Because in answering it you should also learn the answer to the question you posed.
No I'm not. I'm saying the definition implies necessity. IOW if the definition is true, then it is obviously necessary.
Are you suggesting the definition of God is not true???
But as explained previously, the definition does NOT imply necessity. You claim it does, but you have not addressed the option of eternal existence other than to hand-wave it away without explanation.
Irrelevant as neither your nor I are capable of imagining eternality.
Speak for yourself. I can, and do, imagine it. Just imagine two mirrors facing each other and peering into the unending reflection.
And as previously explained (again, merely hand-waved away by you this time with nothing but the equivalent of "no you can't") one merely needs to understand the implications of the thing to be able to imagine it... i.e. as a black box.
You have also failed to answer any question levied at you as to how you imagine God, given your dismissal of anything you can't imagine as being irrelevant.
IOW as far as you and I are concerned there is nothing eternal that exists within our experience.
Speak for yourself. You have even admitted here in this thread that you accept that energy and matter are eternal. And now you are saying that "
as far as you and I are concerned there is nothing eternal that exists within our experience".
Oops. There you go being inconsistent again.
The Kalam Cosmological Argument makes it easy to imagine God to be a fact.
But you're not actually imagining God when you do that, you are imagining the outputs of the black box. And that is something you don't seem to want to allow with the notion of eternal.
Oops. There you go being hypocritical again.
So, what do you imagine as God when you do imagine God?
I'm sorry if my response to your question upsets you, Jan. Do you want me to lie? Would that make it easier for you? If I made up some stuff that you wanted to hear, would that be easier for you to deal with?
Where? All I have seen is a claim but with no explanation. If you have posted something, please link to it, as I must have missed it, and I can not find anything that might be classed as an actual explanation.
If we use the KCA we can infer that the original cause/creator may well have chosen to bring the universe into being, as opposed to it being due to time. As we can choose to do things, it can easily be imagined that the original cause/creator is connected to us (if we choose).
We can infer only if we make the unwarranted assumption of choice being available. Hence it is simply begging the question.
Do you have any explanation that does not rely on such a tactic?
It also raises the notion of what "choice" actually is and whether such freewill as encapsulated within the term actually exists. But that is for another thread.
Here, though, if you could simply provide an explanation that does not beg the question, that would be great.
You've explained nothing, and it does imply necessity.
The explanation is simply in the nature of the truly eternal: without beginning, therefore without need for "original cause".
Ah, but the notion of the eternal rather befuddles you, does it not, hence the need to hand-wave it away... let's see if that continues...
Anyone can cry eternal! eteranal!.
But it is nothing but a word. There is nothing that we can use as a measurement to have any idea of what it is to be eternal. Therefore it cannot be imagined. Period.
And Bingo! More hand-waving.
To mock:
"Anyone can cry
God! God!
But it is nothing but a word. There is nothing that we can use as a measurement to have any idea of what it is to be God. Therefore it cannot be imagined. Period".
See, Jan, it works both ways. You want to allow God as a notion, even though you are incapable of imagining what it is to be God. Yet you disallow the notion of the eternal because you think it cannot be imagined.
That is nothing but hypocrisy, Jan.
As far as you and I know, the universe came into being, and as we have an idea of something coming into being, we can imagine that.
The black box approach, yes. The same approach you disallow for the notion of the eternal.
Yet here again there is hypocrisy, because (and correct me if I am wrong, Jan) you imagine God as being eternal, correct?
And, to remind, you have accepted that matter and energy are eternal.
Further, that the universe came into being or not is irrelevant, but it is not anything that can actually be known: yes we are reasonably sure that there was a Big Bang, but that is merely as far back in time as we can go - to our T=0. It speaks nothing of whether there was anything before hand, i.e. a cycle of Bang/Crunch etc.
What is more, the reality of whether our universe came into being or not is ultimately irrelevant, as we are discussing whether God is necessary or not - as it is only when necessary that God can be proven to exist (necessary things must exist for the result to happen that they are deemed necessary for). If you can not prove necessity, you can not prove God based on our existence.
Nothing is being made up here. You cannot imagine eternity, yet you are claiming it.
I can imagine eternity in the same manner as you imagine God.
It smacks of a desperate bid to deny the existence of God (even in your imagination).
There is no desperation to deny that which is not proven to exist. Just as there is no desperation to deny the existence of anything else for which there is no proof of existence.
But that you see it as such speaks more to your desperation to have it affirmed, and your blinkered view.
This is what it said. DEAL WITH IT!
When you actually bother to read and understand the paper you will realise that that is simply not what it states.
It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning (Many Worlds in One [New York: Hill and Wang, 2006], p.176).
And again you merely provide a single quote from Vilenkin (who as Baldeee pointed out is allowed some hubris in his important work) without quoting the rest of what he says just a couple of paragraphs later:
"Theologians have often welcomed any evidence for the beginning of the universe, regarding it as evidence for the existence of God… So what do we make of a proof that the beginning is unavoidable? Is it a proof of the existence of God? This view would be far too simplistic. Anyone who attempts to understand the origin of the universe should be prepared to address its logical paradoxes. In this regard, the theorem that I proved with my colleagues does not give much of an advantage to the theologian over the scientist. As evidenced by Jinasena’s remarks earlier in this chapter, religion is not immune to the paradoxes of Creation."
What is more, he suggests that the cosmic origins could be explained "in purely scientific terms", which he attempts in the very next chapter in that book.
And none of this even starts on the notion of what actually was the cause of the universe, and whether or not this would constitute an "original cause".
