I think the context matters. The original context for all of this is whether from the perspective of the Christian, in thinking rationally for himself/herself, must have an argument for Christianity. I think the answer is no, just as the atheist, in thinking rationally for himself/herself, does not need an argument for atheism. I think the context of a generic discussion of Christianity is different - if we set the topic of our discussion to be whether Christianity is true or not, then yes, obviously we cannot just take its truth as a premise.

Maybe I'll draw an analogy - a foundational premise of science is that the past resembles the future. If we determine certain laws of nature based on past experimentation, that's not going to change in the future. Does the scientist, in thinking rationally for himself/herself, need to have an argument for this belief? I don't think so - the scientist can go on analyzing and understanding things scientifically through the scientific worldview without ever needing to construct an argument for this foundational premise. He/she is, however, on the lookout for contradictions - things or events that science can't explain or seem to defy science. I don't think I've described an irrational person here. Of course, if we have a discussion about the enterprise of science and its validity as a whole, then it may come to questioning this premise. But does a scientist in doing science have some kind of burden of proving this premise? I don't think so, just as the Christian in looking at the world through the Christian worldview does not have some kind of burden of proving Christianity.

>I present some of my own thinking below... What you've outlined here is actually firmly in the scope of natural theology, the project of establishing certain theological claims through human reason alone, though not all Christians agree that this project is successful. You may be interested in section 5 of chapter 2 of The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology that addresses the Gap problem, which is exactly what you've described, the problem of the gap between the conclusion of a cosmological argument, i.e. the existence of an ultimate cause, and the traditional omnipotent/omniscient/omnibenevolent God.

Christians who don't buy natural theology would instead just say that God and His most important properties are self-evident through spiritual experience. (Even Christians who buy it would agree, I think, that this purely rational project doesn't really get you to the fullness of Christianity, and that spiritual experience is key to having the fullest sense of who God is, the presence of Christ here today, our role in the world, etc.)

As to your last point about whether we're being tricked, it is true that we cannot have certainty about these claims. Uncertainty is part of the human condition. But that doesn't prevent us from having knowledge of things. I know that there's a floor beneath me, even though I don't have a certain proof of it (it's not necessarily true - I could be dreaming, there could be an evil demon feeding me false sensory data, etc.)

>But I do get interested whenever religion wants to be an exclusive arbiter of reality and what's right or wrong. And every time, I have found it to fall short of all its claims.

Well, religion being an exclusive arbiter of reality is only something held by a fringe group of religious people I think. Most reasonable religious people will have no problem with mathematical proofs or scientific evidence revealing things about reality. Many religious people will also accept that those of other religions can have knowledge of moral truths. But if you just mean that religion wants to be the ultimate truth, well, yeah, it does.

> I think the context matters.

Fair enough :)

> He/she is, however, on the lookout for contradictions

I'll just note that contradiction is not the right term in context of the premise. Rather, it'd be discrepancy that when studied further will become part of normal science: that the laws of physics evolve over time.

> But does a scientist in doing science have some kind of burden of proving this premise

To be a little clearer, yes, scientists do not need to prove the premises in everyday research. However, they do need to kept in mind when reasoning about reality. The current scientific premises are based on strong observational foundations. We have data to show that experiments done 50 years ago give exactly the same results today. If tomorrow the results change, then the premise will most definitely come under question.

> Uncertainty is part of the human condition

Definitely. Cogito, ergo sum is the only absolute surety we have. Everything else is Bayesian reasoning :)

Same for believing the floor is real vs the resurrection might not be. I've empirically tested the claim about the floor and it has never failed to hold up. When it does, I'll have to update my priors. But we only have one data point for the resurrection and thus have no real way to make strong judgements about what's the actual reality behind the resurrection.

> Well, religion being an exclusive arbiter of reality

Sorry I didn't mean to imply arbiter of reality to the exclusion of science, although religion did try back in the day when science was getting off the ground. Today, religions make specific claims about reality for which science doesn't have an answer (gaps). However, when asked why one should believe those specific claims (eternal heaven/hell after death) but not other contradicting claims (reincarnation), the answers ultimately fall back to taking it on faith. And at that point, one gets to basically pick and choose which faith-based answer feels the best.

Well, "past resembling the future" doesn't seem to be something that's properly justified by empirical observation. What would that look like? "Since the past has resembled the future in the past many times, that gives us evidence that the past resembles the future." That's circular. And it's not a claim that's logically necessary. So our belief in it is justified by intuition, not by empirical evidence or logic.

>And at that point, one gets to basically pick and choose which faith-based answer feels the best.

Well, faith isn't just belief in arbitrary things for no reason, it's a belief grounded in spiritual experience that doesn't contradict our reason. (Though there are reasoned arguments for heaven/hell given certain premises.) Talking more broadly, there is a point at which your justifications for your beliefs bottom out, a point at which you believe in things not because of empirical or logical reasons, even if you reject all religions.

> Since the past has resembled the future in the past many times, that gives us evidence that the past resembles the future

Ah not evidence in the strict sense of the world. I mean in the sense of probabilistic Bayesian reasoning [0], which I think we all use in some form (consciously or subconsciously) in forming our beliefs of reality. Since the laws have been stable in the past, we can hold a strong credence (say 99%, but never 100%) they will continue to hold in the future, until new data proves otherwise. Same reason we don't think twice before stepping into an airplane, trusting the .

In general, our intuitions do develop from our empirical evidence and logic. How can it be otherwise? Even our evaluation of which religion is true depends heavily on our upbringing and which ideas we are exposed to the most, which feed our intuition.

[0] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-bayesian/

Right, but what's at stake is induction itself, which is what Bayesian reasoning is just a formalization of. I never understood why Bayesianism could be a solution to the problem of induction, it just seems to move the problem elsewhere - like, in Bayesian language, what justifies our choice of a particular prior (assuming a uniform prior is still a choice).

>How can it be otherwise?

Chains of reasoning have to bottom out somewhere right?

> what justifies our choice of a particular prior

Right that's a good question. I'll point to an answer Sean Carroll gave in an AMA episode [0] of his Mindscape podcast:

  The pros and cons of Bayesian reasoning are almost all in the choice of a prior. People who are pro-Bayesian will say, look, as long as your priors aren't completely crazy, if you collect enough data, the priors cease to matter. [...] The promise of Bayesian reasoning is that data overwhelms your prior ultimately. And therefore, there is no algorithmic way of choosing what your prior should be. It's a little bit fuzzy to say when things are priors and when things are posteriors because we all have certain inclinations, intuitions, pictures of the world, and that's perfectly okay. But as a good Bayesian, you shouldn't be too worried about picking your priors. You should be mostly worried about updating those priors when data comes in, when information comes in.

> Chains of reasoning have to bottom out somewhere

Absolutely. We should do our best to keep asking the why question, but at the end, we'll be left with a brute-force fact. The question then is, where do we stop, right? In the context of this thread, religion wants to say, God is the final answer. What caused God? Nothing, God is His own cause (kalam cosmological argument). And as a naturalist I'd say, the universe can be its own cause. There's no rational inconsistency there, contrary to what the kalam argument claims. Theists and atheists give different credence to these two viewpoints. And until we have more data, the question cannot really be settled with certainty. So both will keep trying to justify why one viewpoint should have a higher prior over the other, based on secondary evidence.

[0] https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2023/04/03/ama-...

FWIW, I'm a Christian (convert to Catholicism) and I respectfully but completely disagree with the GP when he says:

>> If Christianity was a conclusion reached after a set of rational arguments, you would be right. But belief in Christianity is sort of logically prior to rational argumentation. Of course, we have Christian apologetics, which make arguments for certain aspects of Christianity, but this isn't really the reason to believe so much as it is just motivation for people who think in more intellectual terms to take it seriously. Faith is beyond the domain of human reason - the Christian's belief is founded in a kind of immediate, self-evident spiritual experience that comes logically prior to arguments. We might still discover internal inconsistencies that might motivate us to rethink this worldview, of course.

I respectfully disagree with every sentence (except the last).

Firstly, I think God's existence can be proved rationally, using arguments that take very basic empirical observations as premises (for example: "things change", "things behave predictably", "there are multiple instances of the same thing"). I don't think these are arguments that fit into a combox, which is frustrating but that's the reality -- although I think most of the common arguments against God's existence can be dealt without many words.

Secondly, once God's existence is established, I think the empirical basis of Christianity specifically (evidence for the resurrection) is sound. I think the common objections fail. Many of the objections are variants on Hume's, which amounts to "the resurrection is so unlikely given my philosophical assumptions that literally any explanation for the observed facts is more likely". Once Hume's assumptions are undermined (in stage 1), the facts take on a very different light.

