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[Choking]

What objective arguments for God do you find convincing?

[jimwalton]

Thanks for the dialogue. Certainly we experience God in many ways, so I'm not trying to say that God is proved to me only through logical means. But I find that the logical reasons, the historical evidences, and my experiences work together to convince me beyond any doubt that God exists and that Christianity it true.

There are a number of logical arguments for God. When I have posted these in response to previous questions, I get deluged with refutations. I know there are arguments against, and I know my case is not airtight, but I find the evidences for God far stronger than the arguments against or for any evidences to the contrary.

CAUSALITY. The idea of an infinite universe is absurd. The universe had a beginning, and since scientists say the laws of physics were not yet functional, it makes sense to me that the cause of the beginning of the universe was outside of natural causes. Since time was not yet, the source would have been timeless. Since to bring space, time, and matter into existence would require great power (and the universe displays this kind of power), it would have been a powerful cause. Since only personal causes are capable of being first causes, the cause had to have been personal. (You can never have an infinite chain of impersonal causes—it regresses.) Since the universe has informational data, it would had to have been an "intelligent" cause. So the causal mechanism of the universe must have been timeless (eternal), powerful, personal, and intelligent.

There is an explanation for everything that exists about why or how it exists. The answer is either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause. So far, the universe cannot justify or explain its own existence. Now, if you want to go with a "god of the gaps" argument (eventually science will explain it), I think that's weak, too.

ONTOLOGY. This argument says God is a necessary being. If God doesn't exist, his existence is logically impossible. That is, if he doesn't really exist, the very concept of God is inconsistent, or self-contradictory. But if God does exist, then it's necessary that he does. (He can't otherwise be God.) So his existence is either impossible or necessary. And since his existence certainly isn't impossible, and the concept of God isn't contradictory, then it must be necessary.

PURPOSE. We assume purpose behind everything. We are always asking why. We as humans don't know of anything that shows evidence of being purposefully designed that wasn't indeed purposefully designed. Whenever we know of something that exhibits purpose (a reason for why it exists or why something happened the way it did), and whenever we know whether or not it was the product of intelligent design (somebody thought it up and made it happen), it was indeed the designed product of an intelligent being. And since there are many parts of the universe that exhibit purpose, it's logical to assume that the universe could be the product of purposeful design.

All these what seem like elements of purposeful design in the universe must be due to either physical necessity (the constants of the universe MUST have the rules they do), chance (aren't we lucky!), or design. Well, we know it's neither physical necessity or chance (the odds against this are staggeringly low).

CONSCIOUSNESS. We know that nonphysical mental states exist (feelings, thoughts, emotions). The explanation has to be either scientific or personal. Since science cannot account for how the mental can arise purely from physical mechanics, the explanation is more logically a personal one. Therefore, consciousness is best explained by a free and moral agent outside of the physical.

MORALITY. If evil really exists, then good must really exist. And if so, there must be some kind of standard by which they can be understood and measured, leading us to believe there is an objective moral law in the universe. And if that exists, this law has a source. It makes sense that the source of our personal, objective moral law must also be personal, moral, and objective.

NATURE & SCIENCE. Alvin Plantinga wrote a book called "Where the Conflict Really Lies." In it he shows quite convincingly that what we see in nature much more strongly supports theism than atheism or scientific naturalism. When it comes to things like order, regularity, purpose, personality, fine tuning, morality, and even our ability to reason, there is no conflict between theistic religion and science, but there is a profound conflict between science and naturalism. Naturalistic evolution cannot be rationally accepted. "There are areas of conflict between theism and science (evolutionary psychology for example), but that conflict is merely superficial. There is deep concord between science and theistic belief; science fits much better with theism than with naturalism. Turning to naturalism, there is superficial concord between science and naturalism, if only because it is claimed—but they are mistaken. One can’t rationally accept both naturalism and current evolutionary theory. Both naturalism and evolution are self-defeating. There is deep conflict between naturalism and one of the most important claims of current science. There is superficial conflict but deep concord between science and theistic belief, but superficial concord and deep conflict between science and naturalism."

