Philosophy: First Cause is. Everything else is becoming.

[Mark Quayle]

Like I said, the atom changes, the parts of the atom do not.

And so, all the way down.

I actually agree with this. I think there is eternally existing stuff of a fundamental nature. Trouble for you is that if there is eternally existing stuff, we don't need a conscious mind, so the first cause need not be "God".

It's not trouble to me, except to find a way to show you why "eternally existing stuff" cannot be interacting to be self-existent. To me, it is intuitive, but I know there is a rational way to say what I want to, but right now it escapes me. I am sure not only that (easily enough shown) first cause must be self-existing, but the notion that there might be many self-existing, inanimate things, to me, while it is repugnant to reason, I think there is an obvious defeat for that notion.

Your challenge is simpler, suggesting that such things are interacting, which is (at least for first cause) self-contradictory. I have only to show it is also self-contradictory for self-existent things, whether mere "mechanical fact" or "with intent", but @Ken-1122 has suggested the possibility of multiple self-existents with no causes and no effects: alone. To me, that, while easy enough to dismiss for useless and undetectable, will be a little harder to prove wrong. But I am enjoying that challenge too.

 

[Mark Quayle]

What does he base this on? Why would he just assume something eternal would not be in a constant state of change?

If “X” is an inanimate object, and the chemical reactions X is responding to thus causing his change is a part of X, even though X is changing or becoming, why can’t this X exist eternally under such conditions?

Lol, wow it's getting late. Not only do I need to get to bed, but my mind is not working right. I sent what you are responding to without even realizing it, incomplete.

 

[Moral Orel]

It's not trouble to me, except to find a way to show you why "eternally existing stuff" cannot be interacting to be self-existent.

That would be counter-intuitive to me. Things can interact with one another without affecting whether those things exists or not. Interaction has no effect on existence.

 

[Ken-1122]

At the risk of repeating myself, because what is BECOMING, requires an IS to cause it.

No it doesn’t! If you define “becoming” as something in a state of change, that does not mean something else caused it. Just like, just because something is not in a state of change does not mean it is uncaused.

It's an awful big 'if', built on pure imagination of what is possible, without any actual knowledge of whether it is possible.

No (kidding) Sherlock! This entire conversation of something existing eternally; is based on pure imagination of what is possible without any actual knowledge of whether it is possible!

For instance, does it make sense that such a process could continue doing this eternally, with no beginning?

Of course it does! If it did not, you would be able to explain why.

Sounds like infinite regression of causes.

No, infinite regression is the idea that everything was caused by something else. This has nothing to do with infinite regression

 

[Moral Orel]

For instance, does it make sense that such a process could continue doing this eternally, with no beginning?

Imagine a train that has an infinite number of cars. It can't move unless at some point something gives it a push, right?

Wrong. Put the tracks on a slanted surface that is infinitely long. Now if the train always existed, and the slope always existed, then you've got yourself an eternity of events stretching into the past and future.

Infinite regression is logically possible.

 

[Mark Quayle]

That would be counter-intuitive to me. Things can interact with one another without affecting whether those things exists or not. Interaction has no effect on existence.

The question is not whether they can interact and be exist. It is whether they can interact with other self-existing things and be self-existent.

 

[Moral Orel]

The question is not whether they can interact and be exist. It is whether they can interact with other self-existing things and be self-existent.

Why couldn't "self-existent" things interact with each other? I'm not seeing any relation between something not having a cause for it's existence, and being capable of interaction.

Two eternally existing particles bump into each other and bounce off in opposite directions. What's impossible about that?

 

[Mark Quayle]

Imagine a train that has an infinite number of cars. It can't move unless at some point something gives it a push, right?

Wrong. Put the tracks on a slanted surface that is infinitely long. Now if the train always existed, and the slope always existed, then you've got yourself an eternity of events stretching into the past and future.

Infinite regression is logically possible.

At the risk of looking like a cheap and easy answer, the train operates by principles from outside itself, so it is not self-existent. Maybe it's not fair for me to answer that way, because you only meant it as allegorical, but it doesn't work.

 

[durangodawood]

I like this topic. But Im concerned I'd spend an hour or so just to find the argument hinges on one simple proposition that the author just assumes is true. The argument can then be rendered toothless by simply assuming differently.

Its always so when the term "first cause" is mentioned.

 

[Moral Orel]

At the risk of looking like a cheap and easy answer, the train operates by principles from outside itself, so it is not self-existent. Maybe it's not fair for me to answer that way, because you only meant it as allegorical, but it doesn't work.

I don't know what special rules you've made up for what constitutes "self-existent" but that post was just about the logical possibility of an infinite regress.

 

[partinobodycular]

This is a well-reasoned and easy to follow description of the difference between God and everything else.

Aristotle and Aquinas must be turning over in their graves to see their argument for an uncaused cause mutilated so.

