Grim Reapers and Endless Futures: A Problem for the Kalam

The Grim Reaper Paradox has been used to support the Kalam Cosmological Argument. Here I mount a grim challenge to this sort of reasoning: implying the impossibility of an endless future.
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OUTLINE
0:00 Intro
2:55 The paper
8:18 The unsatisfiable pair
14:35 B-arguments
17:34 A grim dilemma
20:55 A future-oriented paradox
31:44 First line: Patchwork principles
41:33 Second line: Mysterious forces
50:37 Summary
51:58 Conclusion
CORRECTIONS
At 8:02, I accidentally cut out the last two words of my sentence. I should have said "...equally motivate this new linking premise."
RESOURCES
(1) Free access link to the official article: academic.oup.com/mind/advance...
(2) If the link in (1) doesn't work, you can read a pre-print here: philpapers.org/rec/SCHTEI-19
(3) Kalam playlist: • Kalam Cosmological Arg...
(4) My forthcoming Synthese paper, "Benardete paradoxes, patchwork principles, and the infinite past": philpapers.org/rec/SCHBPP-3
(5) My 2023 Phil Studies paper with Alex Malpass, "Branching actualism and cosmological arguments": philpapers.org/rec/SCHBAA-22
(6) My Springer book: (a) www.amazon.com/Existential-In... (b) link.springer.com/book/10.100...
THE USUAL...
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My website: josephschmid.com
My PhilPeople profile: philpeople.org/profiles/josep...

[@ellyam991]

Babe, babe wake up, Majesty of Reason dropped another video on the Kalam

[@AtlasofReality]

SUCH A BEAUTIFUL BEGINNING 😭😭😭

[@fubilosophy]

Whoaa,, loving Your intro Man..! Excellent video as always..!

[@andrewprahst2529]

Splendid work Joseph 🧐

[@MajestyofReason]

my sincerest gratitude extends to your company, dear andrew🧐🍷

[@pierredutilleux9550]

Why don't you engage with Kant? I think he would give you reasons to doubt whether you could even know what is metaphysically 'possible' or 'impossible.' You seem to be captive to a transcendental realist picture in which conceptual truths are metaphysical truths.

[@Igelme]

can you elaborate on this? I'm not too familiar with Kant

[@pierredutilleux9550]

​ @Igelme Take the statement "every effect has a cause." Realist philosophers think that this is something we know. They often just assume it. But if we want to be good philosophers, we should account for how we came to know such a truth. Now, Hume's critique of causality tries to prove this could never have been learned through the senses. If the causal principle wasn't discovered through the senses, it might just be 'implanted' in us. This is the solution of philosophers like Leibniz and Plato, who describe what Kant calls a 'preformation system.' But this doesn't help us that much, because we don't know why we have the causal principle and what makes causal judgments objective, if they are. Kant's Copernican revolution is to say that the causal principle is constitutive of experience. Without going into the details of his argument here, this is an attractive solution because it avoids dogmatism, skepticism, or an empiricism which seems inadequate. But the consequence of this is that the principle "every effect has a cause" is NOT something we know, but rather an assumption that allows us to know other things. If you accept this, the kind of metaphysics on this channel has no foundation. We can't use the principles of experience to discover non-sensible truths, because they only structure our experience. Wittgenstein came to a similar conclusion through his linguistic philosophy in the 1930s and 1940s.

[@Igelme]

@@pierredutilleux9550 Wow, very interesting. I see what you mean now. Are there any good replies (that you know about) to Kant's critique by other authors who believe in "preformation systems" (or any other belief that supports that everything that exists has a cause)? I'm very curious on how they would respond to that

[@pierredutilleux9550]

​ @Igelme To be clear, a "preformation system" is any epistemology that assumes a correspondence between our foundational principles and the "world." I don't know people that explicitly defend these systems, but here are some revisions or extensions of Kant: Pragmatists like Peirce will say that the causal principle is just one principle we could assume depending on the context - different inquiries presuppose different principles. Later German idealists try to establish a domain of "intellectual intuitions" that allows for metaphysical truths without traditional rationalist metaphysics. It seems to me that Kant is generally more ignored rather than seriously dealt with in contemporary philosophy.

