Don't evade the question. The finest chef in the world does not cook drunk - they wouldn't be the finest if they did.

Look, this is pointless, you're clearly 14 and not remotely interested in finding out about the world, so just stay in your cage and squawk conventional views at the cat.

I say. And anyone with any powers of observation confirms it. You were plonked into this world. You fell out of your mum, yes?

So, to be clear, if you order toast and receive a cold, urine soaked piece of mouldy bread, it is reasonable - as far as you are concerned - to conclude that the finest chef in the world received your order and produced what is now in front of you?

Don't evade the question by pointing out that it is 'possible' that the world's best chef produced it. Yes, it is metaphysically possible. But it'd be a very stupid inference to make, would it not?

Now come along, up your game: it isn't reasonable is it? No. And you - all of us - are a bit like that mouldy piece of urine soaked bread, are we not? And God is the finest chef ever. So, on the face of it it's a pretty stupid inference to make - to infer that God created us, is it not? If you think not, explain.

I only can say, if the universe coexists eternally with the gods and they haven't created the universe, then the universe would be devoid of life. — EugeneW

Again, just another squawk and not an argument. You seem incapable of arguing for anything. Why the hell would any of that follow?

You exist. God exists. And God would not create someone like you. if you think God created you, then you're even more misguided than the person who thinks the cold urine soaked piece of bread they've been served is toast by the finest chef in the world. Conclusion: God did not create you.

Now, stop blurting things and try and engage with the argument. So, that means not just blankly stating your rote learned beliefs, but showing how something you believe follows from premises that have some independent plausibility.

Or, alternatively, you could just try and follow my reasoning and learn something. God exists. Stupid, ignorant immoral people exist. A dangerous world exists. God would not create stupid, ignorant immoral people and create a dangerous world and plonk the stupid ignorant immoral people in it, would he? If you think he would, provide an argument.

So, God exists and stupid, ignorant immoral people exist and a dangerous world exists and God did not create the latter. See? Can't you see how that follows? And if you think that's a problem - that God somehow 'must' have created all other things - have the decency to provide an argument to that conclusion. This is a philosophy forum - do some.

If you say so. That's how philosophy works. We just sit around and wait for Eugene to squawk truths at us.
Argue something.

If you order toast in a restaurant and you receive a cold, urine soaked piece of mouldy bread, is it reasonable to conclude that the chef is the best chef in the world? No.

No, because you are in the world and no one who knew what they were doing would create you.
So, God exists and you exist and God didn't create you.

no they didn't.
Like I say, you are not really following this.
Let me explain. God not create anything. See? God exist. God not create anything. God exist. Other things exist. God not create the other things. See? Once again: God exists. Other things exist. God did not create the other things.
Take you. God would not create a person like you. Yet you exist. And God exists. And that's consistent.

no.
Not following this are you?

no he didn't

Why are you saying things?

By a 'perfect being' do you mean a person who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent?

If so, could that being exist without having created anything? For instance, is the following scenario coherent: God exists and billions of other minds exist that God did not create?

If not, why not?

Why would that person - the one who created himself out of nothing - have free will?

What would you call a person who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent? God, yes? So it is no part of the definition of God that he is immaterial (and you can't find out about reality by mucking about with words and defining things into being).
Note too that even if God is immaterial (and I think he is, not because I've lamely built it into the definition, but rather because our reason represents minds to be immaterial and God is a mind) this does not entail dualism. For a dualistic believes the material exists and it is open to an immaterialist about the mind to deny this and to maintain that the external world is made of mental states.

Well, it's an odd way to put it as it suggests the most modest proposal would be one cause, whereas that's actually quite immodest and it would be more reasonable to posit loads. But fair enough, you did not assert that there was just one. I agree that there are uncreated first causes.
The title of the thread is incorrect though. It is not 'a' first cause that is needed, but simply uncaused causes.
You agree, do you, that there are multiple first causes? Or do you think that, in fact, there is just one?

