Arguing on the Aristotelian proof on YouTube's comments section (and why a lot of Internet Atheists are ignorant of Classical arguments of God)
There's this video on You Tube entitled "Why There's Most Likely No God" uploaded 3 years ago by a You Tube Channel called "Science Plus". The video aims to give reasons why God's existence might be unlikely.... in the perspective of science, of all things! I hold on to the view that Natural Theology must be grounded in the Philosophy of Nature, not Natural Science, for arguments for God's existence through science tend to be God-of-the-gaps arguments (and I HATE God-of-the-gaps arguments!), and, if ever they're correct, do not point to the classical theism's view of the Divine. I, then, responded to the video via the comments section, stating that we cannot use science in talking about God and the supernatural, because primarily, the question "does God exist?" isn't even a scientific question at all. Immediately, a person with a username "asrgaqgq sdfgsdgsdfgsdg" (his anti-theistic claims is as gibberish as his username ) responded saying that what I said was "nonsense" and that 'If God exists, then it can be scientifically proven." (I will not detail all the back and forth we did in the comments section, just click the title of the video at the beginning of the article and read it yourself.) We then responded with one another's arguments, until the issue of the difference between a linear and a hierarchical causal series. The guy said that both kinds of causes "both culminate to the same thing". What he said proves that he and a lot of atheists like him are very ignorant of Aristotelian principles and only attack caricatures of the argument. This is also very evident if you read New Atheist books, wherein they attack a very stupid caricature of the cosmological argument, then proceeds with the "if everything has a cause, then what caused God?" objection.
Remember that when thinkers like Aristotle and Aquinas talks about their cosmological argument from motion, they're talking about hierarchical series of causes, or a series of causes wherein the secondary members only derive their causal power in the first member. If there's no first member, then the series won't exist in the first place. It also isn't concerned in proving that the universe had a beginning in the finite past, but rather on what exists in the here and now (again, I'm not explaining this in a great length here, just look at the comments section of the said video).
So, a note to athiests/agnostics/skeptics/Dawkin-nites: If ever you feel like criticizing the Aristotelian-Thomistic cosmological arguments, remember to read about them first before speaking about them, in order to avoid looking like a fool.
- Matthew Luis Antero.
Remember that when thinkers like Aristotle and Aquinas talks about their cosmological argument from motion, they're talking about hierarchical series of causes, or a series of causes wherein the secondary members only derive their causal power in the first member. If there's no first member, then the series won't exist in the first place. It also isn't concerned in proving that the universe had a beginning in the finite past, but rather on what exists in the here and now (again, I'm not explaining this in a great length here, just look at the comments section of the said video).
So, a note to athiests/agnostics/skeptics/Dawkin-nites: If ever you feel like criticizing the Aristotelian-Thomistic cosmological arguments, remember to read about them first before speaking about them, in order to avoid looking like a fool.
- Matthew Luis Antero.
Comments
Post a Comment