[@Mrfunny663vnb83]

Will you finish your series on Kalam with Rationality rules in the future ?

[@EduardoRodriguez-du2vd]

Since it is actually about the fragmentation of a specific period of time, there can only be two options that correspond to the proposal. either The infinite division of that period of time has already taken place or The time period division is in process. In the first case. Since the division has already taken place, there is a first division and the protagonist is dead. In the second case. Since the division process is infinite, the protagonist will never die. It is the proposal that determines whether the protagonist dies or not.

[@ChristianPhilosophyAcademy]

Way to go, Joe! As always, well done! P.S. Loved the grifter bit. Lol!

[@nemdenemam9753]

Even if these arguments work, how does god's thought process avoid this? Either his thoughts are arranged in some causal order or they are random. The first is apparently ruled out by the grim reaper (according to theists) as it would be a backward infinite causal chain. The second would just be randomness and not sentience in any traditional usage of the word. Or is there a conceptualization of sentience that doesnt include thoughts following from one another in some manner? Essentially meaning that god could have created even though the creation already existed causally before or parallel to the decision?

[@davib.franco7857]

I'm struggling to understand but I am NOT giving up

[@andresjimenez1724]

Joe, I recently discovered your channel and I must say that for some time now, I have been thinking about many of the things you discuss in your videos (generally the theism, atheism/agnosticism debates). I know that you are a busy person and frankly I do not have the intellectual level to speak to you as a peer or even understand many of the positions of the philosophers that you have presented, but I would like to ask you several questions because I think that overthinking these issues (many times with fear) is leading me to a situation that affects my health (I think I have experienced my first strong episodes of anxiety).

[@MajestyofReason]

I have had this experience. The absolute #1 thing you should do is talk to a trusted healthcare professional about this. I did, and they were able to set me up with some anxiety medicine and therapy that changed my life for the better. Seriously, please do this!

[@andresjimenez1724]

@@MajestyofReason I will do that. On the other hand, I hope to be able to ask you some questions regarding the topic in a few days or week.

[@wet-read]

​@@andresjimenez1724 What has got you so freaked out? Tell me only if you're comfortable, obviously.

[@bilal535]

What do you think about transcendental argument, are you familiar with Jay Dyer?

[@anthonydesimone502]

Presuppositionalism doesn't tend to be regarded very highly.

[@dennisduong8314]

One question, if the Grim Reaper Paradox shows that both the past and future are finite, is that really a problem? Suppose that God is timeless and triune sans creation such that divine persons enjoyed perfect love and unity with each other. Maybe heaven is an eventual timeless state of people enjoying perfect love and unity with God.

[@MajestyofReason]

It's an excellent question, and at some point late on in this video, I briefly discuss it! I think I made a few points: (1) Independently, it seems *very* plausible to many people (me included) that the future really could be endless, and so any view which implies it couldn't is saddled with a pretty hefty cost -- at least for those who share that intuition. (Also, most other modal epistemological tools support its possibility -- it's conceivable, coherently imaginable, differs from other possibilities merely in degree (cf. Rasmussen's modal continuity as a guide to possibility paper in AJP), etc.) (2) Traditionally, Christians understood the afterlife for humans in terms of endless temporal existence. So at least for Christians who like to hold to tradition, taking your suggestion would seem to be a big cost. This is the traditional view partly because we are supposed to have resurrected *human bodies* in the afterlife, and human bodies don't seem like the kinds of things that could be timeless; they seem to be essentially temporal. (3) I can't really make sense of going from a state of temporality to a state of timelessness, for then the state of timelessness would be *after* the state of temporality, which is impossible because timeless states cannot stand in temporal relations. The only way out of this is to say that we never actually transition from a state of temporality to a state of timelessness; instead, our timeless state 'always' exists for all eternity. This is pretty implausible, in my view -- even before (say) St. Paul was born, he timelessly exists in heaven with God -- in fact, he timelessly exists with God from all eternity! It seems like only God, not humans, are supposed to exist from all eternity.

