The Double Dichotomy Proof of God

[John J. Bannan]

THE DOUBLE DICHOTOMY PROOF OF GOD


1) A metaphysical dichotomy between the set of all possible all inclusive states of existence and no states of existence proves that no states of existence cannot be the case, because our universe is real.

2) A metaphysical dichotomy between the set of all possible all inclusive states of existence that can become real and the set of all possible all inclusive states of existence that cannot become real being those possible all inclusive states of existence that contain two logically possible but contradictory states proves that the set of all possible all inclusive states of existence that cannot become real cannot be the case, because our universe is real.

3) Because our universe had a beginning and does not need to be real, and because something must be real without our universe being real due to the fact that no states of existence cannot be real, then there must be something real without our universe being real proving that all inclusive states of existence that can become real must be possible in reality.

4) Because the set of all possible all inclusive states of existence that can become real is infinite because one can imagine any given universe with the addition of just one more thing ad infinitum, then there cannot be a probability for any given universe because the set is infinite.

5) But because the universe is real, then there must be something real which determines what becomes real among the infinite set of all possible all inclusive states of existence where said determination is not based on probability or random chance.

6) Because something can be real and our universe not be real, then there must be a power to create the real such as our universe, and as there is a power to create the real, then there must be a power to determine what is real based on an order of preference.

7) Because the set of all possible all inclusive states of existence that can become real is not inherently ordered, and because it is possible to determine based on preference which possible all inclusive states of existence come into reality, then there must be a real eternal constraint that determines through will and intellect to allow any or all of these possible all inclusive states of existence to become real.

8) Because the actualization of any or all possible all inclusive states of existence that can become real requires the constraint to actualize them, then the constraint cannot be made and therefore must be infinite pure act without moving parts.

9) Said constraint must have power over all possible all inclusive states of existence that can become real being omnipotent and omnipresent.

10) Said constraint must have knowledge of all possible all inclusive states of existence that can become real being omniscient.

11) Because the mind of the constraint is omnipresent and hence within all of us, our minds are contained within the mind of the constraint which calls all of us to be Sons of the constraint.

12) Hence, a single being exists who is eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, is not made, and has a will and intellect and we call this being God.

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 271 by Jashwell]

Doubting cause and effect may be the single most destructive thing one can do to society.

It's the biggest explanation for why Christianity produced science and why pagan cultures didn't.

If you doubt cause and effect and Islamic philosopher Al Gazali did then there is no reason to investigate the world. Similarly the polytheistic cultures had capricious gods and so attributed effects to the gods. Certainly if you believe in evolution you already are in a position to doubt cause and effect because you believe random mutationstuff can create order.

The ramifications of not believing in cause and effect are dramatic.

Once again, you can speak of a model and say it is methodologically useful without it being literally true.

Nobody has ever established that what we call an effect, is literally dependant on the cause.

If a cause was dependant on the sum of its future effects, we would expect to see cause and effect - exactly the same way - except in this world, cause would depend on its effects. This is exactly the opposite of what most would think except its exactly as empirically verified.



Alternatively, if there is 'order' in the sense of understandable relations between the past and present; if we can know the past better than the future; if one past correlates with many futures (but any one future does not correlate with many pasts); then we will be able to see cause and effect... without it being a fundamental law.
This is true in this Universe because of the 2nd law - the past has more order than the future, so the past is more predictable than the future - and a small change in the past correlates to a bigger change in the future than a small change in the future does to one in the past. Clear relations that exist because of laws between past and future can be considered causes and effects.

So why do we need causality to be a fundamental law?

[Jashwell]

Double post, whoops.
While I'm here:

[Replying to post 271 by Jashwell]
Doubting cause and effect may be the single most destructive thing one can do to society.

I seriously doubt that claim.

It's the biggest explanation for why Christianity produced science and why pagan cultures didn't.

It's an explanation that's probably been around since I've made that post.
And since Christianity didn't invent causality, but some of the initial philosophy done on it was in Greece... in a pagan culture... there's even more room to doubt it.

If you doubt cause and effect and Islamic philosopher Al Gazali did then there is no reason to investigate the world. Similarly the polytheistic cultures had capricious gods and so attributed effects to the gods. Certainly if you believe in evolution you already are in a position to doubt cause and effect because you believe random mutationstuff can create order.

That would be a cause and effect - capricious God causes bad effects.
Nobody's saying you can't ever say "this causes that" or "these is the effects of that", just that first cause arguments aren't valid.

The ramifications of not believing in cause and effect are dramatic.

They really aren't.

[Danmark]

[Replying to post 271 by Jashwell]

Doubting cause and effect may be the single most destructive thing one can do to society.

It's the biggest explanation for why Christianity produced science and why pagan cultures didn't.

What is your basis for claiming Christianity produced science; that pagan cultures did not?
The Greeks were at it Centuries before Christ.
Even in Sumer 3500 BCE they recorded observations and kept numerical data.
But we can go back even further to find early man keeping track of natural phenomena in an orderly manner in under to understand nature.

