This is my critique of your "4 Step Proof for God," and all my citations come from your article found at:
http://www3.telus.net/trbrooks/perfectproof.htm
I see many people have already tried to refute your proof, and in my mind they have succeeded, but you keep ignoring what they have to say. That in mind, I do not have high hopes I will succeed, but as I am a warrior and not only a priest, I must give it a try. In my discussion I will use terms and concepts from philosophy (eastern, western, and my native Tinzirean), as well as science, anthropology, and common sense. Hopefully, you will decide to facilitate this discussion by refraining from sending constant and unecessary infractions. They only stifle debate and strangles critical thinking.
Just like Ah Puch, I shall format my rebuttal in a concise and organized way. There will be five parts to it: four parts in which I rebut the four stages of your proof, and a conclusion, in which I sum up why I think it is not a very good proof of the Christian God.
1. Step I
1.1. You sum up the first part of your proof as:
If there had been an eternity of the past of cause and effects, we would have had an eternity to be perfected without sin, but since we still sin, we know there was not an eternity of the past of cause and effect.
1.1.1 It is not proven that perfection means there is no sin. Perfection is a bit of a slippery term, and it can really mean whatever you want. True, I admit, it could mean a world without any sin whatsoever. It could also mean a world with only sin and nothing but sin. Or it could mean a world in which all living things are instantly turned into ice cream. What I am trying to say with this is that it is
not a fact that a sinless world is perfect. Now, since what a perfect world would be like is impossible to say (it is!), a number of conclusions can be drawn:
1.1.1.1 From this it follows that
perhaps the world we live in right now is perfect. That would rebut your entire argument about global increase in conscience, whatever that is supposed to mean. I am not saying that we live in a perfect world, only that since it is so hard to pin down the meaning of the phrase 'perfect world,' it could just as well mean the current state of affairs.
1.1.1.2 Maybe sin is unrelated to perfection. Perhaps a perfect universe is merely very aesthetical, and maybe it doesn't matter in such a universe if people sin or not. Once again, I do not think it is this way, just that it might be so. I am trying to tell you that perfection is a very unclear term, and that it shouldn't be used lightly (or even be used at all!) within philosophical discourse.
1.1.1.3 Or perhaps sin
is perfection, and only if we live in constant sin the world will be perfected. I am not arguing it's necessarily this way, just that it's a possibility, and we cannot know.
1.1.1.4 Summary: as long as there is no definition for what is perfect, the first part of your proof is defeated. And if you define 'perfection' as 'living in accordance with God' or something to that effect, you are defeating yourself, because then you presuppose God.
1.1.2. Another serious problem is that there is no definition of 'sin.' It is like the hollow terms 'good and evil,' to which westerners attach importance, and just like those terms, it is very easy to knock down. Various cultures have various conceptions of morality. Some of them believe, just like you do, in good and evil, but what is good to them might be evil to you, and what is good to you might be evil to them. For example, human sacrifice is evil to you, but to the ancient Aztecs, it was a good thing. Others believe that 'good' and 'evil' do not exist at all, replacing them with a different system of values. Tinzireans are sceptical towards the idea of 'good-evil;' we have our own moral compass instead, consisting of 'dishonourable' and 'honourable.' You can be honourable and still do things that westerners would regard as evil. Similarly, some acts that are good according to you westerners are seen as dishonourable to us. Sparing an enemy on the battlefield is ostensibly a 'good' thing to do, from the perspective of your culture. From the perspective of my culture, it is dishonourable, and therefore you should not do it.
1.1.2.1 Thereby, we can safely surmise that 'good' and 'evil' are relative terms (i.e. 'good' to one man is 'evil' to another).
1.1.2.2 The notion of sin is inexplicably tied to the notion of
good and
evil. It is evil to be sinful, right? If you do good deeds, you are not sinning.
1.1.2.3 Summary: the notion of sin is too whimsical to be a part of your argument, and since 'sin' is 'evil,' the nonexistence of 'evil' also disproves the existence of 'sin.' If you say there is a universal morality, the burden of proof shifts to you, and you better do a good job explaining why you think it exists.
1.2 I will hereby only answer some specific points that I think are erroneous in your Step 1.
1.2.1. You wrote:
Child sacrifices have no part in Islamic theology.
1.2.2. You wrote:
Just these past two centuries we see
slavery is no longer ever permitted, but in ancient times it was deemed manageable for the period due to economic challenges in organizing human affairs.
Once again, slavery is not evil or good, since neither of those two actually exists. Tinzireans certainly consider slavery to be honourable, and we still practice it in various forms, though it might not always be legal. So if slavery is a good thing for us--and it was a good thing for the Romans, for the Islamic world in the middle ages, for the Israelites, for the Aztecs, for the Incas, for the Chinese, and for thousands of other civilization--then how come it no longer existing is seen as an improvement? Certainly, the lack of slavery ought to be seen as a catastrophe, as something bad that has befallen humanity.
