The God delusion is an awful book and is not at all representative of actual atheology. If your interested in real responses to proper formulations of the OA, look towards actual atheist philosophers like Graham Oppy for example.

This is an awful formulation, a Plantingian Modal OA is much better and even those are hard to defend (albeit I accept it).

Now, I'm no physicalist, But this seems kind of like question begging does it not?

The first event or moment or cause in a chain of events, moments or causes?

Irrelevant. I have the power not to exist, yes? So, an all powerful being must have that power too. He wouldn't if he exists of necessity. — Bartricks

No, shrugging it off as irrelevant does not encourage any kind of discussion. I've explained what omnipotence classically is and I've explained why that doesn't fall under it - so your point is moot.

What you say about those traditions is also false and irrelevant. Both Jesus and the Koran describe a God who can do 'anything'. They do not describe a necessary existent. But anyway, this is a philosophy forum not a 'describe your favourite tradition' forum. — Bartricks

Oh really?

Often we infer from these passages that God “can do anything.” But that doesn’t quite reflect the full biblical teaching. There are things that God cannot do. He cannot lie (Titus 1:2, cf. Num 23:19), nor, similarly, can he perform any immoral action. Since God is perfectly holy and good, he cannot do anything evil. And, since he is perfect truth, he cannot do things that are logically contradictory, like making round squares. His truth is a perfect consistency of thought and action. Nor can God do things inappropriate to his nature as God, like buying shoes or celebrating his birthday.

That's Christianity, as for Islam - Muhammad b. Yusūf al-Sanūsī (d. 1490) puts it simply:

"Divine Power and Will:

The Reality of Divine Power: It is an eternal Attribute of which the existence and non existence of any possible thing is derived from, in accordance to the Divine Will."

You've misunderstood what Traditional Abrahamists mean by omnipotence, I hope you can admit where you're wrong.

Yes, but you can't get to your conclusion unless you assume that all contingent existences require explanations. — Bartricks

Yes, I can, actually. It's a Modal Argument - Do you know how those work? I'm not required to assume the SPSR is true, I only maintain it's possibility.

No it doesn't. It assumes that all things that exist have either been caused to exist, or they haven't. Like wot it says. — Bartricks

Wonderful, you've just admit to it begging the question. You've presupposed that it's POSSIBLE for things to come into existence uncaused, that's the very thing being disputed, to presuppose it in the premises is to beg the question, so your argument commits that fallacy.

No they're not. And even if they are, this would undermine your case as one could then have an actual infinity of prior causes and one wouldn't need either to posit an uncaused causer or a necessary existent. — Bartricks

Yes, they are. And no, It wouldn't - because I allow for infinite regresses of contingent causes anyways, that's not relavent to my argument - refer to premise 4 and it's explanation.

No, this is just confused. I could explain again, but you've already made up your mind. — Bartricks

No, you've literally confused causal necessity with metaphysical necessity. Under causal determinism, if we even assume it's true, events are CASUALLY necessary, NOT metaphysically necessary. I mentioned that you were conflating different ideas of necessity and you just shrugged that off - This isnt honest truth seeking whatsoever.

Er, yes - that's why God doesn't exist of necessity. Blimey. And no, what you said was false and irrelevant. Anyway, I can tell this isn't going anywhere - bye. — Bartricks

1. You have misunderstood omnipotenneve
2. Conflated different kinds of necessity
3. Commit fallacies in your argumentation

Thanks for the discussion, Goodbye.

A necesary existent is not necessarily everlasting. If causal determinism is true - and the laws of nature and the past are necessary - then everything that exists exists of necessity. Yet clearly not everything is everlasting. So, you cannot validly conclude from something's existing of necessity, that it exists forever. — Bartricks

Yes it is, something metaphysically necessary cannot fail to exist by definition, it's existence is purely necessary, so you've got your definitions confused like in the last comment.

The same applies. If causal determinism is true, then everything that exists exists of necessity. It would appeal that some of what exists is material. Thus it would seem that something can exist of necessity and be material. Existing of necessity does not, therefore, establish that the existent in question is immaterial. — Bartricks

Once again, that's not what metaphysical necessity is, to put it simply for you - something metaphysically necessary exists in possible worlds and cannot fail to exist. Under causal determinism, it is necessary that what will occur, occurs.

You are quite right to think that an all-powerful being's power is unlimited. But that's precisely why it can't exist of necessity. For if it exists of necessity, then it lacks a power: the power not to exist at that moment. So, far from necessary existence implying omnipotence, it implies the exact opposite. An omnipotent being can do anything, including taking himself out of existence. Thus an omnipotent being does not exist of necessity. (Exists, yes, but not of necessity). — Bartricks

Responsed above - it's logically contradictory for something metaphysically necessary to not exist, and I've explained what omnipotence is in the two main Abrahamic religions.

