Comment by TheOtherHobbes

> That's a straightforwardly circular argument - creating your own definition, then using it as a proof.

Which definition? That of "God"? I didn't "create" that definition. It is the archetype of classical theism. It is the product of analysis from which we get the famous distinction between existence and essence. Only in God is there no distinction between existence in essence, as the first cause's essence is "to be".

And besides, when do you not define something before proving it? This isn't circular. I don't see where you are noting circularity. In fact, I didn't prove anything at all. Others have.

> Change is not presupposed by science. Various experiences/models of change are described by science, which is not the same thing at all.

Of course change is presupposed. It isn't explicitly stated, just as the presupposition that the world is intelligible isn't explicitly presupposed, but it is tacitly presupposed by the scientific enterprise itself. Science cannot deny such basic presuppositions without upending itself.

If you can't see that w.r.t. change, then consider some of the other presuppositions, like the fact that things exist.

> There are block universe interpretations of cosmology which do not require change.

So much worse for the block universe! It is as self-refuting to deny the reality of change - the very act of denying it involves change - as it is to claim that it is true that there is no truth, or that it is true that we cannot know the truth.

Scientific models - or more likely their interpretations - are not always faithful to reality as such. They can have observational correspondence without fidelity. Interpretations are where people often read in their bad metaphysical presuppositions into bona fide scientific results, forgetting the distinction. For instance, a Platonic interpretation of mathematics might lead some to think that the world represented by their physical model is actually static and eternal, but even though that is bogus, that physical theory can still function predicatively. Evolution suffers from similar problems, where evolutionism is presented by some as a necessary reading of evolutionary theory.