Creation and Causality

[Nihilist Virus]

The symbol of Christianity is a torture device, isn't it?

†

 

[Nihilist Virus]

A battered woman finds herself in a difficult situation. But she's still aiming for the most pleasurable outcome in a bad situation. If she tries to flee, she might be killed. If she stays, she'll be hit, but she'll live.

I don't think it's that simple.

I thought about working suffering into my model as a sort of anti-value, but I think it works, and is simpler, to just think of things in terms of positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. Punishment just creates a situation for negative reinforcement to occur.

Are you a psychology major?

Of course not. This isn't a model to describe how people act, it's a model to describe how people should act. People should act rationally because it leads to more value.

And who decides what should be valued?

Gee whiz! You think I'm cute? Not deceptive though, I clearly stated how I was using "objective" and it's a common usage of the word. Probably more common than the objective v subjective definition, actually. The point is that how you label my model doesn't matter. Let's talk about whether it is how I describe it, not whether it deserves one label or another.

You made it clear to me what you meant by "objective." But I got the impression you were meaning to tell Christians that you have described a secular objective morality without clarifying what you mean.

Not even close. Have I stated that pleasure is valuable in my opinion? Nope, it's a fact. No opinions necessary.

Hmmm well I consider it to be the point in question. Not a fact.

Now up at the start of your response you are trying to make an argument that pleasure isn't by it's very nature desirable, that's valid. But if you accept that it is a fact, even tacitly, you can't then call it opinion.

I'm confused... your acceptance of that idea renders your model defunct.

I think you should make a thread on this. We're quite a ways away from the Big Bang.

 

[Moral Orel]

I don't think it's that simple.

It can be reduced to that, yes.

I don't know how familiar you are with behaviorism, so I'll apologize in advance if this is patronizing.

You have positive reinforcement, which is adding something you like to make you more likely to repeat a behavior. You have negative reinforcement, which is subtracting something you don't like to make you more likely to repeat a behavior. And you have punishment which makes you associate something you don't like with something you did.

So let's say a husband hits his wife because dinner wasn't ready when he came home (punishment). This also creates an atmosphere of fear because she's afraid she'll be hit again, which she also doesn't like. The next day, she makes sure she has dinner ready at the right time because she's afraid she'll be hit again. On one hand, she diminished the negative feeling of fear because she feels it's more likely she won't be hit now (negative reinforcement), and on the other hand she has gained the pleasurable feeling of relief (positive reinforcement).

It's the same way you can actually exacerbate an irrational phobia by avoiding the things that trigger it.

Are you a psychology major?

My original major was in clinical psychology, yes. I ended up with an Associate's after I switched halfway through to a Bachelor's in Computer Science.

And who decides what should be valued?

I'm stating that pleasure is valuable because it is, by its very nature, desirable. How useful my model is depends on how much more specific I can get beyond that.

Consider this. When you eat, your brain releases dopamine which you experience as pleasure. Part of what made us evolve to survive was this conditioned response to eating. We eat because we desire the pleasure that we experience from the dopamine being released in our brain. But why do we desire the sensation of dopamine being released in our brain? Because pleasure is intrinsically desirable.

I'm confused... your acceptance of that idea renders your model defunct.

I didn't mean your complaint was valid, I said attacking my premise is a valid way to make an argument. It isn't valid to accept a premise as fact, and then call it an opinion.

I think you should make a thread on this. We're quite a ways away from the Big Bang.

I've been trying to shop it around to clean it up before I present it as some finished model. I had hoped some lurkers would be chiming in as we discussed it, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Once I start a new thread, I want the OP to be solid, since most people are only going to read that. If you want me to stop derailing your thread, I'll absolutely respect that.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

It can be reduced to that, yes.

I don't know how familiar you are with behaviorism, so I'll apologize in advance if this is patronizing.

You have positive reinforcement, which is adding something you like to make you more likely to repeat a behavior. You have negative reinforcement, which is subtracting something you don't like to make you more likely to repeat a behavior. And you have punishment which makes you associate something you don't like with something you did.

Having taken Psychology 101 as an undergraduate, I am aware of these ideas. But having taken only an introductory course, I am not qualified to talk on the subject.