[@dennisduong8314]

@@MajestyofReason Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. 1. I too think that the future could be endless. But I also think that the future could be finite. And maybe paradoxes and physics could help someone lean toward one view or another without implying that any view is impossible. For example, one interpretation of cosmology could be that time "began" with the Big Bang and will "end" with the Big Crunch. A very controversial interpretation indeed. Maybe at best, the proponent of the Grim Reaper bites the bullet and says that this paradox is some evidence for (but not proving) both a finite past and future. 2. On a traditional reading, Revelation 20:10 implies that the devil will "be tormented day and night forever and ever." Proponents of annihilationism (like Christopher M Date) or universalism (like Joshua Rasmussen) may have answers to why the devil doesn't suffer in an endless future. Such answers might provide resources to explain the afterlife for humans. 3. Suppose that one affirms that God is timeless sans creation. Then Jeremiah 1:5 needs to be explained: God knew us before we were in the womb, before we were born. Then I think one also affirms that the timeless God knew about us sans creation. If this is possible, then perhaps God knew about St. Paul timelessly in heaven given His omniscience. Your problems are very challenging! Keep it up! I think your videos serve because they help hone on issues that are often neglected.

[@whatsinaname691]

It seems to me that the future oriented paradox includes within it the past oriented rule. Because, suppose you are a random reaper, you know that you cannot kill if there is a future reaper who will kill. However, this also directly implies that if you are able to ask about the future, then there cannot have been a reaper who swung before you. Otherwise, you would have swung in that reapers future. Thus, the future rule entails the past rule. But, if the future paradox is smuggling in the past-rule, and the b-arg shows that the past-rule is impossible, then the b-arg necessarily rules out the future-rule. I’m not yet sure what this proves though. My gut instinct is that it shows that in the future-oriented paradox, the paradox is secretly driven by the implicit past-rule. Because of this, I think that it may be the case that no future-rule can be formed which forms a b-argument but that isn’t built on a past-rule. Thus, ruling out past-rules rules out future-rules, and that rules out the ability to form the endless future paradox Perhaps I misunderstand the meaning of an unbegun set of future time

[@MajestyofReason]

Thanks for the comment! So, by the ‘past-oriented rule’ (PR) and ‘future-oriented rule’ (FR), I take it that you mean the following: (PR) A Reaper acts if and only if no earlier Reaper acts. (FR) A Reaper acts if and only if no later Reaper acts. Now, note that (FR) does not itself imply (PR). Consider a world in which there are only five Reapers, each of which follows (FR), and each of which are assigned a unique day of the week to either act or not: M, T, W, Th, and F. Given this set-up, we may deduce that the Reaper on F acts, and none of the earlier ones act. We know that the Reaper on F acts, since (by (FR)) a Reaper acts if no later Reaper acts, and by stipulation, F is the latest Reaper in the world - in which case, no later Reaper acts, and consequently the Reaper on F acts. And since the Reaper on F acts, none of the earlier Reapers act, since they act only if *no* later Reaper acts, and a later Reaper - namely, the one on F - does, indeed, act. So, none of the earlier Reapers act. But notice that it is *not* true that each of the Reapers follows (PR). For instance, the Reapers on M, T, W, and Th do not act even though, for each of them, no Reaper earlier than it acts. So, for the Reaper on M, (FR) is true, but (PR) is false, and hence (FR) does not imply (PR). Of course, it is true that (FR) *together* with the assumption that there’s an endless series of Reapers implies (PR). But that’s because (FR) together with that assumption is inconsistent - as the paradox shows - and from inconsistency everything follows. More importantly, though, it doesn’t matter whether (FR) implies (PR). Even if it does, there’s still a future-oriented paradox here - we still generate a contradiction. And as I explain in the paper, the exact same reasons for accepting… (Past-Oriented Linking Premise) if the past could be infinite, then there could be a Reaper paradox …equally motivate… (Future-Oriented Linking Premise) if the future could be endless, then there could be the paradox I described [even if that paradox involves both (PR) and (FR)] Even if the future-oriented version shares some absurd feature in common with the past version, the point is that if the future *were* endless, then there still *could* be the future-oriented version - again, *given* the reasons that have been offered for accepting (Past-Oriented Linking Premise). For instance, we can still patch-together a world in which the future-oriented paradox obtains, even if that paradox shares some absurd feature in common with the past-oriented paradox. So this doesn’t change my argument :)

