This came to me by email this morning, and there are good questions here. The sender agreed that it would be good to answer here on the blog. I’ve changed her name here, as we also agreed.
Hi, I’m a Christian, but I’m having some problems. I was thinking that maybe some naturalists believe what they believe because naturally the universe just has to “be”, I guess, in the way that a circle and a square can’t be the same thing at the same time. And you can’t really create the fact that a circle and square can’t be the same thing because it just has to be so, which is the height of logic, isn’t it?
Also, I think, like Tom Clark said, a supernatural God, upon further investigation, wouldn’t actually be supernatural because that really wouldn’t be possible, again, in the same way that a square and circle can’t be at the same time. There always has to be a way and means for anything to happen, right? I mean, nothing could just simply happen with no way for it to happen. It seems like this would sort of answer the reason why for everything, maybe, in the way that, if there is anything at all than there simply can’t not be anything. So, because it just has to be, that’s why it is, like it’s impossible for it not to be.
Do you understand what I mean? Also, it wouldn’t matter if you had evidence for evolution or not because this fact would have to be so, anyway. I’ve been obsessing almost every waking moment over the past few days about science and psychology and I’m not sure I can really think of a way out of this argument. Please let me know what you think. Thanks. Heather.
Does the Universe Exist Necessarily?
There’s more than one question there, obviously. We’ll start by considering whether it’s possible that the universe exists just because it’s one of those things that had to be. Is the universe something that exists necessarily? Actually Heather wrote a significant piece of the answer to this herself, in the second paragraph of her email. She may not have intended it to be used in this connection, but it’s an insight that’s important for this issue:
There always has to be a way and means for anything to happen, right? I mean, nothing could just simply happen with no way for it to happen.
That’s exactly right. I would word it this way: everything that begins to exist must have a cause, or every event must have a cause. God is not an event, and his existence does not have a beginning, so his existence does not require a cause; he is eternal.
There was a time when scientists and other thinkers thought the universe might be eternal and beginningless. That was before Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe was expanding outward at great speed. Astronomers modeled what this must have meant going backward in time. It led to the rather surprising conclusion that billions of years ago, the entire universe must have been compressed into an almost infinitely small volume. That in turn implied that the universe began in a huge explosion, which astronomer Fred Hoyle derisively called a “Big Bang.” As you know, the name stuck.
This was rather upsetting to some scientists: they knew all too well what it implied, which I’ll come back to in a moment. There was hot debate over the Big Bang vs. Steady State theories until a couple of scientists at Bell Labs noticed a “cosmic microwave background radiation”—you could think of it as a small degree of heat—distributed everywhere throughout the cosmos. It was exactly what had been predicted by the Big Bang theory. That and some further research confirmed the Big Bang theory.
This means the universe began to exist. And remember, whatever begins to exist must have a cause. The universe could not have caused itself. You can’t even coherently describe what it would mean for something to cause its own beginning. It would have to exist before it existed if it were to do that! Since then the question has been what or who caused the Big Bang.
Is it possible, then, for the universe not to be? Certainly. Go back 15 billion or so years, and there was no universe. The universe’s non-existence is surely possible, since it did not exist more than about 15 billion years ago.*
Is God Part of Nature?
It will come as no surprise that I think the cause of the universe was God. I had been convinced on other grounds that God was the Creator, long before I became aware of things like I just discussed. But the Big Bang suggests a very powerful and personal God as the “beginner” (the one who begins) the universe. Whatever caused the Big Bang had to be immensely powerful, since the effect of his or its work was to create all the hundred billion galaxies that exist. The cause also had to be personal, though. If it were something impersonal, with no ability to choose, and yet it had the ability to cause the Big Bang, it would not have been able to choose to exercise that ability, or choose not to exercise it, or choose when to exercise it. This impersonal cause could not have existed without immediately causing the Big Bang, for where there is a cause capable of producing an effect, the effect necessarily happens immediately (taking all factors into account, obviously). The cause of the universe and the universe itself would be the same age, about 15 billion years old. This seems strange and highly unlikely; and it leads to further questions about what caused the cause.