So let's say a husband hits his wife because dinner wasn't ready when he came home (punishment). This also creates an atmosphere of fear because she's afraid she'll be hit again, which she also doesn't like. The next day, she makes sure she has dinner ready at the right time because she's afraid she'll be hit again. On one hand, she diminished the negative feeling of fear because she feels it's more likely she won't be hit now (negative reinforcement), and on the other hand she has gained the pleasurable feeling of relief (positive reinforcement).

It's the same way you can actually exacerbate an irrational phobia by avoiding the things that trigger it.


My original major was in clinical psychology, yes. I ended up with an Associate's after I switched halfway through to a Bachelor's in Computer Science.

I think it's more complicated than either of us knows.

I'm stating that pleasure is valuable because it is, by its very nature, desirable. How useful my model is depends on how much more specific I can get beyond that.

Consider this. When you eat, your brain releases dopamine which you experience as pleasure. Part of what made us evolve to survive was this conditioned response to eating. We eat because we desire the pleasure that we experience from the dopamine being released in our brain. But why do we desire the sensation of dopamine being released in our brain? Because pleasure is intrinsically desirable.

I think this is the disconnect between us:

Imagine a Christian who desperately "desires" to be martyred... whatever that means. If this Christian is getting his face bashed in by a hammer, you'll point and say, "He is getting that which he desires, so it is pleasure for him by definition" whereas I would say, "He is in great pain, so he is suffering by definition."

The human mind is more than capable of firmly believing mutually contradictory propositions. Look no further than this forum. Thoughts and ideas, however, are a high function of the brain. Feelings, pain, pleasure, and the like are much more primitive. Perhaps there is a link between the ability to believe mutually contradictory ideas and the ability to feel mutually contradictory sensations. Again, I'm no expert, but if I'm anywhere in the ballpark on this issue then your model needs tweaking.

I didn't mean your complaint was valid, I said attacking my premise is a valid way to make an argument. It isn't valid to accept a premise as fact, and then call it an opinion.

OK, I must've missed something then.

I've been trying to shop it around to clean it up before I present it as some finished model.

I don't see the need to do that. Despite not being an expert in the field of psychology, you have far more education than the savages that scribbled down the Bible. Any half-baked idea you want to defend is going to be much more polished and refined than the things Christians are forced to defend. Besides, as atheists we have basically the monopoly on reason. If your idea needs fixing, you can fix it - they can't do that. If your idea is so bad that it must be abandoned, then you abandon it - they can't do that. If they do either of those things they cease to be them and start to become us.

I don't really polish much of anything before presenting it on these forums. To date I've really had only one debacle, which was my thread on fine tuning.

I had hoped some lurkers would be chiming in as we discussed it, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Once I start a new thread, I want the OP to be solid, since most people are only going to read that.

Again... no need. On top of that, it's best you don't. Let me explain why with an example:

There's an apologist named Matt Slick. He has polished up his own version of the transcendental argument for the existence of God (TAG). Since I'm a math major I saw through the act right away, but for most people the argument appears so complex that it's difficult to locate the flaws or even understand what is being said. And Matt wants it that way because he's the type of apologist who cares much more about winning arguments than winning souls.

Present your argument in its natural form and if the core of it is true then your opponent will polish it for you... provided they respect the principle of charity. If they don't, they're not worth talking to.

If you want me to stop derailing your thread, I'll absolutely respect that.

No serious opposition to the OP has been presented and at this point I don't think there ever will be. I suppose your responses are most in line with the heart of the OP anyway, that being the idea of playing the Christian's own game and winning.

 

[Moral Orel]

I think this is the disconnect between us:

Imagine a Christian who desperately "desires" to be martyred... whatever that means. If this Christian is getting his face bashed in by a hammer, you'll point and say, "He is getting that which he desires, so it is pleasure for him by definition" whereas I would say, "He is in great pain, so he is suffering by definition."

Well, it is getting closer to the heart of our disconnect. I wouldn't define any experience as "pleasure". Everything is bittersweet, pros and cons, tradeoffs, etc. That Christian desired to be martyred because of the pleasure, but he sacrificed comfort by way of suffering to achieve it.

The point is to maximize pleasure, not necessarily like utilitarian ethics which considers something like "net pleasure". So even faced with a terrible situation where suffering will always outweigh pleasure, you would still choose the thing that resulted in the most pleasure, even if "net pleasure" is in the negative, like the spousal abuse situation.