[@johannmatthee5727]

Joe, firstly love the video, but I have a questions. It is in regards to what God knows, or his foreknowledge. Most theists would believe that God knows future events, but could God's knowledge not be conditional on implications and entailments of all the propositions that are currently instantiated in the world? (This would assume presentism, if I am not mistaken) This would mean that God does not know the future because he experienced it, but because he know how to change the present and deduce from present circumstances future outcomes. Then if God has "revealed" anything to anyone, he did not do so because he was simultaneously present in the future and re-laid his observations to the past, but he knew (being God), that by revealing this piece of "information" and altering some other coerces of action, he would in fact bring about what he had revealed to that individual or group. I would just like to hear your thoughts on this?

[@thescoobymike]

Bear with me cause I’m kind of an idiot, but i don’t understand why Reaper (n+1) would have to have killed Fred?

[@goldenalt3166]

Because no reaper before him did.

[@STAR0SS]

To me it seems adopting two principles 1) there's asymmetry in time (time arrow type of stuff) and 2) there cannot be information flow from future to past could be a reasonable answer. There's independent reasons to believe those and it seems they would prevent future oriented parodoxes. That said theists might not like 2).

[@shanem5035]

I think that alot confusion of comes from the fact is that infinite isn't member of the natural numbers. Sequences are a map from a set to the natural numbers 'n+1' proofs don't extend to infinity which why most proofs take the 'limit as n goes to infinity' and 'not n at infinity' . Trying to get a value out of non convergent infinite sequence is like dividing by 0 you shouldn't be shocked when you get contradictions.

[@Lemon-pf3pm]

Isn't this like the arrow paradox? For it to travel 1 meter, it first needed to travel half a meter. And all the same way for every distance to travel, it needed to travel an even smaller but greater than zero distance before. So it can never reach distance-point n, because it never reached distance point n-1 > 0, because it never reached distance point n-1,5 > 0, because it never reached distance point n-1,75 > 0 etc. The answer, it seems, is that our conception of space or distance is wrong here, for observable an arrow can travel some distance, or that paradoxes simply ential no impossibilities. So an infinite past or infinite future is still possible (yet one or both may not be necessary) under classical theism, either because we have the wrong conception of time, map it to the wrong infinity, or because paradoxes entail no impossibilities.

[@alexgustavsson5955]

Presume we assign time values that fit an infinite number, countable or uncountable, of reapers into a finite amount of time such that reaper n+1 needs to kill prior to reaper n. At some value of n, no matter the division strategy, the time period between reaper n and reaper n+1 is going to be incredibly tiny, not measured in attoseconds, not even a billionth of an attosecond but infinitesimal. At these timescales, a photon (the fastest physically possible particle) can't even cross an atomic nucleus. How would reaper n even know that reaper n+1 didn't kill (n+1 in this construction is temporally prior to n)? He wouldn't physically be able to have that information, given speed of light being the limiter to information propagation. If reaper n knows, he must know this without consulting anything within spacetime, meaning that whatever conclusion is drawn from the thought experiment about reapers can't actually apply to our spacetime. If reaper n doesn't know, then the argument falls apart, since the reapers are given an impossible task - to acquire information at faster than the speed of light. In either case, the reaper argument doesn't work in a framework of general relativity, which to our best knowledge is how the universe operates. This is also just assuming that some reaper killing the target can be instantaneous, which is likewise questionable.

