Chance as a sole-product of the Universe

mike the wiz Does the designer you conclude exists do so as a consequence of chance or design then?If I ask you to predict the outcome of the location of a golfball before I hit it can you do so? Not likely. Can you do so after it lands? Most definitely. In each case the chance is the same for the outcome. If you make the prediction after the fact though, { as we do for a universe already in existence} then you are operating from the location of a universe in which certain occurences have already happened.

GDR If I were to hit a hole in one and claim it to be a miracle would you agree this to be the case? Or would you say that it was just chance that allowed for it to happen? If the Universe has the properties it does how is this evidence of design since it has to end up with properties of some sort or other?The point is that before an event the chance of anything occuring is random while after the event we can marvel at the order it has only if we neglect that had it occured otherwise we could have marvelled at the order that that outcome produced.AbE To be consistent with the notion of design we cannot help but ask what designed the designer of the universe.Edited by sidelined, : No reason given.

GDR We know that the universe happened We cannot predict the chances of something occuring after it has already happened since the chance of it occuring are now certain.
The original difficulty that MTW presented was this He has not solved the difficulty because we must now apply the same logic to the designer.Since we have taken the assumption {a la MTW} that an initiating event is required we must now apply the same criteria to the designer. This leads to the a paradox of ad infinitum and we end up having answered nothing.

GDR Creation in a world outside of time has no meaning.God is outside of time,therefore, God creating the world can have no meaning.Perhaps you would care to structure the arguement differently.

GDR Since actions require time in which to proceed pray tell how does God manage to do something without the time to do it in?

mike the wiz Really? Answer this then. If all things have a cause {a requisite you have imposed} What was the cause of God?

GDR You have completely missed the point. Mike the wiz has stated that I am trying to show how this notion falls apart as a consequence of the very strictures he has put in place. Since the cotention he makes is that God is the formal cause then we must apply the same consideration to God, namely what caused God?I then showed how the process of application of this" philosophical" discussion to the "explanation" of God leads to an absurdity. This absurdity is the ad infinitum I mentioned.

mike the wiz You still run afoul of things here mike. Is stating that something always existed not the same as saying that it never had a beginning?
If God never had a beginning then how can he be said to exist?If he is outside of time then you cannot use the word exist since that is a time dependent phrase.

mike the wiz That is a circular statement mike. We cannot use a premise as a conclusion. You state that the God does not need a purpose. This is special pleading because you thereby eliminate, without logical process, the same strictures you insist on to those who say that the world came about naturally.

mike the wiz I am not asking you to explain God. I am asking you to critically examine your arguement.You have brought God into this in the notion of a designer. But you cannot conclude a designer when you will not use the same criterias to examine the notion of the designer with the same that you use to examine a natural origin to the universe.