God does not exist
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
After 1 vote and with 3 points ahead, the winner is...
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 3
- Time for argument
- Two days
- Max argument characters
- 10,000
- Voting period
- One week
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
I am going to waive the first round and Pro would have to wave the final round.
Pro: God does not exist
Con: Yeah he does and I can prove it
Burden of proof is on Con.
I don't really want to add rules since I know they ain't going to be enforced and think if the previous rules are going to be broken I still think I can win if I do post arguments as well.
Thanks for reading and participating in whatever way you see fit.
Hopefully this is worthwhile.
Preface
The definition of God I will be advocating for isn’t one belonging to a Theistic interpretation -- I will be advocating for a God pertaining to the notion of an Efficient Aristotlian Cause. Moreover, for the first time on this site I will be defending the Kalam Cosmological Argument, that shows the universe’s contingency upon an efficient cause and by extension that cause is therefore God.
Efficient Aristotlian Cause: A cause that produces the effect of something coming into existence e.g “the sculptor is the efficient cause of the statue”.
Universe: All space-time, matter and energy pertaining to our universe.
God: The efficient cause of our universe
A1. Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA)
P2: The universe began to exist
C: Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence
Prima facie intuition provides initial veracity for the first premise – we experience and observe causation on a daily basis and prima facie we never observe the opposite to be true. Whilst it is true that prima facie intuition is not always substantial, I assert that it should be affirmed until more tenable evidence is presented.
A refutation to a caused universe is that the universe has existed infinitely, without need of causation. However, this premise is affirmed by the standard model and due to the fallacy of reductio ad infinitum and can be presented in three parts:
ii) The incoherence of an actual infinite in Cantorian Mathematics
iii) Entropy
Lastly, the second law of thermodynamics states that in a closed system, pressure, density and temperature naturally reach a state of equilibrium over time [4], for example, a glass of cold milk will eventually become room temperature, (the milk gets hotter and the room gets colder (slightly)), so that both are the same temperature. The same can be said for our universe – it is in a state of disorder that, given enough time, will asymptotically reach a state of equilibrium where all energy is evenly distributed, resulting in the heat death of our universe [5]. We currently live in a universe where this isn’t the case, yet if the universe were infinite would mean that an infinite amount of time has passed, inferring that the universe cannot be in a state of disorder. This also alludes to the idea of a finite universe.
A1. Conclusion
Thus, the conclusion logically follows from the premises.
It is noted that entities can be identified as either concrete or abstract concepts [6]. Thus, the efficient cause of our universe is either concrete or abstract. However, abstract concepts like shapes and numbers, have no causal efficacy and only concrete concepts can possess properties for causation [6]. This begs the question to why an impersonal cause would create the universe? There is no understanding to what exists sans space-time as we cannot measure it or observe it. We cannot ascribe our empirical knowledge to a static place, as such is nonsensical. Therefore, it would be most rational to believe that the universe was created from agency – attempting to explain an impersonal cause is inexplicable in a context sans space-time and without physical properties.
Conclusion
Thus, it has been conveyed that the universe exists finitely and contingently upon an efficient cause. Moreover, since we cannot ever measure or attempt to explain a static place the notion of an impersonal cause is inexplicable. Thus, the only rational alternative is that the universe was created by a willing agent.
Over to Pro.
References
[1] https://www.livescience.com/21490-what-is-a-scientific-hypothesis-definition-of-hypothesis.html
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_(cosmology)
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale_factor
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy#Entropy_of_a_system
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe
[6] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abstract-objects/
I would like to mention here Con is engaging in a truism.
For one instead of actually defending a specific theistic God Con decides to simply label God with the efficient cause to our universe. This goes against the commonly agreed upon use of the word.
I instead will challenge the assumptions laid out as in the definitions used because sp has defined himself to win. Essentially a truism. You can even see here that sp has made it clear that KCA states there is a cause and since he has defined God to be a cause it links “that shows the universe’s contingency upon an efficient cause and by extension that cause is therefore God.” An efficient cause is God under sp’s definition yet he still decided to make it seem like there is a difference. There is no extension they are the same thing under the definition. Given this the definition is not meaningful since the majority of people use the one I will just mention it is invalid.
God
If we go by the current definition of God it states “a spirit or being believed to control some part of the universe or life and often worshipped for doing so, or something that represents this spirit or being:”
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/god
Another definition states: the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshipped as creator and ruler of the universe
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/god
Another definition states: (in Christianity and other monotheistic religions) the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being.
https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/god
These are the most popular searches I found and none of them come even close to the way sp defined God. Supreme ruler, source of all moral authority is clearly missing from sp’s mention of God.