There are plenty of good reasons to assume God exists.

- God makes sense of the existence of abstract entities.
- God makes sense of the origin of the universe.
- God makes sense of the complex order in the universe.
- God makes sense of objective moral values in the world.
- God makes sense of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
- God can be immediately known and experienced.

By comparison, I find the arguments against the existence of God to be weak.

[Choking]

You say you've been deluged with refutations for these arguments. Is there a particular reason why you don't accept those refutations? Are they not logically strong enough to convince you?

I'd love to respond more and ask questions - I don't fully follow all your logical steps in your arguments, but I don't just want to spout out standard responses that you've heard before. These arguments are angled from a more objective standpoint, and so logical discussion should lead to a conclusion we can agree upon, or at least find the more fundamental root of our disagreements.

To be clear, I'm not expecting to be able to convince you that God doesn't exist - I absolutely respect that on a more personal and subjective level - but I haven't found any objective arguments that hold up to scrutiny and, if the ones you posted do, then I'd love to examine them more closely with you.

[jimwalton]

> Is there a particular reason why you don't accept those refutations? Are they not logically strong enough to convince you?

That's right. They are far weaker arguments and are not strong enough to convince me. But if you want to talk further, we can. Maybe we should take them one at a time, or the posts get long and cumbersome.

Maybe we can start with causality.

The cosmological argument is about causes—what caused the universe we now see? Everything we see around us had to have come from somewhere—something that made it come into existence. Things don't just pop into existence all by themselves. Other things make them come into existence. My claim is that science gives us no evidence of anything that began to exist spontaneously of its own volition. We know of nothing that at any time began to exist from its own nature (How can something pop itself into existence when it doesn't exist?) If it had a beginning, it had a cause outside of itself, whether technological, mechanical, or even biological. Something had to have already existed.

Scientists are on the hunt for "the beginning." They use mathematics to extrapolate back to "the beginning." Using the observable expanding universe as factors in the equation, the theory holds that way back in time, before the Bang, there existed only an infinitesimally small point of no dimension and no matter, where the laws of physics as we know them were not in operation. If that is the case, so goes the cosmological argument, a supreme, supernatural divine being outside of what we know as nature is a logical candidate to be the First Cause.

Ilm al-Kalam proposed that unless there was a beginning, there wouldn't be a present. Think of it this way: Suppose you go to the grocery store and, approaching the deli counter, you plan to take a ticket for your proper turn. But on the ticket-dispenser, you see a sign that says, "Before taking this ticket, you must take a ticket from the machine on the right." You reach for that machine, but it also has a similar sign on it. The third machine has the same sign. And the fourth. This could go on forever (which is Kalam’s point), unless you finally get to a machine somewhere in the line that allows you to take a ticket. Unless there is a beginning, there can be no present.
Here is the way Kalam's argument looks:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

What he is arguing is that somewhere there must be a First Cause, something (or Someone) that was always there to kick the whole thing into gear, to cause everything else. The cosmological argument states that God is a more reasonable possibility as the First Cause than any other explanation.

What explains the beginning? Since such realities cannot be observed with our senses or tested in a lab, and since the laws of physics and the forces of the universe were not operational before the Big Bang, theists claim that no explanation for the universe can be found from nature’s own existence. The mechanism that caused the universe was external to the universe. While alternatives for what that mechanism was are continually theorized and discussed, God is not an irrational choice among the options.

The arguments against the cosmological argument are as follows:

(1) Why couldn’t the Big Bang have happened with no cause? Maybe it just happened. The true with this approach is that science knows of no such possibility. Even biological things came from other biological things, or at least from something that already existed. To think that the universe spontaneously generated flies in the face of logic and science. Something had to always have existed.

(2) The universe is endless and uncaused. According to Kalam’s logic, this is impossible, and according to what scientists tell us, the universe is not endless. We now have fairly strong evidence that the universe is not endless and uncaused, but had an absolute beginning about 13.7 billion years ago. In 2003 cosmologists Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin were able to prove that since the universe is in a state of cosmic expansion, it cannot be eternal in the past but must have had an absolute beginning. According to Vilenkin, "Cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning." It reasonably follows, then, that there must be a transcendent cause that brought the universe into being.

