1. Everything has a causal explanation of its existence
2. Something is contingent if the causal explanation of its existence is found externally
3. Everything which is not contingent is necessary
4. Therefore everything has a necessary cause
5. The universe is a finite collection of contingent things
6. But two contingent things cannot sufficiently explain the existence of both, as with three, etc
7. Therefore the universe itself is contingent
8. But everything has a necessary cause
9. Therefore the universe has an external necessary cause
10. This necessary cause is what we call God
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Edit: Contingent things require an external cause. God is not contingent, therefore God exists necessarily. ‘Who made God’ is not a refutation of this specific argument.
>This necessary cause is what we call God
Nope, a God is a conscious entity. This could just as well be a universe creating collision of two 11 dimensional branes.
1. Everything has a causal explanation of its existence
That’s an unproven assumption that is used to sneak in a creator for the universe. It hasn’t been proven the universe is not eternal.
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>2. Something is contingent if the causal explanation of its existence is found externally
Sure, but since #1 isn’t proven, it’s pointless as an argument
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>3. Everything which is not contingent is necessary
Nope. A necessary truth is one that could not have been otherwise. It would have been true under all circumstances. A contingent truth is one that is true, but could have been false. A necessary truth is one that must be true; a contingent truth is one that is true as it happens, or as things are, but that did not have to be true. In Leibniz’s phrase, a necessary truth is true in all possible worlds. If these are all the worlds that accord with the principles of logic, however different they may be otherwise, then the truth is a logically necessary truth. If they cover all the worlds whose metaphysics is possible, then the proposition is metaphysically necessary. If a proposition is only true in all the worlds that are physically possible, then the proposition is true of physical necessity.**A permanent philosophical urge is to diagnose contingency as disguised necessity (Leibniz, Spinoza), although especially in the 20th century there have been equally powerful movements, especially associated with Quine, denying that there are substantive necessary truths, instead regarding necessity as disguised contingency**. (from [Oxford Reference](https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100226735))
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>4. Therefore everything has a necessary cause
Nope. Based on unproven #1, pointless #2 and disproven #3
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>5. The universe is a finite collection of contingent things
It *looks that way,* but remember we can only observe about 18% of all matter in the universe and have no idea what dark matter is. So it’s a bit premature to claim this.
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>6. But two contingent things cannot sufficiently explain the existence of both, as with three, etc.
Nope. See rebuttal for #3.
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>Therefore the universe itself is contingent
Nope. Based on unproven #1, pointless #2, disproven #3, unproven #4, unproven #5, disproven #6
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>Therefore the universe has an external necessary cause
Nope. Based on unproven #1, pointless #2, disproven #3, unproven #4, unproven #5, disproven #6, unproven #7
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>This necessary cause is what we call God
Nope. Likelihood is astronomically higher that *if* there is an intentional agent as cause of the universe, this being would for example be a lab technician in another universe running a particle physics experiment, since this explanation doesn’t require any supernatural shenanigans.
Are you gonna flesh out your definitions and support your premises? Otherwise I really see no value in engaging in a low effort post.
1. Define God.
2. How do you know God is necessary?
>Everything has a causal explanation of its existence
Refuted by my posts.
>1. Everything has a causal explanation of its existence
If this premise is true, then God must have a causal explanation for its existence, leading to infinite regress. So you’ll have to modify this premise.
Not only that, with ‘everything’ being as broadly defined as you’re using it here, you run into other problems. The fact that ‘Everything has a causal explanation of its existence’ must itself have a causal explanation. And that causal explanation must have a causal explanation. Logic must have a causal explanation, and causality must have a causal explanation. Again, you’ll need to refine the premise.
This may seem pedantic, but it’s important. Once you refine the premise to account for all of these things, it starts being less obvious and more easily exposes potential special pleading or ad-hoc reasoning.
>10. This necessary cause is what we call God
No it’s not. It’s a necessary cause. “God” does not just mean “a necessary cause”. It’s a word with all sorts of other things attached – a mind, omni-traits, relation to humans, intention, whatever. It’s not a good idea to engage in an ‘argument by renaming’.
>Everything has a causal explanation of its existence
Is that true? Like the laws of physics don’t have a causal explanation as far as we know. They just are. What about quantum fields they just sorta exist without direct cause. Quarks and electrons and chairs and dominoes have a casual explanation, sure. But everything? I’m not so sure about that.