"For example, the domestication of maize for agriculture has been dated to about 9,000 years ago in southern Mexico, before the development of writing systems. Similarly, archaeological evidence indicates the development of astronomical knowledge in preliterate societies."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science

[Wootah]

[Replying to post 280 by Bust Nak]

You are just making a simple category error.

Al gazali was a Muslim. Muslims believe in the primacy of God's will.

I am a Christian. We believe in the primacy of God's word.

This difference is that al gazali taught that it is God that makes each effect and Christianity taught that God is knowable and speaks and things are.

Trying to reduce us to the category of religion is a logical error. It's like eating a fruit and deciding all fruit is good or all fruit is bad.

[John J. Bannan]

[Replying to post 284 by Wootah]

Cause and effect or determinism is obviously a fundamental principle of material existence. It's funny how atheists use determinism as their primary objection to God, and then, suddenly, when determinism ends up pointing to a God, they reverse the claim and say determinism is just a convenient "model". This is a case of eating your cake and having it too! LOL!

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 284 by Wootah]
Cause and effect or determinism

Not the same thing.

is obviously a fundamental principle of material existence

Nope, and I have yet to see a positive description for immaterial existence, let alone evidence or convincing argument.

It's funny how atheists use determinism as their primary objection to God

I've don't usually hear of atheists using determinism as an objection to God. Do you mean because determinism is incompatible with (theological) free will? Yeah, that's not my kind of argument.

and then, suddenly, when determinism ends up pointing to a God

First time I've seen "and then, suddenly, [never], " in a sentence.
One of the many unsupported premises prominently featured in this thread.

they reverse the claim and say determinism is just a convenient "model"

Cause and effect is a model, determinism is a true or false claim about the necessity of the Universe given boundary conditions.

This is a case of eating your cake and having it too! LOL!

Since you were talking to us earlier about the lack of marriage and sex, does heaven lack cake too?
It was sounding pretty disappointing already, so I wouldn't be surprised.

Why is God so bad at letting people live? (in more ways than one)

[John J. Bannan]

[Replying to post 286 by Jashwell]

Claiming "cause and effect" is a "model" is purely a semantics game. So, what "model" besides "cause and effect" do you have any evidence for?

Determinism is not a true or false answer about the universe. Determinism is cause and effect. For every cause, there is only one possible effect. That is the essence of the definition of determinism, i.e. "the doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will."

Atheists use determinism all the time to claim a principle of necessity, i.e. the universe is as it is because is must be this way - because deterministically speaking every cause has only one possible effect. The problem with this deterministic line of thinking is that eventually the atheist hits a brick wall, i.e. concluding that infinite regressive causation must be real or that somehow the universe appeared randomly despite the fact that there is no necessity for our particular universe and no means of random selection among undefined infinite possibilities of material existence.

No, rather a unique mechanism of choice is inherent to reality itself. And that mechanism is not subject to material determinism or material cause and effect. It is a mysterious immaterial mechanism of choice which we call God.

[Bust Nak]

You are just making a simple category error.

That's not what category error means. Sticking blue car in the red category would be an error in assigning a category, but not a category error as least as far as philosophy is concern - cars are things that have color; sticking thunder in the red category however would be a category error - sounds are not things that have color.

Al gazali is definitely a person and belong in the categories of people, even had I grouped him in with the wrong people. Now, onto your post proper:

Al gazali was a Muslim. Muslims believe in the primacy of God's will.

I am a Christian. We believe in the primacy of God's word.

This difference is that al gazali taught that it is God that makes each effect and Christianity taught that God is knowable and speaks and things are.

Right, and in the context of believing in cause and effect, he belongs with you.

Trying to reduce us to the category of religion is a logical error. It's like eating a fruit and deciding all fruit is good or all fruit is bad.

The phrase you are looking for, is hasty generalisation, not category error.

But that's beside the point. I have not reduce you to the category of religion. I have reduce you to the category of people who believe in "univesal" causality, for lack of a better word; as oppose to us who don't believe causality does not apply to radioactive decay. Having said that, you also say that God is uncaused, so how is that for consistency?

Cause and effect or determinism is obviously a fundamental principle of material existence.

No, it isn't. There is no reason why a materialistic universe have to be deterministic.

It's funny how atheists use determinism as their primary objection to God, and then, suddenly, when determinism ends up pointing to a God, they reverse the claim and say determinism is just a convenient "model". This is a case of eating your cake and having it too! LOL!

It's funny how theists like to use strawman arguments as their primary objection to atheism. Not all atheists subscribe to determinism, let alone use determinism as a primary objection to God. I can only imagine you are confused about what we are saying with arguments along the lines of "if God is omnisense then there is no freewill."

