Essay Exam #1

[a]

     St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) proposed five logical “proofs” of God's existence in his work Summa Theologica‒ the Second and Third of which will be analyzed here. First, the premises of the Second Way/Argument from Efficient Cause:

• Most things in the universe have efficient cause

• Nothing can be its own efficient cause, existing prior to itself

• Thus, a series of efficient causes must exist

• This series of causes cannot regress infinitely backward

• Therefore, there must be a first efficient cause, namely “God”

     There are a host of critiques of Aquinas on the internet, both for and against. Rather than parrot or paraphrase, I'd rather just attempt my own. Cause and effect are a universal phenomenon, and our common sense understands this. Any piece of matter, anywhere in the universe, came from somewhere.

     Most physicists subscribe to the Big Bang concept. Theists believe that a God created everything and set it all in motion. Funny thing‒ neither faction know for sure. If it was a Big Bang, then what caused it? An explosion strong enough to create a dispersion-field of galaxies and stars 14 billion light-years across, and still expanding... If “God” instead, an entity with maximal power doesn't just spontaneously generate itself from a vacuum. Nothing cannot create something.

     I cannot fathom a coherent explanation of how a “first cause” could exist. Just like the sequence of negative integers, there must always be an earlier event. Some cosmologists have theorized that the universe expands, the stops, then contracts back into a singularity; an endless cycle. Who knows? But even given that there was a first cause, Aquinas has zero evidence that an intelligent entity “men call God” was the catalyst. This is the weakest part of the argument, an assumption with no validity.

     The Aquinas Third Way, and all five ways actually, are just variations on the same theme. (Plug different qualities/actions into the formula, force a contradiction, then claim that “God” solves the paradox). Instead of “efficient cause”, the Third Way uses the “ephemerality” of all things; that nothing lasts forever. The logic falls apart with the claim that this would result in nothing existing now. Why? Simply because everything wouldn't end simultaneously. Even if God existed, and created the universe,and then God ceased to exist- that doesn't dictate that the universe ends too! (Van Gogh is dead. He no longer paints. But yet, his paintings still exist). Sir Thomas Aquinas was behooved to prove the existence of God, and any time such a bias exists, it makes for extremely unscientific arguments.

[b]

     The Kaalam Cosmological Argument is also from medieval times; from Islamic roots rather than Catholicism, but yet quite similar in its ontological approach. It's intriguing how certain ideas seem to spring up, often independently and in different parts of the world, but at roughly the same time. There are names for this phenomenon: “multiple discovery” or “simultaneous invention.” (It's surprising that no one has taken it as the basis for a proof of God... but maybe someone else just had that thought too).

Per the Kaalamists:

• Whatever begins to exist has a cause

• The universe began to exist;

• Therefore: The universe has a cause.

William Lane Craig, a modern theist, adds an amendment:

• If the universe has a cause, this implies an uncaused, personal Creator (who, before the universe, was atemporal, immutable, and maximally powerful). Therefore:

• An uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists. (and possesses all those godly attributes)

The first obvious thing to comment is, why not call it the “Craig Argument” since he's all but hijacked the original for his own means to an end? (And isn't it really just the Aquinas Second Way revisited?) There are indeed some modern twists- using the infinite sets and sub-sets “discovered” by Gregor Cantor; declaring that actual infinite sets are “absurd”; and a great perplexing example in the “infinite bookshelf”, a wondrous library that can loan out its infinite set of black books and yet have an infinite number of red books remaining. All of this apparently means that there has to be a beginning.

     Except it doesn't. Maybe there was a beginning. Maybe not. (Quite honestly, both options are impossible to fully conceive). Either way, how does it follow that it was personal?! God wouldn't be a person, would It? Why do theists always anthropomorphize god?

     We have to be careful what we mean by the term “come into existence.” (It's possible that nothing ever did). More likely, the universe has a permanent collection of atoms/molecules/etc. that are perpetually reconfiguring, reassembling in different forms. (Like an infinite set of LEGO blocks). We don't pop into existence as humans . Two gametes from our parents merge, and then the food, water, and oxygen molecules that our mother intakes is transformed into the growing fetus. Our bodies don't just vanish when we die; they merely decay and transform into different things. The atoms remain, and may have always been there. It's a poetic phrase, but we are, quite literally, dust from the stars.

     I can respect the medieval thinkers like Aquinas and his peers, even while in this modern and scientifically advanced era I cannot agree with them. The likes of William Craig, however, still trying to get away with it, is another story.

[c]

     St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) was an early English monk and theologian, credited with formulating the first Christian version of the ontological argument for God's existence. He is also considered a founder of Scholasticism Because of the importance and influence of his argument historically I will use the format of introducing one premise at a time, critiquing and/or commenting on it, then proceeding to the next premise.

• It is a conceptual truth that God is a being than which none greater can be imagined (or, the greatest possible being that can be imagined).

     It is true that we as humans can conceive of a God; One that has a personal investment in us, created the universe and maintains it. We can also assign Him the various all-powerful attributes expected of such a being. But rather than stating that God is a being we can imagine, it would be more accurate to say He is a concept we can imagine. Big difference.

• God exists as an idea in the mind.

     To be a concept in the mind is not existence. The possibility of a God exists in the mind. I can conceive of Gandalf, Tolkien's fictional wizard, in my mind. That doesn't mean Gandalf exists.

• A being that exists as an idea in the mind and in reality is, other things being equal, greater than a being that exists only as an idea in the mind.

     This is a conflation of two very different qualities- a concept vs. an actual thing. It's so obvious, it's meaningless, like saying that any positive number is greater than zero. Existence > nonexistence.

• Thus, if God exists only as an idea in the mind, then we can imagine something that is greater than God (that is, a greatest possible being that does exist).

     The mere concept of God has no actual qualities, and therefore no degrees of greatness. Also, the concept does not exist in the same sense as an actual being. This is categorical misrepresentation: God cannot exist in the mind. And the concept of God cannot exist outside the mind. You cannot compare the two empirically. The premise is a semantic trick; plus, the argument's been invalid from the start.

• But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God (for it is a contradiction to suppose that we can imagine a being greater than the greatest possible being that can be imagined.)

     This is the only actually logical premise of Anselm's- no, we can't imagine something greater than the greatest thing imaginable. But we're still only talking about the concept of a possibility of a God.

• Therefore, God exists. No! Anselm, despite his arrogance (and abuses of definitions and logic) has only proven that the idea of God exists for certain people.