Thursday, October 27, 2011

Ted Drange's Anti-Creation Argument

The following is an excerpt of a longer essay by Ted Drange.

Definitions of "God"

Before getting to the arguments, it is important to present the various definitions of "God" that they employ:

D1: God is the eternal, all-powerful, personal being who created and rules the universe. (Being eternal, God cannot come into or go out of existence. Being all-powerful, he can perform any action that is logically possible to perform. Being personal, he has some characteristics in common with humans, such as thinking, feeling emotions, and performing actions. The universe is understood to consist of all the space, time, matter, and energy that has ever existed.)

D2: God is the eternal, very powerful, personal being who rules the universe, loves humanity, and gave humanity its moral conscience.

D3: God is the eternal, very powerful, personal being who rules the universe, loves humanity, and strongly desires that that love be reciprocated.

D4: God is that being which is self-existent, that is, which contains the explanation for its own existence within itself.

D5: God is that being which is (objectively) perfect in every way. (The term "perfect" is here understood in an objective sense, as opposed to a subjective sense relative to individual values, so the term may be used in public reasoning.)

D6: God is the deity described in the Bible as interpreted by evangelical Christianity.

It will be indicated for each argument which of the above definitions of "God" it employs.

The Anti-Creation Argument (against D1, D6)
(1) If X creates Y, then X must exist temporally prior to Y.
(2) But nothing could possibly exist temporally prior to time itself (for that would involve existing at a time when there was no time, which is a contradiction).
(3) Thus, it is impossible for time to have been created.
(4) Time is an essential component of the universe.
(5) Therefore, it is impossible for the universe to have been created.
(6) It follows that God, as defined by D1 and D6, cannot exist.

Source: http://www.infidelguy.com/mobile/10_atheistic_arguments_7.php

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