1.2.2.1 Tinzireans consider human sacrifice honourable. It is a good way to honour the gods, nothing more. Many other cultures consider and have considered human sacrifice to be good. The Aztecs, the Mayans, and the Incas spring to mind, but they are only the three most well-known. Vikings as well as Romans also engaged in such rituals. To us, the lack of human sacrifice is sinful. You might think that it is sinful to sacrifice; we think it is sinful to not sacrifice.
Conclusion: Until you can show me beyond doubt that sin exists, and that a perfect world is a sinless world, I can safely ignore this part of your argument. Furthermore, it is not really relevant to your proof.
2. Step II
2.1. You sum up the second part of your proof as:
Nothing in nature or time happens all by itself. It always has a cause. Therefore, since nature must always have a cause, the only possibility that exists is the uncreated created who is Jesus since none can compare to Christ (you are welcome to compare Jesus to any figure).
To put it simply you are saying: "everything has a cause except for God, and therefore God
is actually the cause of everything." There are quite a few fallacies and errors in this.
2.1.1. That nothing in nature happens by itself is wrong. I do believe that causality exists, or at least for macroscopic events, but it is quite easy to formulate a philosophical system that does not involve any causality.
2.1.1.1 For example, imagine a universe in which the Many-World's Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is absolutely true. The moment you drop a rock in this hypothetical universe, an infinite amount of different things happen to that rock. Each of these 'things' that happen to the rock are referred to, for brevity's sake, as 'paths.' So when you drop a rock, there are an infinite amount of paths, and all of them happen at the same time. One path would involve the rock turning into a sheep, in another part the rock flies away into outer space, and in a third part it explodes, and so on,
ad infinitum. Think of the universe as a tree with an infinite number of branches splitting of from the point in time where you drop the rock. Each of these branches represents a potential path. In other words, by dropping a rock, or by doing anything whatsoever, you are generating an infinite number of additional universes. Now, of course the person dropping the rock is also split up into an infinite number of himself. From the point of view of each copy of the rock-dropper, what happens to the rock seems to be causally related to him letting it go. For example, the copy of the rock-dropper in the universe in which the rock became a sheep would say that there is a causal link between him dropping the rock and it turning into a sheep. Ergo, you'd have an illusion of causality.
2.1.1.1.1 Attn: I am not arguing that the universe works that way, only that we
could live in a universe in which causality is merely an illusion and does not exist. You have to show why causality must be real in order for part two of your proof to have any potency. As long as the possibility that causality is just an illusion exists, part two of your proof has no power.
2.2 That said, you do not manage to prove that God
is the cause of the universe. You say that everything has a cause, but then you add that God does not, as an exception. In other words--"everything happens because of some antecedent, but God doesn't." That's an example of the
ad hoc fallacy. Read this:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/f/fallacy.htm#Ad%20Hoc%20Rescue. It gives some more information about what ad hoc entails and why we ought to avoid it.
2.2.1. In other words, since it is ad hoc to say that God is the only thing that is uncaused, part II of your perfect proof falls apart. You offer no evidence whatsoever for why God is uncreated and uncaused, i.e. while perhaps he is the one who started the universe, you have not in any way demonstrated that he is
causeless. Saying "none can compare to Christ" will not get you out of this dilemma, because whether other people can compare to Christ or not is
irrelevant: you still haven't demonstrated that God is causeless. You then go on to state (in part III of your proof):
God is, by the definition of the word, Uncreated
This is circular--"God is uncreated because he is God"--and it does not save your proof. You have no evidence that the term "God of the Bible" entails "being uncreated"
outside of the Bible. Using the Bible to prove the God of the Bible will not get you very far in any debate. To recapitulate, since you seem to have some difficulties following logical lines of thought, what I am saying is that
the fact that the Bible calls God uncreated does not make him uncreated.
Conclusion: You need to demonstrate, independent of the Bible, why God is uncreated. You also need to prove that causality exists. As I said above, it is easy to envision a world in which causality doesn't apply. Our universe could be a universe in which causality is a mere illusion, and unless you offer proof to the contrary, I can safely ignore this part of your argument.
3. Step III
3.1 I have nothing to say about this--it is irrelevant.
4. Step IV
4.1 I have nothing to say about this--it is irrelevant.
Conclusion
Your proof of God really consists of two parts: one part trying to show that an "eternity of past cause and effect would result in a sinless world," and one part in which you attempt to prove that nothing in the universe is causeless except for God, and that God by definition is causeless. Both I have demonstrated to be quite wrong and off track.
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