Refutation of pantheism

[Kreuzritter]

(1) A temporal effect cannot originate from an Eternal Cause, except by an Act of Free Will (i.e. to say if the cause were a mere impersonal set of necessary and sufficient conditions, since the cause was eternally present, the effect also would likewise be eternal - but that is false.

You're going to need an argument for that bolded part and another argument for why it doesn't apply to an "act of free will". Also, while the cosmos is taken to be caused and is in itself temporal and has a beginning in relation to itself, the assertion that there was a time relative to God at which the creation did not exist is nonsensical, and so it's no even clear that the sense in which the conclusion is false is applicable to produce a reductio ad absurdum. In relation to the eternal cause, the effect apparently is eternal, having an ontological but not a temporal order.

[Kreuzritter]

Thanks, Daniel. Even if time were continuous, I think the argument would work. I don't think it matters that we could indefinitely divide seconds, or anything else, in theory. For e.g. let's say, a person who has existed since the beginning of time draws a continuous line 1 cm long every second, and continually extends it by 1 cm, with every passing second. Then, the line drawn will always be of finite length.

But what I'm saying is that hypothetically there'd never be a "beginning of time" in the first place, so it makes no sense to speak of this line as having a starting point. If such a line did exist, it would be of infinite length. (Viewed from the present moment, it would be a ray extending backwards indefinitely. And viewed absolutely, it would be a true line. In no case would it be a line segment, as that would require that the line began at some point in time, which we hypothetically deny.)

The very argument is that there has to be a beginning in time, and it is specifically applied to the concept of a timeline, which we can assume to be an unbounded and uncountable set to begin with: there is no conceivable way to arrive at any specific point on that line in a succession of points from "infinity". Since it would have, allegedly, arrived at this point from "infinity", we have a reductio ad absurdum. Presentism doesn't immediately avoid this, since the argument applies to a conceptual timeline constructed from a set of Augustinian "moments". It's at the very least compelling and deserves a proper answer. You can "hypothetically deny" it all you like, but begging the question doesn't address the argument.

The way I imagine it is this: God eternally creates whatever timeline He wants to create. If He wants the timeline to have a starting point then He creates it having a starting point, but if He doesn't then He doesn't. Either sort of timeline seems conceivable. If God can conceive of a geometric line unbounded on both sides, what's to stop Him from conceiving of a timeline unbounded on both sides?

Because time isn't an undirected geometric line and the "timeline" is just an intellectual construct imposing a geometric line over something that does not have a geometric nature. The result is the paradoxical shenanigans seen in this thread. However, I'm not saying the implication is wrong, that the past is infinite.

[Kreuzritter]

The concept of infinite time doesn't seem coherent since time is a unit of measurement, therefore it's finite by definition. In this sense the present moment is infinite time because it cannot be counted. But the present moment is only infinite in a discrete sense (there's no before or after contained within it), not in a continuous sense (the present moment does not stretch infinitely back into the past or infinitely forward into the future). Therefore the present moment is infinitely short not infinitely long, so it's the opposite of eternal.

Yes.  If I remember correctly, this is what St. Augustine was saying in the Confessions.  I think he said something like our measurements of time can always be reduced a smaller measure.  What is half of a second?  What is half of half of a second?  And so forth.  And you're right, the present moment is therefore infinitely short.  I think this is why true eternity must be different from, or exist outside of, time.  Time is dependent on matter and measure.

Our measurements of time are not time. But neither of you distinguishes between the transcendental subject and his spiritual act of consciousness on one hand and the flowing of the ever-present cosmos on the other. What is present to me is never at all a "moment" in the aforegoing sense but always a continuous flowing that is unquantifiable; and what my consciousness is aiming at in that is not the same as the act itself, which is indeed a point without duration, and it is these acts which are tallied and quantified.

[Daniel]

Kreuzritter -

You said time is not a thing. If time is not a thing, then what is it?

When I've been using the word "time" in my post, I've been referring to the timeline (or "time continuum", as you put it). I take the timeline to be a real thing that can be infinitely divided into real points in time called "moments" (though this is not to say that the timeline is composed of moments).
The present moment is just one such moment. I'm still not seeing how the existence of a present moment proves that the timeline is bounded on one or both sides... the present moment would still exist even if it could never be "reached" from the "beginning of time".

By analogy, I find this argument to be like looking at a graph of the function y=0 and saying "Here's a point at (1,0). And here's another point at (-100,0). And here's one at (99999,0). But none of these points could possibly exist if the line doesn't have a beginning. Therefore, this graph y=0 isn't truly a line at all, but must be either a ray or a line segment." The argument rests on false premises (and the conclusion in this case is false, seeing as the graph of y=0 is, in fact, a horizontal line).