Neither Aristotle nor Aquinas considered the uncaused cause argument to be proof of God. In fact Aquinas believed that a series of 'per accidens' causes, ala the Kalam Cosmological Argument, could in fact be infinite. There's no logical reason, according to Aquinas, why a series of physical changes...of things becoming...can't be infinite.

Mr. Sproul may in fact understand what Aristotle and Aquinas were talking about, but he certainly does a very poor job of explaining it.

 

[Mark Quayle]

I like this topic. But Im concerned I'd spend an hour or so just to find the argument hinges on one simple proposition that the author just assumes is true. The argument can then be rendered toothless by simply assuming differently.

Its always so when the term "first cause" is mentioned.

I agree with you there, believe it or not. But when the arguments start imagining beings, while I wish to logically destroy their claims apart from their reasons for presenting the claims, such as, "there could be self-existent beings that have neither causes nor effects", nevertheless the arguments are irrelevant, I think, or at least, I'm having problems seeing their relevance to the arguments Sproul presents. (Nevertheless, I do want to play along. I will give @Ken-1122 credit. He wants to see the reason, which Sproul seems to simply assume, that what is cannot become becoming and that what is becoming cannot be eternal. It's fun, but I have not satisfied myself with any answer yet.) And @Moral Orel , in spite of poor allegory, has presented a delightful notion too, of eternally ongoing process, which doesn't make sense to me, but I can't yet show just why not. I've spent many hours looking for answers by others, to clear my thinking, but to no certain avail, as yet. I don't want to out-argue them. I want to give a good answer.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Aristotle and Aquinas must be turning over in their graves to see their argument for an uncaused cause mutilated so.

Well there goes the claim that Calvinists worship at the altar of Aristotle!

Neither Aristotle nor Aquinas considered the uncaused cause argument to be proof of God. In fact Aquinas believed that a series of 'per accidens' causes, ala the Kalam Cosmological Argument, could in fact be infinite. There's no logical reason, according to Aquinas, why a series of physical changes...of things becoming...can't be infinite.

Sproul didn't use their arguments in proof of God, but their terminology, their definitions, descriptions, in his proof. (If I remember right. I could be wrong) He doesn't even like Aquinas.

Mr. Sproul may in fact understand what Aristotle and Aquinas were talking about, but he certainly does a very poor job of explaining it.

I don't think he meant to explain what they thought, but just what they were referring to by certain terms or phrases. The terms, for example, "necessary being" and "contingent" is very useful, but must be explained to someone not much versed in philosophy or theology.

 

[partinobodycular]

And @Moral Orel , in spite of poor allegory, has presented a delightful notion too, of eternally ongoing process, which doesn't make sense to me, but I can't yet show just why not.

Then let me see if I can give you a slightly different analogy. The first law of thermodynamics tells us that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Therefore it's essentially eternal. But what it can do is change. In fact it's constantly changing, or as R. C. Sproul might put it, it's constantly in a state of becoming. So while the energy itself is eternal, the things that it's constantly becoming aren't...you, me, and everything else come into existence and then go out of existence. We're not eternal.

Now if we equate that energy with being itself, and everything else as simply things that it gives rise to temporarily, then we can begin to get some understanding of God as an eternal being and everything else as merely temporary.

But is that all that God is, a human personification of some inanimate energy? Aristotle would probably say yes, there is no God per se. Aquinas on the other hand doesn't stop at merely defining God as the uncaused cause. Hence the uncaused cause is merely the first of his Five Ways, and it's in the rest of his Five Ways, and in the Summa that Aquinas argues for the other attributes of God such as agency, omnipotence, and omniscience. And it's in those other attributes that we can understand that God is more than merely some inanimate energy, He possesses agency.

If the energy/God is eternal, then is there any reason to believe that the changes that it/He gives rise to can't be eternal as well?

 

[Mark Quayle]

I like this topic. But Im concerned I'd spend an hour or so just to find the argument hinges on one simple proposition that the author just assumes is true. The argument can then be rendered toothless by simply assuming differently.

Its always so when the term "first cause" is mentioned.

I carelessly misread your last sentence. I thought it said, it's also so, when the term "first cause" is mentioned. I disagree. I don't know what you think is assumed in the simple matter of effects having causes, all the way back to first cause.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Then let me see if I can give you a slightly different analogy. The first law of thermodynamics tells us that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Therefore it's essentially eternal. But what it can do is change. In fact it's constantly changing, or as R. C. Sproul might put it, it's constantly in a state of becoming. So while the energy itself is eternal, the things that it's constantly becoming aren't...you, me, and everything else come into existence and then go out of existence. We're not eternal.

Now if we equate that energy with being itself, and everything else as simply things that it gives rise to temporarily, then we can begin to get some understanding of God as an eternal being and everything else as merely temporary.