KCA
The most common use of the KCA is to show there is a prime mover or unmoved mover. This fits in line with Con said given this is Aristotelian. The problem of course is that it is used to show evidence for God. Not Con’s definition the more agreed upon. KCA can’t make an argument for God because it only states as it concludes “therefore the universe has a cause of its existence”. Cause is not the same as God because when I see a video online of a tree growing it is not a sign of God it is a sign of a tree growing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalam_cosmological_argument
What I am going to do
I will now rebut the claims brought forward by Con by using the generally agreed upon definition not the definition Con brought up given the more popular version of the use of God.
A1. Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA)
P1: Everything that begins to exist has a cause
P2: The universe began to exist
C: Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence
This prima facie intuition would be deemed a synthetic a posteriori hypothesis.
I disagree that a first impression without reason is information derived from evidence. This goes against having standard which applies strict measures of validity put in place in order to make sure findings are not influenced by irrationality as in feelings.
Note, that this is not an a priori justification for the first premise, but a derivation from empirical synthetic a posteriori observations.
A1. Conclusion
Thus, the conclusion logically follows from the premises.
Yes, there is a cause to of the universes’ existence. It’s not an argument for God.
A2. The Incoherence of Personal Causes
God is a being that is perfect. What does a being like that do with its time? Create life. An aim for a perfect being is to carry on operating like a machine which goes against the agency of a such a being instead goes more into the direction of it being a mindless robots obeying commands. If God had free will with that amount of power it had, we would be seeing drastic change sporadically but that doesn’t occur. Nothing observable has not followed the cause and effect principle so it is best to assume God doesn’t have free will instead does things it is programmed to do. This also goes into what created God since given the principle that has yet to not work cause and effect God must also have a cause of its existence. People have used began to make an exception to God but have yet to justify that exception given that exception is only given to 1 thing and can’t be compared to other things to bolster the point.
A rebuttal sp might have
I said “okay” in the comment section. My stance on what you said was an acceptance or understanding of what you are doing. That is all. I didn’t agree to your phrasing nor did I disagree. I accepted it.
Okay:correct, permissible, or acceptable; meeting standards:https://www.dictionary.com/browse/ok
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/OK
Okay: used to show that you agree with something or agree to do something:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/ok
Conclusion
I applied a more agreed upon definition. State the problems of sp’s definition. Used the more agreed upon definition to speak about Con’s arguments.
insubstantially pedantic
He states that I specifically “defined myself to win”. However, nowhere did Pro specify that God must pertain to a Theistic denotation.
My interpretation of “God” fits perfectly with Deism i.e “belief in the existence of a supreme being, specifically of a creator who does not intervene in the universe”
Moreover, it is intellectually dishonest to assert that I am arguing a truism – if my opening case is true, we are to accept that our universe was created by a conscious entity that “willed” our universe into existence
I am sure if this were a truism, Atheism wouldn’t be such a popular position.
Pro doesn’t really justify why we ought to prefer a Theistic denotation over a Deistic one outside of the fact that he would rather rebut the former.
unless he can show that my interpretation of “God” is inconsistent or incorrect, he is unjustified in disputing it
especially when I carry the full burden of proof
I should be the one to define what I am making the positive claim for as long as it accurately pertains to the resolution.
Pro cherry picks three, albeit common, definitions of “God”,
but to assert that I need to abide by these definitions is nothing short of moving the goalposts.
Pro misconstrues and over extends the burden of proof by stating that these are the correct definitions to use.
There are many definitions and interpretations of “God” which is why there exist many religions that possess many different deities.
The wholly veracity of Pro’s definitions would entail that the Egyptian, Greek, Norse, Hindu and Buddhist interpretations of “God” are incorrect.
Given that Pro failed to narrow the scope of the resolution, he is unfair to state that a Deistic interpretation (which is more than fair) is inapt.
As it stands, the rebuttals forwarded by Pro that refer to a different denotation of “God” are irrelevant and can be dismissed.
I noted in the previous round that a hypothesis is an “initial guess” that allows for testable predictions to be made.
Hence, until we are faced with an occurrence that violates this hypothesis, we are to hold it in high regard.
the factor of one’s personal feelings at the time of pondering the hypothesis is extraneous.
Pro does not contest the second premise.
A2. The Incoherence of Personal Causes
because I can continuously just add another cause to the chain to avoid grounding an axiomatic explanation for the causes [2].
Interpreting the resolution:
Definition of God (seriously, this debate moved to that).
Gist:
So a lot of bandwagon appeals… A couple decent Ks… Got to say it, this is a fine example of why three rounds is preferable to two… Final thing, pro let con control the debate, not introducing any of his own contentions (which is fine to do, but is also risky).