[@Phil-Stuff]

Love the thumbnail

[@ILoveLuhaidan]

AI

[@redbearwarrior4859]

I'm probably missing something, but I don't see how the future grim reapers lead to a paradox. It is revealed to Grim Reaper 1(GR1) that there is a future GR that swings its scythe. So GR1 does not swing its scythe. It is revealed to GR2 that there is not a future GR that swings its scythe. So GR2 swings its scythe. What am I missing?

[@MajestyofReason]

If it's revealed to GR2 that no future Reaper swings its scythe -- and consequently GR2 swings its scythe -- then given the set-up, it's also revealed to Reaper GR3 that no future Reaper swings its scythe, and hence GR3 swings its scythe (since a GR swings its scythe if it's revealed that no future Reaper swings its scythe). But then it couldn't have been revealed to GR2 that no future Reaper swings its scythe, since a future Reaper -- namely, GR3 -- *did* swing its scythe. So it must instead have been revealed to GR2 that some future Reaper swings its scythe, in which case GR2 doesn't swing its scythe. Contradiction.

[@redbearwarrior4859]

@@MajestyofReason got it. Thanks!

[@redbearwarrior4859]

@@MajestyofReason what do you think the answer is to the Reaper paradoxes? Do you have a video on it?

[@MajestyofReason]

@@redbearwarrior4859 I do! In my Kalam playlist, I talk a lot about the Unsatisfiable Pair Diagnosis or UPD. I think this is the best solution. A good place to start is my discussion with Alex Malpass entitled “Grim Reapers, Causal Finitism, and the Kalam”

[@redbearwarrior4859]

@@MajestyofReason thanks man! I'll check it out!

[@dramwertz4833]

interestening, im currently studying dialetheism and interesteningly priest uses benardete paradoxes in the discussion of nature of change

[@MajestyofReason]

True! Very perceptive note. Alas, one's modus ponens is another's modus tollens...

[@dramwertz4833]

@@MajestyofReason XD

[@ReasonWithRainer]

In the grim reaper "paradox" in the begging, you forgot to take into account that the grim reaper number 2 could just try to kill you on the next midnight🤷

[@copticfanatic]

This would be awesome to have Dr. Koons on to respond to these new notions in the dialectic. By the way brother Joe is there a chance you might return back to Christianity? That would be amazing brother! God bless you!

[@Bhuyakasha]

Is this the krusty krab? No this is patrick principle.

[@kaile9968]

Instead of presenting symmetry arguments, why don't you point out directly where the error of the argument is? Symmetry arguments don't show the flaws of the arguments directly

[@MajestyofReason]

I’ve done that in my Kalam playlist, and in other published papers of mine mentioned at the beginning of this video - but this is yet another problem that at least tells us the argument goes wrong somewhere. That alone is a significant result: the argument doesn’t work🙂

[@kaile9968]

@@MajestyofReasonThanks! Could you clarify why the unsastifiable pair diagnosis isn't enough to defeat the paradox? If the paradox is simply a logical contradiction, why do philosophers still think there needs to be a metaphysical thesis drawn from a logical contradiction?

[@MajestyofReason]

@@kaile9968 I think it’s definitely enough; in my view, that’s clearly the best solution and sufficient all on its own to solve Benardete paradoxes. Finitists don’t like this solution, however, because they think that if the unbegun condition of the unsatisfiable pair *were* individually possible, then the *pair* would be jointly possible. Since the pair isn’t jointly possible, they conclude that the unbegun condition cannot be individually satisfied, and so there cannot be, Eg, infinite pasts, or continuous time, or etc. And why do they accept that conditional claim? Because they (mistakenly) think that it follows from patchwork principles, or they (mistakenly) think that denying it requires accepting the possibility of an absurd mysterious force that prevents paradoxes from obtaining in worlds in which the unbegun condition is satisfied. These are not adequate reasons for accepting the conditional premise, but finitists tend to be convinced by them. And that’s why they think the UPD isn’t sufficient and why some metaphysical thesis is needed🙂

[@copticfanatic]

@@MajestyofReason Why are finitists mistaken when they think that it follows from patchwork principles the acceptance of the conditional claim or think that an absurd mysterious force would prevent these bernadette paradoxes? They would be correct in their conclusion that the UPD leads to a rejection (or an ad hoc proviso of patchwork principles being restricted from logical contradictions which denies the central feature of patchwork principles) and that UPD would lead to this metaphysical mysterious force preventing the grim reaper paradox from occuring.

