Just as the questioner said, it’s really just a word game.

A. ?? What’s the difference? In practice you still have to get all the way down, so what difference does it make whether you have to pass one slide or infinitely many?

B. In an eternal world you also go down one slide, so how is that different from God?

I explained it here and also in the booklet. There is a difference between a chain of reasons where each one is grasped by the next. Such a chain is not an explanation if it stops anywhere, and therefore we are dealing with a concrete infinity (as though you have to get all the way down). To say that there is a chain of explanations whose end I do not know is to say that you have no explanation. By contrast, to say that God exists at every time you can reach is a potential infinity, since I am not talking about infinity but about a magnitude that is greater than any size you want (there is nothing greater than it). To sharpen this further requires some mathematical knowledge. If you have that, you can surely understand the point. If not—it’s hard for me to explain it here.

So how is that different from an eternal world then?

It’s not different at all. That is exactly why the eternity of the world is the only reasonable alternative to a Creator. But what can you do—the physics has determined that the world is not eternal, and beyond that, the world is composed of things that our experience tells us are not eternal (material things come into being and perish). Beyond that, even an eternal thing, if it is unique, requires a reason (why is it this way and not another) unless it is self-caused. The world and the entities within it are not self-caused. All this is detailed in my booklets.

Ahh, so an eternal world is also potential.
Okay. If so, that’s already a bit more understandable.

Maybe the Rabbi can explain what the difference is between a chain of causes and one ongoing cause?
After all, even if you stop the cause in the middle, you’ll need a new cause.

I said that this requires some mathematical knowledge. In mathematics, infinity is defined as a limit and not as a number; that is, it is some magnitude (?) than which there is nothing greater, or which is greater than any other magnitude. One does not say anything positive about it, only something negative. That is called potential infinity.
When you speak about the axis of time or the duration for which some object exists, potential terminology is enough. It exists for a time longer than any duration one can think of. You have not positively said that it exists for an infinite amount of time, and yet you still cannot ask what was before it. This is almost like Maimonides’ doctrine of negative attributes. But if you are speaking about a chain of causes, potential language will not help. Even if you say that the chain of causes is longer than any chain one can think of, as long as you have not said that it is concretely infinite, you have not offered an explanation but escaped from one (like the well-known example of turtles all the way down: the world stands on a big turtle. And the turtle stands on another turtle. And that one on yet another. And when asked what comes next, you answer: there are turtles all the way down. But there is no “down.” Therefore such a description is not an explanation but an evasion of explanation and a postponement of it by a straw). It is like saying A is explained by B, and B by C, and C by D. If you end with “and so on,” you have said nothing. For there to be an explanation here and not just evasion, you must explicitly present the whole chain of explanations; otherwise you merely evaded and did not explain. Therefore this necessarily requires concrete language and not merely potential language.

But in the end God too is infinite time!!!

The result is the same r-e-s-u-l-t!

Even if you stop God halfway through time, you’ll have to explain again….

By the way, I found something interesting.
If your atheist conversation partner is willing to accept an infinite regress, then the cosmological proof won’t work on him.
But the physico-theological proof will work great.
He’ll be forced to admit that the universe has a creator, except that he’ll claim that this creator also has a creator, and so on to infinity.
Granted, according to his approach there is no necessity that the creator be non-physical, but in the final outcome our atheist comes out ultra-believing. Not in one god, but in infinitely many gods!
What does the Rabbi think of this analysis?

Begging your pardon, but it seems to me that I am wasting my words in vain. I suggest we part here as friends.

What does the Rabbi say about what I wrote? Is it correct?

First, discussing the opinion of someone willing to accept an infinite regress is like discussing the opinion of someone willing to accept nonsense. But if someone, for another reason, is unwilling to accept the cosmological proof, then there is room to discuss the physico-theological proof. Of course, to the same extent he may also reject that one as well (for example, reject the premise that a composite thing requires a composer), and therefore this whole discussion is unnecessary and pointless.
There is no reason to assume there are creators all the way to infinity, because if a creator is not something within our experience, I cannot assume that it too needs a creator. Besides, these are not infinitely many gods but an infinite chain of causes. The causes can be anything. Only at the bottom line must there be an intelligent creator that itself does not require a cause. And we are back to regress.
But as I said, this discussion is unnecessary and pointless.

The Rabbi didn’t understand me.
I’m claiming that even someone who believes a regress is possible (and accepts the premises of the physico-theological proof) is in fact a believer in a Creator of the world.
Maybe it’s not God, because he’s physical, and he himself has a creator, but he believes that our world was designed by an intelligent entity.
Exactly as he believes that a watch was designed by an intelligent entity (which was designed by an intelligent entity, and so on to infinity).
Regarding the Rabbi’s puzzlement at my dealing with mistaken views, I’ll remind the Rabbi that a person does not change his opinion in one moment.
I show the atheist that he too believes the world was designed by an intelligent entity, and from that point on the argument will concern only the question whether that creator was itself created.
Logical?