(3) A quantum event of unknown character and means triggered the Big Bang. Yet this is a "god-of-the-gaps" argument that is purely speculative with no substance to support it. In addition, it still presumes the effects of scientific forces in an environment devoid of scientific forces.

So what caused the universe to begin to exist? It has to have had a cause. If the causal mechanism of the universe was not a thing (it was not matter, since science tells us the universe had a beginning and since it was a dimensionless singularity where all the laws of nature were non-existent), and since it was not, therefore, "scientific" (physics, chemistry, biology), then we have to wonder if the causal mechanism was a metaphysical being with the capability to motivate the Bang. This is not assuming a God; I have not already proven the existence of the spiritual realm, but it's bringing into the equation the only alternative to a material causal mechanism: an immaterial, metaphysical, timeless, powerful one. God is a reasonable choice as to that cause.

[Choking]

I disagree that the universe is necessarily finite. I will admit that I don't understand how the Deli Tickets argument applies - I would love a more thorough explanation of what is supposed to represent what, and how that proves a finite universe.

I can respond to this, though

> 1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause. 2. The universe began to exist. 3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

The problem is that #2 is an assumption that we cannot prove. There's no way to know whether the universe ever began, or simply always was - it's a circular argument.

Another problem is, if an infinite universe is logically impossible, how can an infinite God be logically possible?

However... I don't disagree that there must have been a cause for the Big Bang, and that that cause (probably) exists outside of "normal" science.

There was a cause:

Even if we disagree about the universe being infinite, I think we can agree that there was a cause, at least for our current observable universe. Something caused the Big Bang, and it doesn't sound like you're trying to discredit that theory.

I don't think we can possibly say much about what that cause was. I have some ideas of my own, but I don't know how well they hold up to scrutiny. The problem, of course, is that we can't interact with or view any evidence of what caused it.

I don't think it being "metaphysical" proves anything about it being a divine source. Quantum mechanics was beyond our reach for a very long time, and no classical science could possibly apply to it - but we eventually uncovered many of the secrets and now understand more than we could have previously imagined. The "time" before the Big Bang, or outside of our universe, may not follow the rules of classical in-universe science, but that doesn't necessarily make it "divine" or "metaphysical" - it's just beyond our reach, at least for now.

However... I think a lot of the previous argument is about semantics. "Divine" vs "Scientific" doesn't have a lot of meaning unless we have a stronger understanding of what God is, or whether he exists. Either way, in this context, it's a lot of "we don't know", and not much else.

No, my real issue, I think, is this:

> The cause was intelligent:

This is something you didn't bring up in your last comment, but it stood out to me in the one before that. See, everything else in the argument largely boils down to "we don't know", and it's fine to call that God if you want, but I think one of the most important aspects of a deity is intelligence. If it's not an intelligent creator, then it's merely a natural phenomenon that we don't understand yet.

> Since the universe has informational data, it would had to have been an "intelligent" cause.

Information is just a matter of entropy. Entropy can occur without an intelligent source to guide it. If a box of dice are dropped, they will come up in a pattern on the ground with information that can be read (a list of numbers), but that does not mean the information was deliberately put there by a conscious being.

In fact, intelligence seems particularly unlikely to me as a first cause. Intelligence is extremely complex and sophisticated. To have intelligence (particularly that of an Abrahamic deity), you must be able to:

1. Receive information
2. Store information
3. Process information in a logical fashion
4. Make decisions based on that information
5. Experience emotions based on the information received (love, jealousy, anger, regret)

This is a minimum requirement for basic intelligence, but more complicated thought structures require more complicated intelligence - a greater ability to think, learn, process, and experience requires a more complex and sophisticated brain, and so God's brain would be the most complex and sophisticated.

And so on. It's a complex mathematical structure with chemical processes and so forth. For a deity, it might take a more metaphysical form, perhaps composed entirely of energy, but that doesn't diminish the requisite complexity. How could this be the first thing to pop into existence?

[jimwalton]

> I disagree that the universe is necessarily finite.

