The principle of sufficient reason cannot apply to existence (everything) without circularity, since otherwise the deduced reason would automatically not exist — which is contradictory.

Therefore, applying the principle to the whole universe, automatically/implicitly assumes something "extra universal" — which just is a subtle form of begging the question.

It's just hard to find any conceptual "meat" in this first principle. — Hoo

One answer is that all religion, art and science can do is point towards it; but it is never a 'that' for us, it is never an object of perception. But it is 'the One, the first cause, the uncreated creator, from which everything comes, to which everything goes' (to paraphrase a neoplatonist aphorism).

I'm starting to realise how thoroughly 'animal' is our modern sensibility; that what, for us, is real, is 'out there somewhere'. It has to be conceived of as being in space and time - in meatspace! So to conceive of another domain or dimension, actually takes a noetic transformation ~ meta-noia.

One has to appeal to the heart and to the will - not to the mind and the intellect — Agustino

In general, formation of beliefs can be fairly complex.
And not a mere matter of exercising (free) will, though sometimes exercising intellect will make a difference.
(Just try believing there are pink elephants on your lawn for five minutes sharp, and report back with findings.)

We just watched "Holy Hell" (2016) on CNN the other day.
A documentary exemplifying psychology and sociology involved in formation of beliefs, (induced) epic experiences, (emotional) needs and wants, belonging, ...
Worth watching, and giving some consideration, whenever you think of how people come to beliefs and hang onto them (perhaps how Jesus or Muhammad or someone else could have gained followers).

For me the realm of the spiritual is more or less the realm of feeling and the sensual. I can get behind something like "God is love." I suppose one could describe (from this perspective) spirituality-beyond-feeling as a sort of idolatry. It's a desire to "crystallize" the "spirit" or make a graven image (concept) of what is truly non-conceptual and undoubtedly real nevertheless. Yes, we have a concept of feeling, but this concept is not feeling itself. When the heart is full of love, praise is more natural than questioning, unless the questioning is a form of creative play. That for me escapes the problem of theological foundation and makes no empirical claims. From a Blakean perspective, artists experience such feelings and encode them "sensually" in images and music. The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. Etc. I'm just presenting this as an appealing option.

I really don't like the word 'spiritual for what I'm trying to describe, but we're stuck with it - google synonyms and you get 'religious' and 'sacred', which I don't much like either. But it's because of the culture we're in. The Eskimos have 34 different words for 'white'; there are many different words or equivalents for 'the spiritual' in other languages but when you translate them back into English you're stuck with 'spiritual'.

But then, you're close to the mark in the objection to 'making a graven image': to try and capture 'the sacred' in words is already to reduce it to the realm of the profane; hence the Hebrew 'tetragrammaton' the original Hebrew name for God, four consonants which were unpronounceable and couldn't be spoken.

Again, we're back to the seminal notion of the first cause as being 'uncreated and unborn', an understanding which even has an analogy in non-theistic philosophies:

There is, monks, an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated. If there were not that unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, there would not be the case that escape from the born — become — made — fabricated would be discerned. But precisely because there is an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, escape from the born — become — made — fabricated is discerned. — The Buddha

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Duplicate post.

(Accidently double posted... Please delete)

Hey, I can't answer this all right now, so I might aim for tomorrow.

I'm not sure that makes sense...
The terms "instantaneous" and "cause" are already temporal, and "before time" is incoherent.
So, if said "first cause" did not begin at the definite earliest time, then what?
You could redefine "cause", but that would most likely be special pleading for the occasion. — Jorndoe

Is an instantaneous cause temporal, though? I mean, I don't think so. Something that can be said to be in an instant wouldn't be occurring in time at all - that requires duration. I don't think this is a really discrete moment in time, like a Planck time unit, but something without duration. It's resistance to being caught into time at all. And if you think such a thing is impossible, then I would say you estimate time wholes behaving the same way as object wholes, but we might argue that time is not consistent of part wholes at all like extended objects are, and that you merely assumed such in viewing time as a spatialized continuum.

We're just not looking at temporal causes here. We're looking in terms of priority for first cause. First cause would then be the first in priority, not receiving its existence or anything else from a prior cause.

But I think the most important thing to consider is it's just simply logically required by the cosmological argument. Even if we were to say such as thing might be hard to conceive, or even experience, we see rather retrogressively that a contingent universe needs a necessary unconditioned ground. So even if we said it's special pleading, it's a justified case of special pleading.