 

[Chriliman]

I don't see the need to do that. Despite not being an expert in the field of psychology, you have far more education than the savages that scribbled down the Bible. Any half-baked idea you want to defend is going to be much more polished and refined than the things Christians are forced to defend. Besides, as atheists we have basically the monopoly on reason. If your idea needs fixing, you can fix it - they can't do that. If your idea is so bad that it must be abandoned, then you abandon it - they can't do that. If they do either of those things they cease to be them and start to become us.

What Christianity really boils down to is that there's a best way of living life and Jesus is the example of that best or Godly way of putting others above yourself and making peace with your enemies by loving them(no matter what they're doing to you).

Most people I come accross are seeking something that's akin to the idea of living in the best way possible and making the most good possible, which Christianity is all about as well, despite the faulty people who do wrong things in the name of Jesus.

When it comes to creation and causality; we observe an apparent beginning to our universe, which is why it's logical to assume something beyond our universe caused it. Whatever that something is requires us to have faith that it actually existed or even exists now, whether it be multiverse, singularity or God. One advantage God has over any other idea is that He can enter our universe and make His way of life known, which I believe He did through Christ.

It's seems quite pointless to me for anyone to oppose the idea of living life in a way that attempts to make peace with enemies and bring abundant life to all who desire it, but to each their own.

I certainly appreciate you're fearless approach to thinking about the big questions of our reality. Thanks for making this thread.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

What Christianity really boils down to is that there's a best way of living life and Jesus is the example of that best or Godly way of putting others above yourself and making peace with your enemies by loving them(no matter what they're doing to you).

That's false, but if it were true then I'd be able to say that there are basically no Christians on earth.

Most people I come accross are seeking something that's akin to the idea of living in the best way possible and making the most good possible, which Christianity is all about as well,

No, that's not what Christianity is all about. Christianity is about grace through faith. If you don't have that, then it doesn't matter what you do.

despite the faulty people who do wrong things in the name of Jesus.

And there are plenty.

When it comes to creation and causality; we observe an apparent beginning to our universe, which is why it's logical to assume something beyond our universe caused it.

Did you read the OP? What you're saying here has been thoroughly refuted.

Whatever that something is requires us to have faith that it actually existed or even exists now, whether it be multiverse, singularity or God.

Faith is not a means by which one can determine truth with any certainty whatsoever. As you are suggesting here, faith is a means by which one can randomly guess the truth.

One advantage God has over any other idea is that He can enter our universe and make His way of life known, which I believe He did through Christ.

And one massive disadvantage the idea of God brings is that if you don't randomly guess that he exists, then believe in him with all your heart, and then finally worship him with all of your being, you will suffer a fate worse than death for all eternity.

It's seems quite pointless to me for anyone to oppose the idea of living life in a way that attempts to make peace with enemies and bring abundant life to all who desire it, but to each their own.

Any time Christians want to start acting Christlike is fine by me. We could use a couple people like that.

I certainly appreciate you're fearless approach to thinking about the big questions of our reality. Thanks for making this thread.

My pleasure... please do read the OP.

 

[Chriliman]

That's false, but if it were true then I'd be able to say that there are basically no Christians on earth.

I don't understand, are you saying people don't act selflessly or at least in ways that benefit others and themselves?

Faith is not a means by which one can determine truth with any certainty whatsoever. As you are suggesting here, faith is a means by which one can randomly guess the truth.

Faith comes after hearing/seeing what's true. IOW, we put faith in things that we know are consistent, such as people and other consistent things.

Romans 10:17

Any time Christians want to start acting Christlike is fine by me. We could use a couple people like that.

I'm curious why you think we could use a couple people like that? I certainly agree, but I wonder why you think that.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

I don't understand, are you saying people don't act selflessly or at least in ways that benefit others and themselves?

Not that I've ever seen.

Faith comes after hearing/seeing what's true. IOW, we put faith in things that we know are consistent, such as people and other consistent things.

Romans 10:17

You're twisting the source you're citing. Also this is all way off topic.

I'm curious why you think we could use a couple people like that? I certainly agree, but I wonder why you think that.

Christians follow the words of Christ only when it's easy. How hard is it to pray or eat crackers and drink wine?

But sell all that you have and give to the poor, wandering the world doing good works while preaching the gospel? I've yet to meet such a person.

