Philosopher Proves God In 5 Steps (EPIC Podcast!)

All right, so the first premise of this five-step argument, there must be at least one uncaused reality in the whole of reality.

And this is pretty easy to verify in a way, and has been since the time of Aristotle.

What Aristotle basically recognized is that if you don't have at least one uncaused reality, and the whole of reality, then the whole of reality must be a caused reality.

So the whole of reality can only have caused realities in it, right? So if you don't have an uncaused reality in the whole of reality, then the whole of reality is composed of caused causes.

So in other words, these are caused realities that are trying to cause other realities, but they're caused.

They're caused realities.

Now, if the whole of reality is composed by caused realities, then the whole of reality taken as a big, huge set, then the whole of reality itself must be a caused reality.

If there's no uncaused reality in it and the whole of reality is caused realities, then the whole of reality itself must must be a caused reality.

Now here's the problem.

There's nothing outside the whole of reality.

So if the whole of reality are caused realities, then there can't be a cause of the whole of realities.

And remember, the whole of reality's gotta be a caused reality, and there's no cause for it, because nothing is real outside of the whole of reality.

And therefore, says Lonergan, there has to be at least one uncaused reality in the whole of reality.

So what Lonergan's trying to say is, if you didn't have it, we'd all be nothing.

Everything we're looking at is nothing.

And this is where it becomes counterfactual because most people, when self-affirmation of the knower, right? Most people really do reasonably and responsibly believe.

that they exist.

And if you don't want to deny that you exist and that everything else does not exist, then you'll have to say there has to be at least one uncaused reality in the whole of reality.

It's perfectly logical.

And of course, it's grounded in reality because I at least exist and I'm pretty sure you exist and so forth, that the earth around me exists, whether or not there's something here besides me and there's me.

So I'm going with it.

It's reasonably and responsibly affirmed.

Is that you want to ask some questions?

Yeah, I that was extremely helpful.

I actually want to run an analogy by you to see if you think this works, because I've been trying to think about a way to articulate to the person who thinks that if you it's kind of funny right it's like if you drape infinity as this kind of magical uh uh thing over over top of all of these like you're saying uncaused realities you suddenly get something that is uh like this infinite regress but don't worry i know it's an infinite regress but it's not really a problem because like the whole system is the is the thing that works and i've been thinking about trying to articulate uh to that person and so tell me if you think this works or not or how you might improve this is if you imagine a mirror that is being hit by light and then it's bouncing that light to the next mirror and and if you go backwards and say well that mirror is getting the light from the previous mirror and that mirror is getting the light for the previous mirror and that and and so on it doesn't matter if you had a thousand mirrors or a million mirrors or an infinite number of mirrors if if light itself within the analogy is existence or being.

All right, so the first premise of this five-step argument, there must be at least one uncaused reality in the whole of reality.

And this is pretty easy to verify in a way, and has been since the time of Aristotle.

What Aristotle basically recognized is that if you don't have at least one uncaused reality, and the whole of reality, then the whole of reality must be a caused reality.

So the whole of reality can only have caused realities in it, right? So if you don't have an uncaused reality in the whole of reality, then the whole of reality is composed of caused causes.

So in other words, these are caused realities that are trying to cause other realities, but they're caused.

They're caused realities.

Now, if the whole of reality is composed by caused realities, then the whole of reality taken as a big, huge set, then the whole of reality itself must be a caused reality.

If there's no uncaused reality in it and the whole of reality is caused realities, then the whole of reality itself must must be a caused reality.

Now here's the problem.

There's nothing outside the whole of reality.

So if the whole of reality are caused realities, then there can't be a cause of the whole of realities.

And remember, the whole of reality's gotta be a caused reality, and there's no cause for it, because nothing is real outside of the whole of reality.

And therefore, says Lonergan, there has to be at least one uncaused reality in the whole of reality.

So what Lonergan's trying to say is, if you didn't have it, we'd all be nothing.

Everything we're looking at is nothing.

And this is where it becomes counterfactual because most people, when self-affirmation of the knower, right? Most people really do reasonably and responsibly believe.

that they exist.

And if you don't want to deny that you exist and that everything else does not exist, then you'll have to say there has to be at least one uncaused reality in the whole of reality.

It's perfectly logical.

And of course, it's grounded in reality because I at least exist and I'm pretty sure you exist and so forth, that the earth around me exists, whether or not there's something here besides me and there's me.

So I'm going with it.

It's reasonably and responsibly affirmed.

Is that you want to ask some questions?

Yeah, I that was extremely helpful.

I actually want to run an analogy by you to see if you think this works, because I've been trying to think about a way to articulate to the person who thinks that if you it's kind of funny right it's like if you drape infinity as this kind of magical uh uh thing over over top of all of these like you're saying uncaused realities you suddenly get something that is uh like this infinite regress but don't worry i know it's an infinite regress but it's not really a problem because like the whole system is the is the thing that works and i've been thinking about trying to articulate uh to that person and so tell me if you think this works or not or how you might improve this is if you imagine a mirror that is being hit by light and then it's bouncing that light to the next mirror and and if you go backwards and say well that mirror is getting the light from the previous mirror and that mirror is getting the light for the previous mirror and that and and so on it doesn't matter if you had a thousand mirrors or a million mirrors or an infinite number of mirrors if if light itself within the analogy is existence or being.