# A. A. Hodge on the cosmological argument for God’s existence



## Reformed Covenanter (Oct 12, 2019)

6. _State the Cosmological Argument_.

It may be stated in the form of a syllogism, thus —

_Major Premise_. — Every new existence or change in any thing previously existing must have had a cause pre-existing and adequate. ...

For more, see A. A. Hodge on the cosmological argument for God’s existence.

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## jwright82 (Nov 3, 2019)

Reformed Covenanter said:


> 6. _State the Cosmological Argument_.
> 
> It may be stated in the form of a syllogism, thus —
> 
> ...


I have problem with his minor premise. How does he know everything in existence is in a system of change, hence needing explanation after explanation ad infinitum ( which he concludes is absurd)? Also he merely states that the universe (as a assumed collection of caused things) requires an explanation outside itself to make sense. I agree with the argument not the formulation of it. I have problems with his formulation but that should suffice.


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## RamistThomist (Nov 3, 2019)

The easiest way is to say you can't traverse an actual infinite. Hodge's formulation is fine but it requires some unpacking of Leibniz's Principle of Sufficient Reason. That is a worthy discussion, and I love Leibniz, but it bogs down.


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## jwright82 (Nov 16, 2019)

BayouHuguenot said:


> The easiest way is to say you can't traverse an actual infinite. Hodge's formulation is fine but it requires some unpacking of Leibniz's Principle of Sufficient Reason. That is a worthy discussion, and I love Leibniz, but it bogs down.


Yes but is not one the objections to PSR is not that isn't metaphysicaly true but that it may not be always epistemologically true? Quantum mechanics comes to mind.


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## RamistThomist (Nov 16, 2019)

jwright82 said:


> Yes but is not one the objections to PSR is not that isn't metaphysicaly true but that it may not be always epistemologically true? Quantum mechanics comes to mind.



That may or may not be the case. You would have to establish the argument. And you would also have to show how quantum mechanics negates Leibniz instead of stating that it might.


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## jwright82 (Nov 16, 2019)

BayouHuguenot said:


> That may or may not be the case. You would have to establish the argument. And you would also have to show how quantum mechanics negates Leibniz instead of stating that it might.


Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is an epistemological barrier to what can be known. So you can only know with sufficient reason, if that makes sense in the quantum world (Avengers Endgame anyone), the position or the velocity of an electron, not both. So there is an indeterminacy problem, epistemologically speaking, involved.


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## RamistThomist (Nov 16, 2019)

jwright82 said:


> Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is an epistemological barrier to what can be known. So you can only know with sufficient reason, if that makes sense in the quantum world (Avengers Endgame anyone), the position or the velocity of an electron, not both. So there is an indeterminacy problem, epistemologically speaking, involved.



That may be true epistemologically, though the original question dealt with ontology.


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## Dachaser (Nov 16, 2019)

Reformed Covenanter said:


> 6. _State the Cosmological Argument_.
> 
> It may be stated in the form of a syllogism, thus —
> 
> ...


There is no natural way to account for non existence to create by itself existence.


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## RamistThomist (Nov 16, 2019)

Dachaser said:


> There is no natural way to account for non existence to create by itself existence.



What does this mean?

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## Dachaser (Nov 16, 2019)

BayouHuguenot said:


> What does this mean?


There cannot be anything caused by nothing, hence third party Creator.


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## Taylor (Nov 16, 2019)

Dachaser said:


> There cannot be anything caused by nothing, hence third party Creator.



I think I understand what you're saying, but I would caution against using the term "third party" to refer to God, especially in the context of words like "anything" and "nothing." It almost makes it sound like you are advocating for a metaphysic in which there are three substances from which all things spring—matter, nothing, and the Creator—or something like that.


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## RamistThomist (Nov 16, 2019)

Taylor Sexton said:


> I think I understand what you're saying, but I would caution against using the term "third party" to refer to God, especially in the context of words like "anything" and "nothing." It almost makes it sound like you are advocating for a metaphysic in which there are three substances from which all things spring—matter, nothing, and the Creator—or something like that.



Exactly. Prior to creation God is the only party in town.

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## Taylor (Nov 16, 2019)

BayouHuguenot said:


> Exactly. Prior to creation God is the only party in town.



There ain’t even a town!

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## Dachaser (Nov 16, 2019)

Taylor Sexton said:


> I think I understand what you're saying, but I would caution against using the term "third party" to refer to God, especially in the context of words like "anything" and "nothing." It almost makes it sound like you are advocating for a metaphysic in which there are three substances from which all things spring—matter, nothing, and the Creator—or something like that.


I was just saying that only God is eternal and uncreated Being, and He created all that exists period, as He did not need anything besides just Himself to create all other things. He did not use matter or anything, as there was just the Trinity from all eternity, and they broughtg into existence all other things.


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## RamistThomist (Nov 16, 2019)

Dachaser said:


> I was just saying that only God is eternal and uncreated Being, and He created all that exists period, as He did not need anything besides just Himself to create all other things. He did not use matter or anything, as there was just the Trinity from all eternity, and they broughtg into existence all other things.