1. Definitions
Con wants to just say God is the name for whatever willingly created the universe, pro wants God to be the usual Christian definition.
The debate description did define God as he, but that is very ambiguous. Were con to have not engaged in the contention about Incoherence of Impersonal Causes, I would be more sympathetic to pro. More rounds also might have helped, as this was effectively a two round debate, and demanding such a large change and retooling would reduce it down to basically a single round debate.
I don’t understand pro’s final round bit about “Next time I'll argue the definition of chocolate instead in a God debate.” As for the truism claim, it had been countered by the bandwagon appeal to atheism.
2. KCA
Usual KCA, but with the definition in use it side-steps the usual problem that the KCA does not indicate any particular God (nor even an intelligent deity involved… which he goes on to address under the next contention).
The strawperson “when I see a video online of a tree growing it is not a sign of God it is a sign of a tree growing” failed to refute this argument line. Also pointing out the flawed way the KCA is normally used also fails to refute.
3. Incoherence Problem
I was not moved by this, but it bridged several gaps.
Reductio ad infinitum (/but what created that first cause?/ That actually agrees with con’s definition for God as skipping to the first cause instead of any number down the chain) does not counter this; and I should mention that con brought this up R1.
---
Arguments:
See above review of key points.
Conduct:
This took a small hit in the final round, when con could not respond anymore pro did large scale direct rebuttals on the definition. Not enough to lose the point, but worth noting.
This is interesting. Semperfortis looks like my kind of debater. Its a shame he's no longer active. I would of loved to debate this with someone who has such a good grasp of philosophy.
There is no god.
Things beyond human reasoning have always been drafted into a greater thing than us in order to understand ourselves and control others, most of all.
yeah sempor won
This was a pretty close one. I believe the debate largely moved in goalpost to definition of God, and under that I found con's chosen definitions more reasonable, especially since he had BoP and it was a two round debate to which he would not have the last word (I think I explained in my RFD that forcing him to restart with another would reduce it to a single round debate, which would be extremely unfair). That some definitions are more commonly used, doesn't mean they are better; and con did include a whole contention linking his definition to being an agent of volition rather than just chance (which was challenged under pro's definition, not cons).
Comparing the strength of the contentions for and against, and then the refutations for each, that God exists (at least within the stated definition) seems true. I was not left in question of the validity nor soundness of con's case (https://www.iep.utm.edu/val-snd/), and his pre-refutations took the major sting out of the offense (things like mentioning the infinite regression problem).
Can you tell me how semperfortis won?
It wasn't clear in your vote.
No worries.
Thanks for taking the time to vote!
I won’t be voting here; as a comment I made to TRN made it into his debate argument - I wasn’t intending it as coaching or an argument suggestion, nor offered any further advice; but Given that the comment was made, I won’t be voting and I’m going to avoid any impression of impropriety; and recuse myself from vote moderation on this debate too.
Looking at SFs definition, my first thought was that we know the universe is caused, and an atheistic explanation would qualify as God under SFs definition, so I inherently agree with TRNs objection, and I made a comment along those lines - and my comment to him seemed to have spurred this round. I won’t comment further on whether he made a good defense.
Hi, if any of you have time to spare over the next two days could you please vote on this debate?
Good luck as well.
No, I now must prey to my very specific, uncommon, incorrect, unfair definition of God -- thanks for the debate and good luck.
Guess you deleted your blatant vote influencing.
Do you want to carry on speaking or is this it for you influencing voter decision?
Why are you telling me this now?
Are you trying to influence voters?
I didn't start this in the comment section you did.
Are there other things you would like to tell voters to influence their decision?
Not going anywhere and don't want to talk about it.
Please make another debate which puts an unfair burden on your opponent if they don't decide to challenge your assumptions.
Again, purely pedantic. Theism differs -- so slightly -- from Deism insofar that they believe that the creator intervenes in the universe. Craig might believe that the amalgamation of "uncaused, timeless, supreme etc. being" represents a theistic interpreation, even though the properties don't directly imply that -- this part is purely up to personal opinion.
How does there exist a 'most' common definition? Christianity represents a mere 30% of the religious population -- Hinduism has a multiplicity of Gods which wouldn't match your definition. Allah and the Christian God might prima facie have the same definition yet posit different things about our universe which would render them as different interpretations -- if one were to choose one interpretation over the other they are burdened with the scripture that comes with it.
>>I literally stated the KCA as William Lane Craig would argue it
How about the definition of God?
Oh wait they are different meaning both of you actually meant different things when referring to God. Okay.
