God is such a thing. Does that mean God exists of necessity? I don't see why it does. To get to that conclusion one would have to stipulate that if something exists without a cause, then it exists of necessity. But that claim is precisely what I dispute - I see no reason to think that the absence of a cause makes something exist of necessity, rather than contingently.

For instance, let's imagine that God does exist of necessity. And now let's imagine that God necessarily causes the universe to exist. Well, now the universe exists of necessity. Yet the universe would be caused.

Clearly, then, 'existing of necessity' does not mean the same as 'existing without a cause'

I can never have the ability to reason with someone who doubts pure logic or worse....... denying it... because if so, I'll literally lack every possible common ground to begin a philosphical conversation with him. — BARAA

any existing thing has to be either contingent or necessary — BARAA

"Contingent, "grounding", these are concepts you mention which are simply flowery language designed to support something you take on faith, not logic or reason. Ever since (specifically) Hobbes, Descartes, and those of their company, it has been known in the West that the supernatural is not necessary to explain the world. You can take lofty ideas as your path but that is just going into the clouds without knowing with certainly someone will receive you home there

I see no reason to think that the absence of a cause makes something exist of necessity, rather than contingently. — Bartricks

This is very bad,man.... because contingency means that the very self of the thing is not sufficient for existence and that essentially requires an external cause for the existence, otherwise the existence will have no cause at all which I don't think I need to clarify that it defeats logic.

because it is self-evident to reason - that any existing thing has either to exist contingently or necessarily. — Bartricks

Offer a syllogism or state, please, that it's a priori innately self-evident. I deny that it is the latter

she is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being - that is, God. — Bartricks

Saying God is male is a problem. Saying she is female is a problem. Saying she is neither is a problem. Saying there is God is a problem

False. Contingency and necessity are logical categories but don't apply to external things — Gregory

Were you trying to say that laws of logic don't necessarily apply outside our minds?

No, it doesn't mean that.

I just showed you how something might exist of necessity, yet have a cause.

And we both agreed that something exists uncaused.

So, something exists uncaused. We know that by the light of reason.

And we know, again by the light of reason, that the fact something exists uncaused does not entail that it exists of necessity.

I just showed you how something might exist of necessity, yet have a cause. — Bartricks

Can you read again what you just wrote, please?

I'll go through the example again.

Let's assume that God exists of necessity.
Let's assume that God necessarily creates the universe.

Now, the universe will exist of necessity, won't it?

Yet it will also have a cause.

So, 'exists of necessity' is not equivalent to 'exists without a cause'

The argument I gave establishes that there exists something that lacks a cause.

That thing is God.

But it doesn't follow from the fact God lacks a cause of his existence that God therefore exists of necessity.

You think it does, yes? That's just mistaken.

Let's assume that God necessarily creates the universe.

Now, the universe will exist of necessity, won't it? — Bartricks

No,even if God necessarily has to create the universe,this can never change the core truth of the universe's entity...the universe will remain contingent forever.

Now I don't know what you mean.

To exist of necessity is for it to be impossible for it not to exist, yes?

Well, if God exists of necessity and God - of necessity - creates the universe, then it is impossible for hte universe not to exist. So it will exist of necessity. Yet it will be caused.

What you're doing is using 'exists of necessity' and 'exists uncaused' interchangeably. The whole point is they're not the same.

Note, if they were the same, then God wouldn't exist - for reasons already given.
For if God exists of necessity, then he can't not exist. And that's not compatible with being omnipotent. I mean, even I can not exist - so even I would turn out to have a power that God lacked, which is absurd.

We are suffering from a category error here... let's clarify that existing by necessity isn't always the same as being a necessary existent by nature,ok?

No, explain. At the moment it sounds like a distinction without a difference (or, perhaps, the difference will simply be 'exists of necessity and hasn't been caused to exist' and 'exists of necessity and has been caused to exist').

A contingent existent is by definition the existent which its very self is not sufficient for existence. Now we can see that this truth will not change if the cause necessarily has to produce such existent...so yes a contingent thing can logically exist by necessity if this is what you meant....now if you believe God is of this kind then you're actually saying that God is caused by a cause that necessarily caused God and then you'll have to accept that God would lack sufficiency, absoluteness,unlimitedness,greatness and glory....do you believe in such God?

1)contingent things exist.
2)a contingent existent needs an external cause to exist and if its cause is also contingent,it will also need a cause and so on. — BARAA

Let's try to make sense of this using possible world semantics.

Contingent things exist.
That is, there are things that exist in some, but not all, possible worlds. Cool.

a contingent existent needs an external cause to exist...
Things that exist in some but not all possible worlds need an external cause to exist.

Hm. It's not obvious why this should be so. What would be required to show this to be wrong is a thing that is uncaused, and yet does not exist in all possible worlds. I posit a possible world containing only a single atom of hydrogen that has existed for eternity.

It seems that the argument conflates two senses of contingent - possible and causal.

And indeed, that a specified atom of Uranium decays at a given time is an event that does not have a cause - nothing makes it happen at the specific time it occurs. Because quantum.

So it looks to me like the argument fails.

Which is of course exactly what god wanted; "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."

.

Exists contingently means 'exists but did not have to exist' and exists necessarily means 'exists and cannot not exist'. (I think that's how Avicenna himself defined the terms, though I am not sure).