God, on normal usage, is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent person. Not 'all loving'. Being all loving would seem incompatible with being omnibenevolent, given there are lots of people one ought not to love and lots of behaviours one ought not to love. Someone who loved sadism is a bad person, not a good one.

1. Either all things have a prior cause for their existence, or there is at least one first cause of existence from which a chain of events follows. — Philosophim

Clearly not all things can have a prior cause as that would mean having to posit an actual infinity of prior causes.

So we can conclude that there must exist some things that exist with aseity - that is, exist but have not been caused to exist.

But that does not establish 'a' first cause. Why would you posit just one? Indeed, that seems quite unreasonable. Given how many things exist, it would surely be far more reasonable to posit lots of uncaused causers, not one?

Okay parrot boy.

But we have no idea what logical deductions are valid or not according to your view of God. Any random deduction could be absolutely worthless because its negation could also (secretly) be true. We are just groping in the dark, really. — ToothyMaw

How does that follow? I am sure - as sure as you are or the next person - that there are no true contradictions. I think that's contingently true, but contingently true doesn't mean 'uncertainly' true.

I exist contingently. Yet I am certain I exist. So I think you are confusing 'necessary' with 'certain' and 'contingent' with 'uncertain'.

THe laws of logic - all of them - are contingent. But that doesn't make them any less certain than they would be if they were necessary.

Note as well that nothing stops the laws of logic changing on any view, so far as I can see. I mean, if you think they're just floating around - an incomprehensible view, but one that some seem to hold - what's to stop them changing? If you think they're being emitted by a Platonic Form what's to stop them changing?

And more thoughts... — EugeneW

Chirp chirp. I'm Eugene and I don't understand what I am saying or what anyone says in response, but I am not going to let that stop me saying it.

Look matey, this is not going to work. I could keep saying intelligent stuff to you, but it'd be like putting high performance petrol into a horse.

Thanks for the compliment! If he would destroy the universe he would be ultimately evil. So he can't destroy it because he's omnibenevolent. So he's not omnipotent. Simple as that. — EugeneW

This is kindergarten simple. He can do anything. That means he can do anything. That means he can destroy the universe. Doesn't mean he wants to. Doesn't mean he's going to. He can. I, for instance, could kick the head off my cat right now. I don't want to. I am not going to. I am never going to. But I have the ability to do it.

He's omnibenevolent. I have just told you what that involves. You just ignored that, yes? You are like a little parrot who is just going to keep chirping the same old things.

You just showed one. — EugeneW

No I didn't. Describing a thought is not the same as showing you it. I am aware of my thoughts in a way that you are not - I have an introspective awareness of them that you lack. That's not an essential feature of a thought - God could show us his thoughts if he wanted. But I personally lack the ability to give you an introspective awareness of my thoughts. All I can do is tell you about them. And believe me, some of the thoughts I am having about you are ones you don't want to know about.

No, he can't. His omnibenevolence forbids that. So he's not omnipotent. — EugeneW

He's omnipotent, so he can do anything, including demonstrating to us that he is omnipotent.

Omnibenevolence does not 'forbid' anything. Christ, you really don't get this do you? Omnipotent - it means being able to do anything. So, he can do anything. That includes making any act right and any act wrong.
Being omnibenevolent means being morally perfect. What does that involve? Well, it involves having the omnipotent being's full approval. And an omnipotent being is going to fully approve of himself. Thus an omnipotent being will also be morally perfect.

You think if someone can't show you something, then they can't have it? I can't show you my thoughts. I am thinking. Plus God could show us his omnipotence for an omnipotent being can do anything. As I have said elsewhere, you do not seem to grasp the concept of omnipotence.

To start, I do not believe that theists (or anyone at all for that matter) can claim that humans possess the property of aseity. First, there are just too many obvious examples of humans existing contingently. — Raymond Rider

First, to exist with aseity is not to exist of necessity. It is to exist uncaused. That is, it is to exist, yet not to have been created. If a person exists of necessity, then they would exist with aseity. But it does not follow that if someone exists with aseity, then they exist of necessity.

