Arguments for God

[Jac3510]

I suppose that's what I was trying to say earlier when interpreting essence in this context. In other words, the first cause for contingent things is never random itself. For example, hair color which is, while I wouldn't quite say random, subject to a certain degree of chance, the factor causing it, being genetics, is very structured in how it works. The existence or functionality of DNA is not subject to chance.
If we keep digging deeper and deeper looking for a fundamental root in the universe I see no reason to not draw the line at the fundamental components of the atom, with no more empirical evidence suggesting otherwise. This may or may not fit the bill of being a "First Cause" but I would call it a fundamental cause, or rather a fundamental component.

Closer, but we still aren't on the same page yet. Being random or not doesn't determine whether or not something is contingent. My genes may determine that I will have blue eyes (and I acknowledge that there is a randomness about genes, but just making a point), but that determination doesn't change the fact that my eye color is contingent on my gene structure. To use another example, if I hold a rock in midair and drop it, it is necessary that it will fall if it is not suspended in any other way. The determination of its action by gravity doesn't render its falling non-contingent. Exactly the opposite, the rock's falling is exactly contingent on gravity working.

Physics needs to keep digging on the cause of the universe, but none of that will make anything in the universe less contingent. Suppose, for example, string theory turned out to be true (or take your pick of your favorite speculative cosmology; M-Brane Theory is fun). It would explain quite a bit in the universe, but everything you are doing, from breathing to being, is still contingent on those one dimensional strings vibrating in just certain ways.

So the argument is that this kind of contingency can't go on forever. There has to be a point at which a thing is necessary, which has its being in itself, in which its being is not received from anything else but its necessary to it. That being is called a First Cause or Prime Mover.

This is an interesting argument. I don't know enough about physics to really claim anything here with any amount of certainty, however, I'm not sure if physicists themselves would know what makes something capable of not existing. Existence alone itself is a mysterious thing to explain which may not need explaining, because perhaps nothing is not a real possibility. Here is a lengthy video posted on this forum about how a something could come from nothing, because in Quantum Mechanics nothing isn't nothing.

Oh, I am convinced that nothing is not a real possibility. From nothing, nothing comes. It's one of the absurdities that scientists need to figure out--and it's one of the questions that philosophers have been struggling with for time immemorial. Why is there something rather than nothing? If there had ever been nothing, there still would be nothing, because nothing can be predicated to nothing, meaning nothing can't do anything. It's meaningless to talk about quantum fluctuations in nothing. Predicates can only be applied to entities (to that which as being).

The question is, from whence comes this being? What we have seen is that, ultimately, being must exist in its own essence. That is NOT the case with you or me. Your essence, your quiddity, your what-ness, your nature (pick your term, I don't care) doesn't guarantee your existence. Your essence has to be combined with existence for you to actually exist, or to put it again in philosophical terms, you must be a composite of essence and existence to place your essence in re.

Going back to the argument, the reason a necessary being is not capable of non-existence is that a necessary being is that which has no distinction between its essence and its existence. Since there is no distinction, it is. It is not an essence, like you or me, that has to receive its existence before it can become real. But if that is the case, then a necessary being is not capable of non-existence, because if it were, then existence would not be part of its nature, but would be something external to it that could be given or taken away.

Nothing in this universe is necessary. Certainly not larger composites like you, me, the sun, the galaxy, etc. Smaller particles aren't necessary because atoms and subatomic particles go in and out of existence all the time. So what is this Necessary Existence, this Prime Mover? That's what the second half of the argument demonstrates.

One question: what excludes the First Cause from not needing to be finite? (Stop me if I'm putting words in your mouth, but this was the impression I got). At what point in eternity would the FC suddenly spark other causes? Wouldn't this denote change in the First Cause from the First Cause - essentially meaning it had an efficient cause?

You can't think about eternity as an infinite succession of moments. It doesn't make sense to ask "at what point in eternity" would God do anything. Eternity would be an Everpresent Now. As such, any being which is eternal would be immutable, meaning there could be no efficient cause in it. Being eternal, it could also not be finite, in the sense that it could not be limited. Only that which is temporal can be limited. If a thing is not temporal, it makes no sense to speak of limitations. Thus, the FC, being eternal, must also be infinite and immutable.

Two questions then.

Is God the only being that did  not receive its being through efficient causality?