As for the before time... it is incoherent. This isn't a before time. This is anterior to time. Or perhaps the cause that puts time into motion instantaneously. I don't think this is so ridiculous since we've had at least Kantian transcendentalism demonstrate that the TS could offer us the conditions of possibility for time to occur at all. As well as those people think that time is put into world as soon as consciousness occurs.

The principle of sufficient reason cannot apply to existence (everything) without circularity, since otherwise the deduced reason would automatically not exist — which is contradictory.

Therefore, applying the principle to the whole universe, automatically/implicitly assumes something "extra universal" — which just is a subtle form of begging the question. — jorndoe

I'm not sure if scholasticism is trying to deduce reason using reason - which would be circular. I think the argument is: the PSR is either false or true (LEM). If it's false, then the world as a totality would be without reason, including our very thoughts which are a part of it. But then our very reasons for justification would not have ground.

Also, we're not saying it's the entire universe. We're saying it's the entire world; it's all of existence. Unless we're question-begging a closed universe in some type of naturalism/physicalism, then the world isn't just the universe.

I think the argument is: the PSR is either false or true (LEM). — Marty

In that sense, it would then be false, as exemplified prior.

• the principle of sufficient reason cannot apply to existence (everything) without circularity, since otherwise the deduced reason would automatically not exist — which is contradictory

@Wayfarer seems to argue the same with 2+2=4.
A logical structure of "everything and then some" violates the first law, the law of identity.
That said, the principle does make sense, it's just not unconditional, and demarcation of applicability matters as well.
Rather, assuming the principle is easily justified inductively/abductively.

• therefore, applying the principle to the whole universe, automatically/implicitly presumes something "extra universal", that existence and the whole universe are different — which is petitio principii

As another member once expressed it:

the cosmological argument is an invalid a posteriori inductive argument because experience does not justify extrapolating from experience to "beyond" — 180 Proof

(Just try believing there are pink elephants on your lawn for five minutes sharp, and report back with findings.) — jorndoe

I am reporting back with the findings :D It's not that I can't believe the pink elephants - it's that I don't want to believe it, and I can't make myself want to believe it. Again - it's a matter of the will. If you convinced my will to believe that, then I would, provided that my intellect would not stand in the way.

We just watched "Holy Hell" (2016) on CNN the other day. — jorndoe

Thanks for the recommendation.

The principle of sufficient reason cannot apply to existence (everything) without circularity, since otherwise the deduced reason would automatically not exist — which is contradictory.

Therefore, applying the principle to the whole universe, automatically/implicitly assumes something "extra universal" — which just is a subtle form of begging the question. — jorndoe

It's not begging the question. If observation of existing things leads to the inductive conclusion that all existing things are contingent, then this is a premise from which we can proceed in a deductive argument. If the whole universe is an existing thing, then the univese is contingent. You might question the method of observation, or the inductive reasoning which leads to the premise that all things are contingent, but to simply claim that the premise begs the question, is not only a pointless assertion, but it's simply wrong.

Here's an analogy. Suppose upon observation, someone determines that the colour of objects change depending on conditions external to the objects, the objects' environment. That person might employ inductive logic to produce the premise that the colour of objects is contingent on something external to the object. If we assume that the universe is an object, then we could proceed to say that the colour of the universe is contingent on something external to it.

This type of proceeding is not a form of begging the question. But if there appears to be an obvious problem with the deductive conclusion, you need to examine the premises, and determine how they were derived. What is at issue in both cases above is the concept of "the universe is an object", or as you say, "the whole universe". If the "the universe" is one whole, an object, then it is necessarily bounded, and this forces the question of what acts as the boundary.

Is an instantaneous cause temporal, though? I mean, I don't think so. Something that can be said to be in an instant wouldn't be occurring in time at all - that requires duration. I don't think this is a really discrete moment in time, like a Planck time unit, but something without duration. It's resistance to being caught into time at all. And if you think such a thing is impossible, then I would say you estimate time wholes behaving the same way as object wholes, but we might argue that time is not consistent of part wholes at all like extended objects are, and that you merely assumed such in viewing time as a spatialized continuum. — Marty

The nature of time is clearly the key issue to the cosmological argument. There are two distinct ways of looking at the relationship between time and physical (material, or temporal) existence. Change, motion and such, we can understand as inherent within physical existence. There is not problem here, we take this for granted, and this gives us "contingent" existence.

The "way" of the cosmological argument, is to analyze and understand a logical relationship between contingent existence and time. Contingent existence, and therefore all physical existence, which has motion and change inherent within it, is logically dependent on the passing of time. There is no such thing as change and motion without the passing of time. Therefore the passing of time is necessarily prior to all physical existence. The passing of time becomes comprehensible as a type of activity which is prior to physical activity.

