Does the Universe Have a Purpose

>>The premise of this is to prove that the universe has ultimate purpose and thus existence of god.<< (Argument 1) No the argument is the other way round, if God exists then the universe must have a purpose. >>While the universe does indeed have a cause for coming into existence it did not necessarily have a purpose for coming into existence.<< Again the argument is not to prove the existence of a ultimate purpose, but the existence of God. For if we can establish that God probably does exist then it is likely the universe has a cause. >>Yet the rock has no inherent purpose of being eroded and the river has no divine plan in its course.<< This is a straw-man argument and also comparing apples with oranges. First the argument is not the rock or river has a ultimate plan or purpose, however it does have a purpose to some degree outside of itself. I think my opponent misunderstood my argument, I was not arguing for the ultimate purpose of the universe from argument 1 but for the existence of God. The cause in argument 1 is what Christians call God and on the balance of probabilities and the acceptance of argument 1 by the opponent that is the universe had a cause and theists call that cause God. >>The universe must contain itself<< (argument 2) Not that is not correct, if we had a floor covered in red tiles, we say the floor is red, all red. If we have a universe full of dependence then we have one big "hull" of dependence and thus illogical to say it is dependant on itself. Again my opponent has misunderstood the argument. I will add some commentary to the arguments presented. The second argument can be tied into the first argument relating to the cause of the universe. If the universe had a beginning then that means time, space and matter had a beginning as they are products of the universe. Which then would entail that the cause discussed in argument 1 is outside of time, space and matter. Something that is outside of time, space and matter must be by definition "supernatural", because it is not natural. Theists call that timeless, spaceless and matterless cause God. >>The idea of perfection is one that is as human as imperfection.<< But is that really enough? How can we think away limitation or imperfection unless we first recognize it as such? And how can we recognize it as such unless we already have some notion of infinite perfection? To recognize things as imperfect or finite involves the possession of a standard in thought that makes the recognition possible. Does that seem farfetched? It does not mean that toddlers spend their time thinking about God. But it does mean that, however late in life you use the standard, however long before it comes explicitly into consciousness, still, the standard must be there in order for you to use it. But where did it come from? Not from your experience of yourself or of the world that exists outside you. For the idea of infinite perfection is already presupposed in our thinking about all these things and judging them imperfect. Therefore none of them can be the origin of the idea of God; only God himself can be that. >> Opponent effectively saying that natural desire has no real objective<< This is really not an objection to the argument from desire only, but to every deductive argument whatsoever, every syllogism. It is the old saw of John Stuart Mill and the nominalists against the syllogism. It presupposes empiricism that is, that the only way we can ever know anything is by sensing individual things and then generalizing, by induction. It excludes deduction because it excludes the knowledge of any universal truths (like our major premise). For nominalists do not believe in the existence of any universals except one (that all universals are only names). This is very easy to refute. We can and do come to a knowledge of universal truths, like "all humans are mortal," not by sense experience alone (for we can never sense all humans) but through abstracting the common universal essence or nature of humanity from the few specimens we do experience by our senses. We know that all humans are mortal because humanity, as such, involves mortality, it is the nature of a human being to be mortal; mortality follows necessarily from its having an animal body. We can understand that. We have the power of understanding, or intellectual intuition, or insight, in addition to the mental powers of sensation and calculation, which are the only two the nominalist and empiricist give us. (We share sensation with animals and calculation with computers; where is the distinctively human way of knowing for the empiricist and nominalist?) When there is no real connection between the nature of a proposition's subject and the nature of the predicate, the only way we can know the truth of that proposition is by sense experience and induction. For instance, we can know that all the books on this shelf are red only by looking at each one and counting them. But when there is a real connection between the nature of the subject and the nature of the predicate, we can know the truth of that proposition by understanding and insight—for instance, "Whatever has color must have size," or, "A Perfect Being would not be ignorant." >>I challenge my opponent to name any possible signs of an ultimate purpose for the universe.<< If God exists then there is an ultimate purpose to the universe, I am still waiting for my opponant to give some evidence to why God does not exist. The only evidence he has presented is in fact more evidence for the existence of God, namely the problem of evil, suffering etc. If no perfect God exists then it is impossible for one to actually measure anything in this universe to some ultimate good. For instance how do you know a line is crooked without a ruler, likewise how do you know something is evil or wrong unless you have some ultimate standard to measure some "wrong" or "evil" by. Otherwise its merely your own arbitrary opinion what is wrong or evil and some others may call it right and good. So I await some credible arguments that actually hold water to why God exists, if my opponent cannot then he fails the debate as on the balance of probabilities has failed to show that God does not exist and thus the universe has no purpose. Whilst I have presented several arguments to why it is more probable to believe that God does exist, leaving the premise to stand on its own, if God exists then the universe must have some cause.