Denial of the world’s pre-existence

Thank you very much.
1. Can we say that matter is not in our experience, for example, the matter of the universe, does the Rabbi say that it is God?
2. The Big Bang claims that matter was created? But wasn't there something before the bang, right?

Regarding the creation of time, I don't understand it, is time something?

1. So the hyolic matter created the world on top of itself? Who created the form that turned it into the world we know? It's a jumble of words that I can't understand. But even if it has any meaning, then it must be God. The argument does not enter into the question of what the nature of God is, but only concludes that there is something (intelligent) that created the world.
2. In the accepted view, “before the bang” is an empty term. There was no time before the bang and therefore there is no before the bang.
The question of whether time exists or not is disputed among philosophers. But for our purposes, it doesn't matter. Whether it exists or not, it begins from nothing at the moment of the bang. Even if time is our way of looking at it and not something in the world, when we look back it begins with the bang and stops there.

1. This is not a misunderstanding. It is my lack of understanding that I have difficulty expressing ourselves clearly.
I am trying to understand the claim that the cause of the world must be an intelligent thing. The rabbi says that the argument does not enter into the question of what the nature of God is, and the rabbi also says (in another place) that it is possible that the laws of nature have always existed. So I ask, perhaps there was a primordial matter in which the laws of nature existed – that is, it behaved according to the laws of nature, the laws do not exist – and from which the world was created. How do we get from the cosmological argument to an intelligent God?
2. I understand.
Just to note that in the notebook it seems that the rabbi claims that the Big Bang proves that the world is not infinite, since matter was created in a bang. Now the rabbi claims more than that, that the Big Bang created time. Therefore, it is not possible at all to talk about infinite time.

To Rabbi Michi,
2. According to your words that before the explosion there is no time and it is impossible to describe “before the explosion”, so why assume that there is a God who created it? After all, there was nothing before the explosion..
Moreover, if there is no time then there is no change anyway and if there is no change then there is no reason to assume that there is a God who caused it (otherwise there is change).

Yoav,
1. As I understand it, the cosmological argument is that there is a primary entity with teleological ability and any other entity with deterministic ability will be after it in the chain, so although this ability does not necessarily have to be expressed precisely in the assumption of free choice but may also be in randomness and so on. The physio-theological evidence complements this by making it reasonable to assume that that entity will have free choice and not act randomly.
Because if you see a complex and intelligent world, it is reasonable to assume that there is an intelligent being behind it. (See the first chapter of the introduction to the above-mentioned notebook, which is a statistical assumption).
Also, in my opinion, it should be added that if you accept that the Big Bang shows that both matter and energy were created, then apparently the entity that preceded it does not have a body (matter, etc.), and since the only entity that we know that does not have a body or matter acts by free choice – “I” the soul, etc., then it is reasonable to stand on the familiar and rely on the fact that the same factor that created the world also has free choice, certainly in conjunction with the physico-theological evidence.

With joy,
Pseudonym Srulik

Yoav,
1. I'm talking about the principle of sufficient reason (and some implication of the second law of thermodynamics), according to which when something complex and special is created, there is some intelligence that created it.

Srulik,
2. There can be changes even when there is no time, but the way to describe them is not on the timeline. Beyond that, I also talked about sufficient reason and not just about a reason.

The Rabbi
In the Rabbi's notebook, he writes 3 answers to the question, "Is the world perhaps ancient?" The principle of sufficient reason appears only in the third answer. I ask about the first two answers, in which the Rabbi explicitly speaks about the principle of causality.
I hope I'm not too intrusive. Thank you very much for your help.

I don't think I'm talking about the principle of causality in relation to the ancient world. I'd be happy to quote it.

In the second book, chapter 6, the Rabbi raises the objection that if the world is ancient, then it does not need a cause.
To this the Rabbi answers with 3 answers. In the third answer the Rabbi says that even without the first two answers the cosmological argument is valid and for this purpose the Rabbi defines the principle of sufficient reason, but in the first two answers there is no mention of this principle. There it is about the principle of causality.

