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Thomas Aquinisa Second way Argument from Efficence causes

RAMOSS

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Thomas Aquinas SSecond way is the "Argument from Efficient Causes". It is as follows

Thomas Aquinas said:
The Second Way: Argument from Efficient Causes
1. We perceive a series of efficient causes of things in the world.
2. Nothing exists prior to itself.
3. Therefore nothing is the efficient cause of itself.
4. If a previous efficient cause does not exist, neither does the thing that results.
5. Therefore if the first thing in a series does not exist, nothing in the series exists.
6. The series of efficient causes cannot extend ad infinitum into the past, for then there would be no things existing now.
7. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.

Is this argument reasonable and rational? What are the weaknesses of this argument? What are it's strengths? Do you find this argument convincing, if so, why? If not, why not?
 
Thomas Aquinas SSecond way is the "Argument from Efficient Causes". It is as follows



Is this argument reasonable and rational? What are the weaknesses of this argument? What are it's strengths? Do you find this argument convincing, if so, why? If not, why not?

This one is yet another case of special pleading. He is rejecting the 'infinite chain' of causation, yet, he fails to show that why a 'god' would be different , and where this God comes from to begin with. IT also is assuming there that there is only one 'uncaused cause'. It then does a logical leap , and labels this 'uncaused cause' to be God. It makes a lot of unprovable assumptions, .. such as 'there is only one uncaused cause' , and begging the question. As such, it is unconvincing, and not reliable.
 
Thomas Aquinas SSecond way is the "Argument from Efficient Causes". It is as follows



Is this argument reasonable and rational? What are the weaknesses of this argument? What are it's strengths? Do you find this argument convincing, if so, why? If not, why not?

If nothing exists prior to itself, then god is not eternal. And maybe he doesn't even exist outside of time.

If God cannot be efficient, then he cannot be omnipotent and omnipresent.

In short the biggest flaw is that these rules must not aply to god. If they were to be applied to god as equally and fairly as they are to humans, then there goes Christianity.
 
Thomas Aquinas SSecond way is the "Argument from Efficient Causes". It is as follows



Is this argument reasonable and rational? What are the weaknesses of this argument? What are it's strengths? Do you find this argument convincing, if so, why? If not, why not?
I find it remarkable that he was able to disassociate cause and effect, much in the same way that our modern day big bang theory postulates that the universe was created from a singularity and that there was no existence prior to this. Cause and effect requires there to be history, and if time does not exist, there is no cause.

I don't get point 6 I admit, I'm still thinking about that one.
In point 7 he says "to which everyone gives the name of God." He isn't necessarily saying that it is a personal god to which we give human qualities.
 
I find it remarkable that he was able to disassociate cause and effect, much in the same way that our modern day big bang theory postulates that the universe was created from a singularity and that there was no existence prior to this. Cause and effect requires there to be history, and if time does not exist, there is no cause.

I don't get point 6 I admit, I'm still thinking about that one.
In point 7 he says "to which everyone gives the name of God." He isn't necessarily saying that it is a personal god to which we give human qualities.

Actually, the modern big bang theorists know that the concept of the 'singularity' is because 'our math breaks down, and we don't understand what is happening'.
 
Actually, the modern big bang theorists know that the concept of the 'singularity' is because 'our math breaks down, and we don't understand what is happening'.
It's not as simple as that. Since the big bang (theoretically...) created both time and space, there was no before.
But this depends on which theorist you read up on. Even scientists argue about the interpretation of the math, and what it means to us. "Metaphysics".
 
Cosmological arguments do not commit the fallacy of special pleading (well, not usually--none of Aquinas' arguments do). Special pleading is the fallacy of assigning, to a member of a set, a property which the other members don't have. God, if it exists, doesn't have the same properties as anything else.

This is not to say there aren't things wrong with cosmological arguments. But special pleading isn't one of them.
 