[@MajestyofReason]

@@copticfanatic they’re mistaken because if they were correct, then - as I show in the video and my Mind paper - the future couldn’t be endless. But the future can be endless - at least by their own lights. So they’re mistaken. They’re also mistaken because patchwork principles actually cannot justify the conditional premise, as I show in my Synthese paper here: philarchive.org/rec/SCHBPP-3 They’re also mistaken because patchwork principles are false in any case (see my video “New Objections to the Kalam still work), and theists are committed to their falsehood (lest they themselves add no less ad hoc provisos). They also unjustifiably presuppose the falsity of independently plausible modal metaphysics, as Malpass and I show here: philarchive.org/archive/SCHBAA-22 No mysterious force is implied, as Malpass and I explain in our video “Grim Reaper Paradoxes and the Kalam” in my Kalam playlist. And there are many, many more reasons why they’re mistaken - see videos 12-25 of my Kalam playlist, and for a brief summary of some such reasons, see “New Objections to the Kalam still work”

[@silverharloe]

Get out your d20 and roll a save vs calculus.

[@abdallam4039]

I don't understand the paradox. Suppose a grim reaper kills you... well you die, where is the paradox?

[@jamesmarshel1723]

I’m going to foul this up (if you are joking I missed it): To get killed by a reaper, there must be a “first” reaper. Since there is no first reaper you never die.

[@abdallam4039]

@@jamesmarshel1723 why isn't there a first reaper though? if you survived 60s after midnight, the first reaper will kill you. So, suppose you survive for 60s, then the 1st reaper will kill you and you're dead. I am not joking, I just don't see where the paradox starts.

[@SumNutOnU2b]

But... By the time you've communicated their instructions to all those reapers it'll be too late to start

[@northeastchristianapologet1133]

I know this isn't the point of the video, but basically what I'm getting from this is that the grim reaper paradoxes are situations that cannot be actualized and that fact doesn't do anything to show that an infinite number of temporal coordinates is impossible. Grim reaper paradoxes are basically pointless.

[@thescoobymike]

30 seconds in and I’m already confused

[@ellyam991]

I get you, the video lasts 52 minutes and I'm probably 2 and half hours in from the amount of segments I've had to repeat

[@Mrfunny663vnb83]

Read a few introductory philosophy and logic books. This channel has a fantastic book recommendations list.

[@thedude882]

Love the thumbnail! it really shows the agnostic atheist, heavy-metal lover, anti-theist in you.

[@MajestyofReason]

i thought it made me look a little old, but it's the most recent pic of me so

[@thedude882]

@@MajestyofReason that's what you get for learning way too much philosophy.

[@ILoveLuhaidan]

AI has made things like this so easy it feels like cheating.

[@ellyam991]

But how else would we know to subscribe to the Majesty of Reason?

[@ILoveLuhaidan]

@@ellyam991 watching any of his videos and not wanting to subscribe instantly is a crime against _The Majesty of Reason_

[@silverharloe]

how does AI interact in any way with the philosophy involved here?

[@ILoveLuhaidan]

@@silverharloe Dude I meant for the thumbnail and background related images.

[@CMVMic]

Causal finitism is compatible with atheism so.... a beginning of change doesnt entail a beginning of substance. I personally think causal finitism is true but the Universe was not created because it would be metaphysically impossible

[@ellyam991]

How is it incompatible?

[@CMVMic]

@@ellyam991 It's not incompatible. Theists argue that it is because they believe a beginning of the Universe implies it was created.