Thirdly, I think Catholicism is internally consistent and has further evidence in its favour -- including miracles, continuity of institutions and continuity of teaching -- whereas I think Protestantism and Eastern Orthodoxy lack these qualities. While intra-Christian disputes may seen beyond the scope of this discussion, I think they have some bearing. For example:

>> Faith is beyond the domain of human reason - the Christian's belief is founded in a kind of immediate, self-evident spiritual experience that comes logically prior to arguments.

This is a specifically Protestant view (although many Catholics mistakenly hold to it since it chimes so easily with the post-Enlightenment concept of religion). I would say faith is a rational assent to revelation. But more importantly for the present discussion, I would say God's existence that can be established by pure reason, independently of faith.

> "I" exist. Presumably the universe I experience also exists. Why? There's a First Cause that brought them into existence. We can call it God. This is the closest religion and science can get, because this definition of God is without any pre-defined qualities. For instance, God can be non-dualistic (God _is_ the universe, or in other words, the universe is its own cause), and even mathematical (Physics' Theory of Everything, Mathematical Universe Hypothesis). We only have a set of possibilities here.

There are solid arguments against all these and in favour of monotheism. Again, no way of summarising in a combox, but I can give a few thoughts, which should not be taken as even an adequate description, let alone a complete defence that is intended to convince you :-).

Pantheism is false because it can't explain change. A thing can only be changed by something else; therefore the first principle (First Cause) of reality can't change, because otherwise it would not be first. But the universe is changing; hence the universe can't be the first principle of reality. Each of these points is obviously controversial, but I think defensible.

Alternatively one could argue that change is an illusion, like many eastern religions do. But speaking very generally, one object is distinguished from another by how it changes (that is, how it acts or is acted upon). We distinguish the presence of hydrogen from that of helium by how they act, or how other things act on them. We also distinguish a human being from a dog by how they act -- not least, how they act on our sight, sound, etc. And so on. If change (that is, action and being acted on) is an illusion, it means that individual objects (like stones, trees, dogs, human beings) are not actually individual at all; their individuality is only an illusion. But if this is so, predication is impossible, because we are predicating only of our illusions. Since this is not so (because if it were, why are we even bothering with this discussion?), pantheism must be false. Such is the vague outline of another argument that a monotheist would make.

Alternatively one could argue that a thing need not be changed by something else -- that it can change itself. The trouble with this is it fails to explain why things act in one way rather than another. If things could change themselves, they would act completely randomly, because there would be no cause of their change, and therefore no reason. This is not so.

Pythagoras was the first to propose that mathematics was the basis of everything. But there are things that are not numeric or can be reduced to number. For example, non-mathematical logic, which is a fundamental aspect of reality, and can't be reduced to number. Again, a counter-argument would proceed on these lines.

I'm not going to attempt any other answers in a combox because these are profound questions that require, and have received, book-length expositions. I am only attempting to give you the vaguest idea of the thought processes I go through in arriving at my beliefs. But I have not yet found an argument that makes me doubt my Catholicism, and I think it's profoundly false to say that Christianity is independent of logic or observation.

> I think God's existence can be proved rationally

We have to be careful here by what "God" means. God as in a First Cause is trivially true, but is not what most people mean when they say God. The existence of the God of religions, i.e., a personal all-loving human-caring God who listens to human prayer can only be shown true or false empirically. In my comment, I posited alternative universes, for example, the Devil acting as God. Which universe we actually live in among a large number of possibilities is not something that can be proved rationally.

> empirical basis of Christianity specifically (evidence for the resurrection) is sound

Yeah, I remain unconvinced and give higher explanatory power to human affinity for divine miracles (see followers of modern age "gurus"), ability of hearsay to go "viral" (especially in an era without books and modern scientific knowledge), and a new religious movement asserting stories for a "greater good".

In addition, as I already mentioned, even if the resurrection is true, the only thing we can be sure of is that certain "magic" can go beyond the usual laws of physics. That's it. There could be a number of reasons behind the resurrection. The Devil playing games. The Matrix scientists testing a "what-if" scenario. A fallible God trying to do some good. And of course, a genuine all loving God.

Christianity would have been so much convincing if Jesus had mentioned at least a few futuristic but concrete facts that only God could know, and that future generations could verify happened exactly as written in the Bible.

> A thing can only be changed by something else

I can only say, why? :) By a universe, I mean a set of physical laws and a bunch of stuff those laws act upon. Nothing prevents say a cyclic universe where both laws and stuff exist without a beginning, just evolving from big bang to big crunch to big bang, repeated ad infinitum.

Again, all your objections can be answered, and if I were either rich or childless I would do so myself. But I'm neither, so all I can do is provide you with a book recommendation: check out Edward Feser's work, especially Aquinas and Five Proofs. If you want to see Dawkins refuted in his own tone, see The Last Superstition.

What research have you done up to this point to answer your questions?

> all your objections can be answered

I've been promised such many many times, and every single time the arguments have fallen hilariously short of the promise. For instance, the "Five Proofs" are basically a variation of the statement: I insist X has to exist, and X=God. The simple refutation is: Nope :). X can be reasoned about in other ways. Maybe I'll take a look at the other resources at some point, but my credence is low those will have any solid arguments either.

I often wonder why such arguments are taken so seriously. I've honestly tried to see if they have enough substance to make me change my mind. But each time I become more convinced religious arguments are simply wish fulfillment. Moreover, the word is God is so flexible that it's hard to pin down the exact thing people have in mind when discussing religion. And so it'll continue. As long as we live and let live without imposing viewpoints by force, that's okay!

"But each time I become more convinced religious arguments are simply wish fulfillment."

Funny, I feel exactly the opposite, but of course everybody, whether religious or not, sees what he wants to see :-)

"For instance, the "Five Proofs" are basically a variation of the statement: I insist X has to exist, and X=God."

This is false. Or please tell me what work you've read that gives you that impression. It perhaps works as a parody of the ontological argument (which is not one of the 'five proofs'), but no more than that.

The book Five Proofs is not the same set of five that Aquinas very briefly summarises (though there is some overlap). The ontological argument, which I think fails, is not one of either sets.

Anyway, I've pointed you in what I hope is a profitable direction. I recommended the Five Proofs book in particular because one chapter (IMO) successfully rebuts every atheist argument that I've encountered online or in print. These books' arguments are not what you will find in typical pro-religion discourse, much of which I agree is risible. I wish you well!

> sees what he wants to see

Most definitely. Though I do think (hope?) we humans can rise above our limitations to grasp the actual Truth quite a bit.

> The book Five Proofs is not the same set of five that Aquinas very briefly summarises

Alright I got the actual book now. To correct the mistake, I'll give the book a honest read and post my impressions here in a day or two. I hope you can be around to respond if I got something wrong. If not, nice talking to you!

> Most definitely. Though I do think (hope?) we humans can rise above our limitations to grasp the actual Truth quite a bit.

Sure. I don't mean to imply I'm a subjectivist or that the situation is hopeless. But seeing things as they are, rather than as one is inclined to see them, takes serious effort and self-training. That's not an argument in favour or against anything; it's true in every aspect of life, from the most mundane to the biggest questions.

Feel free to respond to this comment or some more recent one, and I'll try to remember to check. Regardless of whether you're convinced, you'll at least be responding to much better arguments than what you've likely encountered so far. Enjoy!

Alright, it took longer than expected. I wasn't able to give full attention to all the arguments of the book, but I think I got the main arguments and counter-arguments.

So the thesis of the book "Five Proofs" is as it says in the intro---the real debate is not between atheism and theism---by trying to show that God, as accepted by theists, definitely exists.

By God, the book means an entity with certain qualities, which I'll divide into two sets:

* impersonal: simplicity, immutability, immateriality, incorporeality, eternity, necessity

* personal: will, omnipotence, omniscience, perfect goodness, love

My main criticism of the five proofs is that, even if accepted, they can only used to demonstrate the impersonal qualities above. The book bolts on the personal qualities with thin arguments that don't follow from the proofs. And this has been my observation in many such discussions, that the meaning of the word "God" switches mid-conversation to fit the conclusion.

An impersonal "God" is actually compatible with naturalism, because here "God" is just a word being used to describe the ultimate nature of reality. So whatever the ultimate nature of reality is, if one wants to call it God, that's totally fine. To differentiate my perspective, I'll call that ultimate reality the Theory of Everything (ToE) instead. ToE has all the impersonal qualities, ToE is what sustains the universe, ToE is eternal and immutable, etc.

* ToE is what sustains the hierarchical series at each moment.

* ToE is base part out of all other composite parts of made of.