Cosmological arguments do not commit the fallacy of special pleading (well, not usually--none of Aquinas' arguments do). Special pleading is the fallacy of assigning, to a member of a set, a property which the other members don't have. God, if it exists, doesn't have the same properties as anything else.

This is not to say there aren't things wrong with cosmological arguments. But special pleading isn't one of them.


Sure, it has something that is different. "Out of all the things that are assumed to exist, God is assumed to be eternal". That is a quality of things that exist that is attributed to God, but not attributed to anything else.
 
RAMOSS said:
Sure, it has something that is different. "Out of all the things that are assumed to exist, God is assumed to be eternal". That is a quality of things that exist that is attributed to God, but not attributed to anything else.

I suppose the simple reply is that here's the argument in the OP:

The Second Way: Argument from Efficient Causes
1. We perceive a series of efficient causes of things in the world.
2. Nothing exists prior to itself.
3. Therefore nothing is the efficient cause of itself.
4. If a previous efficient cause does not exist, neither does the thing that results.
5. Therefore if the first thing in a series does not exist, nothing in the series exists.
6. The series of efficient causes cannot extend ad infinitum into the past, for then there would be no things existing now.
7. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.

To which you responded: special pleading. But nowhere in that argument is the claim that God is eternal.

That said, let's just consider general cases of possible special pleading. Of course, if there's a good reason to attribute an exception, that's also not special pleading. I might claim, for instance, that Barrack Obama is the only President who is African-American. His ethnicity makes him unique among the set of objects which are U.S. Presidents. But it's clearly not special pleading to make that claim. Similarly, if there's a reason to think there must be some special something, that's not special pleading either.

Assume arguendo that God exists: in such a case, God would clearly be exceptional in a number of ways. Calling it special pleading to posit such a being is sort-of like trying to use an arbitrary set of definitions to settle our ontological disputes. Obviously, one cannot simply foreclose on the possibility that God exists.

Where cosmological arguments go wrong, methinks, is in attributing too many properties to the "first cause." Quantum phenomena are pretty weird. Perhaps there is such a phenomenon which is capable of being the first cause. Aquinas is fine through to the end of his arguments, but then he wants to go farther and say that the thing people call God is the Christian god...and he doesn't give us any good reason to believe that.
 
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I suppose the simple reply is that here's the argument in the OP:



To which you responded: special pleading. But nowhere in that argument is the claim that God is eternal.

That said, let's just consider general cases of possible special pleading. Of course, if there's a good reason to attribute an exception, that's also not special pleading. I might claim, for instance, that Barrack Obama is the only President who is African-American. His ethnicity makes him unique among the set of objects which are U.S. Presidents. But it's clearly not special pleading to make that claim. Similarly, if there's a reason to think there must be some special something, that's not special pleading either.

Assume arguendo that God exists: in such a case, God would clearly be exceptional in a number of ways. Calling it special pleading to posit such a being is sort-of like trying to use an arbitrary set of definitions to settle our ontological disputes. Obviously, one cannot simply foreclose on the possibility that God exists.

Where cosmological arguments go wrong, methinks, is in attributing too many properties to the "first cause." Quantum phenomena are pretty weird. Perhaps there is such a phenomenon which is capable of being the first cause. Aquinas is fine through to the end of his arguments, but then he wants to go farther and say that the thing people call God is the Christian god...and he doesn't give us any good reason to believe that.

IN that case, where did the first efficient cause come from? According to the axioms, nothing os an efficient cause of itself. The so called 'first cause' did not have an efficient cause. But to exist at all.. it would need a cause. So, either it is an uncausd cause, or it is eternal.

If there is one uncaused cause, why can't there be many uncaused causes?

If there is one thing that is eternal, why can't there be multiple thing that are eternal?
 
Thomas Aquinas SSecond way is the "Argument from Efficient Causes". It is as follows



Is this argument reasonable and rational? What are the weaknesses of this argument? What are it's strengths? Do you find this argument convincing, if so, why? If not, why not?
Thank you for posting this, Ramoss.

