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From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Rich Blinne
Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2005 9:14 AM
>You picked the right framework here. Of the theistic arguments the
Cosmological Argument (which is what you are doing) is easier to establish
than the >Teleological Argument that ID has tried. Given your goals,
however, it places some restrictions on how you argue the cosmological
argument. What you label as
>Nature is better labelled self-existence.
I don't think I labled anything as Nature. Self-existence must come from
somewhere and be posited to something.
* A self-existent entity requires no cause just like inertia requires no
force.
Not true.
"Let us bring out the main idea in what we may call poor man's language
Inertia here, in the sense of local inertial frams, that is the grip of
spacetime here on mass here, is fully defined by the geometry, the
curvature, the structure of the immediate surroundings; those domains, onto
their surroundings; and so on, all the way around the great curve of space.
Moreover, the geometery in each local region responds in its curvature to
the mass in that region. Therefore every bit of momentum-energy, wherever
located, makes its influence felt on the geometry of space throughout the
whole universe-and felt, thus, on inertia right here." Ignazio Ciufolini and
John Archibald Wheeler, Gravitation and Inertia, (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1995), p. 4
Inertia does require a force.
> If the Universe is eternal as Hawkings posits then it could be
self-existent. You counter even so it is not self-existent. Unfortunately,
for a concordist you cannot
>go there. While I see a concordist showing that the Bible allows for
evolution I don't see how the same can be done for an eternal Universe. If
the Universe is
>not eternal then the Cosmological Argument is a slam dunk. The Universe
cannot be either self-created nor self-existent and only one real
possibility is left, God.
>But, and this is a big but, if the Universe is eternal then even though a
god is possible the god here is not the God of the Bible.
Consider Gott's objection to Hawkings no-boundary proposal. Gott says that
Hawking doesn't start with an eternal universe but starts with a tunneling
event from a previous universe.
"But to me a problem exists with this model. It doesn't really start with
nothing; it starts with something-a quantum state, which tunnels out to
become a normal spacetime." Richard Gott, Time Travel in Einstein's
Universe, (New York: Houghton Mifflin Co, 2001), p. 183
>Thus, the Cosmological Argument simplifies greatly given concordism. Either
the Universe is eternal (if there is a god he/she/it is unknowable) or God
is.
Yes, and this is where theists ought to place their defense. If we don't
then I suspect Tipler is correct, regardless of Burgy's view of Tiper.
Received on Tue Jun 21 20:59:58 2005
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