I agree that some have denied this in favor of the possibility of an eternal universe. Philosophically, Kalam's propositions argue against it. Scientifically, the evidence is strong (if not overwhelming) that the universe had a beginning, and the quote I gave you (Borde, Guth, and Vilenkin) claims to have proved it.

> I will admit that I don't understand how the Deli Tickets argument applies - I would love a more thorough explanation of what is supposed to represent what, and how that proves a finite universe.

It was supposed to illustrate that if you don't have a point of beginning you cannot arrive at the present. If the universe never had a beginning, then the number of past events in the history of the universe is infinite. Not only is this a very paradoxical idea, but it also raises the problem: How could the present event ever arrive if an infinite number of prior events had to elapse first? Maybe if I stated it mathematically it would help. Instead of starting counting at 1, start at the first number after zero. Well, you can't start at .9, because there's .8, .7, etc. You can't start at .1 because there's .99, and there's .999, and .9999. In other words, if we have to consider an infinite quantity of previous numbers, we can't even begin to count. That's what he's saying.

> Another problem is, if an infinite universe is logically impossible, how can an infinite God be logically possible?

Something has to be eternal, has to have always been. Either it was material or nonmaterial. Since both science and logic give strong evidence that it was not material, we are left with something nonmaterial that is eternal.

> I don't think it being "metaphysical" proves anything about it being a divine source.

My assertion is this: since the material didn't exist (as far as we know), that seems to point to a nonmaterial cause. Since time didn't exist, that seems to point to a timeless cause. Since it would take power to create the Big Bang, that seems to point to a powerful cause. Since impersonal causes must have first causes, and only personal causes are capable of being first causes, then that seems to point to a personal cause. A nonmaterial, timeless, powerful, personal cause points to God.

> informational data

There are three types of data: (1) random data, which doesn't require an intelligent cause. This is your dice illustration. (2) Ordered data (12121212). Ordered data doesn't necessarily require an intelligent cause (like snowflakes). (3) Informational data (DNA). We have no example of informational data that does not come from other informational data streaming back to an intelligent cause. When data is processed, organized, structured or presented in a given context so as to make it useful, it is called information. Intelligence is always the source of this processing, organizing structure. Data are simply facts or figures — bits of information, but not information itself. When data are processed, interpreted, organized, structured or presented so as to make them meaningful or useful, they are called information. Information provides context for data. The history of temperature readings all over the world for the past 100 years is data. If this data is organized and analyzed to find that global temperature is rising, then that is information. We have no example of informational data that does not come from an intelligent source.

It seems to me that if we are to infer the most reasonable conclusion, we are directed towards a nonmaterial, timeless, powerful, personal, and intelligent cause.

[Choking]

> Since both science and logic give strong evidence that it was not material, we are left with something nonmaterial that is eternal.

I'm not sure what you mean by material - I don't see that you've used that word previously in your arguments. It probably wasn't classical elements, but we're not necessarily left with a substance that defies logic. Particularly, what is it about God that makes the self-contradictory logic that you propose behind infinity not apply? How can he reach the present if there are infinite moments to pass first?

> How could the present event ever arrive if an infinite number of prior events had to elapse first?

Take your example of counting from 0 to 1, but use seconds. You start at 0 seconds, then 0.0000...001 seconds, then 0.0000...002 seconds... but these numbers are infinitesmally small, so you won't ever make any progress. Yet, time does pass. Seconds pass despite the fact that there are infinite moments between them.

Infinity is difficult to grasp, but the fact that there are infinite negative numbers does not disprove the existence of 0. Time is just another dimension, and if there's an infinite amount of it, then an infinite amount of seconds will pass. It's not inherently self-contradictory.

> A nonmaterial, timeless, powerful, personal cause points to God.

It being nonmaterial, timeless, and powerful are fine descriptions for whatever caused the Big Bang, but that really depends on how you define those terms. (What are you referring to by material, and does timeless mean eternal, or unaffected by time?) I don't think they necessarily point to God, unless the cause was also personal and intelligent. Really, I think intelligence is the true key.