>Therefore everything has a necessary cause
Does not follow. There is no reason that causal chains can’t just go on forever, or be in a loop.
>The universe is a finite collection of contingent things
No, spacetime is not conigent (well, probably) and is definitely within the universe.
Your argument requires the necessary cause to also have a necessary cause of it’s own.
>Therefore everything has a necessary cause
Nothing can possibly satisfy the description of a ‘necessary’ cause, because the only way anything can be necessary is if its nonexistence implied a contradiction. But the only way this can be achieved is if its necessity is already part of the definition for the thing itself, which is just question-begging.
Furthermore, what predictions does this argument make? Even if we accepted the argument as valid, there would still have to be some type of empirical demonstration for this god thingie before we can truly be confident that God exists. It should be noted that a claim about God’s existence is a claim about the external world. Claims like that require empirical justification.
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Also, even if we just concede the entire argument, how in the name of all that is holy does any of this even remotely imply a monotheistic god? All it does is establish that there apparently exists some necessary cause. Why can’t it just be some phenomenon that we do not yet understand?
A lot of steps there to presuppose there was a first cause
What you’ve done nothing to explain is why you think that God still exists now, why He’s intelligent, and why He can alter everything and anything at will
Because no scientist is going to tell you there can or cannot be a first cause. What they will tell you is that it’s very odd for that first cause to be human, skip 10 billion years, and then more humans
>2. Something is contingent if the causal explanation of its existence is found externally
Externally to what? You mean if it is not self-caused? This is not the definition of contingent. Contingent means it could be some other way: that it is not true in all possible worlds (a tautology) or false (a contradiction). What does this have to do with causation?
Sorry, you don’t get to redefine contingent, and then use its negation to argue for necessity. Contingent doesn’t mean this.
>3. Everything which is not contingent is necessary
Well duh. Everything that is not a chair is a ‘not a chair’.
>4. Therefore everything has a necessary cause
That was a huge, invalid leap of logic. Are you trying to argue in syllogistic form? Because you missed quire a number of steps here.
>5. The universe is a finite collection of contingent things
Citation needed. How do you know its finite? How do you know nothing in it is necessary?
>6. But two contingent things cannot sufficiently explain the existence of both, as with three, etc
What? Do you mean a collection of contingent things can’t be necessary?
>7. Therefore the universe itself is contingent
Given a rephrase of 6, this might be at least valid. I still think you’d need to justify things more precisely in terms of emergence.
>8. But everything has a necessary cause
Nope. You didn’t establish this.
>9. Therefore the universe has an external necessary cause
>10. This necessary cause is what we call God
The word God is used for something a lot more specific than some cause for the universe, necessary or not. You can’t just smuggle him into this.
The thing is: if you say ‘the universe/existence had a cause’ or ‘the universe / existence has an explanation’, almost everyone would agree, atheist or theist. You just don’t get to call it god or to play logic games to pretend you know anything about it. We don’t know what it is. And we certainly don’t know it is a deity.
Premise 1 is false since God doesn’t have a causal explanation, and numbers quite plausibly don’t have causal explanations. You’ll have to limit premise 1 to contingent things.
Were I to accept every single one of your statements here as fact (and I don’t), even if there is a god, there is no way for you to prove that it’s the one you worship. At best, you’ve “proven” that something created everything, but that’s all your arguments are good for (and they have been disputed time, after time, after time ad nauseum).
I say all that to say, nice try, good effort and all that, but sorry, try again.
What logic and rationality of a God creating a huge universe with billions of stars and planets and then making it habitable on only one tiny planet in one Galaxy? And then this planet was created in such a way that it is always trying to kill us with tectonic plates that shift causing earthquakes and tsunami’s, volcanoes that erupt and bury people with ash or poison the air and weather events that cause hurricanes and tornado’s, not to mention the occasional meteriorite that hits the planet causing large extinction events every few million years.
And then your so called God filled the planet with nature that is also trying to kill us, such as wild animals, insects, parasites, germs and viruses.
I just love it when Christians talk about how they know there is a God when they see the beauty of nature such as flowers and trees as they look out their window from the safety of their house, which they live in to protect them from the nature that would most likely kill them if they actually had to live in nature without the protection of their house!
