God Couldn't Have Caused The First Moment Of Time

I neglected to provide a citation in the previous round. The [1] should have referred you to a merriam-webster online dictionary definition.Anyway, moving on. In this debate, Pro has made many mistakes, the most crucial of which is as follows: he assumes that words mean only what he wants them to mean. He assumes that intelligence, for example, means only "the capacity for thought," and ignores the theological definition (an egregious error, considering we are discussing religious philosophy) which defines intelligence as "the basic eternal quality of divine Mind. [1] Please note that his argument centers around the idea that intelligence entails thought, but intelligence in the theological sense does not entail thought. He also assumes that "mind" entails thought. This is false. William Craig, celebrated philosopher and proponent of the timeless God, describes God's mind as a "changeless consciousness of truth" that is "properly regarded as timeless." He elaborates:"But what if God's mental life in the absence of any created world is not discursive, but changeless? Why could the contents of God's consciousness not be comprised of tenselessly true beliefs such as "No humans exist," "7+5=12," "In W* Socrates drinks hemlock," "Anything that has a shape has a size," "If Jones were in C, he would write to his wife," "The atomic number of gold is 78," "God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect," and so on, and be such that He never acquires and never loses any of His beliefs?"To summarize, we have the same popular Christian philosopher that Pro himself cited defending the belief that God does not think. This is destructive to Pro's claim that Christian belief entails a thinking God, and I could probably stop here if I wanted, but I won't. To establish that God must be able to think, Pro appeals to the conception of the Maximally Great Being, a being who possesses all logically coherent great-making qualities to the maximal degree. He appeals here not to logic but to the instinctive belief that the ability to think is a great-making quality.So, what evidence does he present that the ability to think is a great-making quality?None whatsoever. Pro would have you believe that a Mind who cannot think is not maximally great, but I'd like you to consider two points.Firstly, thinking is the process of transitioning from one belief to another. This is destructive to the idea of a timeless thinker because thinking, as a process, entails time. Secondly, a maximally great being must be omniscient. By the definition of omniscience, this means that a maximally great being holds true beliefs and only true beliefs. Therefore, a maximally great being must hold true beliefs and only true beliefs.I refer you again to William Lane Craig's view that God's mind is "a changeless consciousness of true beliefs." These beliefs would include a simultaneous perfect awareness of every moment of the universe, etc. So God simultaenously knows that at 12:40 I am drinking water, but at 12:41 I am writing an argument. Why does God need to think?As we have seen, a maximally great being, being omniscient, has every true belief. What need is there for its transitioning from one belief to another? In fact, should a maximally great being change any of its beliefs, that is to say, should a maximally great being think, it would cease to have only true beliefs -- it could no longer be considered maximally great. Pro has one more response that he could attempt. "Of course intelligence is a great-making quality. If we were not intelligent, we would be less great than we are now." (Again, of course, Pro would be advancing his definition of intelligence to the willful exclusion of the philosophical definition of intelligence). Pro would be correct. If we, as temporal and flawed beings, were not intelligent, we would be less great than we are now. However, God is not a temporal or flawed being. We as humans have need of intelligence because intelligence allows us to acquire true beliefs and dispose of false beliefs. God, as an omniscient being with only true beliefs, does not.I'm going to summarize this, because it's important that you understand what I'm getting at.Pro claims that a great being must be able to think. However, thinking is the process of changing one's beliefs, and a maximally great being (God) already has perfect beliefs.Thinking is of value only when one does not hold all true beliefs, or when one's beliefs are not all true. When you think or when I think, the purpose is to improve our beliefs -- I may think in order to examine the question of whether I have homework tomorrow, or whether my belief that God can be timeless is warranted. God, though, holds only true beliefs, and he holds all true beliefs -- to what end does God think? Does he somehow become more certain in his beliefs? But this is nonsense. God exists as an eternal consciousness of truth. Not only does he hold perfect beliefs, he knows he holds perfect beliefs.Pro also appeals to the idea that God must be able to choose. He supplies no warrant for this claim, though, apart from a vague assertion that it is better to be able to choose than not to be able to choose. What is choice, though, other than transitioning from a lack of belief about the action to take to a belief about the action to take? God has no need of doing this, because God's beliefs about the proper actions to take are already perfect, because (as Pro has repeated over and over) God is maximally great.We have already seen that Christian belief has no problem with a definition of God that does not include the capacity for thought. Pro cited a philosopher as an example of "conventional Christian belief," but that very philosopher advanced several arguments for why God can be a timeless entity that does not think. Pro's claim that Christian belief requires a God that thinks is therefore nonsense. I could stop here, because Pro himself acknowledged that not all of Christianity requires that God be a maximally great being, but I'll keep going, because I can refute his other claim, too.Pro claims that a maximally great being must be able to think. I have shown that this is not the case. A maximally great being holds perfect beliefs, and thinking would entail changing those beliefs. After being changed, those beliefs would no longer be perfect; ergo, a maximally great being cannot change. In short, Pro wants you to generalize that what makes humans good to what would make a perfect entity perfect. This is ridiculous. Protesting that God must be able to think is like protesting that God must be able to grow, or improve Himself, or learn. These qualities are good for humans because we are not perfect; a perfect being that is able to change its beliefs, grow, improve, or learn is a contradiction.The resolution is negated. Vote Con.[1] http://www.merriam-webster.com...;[2] http://www.reasonablefaith.org...;