>>remarking upon the theological implications of this union of properties."
Oh so Craig meant it with the theist perspective but you meant it with the deist perspective as in 49,000 people vs a lot more.
>>Would you personally, not consider a conscious cause of our universe to be God?
Why does what I personally think matter? You changed the definition to make the KCA pretty much align with it even though it doesn't. God is defined one way and you changed that majority definition which made the KCA different given the change in meanings.
>>There is no socially agreed upon definition of "God" as there exists hundreds of different "God's" pertaining to different religions.
I don't know what you are doing here but you are not convincing me of there isn't a consensus of the word God.
>>Many argue that they, themselves are God in a framework of solipsism -- the fact that they are not omnipotent or omnibenevolent wouldn't refute that.
How many people?
>> If our universe were simulated by a greater intellgence, we would ascribe them as being God. If we were to simulate a universe identical to ours and create life -- we would consider ourselves the "God" of that universe, yet we don't match the definition of God you provided.
What if it isn't? I would like concrete examples how the Abrahamic version of God is not the consensus. Even Hindus also call God the supreme being which if we total all of them up would mean a majority of the population have the same definition of God. Even excluding Hinduism just Christianity and Islam is more than 50% of the population. Hinduism agreeing just makes my case even better.
I literally stated the KCA as William Lane Craig would argue it; appending his additional premise of a personal cause. Please observe:
"Craig concludes that the cause of the existence of the universe is an "uncaused, personal Creator ... who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful"; remarking upon the theological implications of this union of properties." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalam_cosmological_argument)
I am still very unsure why you find a personal cause of our universe to be an unsubstantial view of God. Would you personally, not consider a conscious cause of our universe to be God?
>>But my argument wasn't just the KCA
That was the main argument. The other argument required the first because of how the ideas link. Cause and effect was again used in the second argument but was more important in the first given the KCA was the one that actually fulfilled the burden of proof if I followed your definition. You even mention it here as an addition "Now that it has been established that the universe is contingent upon an efficient cause, I assert that the only a personal cause (i.e an agent of volition) could be the only rational explanation."
>> If that were a truism we would be faced with the fact that our universe was caused by a conscious being.
It is a truism because you defined God differently to fit in the KCA argument basically removing the most important gripes when using the KCA as an argument for God. I called you out in the debate for using different definitions of God when I am guessing you know the commonly agreed definition of God.
>>That's why I stated that Atheism wouldn't be very plausible if it were a truism.
This was about whether or not God exists. Not about atheism.
>>Moreover, the idea of a caused universe is certainly not a truism, the KCA is heavily criticized.
Yeah because it is link to God as in the perfect being not the efficient cause to our universe. Please see my arguments again for a run down on why I challenged the assumptions and how I went about it.
There is no socially agreed upon definition of "God" as there exists hundreds of different "God's" pertaining to different religions. Many argue that they, themselves are God in a framework of solipsism -- the fact that they are not omnipotent or omnibenevolent wouldn't refute that. If our universe were simulated by a greater intellgence, we would ascribe them as being God. If we were to simulate a universe identical to ours and create life -- we would consider ourselves the "God" of that universe, yet we don't match the definition of God you provided.
But my argument wasn't just the KCA, i also provided that the cause was an agent of volition (i.e consciousness). If that were a truism we would be faced with the fact that our universe was caused by a conscious being. That's why I stated that Atheism wouldn't be very plausible if it were a truism.
Moreover, the idea of a caused universe is certainly not a truism, the KCA is heavily criticized.
That isn't my position.
The resolution was God does not exist.
KCA is an argument for a cause of its existence.
You decided to call God the cause of its existence.
I called it a truism because of that.
You used a very different definition to God essentially make the KCA be an argument for God when it never was if we care about using the socially agreed upon definition of God.
By the way, I forgot to ask why you think that Deism is a truism?
:1
There is a small typo in my second round, it should read "A2. The Incoherence of Impersonal Causes"
Thanks. Good luck to you as well.
Thanks for instigating the debate. I enjoyed how the resolution was left ambiguous and required justification throughout. Good luck in the final round.
semper
Has a temper
His opponents whimper
When he posts his arguments
Okay.
I'm defining God as like an efficient cause of the universe -- I will formally define it in my round.
I think that in this debate, the burden of proof should be shared and not only on Con, since you're making a claim as well. It's the job of the person making a claim to prove that claim, not the job of the opponent of the claim to prove that claim wrong. It would be wrong for your claim that God does not exist to win simply because Con could not provide sufficient evidence. As I'm sure you know, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and just because we cannot prove the existence of God does not mean that God does not exist.