I think God exists contingently. So, he exists, but he doesn't have to. Why? Because he's omnipotent and so he has the power to cease existing.

I also think God has no cause of his existence.

I have explained why. We know from reasoned reflection that at least one thing must exist uncaused. And you agreed.

So, we agree that something exists uncaused.

So, I think God exists uncaused and that God exists contingently.

You think God exists of necessity, yes?

As well as being contradictory (for if God exists of necessity then he is not omnipotent and so not God) there is no reason to think that God exists of necessity.

The arguments that attempt to show that God exists of necessity show only that God exists uncaused.

And I have shown you why 'exists uncaused' and 'exists of necessity' are not the same.

Exists contingently means 'exists but did not have to exist' and exists necessarily means 'exists and cannot not exist'. — Bartricks

Well, no. Something exists necessarily if it exists in all possible worlds. Something exists possibly if it exists in some, but not all, possible worlds.

This is the definition from Possible World Semantics; it's a clearer definition than was available to medieval scholars.

And it shows that necessity has nothing to do with cause.

it occurs. Because quantum. — Banno

You're trying to explain an event while arguing against causality.you accept causality or not?make a decision

No, what possible world semantics gives us is another way to say the same thing. So not 'no', but 'here's another way to express the same concept'.

And yes, if something can exist of necessity, then it can exist of necessity and have been caused or it can exist of necessity and not have been caused.

That's my point: thus, establishing that a thing exists uncaused is not to have established that it exists of necessity.

Were you trying to say that laws of logic don't necessarily apply outside our minds? — BARAA

Yes. Thoughts like 'exists and cannot not exist' are just constructions of the mind and have no place in reality. We live in a stray universe and it exists uncaused. To say otherwise is just superstition it seems to me. The world is incidental, brute, quaint. Kant's thoughts speak beautifully to the horizons of the heart. Hegel in Faith and Knowledge (1802) wrote that, for Kant, God is the perfect connection between our thoughts and the world. To see the world perfectly is most divine. To want to get on your knees and worship a being of your imagination is unbecoming

You're trying to explain an event while arguing against causality.you accept causality or not?make a decision — BARAA

Well, yes and no. See this thread; Causality, Determination and such stuff.

I started this line of thought with an old Anscombe article, which superficially was a critique of Davidson's position that reasons for action are indeed causes. It broadened considerably when I added the Del Santo article, focusing the conversation more on physical causation. It seems to me that we have broad agreement, at least amongst those posters here who have some learning in physics, that classical systems need not be deterministic. The conversation now is about refining that notion or explaining it to Harry.

Those ubiquitous threads that link causation to the beginnings of spacetime and variously invoke God or panpsychism or Roger Penrose for the most part fall to this view.

We still have the discussion of reasons as causes to attend. But if causes are not as determined as was thought, perhaps it doesn't matter all that much whether we choose to treat our reasons as causing our actions. SimIlarly, the demise of determinism takes the pressure off our feeling justified in punishing those who choose stuff we don't like. — Banno

SO... you are vehemently agreeing with me?

I don't think you get what a contingent being is,do you? — BARAA

Well, one of us might not.

I am denying that you contradicted me

Ah.

Even if God existed, maybe he wants us to be atheists. Piety is not a virtue. Its simply taking our endless craving and creating an object for them. Maybe what we think has no relation to reality in that case. If we can never truly conceptualize God, maybe is reasonable for us to conclude that he, if he exists, wants us to ignore him

God does exist, but he'll only tell you he does if you listen to him. That is, you have first to undertake to listen to reason, and then and only then will you be told that reason is God.

But anyway, this thread is about Avicenna's argument for God, an argument that - it seems to me - falsely assumes that if something exists contingently, then it must have a cause of its existence. An argument that then leads him to posit a necessary existent.

The irony is that this would disprove God. For if God existed of necessity, then he wouldn't be God, as he wouldn't be able not to exist (which is incompatible with being omnipotent).

So the argument does not work, not in that form anyway. It does not follow from something existing contingently that it must have a cause of its existence. Contingent things can exist uncaused. One example of this is God himself: God exists uncaused, yet God exists contingently.

Nevertheless, we can conclude on the basis of a very similar argument that everything that exists has either been caused to exist or exists uncaused. And furthermore, all those things that have been caused to exist, must ultimately have been caused to exist by something that was not caused to exist.

Reading the argument makes me wonder the following:

If the chain of contingent existents has an origin (it has an external cause, the necessary existent; which means that the chain was caused by the necessary existent), there must have been a time in which it did not exist. At this time, there would be only the necessary existent. However, the necessary existent is necessary if an only if there is at least one chain of contingent existents (assuming there could be more than one, and this is just an assumption) whose existence depends on the necessary existent, meaning that at the time in which only the necessary contingent existent exists, the necessary existent would not really be necessary.

Also, if the existence of contingent existents causes the chain of existents to exist, why would it need an additional cause to exist (the external cause)?

Taking an empirical object, abstracting it from time, and asking "is this, this thing, necessary or contingent" is really pointless. It's subjective deception that possesses no objectivity that is universal and acknowledged by everyone. Maybe art reveals thoughts of those kind but there are many aesthetics out there. Anschauung, much to "view". Even Satanism is just an aesthetic