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The cosmological view

שו”תCategory: philosophyThe cosmological view
asked 4 years ago

Shalom Rabbi, in your book “God Plays Dice” you discussed Aquinas’ cosmological view and presented Dawkins’ criticism of Aquinas’s allegedly unnecessary use of the concept of God. Dawkins claims that the use of God is a kind of “artificial restraint” and that it can be argued that the first cause is the Big Bang, for example (then God does not need to be invented for this purpose).
You argued in response to Dawkins that the use of God is because his definition does not raise the need to ask about his cause (since he is by definition causeless). The problem is that even though I defined God as the first cause, this does not exempt me from the question – why is this so? Therefore, I did not understand how this argument you raised helps against Dawkins’ claim.


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מיכי Staff answered 4 years ago
I don’t understand the question. I claim that the cosmological argument proves that there must be one cause in the causal chain that itself does not distil a cause, otherwise we reach an infinite regress. The bang is not such a thing. That’s all.

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נועם replied 4 years ago

The question is why is God such a thing? Why doesn't He have a reason?

מיכי replied 4 years ago

This has already been explained here and in more detail in the first part of the second conversation.
There are two alternatives: 1. Infinite regression. 2. Finite regression, which begins with an object that does not have a cause. Since 1 is nonsense and impossible, we are left with 2. For details, see there.

תמי4 replied 4 years ago

Why is the bang not such a thing?

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