WolfpackN64 said:
JWeinCom said:
I forgot inductive reasoning, because you presented a deductive argument. Premises leading to a conclusion is a deductive argument. If your premises can be true and your conclusion false... then I don't know what good the argument is.
You could tack on an inductive argument after you've proven something with deductive reasoning. That's what William Lane Craig does. He uses the Kalam, then goes on to, "if there is a cause what do we know about the cause" and THEN goes on to make his inductive case for the cause being god. But you've just kind of jumbled them up into one argument, and that's a problem.
I don't believe I said anything about using the bible to prove the being is necessary. I said you used revelation to prove that it's god. That is a problem because you include god in your conclusion. This is why pretty much every version of the comsological argument I've seen does not include god in the actual argument.
I actually did look in the Stanford encyclopedia. Which does not contain your version of the argument. It contains this.
The cosmological argument begins with a fact about experience, namely, that something exists. We might sketch out the argument as follows.
- A contingent being (a being that if it exists can not-exist) exists.
- This contingent being has a cause of or explanation[1] for its existence.
- The cause of or explanation for its existence is something other than the contingent being itself.
- What causes or explains the existence of this contingent being must either be solely other contingent beings or include a non-contingent (necessary) being.
- Contingent beings alone cannot provide an adequate causal account or explanation for the existence of a contingent being.
- Therefore, what causes or explains the existence of this contingent being must include a non-contingent (necessary) being.
- Therefore, a necessary being (a being that if it exists cannot not-exist) exists
First off, we'll notice that they list it as a deductive argument. Which means my logic 101 lesson was both apt and necessary. :) Secondly, you'll notice that they don't include god in the premise or the conclusion. They also list the Kalam which again does not list god in any premise or conclusion. Maybe you should double check the site, because it seems to go against what you're saying.
It could be that we plebeians are simply too feeble minded to grasp the greatness of your argument. But I pointed out flaws and your response is to point me to a source that does not include your version of the argument, and indeed includes a version that avoids the obvious fallacies I pointed out. That's kind of telling.
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I'll give you that my deductive and inductive reasons became scrambled, just a slip of the mind.
And my point remains. You asked why this necessary being was God and I provided a secondary argument, which you saw as mixed up into the first? I think we took a wrong turn somewhere in our discussion.
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The problem is that the conclusion of your argument is that the necessary being is god. If we agree that the argument is a deductive argument (which I think you just did but I'm not entirely sure), then the conclusion has to be proven by the premises. At this point, there should be no need for a secondary argument. If you reach the conclusion of your syllogism and you still need a secondary argument, then the argument is not valid.
Again to give an example of what I mean, I'll go to William Lane Craig, who is probably the foremost proponent of the cosmological argument.
His version of the argument goes like this.
- Whatever begins to exist has a cause;
- The universe began to exist;Therefore:
- The universe has a cause.
I realize this is different than the argument based on necessary being, but the idea is similar (which is why they're both cosmological arguments). At any rate, his argument is valid. If the premises are true, then the conclusion is true without a doubt. For argument's sake, we'll say that the premises are true.
After he establishes the conclusion, he then makes a separate inductive argument that the cause he has proved is god. For example "if the cause created time it has to be timeless. If it chose to create the universe it has to be intelligent". And that sort of thing.
Craig, as pretty much every modern theologian, has realized that you can't reach god through the cosmological argument alone. Because the cosmological argument is indeed deductive. So, they establish a cause or necessary being through the cosmological argument, and then create a separate inductive argument.
That's what I mean when I say you're mixing up the argument. Instead of doing what Craig does and establishing a necessary being (which is a word I'd object to but w/e) through a deductive argument, and then making a separate inductive argument that being is god, you are just kind of shoehorning god in at the the end of your deductive argument. And this makes the argument invalid and thus debunked in the form you're presenting it. If you wanted the argument to be valid you'd have to stop at "there is a necessary being". Then you can argue for why that necessary being is god, but that has to be a completely separate argument.