* I don't see why "there must be a necessarily existing intellect which grasps all of the logical relationships between all propositions". Truth and logic just are. They don't need to be grasped by anything to exist. However, if one wants to call this collection God/ToE, that's fine. But it doesn't follow that such a God is omniscient (as there isn't any will that "understands" in such a collection).

* I don't really see how the Thomistic Proof is different from the Aristotelian Proof, but in any case, I think ToE can be the essence of this universe's existence.

* "There must be at least one necessary being, to explain why any contingent things exist at all". Yes, the First Cause, but ToE and not a personal God.

ToE/God, with the impersonal qualities, can be the final conclusion from all the 5 proofs. But theists need "God" to be something extra. They need God to have the above personal qualities as well. And that cannot be shown with the proofs. Because the reality we observe is consistent with an impersonal ToE creating and sustaining it. ToE doesn't need to have a will, or to be perfectly good, or to love its creation. These qualities don't follow from the proofs at all. So personal qualities can only be accepted if one accepts some revelation to be true. But that is outside the scope of this discussion. All I want to show is that the thesis of the book is incorrect and atheism is back on the table.

To reiterate, something cannot come out of nothing. Cogito, ergo sum. Something (I) exists. Hence there is some brute-force First Cause for this something. Theists call this First Cause God. Atheists can call this ToE (say). I claim that God = ToE at this point. Theists go one step further to give personal qualities to God, who willed this universe into existence (but could have chosen not to) and cares about its constituents, including humans, whose prayers and actions He listens to and judges, and has revealed himself at least once (if not more). Atheists reject this second part. I instead adopt a naturalist viewpoint modulated by Bayesian Reasoning. If I find some strong evidence for a personal God, I'll of course have to change my mind and become a theist.

There is a lot more I can say of course, given its a book length discourse. I'll just say one more thing. The book criticizes and rejects the idea that "science is the only genuine source of knowledge". I think this is a common misunderstanding of what science is. The books says "The trouble now is that scientism becomes completely trivial, arbitrarily redefining “science” so that it includes anything that could be put forward as evidence against scientism." But that is what science, or more precisely, the scientific method is!

For instance, if the 5 proofs had actually logically and definitively proved that a personal God exists, then yes, that knowledge would become part of science.

Conversely, is it not true that the actual bedrock of religions are the books/revelations. Imagine a world where were no such revelations. Would people have as much faith in a personal caring God just on the basis of proofs?

And if the revelations were actually shown to be true, that would become part of scientific knowledge. Say God appears on Earth today and agrees to undergo scientific observations of His nature (say by turning water to wine or parting the ocean under experimental scrutiny), then naturally His existence will have to be accepted as part of reality.

The scientific method is used by everyone, whether consciously or unconsciously and to the best of their ability, to survive and understand the reality we observe. There is no other way to judge right from wrong. Scientists obviously use it to study physical reality. And theists use it for instance to judge which among the various religions (and which denomination within a religion) is actually true. Yes, that is also an application of the scientific method, looking at the arguments for the different religions and judging which one (or none) seems to be true. The disagreements come in when we don't have enough data to make a definitive judgement between the alternatives. And that's where all the wonderful imaginative ideas continue to exist.

Much depends on the sense in which we take the term 'science'. Does it mean 'rationally-held knowledge of any sort', or does it mean 'knowledge derived from physics, chemistry, geology, biology and other material things'. You seem to be arguing for the science-in-the-first-sense here, which I'm basically in agreement with (I may quibble here and there). All knowledge, including the content of Divine Revelation, is rationally held to if it is true knowledge. The goal, the purpose of the intellect is the attainment of truth; thus all true knowledge is rational, while all false knowledge is irrational, and is a failure of the intellect to achieve its end.

But quite a few atheists say that claims about anything that is outside science-in-the-second-sense's domain is irrational. Example: Alex Rosenberg states that any knowledge outside of physics' domain is irrational (in line with his reductionist philosophy, he holds chemistry, biology, etc to be physics on a bigger scale). Hume also seemed to be pushing such views with his fork. This claim is trivially easy to refute, I assume you know the arguments already so I won't waste your time with them.

Yes the first one, if the distinction needs to be made.

I'll even go further and claim that distinction itself is meaningless and only matters when say organizing university departments.

What needs to be kept in mind is emergence. Chemistry emerges from physics, then biology from chemistry, ecology from biology, etc. Experimentally verified God will become the base level out of which physics emerges from in the other direction. In that sense, physics' domain perhaps includes everything. But it all depends on how we define the terms.

> the purpose of the intellect is the attainment of truth

This I wholeheartedly agree. Maybe you'll enjoy reading this blog post [0] that proposes Truthism as life's goal.

[0] https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/10/religion-for-the-nonreligious...

Thanks for the response and taking the time to follow my recommendation.

I'm at work so need to be brief, but I assume you read the discussion of the five qualities you list as personal, on pp.205-229. What did you think were the weaknesses in the argument? If you want to focus on just one or two of the five qualities to keep the discussion within boundaries, that's obviously fine.

Would you agree that the proofs, if successful, prove the existence of something that is other than the universe, even if the arguments for the personal qualities of this entity fail?

> prove the existence of something that is other than the universe

I'm not sure. I think the proofs show some base entity that is needed to sustain the universe. But is it something apart from the universe? Whatever exists, say God and His creation, all together constitutes the universe. Of course by universe I mean the totality of reality that the proofs refer to.

Perhaps you mean that the something "other" always exists even though the universe might not have. As I say in the other comment, God might not have a choice in creating the universe, so this is an open question that cannot be discussed within the context of the proofs.

So to give a bit more of an answer to this, and having not heard your thoughts on pp.205-229, which discuss this issue:

First, I don't think "Theory of Everything" is a good phrase for what you're trying to get at. Any theory is necessarily incomplete, since a theory attempts to describe reality using formal symbols, and formal symbols cannot be equal to the reality they attempt to describe. They cannot capture the entirety of the reality. But this is kind of nitpicking.

The very very short summary is as follows:

Omnipotence: if we accept that (at least one of) the Five Proofs succeed, it follows that God causes any given thing to exist at any moment in time. If he causes its existence, he also causes its power to act. Without God, nothing can act.

Omniscience: again, accepting at least one proof succeeds, it follows that God causes everything to be doing what it is doing at that time. Hence any 'state of affairs', like 'the cat sits on the mat', will be caused by God. Therefore he knows about them (yes I know this doesn't logically follow, the book obviously goes into far more detail).

Perfect goodness: this is a bit more complicated, since we hit disagreement about what good and evil actually are. As a premise, let us say that in classical philosophy, any evil (or bad-ness) is a defect, or alternatively, a failure of a thing to instantiate its essence. Hence a tree might be bad to the extent that it's diseased and therefore failing to grow; a dog might be bad to the extent that it has only three legs. With human beings, some defects are moral defects, which are defects of intellect and will: the person fails to perceive his true good, and therefore fails to pursue it. But moral defects are not fundamentally different from the amoral defects of trees, dogs and even artifacts like chairs and computers. This is one area where classical philosophy differs radically from modern philosophy, which posits a fact-value distinction that allegedly cannot be overcome.

To summarise, a defect in classical philosophy is where a particular, concrete example of a thing fails to instantiate its essence: that is to say, it lacks what is proper to it.

Since God's existence is the same as his essence (if you accept the Thomistic proof), it follows that God cannot have any defects, and therefore must be completely good.

Love: God does not have emotions. But to love a thing (and 'person' is included under 'thing') is to will its good: that is, its true end. Since God does this, he loves everything.

Again, all this is the ultra-ultra-cliffnotes version.

More generally, God cannot possibly lack anything, including the 'personal' qualities you describe. Again, you realise this is so when you grasp that God causes everything to exist, and therefore causes all their qualities as well. It would be impossible to cause something that you don't in some sense have yourself (either formally or eminently -- hence the objection "but God doesn't have ears!" fails). Also, remember that evil is a defect, a failure to have something, so therefore God cannot 'have' evil qualities. In a strict sense, nothing 'has' evil qualities, it only lacks corresponding good ones.

Sorry I couldn't get back sooner.

> pp.205-229

I am on the ebook, but I assume you mean Chapter 6, which I did read but as you can imagine, the arguments are not convincing to me. I think the meaning of the terms omnipotent, omniscience, goodness, etc is quite fluid in the book, so let's try to pin those down.

I posit that an impersonal God, let's call it iGod since you nitpicked ToE, serves as a final answer coming out of the proofs. Let's grant it all the qualities that the proofs need. iGod is what causes and sustains the universe. However, since iGod is impersonal, He did not choose to create the universe. Ultimately, He does not have any will. He just is. Maybe you at least agree that atheism/science is compatible with iGod in this sense.