This impersonal cause almost sounds like the picture of God Heather is wrestling with in the second paragraph, actually. It’s a being that’s part of the machine. A personal God who created the universe, not as part of himself but as a separate thing from himself, is not part of the machine.
But then how does God insert himself into the actions of the machine? He does it by his own spiritual power, which he first exercised through creation and continues to employ up until now.
Is That Really An Answer?
Is that a satisfactory answer? Not to some people: they want that “how” answer to be a lot more descriptive than that. Here’s the problem, though. When God works in nature, it involves an interface between his spiritual essence and the natural world we live in, which are two entirely different things. Part of the transaction has to take place on the spiritual side of that interface. People who press for a more descriptive “how” are asking for something that looks like a natural description, but if we gave a natural description, then we wouldn’t be talking about God, we would be changing the subject. The one who asks “how could God do this?” must expect and allow that the answer not be entirely in the form of a physical description. This is as logically necessary as that a square cannot be a circle.
To say otherwise would be analogous to asking how a magnet attracts iron, and adding “but you cannot answer in terms of the properties of a magnet.” If we want to know how God does something, part of the answer has to be given in terms of who and what God is. Thus it is simply wrong to expect the explanation to work entirely as we’re accustomed to scientific explanations working.
The next objection I’ve heard, following this, has often been, “But then you have no explanation!” To which I say, “God is the explanation! Do you insist that explanations involving God be just like physical explanations? Then you’re demanding that the way God the creator works must be just like the way his creation works. It’s saying that you’ll consider God as an explanation, as long as this God isn’t God. That doesn’t quite seem logical, does it?“
God is not one of us. To accept that is to be appropriately humble before him.
The Evolution Question
Your third question, Heather, was whether evolution itself might have been a necessity. I don’t think there’s anyone, even among highly committed evolutionists, who would say that the origin of life was inevitable in a universe that’s only natural. It happened (they say), and we’re, shall we say, the lucky beneficiaries, but it didn’t have to happen that way. If the origin wasn’t inevitable or necessary, then the whole rest of it could not have been either.
For this (and also to some extent for the first question) I would refer you here to read about the incredible odds against our universe being suitable for any complexity at all, much less the complexity of life.
The Other Big Question
You also asked, “Do you understand what I mean?” I hope I do. It’s always possible that I missed it completely, and that none of this is much help for what’s really on your mind. If so, please let me know and I’ll take another shot at it.
*Some think there might have been a different universe before the Big Bang. Rather than taking space to address that here I will refer you to these articles by William Lane Craig, especially The Existence of God and the Beginning of the Universe.
Heather,
I want to address the idea that the supernatural is “impossible.”
In their derision of the miraculous, naturalists never state their assumption — that the universe is a closed system that cannot be acted upon from the outside. But if God predates the universe, He’s not bound by its rules — and the laws of physics are simply the rules for this universe.
One of the fundamental rules of physics is that matter and energy can be neither created nor destroyed — and yet both happened in the beginning. If God broke that rule, He can break any rule.
Of course, most miracles do not even require violating the laws of physics. They’re simply deviations from the way things usually work.
Take the parting of the Red Sea. Water doesn’t just stop flowing, and for it to do so would violate the laws of physics. But for it to stop because a force was exerted on it would not.
ChrisB,
No, not as far as we know: as Tom put it, before the Big Bang “the entire universe must have been compressed into an almost infinitely small volume”, so the matter and energy that was so compressed was not “created or destroyed”, according to our best understanding. As far as physics itself, we can’t even say anything about t=0s or even t=.1-10000s because at that point all the matter and energy are below the Planck scale and we don’t know how matter or energy would act at that scale. So we cannot say that at t=0 or even ‘before’ t=0 there was ‘nothing’ because either (1) there was matter and energy at infinite density or (2) we cannot conclude anything at all from what we know, so we cannot say there was absolute nothing or relative nothing. As such, the cosmological information we have does not validate a theistic understanding.
