>>Of course god himself is exempt from this rule. If you claim that he always existed, then
I can claim that the Universe always existed.
Well, you are free to believe whatever you want, and I'll be glad to point out that you are basing your worldview on beliefs, just as the bible-thumpers do. However, one of the first indications that the universe has not been eternal is Olber's Paradox. The night sky would be suffused with light. Secondly, the Einsteinian cosmology distinctly has a beginning. Unless someone finds a whole lot of hidden matter (orders of magnitude) there isn't enough mass in the universe to cause it to collapse and recycle.
>>By the way, in physics experiments, it is common to observe particles and their complementary anti-particle spontaniously appear in a vacuum.
Spontaneous appearances of matter? I think you need to recheck your sources. Spontaneous appearances of matter are at best the speculations of the Copenhagen School of Quantum Mechanics. Everyone else thinks that matter and energy are fixed and merely change from one form to another. (I believe this is known as the conservation of mass and energy)
>>Read some Steven Hawkings if you want to see pure logic at work. Oh, and in your
spare time, publish a rebuttal to his works.
I know Hawking's thesis. I don't need to publish a rebuttal, as it was done years ago by Kurt Goedel. Hawking has not found a way around Goedel's Theorem. Self-referential, self-defining systems cannot exist, and Hawking needs one for his cosmology to work. Goedel's Theorem blew a hole in the system of Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell, which is what Hawking is building on.
>> I, for one, don't understand this, thus making his statement logically false.
So you're the final arbiter of what's logical, then? Maybe not. Aquinas' point is that nothing acts upon God to change him.
<<Something therefore causes in all other things their being, their goodness, and
whatever other perfection they have. And this is what we call 'god'.">>
>> Is this also the god who created children with cleft palates, spina bifada, deformed
limbs, and other defects that doctors who studied science try to correct?
Aquinas is using "perfection" like Plato did in describing the "Forms"; the Form is flawless, not the individuals made in the image of the Form. In Aquinas' example God acts as the Form. But maybe you are arguing that for God to exist there should be no tragedy or imperfection in nature?
>>Who directs god? Or is he again exempt from this rule?
By definition God is self-existing, self-directing, the Prime Mover. These definitions of God's nature can all be found in the pre-Christian Greek philosophers.
>>Like Maurice, I am not impressed with these arguments.
Well, then philosophy just better drop them!!! But I was asking you to expose the flaws in Aristotle and Aquinas, not for your emotional reaction. |