I guessed as much, but that's why precision in language is so important.

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## Taylor (Nov 16, 2019)

Dachaser said:


> I was just saying that only God is eternal and uncreated Being, and He created all that exists period, as He did not need anything besides just Himself to create all other things. He did not use matter or anything, as there was just the Trinity from all eternity, and they broughtg into existence all other things.



I know, brother. I wasn’t trying to correct you. I was mainly just offering a caution. We knew what you were saying, but you wouldn’t want to use such language in a conversation with an unbeliever. As Jacob said, precision in language, especially when it comes to theology proper, is of the utmost importance

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## jwright82 (Nov 17, 2019)

BayouHuguenot said:


> That may or may not be the case. You would have to establish the argument. And you would also have to show how quantum mechanics negates Leibniz instead of stating that it might.


Not really as I understandit PSR is a positive thing. HUP is a negative limit on the idea. Stating that you can know all sorts of things are true without PSR, or proof in some sense ( Godel's incompleteness theorems come to mind). I don't disagree with the idea of the proof only the formulation given by Hodge.


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## jwright82 (Nov 17, 2019)

BayouHuguenot said:


> That may be true epistemologically, though the original question dealt with ontology.


HUP is true epistemologically but definitely not ontologically.


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## jwright82 (Nov 28, 2019)

BayouHuguenot said:


> The easiest way is to say you can't traverse an actual infinite. Hodge's formulation is fine but it requires some unpacking of Leibniz's Principle of Sufficient Reason. That is a worthy discussion, and I love Leibniz, but it bogs down.


Out of curiosity, how would a staunch defender of PSR deal with the limits set on knowledge discovered in the 20th century? It seems that some method for deciding which facts can have a PSR or not is needed, but that would seem to need the sort of thing that in math that was disproved by Turing?


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## RamistThomist (Nov 28, 2019)

jwright82 said:


> Out of curiosity, how would a staunch defender of PSR deal with the limits set on knowledge discovered in the 20th century? It seems that some method for deciding which facts can have a PSR or not is needed, but that would seem to need the sort of thing that in math that was disproved by Turing?



1) I made it clear I am not necessarily promoting PSR.
2) As to the limits of knowledge, you would a) have to actually prove that instead of stating it, and b) show how it relates to PSR.


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## jwright82 (Nov 28, 2019)

BayouHuguenot said:


> 1) I made it clear I am not necessarily promoting PSR.
> 2) As to the limits of knowledge, you would a) have to actually prove that instead of stating it, and b) show how it relates to PSR.


Ok. Sorry if I was confusing, you brought up PSR so I thought you might know. Second I never asserted that those things limited knowledge, it is a fact that they did. HUP proves a limit to what we can know about the position and velocity of a particle. Godel's incompleteness theorems show a limit to our knowledge of the foundation of math. Turing proved that we cannot know how to tell if an equation was solvable without solving it or not. Relativity theory has all sorts of limits to our knowledge. These are facts not assertions. 
So my question how would the PSR respond to those facts? It seems an interesting question. Happy thanksgiving btw.


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## RamistThomist (Nov 28, 2019)

jwright82 said:


> Ok. Sorry if I was confusing, you brought up PSR so I thought you might know. Second I never asserted that those things limited knowledge, it is a fact that they did. HUP proves a limit to what we can know about the position and velocity of a particle. Godel's incompleteness theorems show a limit to our knowledge of the foundation of math. Turing proved that we cannot know how to tell if an equation was solvable without solving it or not. Relativity theory has all sorts of limits to our knowledge. These are facts not assertions.
> So my question how would the PSR respond to those facts? It seems an interesting question. Happy thanksgiving btw.



Why does PSR need to do anything with those? I am not seeing the relevance.


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## jwright82 (Nov 28, 2019)

BayouHuguenot said:


> Why does PSR need to do anything with those? I am not seeing the relevance.


I was under the assumption that PSR as a concept is universal meaning all events have an explanation or cause. Since those things mark off things that cannot have a PSR, HUP for instance, than all things can't have a PSR. So since there are things that can't have a PSR what would a believer in PSR say? Is there any works out there that deal with that?


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## RamistThomist (Nov 29, 2019)

jwright82 said:


> I was under the assumption that PSR as a concept is universal meaning all events have an explanation or cause. Since those things mark off things that cannot have a PSR, HUP for instance, than all things can't have a PSR. So since there are things that can't have a PSR what would a believer in PSR say? Is there any works out there that deal with that?



There probably are works that deal with it. I'm not a Leibniz scholar.

Interestingly enough, Jonathan Edwards never called attention to PSR, yet his Freedom of the Will is a defense of it.


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## jwright82 (Nov 30, 2019)

BayouHuguenot said:


> There probably are works that deal with it. I'm not a Leibniz scholar.
> 
> Interestingly enough, Jonathan Edwards never called attention to PSR, yet his Freedom of the Will is a defense of it.


Wow didn't realize that about that work. Interesting.


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