An argument for Monotheism

[JohnMartin]

An argument for the truth of monotheism is presented below for the readers consideration.

From nothing, nothing is caused.
There is something, therefore something did not come from nothing, but from a cause.
That cause prior to all something is the cause prior to all.
The cause that is prior to all is uncaused.
That which is uncaused is unreceptive of another cause.
What is unreceptive of another cause is unreceptive.
What is receptive has potency.
For potency is the cause of receptivity.
Then what is the prime cause, but unreceptive is act without potency.
Therefore the prime cause is pure act.

As being and act are interchangeable, then the prime cause as pure act is pure be.
But God is pure act and pure be.
Therefore because there is something, God is the prime cause.
Therefore God exists.

As that which is pure act is act without limit, then the prime cause is alone prime.
For to have more than one pure act is to have many pure acts.
But many pure acts are acts with all perfection without limit.
But to have many with all perfection without limit is to have many that are identical in every respect.
What are identical in every respect are not distinct in an respect.
What are not distinct in any respect is identical.
What is identical is one.
Therefore pure act is only one.

Therefore only one God exists.
Monotheism says only one God exists.
Therefore monotheism is true.

JM

[Starlight]

From nothing, nothing is caused.

I wonder if, perhaps, causation is the other way around to how we typically think of it: Maybe things happen unless they prevented from happening. Maybe the laws of physics don't so much 'cause' things to happen, as they are laws against things happening any other way than they prescribe (i.e. like normal laws they ban things rather than allow things). So maybe if there was initially nothingness, nothing was prevented or banned from happening, and therefore everything possible happened and therefore every possible universe and every non-self-contradictory reality exists. Maybe the initial existence of nothingness just meant there were no restraints on the ability of other things to exist, so they did. Thus, from nothing, maybe everything was caused.

The cause that is prior to all is uncaused.

I think most people can agree there's probably some sort of first-cause which started some great chain of causation (even if that first cause was a lack of restraint of things happening, see above). I tend to presume the first cause was probably some sort of quantumy mathematical equation and would be hard for us to understand but that if we really understood it we'd say "oh, yeah, that obviously had to exist and be true, and would self-evidently start causing other things."

That which is uncaused is unreceptive of another cause.
What is unreceptive of another cause is unreceptive.
What is receptive has potency.
For potency is the cause of receptivity.
Then what is the prime cause, but unreceptive is act without potency.
Therefore the prime cause is pure act.

As being and act are interchangeable, then the prime cause as pure act is pure be.
But God is pure act and pure be.

You appear to have stopped using English as I know it and have descended into sort sort of pseudo-philosophical gibberish. I hope it works for you, but actually I tend to think you're raving mad.

[shunyadragon]

Nothing new here. Repetition does not make an argument valid.

It remains possible that the 'cause' is an eternal physical existence and Natural Law.

Actually I argue for an apophatic Monotheism, and reject the Greek/Roman Paulist Kataphatic Tritheism of traditional Christianity. Too many Gods.

[Boxing Pythagoras]

From nothing, nothing is caused.
There is something, therefore something did not come from nothing, but from a cause.

For the sake of argument, I'll agree, here.

That cause prior to all something is the cause prior to all.

This is incoherent. A cause is something. If a cause is prior to all somethings, then it must be prior to itself, which is obviously absurd.

The cause that is prior to all is uncaused.
That which is uncaused is unreceptive of another cause.
What is unreceptive of another cause is unreceptive.
What is receptive has potency.
For potency is the cause of receptivity.
Then what is the prime cause, but unreceptive is act without potency.

Even if we were to suppose that the vagaries you employ here ("receptivity," "potency," "act," etc.) have definite meanings, your conclusion does not follow. Your premises mention nothing, at all, about "pure act," so it is fallacious to conclude the necessity of such a concept from these premises.

As being and act are interchangeable

This is a wholly unsupported and entirely dubious assertion.

But God is pure act and pure be.

Another dubious and unsupported assertion.

As that which is pure act is act without limit, then the prime cause is alone prime.

Yet another bald, unsupported assertion.

Therefore only one God exists.
Monotheism says only one God exists.
Therefore monotheism is true.

Given that your entire argument is built upon a foundation of incoherence and non sequitur and mortared with dubious assertions and vagaries, your conclusion seems to fall in upon itself like a poorly constructed shack. I cannot accept that monotheism is true on the basis of such poor argumentation as this.

[shunyadragon]

For the sake of argument, I'll agree, here.

This is incoherent. A cause is something. If a cause is prior to all somethings, then it must be prior to itself, which is obviously absurd.

Even if we were to suppose that the vagaries you employ here ("receptivity," "potency," "act," etc.) have definite meanings, your conclusion does not follow. Your premises mention nothing, at all, about "pure act," so it is fallacious to conclude the necessity of such a concept from these premises.

This is a wholly unsupported and entirely dubious assertion.

Another dubious and unsupported assertion.

Yet another bald, unsupported assertion.

Given that your entire argument is built upon a foundation of incoherence and non sequitur and mortared with dubious assertions and vagaries, your conclusion seems to fall in upon itself like a poorly constructed shack. I cannot accept that monotheism is true on the basis of such poor argumentation as this.

Same ol,' same ol' perpetual motion fallacy riddled Gerbil on the wheel in the cage.

[Adrift]

For the sake of argument, I'll agree, here.

This is incoherent. A cause is something. If a cause is prior to all somethings, then it must be prior to itself, which is obviously absurd.

Even if we were to suppose that the vagaries you employ here ("receptivity," "potency," "act," etc.) have definite meanings, your conclusion does not follow. Your premises mention nothing, at all, about "pure act," so it is fallacious to conclude the necessity of such a concept from these premises.

This is a wholly unsupported and entirely dubious assertion.

