Broken Circle

Tom,

Your answer is OK; except for the fact that it is incomplete. It assume we know all there is about the subject.

In the "creationist" viewpoint, every effect requires a cause unconditionally. So there must be a First Cause, which requires a miracle. That is one of the two possible explanations for the origin of everything.

In the "eternist" viewpoint, every change requires a cause, but unchanging things such as existence are necessarily eternal (uncaused) by definition of "unchanging". This is the second of two possible explanations.

Take your choice. But denying that the second choice exists appears to be more emotion-based than logical. -|Tom|-[unquote]


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Ans:My choice wasn't listed. It is simply that it is as yet an unknown property or quality of the Universe which doesn't require Gods, Miracales or Infinity.

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>[Mac]: My choice wasn't listed. It is simply that it is as yet an unknown property or quality of the Universe which doesn't require Gods, Miracales or Infinity.<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>

The two possibilities, a First Cause or no First Cause, are mutually exclusive. In logic, this means the two cover all possibilities. A condition is either "X" or it is "not X". There is no compromise or third possibility.

Your "unknown property of the universe" is either a "First Cause" that created something from nothing; or the "unknown property" already existed for all time and had no beginning, in which case it was eternal. That's the same "creationist/eternist" choice all over again. Your "third choice" is redundant to one of the other two, and solves nothing. -|Tom|-

Tom,

Reduced to these two premisis I would go first cause but would disagree that entails miracles or Gods. It simply means we don't understand it yet.

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>[Mac]: Reduced to these two premisis I would go first cause but would disagree that entails miracles or Gods. It simply means we don't understand it yet.<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>

First Cause means something from nothing because, if there were already something (such as a property or quality of the universe), that property or quality of that universe would require an even earlier cause. Do you agree? -|Tom|-

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<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>[Mac]: Reduced to these two premisis I would go first cause but would disagree that entails miracles or Gods. It simply means we don't understand it yet.<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>

First Cause means something from nothing because, if there were already something (such as a property or quality of the universe), that property or quality of that universe would require an even earlier cause. Do you agree? -|Tom|-



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First Cause is a term usually reserved for the Creationist argument- at least when it is used in the capitalized form. To review, these folks believe God created the universe. But God is not "nothing" so a First Cause technically is not something out of nothing. It is something creating something out of nothing. But God here is also assumed to have existed eternally so even He gets into trouble with infinity math.

The above is opposed to something really coming from nothing, without cause or having been created by an omnipotent being. Something from nothing is probably better referred to as existence ex-nihilo.


I really think that existence ex-nihilo is the best answer to the question of existence. All other answers, including the Creationists, TVF's MM, Patrick's, etc, are incomplete since they lead to the question being asked an infinite number of times. The only way to stop the question "Where did _____ come from" from ad infinitum is by answering : Nothing. Nothing is the only "thing" that cannot have come from anything else.

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[Mac]
... disagree that entails miracles or Gods. It simply means we don't understand it yet.
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???

Interesting. This might actually be an important statement, in terms of our ability to communicate ideas to each other.

So (to test my understanding of what you meant) if you had been making this arguement in the time before protons etc were known you would name atoms as the First Cause. Or the First Form. Then, when sub atomic particles were discovered, atoms were replaced by protons etc, which became the next First Cause.

Nowadays quarks will have replaced sub atomic particles as the First Cause.

And as soon as we find the components of quarks, those will be come the First Cause.

But, at each step of the way, there is always a First Cause?

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This is not the way I've ever thought about the concept of First Cause. (This doesn't make your way automatically wrong - but you should know that, at the least, it is a view not known to many.) But knowing that it is the way you think about it makes a dfference.

If I'm understanding you correctly.

Regards,
LB