http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Leibniz

All Christians don't live in trailer parks. Leibniz was one of the smartest people in all of history and a christian. There are also dumb Christians. I know she is supposed to be a comedian and just joking about social issues, but that doesn't make the generalization any less offensive. No upvote for just regurgitating hateful things, the very thing she is complaining about mind you.

Keep in mind, as you read this response, that I've been drinking. Any errors, I hope, can be blamed on the pernicious evils of that blackgaurd Jack Daniels, whose intoxications cloud the minds of men, but (happily) sometimes open the thighs of women.

That said, I spoke briefly with someone from my department of study on the topic of Aquinas' proofs of God before my graduation ceremony (B.A. in Philosophy) this last Saturday.

I feel fairly confident in what I learned, since the individual I spoke to had spent a semester studying Aquinas at Oxford last year. He explained to me, after my mentioning the utter failure of Aquinas' Five Ways, that they were severely misunderstood by modern thinkers. As it turns out, Aquinas did not say that time, or even causality, cannot infinitely regress. That claim, which is simply false from a logical standpoint, was never stated by Aquinas. Indeed, he is famous for stating that, without faith, there is simply no reason to believe that the universe has not existed, as Aristotle claimed, forever, infinitely reaching into the past. (This was, of course, prior to Big Bang cosmology) I felt rather stupid when this was pointed out to me; it's such an obvious contradiction that I couldn't believe I had overlooked it. Aquinas certainly wouldn't have.

The version Dawkins proposes is actually the Kalam cosmological argument, not Aquinas'.

The version Aquinas presents is far closer to Leibniz's cosmological argument, which depends on the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR)--the claim that everything has a reason for its existing and being the way it is. Alcohol floods my brain ever stronger, so I can't hope to do justice to the argument. I shall leave it as an exercise for the reader. Suffice to say that, if one accepts the PSR, the existence of God ineluctably follows--or at least the existence of an Ultimate Reason for Everything, which amounts to the same thing.

Note that I have not claimed that the existence of the Abrahamic God is proven this way. Not only do I not believe in such a God, I do not believe that this kind of argument could prove such. Nor did Aquinas. Which is why he said it was a matter of faith.


In short, Dawkins fails because he utterly misunderstands Aquinas at a basic level. Which is somewhat forgivable, because everyone does. You have to understand Aristotle in order to understand Aquinas, and that is something that few attempt these days.

wow. remember when this conversation was about jesus and free will, rather than christianity (and religion overall) vs atheism?

coincidentally, i recently read an interesting philosophical point on this exact argument (the free will one):

"1. God is all powerful. anything possible is within his power.
2. God is all knowing.
3. God is perfectly good.
4. there is evil in the world.

traditionally theists have accepted these four claims, but many philosophers have argued that they are incompatible. if god is all powerful, he could have mad a world without evil. and since a world without evil is better than a world with evil, how could a perfectly benevolent god knowingly create a world in which there is evil?

one solution is to deny that god bears responsibility for the evil in the world. supporters of this view argue god created the world, but mankind created the evil. Mankind has free will, and the only way god could have prevented evil is by not giving us free will. but, the argument goes, a world in which we do not have free will would be even worse than the actual world. therefore, god made the best possible choice: he created mankind with free will, which led to there being evil.

of course, this theory does not resolve the problem of natural evil--hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis that cause death and suffering. god could have created a natural world with fewer disasters that kill innocent people. so why didnt he?

Gottfried Willhelm Leibniz responded to this question by famously claiming that this is the best of all possible worlds. admittedly, there are features of this world that are bad. for instance, the existence of deadly hurricanes. however, argued leibniz, a world without deadly hurricanes would be worse than this world. for instance, it would lack the elegant natural laws that govern the behavior of weather."

just needed to get that out and i read this whole thread to do it. im'o go to bed now.