Yes. Logically, He is the only being that can be. If a being does not receive its being through efficient causality, then that being has its being within itself coterminous with its own nature. Two beings that are pure being would differ by nothing and would therefore be identical.

Recieve may not be the word you meant to use. On my mother's birthday I had a bunch of flowers delivered to her and she received them. But if receiving is the word you meant to use and if, as you have said, God did not receive its being through efficient causality then how or from where did it receive its being?

"Receive" is as good a word as any. You are basically asking where God came from. I'll briefly comment, buy I refer you to my comments to Sophus above. When we say that you received your being, we are saying that your essence received existence through an external agent which we call the efficient cause. You, then, are a composite of existence and essence.

The FC cannot be a composite of existence and essence or else it would be contingent and thus need an external agent which would therefore continue infinitely and leave all existence impossible. The FC must have its existence coterminous with its essence. There is no distinction between them. I would strongly recommend Aquinas' Question 3, Article 4 of the First Part of his Summa or more details on this. It is a short read. I'll offer further clarification as necessary.

Respectfully, I'm not thrown.  I understand what you are claiming.  Your argument is unsound.  No, I absolutely don't agree that  love, justice, and goodness exist. I can't overstate this.  These things are concepts or predicates of the same order as morality no?  You argued that morality, and by extension, love, justice, and goodness, cannot be objective without God.   You can't then turn around and use these concepts in a proof for God.  That's circular.  

That doesn't make my argument unsound, even on your own premise. You are committed to a position called moral anti-realism and has very serious consequences. We can wait to have this debate proper until I put forward the moral argument. You've been following the other thread well enough to know that morality must be objective (or real) for God to exist, and yet I haven't argued that morality actually is objective, a fact which you've now taken me to task for.

With that said, the argument is not circular for three reasons. First, moral realism, at least on some level, is the presumptive position in that moral anti-realism bears the burden of proof. There are two ways to determine burden of proof. 1. By intuition, and 2. by explanatory scope of given phenomena. In other words, theories that are deeply counter-intuitive bear the burden of proof over those that are not, and theories that do not obviously explain a set of data better bear the burden of proof over those that do. Moral realism is certainly more intuitive than anti-realism. Granted you can, and must, explain that if you hold to anti-realism, and perhaps you can, but that is just part of your burden of proof. Moral realism also seems to explain moral phenomena better than anti-realism. In fact, the entire enterprise of secular ethics has been striving to figure out how to explain the data. Each attempt has serious difficulties (i.e., utilitarianism logically justifies slavery, etc.). It is, then, not circular to assume a point that is accepted prima facie. If it were, we could literally have no discussion at all, because we would have to try to define every single word before we could begin discussion, but to do so would require us to use words, which would themselves need defining to an infinite regress.

Second, it isn't circular for formal reasons. The conclusion is not nested in any of the premises. You can challenge the premise as being false and saying that there is, in fact, no such thing as, say, justice, to be instantiated in the First Cause, but that doesn't make the argument circular (if it were circular, it would be invalid). It would make it unsound.

Third, I am not even talking about morality or values when I talk about perfections, although I offered them up as examples. Power, knowledge, existence, and personhood are all perfections that must be attributed to the FC. At absolute worst for me, you simply are denying that God is moral. You are still left with an omnipotent, omniscience, omnipresent God. Yours just doesn't care about us.

Now, usually, as I said, I would be more than willing to debate whether or not moral values are perfections proper. I want to wait to do that until I present the moral argument, which I will do next. All I do want you to see here is that if moral values are perfections, then we have a logical proof that God is also moral.

Without proving that these things exist, you go on to assert that these things could be limitless.  How do you know there are not limits to these concepts?  The presumption that limitless sight is even possible is tantamount to faith.

Forgive me for being nitpicky on your language, but if we are going to have serious discussion as we have been and I hope we continue to be, we have to be very careful about our words. Suggesting something is "tantamount to faith" is an empty statement as "faith" is understood in different ways by different people. If you mean, as it is popularly used, "tantamount to blind belief [belief without evidence]" then you are just factually incorrect. I arrived at my belief in these concepts by a rigorous reasoning process that has yet to be challenged. If my reasoning is faulty, you can point it out.

