To be an exception, it to be excluded from the need to follow a rule. Socrates would have to be an immortal man, to be an exception to the rule of mortality, simply because it is accepted that man is mortal as a rule.
The point about logical arguments, Jan, is that they should not bring in any assumption that is not stated within the premises upon which the argument rests.
So there is no "as a rule" to consider, the conclusion should follow directly from the premises as given, okay?
In my example, the premises are that Socrates is a man, and all men are mortal.
Whether this is true in reality or not is irrelevant, as is whether there is any general rule at all.
It is simply a matter of logic.
The question of how sound the conclusion is is then dependent upon the veracity of those premises.
So, in the KCA, as initially written by JamesR, the first premise is that "Everything that has a beginning has a cause".
This immediately separates out things that have a beginning from things that don't.
If God is the only thing doesn't have a beginning then it is, by definition, an exception from everything else that does have a beginning - as it is not included in the set captured by the premise.
God is NOT a man, neither is God material (from the KCA), ...
Where in the KCA does it say that God is not material, either as a premise or as a conclusion?
All it says is that God does not have a beginning.
You yourself have suggested that matter may also not have a beginning, so how do you distinguish between the two?
I suggest it is because you are also defining God as having causal agency.
But, as argued, this simply returns us to question begging as demonstrated above, as the argument now follows the reworded version, albeit with a slight adjustment that I previously detailed.
therefore God is not an exception to any rule that He commands.
It's not about being an exception to what He commands, it's about being an exception to the premise, as in sitting outside those things captured by the premise.
The premise is that everything that has a beginning has a cause.
God is not included within this (as god does not have a beginning) thus God is an exception.
It's no more difficult than that.
Is He a part of everything? No. God is the whole because the argument maintains that God is the cause of the universe, not bits and bobs.
Not "part of" as in just a specific chunk lesser than the whole, but "part of" as "included within the label of" even it is synonymous with the label as a whole.
If you maintain God is the whole then he is by definition part of everything... Otherwise you claim that God stands apart from everything, I.e. Is not everything.
God has yet to be established as the cause.
No, as shown, you have established as a premise, albeit hidden and not explicitly stated, through definition, that God is the only thing capable of being concluded.
This is why it is question begging.
And is demonstrated (I thought quite clearly) by JamesR's OP, although subsequently amended by me to account for your notion that matter might also be something that does not begin.
At best the KCA in this regard (I.e. ignoring any other criticism) should conclude that the universe is caused.
To conclude beyond that (I.e. that the cause is God as already defined) requires question-begging.
You are simply using the conclusion (because you know what it is) in the premises so you can control the outcome.
It might seem like that because it is a case of question begging.
To show how it is not you need to explain why the reformulated version that JamesR documented is fallacious.
But you haven't.
That is a logical conclusion (as explained by the argument) which explains how the universe got here, not just something whimsically thrown into the mix.
Oh, it explains it.
No one disputes that.
It just isn't proven as truth by the KCA, for the reasons explained (e.g. the issue of question-begging).
It is not semantics, this conclusion is drawn from the argument. God is distinct from His cause.
So now God is not the whole?
Just moments ago you said that God is the whole... Not just a part of everything (using your understanding of what I meant) but indeed the whole.
You're being dishonest. You asked, what does it mean to have function, and I gave an example of what functionality means. I was not trying to prove God's existence.
You said you take the KCA one step further, and as part of that you stated "material energy, unless supervised by a material agent is dead, it has no function."
Unless you were trying to use this as part of an argument, I'm not sure why you raised the mere unsupported assertion.
But if that is what it was, please do ignore the argument I thought you were making.
The KCA does that beyond any criticism, or reformulation you demonstrate thus far.
You mean other than the criticism thrown at it so far, and your defense against the criticism of question-begging being to merely beg the question elsewhere?