[@ellyam991]

@@CMVMic oh I'm sorry I misread! I shouldn't be trying to philosophize without my glasses

[@CristianChirita2234]

@@CMVMic "Theists argue that it is because they believe a beginning of the Universe implies it was created." That's overly simplistic. Theist philosophers don't argue that beginning IMPLIES creator, that sounds like a layman apologist type-argument. What they argue is that causal finitism makes more sense under theism than under atheism. And if you're not talking about theist philosophers, I don't see why what layman theists think matters, because layman theists usually don't appeal to causal finitism, unless they appeal to their misunderstandings of science and the big bang, so I don't see where they come into this argument. I don't know what you mean by "The universe was not created", but if you mean what I think you mean, there's some problems: If the universe was not created, I don't see what exactly we mean by causal finitism? Because then in that case the finitude of causality would simply not apply to the universe, meaning the universe is a brute fact, and it would also not apply to everything within the universe, unless you're willing to say that the universe itself is the ultimate cause of things within itself, the universe itself being where the finite chain ends, which sounds like a problem because what that means is: "Things that make up the universe cause things that make up the universe", and I don't see how that's not circular, contradictory, and how that doesn't entail a physical causal infinity within an infintely expanding universe. And that also contradicts the idea that the universe is uncreated, that idea entailing a brute fact, because this entails that the universe is both simultaneously a brute fact and a contingent potential thing that never reaches its fullness (because things will always keep getting caused) and that's a straight up contradiction, not a paradox. It's not a paradox where there's a mystery, it's a contradiction because what this implies is again, that the universe is both contingent and brute.

[@CMVMic]

@@CristianChirita2234 You have just confirmed what I said by rephrasing it in another way. Theist philosophers (NOT ALL) argue that beginning IMPLIES a creator, and that could be because they believe causal finitism makes more sense under theism than under atheism. There are even theists who do not think causal finitism is compatible with atheism as they believe that implies the Universe came from nothing, which ofcourse, is a strawman. Now, I worded my comment very carefully, notice I did not say ALL theists imply this. So it seems your disagreement whilst valid is purely anecdotal, not a refutation whatsoever. By created, I mean the emergence of a distinct substance from another or from nothing by another distinct substance. Both I view as untenable positions. If creation refers to the change in form as we normally refer to as creatio ex materia, then matter creates itself in the sense that matter continuously changes in some way. Causal finitism simply means the causal chain is finite. It's that simple, it doesnt entail the Universe was created given the definition I provided above. Also, it doesnt follow that the finitude of causality would not apply to the Universe, it would apply to the behaviour of the Universe itself. I hold that the Universe is a brute fact, but in no way, does that entail that causal finitism would be irrelevant. Please present your argument in defense of this assertion. the universe itself is the ultimate cause of things within itself I would say the initial state of the Universe is the cause of change. There is only one existent thing i.e. a substance and there is only one non-existent thing i.e. an infinite event. I dont believe in the existence of multiple things. I am not a platonist nor a substance pluralist. "Things that make up the universe cause things that make up the universe" This is necessarily entailed as you seem to suggest. I am a substance monist so I hold that the Universe changes and different changes causes different forms, etc.. which would constitute different things in common parlance. I don't see how that's not circular, contradictory, and how that doesn't entail a physical causal infinity within an infintely expanding universe. Well that's because your argument is based on a strawman. I believe causality is a potential finite but I do not believe in an infinitely expanding Universe. This suggests space is distinct from matter which I would label as the substance of reality but space is not distinct from substances. Space is an aspect of substance. It is finite in extent which is why the notion of an expansion from a zero dimensional point is untenable. So again, the Universe does not create itself, the Universe simply changes necessarily to possibly as a way of attaining dynamic equilibrium or due to the instability of the substance in a static state. I dont hold to any form of contingentarianism, I am a necessitarian. So my views do not entail a contradiction nor circular reasoning. However, I do believe causality can restart given the probability of the Poincare Recurrence theorem and the metaphysical possibility of a closed topology of the Universe. Hope this clarifies. Please feel free to express any other concerns.

[@nomen6]

My daddy better!! No paradox at all.

[@goldenalt3166]

Grim reaper paradox requires each reaper to be a perfect being. If there's any chance of mistake, some reaper will kill Fred. Since atheists and theists generally agree that perfect reapers don't exist, the scenario fails to show anything.