 

[Chriliman]

Did you read the OP? What you're saying here has been thoroughly refuted.

I read the OP. Any answer given about origins must be accept on faith because we can't observe what happened directly. We can look at the evidence and make conclusions, but we can't observe it directly unless we're somehow able to reproduce what happened.

 

[Chriliman]

Christians follow the words of Christ only when it's easy. How hard is it to pray or eat crackers and drink wine?

Fellowship is easy and enjoyable, yes!

But sell all that you have and give to the poor, wandering the world doing good works while preaching the gospel? I've yet to meet such a person.

While it is good to give to the poor, I don't think it's necessary to sell all we have, that specific command was directed at the rich young ruler who wasn't willing to give up his riches in order to follow Christ. Christ asks each of us to be willing to give up what's most precious to us in order to follow him, in order that He may be what's most precious to us and vise versa. Being willing to give something up is just as good as actually giving it up from a heart perspective.

Take for example the woman who washed Jesus' feet with the expensive perfume. Why didn't Jesus agree that it was better to sell it and give the money to the poor? The point was that it wasn't the perfume that mattered, but Jesus and His relationship with us.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

I read the OP. Any answer given about origins must be accept on faith because we can't observe what happened directly. We can look at the evidence and make conclusions, but we can't observe it directly unless we're somehow able to reproduce what happened.

And as I told you just moments ago - which you ignored and snipped away in your response - faith is nothing more than a wild guess. Furthermore, the OP showed that God is a poor explanation for the existence of the universe. Why have faith at all, and if you're going to have faith, why have faith in an option that is definitively not the best choice?

Fellowship is easy and enjoyable, yes!



While it is good to give to the poor, I don't think it's necessary to sell all we have, that specific command was directed at the rich young ruler who wasn't willing to give up his riches in order to follow Christ.

You lobbed the epistle to the Romans at me. I'm not a Roman, so it doesn't apply. Right? I'm not an Ephesian. I'm not the intended audience of any of the epistles, and neither are you. I would expect a consistent person to either obey all commands that were directed at others, or else ignore all of them. But you're cherry picking. You're choosing to do the easy things and ignoring the hard things with excuses. Just like I said.

By the way, since you have access to the internet, you're more wealthy than most people in the world.

Also, even if you don't have to give away all your wealth, you're still certainly allowed to. It's not like you'll be punished. And it would help people. And last but not least, Jesus promised the rich young ruler riches in heaven. Either you seem to think the offer is not available to you, or you don't care about riches in heaven, or you care more about your worldly wealth than you do about riches in heaven. It's got to be one of the three. Which is it and why?

Christ asks each of us to be willing to give up what's most precious to us in order to follow him, in order that He may be what's most precious to us and vise versa. Being willing to give something up is just as good as actually giving it up from a heart perspective.

Seems to me like you're just trying to skate by and do the minimum. God asks for the firstborn of your flock and you're giving him a sickly, dying sheep as if he doesn't notice.

Take for example the woman who washed Jesus' feet with the expensive perfume.

That's a terrible example. Examples have one job: to represent a larger sample size. Jesus explained explicitly and immediately, on the spot, that this event was an exception. He even did so in plain speech and without speaking in riddles like he usually would do.

What you're doing is like saying that this is an example of a dog:

Why didn't Jesus agree that it was better to sell it and give the money to the poor? The point was that it wasn't the perfume that mattered, but Jesus and His relationship with us.

And if your wealth doesn't matter, give it to the poor. If you truly believe that Jesus saved you from eternal damnation, and yet you don't do everything in your power to honor his wishes just for the measly 100 years that you're on earth, then I must question either your integrity or your faith. One or the other must be lacking.

 

[Chriliman]

And as I told you just moments ago - which you ignored and snipped away in your response - faith is nothing more than a wild guess.

But that's ignoring how faith is defined from a Biblical perspective. It's not a wild guess, it's based on evidence.

Furthermore, the OP showed that God is a poor explanation for the existence of the universe. Why have faith at all, and if you're going to have faith, why have faith in an option that is definitively not the best choice?

The better explanation being that a random chaotic relationship between existing material created the universe?

You lobbed the epistle to the Romans at me. I'm not a Roman, so it doesn't apply. Right? I'm not an Ephesian. I'm not the intended audience of any of the epistles, and neither are you. I would expect a consistent person to either obey all commands that were directed at others, or else ignore all of them. But you're cherry picking. You're choosing to do the easy things and ignoring the hard things with excuses. Just like I said.

