Interactions dont entail rearrangements. A response.

Just my latest response to Scott's arguments and his latest video.

Let's define Creatio Ex nihilo:

"In technically theological and philosophical use, Creatio Ex Nihilo expresses the act whereby God brings the ENTIRE substance of a thing into existence from a state of non-existence."

1. Scott's causal principle against Creatio Ex Nihilo: "Where nothing is affected, no effect shall obtain" What's important to ask is what Scott means by "nothing is affected". Just because something is interacted with (aka something is affected) does not mean that a REARRANGEMENT has occurred. So, not just any interaction will falsify Creatio Ex Nihilo. The only kind of interaction that will falsify it is the kind of interaction that produces a REARRANGEMENT. Not every causal interaction logically entails that a rearrangement will occur. In fact Quentin Smith agrees that when it comes to ANY extant definition of causality, the effect is not logically entailed from the cause:

"But there is something in common to every single definition of causality I gave that all philosophers agree upon (one might make exceptions for one or two or three theists maybe). So virtually all philosophers agree upon this. In all these definitions the CAUSE is something, usually an event, that does not logically entail the event that's the EFFECT.. Take what every philosopher says, the sun shines on the stone, and the effect is the stone becoming warm, and I say, O.K., that's a law of nature, but can we derive that just from pure logic? Is it a logical contradiction to say the sun shines on the stone, and the stone does not become warm? No. To have a logical contradiction, you have to say something like: the sun shines on the stone, and the sun does not shine on the stone." So, in the same way, to say that God interacts with X, this does not logically entail that a rearrangement of X has occurred. There is nothing, logically speaking, that bars a completely new substance from coming into existence ex nihilo that is NOT a rearrangement of the X that God may, or may not have interacted with to produce the effect. Scott's causal principle demands that God interact with something to produce an effect. Just because God interacts with some X, this doesnt falsify Creatio Ex Nihilo, as defined above.

2. The metaphysical first principle, "Being does not come from non-being" is something that is intuited FROM CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS. Its not something that strictly comes to us via nature, although if its true, nature would certainly affirm it. In fact, nature does affirm it.

3. Beginning to exist acausally ex-nihilo is a non-alternative to "Being cannot come from non-being" because it is logically incoherent. There is no potentiality in literal nothingness. If something begins to exist out of literal nothingness acausally ex-nihilo, then there IS a potentiality for it to begin existing. That is incoherent.

4. Why doesnt just anything begin to exist uncaused ex-nihilo has NOT been answered by referencing the laws of THIS universe. This is because this
universe cannot bar anything beginning to exist EXTERNAL to it.

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[vbfl920]

@Naked atheist......For some reason I can't comment the right way...

Anyways, YES I am saying that God caused the universe to begin existing. He just didn't have to REARRANGE something in order to do it.

Not every interaction produces a rearrangement.

[blinky6522]

Don't listen to these brainwashed retards. They will all stand shamefully naked before God after their death and finally realize how satan had deceived them and will scream and cry at God to give them another chance but it will be to late and sadly they will be thrown into eternal Hell fire which fallen and cursed humanity deserved in the first place. As for us... thank the Father for his Son.

[SkepticsClaw]

I should also say in fairness that it's not at all clear that this principle violates Kalam at all; we just have to get rid of the classic creation ex nihilo event and replace it with a more organic process. Which might be a problem for some traditional theologies, but not to the fact the universe has a prior cause (which is all that Kalam can support anyway).

[SkepticsClaw]

It seems to me the universe couldn't exist prior to its creation, so how can we say that God 'caused it to exist'? There is no 'it' until after the event!

If we agree God created the universe, it really had to have been a state change from a 'conceptualised' state to a 'material' state; the actual creation event would indeed have been a rearrangement of God's thoughts into the perfect concept of the universe. Am I way off here?

[Nyarl3]

Another great vid. Glad I subbed!

[seinfan9]

A new video?

And I didn't think "analyzation" was a word, but apparently it's archaic. Get with the times, bro!

[TheNakedAtheist]

In fact the more that I think about it it's still causing it to come into existence even if it isn't rearranged, unless I'm misunderstanding you.

[TheNakedAtheist]

So are you saying God didn't cause the universe, that he essentially just "moved" it from non-existence to existence? If so I think you're grasping at straws here, but even so it's kinda off the subject, and does nothing to strengthen Kalam's first premise, it just makes an end run around it.