This Argument for the Existence of God Doesn't Work

I will start by commenting on the conclusion. Conclusion: I agree that your arguments would win the debate if I do not refute them. I don't want to discuss arguments for the qualities of God now, because (1) they are based off of the current argument for God (#'s 1-6), (2) the argument I have given is already long and complicated, (3) arguments for the qualities of God are simpler, I think, than this argument, on a per quality basis. I think the cosmological arguments depend on my explanation for (2), meaning (2a) and (2b) (Cosmological arguments meaning based off of time and based off of cause-effect chains). Premise 5, which you didn't comment on: You attack Peter Kreeft's representation in the ontological argument, but I only refer to it regarding my (5a) and (5b), neither of which you have gone after at this point. Premise 1: I think pretty much everyone understands what idea I'm getting at in terms of what does a cause mean and what does an effect mean. What I mean is that most people have an example in their mind of what it means to have a cause and effect, whether it is in history, or in playing billiard balls. I don't see at this point how having an exact definition will determine whether my argument is wrong or not, unless you give a definition denying something important. That being said, it doesn't hurt to give a more exact definition. I will try to define cause as a relationship of a thing acting on another thing (basically, given a subject, verb, and object, direct or indirect, the subject is the cause and the object is what is being effected). Google Dictionary gives these two definitions. Cause is a "person or thing that" acts. Effect is "a change" which occurs from an action. That being said, you do bring up a good question of whether all effects have causes (and we can look at the vice versa too). Cause-effect looks vague if someone denies their sense perception regarding this sort of thing. Can anything be an effect? I would like to think that everything (except God) is an effect of a cause. Why can't I do this at least theoretically? I don't know of any experience to where there is no cause-effect relationship between a thing and any other thing (I will try to look into this more at Premise 4). Premise 2a: If the infinite chain I gave is different from the "infinite causal chain", then you will have to distinguish between the two more clearly for me. I see no difference. Side note: On P3: "C is not A," I just realized you mean logical "not". I would clarify this to say, C has A, but by the definition of things in C, this means A doesn't exist. Since we assumed A existed, a contradiction results. Include the same clarification with P1. The problem with this logic is that infinity doesn't behave the same as finite things. Infinity has its own rules in regards to numbers, but also with regards to sets. For example, inf + 1 = inf. inf * 2 = inf. However, this isn't true with finite numbers. In the same way, you can't say that the reasoning is exactly the same, because the rules aren't exactly the same. That being said, it would be better if I could be clearer on this. So, I will. I just noticed that the break in your logic is on P3, when you say "not Aristotle. " (I will give logical not's by ~). Properly speaking in logic, ~Aristotle means everyone and everything who isn't Aristotle. That includes Plato. Therefore, Socrates isn't just Socrates, but also Plato, Matt532, zmikecuber, and everyone else, as well as objects like tables, and such, except that this is prevented in P1 so that it only refers to persons. When one uses a logical not, one uses its complement, meaning everything that it isn't. The way you and we use "not" in common language, in this instance, it means at least one thing that it isn't (When I say peanut butter is not jelly, I'm not saying that peanut butter is ice cream). So, I use the first meaning, and you use the second meaning. That being said, I'm still not satisfied with my answer. Ahh, I just noticed that Socrates would be more than one man, technically. I'm still not satisfied though. The main problem I see with your syllogism is that Aristotle and Socrates are not all of man, but only share in "man-ness". So, I think your syllogism would be the same as this: P1: Socrates is ? man A (regardless of what "Socrates" really means (for my purposes), as defined from P3). P2: Aristotle is man B. P3: Socrates is not Aristotle. C: ? man A ~= man B. With my infinities, however, they are completely overlapping each other. My infinities are identical: (c1, c2, c3, "). Also, I'm not talking about two different things. I'm talking about the same exact chain. Premise 4: I'm glad you agree with me on that part. When I would say "caused by nothing," I really mean "not caused by anything. " I don't see exactly how the two are different. I wouldn't say that this thing, "nothing", exists, I agree. "Why can't something begin to exist without any cause at all? " Well, I would admit that I assumed this to not be true. I will say though, that I don't' know of anything that provably follows this idea. That being said, I will use Google's definitions to see if I can get somewhere. Google Dictionary defines action as doing something. To say that a thing's existence was not caused by anything is to say that "nothing was done," or this act was not done by anything. To say that a thing was not done by anything means no act occurred by those things. So, an act must have come up on its own. This means all verbs don't need a subject! (Give me a sentence without any subject that makes sense, meaning, it represents reality) What else does this mean? Well, since there does not exist a thing that does the act, the only thing left is emptiness or nothingness! So, nothing does something. If we define a thing as that which does stuff (such as existing), nothing is something. Then, this contradicts the act not being done by anything, in addition with the idea that nothing isn't something. To tell me that I can't link "not done by anything" with "done by nothing" seems to deny me from using valid logic just because, which makes no sense. (If you apply ~ to both sides, the ~ gets distributed to the "done" and to the "thing", so "not done by Sam" logically means "done by not Sam", assuming something was done (though not-Sam means that at least one person in the category of "not-Sam" did it). Premise 4a: You ignored two words from my premise 4: "in time": "Now, I can always ask what caused a thing if it came into existence at some point in time" (assuming this is true). Therefore, something would have to (logical) not come into existence at some point in time ("logical-not" means all possibilities that a thing isn't). This means that it has always existed in time. Now, if time is not infinite (apply premises 2a and 2b to form the argument), then the "First Cause" must have existed outside of time, else it would be as finite as finite time (but if it is finite, then it is limited, which means that there is something to limit it, something which causes this limit, a prior cause). You are bold in going out of your way to explicitly assert that your arguments are right before I have even given my objections. That is a liability for you. Now, it is an excellent question to ask whether this First Cause can cease to exist. Well, I will use Premise 5 and show that God is simple (meaning not composed of parts). I will do this next post (It will be under the label (i) ).