The message that you must give up what's most precious to you in order to follow Christ, can apply to anyone.

By the way, since you have access to the internet, you're more wealthy than most people in the world.

Also, even if you don't have to give away all your wealth, you're still certainly allowed to. It's not like you'll be punished. And it would help people. And last but not least, Jesus promised the rich young ruler riches in heaven. Either you seem to think the offer is not available to you, or you don't care about riches in heaven, or you care more about your worldly wealth than you do about riches in heaven. It's got to be one of the three. Which is it and why?

We can receive riches in heaven right now. God's kingdom is here on earth. Every day I give up everything for Christ in one way or another and I receive heavenly rewards, things that are not affected by the dust and decay of this world.

Seems to me like you're just trying to skate by and do the minimum. God asks for the firstborn of your flock and you're giving him a sickly, dying sheep as if he doesn't notice.

There's certainly more I could do, but grace can't be earned, however, what I do after receiving God's grace does matter in terms of the rewards I'll receive.

That's a terrible example. Examples have one job: to represent a larger sample size. Jesus explained explicitly and immediately, on the spot, that this event was an exception.

He even did so in plain speech and without speaking in riddles like he usually would do.

True, but that doesn't mean it didn't have anything to do with His relationship with us, which was my main point.

What you're doing is like saying that this is an example of a dog:

Haha, ok. So that's not a dog?

And if your wealth doesn't matter, give it to the poor. If you truly believe that Jesus saved you from eternal damnation, and yet you don't do everything in your power to honor his wishes just for the measly 100 years that you're on earth, then I must question either your integrity or your faith. One or the other must be lacking.

I'll let God be my judge.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

But that's ignoring how faith is defined from a Biblical perspective. It's not a wild guess, it's based on evidence.

False.

The better explanation being that a random chaotic relationship between existing material created the universe?

You said you read the OP. You're causing me to doubt you.

The message that you must give up what's most precious to you in order to follow Christ, can apply to anyone.

And why are you the one who gets to decide if it applies to you or not?

We can receive riches in heaven right now. God's kingdom is here on earth. Every day I give up everything for Christ in one way or another and I receive heavenly rewards, things that are not affected by the dust and decay of this world.

I don't think you've ever once given up everything for Christ.

There's certainly more I could do, but grace can't be earned, however, what I do after receiving God's grace does matter in terms of the rewards I'll receive.

Why aren't you doing everything you could do? Is it because you are unsatisfied with what Christ did for you?

True, but that doesn't mean it didn't have anything to do with His relationship with us, which was my main point.

Your relationship with him is as follows: he is your lord, and yet you pick and choose when to obey him.

Haha, ok. So that's not a dog?

Of course it's a dog. I said it's a bad example of a dog.

I'll let God be my judge.

Then you'll get off scott free because God doesn't exist.

Anyway, this conversation is off topic, and on top of that you're either not paying much attention or you're twisting my words. Conversation over. Bye.

 

[Chriliman]

False.

Hmm...so when the bible says faith is the evidence of things not seen or that it comes by hearing God's word, that means faith is just a random guess not based on anything?

You said you read the OP. You're causing me to doubt you.

I'll admit, I didn't read it all, but most of it. I actually agree with your assessment about causality. I believe God exists in an eternal state where He can cause finite things to happen and that he fully exists within those finite things as well as beyond them.

And why are you the one who gets to decide if it applies to you or not?

It does apply to me and specifically what God asks me, personally, to give up.

I don't think you've ever once given up everything for Christ.

Okay.

Why aren't you doing everything you could do? Is it because you are unsatisfied with what Christ did for you?

I'm fully satisfied and there's always room for growth, which is welcomed. Think of me as a tree that God has planted, I died as a seed and am now fully a tree, growing wand expanding in the forest of Christ.

Your relationship with him is as follows: he is your lord, and yet you pick and choose when to obey him.

How would you know that I'm not obeying him?

Of course it's a dog. I said it's a bad example of a dog.

I don't know, a dog without a leg is no less a dog.

Then you'll get off scott free because God doesn't exist.

If God doesn't exist, then you're the best judge I've got

Anyway, this conversation is off topic, and on top of that you're either not paying much attention or you're twisting my words. Conversation over. Bye.