In that line of thought, I do not assert that these things could be limitless. I argue it. Let's consider sight. If a perfection is a non-limiting predication (as opposed to a limiting predication, like "height"), and if that predication is limited by the essence of the subject (in this case, the eyeball), then if the perfection is virtually present in the FC, and if the FC is unlimited, then the perfection is obtained without limitation. This leads us, again, to the importance of analogical language as discussed in the simplicity thread (I still need to do some extra work there). Not only is sight obtained without limit in the FC, it turns out to be identical with all other natures obtained without limit in the FC. Literally, unlimited sight = unlimited power = unlimited knowledge = unlimited being, etc. As such, the words "sight," "power," "knowledge," "being," etc. are used analogically (not equivocally) between us and God, as the words are obviously not univocal.

Finally, I do not have to prove that something is possible before I assert that it is. Unless there is something self-contradictory in the concept of "limitless sight," there is no reason to assume impossibility. If we have reason to believe it, then we do. If we have no reason to believe it, then we do not. As it stands, we are (or, at least, I am) philosophically required by the evidence to accept that sight, as a perfection, is obtained without limitation in the FC.

None of this, then, is an article of faith, nor is the argument formally invalid. You may disagree with one of the premises, but if so, you should show why and where. Rejecting the existence of perfections doesn't work, because you would then be saying that sight and knowledge do not exist. At worst, again, then, you are left with an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent personal God. Even if for such a God morals were not objective (and we have strong reason to believe that they are, but we'll get to that in the next argument), you still have one heck of a fully formed concept of God to deal with. At worst, His view of morality would be no more deficient than our own!

[humblesmurph]

An Argument from Subsistent Existence

      1. Being is an accidental property of efficiently caused causes (although it is accidental in the unique sense of being prior to both essence and all other accidents).
      2. All essences receive accidental properties through efficient causality.
      3. Therefore, all essences receive their being through efficient causality.
      4. Essences that have no being cannot be efficient causes.
      5. Therefore, no essence can be its own efficient cause and must receive its being efficiently by from an external agent.
      6. There cannot be an infinite regress of essentially ordered efficiently caused beings.
      7. Therefore, for any series of essentially ordered efficiently caused beings, there must be a first causal being.
      8. A first causal being cannot receive its being from outside itself.
      9. Therefore, there must be a being which does not receive its being through efficient causality, but for which being is its essence. Being which exists in itself is called subsistent existence.
      10. A first causal being is the primary efficient cause of all essentially ordered efficiently caused beings.
      11. Therefore, subsistent existence is the primary efficient cause of all essentially ordered efficiently caused beings.
      12. All non-subsistent being is part of an essentially ordered efficiently causal chain of being.
      13. Therefore, subsistent existence is the primary efficient cause of all things.
      14. All perfections must have an efficient cause.
      15. Therefore, subsistent existence is the primary efficient cause of all perfections.
      16. The effect of any efficient cause pre-exists virtually in the efficient cause.
      17. Therefore, perfections exist virtually in subsistent existence.
      18. A perfection is obtained in being.
      19. Therefore, all perfections obtain in subsistent existence.
      20. A being which obtains all perfections is, by definition, God.
      21. Therefore, God exists.

First, I appreciate you being nit picky about language, it clarifies things.  Second, forgive my sloppiness with language, I am inexperienced in such things as this.

Jac3510-14. All perfections must have an efficient cause.

You are presuming the actual existence of perfections no?  Perfections do not exist.  I could just as easily substitute any imaginary item.  You don't see any problem using something not real in a proof to show something is real?  

14 All flying pigs must have an efficient cause.  If you saw such a statement in a proof, wouldn't you ask for an explanation?  

Your perfections are much less real than a flying pig.  At least we would know what a flying pig was when we saw it.  Perfections haven't been observed in nature and we likely wouldn't know what one was if we were looking right at it.  In this sense, perfections are just like God.  Your basis for an omnipotent god rests on the assumption of possible omnipotence.  I would think one would have to observe one perfection in nature before trying to prove that a single being contains any or all of them.

I will set morality aside for now.

[Jac3510]

Jac3510-14. All perfections must have an efficient cause.

You are presuming the actual existence of perfections no?  Perfections do not exist.  I could just as easily substitute any imaginary item.  You don't see any problem using something not real in a proof to show something is real?  

14 All flying pigs must have an efficient cause.  If you saw such a statement in a proof, wouldn't you ask for an explanation?  

