User:AD/Kreefts Twenty Arguments

As a personal project, I am going to take the Twenty Arguments for the Existence of God proposed by Peter Kreeft (possibly the most insightful Christian philosopher alive) and give them serious consideration. Each argument can be read in full on the linked page, but I will include a brief excerpt here as well. Please do not add, but if you see a flaw in my logic, feel free to point it out on the talk page.

1. The Argument from Change

''If there is nothing outside the material universe, then there is nothing that can cause the universe to change. But it does change. Therefore there must be something in addition to the material universe. But the universe is the sum total of all matter, space and time. These three things depend on each other. Therefore this being outside the universe is outside matter, space and time. It is not a changing thing; it is the unchanging Source of change.''

This argument relies on the very brief but fundamental assumption that, "Nothing changes itself." This assumption is not supportable. Kreeft argues that, "No matter how many things there are in [a] series [of changed objects], each one needs something outside itself to actualize its potentiality for change." But science show us unstable particles that decay only according to their own nature, and with essential randomness, into simpler particles. This is the very essence of radioactivity when examined on an individual particle, and it's why a certain cat is in mortal danger.

To put it less snarkily, there exist examples of dynamic closed systems that experience self-motivating change, and do not require outside intervention. A tablet of Alka-Seltzer in a closed glass will fizz and change the system wildly, with no stirring needed.

Of course, an apologist might point out that eventually the fizzing will stop, and so the change will stop. But the same might be said of the universe: it's just quite a larger glass, is all.

2. The Argument from Efficient Causality

''Existence is like a gift given from cause to effect. If there is no one who has the gift, the gift cannot be passed down the chain of receivers, however long or short the chain may be. If everyone has to borrow a certain book, but no one actually has it, then no one will ever get it. If there is no God who has existence by his own eternal nature, then the gift of existence cannot be passed down the chain of creatures and we can never get it. But we do get it; we exist. Therefore there must exist a God: an Uncaused Being who does not have to receive existence like us—and like every other link in the chain of receivers.''

Kreeft begins this argument with the supposition, "Are all things caused to exist by other things right now? Suppose they are."

But suppose they aren't.

And really, this is just a mild variation on the old chestnut of the Prime Mover, already touched upon by Kreeft in #1. And as has been often pointed out, any argument which implies the necessity for a Prime Mover also implies his insufficiency, since he would by the same argument require a mover as well. And Ockam's Razor, which instructs us not to hypothesize more than is necessary for explanation of phenomena (here referring to philosophical phenomena, and so perhaps not the best use of the Razor) means that it makes more sense to assume that any First Cause would more likely be a random fluctuation of quantum physics, as we know to happen, rather than a magical being.

3. The Argument from Time and Contingency

''1. We notice around us things that come into being and go out of being. A tree, for example, grows from a tiny shoot, flowers brilliantly, then withers and dies.''

2. Whatever comes into being or goes out of being does not have to be; nonbeing is a real possibility.

3. Suppose that nothing has to be; that is, that nonbeing is a real possibility for everything.

''4. Then right now nothing would exist. For''

''5. If the universe began to exist, then all being must trace its origin to some past moment before which there existed—literally—nothing at all. But''

''6. From nothing nothing comes. So''

7. The universe could not have begun.

''8. But suppose the universe never began. Then, for the infinitely long duration of cosmic history, all being had the built—in possibility not to be. But''

''9. If in an infinite time that possibility was never realized, then it could not have been a real possibility at all. So''

''10. There must exist something which has to exist, which cannot not exist. This sort of being is called necessary.''

''11. Either this necessity belongs to the thing in itself or it is derived from another. If derived from another there must ultimately exist a being whose necessity is not derived, that is, an absolutely necessary being.''

''12. This absolutely necessary being is God. ''

The flaw here is simple and twofold, in step 9. First of all, Kreeft assumes that there was never a time of nonexistence and there never will be. Infinity is infinite, and it's rather an overstatement of our knowledge to say that all things will not cease to be in the future. In fact, such a result is almost a certainty: given time, every coherent "thing" will cease to be.

The second flaw in step 9 is an error of logic as well. While it is true that in an infinite amount of time every possible iteration would be explored, it is not true that every possible possibility would be explored. To wit: it is possible that in two seconds, I will bite my tongue. But (two seconds later) I can say that it did not happen. And it will never happen, now: that moment in what we will assume is an infinite timeline has passed, and will not come again. In an infinite timeline, another world and universe and self will all exist in the exact same pattern and "I" will bite my tongue, but that will be later (or possibly earlier). Thus, it was a possibility that will never happen, despite an infinite timescale. In the same way, it is possible that existence is a binary and single moment of possibility.

4. The Argument from Degrees of Perfection

''[I]f ... degrees of perfection pertain to being and being is caused in finite creatures, then there must exist a "best," a source and real standard of all the perfections that we recognize belong to us as beings.''

A clever and classic argument. However, it has a number of flaws. For one, it assumes that the existence of gradations of a quality within us imply an absolute to that quality. But I am quite hot without the air conditioner on at this time of year... much hotter than someone in Norway. Heat must be a caused quality as well, according to Kreeft, so accordingly God must be... absolutely hot? Aside from what this implies about Scarlett Johansson's divinity, we can see the absurdity (as well as the physical ludicrousness of some upper limit of heat).

