4 Step Proof for God of the Bible

[Churchwork]

That's still a category mistake. Things in nature are IN nature; they are not natures themselves. If events in nature must have a cause, that says nothing about the whole of nature, or whether or not all natures have a cause.

Things in nature are not nature? That's silly. When an apple falls from a tree this is not nature working? I am talking about the universe. You're proposing the whole composite of the universe doesn't have cause? If so, then it was always existing? But that can't be because man would not still be sinning (Step 1). And, if you want to say it happened by itself from nothing, nothing is still nothing and never becomes something (Step 2). Think about how absurd your argument is. It loses no matter how you look at it. That's why the 4 Steps are so powerful. You haven't even gotten to Step 3 and Step 4, so you are still a babe in learning. Eventually when you realize you can't get around the first 2 Steps, you start moving to Step 3 and 4. Then 4 brings around to Step 1 again. It is a perfect looping proof. I like being challenged on it. Keeps me sharp. On my toes.

You want to propose other natures without causes? Then if they always existed man would not still be sinning to the extent he still does. The composites of the universe all require a cause, for whatever begins to exist needs a cause (Kalam's).

Of course. I'm not suggesting that something came from nothing. If you want to know what I believe, I'd say that everything was packed into a nearly infinitely dense point. "Before" that, I don't know what happened. It's difficult to say "before", though, as time didn't exist before space.

Lots of atheists believe things like radioactive decay, particle pairing, Bell's Theorem and vacuuming (fancy phrases they throw around) come from nothing yet they can never actually prove it. So understand this is an approach you can easily slip into, especially when you previously argued the universe had a beginning but was not created. How is this possible if there is not an eternity of past, which is itself impossible?

When you say you "don't know what happened" that's shutting your mind down to the evidence we have already discussed. What happened before singularity was the uncreated created and intelligently designed since singularity, being nature, requires a cause, and there cannot be an eternity of the past of cause and effects, for man would not still be sinning.

[fungi]

This argument starts out flawed, in its usage of terms like sin and perfection.

Sin is not defined in the Bible, but from what I found by reading it, it seems sin is whatever God doesn't like. Should I use that term, I would for instance include slavery, however the God of the Bible embraces that sort of conduct. Hence, the argument cannot stand on its own without a clear definition of sin.

Second, the whole idea of perfection is also flawed. Not only ill defined, but irrational as such. Take a soccer match where there's a perfect goal scorer, and a perfect goalkeeper. The keeper will not be perfect unless he catches every single ball coming to the goal, whereas the scorer needs (among other things) to hit the net with every single chance he gets. Both of these can never be true in the same game, and this also applies to very many aspects of everyday life.

Furthermore, even though these are very ungrounded claims, given that we are indeed progressing as a community, by what we know of human nature, there is no reason to believe there ever will be a world completely without any sort of misbehaviour, because every person need to test how the society works for themselves as they grow up. Also, there's utterly no reason to believe this will be better off with more widespread teachings of the Bible, since it is so unclear a book, giving really no answer to most important questions, and also since it teaches different things (thou shalt not kill, and then he orders Moses to slay 3000 of his own men).

Now, the world can have gone on for an eternity, always in motion. Since the human race is many million years old, or at least 6000, while the concept of sin is younger than that (time of the writing of the bible, OR if you insist, at least after the seventh day), it has not always been there. Thus your argument can be shortened down to claiming the concept sin hasn't always existed, which is a premise I would agree on, but that wouldn't really take us anywhere, would it?

Mathematically, we may already have approximated an upper bound for this sinlessness, not perfection. Take a look at the function (1+1/x)^x. As x goes towards infinity, the expression most certainly does not. It will approximate that value after a little while, and just come closer and closer the higher the value for x. I invite the reader to check this on his/her own. This alone shows that there is no necessary correlation between infinite existence and approximation to absolute sinlessness (think of the value of x as the time, and the value of the whole expression as sinlessness).

Thus I have shown that the world (not the universe as we know it, no) may have existed for an eternity, and so your entire argument falls. Otherwise I must say the later steps are really weak, you don't give any reason to suspect the Biblical god is the creator. Could as well have been an alien race or a genie with cosmic powers, or infinitely many other possibilities, given one accept the first claim, which I luckily for all of us just did. The possibilities still are there, though, so keep your minds open :) Have a wonderful day

[Churchwork]

Where does the Bible condone slavery? Sin is defined the Bible. The definition for the 4 Step Proof for God doesn't use the definition of sin against God but sin against man. Didn't you realize that? You don't have to worry about perfection. All you need know is there is an exponential progression of conscience.

Why don't you discern the context? If a race of people will cease to exist if they don't take such action and let another tribe kill them, does that really seem just to you? You don't seem to think things through. This is the shallow mind of an unregenerate. It is a hostile mind to one's Creator.

If there was an eternity of the past of cause and effects mankind would not still be sinning to the extent it still does. It is irrelevant when man began to sin according to this argument. More than enough time has passed if there was an eternity of the past.