Second, I did not claim that 'humans' have this property, for humans are a composite of immaterial mind and sensible body. It is our sensible bodies that have come into being. Our immaterial minds have not.

I would need to hear an argument from someone about why a theist should believe in pre-existent souls, as I think it is rather counterintuitive to think that I existed before I showed up on earth. — Raymond Rider

It is not counterintuitive, rather it simply contradicts a conventional view about when we started to exist. In this thread antinatalism and theism are both taken for granted. And our self-existence is implied by these two views. For if antinatalism is true, then God has not created us. Furthermore, God would not permit anyone else to create us. Thus, as we exist we can conclude that we exist uncreated - that is, we exist with aseity.

But there are other arguments for our self-existence. For instance, we are indivisible. That is, we have a no parts (one cannot have half a mind). Sensible objects - such as our bodies - are divisible. Thus we are not our bodies. And simple things - things without parts - are not of a sort that can be created, for there is nothing from which one can create them. Thus, we exist with aseity (and are not our sensible bodies).

Finally, we have free will and are morally responsible for what we do. We would not have free will and would not be morally responsible for anything we did if everything about us traced to external causes. if we have ever come into being then everything about us would trace to external causes. Thus we have not come into being (and thus we exist with aseity).

The aseity thesis is, then, not counter-intuitive at all, for it follows from some apparent self-evident truths about us. It is unconventional, that's all. But philosophy is not about vindicating conventional views, is it?

Second, I think that affirming that there are things which possess the property of aseity apart from God causes a few problems for theism. This would involve the denial of God's ontological priority, an important good-making property. If there are things which exist in and of themselves apart from God, then God is not ontologically prior to those things. Thus, this would require us to believe that God is not perfect, as he lacks a good-making property. — Raymond Rider

I use the term God to denote a person who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. That's an orthodox use of the term (it's standard in philosophy to take the term to denote such a being). If someone wants to pack more into the term than that, then they are simply not talking about what I am talking about when I use the term. (They are free to do so - let's not get into a pointless discussion over how a word is used - it's just that it is not how I am using the word). Ontological priority just means 'existing before other things' and yes, I deny God exists before us. We all exist with aseity. But that is entirely consistent with God having the properties of omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence.

You say lacking ontological priority would be a defect - how? I'll tell you what would be a defect: being the creators of us. We are ignorant bad people. You think a morally perfect, all powerful all knowing person would create creatures like us? That - that - would be a defect. Far from presenting any problem for theism, our self-existence shows just how an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being's existence is entirely consistent with our own and explains why we are living here, in ignorance, in a dangerous world. My thesis generates no problems. It is the thesis that we are God's creations - a thesis that religious people subscribe to for dogmatic reasons and that enjoys no support from reasoned-reflection - that generates problems.

If he could do it in every way he couldn't. — EugeneW

Nonsense. Are you a Buddhist?

No, the world 'monster' is clearly being used in a morally loaded way. That is, it is being used to express the idea that God is immoral. But that's a contradiction. God is morally good, not morally bad. A morally bad person is not God anymore than a married man is a bachelor.

I you could walk in infinite ways to the supermarket, your omnipotence would make it impossible. So the very fact that you
can
do anything makes you incapable of actually doing it. — EugeneW

What? That makes no sense at all. God can walk to the supermarket if he wants to.

You are pretty clear in your reasoning, I don't get why some of the smart people on this forum don't understand your arguments. — ToothyMaw

They're not very smart.

Yeah, just too bad God is a monster who lets people suffer gratuitously — ToothyMaw

By definition he's not a monster. He's morally perfect.

Now it's getting confusing. — EugeneW

Not to me it isn't. You said you'd be unable to walk if you were omnipotent. That's false. An omnipotent being is able to walk. You can walk, yes? It is clearly confused to think that an omnipotent being is unable to do something that even you can do. That would make them lack an ability you possess - yet they're omnipotent and so anything you can do, they can do too.

