That's all I'm going to say since the people who I'm hoping to get answers from will immediately know what the question means.

This issue is baffling me.

Because God is not a set of "things" so there is no regression.

I don't understand what 'set of things' means. It seems to me that Theists base a number of the arguments they use to support that God exists through the use of regression to a point that is terminated by God. I'm uncertain how Theists defend the obvious counter to this, that God is no more likely to be the end of the regression than the Big Bang (perhaps less than the big bang since we have evidence of that), or some other explanation that we haven't conceived of yet.

P1) God is magic (from definition of god)
P2) Magic contravenes the laws of nature (from definition of magic)
C1) god is not subject to the laws of nature (from 1&2)

Once you believe in magic then you can believe literally anything.

two words: special pleading

This.

So Theists defences include (but might not be limited to):

1) Use of the tactic of regression to a point where science has to say 'we haven't got a theory' then assert God and conveniently end the regression and deny opponents use of the same tactic to undermine that assertion.

2) Special pleading

3) Magic

Neither 2 nor 3 seem to end the regression without being an inconsistency tantamount to total guesswork.

There isn't anything more logical and convincing? I'm looking forward to hearing from the Theists.

FYP

What arguments?

Strawman. First show that theists ever put god into a regression. Maybe for clarity you need to define what you think regression means.

Congratulations

How is the Big Bang immune to the Infinite Regression?

do you not know what he's talking about or think that by answering your question he will answer his own question?

They didn't 'put God into a regression', they used God to terminate the regression.

It's been used in arguments such the 'proofs' of Thomas Aquinas. e.g. 'The Uncaused Cause', since nothing can cause itself every effect has a cause which can be regressed back to a point where there is a 'first cause' which is God.

As for what I think 'regression' means; I'm referring to Infinite Regression where a premise raises a question that requires and answer that in turn raises a new question that requires an answer etc etc....

It isn't but I don't think anyone is claiming that it is except me, inadvertently, in that post. I think that's a red herring though. Assume that I don't consider the BB to terminate the regression. Do you have an answer to the OP?

I think we can assume he's not employing the Socratic method with that question and is genuinely asking me which arguments since I didn't list any in the OP. I actually didn't think I needed to but I'm happy to clarify.

It's all wrapped up in what you think about when you think about "before." If you think about "before" as a time constrained relationship, then there's no real issue if you believe God exists outside of time. If you want "before" to include non-time-constrained relationships, you're on your own in terms of being able to figure out what is meant.

Incidentally, it's the same type of reasoning that would allow non-theists to describe a "beginning of the universe" in a meaningful way.

This bit kinda indicates why you should have been specific in the OP.

The Uncaused Cause argument doesn't directly seek to establish that God terminates the regress. It seeks to argue that a termination is required and then defines that as God. It's subtly but importantly different from the attempts of, say, the design argument to avoid 'infinite regression'.

First, I would not say that the arguments "terminate" a regression more so they avoid the problems (or perceived problems depending on who you speak to) of infinite regressions.


To say God is "immune" to the infinite regression doesn't make any sense. God is not immune as God is not subject to an infinite regression. God did not begin to exist. Maybe I am misunderstanding what you are saying, but I am not seeing a problem that needs to be answered here beyond what I answered in my first post.

The problem is the special pleading issue.

The infinite regressions start with a premise, and then later shoehorn in the thing they want to prove and grant it the ability to defy the premise.

The argument is not that nothing can cause itself to exist; it’s that no contingent thing is the cause of its own existence. Ergo, some non-contingent thing, a first-cause, or a necessary being, must exist in principle as a cause of contingent things (since contingent things exist and no contingent thing is the cause of its own existence). So it’s more of a reduction or deduction to the principle of an uncaused-cause, rather than a regression. In fact, the universe could be beginningless, just one state-of-affairs anteceding another ad infinitum, and we’d still require an uncaused-cause to explain why the universe exists, if the totality of things comprising those states of affairs are contingent.

This is probably confusing to you because the original arguments for this proposition come from an obsolete physics. This version of the cosmological argument comes originally from Aristotle's Physics, where he argues that the principles of motion require that there be a first mover that is pure actuality. Later Aristotelian Christians like Aquinas identified this first mover with God, which is plausible enough. However, the reason the first mover resolves the infinite regress is a result of Aristotle's physics.

The kalem cosmological argument, incidentally, is an example specifically designed to immunize god, if you will. Namely, the rule being applied "things have causes" is made specific to be "things with beginnings have causes" in which case the rule applies to the universe but not to god.

Why would you believe that God exists 'outside time'? And what does that actually mean? It just sounds like an unwarranted assumption to avoid the Infinite Regression problem. We can't examine God using the laws of nature because he transcends them, but how do we actually know that?

I really didn't think I needed to be any more specific than I was, or more accurately, I didn't think I need to give examples of the arguments that really on God terminating the regression.

Yes, what I'm saying is that theists terminate the regression with God, not that God himself is acting. I don't see how that assumption can be supported with anything but pure guesswork. The Big Bang can't be used as an alternative termination because Theists immediately apply the regression again (Aaron has done it himself ITT already).

Why can't I just apply the same logic to God and argue that something must have come before him?

That is a strange question.

Obviously Mightyboosh is referring to the blatant undisputable fact that the Khalam argument bases itself on everything having a cause, but then mysteriously making an exception for God.

Your question seems to imply that a) the only alternative to the Khalam argument is the big bang theory and b) that the big bang theory necessitates that everything has a cause.

It becomes impossible to answer such a loaded question, especially when answering it would have to mean acceptance of such basic logic errors. If this is not what you meant, a rephrase is probably advisable.

Sure they do. I can go back as far as I like with examples that can be explained scientifically (or at least for which there's a theory) and Theists can just go back one step further and terminate that regression with God and then claim that the regression can't be applied to God because he's God.

This is a good example of what I'm asking about. You say it doesn't make any sense that god is immune to the regression but then say that god 'did not begin to exist', arbitrarily endowing God with properties that mean that there can be nothing prior to God and thereby terminating the regression at God.

What's to stop me positing that there was in fact a greater being prior to god that created God? I'll use Irreducible Complexity to support that since there's nothing that we currently consider greater or more complex than God, and as Creationists often point out, nothing Irreducibly complex can exist without a creator, therefore something created God and I'm going to terminate the regression with that God, not the lesser God that the Christians worship. My God is immune to the regression, you can't go beyond him.