Okay, so one last attempt before the Rabbi gives up:::: —–))

The Rabbi distinguishes between a chain of explanations where, if you stop at one of the explanations, you haven’t gotten to the bottom, and therefore it is a concrete infinity.
So I ask (only this question): even if you stop God halfway through time, you’ll have to explain again with God B. So how is that different?

I’m already past despair (and the name change). I have explained this several times already.
In the chain of explanations there is no assumption that if I stop at one of the explanations I haven’t gotten to the bottom. Obviously if I stop, I haven’t gotten to the bottom. That is a tautology. The assumption is that the chain must be infinite in order to constitute an explanation.
By contrast, God as first cause can be presented as existing for a duration of potential infinity. There is no reason to stop anywhere.
That’s it. Up to here.

Moshe, it seems to me that you need to sharpen your understanding of a “negative concept” (similar to Maimonides’ remarks, as mentioned above).
A positive concept is a description of a thing, and it can serve as an answer to someone seeking to know and understand the thing. It teaches something positive about it.
By contrast, a negative concept does not inform or describe the thing. It only says that it is impossible to describe it and speak of it in the concepts familiar to us (time, place, size, power, will, attributes, wisdom, etc.).
“Potential infinity” is a negative concept. It does not say of the thing at all that it is infinite, only that however much you try to see its end, you will not succeed, because you are trying to apply your own concept to it (“the end”). Therefore it is irrelevant to ask “if you stop in the middle, etc.,” because what would stop here is no more than our attempt to understand.
“Concrete infinity” is a positive description of the thing. It does not speak about the one trying to understand and grasp the thing, but about the thing itself. If you “stop,” that would be a stop in the thing itself, not in the person trying to understand.

Hope I wrote clearly.

We have four possibilities that are really three:

1) Either to hang it on one factor—let’s call it God—and thus stop the infinite regress of explanations,
but the problem is that if so you have to stretch Him to infinity in time. And for some reason that is called potential—why?

2) To hang it on infinitely many factors—this is called concrete, why? After all, there too you go from now until the bottom and not the other way around….

3) To call the infinitely many factors God—and then they go back to being potential. Why not do that?

4) To hang it on an eternal world—the objection to this is secondary—that in this world there is no special part in our experience, but not because it is infinite.
If so, we return from option 4) to options 3) and 2).

Why are they less good than option 1)?

The Rabbi—it is written in the Talmud about a rabbi who taught his student 400 times a certain explanation in the Talmud, so all the more so a foundational matter of faith, right?
;)………………….

Hello.
I think I am already approaching Rabbi Preida, but unfortunately I am still not at his level. If it is important to you to learn the matter, then you need to learn it from the ground up. If it is important enough to you, you need to enter a bit into the world of mathematics, and then perhaps it will be possible to talk.
I do not know how else this can be explained at the general level at which we are discussing it here. I explained as best I could, and both you and I are repeating ourselves again and again. My assessment is that if you read and think about the matter, you may be able to understand, but if not—then apparently my hand is too short.

:(…

I tried for a few hours to understand this… truth be told, I don’t understand it at all. (Actually the physico-theological one was easy to understand.)

Okay, so just final questions built on the assumption that someday I will understand this distinction.

1) Why not define the infinitely many factors in the chain as one object, and call it God. (All the turtles all the way down are nothing but one big turtle.)

Why is that not preferable to the factor of the classical God, as the first cause?

2)
Is it not preferable to attribute the creation of the world to one factor that we call God rather than infinitely many factors, according to Occam’s razor?
Since we cannot attribute the world to the fact that it always was (because it is within our experience).

3)
If we say that the time axis was created in the Big Bang, does that then effectively rule out the possibility that there exists an infinite sequence of factors? (On the grounds that there cannot be change without time.) And is the creation of the world then like an instant with respect to God, whose will to create the world was eternal? Or with such an understanding have we actually solved the need for God, since there was no time before the Big Bang?

4)
In practice, one could say there are two laws in the argument. The central principle of the argument is really from the causality claim, and the time part of the argument is only a consequence.

That is, the argument is that everything in our experience has a cause unless the thing is self-caused.
In order to reach the conclusion that there is God, we need to add the part that infinity is a failure, otherwise it gives another option (even though it is possible that even if not, it is at any rate a preferable option).

