Creation and Causality

Anyways.. creation and causality...

Let's just take God out of the equation for a moment, (Anathema!..I hear you cry)

So....Big Bang....no time....how is this supposed problem of causality, in any way diminished by the absence of a God?

apogee said:

So can God perform logically impossible tasks, interesting....I have no idea, I'm sure he can perform tasks that I think are logically impossible, I'm not at all sure it is really sensible to assume that 'impossible' or 'possible' can be determined by logic, which itself seems to have no logical basis for validation, but clearly it's useful for having discussions and predicting the behaviour of dominoes.

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Then you should also believe that any logical debate about whether God exists or not is mostly fruitless. @2PhiloVoid would like to interject, I'm sure, that the discussion has worth on its own whether or not a conclusion could ever be reached. But if God can do things that you would consider logically impossible, there's no reason to think the underpinnings of what makes the universe work are not also illogical, at least to us.

For instance, WLC likes to state that whatever began to exist has a cause. But the universe might well have a beginning but not have a cause, because logic isn't relevant to the discussion. This is why it is important to bring up the "square circles". So that we can differentiate between those who want a logical debate, and those that want a discussion. All you had to say was, "No, I believe God can do the illogical". NV will likely dismiss you pretty quickly, but he's just a grumpy sort of guy. Don't take it personal.

Nihilist Virus said:

The eternal existence of physical material would render God's existence moot. Given eternity, all possible outcomes must occur. Our universe is obviously a possible outcome.

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Nope. Not if there's a God. If God retains some kind of control over everything, then only the things He wants, or at least allows, will happen. Unless you have some reason God would allow any thing to happen, there's no reason to think everything would happen.

The Tower of Babel is a good example. He won't let us work together so that we don't need Him anymore. There are some things He simply won't allow to happen.

I like playing both sides.

Starcomet said:

2. You misunderstand. This speculation assume that time was not needed to shape matter as it did it before time was created. The moment the process began, time sprung forth and its effects spread. But it was not needed for the creation to begin.

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Right. It's just simultaneous. But I can't create a painting, and color continue to not exist. And God can't create a thing, and time continue to not exist. It's a necessary "outcome" if that word works better than "by-product".

And time could cease to exist, if God chose to destroy or "freeze" all temporal things that have a beginning. Time doesn't have to be endless unless God wants it to be, I get that.

Nihilist Virus said:

Let me clarify what I meant by inserting some words:

The eternal existence of physical material would render God's existence moot. Given eternity in a Godless reality, all possible outcomes must occur. If an outcome does not occur in an eternity, then it's not a possible outcome. Our universe is obviously a possible outcome, so it must occur and God is not necessary. Thus God's existence is moot.

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I read that all wrong then. Okay. Did I just beat the Kalam? Dang! First nihilism, now the Kalam. I'm having a good week!

Nihilist Virus said:

Lol hey, I'm not grumpy. I haven't put anyone on my ignore list. Irrational Christians put themselves on my ignore list.

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You should see the things I write to UberGenius, emboldened by knowing I'm on his, lol. That's why I keep mine empty. If someone's going to trash something I've said, I can't let that go.

Nihilist Virus said:

The Kalam Cosmological Argument has been refuted in dozens of different ways.

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Now we can add one more to the textbooks!

Nihilist Virus said:

But what is this about beating nihilism?

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I was arguing about atheism ultimately leading to nihilism in a different thread. But I'm so good I annihilated nihilism by accident.

Where is the hope in atheism?

That was fun. The one thing I learned in that thread is that people really hate ice cream. And they really need to lighten up a lot.

Ex nihilo nihil fit - from nothing comes nothing. This is a central axiom of many systems of thought. It underlies the law of conservation of matter, or of energy. This is the reason that Science formerly supported the idea of a solid-state universe so strongly, until it became untenable. It was why Aristotle supported some form of solid-state universe. Today, it underlies ideas like Zero-Energy hypotheses to try and explain existence.