There's some on topic stuff in here

 

[Chriliman]

It seems that one reason for the breakdown in communication between Christians and atheists is that each side is playing a different game in the same conversation. As a skeptic, the atheist's goal is to refute bad explanations, even if that means there is no explanation left to choose from. Conversely, the Christian's goal is to make an inference to the best explanation available, even if it is problematic. So when the atheist says "prove it" and the Christian can't, the atheist claims victory; and when the atheist says "I don't know" the Christian claims victory.

However, I'm convinced that the Christian position is so weak, particularly on the topic of creation and causality, that the atheist can play the Christian's game and still win.

While the skeptical atheist's actual position is "I don't know" when it comes to unresolved cosmic questions, let's nevertheless saddle the atheist with something so that they are playing the Christian version of the game. For simplicity, we will burden the atheist with the position that reality is as follows: 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.

The Christian position seems to be this: God created the universe (and also other realms beyond the universe) out of nothing by speaking such things into existence. I do not know of any explanation that is more specific than this.

So which is a better explanation?

As I understand it, this would be the typical Christian assessment of the atheist's position:

It is nonsensical to assert that the universe exists for no reason and with no cause. Something cannot come from nothing.

The problems with this assessment are, first, that the Christian tacitly asserts that God exists for no reason and with no cause, which is the special pleading fallacy. Identifying the fallacy is already sufficient grounds to ignore the rebuttal until it is amended, but it can also be said that the second objection is inadequate. We have not, and presumably cannot, observe nothingness, so there are no empirical grounds to say what can or cannot occur. Further, we know that nothingness entails a complete lack of rules or governing principles, so the governing principle "something cannot come from nothing" cannot apply to nothingness by definition. This point was made to Dr. William Lane Craig, and he responded with, "Then why aren't we seeing tricycles popping into existence randomly?" The answer, of course, is that empty space is not nothingness and so any expectation we might have about nothingness is irrelevant—in fact, Craig should be well aware of this because he has criticized Dr. Lawrence Krauss for equivocating empty space with nothingness. Let me clarify, though, that I'm not positively claiming that something definitely can come from nothingness, but rather that it cannot be ruled out.

The real reason that "nothing cannot come from something" is asserted presumably relates to the issue of causality. With regards to nothingness, there is nothing that can cause anything to occur; on the other hand, if a God exists, however inexplicable his existence may be, then there is at least an agent that can cause something to occur. This is, I believe, why Christians think that God is the best explanation for the existence of the universe.

However, this is not how causality works. An agent performing the causal influence is only half of what we would call an event that involves causality. There must also be a thing that is acted on; otherwise there is no effect. Billiard balls are often used as an example of causality, but a billiard ball flying through empty space devoid of interaction is not causing anything to occur. Another billiard ball is required for causality to have meaning because there is no cause without something that gets effected.

Absent creation, when the sum total of all existence was just the Christian God, what was available for God to act upon? Did God act on himself? Then we are all made of the stuff of God, and I don't think Christians take this position. Did God act on the universe before the universe even existed? How does that make sense? Did God act on nothingness? Nothingness is not a thing that can be acted on, and "acting on nothingness" is the same as acting on nothing, which is the same as doing nothing, which is the same as not causing anything to occur. God himself, nothing, and the universe itself seem to be the only conceivable choices of what we can even discuss as candidates for what God acted on, and none of them work.

Here are two definitions of causality that I know of:

PHYSICS

A system is a region of space.

A state is the arrangement of matter and energy in a system.

Causality is the process by which a system transitions from one state to another over a period of time.

ANTIQUITY

Aristotle proposed four causes, two of which are relevant here: efficient cause and material cause. For a marble statue, the material cause would be a marble slab, and the efficient cause would be the sculptor or the chisel. Causality requires both the efficient cause and the material cause. A causal event lacking one or the other is impossible to even describe.


You are free to come up with another definition of causality, so long as it models reality as we know it. The Christian's task is to think up a form of causality which is consistent with both what we observe in reality and also creation out of nothing. As far as I can see, this is impossible. It must be said that God's creation event did not involve causality, and that is extremely problematic to Christianity. Allow me to explain.