What negates the possibility of Intelligent Design? A possibility needs to be demonstrated. You do Not get to claim something is possible because it cannot be proved impossible.
You do Not get to imagine possibilities into existence.
1-9. *ibid*
10. The necessary cause is what we call Cthulhu.
Have we now, using the same argument, proved the existence of Cthulhu?
Thanks for the post.
When premise 1 says “existence”–so far, what is demonstrated is that “existence exists when it instantiates in something”; is it the argument’s claim that “if nothing contingent were, existence would still exist”?
IF that is the claim, then (1) and (8) are negated, and (10) seems incoherent, as it would seem god does not create existence itself, and god is “contingent” on necessary existence. In fact, anything would be contingent on necessary existence, and 10 is negated.
IF “existence is a necessary predicate” or something similar is *not* the arguments’ claim, then god would need to instantiate in something to exist, as all existence is contingent, and the claim breaks down.
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To address your edit:
>Contingent things require an external cause. God is not contingent, therefore God exists necessarily. ‘Who made God’ is not a refutation of this specific argument.
Assuming we are going with defining contingent as could have failed to exist and necessary as could not have failed to exist, which you seem to be pushing even though your stated definitions are about the nature of causation of these things, then god not being contingent means that god would be necessary. But defining god as necessary here just means that *if* god does exist it could not have failed to exist. It is still possible that the term God here is a term with no real referent.
So at best you would get that god’s existence is either necessary or impossible.
Most cosmological arguments only appear to work because they’re written in ambiguous language. I don’t think your argument is an exception.
>1. Everything has a causal explanation of its existence
All events governed by Newtonian physics can be described as “causal”. That’s all we know. We have no reason to believe that the phenomenon of causality is universally relevant.
>2. Something is contingent if the causal explanation of its existence is found externally
3. Everything which is not contingent is necessary
Firstly, I find it odd that necessary things are epistemologically contingent.
Secondly, there cannot be a “causal explanation” for something that has always existed, which means matter and energy do not fit your definition of “contingent” in 2, and therefore do fit your definition of “necessary” in 3. This means…
>5. The universe is a finite collection of contingent things
…at least 5% of the universe is not contingent.
I think there’s some sloppiness in the language that I don’t want to get too bogged down in but it’s a problem. Granting your earlier premises for a moment, 4 is stated in a way that I think you’ll agree is false. Necessary things (like God) don’t have a necessary cause, right? So not “everything” has a necessary cause. Only contingent things do.
Even that’s going to want some work because because the cause of some contingent thing might itself be contingent. Where I think you’re trying to get to is that they will all bottom out in some necessary cause.
We can probably sidestep all of that and just say you’re positing some kind of principle of sufficient reason, and then picking and defending a version of the PSR is going to be the basis of the rest of the argument. That’s where your work lies, and that’s the controversial claim.
I can even sidestep all that, because one of my big problems is whenever an argument concludes “x is what we call God”. That feels like some trickery with words. All we’ve actually established if your argument holds is that there’s some necessary fact. Is that what people mean by God? Just whatever fact explains the universe? Or is “God” actually used to mean some conscious agent with enormous power who watches over the world?
The argument does nothing to show that this necessary thing would be anything like what I think most theists take God to be. You can call it “God” but I think it’s equivocating if a theist wants to say that’s the same meaning of “God” that people are generally talking about.
1 is provably false (proof at bottom)
4 does not follow from 1-3. Things could be caused by an infinite chain of cause and effect.
7 does not follow from 5-6. Fallacy of composition.
10 does not follow from 1-9. Showing the existence of at least 1 necessary thing does not show that its a being of some kind.
Simple proof of not 1:
P1: Assume 1 is true and that everything has a casual explanation.
P2: Let C be the causal chain that contains all the causes and effects as per P1. Notice how by definition C contains ALL causes without exception.
P3: Things can’t explain themselves. This is one of your premises as well so it should be easy to accept.
P4: As per P2 and P3 the explanation of C is not C.
P5: As per P2 there are no causes outside of C.
P6: C has no causal explanation.
Conclusion: P1 is false.
QED
>This necessary cause is what we call God
So if the cause of the universe would be some kind of extrauniversal physics phenomenon, it would be god?
Is your definition of god “necessary cause”?
Primary disagreements….