So how does this fit Christianity and its idea of Creation? How did the Aristotlean Scholastics address this? Maybe we should address the idea of God.
For God is conceived as Being (as Philo put it) or I AM that I AM. He is seen as the ground of Being, the only thing that really has some existence of itself. This is why the Scholastics thought the phrase 'God does not exist' was illogical, as tantamount to saying existence doesn't exist. The only existence anything else has, is 'borrowed' of God.
The idea of a fishbowl universe with God looking down upon ours, is flawed and hopelessly anthropomorphic. This is not how it has classically been seen in Christian thought. God is both transcendant and immanent in the world. A weak Panentheism, such as Palamism, is perfectly Orthodox - in both senses of the word. While not fully pantheist usually, the action of God must be constant to maintain existence, which is thus in fact an ongoing act of Creation.
The problem is conceiving God as some form of material entity. Apophatic theology is explicit in denying this. The universe cannot be built from the body of God, like some primordial Bull or Gayomard or Frost Giant of old. God is other, not even really something that can be called 'substance'. The term 'ousia' though rendered substance, is more essence or ontological being. It is a metaphysical term.
Causality applies within the universe, of which God is substantially not a part. Our concept of causality can't really apply to God himself, as it is an applied term within our existence. In like vein, we cannot apply time or space either, that implies some form of materia. First we need to decide that causality applies to God, which the fairly unchanging traditional idea would not substantially support, then more importantly, what is matter for Him to act upon or come into being? We know how matter acts or changes, can describe it, but what is it substantially or in essence? Is it energy, or what? There are even ideas, such as Beverley's Idealism, that need to be addressed. The base ideas we are discussing needs to be brought into light for a discussion to progress.

We cannot conceive absolute nothingness. The very idea of absolute void, is beyond understanding. From this it follows that to conceive something by necessity requires the existence of something, be it a conceiver or even an Idea. Void is beyond us. God likewise is not really fully fathomable, hence the use of Apothatic thought or Revelation to know anything about Him. To apply the ideas from within creation to what created it,that what sets the rules must follow them, does not follow. The inconceivable doing the inconceivable is about as far as we are going to get, which is not too far off what the origins of existence are in an atheist perspective either, except for assumed agency in the former. For we all build what ideas we have on this event, depending we accept it, from what we see within existence and backtrack. There is no reason to affirm that what is a rule within is a rule without. I don't really see the positions that different, really.

Anyway, many Christian Theologians do not accept creation ex nihilo anyway, so this os a fairly moot point. It changes little, if anything, to the crux of Christianity (pun intended).

As an aside, you misunderstand Aristotle's four causes. They must all be more or less present, or one cause be assumed, for any to be operative. To artificially say only two apply, shows you are again talking about concepts you don't fully grasp. They are somewhat interdependant, a methodology to describe the Formal Cause largely.

This thread will likely be people talking past each other and misunderstanding one another, as we aren't really speaking from the same basis. It is sleight of hand. @apogee is right, this has many semantic issues.

For Ex nihil nihil Fit! Now what did I mean by that?

Nihilist Virus said:

Re-read the last two paragraphs of the OP.

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Yeah, I did, it still didn't actually answer my question. Perhaps I should rephrase my question to avoid any ambiguity.

"How does the absence of a God make this supposed problem of causality, any less inexplicable?"

To which you are presumably going to say something like "it doesn't" but that your 'lack of an explanation' is somehow still superior to my 'lack of an explanation'.

Nicholas Deka said:

Then you should also believe that any logical debate about whether God exists or not is mostly fruitless. @2PhiloVoid would like to interject, I'm sure, that the discussion has worth on its own whether or not a conclusion could ever be reached.

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On the contrary, I think such debates are capable of generating endless hours of fun and entertainment.

Nicholas Deka said:

But if God can do things that you would consider logically impossible, there's no reason to think the underpinnings of what makes the universe work are not also illogical, at least to us.

