God and the Beginning of the Universe | #3 Dr. Alex Malpass

[@dr.h8r]

Good stuff. Can’t find the debate between Malpass & Koons so I’m guessing it hasn’t been released yet. Sounds exciting tho

[@josephusrivero3533]

Great interview. Good luck with your channel 👍

[@mileskdonahue75]

Thank you! Keep coming back, as they say.

[@psyseraphim]

The thing i genuinely love about Dr Malpass is his ability to quickly engage with and steel man the positions of his interlocutor. Probably because when he asses the arguments of himself and others he does what every good philosopher should do, which is to anticipate, consider and answer the objections others will raise. I'm merely a layman, having never had any formal training or education in philosophy however. I'm assuming your channel is in it's early days but i lookn forward to seeing what you bring to the table in the future... Subscribed.

[@mileskdonahue75]

Thank you kindly! I think you're absolutely right about Dr. Malpass - he is an excellent philosopher.

[@phillipjackson1517]

Miles sarcastically says: "There it is, I've completely shown that this cannot be refuted, it must be true!" (Which was indeed funny!) Then Alex says: "Yeah I guess you're right. I think you've just converted me to Hinduism on the basis of your argument." I almost died laughing at this point. Alex somehow found the quickest way possible to say, "even if your argument were true, it doesn't follow that your particular God is the true God."

[@mileskdonahue75]

Haha I'm glad you enjoyed our wit and wisdom!

[@ScienceFoundation]

The KCA is special pleading. If the universe began to exist, so did the principles therein. You can't exempt causality from beginning to exist just for the sake of your argument.

[@mileskdonahue75]

The proponent of the kalam could respond here that the principle that whatever begins to exist has a cause is not a principle that only holds within the universe. The proposal is that such a principle is metaphysical in nature and therefore applies to whatever happens to exist and come into being: universes, souls, or abstract objects (if some of them do in fact come into being, as some philosophers hold). This isn't a crazy proposal; the laws of logic, or the principle that everything with a shape has a size, are also metaphysically necessary and apply to everything that exists. They do not come into being with the universe. Now, you might claim that the proponent of the kalam hasn't given sufficient reason for thinking that the first premise is metaphysically necessary; but then, that's a different objection than the mere assumption that the causal principle is only applicable within the universe.

[@ScienceFoundation]

@@mileskdonahue75 I would then ask for an example of cause and effect that is not constrained to the universe. Otherwise that's just ad hoc rationalization. Metaphysical doesn't mean outside of or prior to the universe, by the way, not even close.