PHILOSOPHY - Religion: Cosmological Argument #2 [HD]

Part 2 of a pair. Timothy Yenter (University of Mississippi) moves on to the version of the Cosmological Argument for the existence of God called 'the Modal Argument.' The idea is that all the contingent facts about the world need to be explained by some necessary fact, and that necessary fact is that God exists.

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The Wireless Philosophy videos I have seen so far seem pretty reasonable but this video falls far short. There are simple reasons why the CA falls down and they are either not exposed or given a cursory mention and glossed over.

Out of interest I looked up Yenter's background and it turns out he's a christian - surprise, surprise.

The CA is an argument from ignorance in as much as we don't know how the universe began or if indeed it did begin. Contrary to popular belief the big bang theory does not describe how the universe was created, only how it evolved once it was created. It's just like evolution and abiogenesis.

Then, even if you could prove that the universe did have a start, we're still a long way from saying that it must have had a cause. We can observe things happening  spontaneously in the lab so why not the universe?

And finally even given the universe had a beginning, and that it had a cause, how do you get from there to a white guy with a beard living in the sky that's in love with us all I have no idea.

[terrelldeleon]

He puts all that effort into establishing 7 parts to this modal argument because if he comes out and says "I'm defining god as a necessary being so that I totes don't have to follow the rules I made for everything else, therefore god exists" it'll be way easier to see how blatantly he is employing special pleading.

[jameshicks]

There seems to be a fine line between philosophy and madness. I am speaking from experience.

[MayaGaster]

sooo... basically: the evidence for the existence of a necessary god is that you find it uncomfortable to think about how free will is an illusion & how all events in the universe are necessary? 

[ertidinellari]

I love the argument presented at 4:50 " Most people find this too hard to give up", so lets pretend that everything is necessary is not an option here. Amazing

[deltax]

This argument relies on so many assumptions that by the time he gets to the conclusion I wondering he didn't just assume the conclusion and skip the middleman

[ogmaharpocrates]

something bothers me, if there is a beginning to everything, then the logic should also apply to god! Who created the universe = God; Who created God = stupid question!
Therefore, either the universe always existed and there is no beginning, or god itself is the universe (and everything that exist is a part of it, like a cell is a part of the body.)
Why do we have to think about God as an independent entity?

[trina]

I'm studying Leibniz's Contingency Argument and though I am still having a hard time explaining it myself, this video has helped me put some order in the jumble of freshly learned concepts in my mind. Thank you for putting this out!

[xavierxrc]

This video was a bit much for me. But people in the comment section are reacting as if this was his position on the existence of God. He's an educator, so he's going to present the material regardless of his position on it

[tedetienne]

There’s one other option to consider for the start of this chain of contingency: There could be an object/event whose existence is contingent upon one condition - that nothing exists.

[Hesse]

I was completely lost, when he added god here. It was as if god came out of nowhere. Oh, wait.

[derre]

"this whole series of events is necessary"
"this isn't how we usually think of the universe"
Seems a bit unacademic reason to exclude that possibility.

[BANSH]

"You can't bring yourself into existence, because you don't exist yet." Ok, so where did this necessary being you call God come from? As Carl Sagan said, if you say it always existed, why don't you just save a step and say the universe always existed?

[sky-magnet]

Composition Fallacy in the first premise.

Even if everything that began to exist IN the universe has a cause, this does not mean it is true of the universe itself.

[templargfx]

How exactly do you jump to Necessary Being. Where does the being bit come from? Should it not be 'Necessary Thing' as there is no requirement from this philosophical standpoint that whatever is necessary to start it all off must be a being.

[pikachuthegayatheist]

I think there something else you don’t understand what we’re learning from science is that the universe is on a constant state of exponential growth. So yes it possibly is necessary, and contingent from the same time.

[raverus]

It seems that the modal argument has problems from P5 to C7. It commits a special pleading fallacy, and also an equivocation fallacy. We go from "something" in P5, to "being" in P6, to "God" in C7. The argument moves the goal posts and uses different terms and meanings in 3 moves. Nice try :)

[SpionCTFT]

P1: For a state S to have been caused, there needs to be a time t where S was not the case.
C: The universe, wich includes space-TIME, therefore can not have a cause.
The very concept of cause does not apply.

[lineikatabs]

Actually, according to quantum mechanics something CAN and DOES come out of nothing all the time. Also, it' really depends on how you define nothing. We can all accept that 0 is nothing, and that +1 and -1 are things, right? But 0 can consist of two things - (+1)+(-1)=0. So you see how nothing consists of two somethings.

[eddobh]

Because monotheistic religions say that god is a necessary being, it does not follow that the (supposed existent) necessary cause of the cosmos is such god, or even a necessary being, as you conclude.