Now I do realize that you've mentioned that a geometric line is a bad analogy. But I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at. Would you care to elaborate? Or provide a more suitable analogy?

[Kreuzritter]

When I've been using the word "time" in my post, I've been referring to the timeline (or "time continuum", as you put it). I take the timeline to be a real thing that can be infinitely divided into real points in time called "moments" (though this is not to say that the timeline is composed of moments).

You already hit on the problem. These moments, like a point to space and extension, have nothing in themselves of the nature of time and duration. Piece them together and they do not give duration any more than points pieced together give extension: either they overlap and are the same point, or they do not and have extension between them. Likewise, points do not give a piece of space, and moments do not give a piece of time; space isn't divided into points but by points, and time is not divided into moments but by moments.

Now the trap is to imagine these moments as snapshots of the cosmos. They are not. Like a point, they have no such content. The cosmos doesn't have such snapshots, for it is ,as Heraclitus observed, panta rhei. And indeed, the geometric line analogy

Now I do realize that you've mentioned that a geometric line is a bad analogy. But I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at.

is a trap. Time is surely not spatial, and while one can at least imagine a geometric line as a concrete line running through space, one cannot do the same for time. Such a line will always be purely conceptual, abstract and, while conceivable in terms of the formalism of analytic "geometry", unimaginable in its relation to its supposed object. If you don't see it, well, think about what you are literally imagining in your mind when you speak of the "timeline".

Now imagine a "moment" on that line. Firstly, that moment has nothing of the nature of change in it. But actual "time" is a ceaseless and continuous flux. But not only does it not capture change; it doesn't even endure in itself, having no duration. In fact, only when the concept of such a moment as somehow capturing a particular state of the cosmos is ripped out of the flux does it "endure" as time flows.

Now what on this imaginary line captures the flux that is time? Nothing. You can "move" along it, but that is change and presupposes time, that is, this line existing in time. And imagining it as "eternal"? But it is a static thing, while the very nature of the temporal cosmos is flux, so how is any part of this line to be imagined? Geometry is static, it does not capture what this flux is, and it cannot represent it. A discrete series of static images doesn't capture it, but moreover, one can only imagine such images if they have some endurance through time, the very thing we're tryign to represent.

That's trying to express somethign of what I have in mind when I say the geometric line is inadequate.

So as for this

You said time is not a thing. If time is not a thing, then what is it?

let us distinguish, time as a thing and time as a reality. The first is just a conceptual abstraction, a construct of of the mind, constructed I might add, from the second by aid of the very "moments" you speak of; the second is just the panta rhei itself, the unquantifiable and ever-changing present.

And here an interjection: this change would not even be conceivable except by a spiritual subject that really transcends and endures through it. What is the ever-changing present present to, so that it can conceive of these "moments"? The transcendental subject and his act of consciousness. It's precisely in his own real and immutable identity, which projected into time creates these self-identical "moments" transcending the flux, that he can find a "before" and "after" and conceive of change.

Would you care to elaborate? Or provide a more suitable analogy?

Man isn't someone in a boat sailing down a river; he is someone standing in the river through whom it flows.

transcendental subject <-> temporal cosmos

The present moment is just one such moment.

But it isn't. The present is a flux, while these "moments" are empty static points that divide that flux.

I'm still not seeing how the existence of a present moment proves that the timeline is bounded on one or both sides... the present moment would still exist even if it could never be "reached" from the "beginning of time".

Indeed, you can jump in your mind from finite point to finite point, albeit in time, all you like on a geometric space on which all points on the space are conceived to exist "simultaneously".

By analogy, I find this argument to be like looking at a graph of the function y=0 and saying "Here's a point at (1,0). And here's another point at (-100,0). And here's one at (99999,0). But none of these points could possibly exist if the line doesn't have a beginning. Therefore, this graph y=0 isn't truly a line at all, but must be either a ray or a line segment." The argument rests on false premises (and the conclusion in this case is false, seeing as the graph of y=0 is, in fact, a horizontal line).

It's one thing to look at a Euclidean space, say R2, from a transcendental perspective. Its another thing to consider a temporal cosmos in itself and the structure that is demanded of a conceptualisation of it. But time, even in its simplest conceptualisation, is really directed in some way. And while from within a "space" all parts of that space can be conceived to "exist", from within time its not at all clear what the past and future "existing" is supposed to entail. At the very least, there are two senses of "exist" at play here. A fundamental supposition in the argument is that reality indeed "got here", that there is a real flux, a real process, and a real order in temporality in which reality, this reality, has passed from the present being one thing to it being another.

