First off, you got Step 1 wrong so you are arguing against something that is not the first step of the Proof. I have already said this, but you overlooked it. So now you want me to defend something that is not the 4 Step Proof. What sense is that? Secondly, it is not a cosmological argument as that mislabels it since it involves the matter of our exponential progression of conscience we observe these past 6000 years. This too was already said, but you keep mislabeling it and misunderstanding it by misreading or just being mindlessly belligerent. That won't do at all.Originally Posted by Juliet
Now let us review what Step 1 says: If there had been an eternity of the past of cause and effects, you would have had an eternity to be perfected, yet you still sin. This shows there was not an eternity of the past of cause and effects, so that it is true the universe was created. On your idea of the need to connect humans to the age of the universe, I already showed how this was done:
The universe is intrinsically connected to humans since our body was created from the "dust" (Gen. 2.7) of the stars. Scientists all agree to this finding. It took time for the dust to create man's body in God's divine providence, so this took place in the universe's time and part of its age at least.On your second question, this too was already answered which shows you are not listening. If man is in the universe, he of course is connected to its time in a causal relationship. It doesn't matter when man was created in this causal chain on that it did happen.
It is not an undistributed middle fallacy or a composition fallacy. Let me show you why. In observing today the exponential progression of our conscience these past 6000 years, we know this is a fact. But we still sin. What we can then say is that the full time alloted to reaching our pinnacle and beyond has not been reached to be without sin. Even if we had an eternity to accomplish this result which we who are saved are certainly on course to do, it would still not be enough time, thus we know not only we were created, but so was the universe.I'll explain what I mean in detail below:
While that might sound good to you, its not logically sound. Its a variant of an undistributed middle fallacy that logicians call a composition fallacy, meaning that you deduce facts about a whole object based on its constituent parts. "X is made of Y. Y has property P. Therefore X has property P."
It doesn't matter when man was created in the causal chain, because man in that chain is still derived from its predecessor.
The challenge for you in your misapplication of the undistributed middle fallacy is to apply the variables effectively which you failed to do. You would think you would have at least tried to do this, but you didn't. Here are some variables.
A=universe
B=humans
C=sin
D=exponential progression of our conscience
E=eternity of the past
F=uniqueness of mankind from all other creatures known
G=God
H=when man was created
I=when the universe started
Now let's see if you can succeed.
This does not apply to Step 1 since the first step is not saying if you are a conscious being for example, but that we still sin even though there has been an exponential progression in our conscience which given the eternity of the past or even an approximation of it, based on that exponential progression, we would still not be sinning right now. So God created.If you arent sure why your argument is wrong, here are some logically equivalent arguments:
- You are made of atoms
- Atoms are unconscious
- Therefore you are unconscious
^^^ the argument above is demonstrably false, because you are indeed a conscious being. You have a different set of properties than your component parts.
Another simple example:
- You are made of cells
- Cells reproduce by folding their membranes into a cleavage until they divide into two identical cells.
- Therefore you reproduce by folding your membranes into a cleaveage until you divide into an identical copy of yourself.
^^^ another mindboggling argument that is demonstrably false, because your sexual reproduction is nothing like asexual cell reproduction, which shows that you do not necessarily possess the properties of your component parts.
We are only dealing with causes and effects. We are not saying the universe has a conscience, for it non-sentient. We are not saying because man is sentient or that his conscience is increasing exponentially that the universe has a conscience to increase exponential. Your philosophical ideas don't apply to the 4 Step Perfect Proof of God as God designed.
Given that a single note is not the property of the whole musical, does not detract from Step 1 in examining if there was an eternity of the past of cause and effects. Just because humans are in the universe and we don't make up the whole universe, does not mean the exponential progression of our conscience is not in play or that cause and effect is violated.Of course, theres something else to take into consideration, and its dives into a little more abstract* realm of philosophy related to being and essence, specifically talking about emergent properties. An emergent property is a property of an object that does not exist in any of its constituent parts, for example all of the pixels on your computer screen are just points of light, but when they are put together in a particular pattern they form a picture; the property "picture" is an emergent property of the pixels. Similarly, something that is musical (any song on the radio) is composed of notes, but the property "musical" isnt a property of any single note...
...with that in mind, you really have to wonder if humans composed of star dust are really "intrinsically connected to the universe". I dont think you could look at star dust and call it a human; the elements that stars create are just elements, and those elements have to be arranged in a certain pattern before it can be called a human. The property "human" emerges from that pattern, and the property "human" never existed in the universe before that time.
So by now, you should understand why that rebuttal is no good, you havent shown that sinfulness of humans is connected to the beginning of the universe, its only connected to the beginning of the human species.
* Emergence is "abstract" because its defined mostly in semantics, and that makes distinctions between emergent properties and their constituent parts very blurry sometimes. See the Sorites paradox for a little more detailed explanation.
Moreover, we are not trying to prove humans are the whole universe or even party of the universe, only that in the matter of cause and effect our body was formed from dust. And since we still sin you know there could not have been an eternity of the past of causes and effects because based on that exponential progression, we would be without sin by now.
Suffice it to say, humans have a body that came from the "dust" (Gen. 2.7) just like the Bible says. The mind of God in the Bible agrees more with science than you do, after all, science exists because of the Word of God.
So now you can see how your argument is wrong and why the progression of our conscience is connected with the whole universe from which our bodies were derived from the the past, except that it is a past that had to be created by the uncreated given the fact that we still sin and nothing in nature happens all by itself. All things have a cause and effect. No evidence shows otherwise.
We are not concerned with philosophical concepts such as emergence since we are not trying to prove that humans are the universe. We only need show that in the laws of cause and effect we would not exist if there was not a preceding cause so we abide in those laws and any theory that does not is a false theory.
Sorites paradox does not apply to the 4 Step Proof since we are dealing with causes and effects, that is all, not the paradox of a heap.
Try to get back on topic of cause and effect. By bringing up all these other things that have no relevance shows you are just confusing yourself and that you are not willing to deal precisely with the Proof itself. When you are unspecific and vague, it will get you every time. Satan is the author of confusion.
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