The more common "way" in current understandings, which is the way of modern science, ties the passing of time to physical existence, motion and change, such that without physical change, there is no passing of time. I've taken time to study this issue, and I prefer the way of the cosmological argument as providing for a more comprehensive understanding of reality.

Consider what you call an "instantaneous cause". If physical change requires a certain duration of time, a planck time for example, then we know that between one physical state and the next, a duration of time has passed. However during that time period no physical change is occurring, the physical change only occurs after that period of time has passed.
.

It's not about chemistry, it's about what makes chemistry possible. — Wayfarer

I think the takeaway from the article, in this context, is that some chemistries (or whatever else we find in nature) cannot evolve life as we know it, and others can (of which the chemistry we know is just one).

And so, lifeforms like us could not evolve in any of the former, but could evolve in any of the latter, to subsequently wonder about "fine-tuning", which puts fine-tuning into perspective.

(quick comment, while on the move)

@Metaphysician Undercover, spatiality and objects are related much like temporality and processes, and they're all aspects of the universe.
At least when going by common ontological terminology.

the cosmological argument is an invalid a posteriori inductive argument because experience does not justify extrapolating from experience to "beyond"

The problem is JornDoe, that 'the beyond' has now become a necessary postulate for many modern cosmologists, in the form of the so-called 'mutlverse speculation', on the one hand, or Everett's 'many-worlds hypothesis' on the other.

"The great mystery is not why there is dark energy. The great mystery is why there is so little of it,” said Leonard Susskind of Stanford University, at a 2007 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “The fact that we are just on the knife edge of existence, [that] if dark energy were very much bigger we wouldn’t be here, that’s the mystery.” Even a slightly larger value of dark energy would have caused spacetime to expand so fast that galaxies wouldn’t have formed.

[Astrophysicist, Sandra] Faber declared that there were only two possible explanations for fine-tuning. “One is that there is a God and that God made it that way,” she said. But for Faber, an atheist, divine intervention is not the answer.

“The only other approach that makes any sense is to argue that there really is an infinite, or a very big, ensemble of universes out there and we are in one,” she said.

Source

Once we have granted that any physical theory is essentially only a model for the world of experience we must renounce all hope of finding anything like the correct theory ... simply because the totality of experience is never accessible to us. — Hugh Everett III

Source

I think the argument is: the PSR is either false or true (LEM). If it's false, then the world as a totality would be without reason, including our very thoughts which are a part of it. But then our very reasons for justification would not have ground. — Marty

The LEM is a little problematic. It seems to assume that propositions aren't fuzzy/ambiguous. But what is a reason or a ground? In our worldly lives, it seems that we naturally postulate necessities, which may just be shared, strong expectations when closely analyzed. As we become more critical thinkers, we become more conscious of what we are doing. We attain some distance and apply criteria like falsifiability, for instance. Then we want our postulated necessities or expectations-as-axioms to fit well together into an economical system. The ground may be (usefully described as) psychological.

The problem is JornDoe, that 'the beyond' has now become a necessary postulate for many modern cosmologists, in the form of the so-called 'mutlverse speculation', on the one hand, or Everett's 'many-worlds hypothesis' on the other. — Wayfarer

Could not one say that science has always been about the beyond in its reliance on invisible entities? Where is a point mass or a real number? It's as if we translate everyday experience into an idealist realm of mathematically linked concepts, deduce consequences, and translate back. The scientific image is like a video game that runs parallel to life as we live it.

@Metaphysician Undercover, spatiality and objects are related much like temporality and processes, and they're all aspects of the universe.
At least when going by common ontological terminology. — jorndoe

It's not so straight forward as you make this out to be. Space and time are concepts. They are the means by which we understand objects and processes. Sure, concepts are aspects of the universe, but if our concept of space, or our concept of time is inadequate for a true understanding of reality, then it would be in some sense, wrong, or incorrect. In that case, the space, or time, represented by the concept would not be an aspect of the universe. The concept would be, in that respect, fictitious.

You can conceive of space and time as attributes of objects and processes, or you can conceive of them as the necessary conditions for objects and processes. The difference is significant. You can also conceive of one as an attribute, and the other as a necessary condition That's what I prefer, space is an attribute of physical objects, and time is a necessary condition for processes.

