I don’t really get what you are saying here. Can you elaborate a bit more? What I would say though is that God, especially a God that creates the natural world, cannot be a part of the natural world. This is fundamental to the definition of what it means to be a God. I agree that there are no Gods that exist as part of the natural world. Luckily though that type of God is not the one that Aquinas had in mind
Calculon.
Well, to be fair to Aquinas, the first cause proof doesn’t exist in isolation. It’s one part of a multiple book work where he tries to argue that all of Catholic teaching is compatable with Aristotelian logic.
No, you can’t label it “God” without being dishonest. Which is, of course why people who use the first cause argument DO usually use the word God; they are hoping people will ignore the little detail that there’s no reason to assume that a hypothetical first cause is anything other than a simple mindless force that very few people would label a god. And being believers they are naturally willing to lie and deceive, since believers by nature have no respect for facts or truth or logic; otherwise, they wouldn’t be believers. If they have to manipulate and deceive to convince people of the truth of the faith, it’s their holy duty to do so.
And another solution to Aquina’s claim is to simply say since he claims that his premises about the natural world produce an impossibility, then one or more of those claims must be wrong; not try to justify it with a God pulled out of nowhere. Such as the possibility that there IS an infinite regress, or that some natural events don’t require causes. So no, God isn’t “the only way to resolve this”.
This so-called “deep thinker” is just producing thin justifications for conclusions he’s obviously already reached. He defined nature in a way convenient for him, then defined God in a way that solved his false dilemma.
Ok, but the argument is not meant to demonstrate that God has no cause. That is an assumed part of the definition of what it means to be God. To make his point Dawkins would have to show why necessarily anything that could be considered God must have a cause. He doesn’t do this, so the point is not well made.
The point of the proof is to show both that there is some first cause in the universe, and that first cause could not be within the universe itself. Therefore the argument, if valid, demonstrates that there is something outside of the universe that formed the first cause. It is this that Aquinas says is God. Ultimately the most important part is not what you call the first mover, but that atheistic naturalism, (ie: the belief that the natural world is all there is) is necessarily false, since it cannot for the existence of the universe.
One interesting issue of the prime mover proofs is that they don’t discount polytheism, in that it is possible to have several entities outside of the universe starting many things simultaneously. So it is not necessarily a proof of theism as much as it is a disproof of atheism.
Calculon.
But the distinction between the natural and unnatural worlds is completely arbitrary, which is Dawkins’ whole point. If uncaused causes exist and are triggering things in the natural world, then how are they not a part of it? Why draw a boundary and make them part of a separate sphere? Let’s call everything (natural and unnatural) the Totality and agree that some entities in the Totality don’t have causes.
Of course the whole point of calling something “The UNIverse” is that it is the TOTALITY of existence. There is no outside, by definition.
Untrue. Quantum fluctuations allow for uncaused causes.
Ultimately you’re going for a god of the gaps argument. “I don’t know of a phyiscal uncaused event so God did it.”
That’s not Dawkins’s job. It’s Aquinas’s to prove that God doesn’t need a cause. God can’t solve Aquinas’s false dilemma unless he has no cause; which means God doesn’t qualify as a solution until you come up with evidence that he’s doesn’t need one.
But it doesn’t. There’s nothing about atheism or “the belief that the natural world is all there is” that demands you believe that everything has a cause, or that the universe is all there is, or that there can’t be an infinite regress of causes.
And of course the most important part is the “first mover”; the only reason for the whole argument is to create a false dilemma that can be “solved” by the Christian God.
What a coincidence! The FSM is ALSO not a part of the natural world and so is immune to your logic or analysis.
Which is one of the reasons the prime mover argument is crap now. It was a much stronger argument in the 13th century, when Aquinas made it, or the 4th century BC when Aristotle made it. Saying that Aquinas was being disingenuous or is stupid in making the argument is a lot like saying that Ptolemy was disingenuous or stupid for saying the sun revolved around the earth.
The people you should be criticizing are modern Christians who still try to use is as an argument, not Aquinas for coming up with it.
Aquinas’ Five Proofs are not philosphical or theological arguments. They are scientific ones. They’re feeble attempts at science. but science nonetheless. Aquinas is trying to appeal to empirical evidence and logical inference. It’s a scientific thesis. Neither philosphy nor theology enters into it.
Well, yes and no. It wasn’t as bad for him for the reasons you say. But the argument by it’s nature undercuts itself; claiming that God or anything else doesn’t need a cause means you can no longer claim that everything needs a cause. And no, claiming that God is in a special category doesn’t solve this flaw, because if special exceptions are allowed there’s no reason that God is the only one allowed.
Good thing I didn’t do that I guess.
Both of these premises are wrong.
His conclusion is based on false premises. His label of “God” is also a non-sequitur.
These are not Dawkins main objectons. Dawkins’ main objections are the same as everyone else who’s ever critiqued Aquinas – his *premises are false.[//i] Everything does NOT need a cause, and it is NOT impossible to have an infinite chain.