Kevin, “according to our best understanding” we have no clue whether matter was created or destroyed. I think Genesis 1 makes it clear that it was created. As you have pointed out, we have no other information, and your statement,
… is unsupportable, it goes far beyond what we can say on our best scientific evidence.
I think you got around to saying that at the end. I thought I would re-emphasize it.
The cosmological information we have certainly does not invalidate a theistic understanding. Add into the mix that effects must have causes, and you begin to find considerable support for theism there.
I’ll elaborate a bit. If matter and energy were at infinite density at t=0, then the Big Bang had to happen instantly when that condition came about. There could have been no moments, or even fractions of Planck time, during which it remained at that state. If there were, then one would have to explain how it was able to wait, and what there was that triggered the Big Bang after some time.
So t=0, the moment of the Bang, is a clear beginning of something. What caused it?
Tom,
Your argument assumes that the exact same causal constraints that are present in our universe are active in the exact same way when the universe is below the Planck scale, which is a highly questionable and, in your own words, is an “unsupportable” assumption. I do think Wes Morriston’s argument in Causes and Beginnings in the Kalam Argument: Reply to Craig is pretty convincing. Also, it is possible to think of the ‘time’ prior to the Big [Whatever] as undifferentiated time, as it is entirely possible that events are happening, like virtual particles coming in and out of existence. In such a state, given the absolute lack of periodic movements, these events are not occuring ‘in time’. If we have learned anything from the last century of physics it is that the universe, even in its current state, is very unintuitive at the quantum level, so why not more so at below the quantum level?
Beyond pointing to our ignorance of the laws that are active in those kinds of conditions (those are certainly different conditions than a tiger appearing in my living room ex nihilo in current conditions), your argument also assumes that efficient causation is the only cause that could bring about the Big Bang (or the Big Expansion or the Big Bubble or whatever it is). Formal causation is exactly ‘instantaneous’ insofar as the emerging formation comes about simultaneously with the coming about of the essential conditions, thus not requiring the temporal order of efficient causation. With this understanding, there would not have to be a question of something ‘waiting’ to cause the expansion, but simply an unspecified amount of time elapsing before the right conditions to come about for the expansion occurs (whatever those conditions are; again, this is an area of ignorance that does not require theism, though, as we have both said, it does not preclude theism). I would imagine that there are many examples of such formal causation that do not require some sentient being ‘deciding’ to bring a being into existence.
If anything, the above ‘intuitively’ seems just as possible as the existence of a supernatural being who can create whole cosmos ex nihilo by a mere word.
Kevin,
The primordial singularity shouldn’t be considered an eternal lump of matter/energy. One of the questions cosmologists ask is where it came from. One suggestion has been a quantum fluctuation — suggesting that they recognize the need to overcome the creation of matter/energy inherent in this event.
As Tom pointed out, if this singularity existed prior to the expansion, it would need a cause to begin expanding.
Yes, many laws of physics break down at this scale, but causality is not one of them.
ChrisB,
“Cosmologists” are divided on the issue and, at present, the possible conjectures are hypothetical, not demonstrated (or, more strongly put, currently not demonstrable). It could be that the singularity emerged out of some quantum ‘foam’ (which may be the same thing as saying that it emerged from a swarm of virtual particles) which is also what, more or less, has existed eternally. The point remains (the point that I have been saying over and over again) that the current evidence neither validates nor invalidates theism and, as such, should be dropped as ‘evidence’ for God’s existence.
Now I really need to know how you know how “physics break[s] down at [that] scale”? Such is not a claim made by any cosmologist who appreciates the limits of what we can know, though they certainly make conjectures enough to entertain a number of possibilities. Causation is rather different at the quantum scale (again, very unintuitive), so it is very hard to say what it may be like below the Planck scale. Your certitude on this matter, I’m sure, rests on the same kind of ‘intuitive’ certainty that Craig claims for the principle of causation, which Morriston strongly argues against.
Kevin,
You are correct in saying that I have assumed that causal constraints “before” the Big Bang are similar to what they are now. The Morriston paper shows that we need not think of them that way. At the same time it does not show that there is another preferred way to think of it; we just do not know. It seems to me that it’s a matter of plausibility, not of dispositive proof.
