John, I think youâre misunderstanding everything Iâm saying.
Thatâs not equivocating in any sense. I realize that no one said that âall things must be createdâ. The problem is that in my estimation, no sufficient explanation has been made as to why some things need a cause while God doesnât. If pointing this out is equivocating⌠I donât even know what to say. How would you ask the question? Itâs just bizarre.
Of course what you said is equivocating. Your argument is that because people say the universe needs a cause, therefore that should also imply that God also needs a cause. Thatâs equivocating. You canât take a rule that applies to X and say therefore the rule should also apply to Y. The way you should have phrased your question is âDo you think God needs a cause to exist? If not, why not?â This way of phrasing the question avoids equivocation. Secondly, Iâve explained over and over why God doesnât need a cause. You seem to have entirely missed it, even after quoting me saying it. God doesnât need a cause because God never began to exist at one point, heâs eternal. There is not even a point in the time or reality of God where you could insert a cause, and therefore the entire idea of God needing to be caused to exist is logically incoherent. A second logically incoherent thing about God needing a cause is simply asking: what on Earth would such a cause be? What, that isnât God, can cause the existence of a maximally great being? There is no such thing, even in imagination. So itâs pretty obvious why âWhat did God come from?â is the worst objection to Godâs existence in Western history, as has been pointed out by theistic and atheistic philosophers alike.
Itâs not complicated. It hasnât been shown that the universe needs a cause, and using this idea to make further logical conclusions is silly. Noting that our knowledge is incomplete isnât making an unfalsifiable claim.
Thatâs not what I said. I never said âsaying our knowledge is incomplete is unfalsifiable.â If you think I did say that, please quote me doing so. What I did say was that the only way to get around the BGV Theorem is to postulate unfalsifiable claims about our universe, such as a hypothetical formula of quantum gravity that removes the existence of time. Thatâs the one condition where the BGV Theorem doesnât apply. And itâs unfalsifiable. And thereâs no reason to even use it as a second option, since there is, so far, not a single logically consistent model of quantum gravity that avoids time. So why do you even think its possible that the universe didnât begin to exist if your friends canât even come up with a logical scenario of our universe where this happens?
There are example in this thread, and I have seen many elsewhere, which show that it is uncertain what the beginning of the universe truly represents.
What do you mean âtruly representsâ? The universe came into existence. Simple. Whatever details you throw in the model, the basic confirmation of Craigâs premise doesnât change.
Iâve already said that the universe hasnât been demonstrated to begin to exist in the sense required for the argument, and that therefore the argument is not sound. Iâm just going a bit further here, if you donât mind. I find it confusing and amusing that you are willing to insist on strict levels of scientific evidence with long explanations in order to support your idea of a universe which âbegan to exist etc.â, while not offering even a rudimentary theory of how the creative force could possible exist at all, AND while seeking to use it as an explanation for what we plainly know to exist. To put it mildly, the argument has no explanatory power. I fully understand a belief in God, but I am not understanding anything about this argument.
As weâve seen earlier, 1) God doesnât have a cause, so asking âhowâ God exists is irrelevant, and 2) By any scientific analysis, if you come to any conclusion, youâll have to come to the (at least preliminary) conclusion that the universe began to exist. There is not a single valid model of the universe that postulates a past-eternal state. Which means that the hypothesis your backing hasnât even shown to be coherent. So why even think its possible that premise 2 of the KCA is not correct? Since it canât even be shown that itâs possible that the premise is incorrect, we must conclude, unless future evidence suggests otherwise, that the premise is correct. I donât know how any of this is controversial.
) that the creation has a beginning - as a theological statement. Obviously science and theology are in harmony on this.