And that is the key difference from theism, which needs a personal God (pGod) with a sense of will. As the book says (emphasis mine):

* "Since God exists in the fullest possible way, he must have the capacity to act in the fullest possible way."

* "God apprehends all the things that could exist, and causes some of those things actually to exist while refraining from causing others of them to exist."

I don't see how this sense of a will follows from the proofs. iGod, the unmoved mover/unactualized actualizer, may not have any control over actualizing. The universe can just burst forth naturally from iGod without any sort of active decision to bring it forth. The book's defense of this sense of free will, where God is free to choose not to cause the universe, is simply that "the freedom of the divine will is mysterious to us", which I think you'll agree is not any sort of proof. If you can show me how a sense of will arises from these or other proofs, I'll reconsider my position, since this is the keystone to the rest of the qualities I'm calling personal. Without will, the meaning of the rest of the personal qualities become the same as iGod's.

Some quick comments on the rest of the qualities:

Omnipotence: I am not sure if we can extend the quality of iGod causing "any given thing to exist" just from observation of this one universe. More concretely, I am still thinking about whether the purely actual actualizer being unique holds. But in any case, if iGod's omnipotence means that it causes and sustains "any given thing to exist", that is fine. But this is a passive power. If pGod's omnipotence means that He has the power to cause anything but can withhold a subset of them based on a willful decision, then that is not an outcome of the proofs. As I said, the will part matters.

Omniscience: To give a sense of where I am coming from, I'll give two example. Base axioms in mathematics cause all the rest of the theorems to be true or false, in an eternal sort of way (as also discussed in the 3rd proof). But it's absurd to attribute omniscience (about mathematics) to mathematics. And electrons cause emergent phenomenon such as electricity and working computers, yet they don't "know" anything about these emergent levels built of top. Similarly, iGod, in an impersonal way, causes the universe, following a chain of causation. But in what sense can we attribute a sense of knowing in iGod? Again, it just is. Without proving a mind/will, using the word omniscience is I think a mistake and just leads to miscommunication.

Goodness and love: I think these only exist in an emergent level of reality, i.e., in human minds. You'll agree that atoms that constitute our physical bodies don't have these attributes, right? I posit that in the same way, iGod, the impersonal base reality which constitutes everything else, also does not have these attributes. The book (and your comment) is redefining the terms (goodness = lack of imperfection, love = "that God creates things entails that he loves them") to mean something different from how we use it in our everyday conversation and which is why I think using these terms is again a mistake. We're free to use whatever terms we like of course, but it just leads to a miscommunication that makes these discussions more murky than they need to be. In any case, goodness/love in pGod again needs a sense of will to make them useful, because otherwise by the same definitions iGod is also good and all-loving.

> God cannot possibly lack anything ... It would be impossible to cause something that you don't in some sense have yourself

I understand the sense of what you're saying here, but I want to make a distinction between base qualities and emergent qualities. For example, atoms "lack" the quality of being a table, even though a table is constituted entirely by atoms. Tableness is an emergent quality. In the same way, iGod only has the properties needed to actualize the next potential that in the causal chain gives rise to entirety of reality, including our universe. But that does not mean iGod itself can be attributed the quality of being an atom or a galaxy or a human body. Causing some quality to exist down the causal chain does not mean it is meaningful to port those qualities back up the chain. In the context of the proofs, all we can be sure of is that some First Cause base reality iGod exists. But the minimal qualities we need to attribute to iGod do not use terms like goodness, love, evil, etc without entirely redefining those terms. But theists cannot then turn around and use the same words back with their original meaning in the same context.

Thanks for the response. It will likely be a few days before I get a chance to reply.

For sure.

I read some more of Feser's writings. And the more I read, I more I see that the quibble is less about what is and more about what we should call it.

The major thrust of the book is that the proofs show the God exists, hence everyone should be a theist. But you see, the terms God and theist are not defined that well. God, in the context of the book, is an entity that has some qualities that are defined to be something "analogous" to the usual meanings of the word. And that creates a lot of ambiguity in the message. More so because theism is not defined at all.

"The real debate is between theists of different stripes—Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, purely philosophical theists, and so forth—and begins where natural theology leaves off.", the book says. Well here's a thought. Let's take Christians. They necessarily believe that the God revealed in the Bible is True. Moreover, they believe the God of all the other religions are necessarily false [0]. Now of course, as the book itself says, whether Christianity is true or not is outside the scope of the proofs. So for the sake of this discussion, let's say that yes the God the proofs is true (necessarily), but no human religion, including Christianity, is true. That is, God hasn't revealed himself to humans directly. Where does that leave us? Should we still be a theist? A "purely philosophical theist", as the above quote says? What would that mean? What should the beliefs of a theist without any of the current religions be?

In other words, what difference does the presence or absence of this proof of God make in our lives to be able to define us as a theist or an atheist? God may be perfectly good and all knowing and all the rest of the qualities. Alright, so what? Does it have any implication for our lives? At this point I expect the theist to jump in and say (among other things), yes of course it matters. God is the perfect role model, and we imperfect humans should try to elevate our lives to try and match his perfectness. This I think is fine. However, I think this is compatible with being an atheist! Attempting to reach our maximal potential is a valid goal regardless of whether that perfectness is already "actual" or not.

And that is my overall point. That's why I tried to point out the "personal" qualities earlier. When I resist the term theist, for me personally, I am resisting the idea that God is somehow actively participating in the daily affairs of the universe. That He sets the rules for what is good or bad, not as the perfect being, but as defined in the Bible (or other books). That there is a judgement of the our actions and we go to heaven or hell (or cycle of rebirth based on karma, etc). And this later part is I think where most of the disagreement between theism and atheism is. And these later ideas don't (and cannot) come from the proofs. Moreover, there is a subtle flip in the meaning of the terms even when discussing the proofs. For instance, take the first proof. Everything has a (hierarchical) First Cause. Let's call it God. God is the cause of everything. Hence, God causes everything to exist. But you see, there is a flip from the passive "is a cause of" to an active "causes". Which then naturally is taken to mean a God with a will who has the power to cause the universe but also has the capacity to choose to create or not create the universe. And that is I think an unjustified misreading of the words "cause". To make an analogy, electrons "cause" tables to exist, without having any active godly qualities. God can similarly cause and sustain the universe, without having any active role in it.

So yeah, in short, natural theology as described here can actually be compatible with philosophy of science/metaphysics in my reading, and the quibble is more about terms and boundaries. The main challenge for theism is to show the next step, that God revealed Himself to us. Because only that can show that God is personal/active rather than impersonal/passive. And that can only be shown empirically I think, not through philosophical ponderings.

I probably didn't manage to express my thoughts fully, and I hope you'll try to read into the spirit of the message when pondering it.

[0] https://www.quora.com/How-do-believers-of-a-god-defend-this-...

> Maybe you at least agree that atheism/science is compatible with iGod in this sense

I note the equation of atheism and science but make no further comment :-)

>The book's defense of this sense of free will, where God is free to choose not to cause the universe, is simply that "the freedom of the divine will is mysterious to us", which I think you'll agree is not any sort of proof.

Feser is not offering this as proof of the existence of God's free will. He's answering a particular objection: how is it that an unchanging Being can will, given that we, as changing beings, necessarily change from willing to not-willing and back again? He says that using this as a ground against God's having will is to commit the fallacy of accident. And then he's saying we can't understand the full details of how God can will without changing, but that we can nonetheless safely say what is not the case: that God lacks will. (My summary of his argument is below.) Therefore I think your characterization of his argument is inaccurate.

If either A xor B is true, and we can show that A is false, we know that B is true. Perhaps there are implications of B that are impossible to grasp even in theory, but this doesn't undermine the truth of B. Agree?

One way we know that God wills freely is by comparing a lion, a unicorn and a dinosaur (I'm paraphrasing the argument on Will in Chapter 6 here). There is nothing about the concept of a lion that causes it to exist, there's nothing about the concept of a unicorn that causes it not to exist, and there's nothing about the concept of a dinosaur that caused it to exist at one time but then caused it to stop existing. On the contrary: I could describe the concepts of a lion, a unicorn and a dinosaur in infinite detail, and you wouldn't know from what I had told you which is real, which is historical and which is imaginary.

What I said about those three animals is true about everything. You could describe the concept of anything in infinite detail without knowing whether that thing exists or existed. There is nothing about a lion as such that makes it real, and nothing about a unicorn as such that makes it imaginary. There is nothing about a lion that makes its existence necessary, and nothing about a unicorn that makes its non-existence necessary. The existence or non-existence is a completely separate question from what it is (its qualities, etc).

