Rematch Debate: God Exists

CausationThe argument here is that the universe's causation is incoherent, since causation requires:A) An 'arrow of time'B) Physical lawsI will now address these conditions:TimeCon limits the concept of causality; he asserts that causality is a temporal process that happens over a period of time. Whilst this is the case for many examples of causality, for example a loaf of bread being baked by an oven; there is such a thing as simultaneous causation. For example, if one sits down, then the effect (having a lap) is simultaneous to the cause (sitting down). Therefore, the universe could be simultaneously caused by God, at time t=0. Con writes a lot about eternalism, but I would like to say here that eternalism does not, by itself, refute the coherency of causality. Instead, the more problematic concept for the hypothesis of simultaneous causality is the 'relativity of simultaneity'. For the voters who do not yet understand this concept, I will quote Wikipedia:'In physics, the relativity of simultaneity is the concept that distant simultaneity – whether two spatially separated events occur at the same time – is not absolute' (1)Con may argue that simultaneous causality is incoherent because of this very concept. However, this would only apply to spatially separated events - since this is what the above definition states. If the cause and effect are not spatially separated, then there is no relativity of simultaneity. Now we can see that the relativity of simultaneity does not refute the hypothesis that God created the universe via simultaneous causation, because the cause (God) is not spatially separated from the effect (the creation of the universe). Hence we can say with sureity that these events can be objectively simultaneous. Therefore, neither eternalism nor the relativity of simultaneity refute the coherency of the notion that God created the universe by simultaneous causation. Physical LawsThe assertion that causality cannot exist without physical laws is actually false. I will give an example:P1: All cows are mammalsP2: Edward is a cowC: Edward is a mammalThis is a simple deductive syllogism. Ignore its content, just note that the premises cause the conclusion to be true. This is a clear example of causation. There is a cause and an effect; the cause is the veracity of the premises, and the effect is the veracity of the conclusion. But this causal relationship does not require the existence of physical laws, yet it is clearly a causal relationship. Therefore, the assertion that causality requires physical laws is false. Applying this to God, the falsity of Con's assertion entails that God did not require the existence of physical laws to create the universe. Atemporal mindsThe logic of Con's syllogism is sound, although it is its premises that contain the argument's falsity. The one I contest is P2:'All minds require processes. 'This premise is unjustified. It is true that all human and animal minds require processes, it is a unjustified jump to the conclusion that all minds require processes. There is nothing incoherent in postulating a mind that is unchanging - possessing eternal ideas and thoughts. As Con's argument seeks to assert the incoherency of an atemporal mind, he would have to show that an eternal, unchanging minds is incoherent. Con writes some lines about the subjectiveness of intelligence, but does not support his claims. I maintain, there is nothing subjective about a mind containing eternal, unchanging ideas and Con would have to demonstrate otherwise in order to save his argument. My opponent opines that a mind without processes is 'essentially non-causal', yet I disagree. Such a mind can have an eternal idea to cause X at time Y. For example, God could have the eternal idea of 'I will cause a thunderstorm over New York on 8th May 2016', and hence he would cause this despite having an eternal, unchanging mind. Therefore, an eternal mind is not essentially non-causal. As I have refuted P2, the argument as a whole is refuted. Law of ParsimonyI accept the law of parsimony, or Ockham's Razor as it is more commonly known, but I would like to bring to mind this caveat:'posits that in a group of equally likely explanation[s], the one with least number of assumptions is a priori most likely'The emphasis is on 'equally likely explanation', as the Law of Parsimony only applies to cases where competing hypotheses are equally likely. However, my teleological argument demonstrates how the 'God-hypothesis' is much more likely than any naturalistic hypothesis concerning the fine-tuning of the universe. In other words, even if A is more complex and has more ad hoc hypotheses than B, we should still accept A if the arguments for A are stronger than those for B. I will now pass over to Tejretics :)________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________(1) en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity