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| Theoretical Philosophy » Toward a new kalām cosmological argument » 7/14/2015 7:12 am |
- Ben
- Replies: 15
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DanielCC,
It seems to me that the price scientific naturalists/materialists pay for speculating in this fashion (whether in the context of cosmic fine-tuning or a cosmic beginning) is that it is contrary to the whole epistemological spirit of their position. Traditionally, one would not expect hard-nosed scientific naturalists/materialists to be engaged in this sort of thing. To wit, if scientific naturalists/materialists are prepared to accept the legitimacy of such speculation in the context of their most beloved sciences, then on what basis can they continue to eschew something like Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics?
Alexander,
I agree that there are certainly good reasons for thinking/suspecting that a Thomistic conception of God would also be transcendent, timeless. But I am afraid that something like the kalam argument is needed to really argue for this properly, and I recognize that I am probably in the minority about this.
| Theoretical Philosophy » Toward a new kalām cosmological argument » 7/13/2015 8:36 pm |
- Ben
- Replies: 15
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Hello again DanielCC! My apologies for the delay in this response.
DanielCC wrote:Out of interest how would you answer the ‘Gaps’ problem (though I don’t think it’s a problem so much as an insufficiency)? Scholastics would just appeal to the Principle of Proportionate Causality – since you mentioned Thomist arguments I take it you would do similar?
Thomistic arguments conclude to the existence of God as the source of all causal power who, at bottom, conserves the temporal world in existence by continuously conjoining the essence of things with an "act" of existence, and is also the one entity whose essence is identical with such an "act" of existence (from which the goodness of God follows, I think, since there can just be no distinction between how God "ought to act" in accordance with his essence and the "act" of his existence). Now, I take it as obvious that if such a being exists then he is ultimately responsible for the origination of the universe, provided that the kalam argument is sound and that the universe did have a beginning in need of such a causal explanation. Hence, what the kalam argument tells us is that God (as revealed by these Thomistic arguments) is not only the sustainer of the universe in this very peculiar/technical sense, but is also (ultimately) the transcendent timeless creator of the universe; which is important since I don't think the foregoing Thomistic conception of God is necessarily transcendent or timeless. Hence, it seems to me that these different arguments for God's existence naturally complement each other in telling us different things about the same entity.
And that, in brief, is the approach I might take to closing the gap in the Gap Problem. To me, these different arguments for God's existence are not in some sort of competition with each other, but should ideally be complementing each other as part of the development of a mature and robust philosophical theology.However
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| Theoretical Philosophy » Toward a new kalām cosmological argument » 7/11/2015 4:03 pm |
- Ben
- Replies: 15
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DanielCC wrote:
Again true but I don't see why this is a problem per say. Since the opponent has ceded the temporal finitude issue even if the cause of the multiverse is temporal we will be forced to posit an atemporal cause at some point in the series, so why not for parsimony's sake do it there?
I suppose you could, but now what's really doing the philosophical work is the argument against a countably infinite series of consecutive finite temporal intervals that recede into the past and not developments in modern physical cosmology; in which case, one might as well run the kalam argument with the broader conception of universe that I use in the paper. In a sense, the whole point of invoking modern physical cosmology in this context is to provide an independent source of evidence for the second premise apart from any purely philosophical considerations.
Still, you're touching on an interesting point here. In a sense, one can argue from the existence of any mundane temporal entity to the existence of a timeless entity via repeated application of the argument against a countably infinite series of consecutive finite temporal intervals that recede into the past in much the same way Thomistic arguments proceed from the existence of mundane entities to an entity whose essence is its "act" of existence. People who have more energy for this sort of thing then I do right now might be able to bring all these different puzzle pieces together into a more robust/satisfying philosophical theology.
| Theoretical Philosophy » Toward a new kalām cosmological argument » 7/11/2015 12:17 pm |
- Ben
- Replies: 15
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Greetings DanielCC!
DanielCC wrote:Out of interest why do you focus on the Tristan Shandy scenario as preferred justification of temporal finitude as opposed to, say, the physical impossibility of Hilbert’s Hotel scenarios?
This is a good question. In my opinion, the oddities associated with introducing the concept of infinity in the actual world, as reflected in various thought experiments like that of Hilbert's Hotel (or those suggested by ancient and medieval philosophers like Philoponus, al-Ghazali, and St. Bonaventure), are probably logical absurdities if they are genuine absurdities at all. However, unlike ancient and medieval philosophers, we now know that the concept of infinity, as carefully developed in modern mathematics, doesn't involve any such logical absurdities. This is why Craig has been driven to say that scenarios like Hilbert's Hotel are metaphysically absurd even if they are not also logically absurd, but I remain unconvinced on this point. In particular, it seems more likely to me that these scenarios only seem odd to us because we are accustomed to thinking in finite categories and not infinite ones.
On the other hand, the Tristram Shandy scenario (as analyzed by Robin Small in the 80s) is, in my opinion, doing the right sort of thing, though a bit more work remained to be done.Secondly as to arguments from modern cosmology surely one would give as support the application of Vilenkin’s theorem to multiverse scenarios?
But even if the BGV theorem can be used to show that the multiverse had a beginning, one could always speculate that, perhaps, this multiverse arose out of some other multiverse with possibly different laws of physics that are not incompatible with an infinite past, etc. Also, this line of reasoning won't necessarily conclude to an uncaused cause since the cause of the multiverse might still be temporal and have a beginning of its own (hence also a
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| Theoretical Philosophy » Toward a new kalām cosmological argument » 7/11/2015 8:07 am |
- Ben
- Replies: 15
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Alexander wrote:
I think Ben's argument for (2) needs a bit more work (e.g. look at some objections and answer them), but at base it seems a compelling thought experiment, and shouldn't be dismissed simply because it isn't physics.
An earlier, more detailed/technical version of this argument was published a little over a year ago in Phil. Christi. I've uploaded a final draft of that work (with permission) to the PhilPapers archive, so that it is freely available for download here. That said, this argument is still new and has, so far as I know, yet to engender a response in the literature. In the more recent paper, I've tried to streamline this argument a bit for greater readability and ease of comprehension.
| Theoretical Philosophy » Toward a new kalām cosmological argument » 7/09/2015 9:08 pm |
- Ben
- Replies: 15
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For those of you who are interested in the kalām cosmological argument, I would like to inform you about a recently published article of mine titled, "Toward a new kalām cosmological argument." Moreover, I have gone through the trouble of getting this work published in a peer-reviewed, open access journal so that it is freely available for download here, and not stuck behind an academic paywall. Enjoy!
Abstract: William Lane Craig has revived interest in the medieval kalām argument to the point where it is now one of the most discussed arguments for God’s existence in the secondary literature. Still, the reception of Craig’s argument among philosophers of religion has been mostly critical. In the interest of developing an argument that more philosophers of religion would be inclined to support, I will lay the philosophical groundwork for a new kalām cosmological argument that, in contrast with Craig’s argument, does not adopt such controversial positions as the dynamic theory of time and the metaphysical impossibility of an actual infinite.
| Introductions » Introduction » 7/09/2015 9:03 pm |
- Ben
- Replies: 4
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Recently, I've been most interested in the ongoing academic discussion around the medieval kalām argument, but I am also interested in Aristotelian-Thomistic (A-T) metaphysics and other subjects of interest to modern Thomists.
| Introductions » Introduction » 7/09/2015 8:58 pm |
- Ben
- Replies: 4
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Greetings classical theism, philosophy, and religion forum community!
Like others who contribute to this forum, I enjoy reading and thinking about philosophical theology, including the tradition of reflection associated with classical theism.
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