[MD] The Dynamics of Value

[craigerb at comcast.net]

[Ham]
> cause-and-effect precept of finitude in 
> space/time leads to the paradox of 
> infinite regression.

[Craig, previously]
> I'm all for "the cause-and-effect precept of finitude in 
> space/time", but how does it allegedly lead to the paradox of infinite regression?  Do you have an
 > argument for that?

[Ham]
> You expressed [the argument] above when you said 
"a creator cannot create itself."

This is a true statement, but not the requisite argument.

[Ham]
> If everything has a cause, then who or 
> what caused the Creator? The paradox, of course, is that the law of 
> 'cause-and-effect' applied to metaphysics would hold that there is no 
> primary source because an infinite series of "causes" is required to create 
> the Creator. The idea of the first cause being an "uncreated" source seems 
> to have eluded the philosophers.

[Ham, reconstructed]
1) If everything has a cause, there must already have been an infinite series of causes
2) There cannot already have been an infinite series of causes
3) :. Not everything has a cause 
4) Every cause has a source/creator
5) :. There must have been an uncreated source/creator

So it seems that "the cause-and-effect precept of finitude in 
space/time", does not lead to the paradox of infinite regression (as you claimed),
but rather to the conclusion that 5) There must have been an uncreated source/creator?
But that "There must have been an uncreated source/creator" does not entail there still is one.
Craig