Can you elaborate further? I'm not sure what you mean. It seems if the cosmological argument proves the universe to be contingent it necessarily implies there's something beyond the universe. That and reason isn't solely contained in the universe - isn't merely physical constrained.

In order to prove God you're assuming he's beyond the physical realm. I must be missing something you or the other members are trying to say?

Are you saying the PSR is a pragmatic and useful way of viewing the world? That only exists in the intellect?

And can you give me examples of where propositions are fuzzy and ambiguous?

The need for a ground is merely to say all unconditioned beings must find their end in something other than themselves. Are you talking about epistemological foundationalism/anti-foundationalism?


Yes, this all seems pretty fair in the classic conceptions of motion, etc...

Real quick:

It seems like what you want is an ethical theory that can ground, but isn't that the very thing that Levinas wants to say is impossible? That normative ethics provide justification for law, and law then becomes violence? Then the reasons we ground an ethical system eventually become subversive. So order becomes a form of power, a way of producing a demand on others to obey some x. But we already know historically this hasn't worked well. We get technocracies, bureaucracies, capitalism, technological enframing, educational systems that begin to take a monopoly of what's right for our children. History hasn't proven to be progressive ethically, and the epitome of violence was seen in second world war for Levinas.

As for offering further phenomenological explanations, I'd go do some research on Levinas' face-to-face. I'd offer an explanation but it's not really related to the topic, and it'd require some work and general phenomenological assumptions which I'd need some time to think about. :-!

@Wayfarer

Neither modal realism (Lewis) nor the many-worlds hypothesis (Everett) are particularly necessary, and remain more controversial than "problems". They're just speculation, pending research, until they can be verified/falsified. You could perhaps add M-theory, except a good lot of theoretical research has been put into this one.

Yeah, fine-tuning works best without modal realism and many-worlds, so maybe there's an odd sort of competition going on? Which do you think has the best chance of becoming verified/falsified (or scientific) anyway...?

Here's more theorizing, but at least it's not magical thinking:

• Every black hole contains a new universe: A physicist presents a solution to present-day cosmic mysteries; Nikodem Poplawski; May 2012
• No Big Bang? Quantum equation predicts universe has no beginning; Ahmed Farag Ali and Saurya Das, via Lisa Zyga; Feb 2015

Still a side-track from the opening post. Kick off a new thread?

It seems if the cosmological argument proves the universe to be contingent it necessarily implies there's something beyond the universe. — Marty

I thought the task was to show a (unique) first cause, like Craig, and then (perhaps) that the first cause is necessary?

can you give me examples of where propositions are fuzzy and ambiguous? — Marty

The principle of sufficient reason is just not unconditional. As per earlier posts, you can find examples to which the principle does not apply, so you have to rule those out before applying it.

• the principle of sufficient reason cannot apply to existence ("everything") without circularity, since otherwise the deduced reason would then not exist, which is contradictory
• 2+2=4 may be another example, as suggested by @Wayfarer, which converges on the strange Platonic realm of old
• thus, before applying the principle to some x, you must ensure x is not one such example (this is usually simple enough, or reasonable, for ordinary everyday trivialities)
• unconditional application can be misapplication, and has a logical structure of "everything and then some", which violates the first law, the law of identity
• if the whole universe is everything, then the principle cannot apply to the universe
• you must first show that the whole universe is not everything, or, more accurately, that the principle applies to the whole universe

Are you saying the PSR is a pragmatic and useful way of viewing the world? That only exists in the intellect? — Marty

I'm wondering if it's not just the formalization of expectation. We are future oriented beings, so we want to find relationships in the past and present that help us meet or create this future. Obviously there is some serious structure in the everyday external world. Obviously we trust science, too, at least as far as technology. But why should any event have a cause or (in other words?) have been somehow predictable? Is it because we are helpless against utterly unpredictable events? It makes sense that we would have evolved to look for "causes" or to posit relationships in events. So maybe there's a gut-level itch for a cause and yet no strong argument for PSR beyond economy and instinct.