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The Christian concept of God, positively asserts some apparently logical contradictions (Trinitarianism, Christology) so the idea that I would want to restrict God to 'the things that seem logical to me', seems to me to be....well....illogical....

Nicholas Deka said:

For instance, WLC likes to state that whatever began to exist has a cause. But the universe might well have a beginning but not have a cause, because logic isn't relevant to the discussion. This is why it is important to bring up the "square circles". So that we can differentiate between those who want a logical debate, and those that want a discussion. All you had to say was, "No, I believe God can do the illogical".

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As far as I can tell, Existence is pretty inexplicable, however you want to think about it.

And our current understanding of the universe appears to be pretty illogical (at least as I understand logic), it is certainly starting to show a few cracks, although I'm not clearly not quite ready to abandon it completely yet.

Nicholas Deka said:

NV will likely dismiss you pretty quickly, but he's just a grumpy sort of guy. Don't take it personal.

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I won't, If he's a logical nihilist, he will no doubt jettison logic eventually, along with nihilism, and anything else that appears to contain any meaning, presumably.

Nihilist Virus said:

You first need to understand logic before you can attempt to understand nihilism, and so far it's not looking very good. The fact that your signature professes adoration for logic is right in line with my expectations in light of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

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Some of us can't help that we are affected by the Dunning-Kruger effect. Like me for instance, I look in the mirror, and even though I don't have a Ph.D., I see that I look like this and figure that, hey, I've got brains:

... what's there to feel inferior about?

Nihilist Virus said:

Your question was not ambiguous. It was just demonstrating that you don't understand the point at hand.

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The point at hand? - perhaps you can tell me where I misunderstand....

That generally you think that the role of the Skeptic is to act as the intellectual equivalent of a food critic, morally obliged to sample and consequently spit out the Christian's assertions, whilst evaluating how well they sit on the palate. Whereas the role of the Christian is to scurry around like a scullery maid, frantically searching for new and exciting morsels to try (no matter how half-baked they are) in a vain attempt to convince the poor critic to partake in a nourishing meal.

But that in this case the Christians meal is so half-baked, that even the Skeptics lack of a meal is more nourishing.

or more precisely that this:

“The universe is a finitely large hypersphere of the smallest possible size that is consistent with the observation that the universe is strictly larger than the observable universe. Further, the bulk space, which is the space wherein the multiverse resides, does not exist. All that is, was, or ever will be is just our universe. So it is being said that something has come from nothing for no reason and with no cause.”

is inherently a more satisfactory explanation than "the universe was created by God" because it (allegedly) asserts the inexplicable existence of just one entity, rather than two.

Nihilist Virus said:

How does the absence of a dishwasher make this supposed problem of causality any less inexplicable?

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It doesn't.

Nihilist Virus said:

Let's say I assert that the universe was created by God, but that a dishwasher was necessary for this to occur. I give no explanation as to why the dishwasher is necessary. Then you come along and remove my extraneous assumption while not otherwise changing the argument in any way. Whose argument is superior?

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There are no arguments, only varying assertions.

Nihilist Virus said:

Do you understand the point now?

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Do you?

Nihilist Virus said:

I showed that both atheists and Christians ultimately assert that the universe exists for no reason and with no cause. Christians assert that a God was necessary for the process to occur, but cannot explain how, why, or for what. Removing the assumption does not make the Big Bang less inexplicable, but it makes the explanation superior.

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There are no explanations, only varying assertions.

Nihilist Virus said:

Yes, my explanation is superior. Let's try another example.

I have shoes on right now. Let's compare two different explanations for how this occurred and see which is better:

Explanation #1:

I put my shoes on. Then I laced them up.

Explanation #2:

I put my shoes on. Then a miracle occurred. Finally, I laced up my shoes.



Which is a better explanation, and why?

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hmmmm, one of these is indeed an explanation, the other is an explanation interrupted by a redundant assertion. Any guesses which is which?