Therefore in this part God gives a complete explanation, unlike “infinite turtles,” which in practice do not give a real explanation, based on the premise that there cannot be infinitely many explanations. Unless we see them as one unit, but it is not clear how one could see them as one unit at all! After all, this is an infinity that grows and does not converge to one thing.

That is, in this part God is much more logical than infinite turtles.

And there is a second part, which is actually the result of the discussion—time.
The moment we define time as infinite (concrete or potential), then God too will receive those properties (concrete or potential).
And so too our chain of turtles will receive time according to its definition (concrete or potential, though here it may be concrete).

Therefore with respect to the part of time, the two arguments are equal, but with respect to the part of the principle of causality, God gives a great advantage.
Granted, if you accept a concept of concrete infinity with respect to time, then you could project it also toward undermining the validity of God under the principle of causality. But still, it gives us a certain advantage,
in that it really does provide an explanation and not an infinite chain of explanations which in practice is not an explanation.

Am I right?

Okay, so just final questions built on the assumption that someday I will understand this distinction.

1) Simply because there is no such chain (because a chain of infinitely many stages presupposes a concrete infinity, and there is no such thing). If you call it by a name, then it will exist? You keep repeating the same mistake. The problem with God is one of the length of a continuous axis (the time axis). In the chain, the problem is not infinite time but infinitely many stages. That is the crux of the difference.

2)
As above. Preference exists between two possibilities. But here there is only one possibility. The possibility of an infinite chain is not a possibility.

3)
I did not understand. What does it mean that there cannot be change without time? There certainly can. This strange argument came up here a few days ago by someone (I no longer remember who), and we already chewed it over to exhaustion.
Here, I found it: https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%A8%D7%90%D7%99%D7%94-%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%A1%D7%9E%D7%9C%D7%92%D7%99%D7%AA-%D7%91%D7%A6%D7%9C-%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%A4%D7%A5-%D7%9C%D7%9C%D7%90-%D7%96%D7%9E%D7%9F/
The need for God is not connected to time. Even if time was created at some moment, a cause is still required for that chain that began at that moment. I explained this in the booklet.

4)
I did not understand what is written here. Just one comment. You wrote:

“That is, the argument is that everything in our experience has a cause unless the thing is self-caused.”

But that is not so. Everything in our experience has a cause. Period. A thing that is self-caused is not something within our experience.

1+2) I understood, but I have a question about that,
A.
In the booklet the Rabbi wrote that it is not clear that there is no such thing as concrete infinity. And I see that here he is walking it back, and claiming that such an “entity” cannot exist.
B.
I saw on Otzar ha-Hokhmah that the Rabbi’s words regarding concrete infinity are not correct. Quote from Don Quixote:
“At bottom, it seems that Your Honor is not at all knowledgeable in the matter. Without getting into physical issues (physics too speaks of concrete infinity in subjects like the topology of the universe), in modern mathematics, which rests on set theory, concrete infinity is a basic and foundational concept no less than any other concept. Remove it, and oops, most of modern mathematical theories disappear.
Of course Hilbert’s Hotel etc. is a nice example for students of the strangeness of the concept of infinity and does not hint at a true logical paradox, heaven forbid. Perhaps you heard of the intuitionists (see intuitionism and infinity) and mistakenly thought this was the mainstream. It is not. There was an attempt by several mathematicians to build classical and modern mathematics using certain principles (including negation of the infinite set); of course the time would run out and the labor would not be finished—nobody takes this too seriously anymore.”

3) Okay, understood, thanks.

4)
What I wrote there was more of a question whether I had correctly understood the Rabbi’s words—a kind of summary.

That is,
The cosmological argument is based on the principle of causality. And appended to it are difficulties from the axis of time.

That is, at the base of the argument are the premises:
1) That everything in our experience has a cause
2) Concrete infinity is impossible
3) Therefore there must be something that is self-caused, which is also not something within our experience—let’s call it God

(Of course, insofar as the second premise is undermined, the third premise also becomes less and less necessary.)

The problem is that the result we got—that there must be a first cause—contains within it the very same infinity we fled from in the second premise, under the axis of time. The difficulty is right there built in.

But in practice,
Since the axis of time is not well defined, I will try to consider each of the possibilities:

A) According to science, time was created in the Big Bang. Therefore we automatically have no difficulty with God being infinite with respect to the axis of time, because He simply is not.

B) One can speak about the axis of time in potential terms—that its length in years is greater than any number known to us. That is, if so, then God will automatically “contain” the properties of the type of axis of time—potential as well.