Kreeft makes a reply to a hypothetical objection with a witty application of Aristotle's proof of noncontradiction ("We must live as if the chair is a chair") when he refutes a cry of subjectivism thus: "[T]he questioner would not have asked it unless he or she thought it really better to do so than not, and really better to find the true answer than not. You can speak subjectivism but you cannot live it." But he fails to realize that there are many who might not have bothered to ask that question... the question, as well as degrees of "perfection," are subjective and dependent on our nature. We are the only cognitive and vocal beings of which we are aware, but it seems probably that there is probably intelligent life elsewhere, and they probably don't think we're very pretty or "perfect."

5. The Design Argument

6. Therefore the universe is the product of an intelligent Designer.

Yeah, I don't really need to go into this one, I don't think. Disappointingly but not surprisingly, it is a complete rehash of the usual.

6. The Kalam Argument

Whatever begins to exist has a cause for its coming into being. The universe began to exist. Therefore, the universe has a cause for its coming into being.

Kreeft assumes the first point (rightly, for his purposes), but falters on the second point. He attempts to argue that logically the universe must have had a beginning, since we exist in the present day, and at no point would an infinity of previous days have been fulfilled. In other words, he attempts to argue that existing at any finite point on an infinite scale implies that the scale is in fact not infinite.

It is a relatively simple matter that he has essentially argued all of infinity out of rational existence. God is an infinite being, but in order to arrive at a being of infinity (in power, age, etc.) we would necessarily pass all previous possible beings. So if time must have had a beginning and thus finiteness in order to preclude a logically impossible series of infinite preceding steps, God must not be infinite in order to preclude the same thing.

So his second point is fallaciously arrived at. He would have been better to assume it, as he did the first.

Kreeft furthermore flubs up the infinite recursion argument that results from this repetition of essentially the Prime Mover argument; to wit: something must have caused God, as well. The same logic works to imply a beginning to God, and accordingly demands a cause for God. And so on.

7. The Argument from Contingency

If something exists, there must exist what it takes for that thing to exist. The universe—the collection of beings in space and time—exists. Therefore, there must exist what it takes for the universe to exist. What it takes for the universe to exist cannot exist within the universe or be bounded by space and time. Therefore, what it takes for the universe to exist must transcend both space and time.

This slightly-tweaked argument hinges on a common theme of Kreeft's: the belief that the cause of something cannot be contained within itself, but rather must be logically exterior and independent. Most of this argument is refuted by what I have written above, but this belief merits additional consideration.

When a chicken comes from an egg, where do we look for the cause? Some people say we look to the previous chicken, but that's one step removed, is it not? We could also look to the chickens of the previous generation, or the evolutionary predecessor, or the first cell. Those are all "causes" of the chicken. But really, "what it takes for that thing to exist" when it comes to the chicken is simply the egg. If you produce an egg by any means, or if it magically appears into existence, it will become a chicken if properly cared for. Independent of other causes, the egg produces the chicken.

Accordingly, we may say that the egg is what it takes for the chicken to exist. But where, then, is the egg after the chicken is hatched? Its materials have not ceased to be, but rather they have been incorporated into the chicken itself or remain behind in the fragments of shell and albumen that are discarded by the hatching bird. The cause is consumed or contained or discarded - it has ceased to be, but it is certainly not an exterior agent.

This simple example should be sufficient to demonstrate the mistakes within Kreeft's assumptions.

8. The Argument from the World as an Interacting Whole

''In any such system as the above (like our world) no component part or active element can be self—sufficient or self—explanatory. For any part presupposes all the other parts—the whole system already in place—to match its own relational properties.''

A novel and interesting approach to the Argument from Design, this argument posits that the universe is an interlocking and self-contained whole of natural laws and order, and accordingly that because the "parts" of that system only make sense within the whole, then there must be a unifying cause of the whole entire whose simultaneous disparate parts must have been organized by a transcendent intelligent agency (thus explaining their simultaneous nature).

It has to first be pointed out that this is a romantic and whimsical approach to understanding physics, proposed unsurprisingly to Kreeft by a professor of religion. There is no real reason to construct an image of the universe as some sort of ticking mechanism working in synchronous harmony. It is more realistic to view it as the product of myriad opposing and independent forces whose near-infinite random interactions gave rise to results almost as numerous and random - a tiny subset of which include habitable worlds. The building blocks of life have no doubt been bubbled a trillion times on planets where briny earth or fire-drenched skies extinguished the first amino acids as quickly as they came into being. It is only our perspective that things have worked out perfectly and thus the whole is a marvel of harmony.

But more to the point, we can entirely accept this notion of a magical interlocking world, but still need not reach outside for a more complicated explanation. It is most likely that the explanation that requires the fewest additional external factors of presumed existence will be the correct one - the law of parsimony. When we can more realistically explain that magical watch-world by the eternal and random interactions of parts until they all "fit into place" (to perpetuate the absurd view), then even in this false perspective it is not necessary to assume some heretofore unseen being that resembles nothing else in the known universe. Virtually every other conceivable cause would, in fact, require fewer assumptions: the notion that other humans elsewhere created the universe through advanced machinery is not just as likely, it is in fact more likely because it does not imagine a being like a deity, every aspect of whom is nowhere else reflected.

9. The Argument from Miracles

A miracle is an event whose only adequate explanation is the extraordinary and direct intervention of God. There are numerous well-attested miracles. Therefore, there are numerous events whose only adequate explanation is the extraordinary and direct intervention of God. Therefore God exists.

Very easy. If you define a miracle thus, then there are no miracles and never have been. Kreeft even admits the wholesale inadequacy of this line of thought, saying "The argument is not a proof, but a very powerful clue or sign." There is nothing that has ever happened that can only be explained through the direct intervention of God.

More to come