Your perfections are much less real than a flying pig.  At least we would know what a flying pig was when we saw it.  Perfections haven't been observed in nature and we likely wouldn't know what one was if we were looking right at it.  In this sense, perfections are just like God.  Your basis for an omnipotent god rests on the assumption of possible omnipotence.  I would think one would have to observe one perfection in nature before trying to prove that a single being contains any or all of them.

I will set morality aside for now.

My basis for an omnipotent God is my belief that power exists. Do you think that there is such a thing as power, HS? By "power," I mean, "the ability to do something." Is it possible for anything to do anything? If so, then this "perfection" exists. That's what a perfection is. If you aren't comfortable with the word, just call it entelecheia, which as I've explained means ""to have a thing's purpose within [itself]," and here, "purpose" does not refer to "design" as it does in the morality thread. That's one of the reasons we use the word "perfection"--to avoid that connotation. Technically, it refers to the act of the form.

In Aristotelian metaphysical language, which is what we are employing here, form (morphe) is that which a thing is. It is the "what-ness" of a thing. In distinction to this is matter, which is the "thatness" of the thing. Thus, a tree has a form we might call "treeness," and any individual tree is that tree because it is a composite of form and matter. This takes us down the road of discussing universals, which I suspect we will have to deal with next, because if you deny form, then you ultimately deny the possibility of all knowledge and all science, since in doing so you end up denying universals, especially universals being grounded in real things. We can go through Abailard and William's debate if we need to to see just how important this is for knowledge of any kind to be meaningful.

But, putting that aside to get to your particular issue, real things aren't the only things with form. Accidental properties have form, too. Whiteness has form. It just so happens that whiteness is found in some other body. White doesn't exist by itself, and therefore, it is not a substance or essence. It is what we call an accidental property. Again, we can lay out how all that works in detail later. I just want you to see the distinction between what something is and that it is and understand the language we use to describe it.

Now, with that in mind, latent in form is the ability to do something. Eyes have the ability to see. That is what it means to be an eye. If something doesn't have the ability to see in potential, then it can't properly be called an eye. This is not to say that a blind eye is not an eye. We can distinguish between orders of capacity later to explain that (in brief, blind eyes have the potential to see, but they lack the development of lower order capacities that allow them to exemplify higher order capacities, in this case, sight; in plain language, they ought to be able to see, but they can't because something is wrong). It is to say only that an eye is something that sees. That seeing is called an act. Before the form/essence "eye" receives being, it cannot see, because it is not. It's ability to see is merely potential. Once an eye receives existence in a form/matter composite, it is now in act. It is doing that which its form is. It sees.

Now, the act of seeing is found in potential in the form of the eye, but the act of seeing is not itself the eye.  The relationship between these two things--the act of seeing and the form/matter composite in which it is instantiated or obtained--is that the act is predicated to the subject as an entelecheia, a perfection.

It makes no sense, then, to argue that perfections don't exist. You may disagree with the terminology, but that's all just a matter of semantics. The important logical point is that the act of seeing (whatever that is) is not the same thing as the thing that sees (whatever that is). Now, unless you are going to tell me that the act of seeing doesn't exist, you are acknowledging that perfections exist in whatever terminology you wish to use.

Having established that, you can try to argue that perfections are not to be obtained in the First Cause. I don't see how you can argue that perfections themselves, though, don't exist, given what the term fundamentally means. I take this all as a matter of learning the language. This is why I said at the outset that this is a difficult proof and that the belief in God is NOT self-evident. However, once the language and concepts are mastered, it becomes imminently self-evident. I'm not in a hurry. We can discuss this as long as necessary. Clarity is what is important to me.

[Sophus]

That is NOT the case with you or me. Your essence, your quiddity, your what-ness, your nature (pick your term, I don't care) doesn't guarantee your existence. Your essence has to be combined with existence for you to actually exist, or to put it again in philosophical terms, you must be a composite of essence and existence to place your essence in re.

Essence is an abstract concept of the mind which can only be assigned to something after existing. Sartre's existence before essence, comes to mind.

It is not necessary that you or I exist forever (and that may apply to everything) but it is necessary for us to exist once certain events take place. Sperm + egg + alls goes smoothly = human. Our existence becomes a necessary effect of these causes but our existence isn't necessary to sustain the universe. I'm not sure any one thing is. Given that "nothing" is actually an unstable state that actually inevitably produces something, an infinite amount of nothing is going to eventually create something.

