Quote Originally Posted by Thorne View Post
No one said it was wrong to study theology. Only that it's wrong to declare your assumptions to be absolute truth just because you want them to be. If you wish to hypothesize a universe with gods, without providing any evidence for those gods, there's no reason you cannot do that. But why should you? If the universe works equally well with gods as without them, why complicate the issues?
Proof in the nature of the efficient cause. We find in our experience that there is a chain of causes: nor is it found possible for anything to be the efficient cause of itself, since it would have to exist before itself, which is impossible. Nor in the case of efficient causes can the chain go back indefinitely, because in all chains of efficient causes, the first is the cause of the middle, and these of the last, whether they be one or many. If the cause is removed, the effect is removed. Hence if there is not a first cause, there will not be a last, nor a middle. But if the chain were to go back infinitely, there would be no first cause, and thus no ultimate effect, nor middle causes, which is admittedly false. Hence we must presuppose some first efficient cause ... that which can be called a creator.