C) One can speak about the axis of time in concrete terms, but if so then we have a problem: how did we arrive at the present point in time?
After all, before it there was infinite time. (And it’s like pulling tomatoes from an infinite pile of tomatoes—we’ll never get out of there!)
But of course under that assumption God too contains the concrete axis, and then we have knocked down premise 2, and we are left only with a rough estimation as to which argument is preferable.

5) Does a concrete infinity of causes also contain within it an obligation to accept a time axis that is a concrete infinity? Or can it be based on a substrate of a potential time axis?

6) What does a time axis in potential terms mean—that its length in years is greater than any number known to us?
Isn’t that an evasion?

Thanks in advance! And thank you for the responses so far.

1-2) A-B. The question of concrete infinity in a continuum is not entirely settled for me. But an infinite chain of causes is certainly an evasion. Even if there is such a chain, you certainly did not present it in full, and therefore there is no explanation here (and even if it exists, then that whole totality is God, and the proof still stands).

4) B. But there is a basic mistake here, because the problem of time does not exist in the cosmological argument. It deals not with the axis of time but only with the axis of causality. See the next section.

5) See previous section.

6). No.

As far as I’m concerned, we’re done. All the best.

4+5 )
In the answer to four you referred to the next section (that is, 5), and in the answer to five you referred to the previous section (that is, 4).

Thanks for the response!

Indeed. I referred you there because in section 4 I answered section 5.

But the Rabbi didn’t address the quote they brought:
I saw on Otzar ha-Hokhmah that the Rabbi’s words regarding concrete infinity are not correct. Quote from Don Quixote:
“At bottom, it seems that Your Honor is not at all knowledgeable in the matter. Without getting into physical issues (physics too speaks of concrete infinity in subjects like the topology of the universe), in modern mathematics, which rests on set theory, concrete infinity is a basic and foundational concept no less than any other concept. Remove it, and oops, most of modern mathematical theories disappear.
Of course Hilbert’s Hotel etc. is a nice example for students of the strangeness of the concept of infinity and does not hint at a true logical paradox, heaven forbid. Perhaps you heard of the intuitionists (see intuitionism and infinity) and mistakenly thought this was the mainstream. It is not. There was an attempt by several mathematicians to build classical and modern mathematics using certain principles (including negation of the infinite set); of course the time would run out and the labor would not be finished—nobody takes this too seriously anymore.”

I have nothing to address. He is mixing concepts and bringing in irrelevant subjects.

Maybe still, briefly? For the sake of ignoramuses like me..

In a circular chain of causes, like the Big Bounce etc., where the universe is cyclical,

can one say that the universe as a whole is God? With respect to the cosmological argument? That is, with respect to the whole process.

As opposed to a non-circular chain of causes?

One can say whatever one wants, but I do not see the gain in it. First, even a circular chain requires a reason and an explanation. Second, defining something as God does nothing and changes nothing (this is my criticism in the second booklet of pantheism). One can say the same thing about a linear chain.

What that definition does is eliminate the need for a creator.

A. The reason for the world is that it is self-caused, and therefore it doesn’t need a creator.
B. As for uniqueness? It isn’t all that unique, because every cycle destroys and builds, and therefore there is no need for a creator.
And since our whole way of measuring uniqueness is only through entropy between the starting point and the endpoint, because our proof is a posteriori,
then in a circular picture there is no uniqueness at all.

It is not self-caused, because this whole chain is the universe, and therefore it requires an explanation outside itself.
It is unique exactly as we see. I do not see what difference it makes that there are additional cycles around it.
The circularity changes nothing.

A. Why does it require an explanation outside itself? After all, the chain can exist by its own powers (remember, it is circular).

B. The Rabbi wrote that the examination of uniqueness according to entropy is between the beginning (Big Bang) and the current state. And if we see laws that cause uniqueness, then they are unique and require a creator. If so, in a circular chain of causes there is no beginning point and endpoint, and therefore no possibility of examination at all. And it may even be that the chain has negative entropy, since it takes a state of a developed world and destroys it (returns it to the state of the Big Bang).

A. Those are just words. What does it mean that it is circular? That it exists for an infinite time? I too am circular within myself, so therefore I do not need an explanation/reason from outside for my whole existence? This whole circle, whatever it may be, is a creature that needs a reason.
B. The entropy of the beginning also requires explanation. If there is a world that is very unique at its beginning, that requires explanation. And if its progression in time adds uniqueness, that too requires explanation.

A. If so, then what is the definition of self-caused?
B. And why is a circular chain of causes not self-caused, while God is?

Begging your pardon, I’m exhausted. I explained what I had to explain, and to the best of my understanding the points are simple.

For the Rabbi everything is always simple.

Oy vey, the decline of the generations…..
The generation receiving the Torah now is not like the generation of last year. As Rabbi Shteinman said, every year is a new generation.