[Danmark]

[Replying to post 284 by Wootah]

Cause and effect or determinism is obviously a fundamental principle of material existence. It's funny how atheists use determinism as their primary objection to God, and then, suddenly, when determinism ends up pointing to a God, they reverse the claim and say determinism is just a convenient "model". This is a case of eating your cake and having it too! LOL!

No, this is a case of your arguments displaying 'the Black Knight' syndrome.

Your blanket statement about atheists using determinism is false. Atheists reject the Abrahamic God for many reasons, including that it is a story of a god created by man in man's image and because it is a preposterous story kept afloat by ignorance, fear, and tradition.
The scriptures upon which it is based are full of hopeless contradictions and examples of evil applauded and inspired by this 'god' to the benefit of the tribe that created 'him.'
Other versions of these gods are rejected for various reasons, including that there is no evidence for gods.

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 286 by Jashwell]

Claiming "cause and effect" is a "model" is purely a semantics game. So, what "model" besides "cause and effect" do you have any evidence for?

Perhaps you've misunderstood.

To say cause and effect is a model is to say that cause and effect is a way of describing a scenario that omits details in favour of simplicity to understand or otherwise usefulness.

In cause and effect, when we consider an object, we've already used abstraction - is that a glass of water, or is that a volume of glass AND a volume of water? Or is it a bunch of silicon dioxide, dihydrogen monoxide with some other chemicals mixed in? Etc.

When you say "I pushed the door open with my hand", what's the cause and what's the effect? Your hand? What happened was the electrons in the door repelled and were repelled by the electrons in your hand.

So was your hand the cause? Were you the cause? Were the muscles in your body the cause? Was the door the cause?

If we consider all of them to be the cause, then we'd be multiplying the force of the door opening by however many different interpretations we have.

Another example would be kinematics - if an object is moving diagonally upwards (e.g / ), we can instead (equally validly, if not synonymously) consider it to be moving in two component directions (e.g. right and up, _|) at once.
If we drew both on the same diagram and come back later (/_|) we look at it and see double the force what we originally had, because we've mixed two interpretations of the scenario.

The level of subjectivity here should be enough to show you how saying "that must have a cause" is fairly unsubstantiated and meaningless, even though "that has a cause" can be meaningful - it's a subjective decision.

Though I'm surprised by how hard it is to phrase this context of model.

Determinism is not a true or false answer about the universe.

Either the Universe is deterministic or it is not.
It is a claim, and it is true or false.
It relates to the necessity of a state of the Universe given conditions of another state. (The exact meaning can be relatively broad)

Determinism is cause and effect.

You can have fundamental cause and effect without determinism (probabilistic causation) and determinism without fundamental cause and effect (such as some forms of B-theory). (Obviously fundamental cause and effect and perceived cause and effect, e.g. application of the concept of causality, are not the same)

(Non-probabilistic cause and effect, however, does necessarily lead to determinism.)

For every cause, there is only one possible effect.

Not only is that not necessary for a determinism based on a fundamental causality, but I'm unaware of anyone who thinks of causality that way.

If you drop a glass of water on a carpet, the glass smashes and the carpet gets wet. Two effects. (As I've said before, you could consider these together to be one effect, but this just illustrates the fact that it is a model and is not fundamental).

That is the essence of the definition of determinism, i.e. "the doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will."

It's a broad scope and I wouldn't limit it to that, while determinism does come from the consideration of systems that are causal, it can still be meaningfully applied to other systems.

I support B theory, and a kind of eternalism, but it's usually easier for me to say I'm a determinist because it's more descriptive.
To put it one way, I do believe that there's a 1-1 (or many-1) relation between the boundary conditions of the Universe & the current and all future states of the Universe.
An oversimplification would be that Universe is like a function where if you put in the same numbers, you'll always get out the same numbers.

Atheists use determinism all the time to claim a principle of necessity, i.e. the universe is as it is because is must be this way - because deterministically speaking every cause has only one possible effect.

Once again, not true on the one effect bit, also wouldn't really consider it to be a "reason" as an answer to "why is Universe this way" beyond "why not".

The problem with this deterministic line of thinking is that eventually the atheist hits a brick wall, i.e. concluding that infinite regressive causation must be real or that somehow the universe appeared randomly despite the fact that there is no necessity for our particular universe and no means of random selection among undefined infinite possibilities of material existence.

1) You don't need infinite regression for fundamental causality & determinism & no first cause. Closed timelike curves.
2) Begging the question again by saying "there is no necessity for our Universe"
3) Once again assuming all the other claims
4) You don't need fundamental causation for determinism (or what can be meaningfully considered determinism).

No, rather a unique mechanism of choice is inherent to reality itself. And that mechanism is not subject to material determinism or material cause and effect. It is a mysterious immaterial mechanism of choice which we call God.

You mean it's literally random, and if you are a theist this gives you a chance to insert your favourite god as a container for this randomness, label it "will" and pretend you've got a unique solution that isn't special pleading.