Let's consider the stone to lift. You could lift every possible weight. There is no boundary between what you can lift or not. This means there are no heavy or light stones for you. All stones would weigh the same for you, rendering you uncapable of lifting it. — EugeneW

What? An omnipotent being can lift any stone. How are you getting to the conclusion that he's incapable of lifting one? You just asserted that, apropos nothing.

So God could theoretically just choose to make there be no other contradictions, or could choose to make any contradictions they want to be true, true. Got it. — ToothyMaw

Yes. Those who try and create puzzles here are working with the wrong picture - a picture in which the laws of logic are above God and operate as a constraint on what he can do.

No, our reason tells us that no true proposition is also false. That's good evidence that no true proposition is also false. (Note, I do not believe any true propositions are actually false too, I am simply pointing out that an omnipotent being has the 'ability' to make some true propositions false at the same time. I am not saying he's exercised that ability. I have the ability to arrange my teaspoons in a pretty pattern - i haven't though).

To be omnipotent is to be able to do anything. Clearly it is contradictory to insist that a person who can do anything can also not do a thing. Thus it asserts a contradiction to say that an omnipotent being is incapable of divesting themselves of their omnipotence. And contradictions are false. So, it is false that an omnipotent is incapable of divesting themselves of their omnipotence.

So, in reality there is an omnipotent being. And in reality there are no true propositions that are also false. None of this is necessarily true. It's just true.

To generate 'explosions' and other such logical dramas one would have to assume the reality of necessity. Yet the reality of necessity is incompatible with the existence of an omnipotent being. Not necessarily incompatible, of course. Just actually incompatible. And thus as an omnipotent being exists, we can safely conclude that there are no necessary truths (including that one). And so if - if - the omnipotent being made a true proposition false at the same time, this would not create any explosion, for it remains down to the omnipotent being whether any other propositions are true and false at the same time.

No. I said you could walk in infinite ways. — EugeneW

No, you said that if you were omnipotent "

I wouldn't even be able to walk — EugeneW

See? You did not say "I could walk in infinite ways". You said "I wouldn't even be able to walk".

Your omnipotence would destroy itself. Your omnipotence would paralyze its potency. — EugeneW

Like I say, you're confused and you don't respect words.

But what about the argument that she must be omnipotent in possible worlds too in order to be truly omnipotent? — ToothyMaw

To say that there is a possible world in which she does x is just a rather exotic way of saying that it is possible for her to do it. It's possible for an omnipotent being to not be omnipotent, for she would not be omnipotent otherwise. So, if one likes, one can say "there is a possible world in which the omnipotent person is not omnipotent". I do not understand why being omnipotent would require being omnipotent in all possible worlds - for that's just another way of insisting that an omnipotent being is necessarily omnipotent rather than contingently omnipotent. But insisting that an omnipotent being is necessarily omnipotent is to insist that being omnipotent essentially involves an inability - the inability to not be omnipotent. That just seems incoherent to me - indeed, it asserts a contradiction. For how can one say that an omnipotent being is able to do anything if at the same time one insists that there is something that the omnipotent being cannot do, namely divest themselves of their omnipotence? How is that not to assert P and not P? We agree, I take it, that no contradictions are true.

But the principle of explosion would be true globally, if not for god, right? How would logical deductions suddenly become valid if LNC doesn't apply for a pair of mutually exclusive propositions? Would God not have to fix the contradiction to make the principle of explosion not true? — ToothyMaw

I don't think I follow. Let's say that God has made it the case that he is omnipotent and not omnipotent. Well, now he has made it the case that there a proposition that is true and false at the same time. But it could remain the case that all other true propositions are not also false.

If an omnipotent being exists, then there are no necessary truths. And thus no conclusion of any argument follows of necessity. All conclusions follow contingently. This is not a problem. I don't have to think the conclusion of this argument:

1. If P, then Q
2. P
3. Therefore Q

follows of necessity in order to think it follows. So I don't see a problem. I don't see any explosion. i just see God having the ability to create exceptions.

I don't say you can't walk. — EugeneW

Yes you did.

