So you have a choice to postulate magical fine-tuned universe, just like we observe, or to postulate unobservable magical being, that just so happens to be fine-tuned to hallucinate into existence this magical fine-tuned universe we actually observe. — Zelebg
Then the universe existed before time. Or whatever paradox you accepted for your deity, it can be applied directly to the universe. — Zelebg
I don't think that conclusion gets you to an agency, much less God. I think what it gets you to is the existence of simple things. — Bartricks
But after time has been created, then that which created it would be 'in' time. For how could it not be? And yet this creator or creators, would now be in time, yet would not have any cause external to themselves. Thus by your own lights not everything in time has an external cause of its existence, for the creator of time is in time and does not have an external cause of its existence. — Bartricks
I should add, I do not deny your conclusion - I think we do have overwhelmingly good reason to think that the universe has a single first cause and that the first cause is 'God' at least in some sense of that term. — Bartricks
a. time has always existed, but it’s not quite what it seems to be — Zelebg
And without God, we are left with an unexplainable mystery of the universe being fine-tuned
Something causally effective, IE intelligent, must exist before time.
Why is god fine-tuned? — Zelebg
You are not addressing the point. Universe is causally effective and it does not have to be intelligent to achieve that. Ok? — Zelebg
Time cannot have always existed:
1. Assume time has always existed
2. Call the current state of the universe X
3. Then the universe has been in state X a greater than any number of times in the past
4. Absurd, so 1 is wrong - time has a start
God's environment cannot be fine-tuned for life because there is no-one to do the fine tuning.
So God must not need a fine-tuned environment.
No dumb mechanical system can be causally effective - there is nothing to initiate motion and even if by some impossibility there was motion, it would lead to equilibrium after a time.
You are misinterpreting. I did not say the universe always existed, I said time always existed and universes get created from time to time. — Zelebg
I do not understand you or why you are weeping with laughter — Bartricks
But the first cause must be causally effective; able to cause an effect without itself being caused. So it must be intelligent and not just a 'simple thing'. — Devans99
Good point, but the thing that creates time may stay outside of time. It might be diminishing of its powers to enter time. — Devans99
God is either in time or out of time:
1. If he is eternal in time, then he has no start, no coming into being so cannot exist
2. If he is in time but there is an empty stretch of time before his coming into being then there is nothing to create him - creation ex nilhilo - which is impossible
3. That leaves just a timeless God as the only possibility. — Devans99
How does it follow that it 'must' be an intelligence? It must be a simple thing that has the power of substance causation (substance causation being causation by a substance, rather than an event involving it). But you've made a leap by concluding that it therefore must be intelligent. — Bartricks
And why must it be unitary? A plethora of simple substance causes seems perhaps more reasonable than the posit of a single simple substance cause. — Bartricks
I don't see why you think premise 1 is true. If God is a simple thing then he is uncreated, which is not the same as not existing. The simple things that are required for anything to exist are of precisely this kind - that is, they have no beginning, yet nevertheless exist. — Bartricks
God does create time, I think. But he is not outside of it, for what he creates now applies to him, just as the writer of an autobiography is the author of a work that has him/herself as its main subject. — Bartricks
How can something cause without itself being effected? It must be self-driven. The first cause cannot be an automation because they need creating. So the first cause must be intelligent. — Devans99
What set the plethora of simple substances is motion? There must be a first cause for that too. — Devans99
Not everything that happens can be caused by a happening, for then one has an infinite regress of happenings. So some things that happen - including, of course, the first happenings - must be caused not by prior happenings, but by substances. — Bartricks
You must already accept the existence of such things, for 'God' is one. What I am saying is that you are not justified in insisting that there is just 'one' such substance. Other things being equal it seems as reasonable - if not more reasonable - to posit a plethora. — Bartricks
Once we are beyond time, we are beyond the familiar comfort of cause and effect. And therefore beyond the possibility of an infinite causal regress. — Devans99
That's false and it contradicts your own position. You think God created time - yes? Well, how did he do that if causation itself requires time (which it doesn't)? — Bartricks
But you also think causation requires time - yes? — Bartricks
That's contradictory. That means God would be unable to create time until or unless time exists. — Bartricks
We do not understand what timeless causation could mean so it is hard to answer. God's first act could have created time. But 'first' has no meaning for a timeless entity. — Devans99
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