7. The things in the universe could all be contingent on the universe, and the universe itself non-contingent.
10. You need to prove that this thing has Godlike attributes. In particular you need to show that it is intelligent/conscious/has will, and is something that could reasonably be called a “supreme being”. And you need to show that it STILL exists after creating the universe. Otherwise I call the noncontingent necessary cause “reality” (if there really is such a thing as a “noncontingent necessary cause”).
How did you determine that the universe is finite or contingent?
1-9 is essentially there must be at least one necessary thing, but that thing is not the universe.
I don’t agree with this but for the sake of argument let’s assume it’s true.
The argument doesn’t however in anyway point to any god, unless you define god as solely all the necessary things the universe is contingent on. That is not a definition I would recognise or accept as god. In the same way that I wouldn’t accept the definition of a flower meaning a car.
For example, there is some philosophical/scientific thought that nothing is not a stable or ascertainable state, and therefore the existence of something is actually necessary without any reason for intervention from any deity.
It’s also possible that external to the universe time is not even a possible concept, so discussing contingency and “before” and “after” is utterly meaningless.
There is literally infinitely many possibilities all with the same amount – if not more – evidence for them than any traditional gods.
>Everything has a causal explanation of its existence
This needs support.
>Something is contingent if the causal explanation of its existence is found externally
Okay, I’ll accept this definition of contingent
>Everything which is not contingent is necessary
Ok, so necessary means that it has an internal causal explanation.
>Therefore everything has a necessary cause
This doesn’t follow. If we accept premise 1, then everything has a cause, and that cause must either be internal or external. That’s all we have so far.
>The universe is a finite collection of contingent things
Rejected. The universe is the space-time substrate that the contingent things are made of.
>But two contingent things cannot sufficiently explain the existence of both, as with three, etc
The stuff that is made of the universe doesn’t explain the universe, it’s the other way around.
>Therefore the universe itself is contingent
Or necessary
>But everything has a necessary cause
Maybe, you failed to support that above.
>Therefore the universe has an external necessary cause
Or the universe has an internal causal explanation.
>This necessary cause is what we call God
The universe? I don’t call the universe god.
So how do you prove premise one? Or four? Or five? And how would 10 follow without re-defining God into just “a cause of the universe” and dropping the whole personal, supernatural, moral, omnipotent, all-knowing shabang
Do you think god created mankind? If so, why is the human body so imperfect then?
1. Is not clear in quantum physics. It only seems to work like that on our macro level.
If “Everything has a causal explanation of its existence”, so must God; otherwise there is something that doesn’t have a causal explanation and the first premise is false (and so is step 8).
ETA. This argument still has the main weakness of all such arguments: you argue to a first cause, and then, without any justification whatever, identify that first cause with God.
5 Not accepted. Show that all matter/energy is contingent.
10 Not accepted. You’re using a capital G which means it’s a specific god character, you now need to show your proposed neccessary cause is not just a being, but your specific one.
Premise 1 is false unless you are also arguing that your god has a “causal explanation of its existence”.
Can you provide a demonstration for the truth of premise 5? In science it is said that energy is neither created nor destroyed. Thus the evidence would appear to be that this premise is false.
Additionally, this doesn’t address the idea of of an infinite regress with each contingent thing being caused by a prior contingent thing.
>1. Everything has a causal explanation of its existence
How do we know that?
>2. Something is contingent if the causal explanation of its existence is found externally
What would it mean for something to have an internal explanation for its existence? How can a thing cause its own existence? Wouldn’t it need to exist before it existed?
>4. Therefore everything has a necessary cause
How does this follow from lines 1, 2, and 3?
>5. The universe is a finite collection of contingent things
How do we know that the universe is finite? When we look at the sky we see no end to the stars. What is to guarantee that the stars ever end? And how do we know that nothing in the universe is necessary?
>10. This necessary cause is what we call God
What if there is more than one necessary cause? Would that mean there is more than one God? What if the necessary cause does not resemble the beliefs of any religion?
And what do we call the external necessary causal explanation of God’s existence? And what do we call the external necessary causal explanation of the existence of the external necessary causal explanation of God’s existence? And what do we call the external necessary causal explanation of the existence of the external necessary causal explanation of the existence of the external necessary causal explanation of God’s existence? …..
…and why is the necessary cause called ‘God’ the one you’re so interested in when there are clearly more powerful and more fundamental necessary causes?