You can't think about eternity as an infinite succession of moments. It doesn't make sense to ask "at what point in eternity" would God do anything. Eternity would be an Everpresent Now. As such, any being which is eternal would be immutable, meaning there could be no efficient cause in it. Being eternal, it could also not be finite, in the sense that it could not be limited. Only that which is temporal can be limited. If a thing is not temporal, it makes no sense to speak of limitations. Thus, the FC, being eternal, must also be infinite and immutable.

Right. Which is why I think that question still applies. Are you saying the FC has infinitely  been in the process of creating the universe? At such a point I don't think we can continue to call it a First Cause any longer because it had no beginning.

So the argument is that this kind of contingency can't go on forever. There has to be a point at which a thing is necessary, which has its being in itself, in which its being is not received from anything else but its necessary to it. That being is called a First Cause or Prime Mover.

Maybe, although it seems the chaos of "nothing" would argue against this. Even if so, I cannot bring myself to pretend that I know what is necessary and call that FC 'God'. At most it's another God of the gaps.

[Jac3510]

Essence is an abstract concept of the mind which can only be assigned to something after existing. Sartre's existence before essence, comes to mind.

It is not necessary that you or I exist forever (and that may apply to everything) but it is necessary for us to exist once certain events take place. Sperm + egg + alls goes smoothly = human. Our existence becomes a necessary effect of these causes but our existence isn't necessary to sustain the universe. I'm not sure any one thing is. Given that "nothing" is actually an unstable state that actually inevitably produces something, an infinite amount of nothing is going to eventually create something.

This is why I put the parenthesis around the first qualifying clause in the first statement. Being is a unique accident in that it comes before essence. Even to think about an essence is to grant it being, at least cognitional being. Yet from that it does not follow that essences aren't virtually possible without existence. My essence, what I am, is one thing. My existence is another. Why I--my essence--receives existence, then I become real.

Secondly, I would strongly disagree that "'nothing' is actually an unstable state." If you read your sentence carefully you will see a self-contradiction. Nothing can't be anything. The word "is" is a state of being verb. Nothing, however "is" that which has no being; it "is" the negation of being. You cannot apply being to non-being. In fact, the whole concept of "nothing" is really empty. By conceptualizing "it" and talking about "it" with pronouns, you are actually giving "it" conceptual being. True nothingness, however, can't be spoken or even thought of. The human mind only works with being. Only that which is can do anything or be in any state; therefore, that which is nothing cannot be in any state, unstable or not.

Right. Which is why I think that question still applies. Are you saying the FC has infinitely  been in the process of creating the universe? At such a point I don't think we can continue to call it a First Cause any longer because it had no beginning.

I would quibble with the word "process." The First Cause isn't "creating," because a process necessarily requires the passage of time. If you want to get theological about it (since we are talking about God's existence here), you could say that the same "time" God created the universe He also died on the Cross and is also consummating it in the Great White Throne Judgment at the end of time.

With that said, the word "first" in "first cause" does not refer to the first in a sequence of events. It refers to the first in priority. We can use the term "Prime Mover" if it makes the concept clearer, if you like.

Maybe, although it seems the chaos of "nothing" would argue against this. Even if so, I cannot bring myself to pretend that I know what is necessary and call that FC 'God'. At most it's another God of the gaps.

Again, you are attributing something to nothing, which would violate the law of non-contradiction. Your "nothing" is actually an eternal something that "is producing" universes. How that is a coherent concept is up to you to solve since it seems to imply time in a timeless environment.

Be that as it may, none of this is a God of the gaps argument. A God of the gaps argument finds holes in knowledge and tries to fill them with God. Our argument is built of required deductions of what we know to be true. If the argument fails, it can only be for one of two reasons. First, one of the premises is false and something that I am asserting to be true (in the even statements) is not true. Or second, the argument is formally invalid and commits a logical error. If either of those can be shown to be true, then we can be free to disregard the argument. Otherwise, it stands as a solid proof for the existence of God.

[humblesmurph]

My basis for an omnipotent God is my belief that power exists. Do you think that there is such a thing as power, HS? By "power," I mean, "the ability to do something." Is it possible for anything to do anything? If so, then this "perfection" exists. That's what a perfection is. If you aren't comfortable with the word, just call it entelecheia, which as I've explained means ""to have a thing's purpose within [itself]," and here, "purpose" does not refer to "design" as it does in the morality thread. That's one of the reasons we use the word "perfection"--to avoid that connotation. Technically, it refers to the act of the form.

