infinite, therefore the objection does not hold water. More importantly however, the B-Theory strikes at the heart of all first cause arguments, because under the B-Theory, time is simply another dimension, and the Universe is simply a large four-dimensional object, and saying that it had a beginning is nonsensical. So all of the first cause arguments depend on the A-Theory.

There is one problem, however. Special relativity and the A-Theory of Time are incompatible, except on a Neo-Lorentzian interpretation of special relativity. Since the truth of special relativity is undisputed, the A-Theory of time is dependent on a Neo-Lorentzian interpretation of special relativity. There is just one problem. Physicists have almost universally rejected the Neo-Lorentzian interpretation as being flawed, and it has very, very few defenders in the scientific community. Its claims have been shown to be false, and its objections to special relativity have been shown to be unfounded. Therefore, I think we can safely conclude the Neo-Lorentzian interpretation is flawed. Without it, unfortunately, the A-Theory of time becomes incompatible with special relativity, and, therefore, the A-Theory of time must be rejected, and, as Craig admitted, the first cause arguments in general and the kalam in particular must be rejected. This is only a very brief summary of one reason why I find the kalam argument unpersuasive, you can find out a lot more about the relevant issues with the different theories of time on the internet.

Keep in mind, there are still many philosophers who defend a Neo-Lorentzian interpretation, because they prefer the A-Theory, but seeing as it's a scientific question rather than a philosophical one, I don't really care any more about what the philosophers have to say about it then I do about the weatherman's opinion of my investment portfolio. Simply the wrong area of expertise. Similar to how there are many more pastors who embrace Creationism than there are scientists, there are many philosophers, such as William Lane Craig, who embrace a Neo-Lorentzian approach, but very few scientists. And while Craig is a Christian fundamentalist who has no problem embracing flawed theories and turning a blind eye to actual facts, so long as it's done in the name of his theological presuppositions, you seem smarter than that, so I hope you don't follow suit.

Originally Posted by coolduude

On God: I think you're right here. The God cop out approach I used wasn't the best. But think about it for a minute. If the past is finite (which it very likely is) then something had to create the universe. If not God, what is it? Try to answer that one.

Even if the A-Theory is true and the Universe did begin to exist, I don't think that the claim that God was responsible is well founded. As someone else pointed out above, once you open up the possibility of the supernatural, God is certainly not the only game in town. The Flying Spaghetti Monster could have created the universe, or a magic fairy, or a super powered eternal Unicorn that vomits Universes. They are all quite silly, but they are all possibilities once you acknowledge the possibility of a supernatural explanation. So no, I don't think that God is the only possibility, there are gajillions of possible explanations, but we should remain agnostic until we discover some evidence as to what it actually is.

And supernatural explanations are not the only game in town either. There are many proposed naturalistic explanations for the origin of the Universe, which the intelligent design proponents never seem to have heard of for some reason. One is the possibility that it was a quantum fluctuation, a very brief sketch of that hypothesis can be found here. There are others as well, including one involving string theory, I believe. In any case, all of these hypotheses are highly speculative, and none have been confirmed yet. But we are working on it. Scientists are not standing around going, "I know God is the answer, but I really want to have orgies, so that can't be it...". We are hard at work investigating naturalistic theories of cosmic origins. We haven't found the answer yet, and for all I know we may never find the answer. But saying that because we don't have an answer as to where the Universe came from means we should assume that God did it is a God of the Gaps argument, just like ancient Greeks arguing that because they couldn't explain lightning, Zeus must be responsible. That would have been a flawed argument then, and it remains a flawed argument now. We should remain agnostic about where the Universe came from until we discover actual evidence of... whatever it was. Do you disagree?

V