A little bit of philosophy on God and science

[Vinnie]

Speaking of cosmological arguments, Ed Feser just dropped a critique of Craig’s most recent iteration of the KCA:

Craig on finitism and presentism

Vinnie

[Kendel]

@Vinnie

An eternal universe still needs a sustaining cause – something that explains why causes keep causing.

How do we know it’s eternal?

How do we know it needs sustaining cause?

[Vinnie]

@Kendel

How do we know it’s eternal?

We don’t need to know this. I think you misunderstood the point of that quote. They did not say the universe is eternal. They are saying whether it is or not, God’s existence is demonstrated by vertical cosmological arguments. When Aristotle first gave his argument for a prime mover, he actually believed in an eternal universe. Most Christians are used to arguments that trace causes back in the past (linear cosmological arguments). I find Craig’s version a bit difficult to justify but others like Koons and Pruss put forth solid versions. But I think the vertical or hierarchical cosmological arguments are stronger.

@Kendel

How do we know it needs sustaining cause?

Technically I would say because it exists, it is a composite, a potential can only be actualized by something actual itself and we have a chain of borrowed power that needs a terminus. Now these are all Thomistic terms and concepts that might be pretty unfamiliar to a lot of people so let’s stick with the last one: borrowed power.

Consider a glass of water on a table. The water is being held up by the glass. Remove it and the water falls and spreads out. The glass is being held up by the table. Remove it and the glass and water fall. The table is being held up by the floor. Remove the floor and the table falls and the glass and water with it. All of these are using borrowed power. The glass’s ability to hold up the water depends on the table, which depends on the floor and so on. This is not a linear series. In a linear series, once the first domino falls, the rest will fall regardless of what happens to the first domino now. In a hierarchical series, every intermediate member depends simultaneously on the foundational source of that causal power.

If you are unfamiliar with hierarchical or vertical cosmological arguments, this is a good video by a popular atheist on YouTube named Alex O’Connor, who presents what he feels is the best argument for and the best argument against God.

An atheist explains the most convincing argument for God | Alex O'Connor

The first ten minutes outline the vertical cosmological argument.

[Roy (Roy (Listener twice correct))]

@Vinnie

@Roy

But what you call vertical causation does not therefore lead to the conclusion that the first cause or first mover still exists. It is useless for the intended purpose.

@Roy

Perhaps they should ask whether anything sustains it before asking what sustains it.

@Roy

Newton’s 1st law of motion suggests nothing may be required.

An analogy from Newton’s first law will not help due to metaphysical issues but I think it’s relevant to the current discussion of laws and such in this topic to note that both the first law and the law of the conservation of energy are only locally true approximations of reality. Really really good ones. A ball thrown in space will actually stop.

I don’t think that’s true.

If you are thinking about it slowing down because of interactions with particles or gravitational fields, then it’s not really a ball in space.

If it was true, then we wouldn’t be finding interstellar comets, and the ‘balls’ in the solar system would have ceased orbiting long ago.

@Vinnie

A thrown ball’s momentum (peculiar velocity) will eventually become zero through space (with respect to its surroundings) but from our perspective it will actually speed up and recede at velocities past the speed of light as it moves with space.

Then why are we finding interstellar objects?

@Vinnie

A ball moving in space is a composite that exists at any instant and must be an actualized potential on that front. Those atoms constituting the ball could be other than they are–meaning not a ball. The constant motion of the ball is also occurring over time which puts us in a linear type series. Hierarchical or vertical causation is based on a snapshot view. Rather your argument should be that since the ball is moving without a mover it didn’t need a thrower to throw it in the first place, which is silly.

That would be silly, so it shouldn’t be my argument, and is not my argument.

@Vinnie

In the vertical case, the continued existence of the ball thrown in space must be actualized by another and that other must exist to do the actualizing.

AFAICT, the continued existence of the ball thrown in space is actualized by the absence of any other entities,^[1] in which case there is no need for any other to exist.

@Vinnie

You have to actually follow the arguments theists use if you want to analyze them.

Back atya.

@Vinnie

@Roy

That post is dependent on me for it’s initial existence, but not it’s continued existence.

This should be obvious. I don’t know why it isn’t.

It is obvious.

To you perhaps. But it wasn’t to the person I was responding to.

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1. Unlike a glass on a table or a ball moving through an atmosphere, both of which have other forces acting on them. A glass on a table in free-fall would, like a ball in space, not experience a change in motion if the table was removed. So your ‘vertical’ case only works if there is a separate entity (the Earth, God) which is affecting all other entities under consideration, and so cannot be used as proof that that separate entity exists. ↩︎

[Roy (Roy (Listener twice correct))]

@Vinnie

Speaking of cosmological arguments, Ed Feser just dropped a critique of Craig’s most recent iteration of the KCA:

For another thing, it isn’t clear that a beginningless universe really does entail an actual infinite. The idea behind Craig’s argument is that if the universe had no beginning, then an infinite series of moments (or days or years or whatever) has already passed. This, it is claimed, amounts to an actually infinitely large collection. But Craig is a presentist, as am I. That is to say, we take the view that where time is concerned, only the present moment exists, which entails that past and future moments do not exist. But if past moments do not exist, then we do not have an actual infinite. In particular, what exists is just the present moment, rather than the present moment together with an infinite collection of past moments.

It’s not that we have an actual infinite in existence now, but that we have would have had an actual infinite of past moments that no longer exist. Feser seems to have completely missed the point.

[Vinnie]

@Roy

I don’t think that’s true.

If you are thinking about it slowing down because of interactions with particles or gravitational fields, then it’s not really a ball in space.

If it was true, then we wouldn’t be finding interstellar comets, and the ‘balls’ in the solar system would have ceased orbiting long ago.

No, that scale is too small. To put it simply, the stretching of space robs the ball of its momentum but only over extremely large scales and its velocity will essentially approach zero forever. This has nothing to do with collisions with particles. It has to do with relativity being tied to time-symmetry as defined by Noether’s theorem.

@Roy

AFAICT, the continued existence of the ball thrown in space is actualized by the absence of any other entities,

You are conflating the continued existence of the ball with the continued non-accelerated motion (a non-changing state) of a ball. The lack of friction means it can keep moving at a constant velocity but this says nothing of the ball continuing to exist at any instant as a composite of both form and matter as well as essence (what it is) and existence (that it is). Absence or non-being is impotent and cannot actualize anything.

Vinnie