I don't fully understand your argument about it being personal, though, can you explain that more thoroughly? What does it mean to be a personal or impersonal cause?

> Informational data (DNA). We have no example of informational data that does not come from other informational data streaming back to an intelligent cause.

Is DNA your only example of naturally occurring informational data? I feel like simpler things, like the orbits of planets, also count as informational data, even if it hasn't been recorded by intelligence. The scientific consensus seems to be that DNA occurs through chance (evolution and mutation of DNA). We can trace its creation all the way back to single-celled organisms, and there are plenty of valid theories as to how those were created naturally, as well.

[jimwalton]

> I'm not sure what you mean by material

Characterized by or as matter.

> Take your example of counting from 0 to 1, but use seconds.

Time is a different issue. I'm talking about beginnings and causality, not progression.

> I don't think they necessarily point to God

I agree that they don't necessarily point to God, but God is a reasonable solution, and perhaps the most reasonable inference.

It's one of many arguments to show that theism is a more reasonable conclusion that atheism or scientific naturalism. It doesn't prove God, but I feel that it points to him. But this argument doesn't stand on its own. There are many others, and the combination of them creates a formidable argument for God's existence.

> I don't fully understand your argument about it being personal, though, can you explain that more thoroughly?

Humankind is personal, yet finite, yet he is different from non-man. We are personal in contrast to that which is impersonal. We have consciousness, self-awareness, nobility and cruelty, character, feelings, etc.

There are only 3 possible answers to this phenomenon. (These thoughts come from Francis Schaeffer, just so I'm not guilty of plagiarism.)

(1) Everything that exists has come out of absolutely nothing. Nothing nothing: no energy, no mass, no motion, no personality. This position says that we began with nothing and ended with something. According to this position, we can't sneak in that we really began with something, even if it were infinitesimally small, as in some version of energy, mass, motion, or personality. That would be something, and something is not nothing. But this is not a reasonable position. It is unthinkable that all that now is has come out of utter nothing.

(2) Everything that exists had an impersonal beginning (such as mass, energy, or motion, but they are all impersonal, and all equally impersonal). As soon as you accept the impersonal beginning of all things, however, you are implying some form of reductionism (everything there is now is finally to be understood by reducing it to its original, impersonal factor or factors).

The huge problem with beginning with the impersonal is to find any meaning for the particulars. A particular is any individual factor, any individual things—the separate parts of the whole. A drop of water is a particular, and so is a man. If we begin with the impersonal, then how do any of the particulars that now exist, including man, have any meaning, any significance? Nobody has given an answer to that.

Beginning with the impersonal, everything, including humanity, must be explained in terms of the impersonal plus time plus chance. There are no other factors in the formula, because there are no other factors that exist. If we begin with an impersonal, we cannot then have some form of teleological concept. No one has ever demonstrated how time plus chance, beginning with an impersonal, can produce the needed complexity of the universe, let alone the personality of humans.

There are two problems that always exist: the need for unity and the need for diversity. Beginning with the impersonal gives an answer for the need for unity, but it gives none for the needed diversity. If it begins with energy, it ends with energy. Morals have no meaning as morals, for all is energy, then. But beginning with an impersonal, there are no true answers in regard to existence with its complexity, or the personality of man.

If we begin with less than personality, we must finally reduce personality to the impersonal. The modern scientific world does this in it reductionism, in which the word personality is only the impersonal plus complexity.

(3) Everything that exists had a personal beginning. That which is personal began everything else. In this case humanity, being personal, does have meaning. This is not abstract. It gives a legitimate answer to humanity’s aspiration for personality.

> Is DNA your only example of naturally occurring informational data?

No, it's just an obvious one.

> I feel like simpler things, like the orbits of planets, also count as informational data, even if it hasn't been recorded by intelligence.

The orbit of planets is along the lines of ordered data.

> The scientific consensus seems to be that DNA occurs through chance (evolution and mutation of DNA).

It's because "chance" is the only tool in the scientific toolbox. They will harbor no other possibilities. They have come up with no examples, however, of informational data coming from any source other than previous informational data.

