Theism (Pro) vs. Naturalism (Con)

Cosmology I would first like to state that throughout the debate, my fourth defense for premise 2 went ignored. That was the one arguing that a timeless entity couldn’t cause anything. My case is in a parallel structure, that is to say either defense is sufficient to demonstrate premise 2. Since there has been no objection to the problem of action, it has been conceded and therefore so has the argument. Pro states that my omniscience paradox needs to show eternalism and creation of the universe are incompatible. The beauty of my omniscience paradox is that it’s wholly independent of my eternalist defense. Rather or not you believe the second defense is sound has no bearing on acceptance of my third defense. I encourage everyone to re-read it to see this. Look back at what Pro quoted “[I]f God is omniscient, then all states of time must exist for as long as God has existed.” Notice my emphasis? If something coexists with you, you cannot bring it into existence. Pro conceded on that point, as he never objected to it. If a state of time exists for as long as God has existed, then it coexisted with God. This means God couldn’t have brought the universe into existence because it always existed with the creator. Pro’s only objection this is based on a misunderstanding and therefore my defense still stands. Pro believes that eternalism and the existence of God is compatible. He says eternalism doesn’t hold that all states of time exist equally. However, all states of time existing equally entails they exist eternally. As I quoted Dr. Craig in round 2, the big bang wouldn’t have came into being. The past and future exist just as much as today exists. Therefore, nothing can ever come into being because they already existed. If God were to create the universe, it must have been nonexistent in one moment, then existent in the next. It would entail an objective flow of time, which eternalism rejects. It appears Pro misunderstood my first defense from causality. He states “When you said He couldn’t exist before time, you meant it in a sense that He would be affected by it...” Pro doesn’t see the conclusion of this. If one rereads my argument you will see that my argument is based on causality. To quickly rephrase my argument, causes need to be prior to effects. So, if we have a cause of the universe, it needs to be prior to the effect. Prior is a temporal subject, but since we are dealing with a cause of time, then therefore the cause itself needs to be atemporal. The cause cannot be atemporal, therefore it is a contradiction to speak of a cause of time. All Pro is doing is affirming that the cause isn’t temporal. Yes, this is what my argument depends on, God would be affected by time if he is the cause, but he cannot be affected by time. Ergo, he cannot be the cause of time. Being outside of time is exactly why he cannot be a creator. Rebuttals All of the scholarship is interesting, it really is. However, it’s all secondary. If Pro hasn’t shown these events are supernatural, then his entire argument is for naught. Pro attempts to respond to this with the sentence: “Actually,if supernatural events happened, they wouldn't need supernatural explanations to show theism..more likely than naturalism..” But we can plainly see that this is a strawman of my argument. I never once argued you have to demonstrate supernatural events have supernatural explanations. If an event is supernatural, it tautologically follows that its explanation is supernatural. If we reread my argument, I was arguing that Pro needs to demonstrate that the event itself has a supernatural cause which would prove that the event is supernatural. My rebuttal didn’t assume supernatural events occurred, only that the events (neutral) occurred and analyzed if it was reasonable to believe that it has a supernatural explanation. The nature of the event itself doesn’t prove it’s supernatural. Even though something such as a coin vanishing trick looks supernatural, it has a natural cause and therefore not supernatural. The seemingly impossibility of the event is not evidence of the supernatural. Pro must do two things for his argument to work. 1. Demonstrate x happened. 2. Demonstrate that x is supernatural. Pro only focuses on the first point. Pro’s goal is to demonstrate that theism is more likely than naturalism. He does this by trying to appeal to an various events and he infers that those events are supernatural, but he hasn’t once tried to justify that inference. Pro has misrepresented my argument and it therefore remains. Even if Pro is correct on scholarship and the like, he still has yet to fulfill his burden of proof. Prophecy Pro states his argument wasn’t an appeal from tradition. Since the only support he gave in his opening round was that it was traditional, then it was. Pro provides additional support, but this doesn’t negate that his original statement was an appeal to tradition. I still find this to be poor evidence. We