Now consider the principal of proportionate causality (described in the book in detail). This basically says that if a thing doesn't have a particular quality in itself, that quality must be caused by something else. Example: I can't lift myself 10000 feet into the air, but an aeroplane can cause me to 'have' this quality. A particular pool of water may be red; it is not the water itself that's red, so something else must be giving it this quality. Etc.

The result of this is that any object that exists must be caused by something else to exist, and that this 'something else' must exist in and of itself. (This is obviously contained in some of the proofs.) Obviously the proofs say that God is such a 'something else'. Therefore, God is causing lions to exist, caused dinosaurs to exist at one point but no longer does, and has never caused unicorns to exist.

But we know that there is nothing in lions that makes them exist, nothing in unicorns that makes them not-exist, and nothing in dinosaurs that makes them stopped-existing. So, assuming the claim that God causes their existence from moment to moment succeeds, if follows that their existence or non-existence is a matter of choice. The fact that He is causing one to exist and not the other two indicates that He is choosing to do this. Given that there is nothing in any of the three that causes it to necessarily exist, it follows that the real things we see are not some sort of 'natural bursting forth' from an impersonal being, but rather exist by the choice of this Being. If the universe 'burst forth' from God, then anything that could potentially exist, would exist.

>> God cannot possibly lack anything ... It would be impossible to cause something that you don't in some sense have yourself

> base qualities and emergent qualities...But that does not mean iGod itself can be attributed the quality of being an atom or a galaxy or a human body. Causing some quality to exist down the causal chain does not mean it is meaningful to port those qualities back up the chain.

I disagree with the reductionist account of a table that is I think implicit here -- I think tables (or at least the wood that constitutes the tables) are metaphysically prior to the atoms that compose them, and the same for all natural objects. By this, I mean that the parts can only be understood in terms of the whole, and must be understood as subordinate to the whole, not vice-versa. But if I understand your objection correctly, I think I can work through it even allowing for the reductionist ontology. The principle of proportionate causality illustrates things well. Could you read the book's account of this principle? It's early in Chapter 6, I think pretty much the first section. I think you're using the 'heirloom principle' to object, which assumes that the Principle says that an effect must exist formally in its cause, and ignores that it can also exist eminently or virtually. The book defines these terms, and attempts to explain why the objection is not valid. Do you think the attempt succeeds?

If you think the attempt succeeds, I will go on to discuss why, given some things in reality (human beings) have a will, it follows that that which causes human beings' existence must also have will, either in the same sense as human beings or in some greater sense.

I'll try to respond to your other post when I get a chance. Some of the points are fairly different from what we're discussing here. I'm happy to talk about whether God revealed Himself, and in what sense he governs our conduct (or has a right to do so), but it's a pretty different conversation.

> the equation of atheism and science

Ah sorry I didn't mean to imply an association, only that both atheists and scientists, from their perspectives, would have no qualms with (and in fact should necessarily accept) an impersonal First Cause.

> we can't understand the full details of how God can will

I'm quite wary of arguments that invoke the "beyond the capability of our minds to understand" clause. But I get it, let's see if A: "we can nonetheless safely say what is not the case: that God lacks will" holds up. I don't think the book makes a good case for A and only offers B, hence my comment.

In general, I think the quibble again is in the definition of the term existence.

* Logical existence: Everything, that is not logically inconsistent, logically necessarily "exists". God has no say here. This is the logical metaphysical landscape, with mathematics and all possible universes with all possible constituents such as tables and unicorns.

* Ontological existence: A small small subset of the metaphysical landscape that we experience with our senses. Here, some things "exist" and others don't. This is what we want to talk about right? What we think about when we ask the questions: where did this come from, who caused this, etc. At least I exist. Thus something exists. Ex nihilo nihil. And thus, a First Cause sustains this something's existence. And the question then is, of the things that do exist, how much control does First Cause have for their existence?

I think your argument above switches between these two definitions, hence the disagreement.

> You could describe the concept of anything in infinite detail without knowing whether that thing exists or existed.

Yeah I read this, but not sure if I agree. That infinite detail would contain its history and details of its components, no? And that would lead to a description of an entire universe, where we can judge whether it makes sense for that things to exist. But anyway, doesn't matter for our present purposes. We can take unicorns to be metaphysically true as an axiom, for instance.

> There is nothing about a lion that makes its existence necessary, and nothing about a unicorn that makes its non-existence necessary.

This is perhaps true for metaphysical existence, but the ontological existence of a lion and the non-existence of an unicorn can absolutely be determined by the physical laws and the initial conditions of our universe. As far as we have probed our senses, the physical world seems to be, with absolute consistency, following a set of laws. All the First Cause has "control" over (right now) is selecting/sustaining what the laws and initial conditions were. The rest of the entire history of the universe is then already logically implied, either deterministically (single line) or probabilistically (a tree), including +lions and -unicorns. First Cause has no say whatsoever.

> Therefore, God is causing lions to exist, caused dinosaurs to exist at one point but no longer does, and has never caused unicorns to exist.

> I disagree with the reductionist account of a table that is I think implicit here

> the parts can only be understood in terms of the whole

This is the core of the disagreement then. "Existence", by which I mean to take this physical universe that we experience with our senses, is empirically reductionist. No God is needed to explain why the Sun rises or why tables retain their form. Each emergent level [0] has a necessary and sufficient cause from the level below it. Tables -> atoms -> quarks -> QFT -> ? -> First Cause. In this sense, First Cause is causing and sustaining the universe. But again, passively, not actively.

Theists obviously disagree with this. But my point is, just from the proofs as the book claims, why can we claim that God chooses unicorn not to exist? All we can say is God chose/is the First Cause physical laws, no? The non-existence of unicorns is implicit in the laws (and initial conditions). No choice needed. And since I have shown an alternative explanation that is consistent with the proofs, a personal God is not a logical necessity, is it? Theist will have to rely on the Bible (etc) for that, not logical proofs.

And also:

> has never caused unicorns to exist.

> If the universe 'burst forth' from God, then anything that could potentially exist, would exist.

Well we don't know! We cannot make any claims about what "exists" beyond our universe. It is absolutely possible that unicorns exist in some other universe. It is possible that the entire metaphysical landscape has ontological existence. We just don't know. And thus these statement cannot be considered true (or false) with any certainty.

[0] Except the origin of our universe and consciousness. The former will ultimately have a brute force First Cause. And the later is an open question right now (a gap).

> I disagree with the reductionist account of a table that is I think implicit here

Even the proofs imply a reductionist account no? The first proof says: the table holds up the glass, the floor holds up the table and the earth holds up the table. And then asks, what holds up it all? Answer: necessarily God. But then God is at the edge (first) of this causal chain and the table is still holding up the glass (directly), no? And God is holding up the universe (directly) and everything in it (indirectly). Thus, saying that God is holding up the glass would be misusing the usual meaning of the term "holding up".

That's not what it says at all. It's using the glass-table-floor-earth picture as an aid to understanding, to illustrate the difference between a linear series and a hierarchical series. It is separate from the actual argument, which comes later.

Huh. Maybe you have a proper example of a hierarchical series then?

I'm thinking God -> object1 -> object2 -> object3. Is this not what the book means?

> you wouldn't know from what I had told you which is real, which is historical and which is imaginary.

This is obviously true. It is slightly amusing that this is then used to imply that God choose what things actually exist, while I as a naturalist take it to mean we have to empirically look at the world to determine what exists.

> Do you think the attempt succeeds?

Alright. So I suppose I don't think the attempt succeeds, no.

Take a table. It has a quality: it's solid. As compared to air, which is gas. However, in what sense is it meaningful to say that an individual atom is solid or gas? Isn't it true that concept of solid or gas only comes in when there are a group of atoms, none of which individually have a "state"? Yes of course, the property is inherent (eminently or virtually as you say) in an atom, but it only materializes in relation to other atoms, not individually. And so on down the abstraction levels.

The book defends PPC with arguments that are quite weak and only work they are talking about the same emergent level. Yes, giving $20 works only when I have $20. But do atoms which constitute me also have $20 dollars? It's absurd no? The concept of owning $20 does not "exist" at the level of atoms. Same for the argument about evolution. Within genetics, the same DNA is evolving into different forms. But again, what about the atoms constituting the DNA?

So no, I don't think it makes sense to talk about qualities that emerge in higher levels to hold at the lower levels. First Cause doesn't have the quality of tables, states of matter, or human will directly, only in an indirect weak sense. The book says it too: "explanations in terms of potentialities may often be only minimally informative", but this "minimalness" makes all the difference! How can this minimally informative quality expanded to be maximally relevant when talking about the First Cause? Yes, the First Cause in a causal chain leads to human will. Minimally weak sense. Wondering how you think instead that First Cause has will "in the same sense as human beings or in some greater sense".