I think, as far as the causality argument is concerned, theism holds most of the cards. Theism is a stronger explanation for the causality question than naturalism.

[Choking]

Time and Matter

> Time is a different issue. I'm talking about beginnings and causality, not progression.

A beginning has no meaning without time. The purpose is to point to the first thing. Nothing can come first without a progression of time (or in some dimension, but it doesn't sound like you're talking about a spatial dimension.)

"I'm not sure what you mean by material"

> Characterized by or as matter.
> I agree that they don't necessarily point to God, but God is a reasonable solution, and perhaps the most reasonable inference.

So I don't think this is something we necessarily disagree upon, but I feel the need to make this point. A naturalist first cause is also likely to be timeless, powerful, and nonmaterial. If you are trying to prove God, you should point to qualities of God that do not match a naturalistic first cause, and show proof of those. Showing that the first cause was powerful doesn't really advance your argument, because it seems like powerful (in this context) means "powerful enough to create the entire universe"... which is true of any first cause. The really important distinctions are Personal and Intelligent, although I myself would be satisfied with Intelligence alone.

Personal/Impersonal

I have to admit, I still don't really understand your full argument here. You're using a lot of terminology that I'm not entirely familiar with being used in a philosophical context. I'd love it if you could diagram and/or write it in a strictly logical format, showing [this] and [that] imply [that], etc.

> But beginning with an impersonal, there are no true answers in regard to existence with its complexity

Why? How does an impersonal beginning impede complexity? How does a personal beginning help?

> let alone the personality of humans.

I don't think this is a necessary attribute of humans. I don't see how we're inherently "personal" any more than planets, stars, trees, etc. Is "personality" something that can neither be created nor destroyed inside the universe, like energy and matter? It's very possible that I still don't fully grasp the concept you're trying to convey with that word.

It sounds like you're looking for a lot of meaning in the universe. If there's no "personal", how can we truly distinguish between good and evil, life and death, mind and body? Well, from a nihilistic atheist standpoint, we can't. Those aren't necessary concepts that need to be held in a higher regard than the distinction between branch and leaf, or honey and hive. They're just small patterns in the chaotic universe, that don't have much meaning beyond that which we attribute to them. Of course, I'm not sure if that was your intent at all. I'm going to work on diagramming our argument as a whole, just so we can keep track of who's saying what - this is getting complicated, even with just the causality argument!

> One thing, though: No one has ever demonstrated how time plus chance, beginning with an impersonal, can produce the needed complexity of the universe, let alone the personality of humans.

Complexity (as explained further below) is a matter of entropy. I personally think the universe is deterministic, so it's not chance, but it's time and chaos that produce patterns such as life.

Information

> There are three types of data: (1) random data, which doesn't require an intelligent cause. This is your dice illustration. (2) Ordered data (12121212). Ordered data doesn't necessarily require an intelligent cause (like snowflakes). (3) Informational data (DNA).

I think I disagree with this distinction as a whole. Rather than there being 3 different types of information, I would say that chaos and order are properties of information. This is what informational entropy is.

Information can be fully chaotic, fully ordered, or somewhere in between. Entropy does not spontaneously decrease, but it can slide anywhere on the scale. Snowflakes, for example, have chaotic information (each is unique, and they have defects in their structure) and ordered information (they have a hexagonal structure and a fairly consistent size, etc.) The information contained within their atoms is neither fully chaotic nor fully ordered.

A fully ordered system can be disrupted by any outside source, and that source need not be intelligent. Once that system is disrupted and chaos is introduced, entropy will not spontaneously decrease - thus chaos is added to the system.

When you have chaos within a system, the system can form certain patterns - so long as the entropy of the system as a whole does not decrease. An example of this would be randomly scattered atoms collapsing into balls: planets and stars. From there, further patterns can form, and in some cases order can be added - entropy can be decreased due to influence from an source outside the system. In our case, the system was Earth, and the outside source was the Sun, and a balance of chaos and order created life, which grew more and more complex over time.

None of these changes in information required an intelligent source. They're just a matter of entropy. Can you provide a source that supports your model of information?