First, why is it that God's creation event did not involve causality? Well, let's consider the first model of causality. In that case, absent the universe, time does not exist and thus causality trivially does not exist by definition. If you want to posit the existence of some extra dimension of time that envelopes the universe, and that God performed an action of causality in that dimension of time, then that only pushes the problem back a step. At some point, if God is indeed creating everything out of nothing, there is a creation event where God creates time itself and this action is necessarily absent of causality under the first definition. Under the second model of causality, creation out of nothing is impossible by definition because there is no material cause.

Note that I am assuming God's omnipotence is limited to that which is logically possible, so I am talking about a God that cannot create a square circle or a one-ended stick. If you do believe that God can perform logically impossible tasks, then you must explain why God did not simply forgive us all as an act of will instead of sending his son to die, because God could have forgiven us all as an act of will even if it is impossible to do so. Right? Theologically, the only Christian God that makes sense is one that is unable to perform logically impossible tasks. I know that the "theory" of atonement is quite off topic, but it is a central issue of Christian theology and I cannot simply allow Christians to start a fire there just to put out a fire here.

Now, I did say above that I am not ruling out the possibility of something coming from nothing. Which is to say that I am not ruling out the possibility of things coming into existence by some means other than causality. So it then follows that God could have also used some means independent of causality to create the universe. The problem here, though, is that we have no way of explaining what that entails, and there are absolutely no grounds to say that God is necessary for the process. If the Big Bang was not caused, why is God needed? Even given unlimited power, it is impossible to describe how God could create something without invoking causality just like it is impossible to describe how God and his unlimited power could create a square circle.

So why did I say in the beginning that the atheist can play the Christian's game and win? It's because the Christian's explanation for the origin of the universe is necessarily worse. The Christian cannot account for God's existence (because God exists for no reason and with no cause), then insists that God is necessary for creation to occur, yet cannot explain, even given God's unlimited power, exactly why God is necessary for the process or what God did. While the atheist is saddled with the argument here that the universe exists for no reason and with no cause, the Christian—whether or not they know it themselves, and whether or not they want you to know it—asserts that God exists for no reason and with no cause, and that he, without the invocation of causality, spoke the universe into existence, which is to say that the universe exists for no reason and with no cause.

So the Christian has an extra assumption which explains nothing, and assumptions that explain nothing are supposed to be dropped. In logic, assumptions, while necessary, are a liability and should be limited to the best extent that is possible. So the Christian's argument can be improved by removing God from it, and doing so would make it effectively identical to the atheist's argument. The atheist's argument has no unnecessary components to it, and it does not make any assumptions that aren't already made by the Christian's argument. If the Christian's argument has to be improved just to be on par with the atheist's argument, then it follows that the Christian's argument is inferior to that of the atheist.

I think you're right about causality. If there is a creator, there must be something for the creator to act upon. Christians who say God created from nothing would have a hard time explaining the verses that say God created everything through Christ.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

I think you're right about causality. If there is a creator, there must be something for the creator to act upon. Christians who say God created from nothing would have a hard time explaining the verses that say God created everything through Christ.

Thank you for your honesty.

 

[apogee]

What you're doing is like saying that this is an example of a dog:

This is without doubt the most genuinely bonkers illustration I have ever encountered on this site. Cute dog though.

 

[DogmaHunter]

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?

It's not.

The thing is that the special pleading that comes along with force-fitting a god into it, doesn't solve the problem at all.

We are ignorant concerning the origins of the big bang. We all are.
Acknowledging that ignorance (and working hard to overcome it by rational means) is always better then to just pretend to solve it by appealing to undetectable entities and special pleading.

 

[apogee]

It's not.

The thing is that the special pleading that comes along with force-fitting a god into it, doesn't solve the problem at all.

In order for me to be guilty of 'special pleading'on this I think I'd probably need to somehow disagree with you. As it stands, I just don't.

We are ignorant concerning the origins of the big bang. We all are.
Acknowledging that ignorance (and working hard to overcome it by rational means) is always better then to just pretend to solve it by appealing to undetectable entities and special pleading.

I agree, in fact I wouldn't necessarily equate the Big Bang with the 'moment of creation', as tempting as that might seem(perhaps it is, but then again, perhaps it is not). There are a few models out there, none of which are currently testable, who's to say which, if any, is the correct one?

Although, in all cases, we appear to be left with an underlying inexplicability, that would seem to evade reason.