Another dubious and unsupported assertion.

Yet another bald, unsupported assertion.

Given that your entire argument is built upon a foundation of incoherence and non sequitur and mortared with dubious assertions and vagaries, your conclusion seems to fall in upon itself like a poorly constructed shack. I cannot accept that monotheism is true on the basis of such poor argumentation as this.

While I agree that it's a poorly constructed argument, I think what he means by "all something" is "all material things" or probably better yet "all created things" (since I assume he'd include non-material things like angels and the like).

[37818]

JM,

Two things to consider. One, the concept of God is being infinite and eternal. Second, a cause, any cause is finite and temporal. For all caused things are finite and temporal.

[shunyadragon]

JM,

Two things to consider. One, the concept of God is being infinite and eternal. Second, a cause, any cause is finite and temporal. For all caused things are finite and temporal.

Than God as the 'cause' is finite and temporal. What caused God?

[Boxing Pythagoras]

While I agree that it's a poorly constructed argument, I think what he means by "all something" is "all material things" or probably better yet "all created things" (since I assume he'd include non-material things like angels and the like).

Even if that is the case, then it just moves from incoherence to question begging-- that is, presuming the existence of a cause prior to all "material" or "created" things in order to conclude that such a prior cause exists.

[Adrift]

Even if that is the case, then it just moves from incoherence to question begging-- that is, presuming the existence of a cause prior to all "material" or "created" things in order to conclude that such a prior cause exists.

The buck's gotta stop someplace, I guess.

[Roy]

Here we go again. I wonder how many lines it'll be this time?

An argument for the truth of monotheism is presented below for the readers consideration.

From nothing, nothing is caused.

Technically this is an unsupported assertion, but it could be considered a premise, and there's sure to be something bizarre ahead, so I'll continue:

There is something, therefore something did not come from nothing, but from a cause.

Execrably worded and smuggles in the concept of causes rather than things, but still unremarkable.

That cause prior to all something is the cause prior to all.

Unnecessary assumption of singularness - JM couldn't manage more than 3 lines without a fatal flaw. Still nothing worth getting excited about though.

The cause that is prior to all is uncaused.
That which is uncaused is unreceptive of another cause.

Getting interesting - bizarre use of 'unreceptive', but JM never was good at using sensible terminology or defining his neologistic terms.

What is unreceptive of another cause is unreceptive.
What is receptive has potency.
For potency is the cause of receptivity.

More unsupported assertions. Nothing new.

Then what is the prime cause, but unreceptive is act without potency.

Gibberish.

Therefore the prime cause is pure act.

Another unsupported assertion. Where is the good stuff?

As being and act are interchangeable, then the prime cause as pure act is pure be.
But God is pure act and pure be.

Assertion after assertion after assertion. Boring. Also pointless. Time to start scanning for interesting bits:

As that which is pure act is act without limit, then the prime cause is alone prime.

Couldn't find any. But here's the root cause of the problem. JM is effectively saying that the first cause is infinite so there can't be two first causes. But this has nothing to do with the standard meanings of either 'God' or 'monotheism' so he's just invoking the "We call this 'God'" fallacy as usual.

He might as well have said
Everything has a cause, because I say so.
There must be only one first cause, which doesn't have a cause despite what I just said, because I say so.
This is infinite, because I say so.
Therefore there can't be two of them, because I say so.
I call this God because I want to.
Therefore there is only one God and so there is only one God.

The rest is pointless equivocation, the only effect of which is to obscure the actual argument.

[guacamole]

Here we go again. I wonder how many lines it'll be this time?Technically this is an unsupported assertion, but it could be considered a premise,

I would argue that line "nothing comes from nothing" is self-evident. How exactly would something come from nothing?

and there's sure to be something bizarre ahead, so I'll continue:Execrably worded and smuggles in the concept of causes rather than things,

If something must have a prior thing, since nothing comes from nothing, then causation is implied and not smuggled in. If nothing causes nothing, but there is something, then there must be a prior something. If it's not turtles all the way down, we need to stop it somewhere.

In any case, I think he could have elided the part on first cause, since if we are arguing mono vs polytheism, then first cause seems already established--for the sake of argument--if for no other reason.

fwiw,
guacamole

[Boxing Pythagoras]

If nothing causes nothing, but there is something, then there must be a prior something.

This presumes that, if there is something, then this something must have come to be; and it further presumes that this something must have come from another something.

I'm fairly sure that neither you nor I actually believe such a premise. For example, I am sure you would say that God is not nothing, but that God nevertheless did not come to be, let alone come from anything else.

[guacamole]

This presumes that, if there is something, then this something must have come to be; and it further presumes that this something must have come from another something.

I'm fairly sure that neither you nor I actually believe such a premise. For example, I am sure you would say that God is not nothing, but that God nevertheless did not come to be, let alone come from anything else.

Correct, which is why I noted that unless want turtles all the way down, we have to stop it somewhere. I think the OP weakened his case by having to draw first cause into it.

[Roy]

I would argue that line "nothing comes from nothing" is self-evident. How exactly would something come from nothing?

No idea.

But not knowing how that could happen is not proof that it could not happen. I have no idea how Google's search algorithm finds web-pages, but that doesn't mean Google doesn't work.

"Nothing comes from nothing" may be common experience, but it isn't self-evident, any more than "parallel lines never meet" is self-evident.

If something must have a prior thing, since nothing comes from nothing, then causation is implied and not smuggled in.

It's smuggled in by going from "something must have a prior thing" to "something must be caused by a prior thing".

If it's not turtles all the way down, we need to stop it somewhere.

But if you stop it somewhere you immediately contradict "something must have a prior thing", since the last turtle has no prior thing.

This:

From nothing, nothing is caused.
...
The cause that is prior to all is uncaused.

is a contradiction.