> part of the effect (the human intellect) is not material > given some things in reality (human beings) have a will

I will note that these are agree-to-disagree statements, given the basis of consciousness is an open question for now. From my naturalistic perspective, humans only have emergent "free" will, not libertarian free will, which is what theists usually mean by the term. But I'm happy to accept these statements for this discussion and am more interested in understanding why First Cause needs to have any will, given human will.

> Ah sorry I didn't mean to imply an association

I should have read your point more charitably, my bad :)

> This is perhaps true for metaphysical existence, but the ontological existence of a lion and the non-existence of an unicorn can absolutely be determined by the physical laws and the initial conditions of our universe

This may ve true, but irrelevant to my point. The 'laws of physics' are themselves one thing, and not another. It is logically possible to imagine a universe with anti-gravity instead of gravity (that is, where mass repels mass), or where natural processes were such that a lion's DNA ended up giving rise to a unicorn. It is equally logically possible to imagine a universe where unicorns pop in and out of existence, independently of any biological process. And infinite other possibilities. But this is not so. Your appeal to physical laws doesn't affect my point, which is not that we can know firstly about God's Willing, and secondly (and thereby) know about the existence of one and the non-existence of the other. Rather, it's that reality is certain particular things, and is not certain other particular things that it might logically have been. And this implies that certain concepts (lions, gravity) are willed into existence, and continue to be so willed here and now; and certain other concepts (anti-gravity, unicorns) are not.

The multiverse concept does not affect my point. If such a thing existed, there would be a Will that willed unicorns (and the supporting laws of physics/biology/etc) exist in the other universe, but not our one. This is unaffected by infinite multiverses. So the point stands.

>> You could describe the concept of anything in infinite detail without knowing whether that thing exists or existed. > Yeah I read this, but not sure if I agree. That infinite detail would contain its history and details of its components, no?

I was careful to refer to the concept of lion/unicorn , which exists independently of how particular examples of said concept came to exist.

>> you wouldn't know from what I had told you which is real, which is historical and which is imaginary. > This is obviously true. It is slightly amusing that this is then used to imply that God choose what things actually uexist, while I as a naturalist take it to mean we have to empirically look at the world to determine what exists.

These are not mutually contradictory. In any case, is it 'obviously true' or are you 'not sure if [you] agree' as you stated in your first reply? :-)

On a larger level, I don't think we can continue without discussing ontological reductionism. I can see that the PPC would make no sense if you think everything can be explained entirely in terms of its constituent atoms, which I think is your view. My own view is that the objects of our senses -- like pieces of wood, or apples, or dogs, or human beings -- cannot be reduced to the particles* that constitute them. To put it another way, what these things are is not the same as the particles they're made of. Nor is it the same as a particular arrangement of particles. "What a thing is" is a unity, and is distinct (though not separate) from the particles that compose it. This unity determines the particles' behavior -- or more generally, the whole determines the parts, not vice-versa. This also is true for an individual thing's properties, like color, ability to move, and (crucially) will.

If you think this is a useful line of enquiry, start kicking my view!

* Choose whatever level of particles you like: molecules, atoms, subatomic particles, quarks, etc. It doesn't affect the argument.

> the whole determines the parts, not vice-versa

Good. I think we can agree to disagree at this point. I try to reach the core premise of viewpoints I don't agree with and I think we have reached it here. I'll try to explain my viewpoints a bit more, but I imagine you'll remain unconvinced. Well, my own overall takeaway is still that I don't need the (personal) God hypothesis to explain the universe (yet) (~Laplace).

I'll say this though. You promised much better arguments than what I had encountered before. I'll admit I found my readings of natural theology pretty interesting. My exposure to arguments beyond using the Bible was only the Kalam Cosmological argument. Many of the ideas in Feser's book and blog articles were a refreshing take, and I had to think a bit about them before I could pinpoint the core ideas and where I disagree. So thank you for that.

> This unity determines the particles' behavior

To me, an empirical study of the universe we sense seems to indicate that the properties of the parts completely determines the properties of the whole. After we have explained the properties of H and O, the properties of H2O are completely fixed and determined. The game of life starts with a simple set of rules and an initial state, and the wonderful patterns that emerge [0] are completely determined after that. Same for the Mandelbrot set. Same for everywhere we look.

My question is, what will help convince you that the behavior of a whole can be determined by its parts? Is being able to accurately predict its behavior by predicting the behavior of just the parts not sufficient? What is left after accounting for the behavior of all the parts of a lion? What is in this essence of lionness that cannot be explained just from the combined behavior of cells?

> The 'laws of physics' are themselves one thing, and not another.

See here we agree. Our universe has a particular set of laws and initial conditions that could have been otherwise. Science takes this as a premise and studies what happened after that. But now take a Laplace's Demon [1] and ask, given the premise, does the universe contain [2] a lion? Answer: yes. Does the universe contain a unicorn? no. Does the universe contain a forum called hacker news where sdht0 and geye1234 are discussing natural theology? yes. I don't see why we need a God who is choosing things to exist or not. We may need God to fix the premise, but everything after that can be God-free. I'll try to explain my viewpoint another way:

> And this implies that certain concepts (lions, gravity) are willed into existence, and continue to be so willed here and now; and certain other concepts (anti-gravity, unicorns) are not.

This is a statement I can agree with, but our takeaways are so different. Imagine a canvas with a lion but no unicorn. If I'm correctly interpreting your concept of "willed", you're saying that there is a God who has two cutout images, that of a lion and a unicorn, and He decided to put the lion on the canvas but not the unicorn. I'm saying, there is a "God" who has a computer program, consisting of just 0s and 1s, which when run on a computer controlling a brush drew a picture of a lion on the canvas.

So I'm just repeating myself now, but regardless of the essences of the objects that inhabit our universe, their existence and behavior is completely determined once the laws and initial conditions have been set as a premise. The question of course remains, where does the premise come from? Here I'm open to possibilities. First Cause. God. Eternal physical laws. Etc. When I read the 5 proofs, that's what I thought, that the books are showing the existence of God at this level. At the edge/beginning of the chain. But you seem to have something else in mind (also as per your other comment) which I don't understand/agree with.

I think you'll agree that given the axioms of mathematics, 2+2=4 is true and not even God can change that. In the same way, as a naturalist, I'm saying that given the laws of our universe (whatever they are) and the initial conditions, lions exist and unicorns don't and even God cannot change that. I'll freely agree that the former is from logic and hence necessarily true. But the later is just from empirical observations. As I said before, if tomorrow God does choose ;) to reveal Himself in a convincing manner, I'll have to change my views completely. Similarly if unicorns start popping in and out of existence.

> I was careful to refer to the concept of lion/unicorn , which exists independently of how particular examples of said concept came to exist.

I'm not sure how to separate those. Doesn't the concept of a lion contain the fact that a lion hunts for food? Which needs biology, chemistry, physics, etc to explain. Or by concept do you mean just the shape? Then is a statue of a lion an actual lion? Like I'm trying to imagine how to explain to an alien from another galaxy the concept of a lion. How can we do that without explaining the entire history of life of Earth, etc?

[0] https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/11880/build-a-w...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace's_demon

[2] I'm assuming a deterministic universe for simplicity, but it can be sufficiently adapted for the quantum nondeterministic universe by taking about a tree of possibilities and whether any or how many of the branches have some property.

Will be a couple more days before I have time to reply, thanks for your patience.

Some further thoughts:

* There is a crucial assumption in the 5 proofs that I think is worth thinking about. Given that something exists (I, the world, causes, parts, etc), it follows that there must be a First Cause/God. Also given ex nihilo nihil fit, it follows that the First Cause has to be eternal. The debate then is about the rest of the qualities, which I'm distinguishing as impersonal vs personal. However, note that this reasoning relies on the apriori fact that the world exists, from which we (and the proofs) intuit the presence of a First Cause. This still does not answer the big question: why is there anything at all? [0] There could have been no world and even no First Cause. We can imagine that there would exist only logical possibilities but no ontological "existence". There would be just be Nothing. Yes, the First Cause is eternal. But why? How did the First Cause arise in the first place? I think it's a valid question but it's unclear what the answer could be. One possibility is that logical existence is all there is. [1] But in any case, the eternalism of the First Cause, as in the proofs, is contingent on cogito, ergo sum and is not a necessity beyond that. I find it an interesting realization.