First, if it goes through it does not prove 'God', but rather a 'necessary existent'. That thing will not be God, for if it exists of necessity then it cannot not exist, and thus is not omnipotent. This is an argument I have made elsewhere on this board. But briefly, it is plainly absurd for me to have powers that an omnipotent being lacks. I can take myself out of existence. Thus, an omnipotent being has that power too. Thus an omnipotent being is not a necessary existent, but exists by the grace of its own will (and so exists contingently, not of necessity). — Bartricks

You can fail to exist due to your contingency, God's necessity renders His non-existence logically impossible. On the Christian and Muslim tradition, Omnipotence is power over all logical or metaphysical possibilities.

But as to the argument itself, it is faulty for you have make two false assumptions. The first is that all contingent existences stand in need of explanation. The second is that a necessary existent would not stand in need of explanation. Both of these assumptions are false. — Bartricks

No, I never said all contingent existences requires explanations, this isnt the SPSR this is the WPSR, I merely stated this is possibly the case. A necessary existence is not grounded in anything because it is absolutely fundamental.

Imagine that causal determinism is true. Well, in that case everything that has come into being, has come into being of necessity. For determinism is the thesis that everything that happens 'had' - that is, was necessitated - to occur, given the past and the laws of nature. And so if we stipulate that the past and the laws of nature are themselves necessary, everything that exists, and everything that occurs does so of necessity. Yet clearly the fact there is a cup of coffee on my desk is still a fact that cries out for explanation. — Bartricks

Causal determinism isnt true though.

What's the problem here? The problem is that even though something may exist or occur of necessity, it can still have a cause of its existing or occurring (as in the case of my cup of coffee being on the desk - it's there by necessity, but it was still caused to there). So, 'being cause to be so' and 'being there of necessity' are compatible. And that's why establishing that something exists or occurs of necessity will not by itself suffice to explain it - for it remains an open question whether it was caused to exist or not. Thus we can still intelligibly ask of anything that exists of necessity "was it caused to come into being or not?" Thus, the 'necessary' and 'contingent' distinction is not one between 'needs an explanation' and 'doesn't need an explanation'. — Bartricks

No, you've made numerous mistakes. Firstly that's not metaphysical necessity, secondly, unless you assume the causal chain itself is metaphysically necessary, then the fact that X event obtains under causal determinism isnt metaphysically necessary, it's still contingent because it doesn't exist in some possible worlds. Tl:Dr you're confusing what metaphysical necessity means.

1. If anything exists, it either exists uncaused, or has been caused to exist
2. Some things exist
3. Therefore, they have either been caused to exist, or they exist uncaused
4. There cannot be an actual infinity of causes
5. If all things that exist have been caused to exist, there will be an actual infinity of causes
6. Therefore, not all things that exist have been caused to exist — Bartricks

1 begs the question because it presupposes existent things can be uncaused.

4 isn't true, actual infinites are possible.

5 isn't true, you've presupposed that all things that exist = an actual infinite

I reject the conclusion.

I made no appeal to contingency or necessity above. So, without appealing to those notions, we can soundly conclude that some things that exist, exist uncaused. — Bartricks

Your argument is severely flawed but even if I accepted it, ors a strawman because I'm not employing a SPSR.

This is an important question. I'm not particularly sure what my position on this is yet, but I came across an interesting paper (Ciro de Florio, 2014) which defends a timeless solution to the problem of foreknowledge and LFW, I'll copy what they've said:

God is thought to be out of time,
without any special relationship with any specific time. Although human beings have a special relationship with the present, God does not. Boethius uses the metaphor of a circle with a point at its center. The circle represents the succession of temporal moments, while the central point represents the divine point of view of the temporal series. Although the temporal moments have different relationships with each other (e.g., they are more or less distant from each other), the central point is at the same distance from every temporal moment, so that none of them is privileged. Consequently, divine knowledge of the future is not foreknowledge in the genuine sense. God does not know what an agent will do before she acts because God’s relationship with the future is the same as His relationship with the present and the past. God simply sees what the agent does at a certain time, but this knowledge of the agent’s choice does not imply that the agent is not free when she acts. The fact that Ann knows that John chooses to do x at time t does not imply that John is not free when he chooses to do x. In the same way, the fact that God knows that John chooses to do x at time t does not impinge on John’s freedom. In terms of modal logic, we can concede that it is necessary that if one knows that the agent does x, then it is true that the agent does p, i.e., □(Kp → p), but from this, it does not follow that it is necessary that the agent does p, i.e., Kp → □p. The simple fact that it is possible to know contingent propositions is sufficient to deny this assumption.

There's also something called an Occasionalistic Defense of LFW, I haven't checked it our yet but it may be worth looking into.