In Aristotelian metaphysical language, which is what we are employing here, form (morphe) is that which a thing is. It is the "what-ness" of a thing. In distinction to this is matter, which is the "thatness" of the thing. Thus, a tree has a form we might call "treeness," and any individual tree is that tree because it is a composite of form and matter. This takes us down the road of discussing universals, which I suspect we will have to deal with next, because if you deny form, then you ultimately deny the possibility of all knowledge and all science, since in doing so you end up denying universals, especially universals being grounded in real things. We can go through Abailard and William's debate if we need to to see just how important this is for knowledge of any kind to be meaningful.

But, putting that aside to get to your particular issue, real things aren't the only things with form. Accidental properties have form, too. Whiteness has form. It just so happens that whiteness is found in some other body. White doesn't exist by itself, and therefore, it is not a substance or essence. It is what we call an accidental property. Again, we can lay out how all that works in detail later. I just want you to see the distinction between what something is and that it is and understand the language we use to describe it.

Now, with that in mind, latent in form is the ability to do something. Eyes have the ability to see. That is what it means to be an eye. If something doesn't have the ability to see in potential, then it can't properly be called an eye. This is not to say that a blind eye is not an eye. We can distinguish between orders of capacity later to explain that (in brief, blind eyes have the potential to see, but they lack the development of lower order capacities that allow them to exemplify higher order capacities, in this case, sight; in plain language, they ought to be able to see, but they can't because something is wrong). It is to say only that an eye is something that sees. That seeing is called an act. Before the form/essence "eye" receives being, it cannot see, because it is not. It's ability to see is merely potential. Once an eye receives existence in a form/matter composite, it is now in act. It is doing that which its form is. It sees.

Now, the act of seeing is found in potential in the form of the eye, but the act of seeing is not itself the eye.  The relationship between these two things--the act of seeing and the form/matter composite in which it is instantiated or obtained--is that the act is predicated to the subject as an entelecheia, a perfection.

It makes no sense, then, to argue that perfections don't exist. You may disagree with the terminology, but that's all just a matter of semantics. The important logical point is that the act of seeing (whatever that is) is not the same thing as the thing that sees (whatever that is). Now, unless you are going to tell me that the act of seeing doesn't exist, you are acknowledging that perfections exist in whatever terminology you wish to use.

Having established that, you can try to argue that perfections are not to be obtained in the First Cause. I don't see how you can argue that perfections themselves, though, don't exist, given what the term fundamentally means. I take this all as a matter of learning the language. This is why I said at the outset that this is a difficult proof and that the belief in God is NOT self-evident. However, once the language and concepts are mastered, it becomes imminently self-evident. I'm not in a hurry. We can discuss this as long as necessary. Clarity is what is important to me.

OK, maybe language is the problem here.  Show me a dictionary that defines "perfections" without using the word "theoretical" or "ideal", or any other qualifier that tells us that it is simply a concept.  After you do that, or give me a reason you have decided to change the accepted meaning of the word "perfection", then I think we can continue.

[Jac3510]

OK, maybe language is the problem here.  Show me a dictionary that defines "perfections" without using the word "theoretical" or "ideal", or any other qualifier that tells us that it is simply a concept.  After you do that, or give me a reason you have decided to change the accepted meaning of the word "perfection", then I think we can continue.

How about rather than arguing if "perfection" is a good translation of entelecheia, we just use the word entelecheia, as I have defined it for you properly without reference to "theoretical" or "ideal." I don't know if you know any other languages. I can promise you that a sad fact is that literal translations is almost always impossible for a host of reasons. The best you can do is pick a word from one language that points to the same idea as the word you are trying to translate does, and then hope that the translation doesn't carry any excess baggage. In philosophy, it is nearly impossible, because so much of the terminology is technical. Philosophy identifies certain concepts and then just as to label them.

"Perfection" comes from the Latin translation of the Greek telos. The Latin word is perficio, which means "to bring to an end" (as in, a result). Thus, like telos it can talk about things like coming to maturity. Sight is a "perfection" because it is "brought to its end," the end of the eye being to see. If it makes you feel any better, we have just the same difficulty trying to translate telos in the New Testament.

So I suggest just using entelecheia to denote the concept of having an end (that is, the act of the form - what the thing is) within one's self.