* I am curious what you exactly mean by "the whole determines the parts, not vice-versa". One reading of it clashes wildly with all of our scientific investigations. From being a civilization which attribute everything to Gods and angels--making the sun go around the sky and natural calamities and good luck and bad luck---we've managed to figure out that we don't need such an attribution. Simple rules can generate a lot of complexity. Thus emergence and not God is what makes the world go. But the above statement seems to bring those ancients ideas back somehow. What am I missing?

Also, I think even granting PPC and that the whole determines the parts still does not prove will. God can still be bound by some underlying rules. I don't know if logic alone can lead us to God's free will, until we have some empirical proof such as God actually willing unicorns into existence instead of lions. Even for humans, just saying I have will ("I can will myself to fly but don't want to") doesn't really count until I show it.

* I'd like to hear your thoughts on my earlier question. If Christianity were to be shown as "false" as the other religions, and thus no human religion can demonstrate divine providence, how much will your belief in a personal God remain? Just from the proofs, do you think you will still strongly take a loving caring God who actively created and sustains this universe to be true?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts when you have the time.

[0] https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2018/08/13/epis... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothes...

I agree that 2+2=4 and God cannot change that. It cannot possibly be otherwise, given what 2 is, what 4 is and what addition is. But the physical laws of the universe are not like that. They might have been otherwise. Not only that, but theoretically, they could logically change to being otherwise at any point. The fact that they have behaved predictably in the past in no way implies, in and of itself, that they will continue to behave predictably in the future. There is nothing, theoretically, from causing mass to start repelling mass once we hit the year 2025. We can both conceive of that concept. (Appealing to probability won't help you here since probability assumes that the future will be like the past.) Similarly, it is logically possible for things to happen that violate the laws of physics, such as a unicorn popping into existence from nowhere. There are an infinite number of things that could logically happen but do not. But only certain concepts have ontological being. These are: lions and not unicorns, laws of biology rather than sudden appearances of animals, etc.

It is not logical to appeal to the laws of physics in order to undermine what I'm saying, since (to repeat myself) these are as contingent as anything else. We can conceive that the laws of physics might have been otherwise, that they might change at some point in the future, or that they might not govern every event in reality. These concepts are logically possible. So are multiverses where the laws of physics are different. Therefore, the laws of physics are contingent, not necessary like mathematics.

It therefore follows that, if the Proofs successfully establish the existence of the First Cause, then said Cause must be causing some concepts to exist, and not others. There is nothing in the concepts themselves that make one exist, and the other not-exist. Choice is the ability to bring about effect A xor effect B, where A and B contradict. Therefore there is something on the part of the Cause that is causing one to exist, and the other not. And this obviously implies will on the part of the Cause. (Again, Feser and I are talking about the First Cause causing existence from instant to instant; not about looking back in time to what brought the universe into existence in the first place.)

Obviously the natural sciences (physics, zoology, etc) give us true information about the lion. For example, part of the concept of being a lion is that it needs food to continue its existence; that it is made up of cells that behave in a certain way; etc etc. And the details of all this could fill libraries. This is uncontroversial. But the natural sciences cannot provide a complete explanation of the lion's existence and the unicorn's non-existence, because (among other reasons) the the natural sciencse themselves are one concept rather than another, and because the need for things to 'obey' the laws of natural sciences is itself a concept that exists, etc. So your reference to biology, zoology, etc, while true, does not undermine my point. It is an explanation -- thus far we agree -- but it is a partial explanation of existence, which can't explain why some concepts exist and not others.

As for reductionism, hopefully you're happy with my definition (that everything's behavior can be explained in terms of my constituent particles). In effect, this would mean that natural objects are like artifcats. Consider an artifact like a computer. It's possible to explain how a computer works by explaining the behavior of its component parts, and then referring to their arrangement. For example, copper behaves a certain way, the plastic in the PCB behaves a certain way, the silicon in the ICs behaves a certain way, the electrons passing through the copper, silicon, etc behave in a certain way, etc. And then these things are arranged in a particular structure, and the combined behavior of all the parts gives us a computer. Obviously the same is true for a car, or a house, or whatever artifact you care to list.

Reductionism basically says that natural objects are like this as well. But this is false. Consider water, made up of H and O. Now hydrogen is a gas at room temperature, it burns with an invisible flame, it combines with nitrogen to form ammonia, with carbon to form methane or any number of things, it has one electron 'orbiting' one proton, and so on. All these things are properties of hydrogen. It is by the existence of these properties that we know hydrogen is present. Now, obviously, none of these things are true for water: literally everything I've listed is false. Certainly, hydrogen is present as a part of water -- don't get me wrong! But everything indicating the presence of hydrogen ceases to exist once it becomes part of water: an entirely new set of contradictory properties take their place. The behavior of the hydrogen has changed completely. And the same is true for the oxygen. The behavior of water cannot be explained by considering the properties of hydrogen and of oxygen, and 'combining' them in the way we would to explain the behavior of an artifact. In an artifact, the parts are unchanged, they just happen to be arranged in a certain order. In a natural thing like H20, the parts are completely changed to adapt to the whole of which they are part. So an artifact is the sum of its parts, but a natural thing is not.

You can consider a similar thing with a lion. A lion's liver, or eye, or paw, only acts like a liver/eye/paw while it is part of the lion. If you tear it out, its behavior fundamentally changes (it stops being a liver and becomes a lump of rotting flesh). So similarly, a lion cannot be said to be the sum of its parts. Rather, its parts can only be understood in terms of the whole of which they are part.

Therefore, empirically, it is false to think of every natural thing as the sum of its parts. Rather, the parts are derivative of the complete object, which is fundamentally one object. This is true for molecules, rocks, plants, animals, and human beings, along with any number of other things.

That's one reason reductionism is false. A second is that reductionism says that objects like lions are nothing more than particles arranged in a certain way. But the only way it can define this 'certain way' is by referring to a real lion. Sure, it can describe the 'certain way' in great mathematical detail, but ultimately it will be describing a lion. Reductionism is therefore circular. The only way out is to say that the lion doesn't really exist, and that it's a concept that we 'impose' on the particles. But there's no good reason for thinking this, and obviously, claiming that lions don't really exist can lead you into some pretty weird and anti-rational territory :-)

Thirdly, there is no actual good reason for thinking that things are nothing more than the sum of their parts. The fact that one can explain a thing's behavior according to its parts in no way implies that it is 'nothing more' than those parts as they would exist separately from that thing. Methodological reductionism does not imply ontological reductionism.

> Just from the proofs, do you think you will still strongly take a loving caring God who actively created and sustains this universe to be true?

To answer very, very quickly: I'd believe in the qualities that Feser outlines. But not 'loving caring' in a personal way. Not in the sense that one would hope a good parent to be. Only in the sense that God wills that which is good for everything. We'd know of His existence, but He would be very distant and unknowable. The Trinity and the Incarnation are complete game-changers in this regard, which is why they are the absolute foundational teachings of Christianity :-)

> But the physical laws of the universe are not like that.

I already agreed to this when I said that "the later is just from empirical observations. As I said before, if tomorrow God does choose ;) to reveal Himself in a convincing manner, I'll have to change my views completely. Similarly if unicorns start popping in and out of existence.", which covers your first 2 paragraphs that you didn't need to spend time defending.

> then said Cause must be causing some concepts to exist, and not others. > something on the part of the Cause that is causing one to exist, and the other not.

Let me put it this way. Do you have any way of showing that the First Cause has any choice as to what it is causing? Yes, out of all logical possibilities, lions exists but unicorns don't. Do you have a way to showing (logically, not the Bible) that the First Cause can cause unicorns to exist? My overall point is that the First Cause itself may only have the power to only cause lions and no power to cause unicorns. Because that is all what we see right? How can we attribute choice until we actually see that alternative choices are being made? It could have been otherwise but did it?

Anything that exists depends on God. Fine. Everything that could exist but doesn't, if they existed, would also depend on God. Fine. But how can we then turn around and say that God has the power to create everything that could exist? That doesn't follow. We can only attribute enough power to God to only be able to cause the things we do see exist. Can God create lions? Yes. If unicorns popped into existence tomorrow, can we say God can create them? Sure. Given that unicorns don't exist today, does God have the capacity/power/will to bring them into existence? Unknown. Do you see the difference? This is what I mean by impersonal vs personal.

Which is why I've been saying that it is only empirical observations (resurrection, etc) that can show will. Otherwise omnipotence is just an empty claim. It is logically possible that I could fly, but I'm bound by gravity, and hence cannot. Similarly the First Cause could be bound by rules to be able to cause only the universe we see and nothing else. Other logical possibilities exist but may not within its power.

