God Exists.

I've finally decided to make one of these cliche debates. (^_^) Introduction: The following argument is an argument from contingency and is, basically, Thomas Aquinas' "Third Way" for demonstrating the existence of God. [1] Robert Maydole slightly tweaked the argument but it follows the same general form and argumentation so I will be using his formulation. It can be thought of as a sort of hybrid ontological/cosmological argument couched in the terms of modality. This means that this argument relies heavily on the notions of contingency, [2] necessity, [3] and possible worlds. [4] "God" will simply mean "supreme being" in this debate and the terms may be used interchangeably; the same with the terms "being" and "thing". Definitions and clarifications: Supreme being - A being of which "none greater can be conceived" as Anslem thought. Or, alternately, "a being with the greatest possible array of com possible great-making properties." [5] A great-making property is also called a "perfection". Perfection - "A property that it is necessarily better to have than not." [6] Exist - "To have actual being; be: The world exists, whether you like it or not." [7] An argument from contingency: (1) Every temporally contingent being possibly fails to exist at some time. (2) If all things possibly fail to exist at some time then it is possible that all things fail to exist at some past time. (3) It is necessarily the case that possible truths are explicable. (4) It is necessarily the case that something is explicable only if there was not a time when nothing existed. (5) Whatever is temporally necessary might be unlimited. (6) Whatever might explain itself is unlimited. (7) Nothing which is unlimited can be explained by anything else. (8) Everything which is unlimited is supreme. (9) Something is temporally necessary if and only if it is not temporally contingent. .: There exists a supreme being. [8] Brief defenses of the premises: P1 - It's obvious that it's *possible* that any temporally contingent thing can possibly not exist in some possible world. Something is temporally contingent if it is possible that it can begin to exist or go out of existence. P2 - This premise relies on the assumption (for a reductio) that everything is temporally contingent, and if we accept the first premise, then it is possible that everything does not exist (either by not coming into existence or going out of existence) at some specific point of time in the past. P3 - By "explicable" I mean possible to have an explanation. There is nothing wrong with saying that in some possible world something that is true has an explanation even if in the actual world there is no explanation of that truth. I will even agree, for the sake of argument, with a popular objection against the first premise of the Kalam Cosmological Argument. [9] Namely that virtual particles pop into existence, with no cause, unexplained, out of nothing, in the actual world. [10] Even granting that dubious proposition there is nothing suspicious with saying that it is *possible* that virtual particles be explained or have a cause. P4 - The ability to be explained, explicability, is a dispositional property. [11] In the sense I mean it a disposition would refer to something like the laws and structure of nature. To explain this better take an example of a sugar and hot water; sugar is soluble in hot water. This means that there is something about laws of nature and about the structure of sugar and hot water that when the some specific conditions are met the sugar will dissolve. Considering the above point - if there are laws of nature then there *must* be, in principle, complete explanations for something. A complete explanation would be possible because what it means to have an explanation is to describe something in terms of it's antecedent conditions. If complete explanations aren't possible, in principle, than explanation loses it any meaning it normally has ascribed to it. For example, I will agree with a popular atheist objection and say that if theists posit a God as an explanation for the existence of the universe, but, if in turn that God itself needs an explanation for *it's* existence (ad infinitum) theists haven't really explained anything in the first place. However, explanations always have to be made in terms of something else that already is in existence (the laws of nature or something else). If there are such things as complete explanations then it follows that there needs to be something that has already existed to explain that something. So, anything that might to begin to exist from nothing, inexplicably, like virtual particles, would make complete explanation impossible. But that is absurd as I showed earlier. So, if complete explanation is possible then there being a "time" in which nothing "existed" is impossible. P5 - By "temporally necessary" it's meant that it's not possible that a temporally necessary being begin to exist or go out of existence - the exact opposite of temporally contingent, of course. Something "unlimited" does not depend on anything else for existence or properties. If something was dependent on another thing, in any way, it would be limited. Surely it's *possible* that something that is temporally necessary is unlimited. P6 - This means that anything that is limited (dependent on something else for either it's existence or properties) can't explain it's own existence in and of itself as something limited would have to have it's existence or properties explained in terms of something else. Of course, something that is temporally contingent is limited. So for something explain *itself* it'd have to be unlimited. P7 - Something that is unlimited can be explained only in terms of itself. After all, if something is unlimited then it depends on nothing else; it's existence or properties CAN'T be explained in terms of anything other than itself! P8 - By "supreme" it's meant "the property that a thing has if and only if it is impossible for something to be greater and impossible for there to be something else than which it is not greater." [12] Going by what unlimited means then there is nothing that would prevent the supreme from having all com possible perfections as it is not dependent on anything else. So an unlimited being must have all com possible perfections ("supreme") because if it didn't than it would be limited in some way making it not unlimited. Examples of perfections would be omniscience, omnibenevolence, omnipotence, eternally existent, etc. Therefore, if something is unlimited then it *must* be supreme as well. P9 - Obvious if you take a look at the definitions of temporal contingency and temporal necessity. Again, temporal contingency simply means possible to begin to exist or possible to go out of existence, and temporal necessity is neither. A temporally necessary thing can't be temporally contingent. .: - Conclusion: God exists. Rules: *NO SEMANTICS!* Sources: [1] http://www.sacred-texts.com... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org... [4] http://en.wikipedia.org... [5] http://books.google.com... [6] William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland, Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, pg 593 [7] http://dictionary.reference.com... [8] http://www.bu.edu... [9] http://plato.stanford.edu... [10] http://science.jrank.org... [11] http://plato.stanford.edu... [12] Same place as source [6]