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Topic: Arguments for eternity

	Argument [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
		An argument is a connected series of statements or propositions, some of which are intended to provide support, justification or evidence for the truth of another statement or proposition.
		Because arguments are attempts to provide evidence or support for a certain claim, they often contain words such as "therefore", "thus", "hence", "consequently", or "so" before their conclusions.
		Even the conclusion of an argument can be left unstated if it is obvious enough from context that the speaker intends his or her words to provide evidence for a certain proposition.
	www.utm.edu /research/iep/a/argument.htm (1775 words)

	Arguments for eternity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Arguments for eternity composed a particularly important area of philosophical debate among Greek, Jewish, Islamic, and Christian philosophers during the ancient and medieval periods.
		The foremost philosopher arguing for eternity was Aristotle.
		The argument is challenged on the basis that the "possibility" of creation could be ascribed to the Creator, and on the basis that the concept of "possibility" is merely an intellectual judgment with no actual existence in any real sense.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Arguments_for_eternity (1090 words)

	Eternity (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
		Concepts of eternity have developed in a way that is, as a matter of fact, closely connected to the development of the concept of God in Western thought, beginning with ancient Greek philosophers; particularly to the idea of God's relation to time, the idea of divine perfection, and the Creator-creature distinction.
		Boethius presents the idea of divine eternity as straightforward and relatively problem-free, while Augustine wrestles with the idea and expresses continual puzzlement and indeed amazement at the idea of time itself and with it the contrasting idea of divine eternality.
		Eternity, then, is the complete, simultaneous and perfect possession of everlasting life; this will be clear from a comparison with creatures that exist in time.
	plato.stanford.edu /entries/eternity (4776 words)

	William Lane Craig Articles: Divine Eternity
		Leftow's argument that a timeless being has truer presence is based on a systematic misconstruction of tensed vs. tenseless theories of time, which invalidates his argument.
		Leftow's second argument, that a temporal God could not have decided at any time t whether time should have a beginning or not fails because Leftow erroneously presupposes that in order for God to be responsible for times topological properties, there must have been a time at which He made such a decision.
		Nonetheless, because the argument concerns one's experience of time's passage rather than the objective reality of temporal becoming itself, it is considerably weakened by the fact that an omniscient being possessing perfect memory and foreknowledge, need not find such experience to be an imperfection.
	www.leaderu.com /offices/billcraig/menus/eternity.html (1411 words)

	Theology Today - Vol 47, No. 1 - April 1990 - BOOK REVIEW - Eternal God: A Study of God without Time
		Arguments against God's timelessness that are based upon propositions with indexical reference are turned by Helm against God's spacelessness, as well, for the purpose of bringing theists unhappy with the conclusion that God is in space to reconsider similar arguments for a
		Helm admits that arguments based on indexicals do create problems for claims of a timeless God's omniscience, but be contends the limitations of omniscience resulting from these arguments are not very serious.
		His understanding of eternity is very far from idiosyncratic and the defensive arguments he makes with it are usually quite rigorous and thoroughgoing.
	theologytoday.ptsem.edu /apr1990/v47-1-bookreview6.htm (764 words)

	Incompatible-Properties Arguments: A Survey
		The argument would focus on the point that a transcendent being must be timeless and a timeless being cannot know propositions about the past and future.
		This argument turns on the issue of whether the idea of a "bodiless person" is consistent and coherent.
		All such arguments, though, would lead into the same sort of difficult and controversial issues as does the Nonphysical-vs.-Personal Argument, and so should not be regarded to be among the most forceful of the various atheological arguments available.
	www.philoonline.org /library/drange_1_2.htm (4684 words)

	Favorite Quotations ~ Arguments ~ Ideas to motivate, educate, and inspire (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.
		No matter what side of the argument you are on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other.
		He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.
	www.dailycelebrations.com /arguments.htm (241 words)