[Jac3510]

BTW, to all, I posted an audio commentary of the argument from simplicity in the first post. Longer explanations like that are much easier to digest, I think, in audio form, since it takes forever to read something that long.

[Sophus]

This is why I put the parenthesis around the first qualifying clause in the first statement. Being is a unique accident in that it comes before essence. Even to think about an essence is to grant it being, at least cognitional being. Yet from that it does not follow that essences aren't virtually possible without existence. My essence, what I am, is one thing. My existence is another. Why I--my essence--receives existence, then I become real.

Secondly, I would strongly disagree that "'nothing' is actually an unstable state." If you read your sentence carefully you will see a self-contradiction. Nothing can't be anything. The word "is" is a state of being verb. Nothing, however "is" that which has no being; it "is" the negation of being. You cannot apply being to non-being. In fact, the whole concept of "nothing" is really empty. By conceptualizing "it" and talking about "it" with pronouns, you are actually giving "it" conceptual being. True nothingness, however, can't be spoken or even thought of. The human mind only works with being. Only that which is can do anything or be in any state; therefore, that which is nothing cannot be in any state, unstable or not...
Again, you are attributing something to nothing, which would violate the law of non-contradiction. Your "nothing" is actually an eternal something that "is producing" universes. How that is a coherent concept is up to you to solve since it seems to imply time in a timeless environment.

That's why it's been put in quotes. I don't know if you were bale to watch the video posted earlier by Dr. Krauss, but nothing, in Quantum Mechanics, has been proven to actually be something, hence my saying "nothing" is not nothing. Yes, it's a paradox. This queer concept seemed illogical to me, too, at first.

I would quibble with the word "process." The First Cause isn't "creating," because a process necessarily requires the passage of time. If you want to get theological about it (since we are talking about God's existence here), you could say that the same "time" God created the universe He also died on the Cross and is also consummating it in the Great White Throne Judgment at the end of time.

With that said, the word "first" in "first cause" does not refer to the first in a sequence of events. It refers to the first in priority. We can use the term "Prime Mover" if it makes the concept clearer, if you like.

I'm familiar with the concept of eternity being, not time without end, but the now; time is an illusion, so on. I like it. I agree with it. Yet that doesn't make the concept of time invalid. A Prime Mover, if stable and isolated, will not bring about any new changes; it won't spark the inception of the efficient order chain of causes. Unless it is in its own nature to change, however slightly, it cannot produce anything new, meaning it is not really immune to efficient order, because EO is occurring from within the Prime Mover itself. It's self defeating.

Be that as it may, none of this is a God of the gaps argument. A God of the gaps argument finds holes in knowledge and tries to fill them with God. Our argument is built of required deductions of what we know to be true. If the argument fails, it can only be for one of two reasons. First, one of the premises is false and something that I am asserting to be true (in the even statements) is not true. Or second, the argument is formally invalid and commits a logical error. If either of those can be shown to be true, then we can be free to disregard the argument. Otherwise, it stands as a solid proof for the existence of God.

Not only that but there needs to be empirical evidence, not simply logic. If we can conclude there needs to be a perfect Prime Mover then we have merely determined what we should expect to find. That is still a long way from proving what exactly it is, whether or not it is a deity and especially if that deity should be considered Yahweh.

[humblesmurph]

OK, maybe language is the problem here.  Show me a dictionary that defines "perfections" without using the word "theoretical" or "ideal", or any other qualifier that tells us that it is simply a concept.  After you do that, or give me a reason you have decided to change the accepted meaning of the word "perfection", then I think we can continue.

How about rather than arguing if "perfection" is a good translation of entelecheia, we just use the word entelecheia, as I have defined it for you properly without reference to "theoretical" or "ideal." I don't know if you know any other languages. I can promise you that a sad fact is that literal translations is almost always impossible for a host of reasons. The best you can do is pick a word from one language that points to the same idea as the word you are trying to translate does, and then hope that the translation doesn't carry any excess baggage. In philosophy, it is nearly impossible, because so much of the terminology is technical. Philosophy identifies certain concepts and then just as to label them.

"Perfection" comes from the Latin translation of the Greek telos. The Latin word is perficio, which means "to bring to an end" (as in, a result). Thus, like telos it can talk about things like coming to maturity. Sight is a "perfection" because it is "brought to its end," the end of the eye being to see. If it makes you feel any better, we have just the same difficulty trying to translate telos in the New Testament.

