quote:
1) Same argument could hold for God.
2) This is essentially Xeno's paradox, and it has been solved. It isn't actually paradoxical, it just plays one on TV.
Its actually the kalam cosmological argument. Xeno's paradox is
quote:
If you travelling from point A to point B, you necessarily must travel half of the distance to point B before travelling all of the distance. Now from that point you must again travel half of the remaining distance. If you continue to do so (travel half of the distance) you will never reach point B.
Which isn't really about what we are talking about.
While for the kalam cosmological argument is this:--
quote:
1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its
existence.
2. The universe began to exist.
2.1 Argument based on the impossibility of an
actual infinite.
2.11 An actual infinite cannot exist.
2.12 An infinite temporal regress of
events is an actual infinite.
2.13 Therefore, an infinite temporal
regress of events cannot exist.
2.2 Argument based on the impossibility of
the formation of an actual infinite by
successive addition.
2.21 A collection formed by successive
addition cannot be actually infinite.
2.22 The temporal series of past events
is a collection formed by successive
addition.
2.23 Therefore, the temporal series of
past events cannot be actually
infinite.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its
existence.
God exists out of time; he made time. He was there before the beginning of time, and thus there is no infinite temporal regress argument you can level against God.
If you want a more detailed argument using this,
quote:
If, in order to reach a certain end, infinitely many steps had to precede it, could the end ever be reached? Of course not--not even in an infinite time. For an infinite time would be unending, just as the steps would be. In other words, no end would be reached. The task would--could--never be completed.
...In fact, no step in the sequence could be reached, because an infinity of steps must always have preceded any step; must always have been gone through one by one before it. The problem comes from supposing that an infinite sequence could ever reach, by temporal succession, any point at all.
...if the universe...is infinitely old, then an infinite amount of time would have to have elapsed before (say) today. And so an infinite number of days must have been completed--one day succeeding another, one bit of time being added to what went before--in order for the present day to arrive. But this exactly parallels the problem of an infinite task. If the present day has been reached, then the actually infinite sequence of history has reached this present point: in fact, has been completed up to this point--for at any present point the whole past must already have happened. But an infinite sequence of steps could never have reached this present point--or any point before it.
So, either the present day has not been reached, or the process of reaching it was not infinite. But obviously the present day has been reached. So the process of reaching it was not infinite...
--Kreeft, Peter and Ronald Tacelli
[This message has been edited by blitz77, 08-20-2002]
[This message has been edited by blitz77, 08-20-2002]
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