	On the Eternity of the World (de Aeternitate Mundi)
		Proclus's arguments for eternity of the cosmos influenced Islamic civilization, the medieval Latin West, and the Italian Renaissance.
		His treatise On the Eternity of the World formed the basis for virtually all later arguments for the eternity of the world and for the existence of God; consequently, it lies at the heart of neoplatonic philosophy and the controversy between pagans and Christians at the end of antiquity.
		Proclus's eighteen Arguments were quoted within John Philoponus' polemic against him, written in the sixth century; but the opening pages of the sole extant manuscript, which contained the first Argument, have been lost.
	www.ucpress.edu /books/pages/9117.html (536 words)

	Arguments for the Existence of God
		Against the cosmological argument (Aquinas' third argument), he argued that the idea of a necessarily existing being is absurd.
		The ontological argument can be made without ever appealing to sensation, but the cosmological and teleological arguments require a careful look at the world.
		This argument from motion is not nearly as cogent for our scientific generation because we take motion to be natural and rest to be unnatural, as the principle of inertia states.
	mb-soft.com /believe/text/argument.htm (6098 words)

	John Philoponus (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
		Proclus' eighteen arguments took their point of departure from the myth of Plato's Timaeus, which, according to Proclus, was best and most consistently interpreted according to an eternalist reading: the surface talk of a world being constructed by a divine ‘demiurge’ is part of the mythical framework, not a literal, philosophical claim.
		In the context of Aristotle's argument in Phys.
		However, the arguments against eternity eventually persuaded Bonaventure (1217-1274) and Gersonides (1288-1344), and impetus theory was reaffirmed by Buridan (1295-1356) and his pupil Oresme (1325-1382).
	plato.stanford.edu /entries/philoponus (5954 words)

	[No title]
		Second are _linguistic_ arguments, based on the meaning of key biblical terms used to describe the final fate of the wicked.
		Third are _exegetical_ arguments that attempt to _neutralize verses the traditionalists commonly offer_ in proof of their position (such as those expounded in Part One).
		Yet, the whole point of the annihilationist's argument is to _mitigate_ the horror of eternal suffering for the lost, not to _increase_ it.
	www.iclnet.org /pub/resources/text/cri/cri-jrnl/crj0137a.txt (4940 words)

	De Aeternitate Mundi 3
		Imagine, they say, a foot that has been in dust since eternity: a footprint has always been beneath it, and nobody would doubt that the footprint was made by the pressure of the foot.
		Chief among these is the argument from the infinity of souls: if the world had always existed, these people argue, there would necessarily be an infinite number of souls.
		But this argument is not to the point, for God could have made the world without making men or creatures with souls, or he could have made men when in fact he did make them, even if he had made the rest of the world from eternity.
	www.philosophynotes.com /philosophy/aeternitate3.htm (759 words)

	Untitled Document
		Plantinga’s argument is clearly motivated by a desire to protect belief in God once and for all from the ravages of skepticism, a goal he would have met if he could have convincingly established belief in God as properly basic.
		Their arguments have force, indeed a great deal of force to many individuals, but it is the force of pathos and the stirring up of intuition, types of knowledge not determinable by strict scientific reasoning.
		Or, whether the argument is a good one or not, he may have been focusing on the motives of the potential or new convert, beginning his path towards faith entirely out of cold-hearted self-interest.
	www.stolaf.edu /depts/cis/wp/huebner/philosophy_religion.html (15205 words)

	Eternity is Not Forever
		Eternity, he said, is timelessness; forever is endless time.
		The implications of this distinction between eternity (infinity) and endless time are significant to things future and things past: it gives us a better understanding of the nature of our existence (things future), and reveals a compelling argument in support of a theistic origin of the universe (things past).
		Such an argument presupposes that the logic behind the former assertion is that in order to cause something, the cause has to be the opposite of the effect.
	home.socal.rr.com /techlab/gotlife/eternityforever.html (2757 words)

