How does this logic of God's existence work?

Question

People use this logic:

1. All things have a cause.
2. If you go back far enough, there has to be a first.
3. The first cause was an Uncaused cause aka God.

Someone explain to me why the 3rd statement does not contradict the 1st?

This is an honest question and I am not supporting/denying the existance of a God. I just hear this logic all the time.

If you are to use Kiekergaard's explanation of infinity of potentiality cannot suddenly turn into actuality without some agent making that change, how can one be sure that this characteristic of God is the same God some religions talk about? What if, and there are, many different characteristics of God that people just lump them into one being just because our only word for this being is God? Was it our language's fault for not coming up with names for different characteristics of "God" ?

Idk, if I sound confusing, Ill add details for those that are confused.

Answer 1

The logic doesn't really go like that. It's more like this (although this isn't careful wording):

1) All things we can see are effects arising from a cause.
2) If time and cause/effect went back forever, there would be no first cause.
3) If there was no first cause, there could be no second, no third, etc. Therefore, time does not go back forever and there must have been a first cause.
4) That first cause is what we call God.

A few points: The focus of the argument is on effects - not causes. All things *arise from a cause*. The logic showing that there must be a first is entirely contained in #3. Since statement #1 and #3 are talking about different things, there is no contradiction.

Statement #4 is the real question mark. It is pretty unsubstantiated and seems to come on as an afterthought almost. It certainly does not prove the "God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" and is not intended to. It only means to prove that Something started it all. We then equate that Something to God.

Xan Shui,
Philosophic Philanthropist, Honest Man

Answer 2

The first statement does contradict the first, the way you've stated them. Let's see if I can come up with a version that works better:

1. All things we know of have causes.
2. There must be a first of everything.
3. There must be a first cause, which we must define as the Unknown or the Unknowable – in other words, God.

You're right; there's absolutely no reason to believe that the God yielded by this logic bears any relation to the God of the Bible or any other book. The word "god" (capitalized or not) is maddeningly ambiguous, and those who fail to recognize that ambiguity are doing themselves an intellectual disservice.

Another point: according to chaos theory, some things we know of do NOT have causes. The chain of logic above, however we rephrase it, smacks of an industrial-age materialism that cutting-edge science has long since abandoned.

Answer 3

While Xan Shui makes a good point, I find one step in each of your logic models troublesome (or should I say I find a step in Aquinas'' logic troublesome). The assumption that there needs to be a first cause. Causality could be an infinite loop, of merely infinite on either end. just because its hard to conceive of doesn't mean its not true. So, I don't think the existence of causality necessitates the existence of a first cause and therefore does not imply god at all.

Answer 4

ok, you asked. To think of something is logical or illogical, you will desire to have a strategies. To have a strategies means you in addition to would would desire to have a physique to circulate with it, a physique that unquestionably has an atomic shape and an unquestionably area someplace (so some distance consistently planet Earth), and there is truthfully no information by any means that thinking beings would be invisible, very own no atomic shape, and a technique or the different stay "outdoors" actuality, a place without unquestionably "area" honestly. the exterior of our planet is many stuff, even nevertheless that's quite sparkling that the wind doth no longer "somewhat" call itself Mariah, Paul Bunyan does no longer have a huge puppy ox named Blue, and we are "no longer" fleshy mortal puppets being pulled upon by utilising the strings of powers we can not develop into conscious of, we "can" develop into conscious of the powers that are sweeping us alongside, they're referred to as gravity, inertia, etc etc etc,... ...and if there unquestionably "replaced into" a God, and this place and its human beings have been "His" introduction, then that God is the two a sadistic maniac, a malevolently spoiled new child, or a thoroughly bi-polar, obsessive-compulsively insane Being of super skill with an quite twisted humorousness, a terrible experience of fairness, and a moronic experience of (definite, i'm bringing this all back on your question cuz Imma' genius, pause for result...) ...good judgment. "Gong" :)

Answer 5

The third does contradict the first as well as itself. It is a weak attempt to obfuscate the unsupportability of the basic premise and arguements which flow from it. Anyone capable of basic reasoning can postulate a premise but that act does not prove the argument (premise) nor any of the suppositions said to arise from it.

Answer 6

The best answer i can give you is 1.the devil is of confusion not GOD. 2.Read the King James version THE BIBLE.

Answer 7

look how many gods man has created,look how many has be proven,look how many do you know has seen god,then who created god,man

Answer 8

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