Exactly. If they are right, that energy/matter cannot be created or destroyed, then it is possible that that energy/matter, in its most basic component or unit, is something of God himself —I like to think, his love, which may well be something we would call physical. If so, that most basic component, the new "God Particle", haha!, would not change, but what it does, that is what changes.

But is that all that God is, a human personification of some inanimate energy? Aristotle would probably say yes, there is no God per se. Aquinas on the other hand doesn't stop at merely defining God as the uncaused cause. Hence the uncaused cause is merely the first of his Five Ways, and it's in the rest of his Five Ways, and in the Summa that Aquinas argues for the other attributes of God such as agency, omnipotence, and omniscience. And it's in those other attributes that we can understand that God is more than merely some inanimate energy, He possesses agency.

Hardly inanimate; ironically, some scientists, or at least, science writers, are trying to tell us that things happen causeless, and popping in and out of existence, or that some things happen as a result of causes that don't happen til after their effects. I even heard one who sounded like matter seems to have some cognizance, or at least, life. Almost sounds like God is on the scene.

I have a problem with 3 or the five ways, in that they discuss what WE say, which to me is irrelevant the question. Just because we encounter formidable obstacles or compelling conclusions to our lines of logic doesn't mean there are really any obstacles or truth to be drawn.

If the energy/God is eternal, then is there any reason to believe that the changes that it/He gives rise to can't be eternal as well?

Lol, what you say here sounds almost Biblical. Because he does give eternal life!

 

[durangodawood]

I carelessly misread your last sentence. I thought it said, it's also so, when the term "first cause" is mentioned. I disagree. I don't know what you think is assumed in the simple matter of effects having causes, all the way back to first cause.

Its an assumption that the chain of effects must have a first cause rather than there being, as @Moral Orel offers, an eternal situation within which cause and effect play out.

But theres an even deeper assumption that bothers me, which is: that we should demand anything dealing with eternity should make sense to us. Ours minds are built for life in a temporal cause precedes effect world. Its natural that concepts of the eternal wouldnt make sense. We dont posses that kind of mind. But that shouldnt prejudice us against them being real.

Im fine applying reason to concepts that are within our grasp. But I dont see why we should assume that all of reality must be accessible to our reason. Id expect eternals and infinites, should they be real, to "blow our minds" as it were.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Its an assumption that the chain of effects must have a first cause rather than there being, as @Moral Orel offers, an eternal situation within which cause and effect play out.

But theres an even deeper assumption that bothers me, which is: that we should demand anything dealing with eternity should make sense to us. Ours minds are built for life in a temporal cause precedes effect world. Its natural that concepts of the eternal wouldnt make sense. We dont posses that kind of mind. But that shouldnt prejudice us against them being real.

Im fine applying reason to concepts that are within our grasp. But I dont see why we should assume that all of reality must be accessible to our reason. Id expect eternals and infinites, should they be real, to "blow our minds" as it were.

You have a point there, your last two paragraphs.

Funny to me is, the people, like my wife, who assume that if I am right I should be able to demonstrate how it is so. Many of us know the truth instinctively but can't explain why it is true. I would LIKE to, and wish I could explain, but so far, there are things I can't. But some of those things are necessarily beyond my comprehension, no matter how good my reasoning and how much data I acquire, like God's person.

 

[Moral Orel]

Funny to me is, the people, like my wife, who assume that if I am right I should be able to demonstrate how it is so.

Being able to prove something isn't necessary for it to be true. You can know a fact without knowing why it's true. However, if you believe something is true, and you can't rationally explain why, then you have no rational reason to believe it's true. It's an epistemology problem, not a logical one.

Many of us know the truth instinctively but can't explain why it is true.

I'd be wary of things like that. You would have to know that your instincts are perfectly reliable to know that something is true because your instincts told you so. If you "just know" something, then you're claiming to believe something for no reason.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Being able to prove something isn't necessary for it to be true. You can know a fact without knowing why it's true. However, if you believe something is true, and you can't rationally explain why, then you have no rational reason to believe it's true. It's an epistemology problem, not a logical one.

You seem to me to be contradicting yourself here. If a belief is rational, it doesn't mean I possess a logical dialogue concerning that belief. What I believe can be rational on its own merits —not because I am rational.

I'd be wary of things like that. You would have to know that your instincts are perfectly reliable to know that something is true because your instincts told you so. If you "just know" something, then you're claiming to believe something for no reason.

Of course I mustn't give instinct my total loyalty! I know very well I can deceive myself (and, btw, that extends into reason, also). However, as I don't claim "free will" in the sense of "uncaused", "instinct" does not imply "no reason", but only no proffered reason, or reason not considered —no reasoning. In fact, I would submit, most reasoning in which anyone engages includes both reason and instinct.