And can you give me examples of where propositions are fuzzy and ambiguous? — Marty

Sure, I'll try.
"God is love."
"The real is rational and the rational is real."
"If metaphysics is metaphorical, then metaphor is metaphysical."
"The sign is that ill-named thing, the only one, that escapes the instituting question of philosophy: what is it?"
"Being is not a being."
"There's nothing ambiguous about ambiguity itself."
"No finite thing has genuine being. "

The need for a ground is merely to say all unconditioned beings must find their end in something other than themselves. Are you talking about epistemological foundationalism/anti-foundationalism? — Marty

There's a view of the self as a self-reweaving network of beliefs and desires that I find plausible. I think the representational paradigm (truth as correspondence) is great for ordinary life, but I lean toward an instrumentalist view as ideas become more abstract. It becomes less clear that they correspond to anything. But if they bring us pleasure and get us what we want, we learn to trust them, or put weight on the them so that we'll defend them against skeptics or opposite beliefs. Roughly, our abstract beliefs are underdetermined by the social and physical constrains on our behavior. So there's a trial and error process of acting as if and then there's the constant attempt to reduce cognitive dissonance or friction between under-determined ideas as instruments. For instance, this theory is one such instrument, since you've probably been doing just fine without it. So, yeah, common sense with a variable cream on top where religion and metaphysics and poetry live. And must we assume that there is a single truth in abstract matters? Or just differing, useful mind-tools? Forgive the spiel! I was trying to give context...

Yeah, fine-tuning works best without modal realism and many-worlds, so maybe there's an odd sort of competition going on? Which do you think has the best chance of becoming verified/falsified (or scientific) anyway...? — Jordoe

My point is relatively simple: the naive argument that the physical sciences have somehow eliminated the need to a 'supernatural' explanation, is not actually borne out by the current state of science, which feel compelled to appeal to 'alternative' supernatural explanations, such as the existence of infinite universes. Sure such theories are speculative - but they're also found to be necessary by at least some theorists (and, no doubt, on more than a few grant applications.)

1. whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence
2. the universe began to exist
3. therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence
4. it's rational to believe that said cause is God — jorndoe

* I don't agree with (1). I think that's rather an assumption that we don't really have any good empirical or logical justification for, as with the assumption that all events in general (not just coming-into-existence events) are causal.

* (3) I don't agree with terminologically/semantically. If the universe began to exist, then it can't have a cause, because whatever we'd posit as the cause would be part of the universe; hence the universe already existed at that point.

* (4) seems arbitrary; it seems to be a non-sequitur. What would actually follow is "Therefore there was some-we-haven't-the-faintest-idea-what that was the cause, where somehow unspecified it would make sense to say that the cause in question was not a part of the universe."

I don't agree with (1).

What are examples of things that don't begin to exist?

??? As I made explicit, what I was disagreeing with was the part about causality, not the part about beginning to exist.

But sure, maybe some things don't have a starting point. Any arbitrary particle could be taken as an example of something with or without a starting point, the gist of that being that it's not something we can actually observe--that some particle did or did not have a starting point. That's rather about our assumptions and interpretations.

Any arbitrary particle could be taken as an example of something with or without a starting point.

Hey, thanks for clearing that up.

I am reporting back with the findings :D It's not that I can't believe the pink elephants - it's that I don't want to believe it, and I can't make myself want to believe it. — Agustino

Excellent, thanks. :D

We need more samples for the experiment.

I found that honest belief in the elephants didn't come about as a matter of exercising "free will", sort of justifying that sometimes at least "seeing is believing".
On the other hand, I also believe there's snow on the peak of Mount Everest, and that there are exoplanets, though less "seeing", and more thinking, is involved.

"There was a pink elephant on the street"; SP. Kiwiyum; 1m:58s youtube; Jul 2012

the naive argument that the physical sciences have somehow eliminated the need to a 'supernatural' explanation, is not actually borne out by the current state of science, which feel compelled to appeal to 'alternative' supernatural explanations, such as the existence of infinite universes — Wayfarer

Neither naïve, nor eliminated, respectively.

Paraphrasing someone I don't recall, perhaps alluding to magical thinking:

quite a few supernatural explanations have been supplanted by natural explanations throughout history, little or no natural explanations have been replaced by supernatural explanations

Looking through the history books, break-throughs and striking advances have been conspicuously absent in theology, markedly in comparison to other endeavors, and professional theologians have been at it for centuries. Wouldn't it be cool to see news headlines with "Theologians make new ground-breaking discovery"? :D

Do you think modal realism (Lewis) and the many-worlds hypothesis (Everett) are supernatural...?

The Incredible Shrinking God; Skeptico; Dec 2008

* (4) seems arbitrary; it seems to be a non-sequitur. What would actually follow is "Therefore there was some-we-haven't-the-faintest-idea-what that was the cause, where somehow unspecified it would make sense to say that the cause in question was not a part of the universe." — Terrapin Station

You're right, as also noted by @Michael.
The central part of the argument is 1-3, which has the form of an ordinary syllogism.
4 should have been separated out, instead of my paraphrase.