	Twenty Arguments For The Existence Of God by Peter Kreeft & Ronald K. Tacelli
		One (Pascal's Wager) is not an argument for God at all, but an argument for faith in God as a "wager." Another (the ontological argument) we regard as fundamentally flawed; yet we include it because it is very famous and influential, and may yet be saved by new formulations of it.
		Arguments for design are attempts to vindicate this answer, to show why it is the most reasonable one to give.
		The argument assumes that there are objective values; it aims to show that believing in them is incompatible with one picture of the world, and quite compatible with another.
	www.peterkreeft.com /topics-more/20_arguments-gods-existence.htm (15760 words)

	Eternity of the world, medieval views of
		In its early stages, the medieval discussion of the eternity of the world was preoccupied with two types of questions, one asking whether the world had existed from eternity and the other examining the concept of eternity and its relation with time.
		Aristotle's views on eternity, especially the question whether he had intended to prove the beginninglesness of the world, became an issue of debate that culminated in the condemnations of 1270 and 1277 by Bishop Etienne Tempier (see Aristotelianism, medieval).
		The argument that the universe depends for its existence upon a superior principle that is not prior in time but prior in the order of things can be found in Avicenna's Metaphysica, and was at the heart of Aquinas' rebuttal of Bonaventure's interpretation of creation from nothing (see Aquinas, T. §9; Ibn Sina §4).
	www.muslimphilosophy.com /ip/rep/B039 (1868 words)

	The Seven Deadly Arguments
		This particular argument involves the question of whether it is in anyway meaningful to consider existence a quality which belongs to an object as well as the question of what it means to "know" a triangle, or for that matter, God.
		While the argument about the big rock borders on the trivial, the predestination/free will argument is deadly serious, and, depending on your religious beliefs, may have a lot to do with your travel plans for eternity.
		So the argument comes down to are we participants in our lives, making meaningful choices and being rewarded or possibly punished based upon those choices, or are we spectators in a divine psycho-social comedy in which we are given the illusion of choice simply so we can stress out about the whole thing.
	www.loris.net /bd2.html (6636 words)

	Eternity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Augustine of Hippo wrote that time exists only within the created universe, so that God exists outside of time; for God there is no past or future, but only an eternal present.
		For the infinite definition, there are parallels that give some notion of an infinity -- of at least a potential infinity, or a series that begins and has not ended.
		Contrast this with the timeless existence definition, which would imply animals are blessed with eternal life from birth (because of their inability to grasp the concept of eternity or even time), which is something mankind gave up when he was cast out of the "Garden of Eden".
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Eternity (825 words)

	Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2002.10.19
		The pagan Neoplatonist philosopher Proclus (410-85) composed a treatise presenting 18 arguments for the eternity of the world.
		Since many of the arguments are no more than a page in length, these endnotes are typically no more than a page away from where one is reading.
		If Philoponus proposes to really refute Proclus' arguments on the eternity of the world, he must engage with those arguments on the basis of premises that Proclus himself would have to accept.
	ccat.sas.upenn.edu /bmcr/2002/2002-10-19.html (1680 words)

	Refuting Buddhism: Arguments against Buddhism and Buddhist philosophy (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		See MEMES for a detailed argument why the meme criticism of religion does not apply to Buddhism.
		Any religion which propagates by intimidation rather than reasoned argument, or needs to silence its critics by the bomb and bullet, is obviously deeply insecure.
		Presumably a Salvation Army officer who devoted her life to rescuing drug addicts and alcoholics would, nevertheless, have to be regarded as damned for all eternity by traditional Catholic theologians.
	www.geocities.com /scimah/argumentsagainstbuddhism.htm (2118 words)