> But the natural sciences cannot provide a complete explanation of the lion's existence and the unicorn's non-existence, because (among other reasons) the the natural sciencse themselves are one concept rather than another

Again, it's all empirical. Yes, tomorrow unicorns could start popping into existence and then we'd have to revise what we think of the universe. But until then (this is crucial, my claims are contingent on observations), apriori natural laws seem to be able to explain everything we see. No personal God needed. If you want to continue believing in a personal God, of course all power to you, but it'd be incorrect to continue to claim that God is the only logically possible explanation, as per the book. There are other possible explanations that fit our observations, as of today.

> The behavior of water cannot be explained by considering the properties of hydrogen and of oxygen

This is the home ground of science, and if someone could show this to be true, there are Nobel prizes waiting for them, just for starters. But it is not true. To use words from the book, hydrogen has many potential properties, including burning (which makes it combine with O :)) and being wet (when combined with O). These properties are actualized based on the key ideas of emergence and locality. Potential properties of natural objects (and I consider artifacts such as computers to also be natural) are actualized based on where they are in spacetime. Electrons "know" nothing about wetness. They continue to behave like electrons, including repelling other electrons and attracting protons. And yet when many such interactions occur in the vicinity of other electrons and protons, atoms and water and wetness emerges in that group. There is nothing mysterious or contradictory about these higher level properties. So this line of thinking definitely doesn't work. Again, this is all from empirical observations. If tomorrow water changes its properties or the sun rises in the west, we can come back to it.

> If you tear it out, its behavior fundamentally changes

Similarly, emergence and locality.

> But the only way it can define this 'certain way' is by referring to a real lion. > Reductionism is therefore circular.

Not at all. Think of the game of life (GoL). Simple rules + initial conditions = glider (say equivalent to the lion). Glider exists, contingent on the GoL rules. No circular reasoning needed. Similarly, (some) physical laws + initial conditions = lion. Where is the circular reasoning? Somehow you seem to be starting with the concept of lion apriori and saying that is the "real" lion and physical laws are some mathematical details. But why? Real lions only exist in the context of these physical laws, both logically and ontologically. Triangles only exist in the context of straight lines. Etc.

> The fact that one can explain a thing's behavior according to its parts in no way implies that it is 'nothing more' than those parts as they would exist separately from that thing. Methodological reductionism does not imply ontological reductionism.

It's a claim but can you give some examples where it holds true? I think the only place I've heard this "strong emergence" claim is consciousness. But that's an open question and if that's the only example then we can agree to disagree. Everywhere else we look, weak emergence holds.

> Only in the sense that God wills that which is good for everything. We'd know of His existence, but He would be very distant and unknowable.

Yup, which I'd say is compatible with an impersonal First Cause and hence compatible with being an atheist or naturalist.

> The Trinity and the Incarnation are complete game-changers in this regard, which is why they are the absolute foundational teachings of Christianity :-)

For sure. Empirical observation :)

Ok. The three paragraphs beginning "Let me put it this way" are very clear, thank you. And I see that my previous comment was basically me repeating my assertions without further explanation, for which I apologise.

So to summarize where we are at this point, I think we agree on the following (either in reality, or for the sake of argument): - that the First Cause exists, - that it sustains everything else that exists moment-by-moment, and didn't just create everything else and then go away, - that the existence of the lion and gravity are caused by the first cause, and that the existence of the unicorn and anti-gravity are not, - that the laws of physics, along with everything else we observe, are contingent, unlike mathematics and logic; there is no a priori reason that everything we observe is not going to reverse tomororow.

I think the key difference is whether the concept of a unicorn or anti-gravity has existence independent of our minds. My position is that such concepts have existence as concepts, and only as concepts, but that concepts nonetheless are real in a sense. A concept is not an invention of the human mind, but rather is a pre-existing reality that is grasped by the human mind. Given the real existence of concepts, some explanation is needed as to why the concept of a unicorn lacks existence as a concrete object but the concept of a lion has existence as a concrete object. And the same with the concept of gravity vs anti-gravity, and the concept of things behaving according to scientific laws vs popping into existence in violation of physics. Etc.

Whereas your position is that concepts are meaningless, or somehow like 'images' perhaps, or cardboard cut-outs, and perhaps only exist in human minds? And that therefore my position makes no sense. I don't want to mis-represent you, hopefully this is fair. Again, all this links directly to reductionism, since really by 'concept' I mean something like Aristotelian forms, which I think have existence independent of the objects that instantiate them. So I think it really comes down to reductionism.

So onto that topic:

>> The behavior of water cannot be explained by considering the properties of hydrogen and of oxygen > This... is not true.

Agh, you're quoting my sentence without the second half, which makes me sound silly and gives a false impression of what I think. The second half was "and 'combining' them in the way we would to explain the behavior of an artifact." This is the key point: that we can't mentally combine the properties of the parts to explain the properties of the whole, because the properties of the parts no longer exist.

You can perform such an exercise with an artifact. Copper in a computer behaves exactly the same as copper outside a computer. It has been arranged with other things in a certain way, and therefore the behaviour of the computer is 'weakly emergent'. You can explain the computer entirely in terms of the behaviour of its constituent parts. This is not so with hydrogen and water. Hydrogen has lost all its properties when it becomes part of water. (Of course, it has done so because it is bonded in such a way as to make water and therefore can't do what it does in the absence of said bond, but this doesn't undermine the point.) When all a thing's properties cease to exist, we can infer that it hase ceased to exist as a 'thing' in its own right, although it continues to exist in a derivative sense as a part of something else. Similarly, water's properties don't exist partially in each of its constituent elements. It's not as if H makes you partially-wet, and O completes the job. The power of making wet exists only within water as a whole. So similarly, when all of water's properties come into existence when H and O combine, we can infer that a new substance has come into existence.

Obviously we can't say that in no sense can water's properties be explained by its parts. I'm not saying that. Water's wetness can be explained by pointing at its structure. But you will be pointing at water first and foremost, and hydrogen and oxygen only in a derivative sense (because, to repeat, the properties have ceased to exist and therefore we can infer that the substances have ceased to exist as independent things).

> To use words from the book, hydrogen has many potential properties, including burning (which makes it combine with O :)) and being wet (when combined with O). These properties are actualized based on the key ideas of emergence and locality.

Hydrogen has an actual (not potential) property of being burnable. It is potentially burning and thereby ceasing to exist :-). But insofar as it's hydrogen, it can't be wet. It isn't actually wet (like water) or potentially wet. You can't do anything to hydrogen to make it wet. If something is wet, it is not hydrogen. Nor can we say that hydrogen supplies 'part of' the wetness of water and oxygen another 'part'. It is water as a whole that is wet.

Do you agree that hydrogen and oxygen lose all their properties when they become part of water, due to the bond they form? Am I being fair when I say this implies that the substances themselves cease to exist as complete entities, and continue to exist only as part of something else that is now itself the complete entity?

> Where is the circular reasoning?

Would you say a lion is particles arranged in a certain way? I'm not talking about how the lion came into existence (which I think is what you're saying with "physical laws + initial conditions = lion"). If I point at a particular lion and say "what makes it a lion?", what do you say? Many reductionists say that it's a collection of particles arranged in such a way that they're a lion. Would you agree with this? If so I would say this is circular, for the reason given in my previous comment.

I was wondering when a Christian was going to join the conversation!

>Firstly, I think God's existence can be proved rationally

I have never really bought that natural theology successfully gets you all the way. You're correct in identifying my lack of complete endorsement of Catholicism, I've always been sympathetic to Kierkegaard (Protestant) in thinking that Christianity is not merely an intellectual exercise in philosophy.

>This is a specifically Protestant view (although many Catholics mistakenly hold to it since it chimes so easily with the post-Enlightenment concept of religion). I would say faith is a rational assent to revelation.

Thank you for saying this, I think I spoke too clumsily here---I meant that the knowledge revealed through faith is beyond that of human reason. I'm here thinking of Aquinas when he says that reason is a preamble to faith, meaning the distinctly Christian beliefs only start beyond what reason can get us, though in going beyond reason we're not slipping into irrationality.

>I think it's profoundly false to say that Christianity is independent of logic or observation.

I dunno, I am kind of skeptical that a spiritual connection to Christ, which seems foundational to Christianity to me, is dependent on logic or observation.

Thanks for clarifying. Anyone, of any belief, can have immediate, apparently self-evident experience that validates or defines their worldview. But we need good reason to believe our experiences are about reality, and are not just a bunch of things that we feel very strongly are about reality, but in truth are not.

And again, there is a sense in which union with God is dependent on logic, inasmuch as logic (logos/Word) is just another way of saying reality :-). That which is illogical is not, and cannot be; it is non-being.