General Theism Contains a True Proposition for God's Existence

(1) Defining Theism I took my position as "general theism", meaning that by definition any person who holds such a position holds to the omniattributes including personal agency. I am not advocating pantheism (could also be called naturalistic theism), Panentheism, or what have you. I do not take this to be "my" theism as by definition it is a position held by all [Orthodox] Muslims, Christians, and Jews alike. I understand that there are differences about theism in regards to Open Theism, Process Theology, and etc. , but those points are irrelevant for the resolution before us. (2) Defining Atheism In regards to how the negative has defined his position of atheism, I indeed was afraid what he expresses to be "a semantical game. " My reason for defining atheism as I did and the fault I find with particular claims such as the following: (a) Atheism is a 'denial' of a claim, not a claim in and of itself. (b) Atheism is absence of belief. Are due to the atheist's misunderstanding of his own position. Atheism as I have defined it is the "negation of theism; the denial of the existence of God. " As such, my opponent takes a negative position to the proposition "God does exist. " Proper debate etiquette and even logical discourse requires us to examine the proposition as whether or not true. However, a Wittgensteinian principle would show us that for a proposition to be true, it must also be capable of being false. Therefore, I am leaving open for my opponent the possibility that theism could be falsified (whether be via reductio ad absurdum arguments, the problem of evil, or what have you). If my opponent takes a negative position to the resolution before us, and even more so offers reasons why (I am sure we are not here to listen to mere opinions), then my opponent moves from opinion to supported belief (which can be questioned or challenged). My opponent cannot say that the resolution is false in spite of my arguments, but rather must offer reasons as to why the resolution before him is false on its grounds. As such, my opponent had made the following statement: "The burden is not on my to prove a case, but only to show that Pro has not made his. " My opponent is highly mistaken on this issue. Even if he were to ever so swiftly show my case to be false, and that none of my arguments stand, he still does not show the proposition before us to itself be false. IF he falsified my case, then at best we are all left as agnostics on this issue, not atheists. In conclusion, I do not accept my opponents definitions of atheism or the BoP he think he does not have. (3) The Cosmological Argument My opponent suggests that "there is nothing in the CA that establishes, for example, that the cause has personal agency. " However, I will draw my example from Philosopher Brian Leftow who comments on the issue of a personal agent "acting" outside of time and influencing time: "Well, obviously, a lot of personal predicates won"t apply. He can"t forget. You can only forget what"s in your past. He can"t cease to do something. You can only cease to do something that"s over in your past. But there are other personal predicates that don"t seem to make an essential reference to time " things like knowing, which can just be a dispositional state without a temporal reference. And, I would argue, intending as well. Having an intention can be a dispositional state such that if certain things were to occur you would do something. So I"m inclined to think that there are reasons to think that God is outside time. (A. Flew; cp. 2009, p. 152)" My position is most clarified by Thomas Tracy who also writes: ""human person as an agent organism, a body capable of intentional action. But though all embodied agents (such as human persons) must be psycho-physical unites (and not minds plus bodies), all agents do not have to be embodied" God is an agent" whose every activity is intentional action. To speak of God as a personal being is to talk of him as an agent of intentional actions. " The distinguishing factor to notice is God's intentionality - this is what establishes God the personal agency my argument suggests (i. e. that He willed the universe into being, intentionally). (3.2) Something Cannot Come From Nothing My opponent commits what is known as the "straw man fallacy". By this, he misunderstands what I mean by premise (1.0) - "Everything that begins to exist has a cause". As such, quantum indeterminacy does not particularly constitute as a counter-factual to this premise. As the argument goes, quantum physics shows at the subatomic level so-called "virtual particles" coming into being out of nothing tunneling at very high speeds through a vacuum. In a similar [macroscopic] way, particular cosmogonic models have been shown to purport the universe coming into being out of nothing via quantum vacuum (or other means). First, this objection misunderstands what we mean by the first premise. Quantum physics does not demonstrate "something coming from nothing" rather than a mere issue of quantum indeterminacy. To quote James D. Sinclair, ""Even on the indeterministic interpretation, particles do not come into being out of nothing. They arise as spontaneous fluctuations of the energy contained in the subatomic vacuum, which causes an indeterministic cause of their origination" (J. Sinclair, "The Kalam Cosmological Argument", cp. 2009, p. 183). My opponent is simply confused on this issue. (3.3) I am not sure what my opponent is particularly trying to suggest in this critique. This ultimately seems to say that we can't know whether or not the universe had a beginning, because the verb "begin" denotes a moment in time, and time seems to break down at the Big Bang (more particularly before 10^-43). As such, we can't really say anything on the issue. Einstein in his 1919 paper, "Do Gravitational Field Play An Essential Part in the Structure of the Elementary Particles of Matter? ", writes in section III "On the Cosmological Question", "The last result already permits the surmise that with our new formulation the universe may be regarded as spatially finite, without any necessity for an additional hypothesis" (S. Hawking, "On the Shoulders of Giants"; cp. 2002, p. 1262). As such, I am proporting the view that space and time are finite phenomenon"s that began with the cataclysmic event known as the "Big Bang". According to the standard model, space and time have an "initial point" definitively coming into being a finite time ago. Evidences of such (i. e. big bang governed by GR) come from the following: (a) Hawking and Penrose"s proof of the homogeneity/isotropic assumption as irrelevant (1970). (b) Penzias and Wilson"s discovery of cosmic background radiation (2.6-7 Kelvin? ). (c) COBE Satellite detection of cosmic background radiation in the microwave spectrum. I think there are good evidences to believe in the beginning of the universe, and logically I feel that this can be demonstrated. This brings me to (3.4) (3.4) The Impossibility of an Infinite Regress I feel as though I have already established this case in my first affirmative. I had wrote initially: "let us imagine that before us we have set of finite or contingent objects, each of which that do not seem to have the sufficient reason for why they exist in and of themselves. Rather, the sufficient reason for their existence must be outside of them. From this point, we can keep going down the line of contingent objects for an infinite duration, and thus never reach an ultimate explanation of the entire set, or, we can come to a final and necessary sufficient reason for the entire set itself. To this Leibniz says, an ultimate explanation is grounded upon something "metaphysically necessary"; or [to be defined], a "thing"s essence to include existence". Due to lack of characters I now leave the rebuttal to my opponent.