Omnipotence means you can do everything. Imagine if you could do everything, unbounded by whatever laws. I wouldn't even be able to walk. — EugeneW

You said that if you were omnipotent, you "wouldn't even be able to walk".

Omnipotence paralyzes. — EugeneW

Again! No. It. Doesn't. It wouldn't be omnipotence if it did. You clearly do not know what you're talking about.

And it does not involve having infinite options. It involves being able to do anything. So, anything an omnipotent being attempts to do, it will succeed in doing.

There are a lots and lots of things I have the ability to do right now. Most of them I am not considering. FOr instance, I have the ability to collect all the teaspoons in my house and arrange them in a nice pattern on the floor. That's something I was not - am not - considering doing. Yet I have the ability to do it. Yet by your faulty reasoning, anything I have the ability to do I must constantly be considering doing. That's simply false. Not that it would be a problem for an omnipotent being to do that, of course - they can do anything and so they can just as easily entertain a billion options as two. But the fact remains that having the ability to do something does not entail actively entertaining the option.

Omnipotence means you can do everything. Imagine if you could do everything, unbounded by whatever laws. I wouldn't even be able to walk. What makes gods different? How can they be OP while being human or animal in shape (creating our world as an image of theirs)? — EugeneW

You don't seem to have grasped the concept of omnipotence. If a person can do anything, then there is nothing they can't do. So to assert that if you were omnipotent you would be unable to walk is to assert a contradiction. And contradictions are not true.

I think it is less so that God is omnipotent and not omnipotent over the sum process, but rather that God can restore her omnipotence at any time, regardless of current status. If God decided to make a contradiction such as: "God is both omnipotent and not omnipotent" true, the principle of explosion would follow and we could then prove any statement or its negation true. Or maybe I'm wrong - I just read about deductive explosion today for the first time. — ToothyMaw

An omnipotent being can do all these things:

1. Cease being omnipotent
2. Cease being omnipotent but retain the ability to become omnipotent again in the future
3. Be omnipotent and not be omnipotent at the same time.

It is also the case that as an omnipotent being can do anything, then there are no necessary truths. For a necessary truth is a truth that cannot be false, yet an omnipotent being can falsify any true proposition.

As such if God made it the case that a contradiction was true, then this would not necessarily imply anything further whatever.

That God makes it true that there exists an omnipotent being and that there does not exist an omnipotent being, does not commit God to making anything else true or anything else false.

To put it another way, God is no more bound by the principle of explosion than he is by any other principle. He can make the law of non-contradiction false. So he can make the principle of explosion false too.

To this I ask: do we view the act of divestment in two discrete spans of time - the span of time in which god is omnipotent and the span in which god has divested themselves of their omnipotence by creating the unliftable rock, or do we view it as a process spanning the sum of those two spans of time as they reflect a past and a possible future? If the latter, then I think there is a contradiction. — ToothyMaw

Because an omnipotent being can do anything, he can simultaneously create a rock and divest himself of power such that the rock he creates is one he can't lift. Then it would be true that God created a rock he can't lift. When a bachelor says "I do" he thereby ceases to be a bachelor. But that is something a bachelor can do. If we were to ask "can a bachelor get married?" the answer would be 'yes', even though upon doing so the bachelor would no longer qualify as a bachelor. (We might ask at what point in the process of saying "I do" he ceases to be a bachelor, and it may be that there is no point as such but just a twilight period in which he is neither married or a bachelor...but none of this applies to God and the rock, for God can do both - divest himself of power and create the rock - simultaneously).

Of course, because God can do anything, God can also create a rock too heavy for him to lift and still be God. But in that case God would achieve this feat by rendering the law of non-contradiction false - which is also something he can do.

So God can create a rock too heavy for him to lift in the same sense in which a bachelor can take a wife.
God can also create a rock too heavy for him to lift and remain God after he has done so (in this case he'd be making the law of non-contradiction false).

I don't think I have ever called someone an idiot. I think God has the ability to exist and not exist. But he just exists.