I asked about these answers. I will repeat my difficulties because they seem to have been forgotten in the length of the discussion.

The first answer is philosophical in nature, and distinguishes between a primary cause that does not need a cause – because it is not in our experience – in which case it can be assumed that it has always been, which is a potential infinity. As opposed to a primary cause that in principle is distilled from a cause, and in order to exempt it from a cause we assume that it has always been – in which case it is a concrete infinity and is impossible.

Here I ask – After all, it is possible to assume a cause that is not in our experience but is not intelligent. Is the cosmological argument not an intelligent God? And what is the value in assuming an irrational God, what is the difference between this and saying that matter is God?

The second answer is that the Big Bang says that the world is not ancient. I asked, does the Big Bang completely rule out existence before the bang, or was there a singular point(?) that may have always existed.

Thank you very much. Again, sorry for the trouble.

1. If the first cause is not intelligent, it cannot be the cause of everything we see here. This is the fundamental claim. What is before us is complex and special and therefore was refined by an intelligent creator. For this reason, it is also incorrect to assume that matter is God.
2. We talked about the creation of time. But even if there is an existence before the bang, at some point, from what was before, the universe before us was created and it refined a cause. Who created it? It must be an intelligent cause, as in section 1.

It is perhaps important to add here that the claim regarding the intelligence of the creator moves us to the physico-theological view. Within the framework of the cosmological view, it does not seem that the creator must be intelligent. I have already written several times that the two pieces of evidence do not really stand alone.

1. So I lacked the understanding that the two pieces of evidence are essentially one.

2. And yet, since the Rabbi wrote somewhere that the laws of nature may have always existed, couldn't the world have been created deterministically from ancient matter that behaved according to ancient laws of nature?
If we accept that life can be created deterministically within the laws of nature, then inanimate nature can too.

In other words, in the end we must come to the principle of sufficient reason, and not to the principle of causality?

Beyond the question of concrete infinity and the question of what caused the creation of the big bang (the laws of nature are symmetric in time). It is clear that if you assume the laws of nature without justification and assume that there is a natural explanation for the creation of the universe within their framework, it can be argued that no further explanation is needed. The question is what is the plausibility of these two assumptions.

The question of concrete infinity exists only in the matter of our experience, and what if we assume a priori of matter that is not in our experience (Plato's a priori)?
And regarding the bang, what does the Rabbi mean by the laws of nature being symmetric in time?

The question of concrete infinity is unrelated to our experience, just as the question of the circular triangle is unrelated to our experience. The claim is that there is no such thing because it is a contradiction.
The laws of nature do not distinguish between different moments of time (this is the basis of the law of conservation of energy). They are indifferent to time (in physicists' language this is called time symmetry: moving along the time axis does not change anything).

Regarding concrete infinity, I mean what the Rabbi said in the notebook, that with God we don't have this problem because He is not in our experience, which means that the principle of causality does not apply to Him, and therefore He can be treated as potential infinity – that's what the Rabbi said, not me.
I asked, is Plato's presuppositions that assume a primitive Jovian substance, is Jovian substance considered concrete or potential infinity in this regard? What is the difference between God and Jovian substance in this regard?

Regarding symmetry in time, do you mean that because of symmetry it is impossible for the Big Bang to deterministically create time?

For God, it is a potential and not a concrete infinity. I am not saying that he always existed, but that there was no time when he did not exist. Since there is no need for a cause for him, this is sufficient. But with respect to matter, if he did not always exist, then someone must have created him, and therefore, for him, it is a concrete infinity. We must remember that without assuming a first link in the chain, we are stuck without an explanation. Therefore, there must be some first link that is exceptional. It is unlikely that matter is such a link.

Hyolian matter cannot create a world, and therefore it is irrelevant.

The bang does not create anything. The bang is an event, not an entity. If something is created, there is an entity that created it or the laws within which it was created.