What you need to do is take a look at a graph of what we observe by the evidence of this exponential progression. It tells us that if there was an eternity of the past of cause and effects we would not still be sinning to the extent we still do. Pretty easy to see. Just extrapolate the last 6000 years of evidence to a nearly infinite period of time to know you don't need that much time at all.

Again, you don't think. You don't ask what caused your supposed alien race or alleged cosmic power. Since the universe couldn't have always existed and can't start from nothing, you're left with only one possibility, the uncreated Creator created. We know this to be God of the Bible because He not only meets this condition, but He also proves Himself by the resurrection accounts which even most skeptical scholars concede some facts: 1) the disciples truly believed they saw Jesus alive from the dead in various group settings; 2) the disciples were in a better position to know than anyone; 3) they were martyred for there testimony as eyewitnesses; and 4) people don't willing go to their deaths for what they know is a lie. Since no naturalistic explanation fits the data, we know that Jesus raised Himself from the grave. After all He created the grave so certainly He can resurrect from the grave.

Ergo, God exists and Jesus is God. Have a great day!

[cerenkov]

Hello.

I have a question about one aspect of the 4 Step Proof for God of the Bible.

I see that the Proof totally destroys the notion of infinite regression in time.

So does the Proof also totally destroy the notion of infinite regression in space?

Thanks,

Cerenkov.

[Churchwork]

Actually, it proves an impossibility of infinite regress of cause and effects of nature so that covers, of course, both space and time.

[cerenkov]

Thanks for the reply Churchwork.

So a stupendously large, but spatially and temporally finite universe isn't disallowed by the Proof? Only infinities are disproved?

Would that mean that our universe (no need to invoke a multiverse) could be 13.82 billion years old and also a googleplex to the power of a trillion googleplexes times larger in spatial volume? That is, spatially and temporally finite?

Thanks,

Cerenkov.

[Churchwork]

The universe is finite that's correct.

[cerenkov]

Thanks Churchwork.

Ok then, so the Proof tells us that this universe is finite. Meaning that it can be any size at all - so long as it's not infinitely large. That's because the only possibility that the Proof specifically rules is out is that of an infinite universe. All other possibilities (of the size or volume of this universe) are entirely possible.

I think I understand.

Thanks again,

Cerenkov.

[cerenkov]

Thanks to your help Churchwork, I now see that the 4 Step Proof disproves and disallows this...

"Imagine living in a universe where nothing is original. Everything is a fake. No ideas are ever new. There is no novelty, no originality. Nothing is ever done for the first time and nothing will ever be done for the last time. Nothing is unique. Everyone possesses not just one double but an unlimited number of them.
This unusual state of affairs exists if the universe is infinite in spatial extent (volume) and the probability that life can develop is not equal to zero. It occurs because of the remarkable way in which infinity is quite different from any large finite number, no matter how large the number might be.
In a universe of infinite size, anything that has a non-zero probability of occurring must occur infinitely often. Thus at any instant of time—for example, the present moment—there must be an infinite number of identical copies of each of us doing precisely what each of us is now doing. There are also infinite numbers of identical copies of each one of us doing something other than what we are doing at this moment. Indeed, an infinite number of copies of each of us could be found at this moment doing anything that it was possible for us to do with a non-zero probability at this moment."

(Barrow, John D. The Infinite Book: A Short Guide to the Boundless, Timeless and Endless. London: Vintage, 2005. pp. 156-58)

That's Barrow's description of something he calls the Infinite Replication Paradox.
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So, seeing as the Proof permits a universe of any size (except infinite) does it also permit the Finite Replication Paradox?

This is a finite version of the above. It works like this.
There are only a certain number of ways that matter can be arranged into stars and planets. A stupendously high number, to be sure, but still a finite number. Therefore, in a stupendously large universe, these arrangements will eventually begin to repeat themselves, leading to identical (atom-for-atom) copies of stars and planets. The outcome of the Finite Replication Paradox is that in a stupendously large (but finite) universe, there are a finite number of identical copies of you, me, everyone else, the Earth and the Sun. How many copies will depend critically on the volume involved. There could be just one other copy or there could be trillions.

Seeing as the Proof permits a universe of any size (except infinite) it would seem to therefore permit the existence of a finite number of exact copies of us.

Is that so?

Or, if I've misread the Proof, could you help me out please and direct my attention to where it rules this out?

Thanks,

Cerenkov.

[Churchwork]

Since cause and effect as per the proof are still predominant, there are no copies of anything because any item that is now in nature is the only now this item can be. Similarity should not be construed as an exact copy for it occupies a different time, space, quarks and strings; not to mention the fact how meaningless it would be to have endless copies of everything or even finite copies of some things. Privately, cerenkov told me he suffers from the Dunning–Kruger effect. I hope he gets better and his condition improves with that his renouncement of atheism. Becoming an ex-atheist is a step in the right direction because then you open yourself to discover where God revealed Himself and which religion is the correct one.

Praise the Lord!