I suppose that this means that complex thermodynamics were well and employed in the works when man first wielded fire?

Though, that aside, I don’t know why we’re delving into physics.  As I’ve said before, logic is no binding physical law that governs anything; and what you have said before seems to agree with this point.  Perhaps a better analogy?

Miklos Jako in “Confronting Believers,” avers that God can change the laws of logic, but most theologians rightly disagree thereto, and indeed as He is subject to them and the laws of Nature, then He cannot be that Primary Cause and thus cannot exist. Leucippus goes beyond Plato in establising that morality is indendent of Him in rejecting Him as any sanction or its ground.
  Jako wrongly finds atheism faulty, but his finding that the ethics of Yeshua are the scam of the ages is so true!

I can’t help but think that the whole argument is moot.

After all, the laws of logic are necessary, and if we take the ontological step to consider them beings, they should be considered necessary beings. The whole point of the Argument from Contingency is to establish a necessary being (i.e., a god) to ground the existence of contingent being(s) (i.e., the cosmos). Hence, there’s no force in arguing that a god created logic. The idea of creating necessary beings doesn’t even seem meaningful.

Even Leibniz, who was both a brilliant religious thinker and philosopher if there ever was one, didn’t seem to think much of God creating logic.

However, we should not, as some have done, imagine that because eternal truths are dependent on God they must be arbitrary and dependent on his will—as Descartes seems to have thought, and after him M. Poiret. That is true only of contingent truths, the principle of which is suitability, or the choice of what is best; by contrast necessary truths depend solely on God’s understanding, of which they are the internal object.
Monadology 46.

Granted Leibniz thinks that the necessary truths depend on God for their existence, a view I wouldn’t endorse, but the force of the passage is that logic is independent of God’s willing.

Agreed, Visitor.  I cannot imagine any universe that could occur or be constructed in which logic and arithmetic didn’t work.

Occam

Emerson - 09 August 2010 12:52 PM

Agreed, Visitor.  I cannot imagine any universe that could occur or be constructed in which logic and arithmetic didn’t work.

Occam

I see logic and arithmetic as languages man created to symbolically describe/model how the universe works.

The universe works as it works with or without the creation of a language to describe how it works. Doesn’t really matter how the universe works. You may create something to model it and call it what you wish. However regardless of how accurately you symbolically describe the universe the model is not the universe.

If our models of arithmetic and logic happen to be accurate that is just happenstance IMO. The model does not control nor dictate the working of the universe.

Visitor from Elea, not only are those laws independent of Him, He’d depend on them so that He cannot be that Primary Cause, and thus cannot have that as a referent and without other referents, He cannot exist per the ignostic challenge!
Indeed,Occam!
  This challenge with Ockham’s Razor combined means that either He is a useless redundancy, contrary to Alister Earl McGrath, or else He is factually meaningless! The ignostic-Ockham eviscerates Him from the onset,eh?
We must ever get supernaturalists to define Him with facts. We should give no quarter to them, except for the sake of argument.

Gnostikosis - 09 August 2010 01:12 PM

I see logic and arithmetic as languages man created to symbolically describe/model how the universe works.

The universe works as it works with or without the creation of a language to describe how it works. Doesn’t really matter how the universe works. You may create something to model it and call it what you wish. However regardless of how accurately you symbolically describe the universe the model is not the universe.

If our models of arithmetic and logic happen to be accurate that is just happenstance IMO. The model does not control nor dictate the working of the universe.

I think that dougsmith already had this conversation with some others users in this thread (though I confess I only skimmed the discussion), but I have to disagree with you, Gnostikosis. To be sure the symbols employed in discussing mathematics and logic are contingent and man made, but they’re meaningful in as much as they refer to something objective, aren’t they? To be honest I’m not totally sure what to make of your idea that the deductive sciences just happen to be accurate. How do the sentences 2 + 2 = 4
or ((p => q) & p) => q come out to be true by “happenstance”?

Carneades Thales Strato of Ga. [griggsy ] - 09 August 2010 02:27 PM

Visitor from Elea, not only are those laws independent of Him, He’d depend on them so that He cannot be that Primary Cause, and thus cannot have that as a referent and without other referents, He cannot exist per the ignostic challenge!
Indeed,Occam!
  This challenge with Ockham’s Razor combined means that either He is a useless redundancy, contrary to Alister Earl McGrath, or else He is factually meaningless! The ignostic-Ockham eviscerates Him from the onset,eh?
We must ever get supernaturalists to define Him with facts. We should give no quarter to them, except for the sake of argument.

Actually I was pointing out that the cosmological argument doesn’t work with necessary beings, though I would still consider it pretty good as far as contingent beings go. If logical objects (more or less platonicly conceived) are abstract, then they’re causally inert. A god seen as the first cause would have to be distinct from them.