Posted by Philosopher on September 29, 1999 at 10:29:52:
In Reply to: Re: The existence of God. posted by Rob Lent on September 21, 1999 at 10:35:51:
I don't dispute anything in the previous posting, just the conclusions drawn from the facts offered. Science explains the secondary "why" of a thing, not the metaphysical, final "why"; in other words describing the beginning of the universe in terms of gravity describes WHAT happened and the WHY in this case is more of a HOW than a real WHY. Think of it this way: if you ask a scientist why plants are green, he can tell all about chlorophyl and the visible light spectrum and refracted light and all that other good stuff; however, this WHY is really HOW plants are seen as green, not what it is that makes them to be this thing we call green, why we call it green, and how this greeness comes to be. Granted these are tough concepts to express, but the point is that describing how something happens does not answer the question of why it is what it is in the way it is. Only metaphysics can answer those questions. This is not to denigrate physics or science or anything; no, it is just deliniating the proper scope of a particular field of learning--there are lots of things philosophers have no access to without scientist; we ought to work together.
As far as the net nothing, this is yzing creation on an ad hoc basis. One must look at the beginning, not the eventual outcome--granted the eventual outcome was probably almost instantaneous with the beginning. Even if there is a net nothing-from-nothing that still implies that there was at one time--however brief--a nothing-from-something, and that something is now nothing. In other words, creation ex nihilo still holds, and its my understanding incidentally that modern physics is moving into theories that support this. Creation ex-nihilo says that there is nothing in this universe; therefore, a creator was needed to start the process. Even under the net nothing-from-nothing-approach the nothing being talked about is nothing in the universe; but God need not be part of the physical universe. In fact it is absurd to hold that God is anything material, but that's another matter. Anyway, even if there is nothing physical in the universe, that still doesn't mean there isn't a God.
As for uncaused quantum events, this misunderstands what is meant by "cause." Perhaps in physics parlance, something can be uncaused, but not in philosophy. It's a different use of the same word that can create confusion. For instance, everything has four causes--I bet not everything in the physics use of the word has four causes--material, formal, efficient, and final. The final cause is what a thing acts towards, what a thing aims to achieve. Now even a quantum event must be understood to have some sort of end--it must do something. Therefore, in the philosophical sense it has a cause.
Keep in mind: St Thomas never says how the world was created--for he knew it could have been by the very processes described in the previous posting; he only argues that based on the evidence observable, a Creator is necessary.
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