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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

I'm sorry, but the argument at the link is mistaken. It is plausible (at least) to think that, if God exists, God is a necessary being. (That's part of the concept of God - we can give arguments for why it should be a part of the concept (the concept perfect being would be incomplete without it) - and it doesn't appear to be in tension with any of the other parts of the concept of God (perfect goodness, maximal knowledge and power, etc.). But necessary beings explain themselves. To wit, if it is necessarily true that God exists, then it is necessary that it is necessarily true that God exists. And so on, ad infinitum. Hence, nothing is left unexplained. (There is no more full or complete explanation for P than that it is impossible that not-P.)

But it seems extraordinarily counterintuitive to think that a particular event such as the Big Bang, or a very large physical object such as the cosmos, could have happened/exist of necessity. Indeed, we know of no other events that happened of necessity, and of no other physical things that exist of necessity. (Note that all or almost all non-physical things/things outside of spacetime, like numbers, triangles, properties, etc. exist of necessity. So it is not unnatural or implausible to think that God exists of necessity as well.) Hence, the proposition that it is necessary that if the Big Bang occurred, it was necessary for it to occur has much less going for it than the proposition that if God exists, it is necessary that God exists. This despite the fact that the proposition that the Big Bang occurred has a lot more going for it than the proposition that God exists.

I'm not arguing here that the cosmological argument is compelling. I'm just pointing out that this particular (and common) criticism of it is misguided.

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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

It would be rather entertaining to see someone try to defend this claim.

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