So I suggest just using entelecheia to denote the concept of having an end (that is, the act of the form - what the thing is) within one's self.

I thank you for sharing your work in this way.  I appreciate you putting it to audio as well.  Alas, as with far too many Americans, I am only proficient (barely) in one language.  I looked up entelecheia and energeia in my Cambridge dictionary of Philosophy.

Again, respectfully, I am left with the same problem.  Entelecheia is a term coined by a theist many years ago.  Aristotle is not  labeling something observed, but rather explaining something thought.  It's conceivable to me that he wouldn't have even coined the term if he didn't believe in god(s), but that is for another discussion. Regardless of what we call this thing, it is still just the creation of a (brilliant) mind.

Btw, I do reject "seeing'" in the sense that you describe it.  I don't believe "seeing" can be separated from that which sees, it only exists as a function of seeing apparati.  However, even if one concedes that it could be separated, it would still be limited by the properties of light (that which is observed when seeing), and thus, couldn't properly be called entelecheia because it couldn't reach fulfillment.

[i_am_i]

Chris (Jac), I showed your Argument from Subsistent Existence to a mucho-smart scientist friend of mine, who also happens to be Christian, and here was his response:

"In a deterministic world where everthing we see is part of a chain of efficient causality, it does make some sort of sense to wonder as Aristote did if all these chains began in one original uncaused cause which is what I think the OP means by a first cause. However in the indeterministic world that is suggested by quantum physics, there are uncaused causes all over the place and chains of efficient causality do not go inevitably lead backward to a single uncaused cause at the beginning (if there is one) but to many at all points of time. This suggests that there is not a single first cause but many and it modifies our speculations about that first uncaused cause (if there is one) because that need only be responsible for infinitesmally little rather than for everything -- i.e. it would not be so god-like at all but just a simple little thing. This by the way would go along with Stephen Hawkings suggestion in "A Brief History of Time" that the first first cause is just a quantum event like all the other "first cause"/quantum events that are happening all the time."

No, I don't really know what he's talking about. I just thought that you might find it interesting.

[Martin TK]

I find it amazing that Theist spend so much time trying to PROVE the existence of a Supreme Being.  Seems to me that god, if he existed, could do that all on his own.  

The ONLY thing I'll give this god of yours, if he exists, he is probably enjoying the hell out of watching everyone trying to prove/disprove his existence.  Sure seems like a big waste of time in my mind, I wonder how much good all those GREAT minds who work on the "problem" of proving god could do, if they applied that same mental power to working out REAL problems like poverty, hunger, disease, and the list goes on....

Just an ignorant man's ponderings I suppose.

[humblesmurph]

I find it amazing that Theist spend so much time trying to PROVE the existence of a Supreme Being.  Seems to me that god, if he existed, could do that all on his own.  

The ONLY thing I'll give this god of yours, if he exists, he is probably enjoying the hell out of watching everyone trying to prove/disprove his existence.  Sure seems like a big waste of time in my mind, I wonder how much good all those GREAT minds who work on the "problem" of proving god could do, if they applied that same mental power to working out REAL problems like poverty, hunger, disease, and the list goes on....

Just an ignorant man's ponderings I suppose.

I begged this particular theist to present a proof in hopes I'd see something I haven't seen before.  I certainly haven't seen this before, plus I'm getting a philosophy lesson.  I do wonder what great things people like Jac3510 could accomplish if they applied their efforts to something real.

[Whitney]

No, I don't really know what he's talking about. I just thought that you might find it interesting.

Unless I understood incorrectly:  Your friend was basically saying that argument for a first mover has some substance to it if we live in a deterministic universe (one where everything is caused by something) but if quantum physics is correct about uncased events happening frequently that the idea of an uncaused cause (first mover) isn't really much to get excited about.

I'm personally not that impressed by first mover arguments for the above reason...there are simply too many unknowns to confidently say that there is a single first mover let alone that it would be right to call god (the universe could be that first mover if it were simply the natural state of things to exist and all progressed deterministically from there)  That said, I also think first mover arguments probably are about as close to proving god that philosophers have come....they are a good enough reason to not push away the possibility of god even if one isn't convinced due to various holes.

[notself]

Of course the counter to that is "Why does the first cause have to be one thing?  If the first cause is one thing, then why does it have to be a god?"  Theists are right back where they started, taking the existence of their god on faith.