My personal view is that the second proof of God by Aquinas -- the argument from efficient causes -- is simply saying that nothing can create itself.

Aquinas' language is pretentious however. He could have been more clear and simple.

Thus the way Aquinas has stated his rule there is an internal contradiction.

The contradiction is that if nothing can create itself then God also cannot create itself.

So the rule is contradictory and therefore invalid.

What he should have said is that nothing may be created from nothing.

And no mortal thing can create itself.

Therefore an immortal God must be the creator of all tangible things and beings.

However there is still a contradiction -- Who created God ?? Or did God create Himself ??

I agree with no mortal thing can create itself.

And I agree that God must therefore have created us.

It all depends on which creation story you believe in?

Moses' story?

The Hindu's story?

The Greek's story?

The Native Americans' story?

But those are all religious anyway and not philosophical.

And we have no Empirical evidence available to guide us so science is useless as well.

In terms of pure human speculative noncontradicted thought, I would say that each of us did not create ourselves nor each other therefore some God(s) must have created us.

I tend to believe the ancient Greek version the most -- that the energy of the Universe created a God and He/She/They created us.

But that would be a cleaned up version of the 2nd Proof Of God by Aquinas.

Again thank you for posting this, Ramoss.
 
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This one is yet another case of special pleading. He is rejecting the 'infinite chain' of causation, yet, he fails to show that why a 'god' would be different , and where this God comes from to begin with. IT also is assuming there that there is only one 'uncaused cause'. It then does a logical leap , and labels this 'uncaused cause' to be God. It makes a lot of unprovable assumptions, .. such as 'there is only one uncaused cause' , and begging the question. As such, it is unconvincing, and not reliable.

Like the frat boy who ate the pineapple split himself, you could not wait, and you ate it yourself !! How funny !!

I would not agree that the issue is the affirmation of the consequent however.

I would agree that the rule against self creation is not internally consistent however.

Even so, as I have reworded it for him, Aquinas' second proof of God(s) seems valid to me. But cleaned up first.
 
If nothing exists prior to itself, then god is not eternal. And maybe he doesn't even exist outside of time.

If God cannot be efficient, then he cannot be omnipotent and omnipresent.

In short the biggest flaw is that these rules must not aply to god. If they were to be applied to god as equally and fairly as they are to humans, then there goes Christianity.

I thought you were going to say these rules must be applied consistently to constitute logical sensible speculative philosophy.

But you came up with another exception as a proof of God -- that these rules do not apply to God.

So yours is a 6th or 7th proof of God.

I normally give Rene Descartes credit with the 6th proof -- creation has been good to me, so someone has been good to me, and that someone must be God.
 
I find it remarkable that he was able to disassociate cause and effect, much in the same way that our modern day big bang theory postulates that the universe was created from a singularity and that there was no existence prior to this. Cause and effect requires there to be history, and if time does not exist, there is no cause.

I don't get point 6 I admit, I'm still thinking about that one.
In point 7 he says "to which everyone gives the name of God." He isn't necessarily saying that it is a personal god to which we give human qualities.

I too don't get #6 as stated above.
 
It's not as simple as that. Since the big bang (theoretically...) created both time and space, there was no before.
But this depends on which theorist you read up on. Even scientists argue about the interpretation of the math, and what it means to us. "Metaphysics".

You can either postulate that the big bang created itself, which is a direct blatant contradiction that efficient causes cannot create themselves, or you can come up with something else on your own.

The ancient Greeks came up with Gia The Earth creating herself, then creating the Heavens, then conjoining with the Heavens to create the Titans, who then begat the other Olympian Gods. Works for me.
 
If nothing exists prior to itself, then god is not eternal. And maybe he doesn't even exist outside of time.

If God cannot be efficient, then he cannot be omnipotent and omnipresent.

In short the biggest flaw is that these rules must not aply to god. If they were to be applied to god as equally and fairly as they are to humans, then there goes Christianity.