	Eternity -- J. C. Ryle (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		There are heights and depths about the subject of eternity which mortal man can never comprehend; but God has spoken of it, and we have no right to turn away from it completely.
		It is an old saying that "Christian errors are unbeliever’s arguments." Thomas Aquinas, Dante, Milton, Thomas Boston, and Jonathan Edwards were not inspired and infallible, and I decline to be answerable for all they may have written about the physical torments of the lost.
		The favorite argument of the advocates of this doctrine, that "death, dying, perishing, destruction," and the like, are phrases which can only mean "cessation of existence," is so ridiculously weak that it is scarcely worth noticing.
	www.biblebb.com /files/ryle/PR21.HTM (6268 words)

	Debunking Every Argument of
		Argument # 4: The Bible is a reliable historical document because it agrees with recorded history and archaeological evidence.
		Argument # 5: The Bible is the word of God because it agrees with science and contains scientific facts.
		Argument # 6: The historicity of Jesus argument.
	www.geocities.com /wwu777us/Debunking_Christian_Arguments.htm (1025 words)

	Answering Common Arguments About Christ
		The purpose of this article is to reveal and answer a few of the more common arguments that Jehovah’s Witnesses are taught to use to validate their beliefs about Jesus.
		Watchtower Argument #2: Jesus is Inferior to the Father
		By applying this same reasoning to John 3:16, it becomes clear that John is trying to convey the idea that Jesus is the only one of His kind, the unique Son by whom all the earth would be blessed.
	www.towertotruth.net /AnsweringJWArguments.htm (2732 words)

	Reason: The Only Oracle Of Man - 1784 (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		WHEN we consider our solar system, attracted by its fiery center, and moving in its several orbits, with regular, majestic, and periodical revolutions, we are charmed at the prospect and contemplation of those worlds of motions, and adore the wisdom and power by which they are attracted, and their velocity regulated and perpetuated.
		To suppose that God should subvert his laws, (which is the same as changing them) would be to suppose him to be mutable; for that it would necessarily imply, either that their eternal establishment was imperfect, or that a premised alteration thereof is so.
		To form the foregoing argument into syllogisms, it would be thus: -- God is perfect -- the laws of nature were established by God; therefore, the laws of nature are perfect.
	ahp.gatech.edu /reason_eallen_1784.html (7304 words)

	Philosophy Now
		In the late Roman period, the study of Aristotle went out of vogue as Christianity became increasingly dominant; Aristotle's arguments for the eternity of the world and the demise of our souls after death fitted in poorly with Christian notions of creation and paradise.
		As our knowledge of the ancient world grows apace, scholars have become more sensitive to the nuances of the language the ancients used to discuss philosophy and have also deepened their understanding of the worldview within which ancient philosophers thought and argued.
		This was accompanied by a deeper analysis of the subtleties of the language used in Greek philosophy and a greater awareness of ambiguities and their consequences in arguments.
	www.philosophynow.org /archive/articles/20daniels.htm (2816 words)

	Eternity (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		Eternity is one of the topics in focus at Global Oneness.
		It is generally described as a non-verifiable and non-falsifiable belief within a religion, because it is generally accepted as beyond the experiential knowledge or casual accessibility of most people (see esoteric knowledge).
		As a result, the popular mind relies on various sources for concepts about afterlife, arranged below in presumed order of reliability: Testimony of individuals who claim experiential knowledge of facets of afterlife by having died and then been sent back to thi...
	www.experiencefestival.com /eternity (281 words)

	al-Ghazali: Munkidh min al-Dalal (Deliverance from Error)
		The arguments of the ancient philosophers are rigidly demonstrative in mathematics and only conjectural in religious questions.
		It is a proof of their profound ignorance; for, instead of argument, they merely deny inspiration as a sphere unknown and possessing no real existence.
		For in the same way as reason constitutes a particular phase of existence in which intellectual concepts are perceived which are hidden from the senses, similarly, inspiration is a special state in which the inner eye discovers, revealed by a celestial light, mysteries out of the reach of reason.
	www.mcleanministries.com /Deliverance.html (10427 words)

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