Now, as for R2, here's the problem: the "infinity" of the real numbers is potential. They don't all have some "actual existence". They are conceptually generated, one by one, by the method of their construction (e.g. Dedekind cuts). The space you imagine is a potential infinity: you can always find, by a process, more of it. On the other hand, your concept of an "eternal" timeline entails some kind of "actual infinity" in a geometric sense. Some how all of it actually "exists", all together. Personally, I'm not sure this is meaningful and that "actual infities" exist. But regardless, if you have something "actually infinite", then no process can go "from infinity" to any particular point, and it is maintained that there really is such a process, the process of the whole of the cosmos itself, from present to present, or along your timeline. The question is not even how here can "exist", and I remind you that I think there is an equivocation on "exist" here, but how this process could have gotten here. The same thing apparently applies if one, istead of the "eternal timeline", posits everything in the past actually happened.

I'm not saying I'm convinced, but that's it. I share the OP's nagging suspicion.

[Kreuzritter]

Prof. Craig typically begins his demonstration by way of the Kalam Cosmological argument like this (1) Whatever begins to exist has a Cause. (2) The universe began to exist. (3) Therefore, the Universe has a Cause. This argument is intuited by St. Thomas in the Third Way, but I prefer the way of stating it from Contingency/Necessity. Beings are said to exist contingently when their non-existence is possible (i.e. for instance, they can cease to exist, they at one time did not exist etc) (1) Every contingent being depends on another being for its existence. (2) Therefore, if every being in existence existed contingently, the series would never end, and no existence would be possible (3) Therefore, it is necessary that some Being exists not contingently, but necessarily, i.e. without beginning and end.

This

Whatever begins to exist has a Cause.

is just a special case of this

Every contingent being depends on another being for its existence.

given the definition of contingent existence.

[Xavier]

Yes, Kreuzritter. Thus St. Paul says, "Rom 1:[19] Because that which is known of God is manifest in them. For God hath manifested it unto them. [20] For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity: so that they are inexcusable."

Many of the early Church Fathers, Greek Fathers especially, found the proofs of the Greek schools of philosophy that God was One to be instrumental in their conversion to Christianity. For if God is One, as almost all pagan polytheism denied, and as the Jewish religion had taught against the world for millenia, some 2000 years, it must most certainly be the Truth, as those led by Grace could see, that the God of the Hebrews was the Only True God.

In like manner as St. Paul, St. Thomas Aquinas says, "Our natural knowledge begins from sense. Hence our natural knowledge can go as far as it can be led by sensible things. But our mind cannot be led by sense so far as to see the essence of God; because the sensible effects of God do not equal the power of God as their cause. Hence from the knowledge of sensible things the whole power of God cannot be known; nor therefore can His essence be seen. But because they are His effects and depend on their cause, we can be led from them so far as to know of God "whether He exists," and to know of Him what must necessarily belong to Him, as the first cause of all things, exceeding all things caused by Him. Hence we know that His relationship with creatures so far as to be the cause of them all; also that creatures differ from Him, inasmuch as He is not in any way part of what is caused by Him; and that creatures are not removed from Him by reason of any defect on His part, but because He superexceeds them all."

And Pope St. Pius X, in the First Article of the Oath against Modernism, professes, "And first of all, I profess that God, the origin and end of all things, can be known with certainty by the natural light of reason from the created world (see Rom. 1:19), that is, from the visible works of creation, as a cause from its effects, and that, therefore, his existence can also be demonstrated"

I like that Prof. Craig, after beginning his presentation with the demonstration of God Almighty's wonderful works in Created Nature, immediately proceeds to the Supreme Revelation of Jesus Christ as the Lord of History, by His Incarnation, Life, Death and Resurrection. From an Evangelical Christian apologist, we cannot expect more. And so far as that goes, it is well done.

Christian Apologetics must always proceed along these lines (1) First, to establish the existence of God, and His Supreme Attributes, from the visible effects we observe in creation. (2) Second, to show that Jesus Christ, by His Life, Death and Resurrection, known through their effects in subsequent history and the lives of the Apostles, is the Risen Lord Who conquered the grave. (3) Third, that His One True Church was built on St. Peter and His Successors in Rome until the end of time, the Scripture bearing witness, that hell shall never prevail against this Church.

As the CE puts it, "Beyond the fact of Christian revelation the Protestant apologist does not proceed. But the Catholic rightly insists that the scope of apologetics should not end here. Both the New Testament records and those of the sub-Apostolic age bear witness that Christianity was meant to be something more than a religious philosophy of life, more than a mere system of individual belief and practice, and that it cannot be separated historically from a concrete form of social organization. Hence Catholic apologetics adds, as a necessary sequel to the established fact of Christian revelation, the demonstration of the true Church of Christ and its identity with the Roman Catholic Church." http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01618a.htm