It is ALSO true that God is another regression, and it’s ALSO true that Aquinas has no justification for calling his First Cause “God,” but those are not the main objections. The main objections are that Aquinas is talking out of his ass when he sets up his premises.
Aquinas’ premises are invalid on their face. It’s true that Dawkins should have taken the time to point that out in his section on Aquinas, but he’s just pointing out that even IF Aquinas was not wrong about his premises, his conclusion would still be regressive, tautological and unwarranted.
Sheer tautology, and logical gibberish.
The thing is you can’t just SAY God is not subject to regression, you have explain why God is immune when nothing else is. To say that God is immune is to say that the universe is immune. You can’t assert an axiom, and then assert an exception to that axiom with no justification. Trying to build the exception into your definition is a fallacy.
You can’t posit the existence of God without giving it the properties of God. God IS the properties. Aquinas most certainly DID intend for his use of the word “God” to be taken prima facie, as the Christian God, and never tries to say otherwise.
The premises are false on their face, but it’s true Dawkins should have said that in his critique of Aquinas. It does not mean, however, that his other objections are invalid, nor does his failure to tell the class that Aquinas’ premises are bullshit mean they aren’t still bullshit.
It doesn’t mean that he doesn’t understand the argument (and an infinate chain is not invalidated by the Big Bang, by the way, just so you know. Also, Aquinas didn’t know about the Big bang, so his assertion that an infinite chain was impossible was baseless), it just means he was selective about what part to attack. Dawkins objections are both dead on balls accurate, but it’s true his treatment is incomplete. It is not, however, dishonest. He in no way misrepresents Aquinas’ arguments as the OP alleges.
I also think it’s interesting that the OP skipped right over Dawkins’ critiques of Aquinas’ Argument from Design (Dawkins’ sweet spot if ever there was one), or his truly ludicrous Argument from Degree.
I already pointed that out in my original post in this thread, so well done 
The main question of the thread though, as I understand the OP, is not whether Aquinas was right, but whether Dawkins’ dismissal of him is philosophically rigourous. Since this is not something that Dawkins points out, I would say the answer is no.
Calculon.
Sigh.
No, the distinction is not arbitrary. This is one of the frustrating things I find reading Dawkins. He is such a staunch naturalist that it seems impossible to him that there is anything outside of natural world. Let me ask you this. If there is a God that created the universe (by which I mean all of the material things resulting from the big bang), and indeed existed before the universe, are they also a part of the universe that they created? And if they are a part of the universe in what sense are they a creator if they are part of that same universe?
Maybe if I explain in terms of set theory. There aer two sets, set A which encompasses all material things and whose members follow the set laws of nature, and set B which encompases all non-material things which do not follow the set laws of nature as we understand them. The union of these two sets forms the totality of existence, set C. Atheism is therefore the claim that set B is a null set containing no members, and that set A and C are completely equivalent. Aquinas was trying to show that given the known properties of the members of set A, set A cannot explain it’s own existence. Set B must necessarily have one or more members for set A to logically exist. The distinction between God and the natural world is entirely meaningful in the context of the argument, and therefore I think Dawkins’ objection is baseless.
Calculon.
I don’t seem to remember Dawkins expressly making that point. Care to give a quote where he talks about why these premises are wrong?
Alternatively if you can’t find a satasfactory quote, can you at least explain why you personally believe them to be false. I understand that you think them false “on the face of it”, but I would like to hear your actual reasoning. Without reasoning all you are really offering is proof by vigourous assertion.
Calculon.
No. I made a mistake there. I thought I remembered the book differently than I did. I went back and checked, and found that I had misremembered. I must have read him attacking those premises somewhere else and thought I’d read it in TGD. I actually went through my post before I submitted it and edited out some similar comments to what you quoted so I wouldn’t make an ass of myself, but I missed that one.
Largely for the reasons you mentioned. Quantum physics does not adhere to those premises. Aquinas is also wrong even under Newtonian standards when he says that an object in motion must have been set in motion by something else. Newton’s First Law of Motion refutes that.
As I also said in my point by point critique of Aquinas on the first page of this thread, Aquinas offers no justification for his claim that the chain of cause and effect can’t be infinite. There is, in fact, nothing in either Newtonian or Quantum physics which prohibits an infinite chain of cause and effect.
Your definition of philosophy and theology is pretty arbitrary then. Logical inference and empiricism have no place in philosophy? I’ll alert my alma mater; they’ll need to rework a great deal of the curriculum.
But it’s irrelevant anyway, I think. Aquinas’s assertions–however you categorize them–are not best refuted by misstating them. If his assertions are not worthy of argument, don’t argue ‘em. If they are, engage his actual arguments. That’s Dawkins’ error.
I’m saying that philosophy is not necessary to empiricism and inference. Science can play a role in philosophy, but that doesn’t mean philosophy has to play a role in science. “God exists because everything needs a cause,” is a scientific assertion, not a philosophical one.
Dawkins did not misstate them.