would notice nowadays if someone added to a book, but we are hardly in the same contextual situations as 6th century BCE. Why should we believe we are in the same scholarly situations as 6th century BCE? It’s interesting that brought up the Ezra-Nehemiah split because that split was due to differences in literary style[1]. Something Pro believes is “subjective and/or inconsistent”. The split was probably hard for scholars to accept because it contradicts the idea that Isaiah contains prophecy. Pro says the ancient writers had the full book of Isaiah. However, since the scrolls they copied from are lost, there is no way to know how old their Isaiah manuscript was and therefore no way to show Pro’s point. Pro argues that Isaiah's literary style could’ve changed. Literary style is more than just the words someone uses. In incorporates mood, point of view, tone, symbolism[2] and it sets various authors apart[3]. My previous round’s citation provides multiple literary differences. Such that the first Isa has an optimistic tone, whereas the second half has a pessimistic tone[4]. Both also have very different theological messages[5] and the name Isaiah stops being used beginning at chapter 40[6]. Pro says there wasn’t small pockets of idol worship, but large pockets. Assuming this isn’t an exaggeration, the word “small” may have been an underestimation on my part. If you look at my source, It never used the word small. As for Isa being written in pure Hebrew, this is unimpressive. Other post-exile prophets also wrote in pure Hebrew[14]. Pro cites another prophecy to justify the claim we cannot believe in an abductive solution to the problem. However, Pro’s verse claims the Medes will attack babylon. While Cyrus may have been half-Mede, his army that took babylon was Persian[7]. If a half-German lead the Chinese military into victory, it doesn’t follow that the Germans won that victory. Since his prophecy is unsound, my abductive argument stands. Pro asserts that the oldest daniel scroll would be 2,140 years old, but gives no justification. He quotes John Whitcomb in claiming that Daniel wasn’t in the Hebrew Canon due to personal bias. His only evidence is Whitcomb’s authority. Since Pro admits there is debate in this area and since Whitcomb is significantly biased[8], this is an appeal to authority[9]. The evidence for early authorship isn’t sufficient. Resurrection Pro states that I haven’t given an alternative theory of the resurrection. Yet Pro hasn’t shown us why I needed to. If we are in a time where historical knowledge is lacking and I come up with a theory about Julius Caesar’s death that is ridiculously implausible, we would be irrational to believe it. However, this doesn’t mean that Pro needs to come up with some alternative theory in order for us to reject an absurd theory. I don’t have to propose an alternative theory, if Pro’s evidence for P2 fails, then so too does his argument. Pro says even secular scholars believe 500 people saw Jesus. However, Pro’s source only speaks about the appearances to the disciples, not the 500. Nor does it explain why he believes biblical testimony[10]. Pro tries to make distinctions between the eyewitness evidence of Jesus’ resurrection and the other eyewitness evidence I presented. He negates the moon splitting miracle by claiming the only evidence we have that this happened is two sources telling us there were eyewitnesses. Compared to the letter to Corinth which tells us there were eyewitnesses. Pro states Corinth could verify these accounts. But how? Paul doesn’t name the 500 witnesses and furthermore, why couldn’t someone have tried to verify Muhammad’s moon splitting miracle? There still doesn’t seem to be a meaningful difference in the evidence for Muhammad's miracles and Christ’s resurrection. With Jim Jones, Pro states some denied Jones’ miracles. So does Pro believe the presence of doubters negates all eyewitness testimony? If we recall the story of Thomas, he doubted Jesus until he felt his wounds. What if Thomas still didn’t believe, does that immediately invalidate all eyewitness accounts? I don’t think Pro would believe it does, so why should we believe in with Jones? My source explains why those people denied Jones’ claims, they joined after a certain period of time where Jones was forced to resort to performing non-genuine healings[11]. Why should we discount evidence before this time, but not the bible’s? Pro says the reference to Sri Sathya Sai Baba’s miracles is too general a citation. Pro doesn’t explain what this means, nor does he explain how this is different from Paul's testimony. You can see a list directly named testimonials in my citation. These can still be accessed using the archive.org[12]. The websites states that it has testimony from “671 devotees”[13]. If 671 personally written testimonials isn’t specific enough for Pro, I don’t know is. If eyewitness testimony is to be trusted, then it is true in these cases which don’t benefit Pro.