Cosmological arguments do not commit the fallacy of special pleading (well, not usually--none of Aquinas' arguments do). Special pleading is the fallacy of assigning, to a member of a set, a property which the other members don't have. God, if it exists, doesn't have the same properties as anything else.

This is not to say there aren't things wrong with cosmological arguments. But special pleading isn't one of them.

ASH you're just saying the same thing as AH -- that God is not bound by these rules.

Maybe and maybe not.

Hard to speculate about that.
 
If nothing exists prior to itself, then god is not eternal. And maybe he doesn't even exist outside of time.

If God cannot be efficient, then he cannot be omnipotent and omnipresent.

In short the biggest flaw is that these rules must not aply to god. If they were to be applied to god as equally and fairly as they are to humans, then there goes Christianity.

Cosmological arguments do not commit the fallacy of special pleading (well, not usually--none of Aquinas' arguments do). Special pleading is the fallacy of assigning, to a member of a set, a property which the other members don't have. God, if it exists, doesn't have the same properties as anything else.

This is not to say there aren't things wrong with cosmological arguments. But special pleading isn't one of them.

IN that case, where did the first efficient cause come from? According to the axioms, nothing os an efficient cause of itself. The so called 'first cause' did not have an efficient cause. But to exist at all.. it would need a cause. So, either it is an uncausd cause, or it is eternal.

If there is one uncaused cause, why can't there be many uncaused causes?

If there is one thing that is eternal, why can't there be multiple thing that are eternal?

Exactly. God himself/herself/itself must have created itself. So the rule is no good. The rule only applies to mortal living things.
 
... ding ... ding ... ding ... ding ... ding ...

That's the end of round #1.

Round #2 will begin when Ramoss returns.
 
I thought you were going to say these rules must be applied consistently to constitute logical sensible speculative philosophy.

But you came up with another exception as a proof of God -- that these rules do not apply to God.

So yours is a 6th or 7th proof of God.

I normally give Rene Descartes credit with the 6th proof -- creation has been good to me, so someone has been good to me, and that someone must be God.

Sorry to offend people, but i'm not very big on logic.

I'm just trying to be fair and even handed.

But if you've been following my posts you'd know that at least for me, mere argumentation, no matter how eloquent or verbose, is a fact or have real substance or meaning.
 
Sorry to offend people, but i'm not very big on logic.

I'm just trying to be fair and even handed.

But if you've been following my posts you'd know that at least for me, mere argumentation, no matter how eloquent or verbose, is a fact or have real substance or meaning.

Well you were heading down a perfectly straight trail leading to a perfectly obvious syllogistic conclusion, which is perfect, as Johnny Depp would say in Pirates Of The Caribbean, and they you did a huge right turn and went off in a totally innocent unique different direction !!!

That's fine.

Everyone on this planet of 7 billion is unique.

What you simply did was give a totally unique 7th proof of God which is in addition to the 5 by Aquinas and the 1 from Descartes.

Congrats !!!

That's worth at least a gold star !!!

Not sure is Ramoss is going to like it however.

He may accuse you of evading the question or red herring or straw man.

Who knows ?!
 
That would be a fallacy of argument from ignorance. It fails.

How does saying 'we don't know that this means' the fallacy of an argument from ignorance'. I am sorry, but you don't understand that fallacy.
 
Ad hominem.

Please try again.

No, you certainly don't understand that fallacy of ad hominem either. An ad hominem would be 'you are a stupid twit, and therefore you are wrong'. This statement was 'You are misstating the situation, and therefore you do not understand the logical fallacy'. That is true in both this case , and the 'argument from ignorance'.

Calling the singularity a singularity and saying 'this is where our mathematics break down, and therefore we do not have the information to make any kind of conclusions' it not a logical fallacy. The argument from ignorance would be 'We don't know how the universe started therefore God'. The first one is 'we don't have the information so we can't make a conclusion' is the exact opposite of the argument from ignorance.

Because you are misusing fallacies, you are using the Argumentum ad Logicam , or the fallacy fallacy. Your description and application of the fallacies are invalid.
 
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