> No one has ever demonstrated how time plus chance, beginning with an impersonal, can produce the needed complexity of the universe, let alone the personality of humans.

They have. From a scientific, logical perspective, it's entirely possible that the universe started as a tightly knit ball of matter/energy, that got disturbed by something, and we're still just experiencing the chaos of that disturbance. We don't have all the answers. We don't know exactly what caused life to start, the same way we don't know exactly what killed the dinosaurs, or what happened to Amelia Earhart, but we have a very good idea of what happened, and the theory behind it. We don't know exactly what caused the Big Bang, and we may never know, but it's just an explosion of chaos. Chaos is complexity, and that's all that's really necessary for patterns to form and life to begin.
Also, God himself is complex, if he is intelligent. Your model of reality begins with complexity. Either complexity can exist for no reason, or complexity is grown through increasing entropy.

[jimwalton]

> A beginning has no meaning without time.

Yeah, I'm still trying to understanding Stephen Hawking's statement when questioned about "What was before the Big Bang?" He said (on March 8, 2018): "There is no time before the start of time as time was always present, it was just different." I would need more of an explanation.

> A naturalist first cause is also likely to be timeless, powerful, and nonmaterial.

Yeah, I realize that. But remember this is just one of about 8 arguments/evidences that would turn a person's mind toward God in favor of naturalism.

> If you are trying to prove God, you should point to qualities of God that do not match a naturalistic first cause

As of now there is no known naturalistic first cause since all derived from a dimensionless singularity where the laws of physics and nature were not in operation. Any "naturalistic first cause" at this point is mere speculation without foundation.

> I'd love it if you could diagram and/or write it in a strictly logical format, showing [this] and [that] imply [that], etc.

I can try.

1\. "Everything that exists came out of absolutely nothing." But this option is absurd and unthinkable.If matter can neither be created nor destroyed but only changed in form, something cannot come out of nothing. One cannot expand on what is not there. You can't make tomato catsup if you have no tomatoes.

(a) Something cannot come out of nothing
(b) We have something
(c) Therefore "nothing" was not the cause of the something.

2\. Everything that exists had an impersonal beginning. The thought is that personality/consciousness derive from sheer chemical and mechanistic sources

(a) All that was in the universe were chemicals, forces, elements, and laws.
(b) Chemicals, forces, elements, and laws can only possibly cause different chemicals, other forces, new elements, and other laws. They cannot create substances not within their fields. (We can't make tomato catsup with no tomatoes, or better yet, we can't make tomato catsup out of rocks.)
(c) Therefore we have no basis to explain consciousness, personality, or subject/object differentiation.

3\. Everything that exists had a personal beginning

(a) We as humans are personal
(b) That which is personal can create something that is personal. (We can make tomato catsup as long as we have tomatoes to work with.)
(c) Therefore first cause was personal.

> Why? How does an impersonal beginning impede complexity? How does a personal beginning help?

If all we have is a dimensionless singularity, there is no particularity and no subject-object relationship, only a blank unity. There is no diversity or distinction basic to reality, but only a bare unity about which nothing can be said. All we have is the emptiness and void of non-personality as the ultimate reality. From what does all emerge?

> I personally think the universe is deterministic

If the universe is deterministic, by what force is it determined? And how could consciousness arise (self-awareness, which yields self-direction) if self-direction is impossible? If we are determined, all learning is but an illusion of chemistry and all science is a charade of weighing options to discern truth. If we are determined, truth itself is unknowable because truth is only definable as "what is". Therefore anything that is is truth. I don't buy any of it. I think in the real world we know better.

> but it's time and chaos that produce patterns such as life.

If time and chaos have produced patterns such as life, how can we trust our reasoning process?

> Information can be fully chaotic, fully ordered, or somewhere in between.

But even in a best case scenario, if chaos is the property, we still don't end up with informational data or reliable reasoning.

I still think theism makes more sense.

> They have. From a scientific, logical perspective, it's entirely possible that the universe started as a tightly knit ball of matter/energy, that got disturbed by something, and we're still just experiencing the chaos of that disturbance.

That's not demonstration, but speculative theory without substance to support it.