I don’t know that the definition of time requires periodic movements, nor do I think there is any positive reason to believe virtual particles were coming in and out of existence before the Big Bang. Virtual particles do that today, but they do it in space, which presumably did not exist prior to the Big Bang. Further, they do it in vacuum conditions, which (despite possible confusion) is not the same as the nothingness that may well have preceded the Big Bang. (I am using time words such as “before” the Big Bang advisedly.)
I do not see how this could eliminate the problem that where conditions obtain to cause an effect, it necessarily happens without delay. That was what I was pointing out at that point in my discussion.
If this were the only reason to believe in God I might agree with you on that.
Are you suggesting that any argument that is not apodictically certain should be dropped from evidence? Seems a little stiff to me…
I think what was meant was that the laws of physics that are currently understood, are thought not to apply at the densities and pressures that applied before Planck time. That is indeed why we do not know what happened in the first 10^-43 second—which you said yourself a few comments ago.
ChrisB’s certitude is entirely appropriate, for it is completely accurate to say that the laws of physics that applied during that phase are unknown to us. I don’t think you ought to blame Craig for everything, my friend, though that seems to be your penchant.
Tom,
That’s true, which is what I’ve been saying all along. But it is hard to determine what views are plausible when we cannot have any “proof” one way or the other.
If there is any kind of activity in the singularity then there will be virtual particles. Are we to assume that the singularity was in a state of complete and enduring inactivity? I’m also curious about whether a singularity that brings energy and matter below the Planck scale is needed for cosmology. It is part of the ‘standard’ model, but I’m not entirely sure that it is the only plausible model and I know others do not require a singularity. The others do not get much ‘air time’ so I’m not sure about their relative merits and demerits. Which again just muddles the waters again…
Since we are still ignorant of what conditions are needed in order to cause the expansion we cannot know why there would be a ‘delay’. Since we are essentially ignorant of what exactly is happening in a singularity then we cannot in good scientific conscience demand that there has to be an initiator in order for things to make sense. And that’s what it comes down to: theists must argue that a non-theistic approach downright doesn’t make sense given the data. Otherwise, as I’ve been trying to argue, things are very indeterminate because the data does not point in one direction or another.
No, I’m not saying that any kind of ‘certainty’ is needed. I am saying that since the crucial part of the argument heavily (if not exclusively) relies on a part of the Big Bang model (standard or otherwise) about which we know next to nothing, then it is very weak at best, impotent at worst. It is because it rests on such incredibly tentative premises that it cannot be properly thought of as ‘evidence’ for theism since it is, as far as we know, just as plausibly (but similarly based on incredibly tentative premises) ‘evidence’ for non-theism. If ‘evidence’ is to be believed at least relatively correlated with the strength of its premises (I know, a disputed idea) then we cannot put much thrift into this theistic argument.
You rightly say that this isn’t the only argument for God’s existence, but I for one have never found the other arguments very convincing as they all seem to rest (much like this one) on questionable assumptions. But I’m certainly not so deluded as to think that because I do not find them cogent that they then essentially are impotent; that I could not be very wrong in my belief and analysis of the arguments. This could then lead to a very interesting discussion of how we find arguments cogent or impotent, especially if we are so thoroughly convinced that the argument is in fact very good evidence for belief A. As far as I’ve looked into that issue (which admittedly is not much at all) the ‘strength’ of the logic is rarely the most important factor, and perhaps for good reasons (though also for bad in the case of intellectual sloth; but does all rejection of what some think are cogent arguments necessarily mean that the other is being intellectually slothful?). Anyway, moving on in this issue…
Just to make sure I understand your point: since we are ignorant of what physical laws are active at the point of infinite density below the Planck scale, then ChrisB’s speculation that linear causality is present at this point in time is “appropriate”? Why can’t I similarly ‘appropriately’ and with “certitude” say that linear causation is not present in this state (which may ‘appropriately’ invalidate your own argument about causality)?
Given that Craig is both a big name and is oft quoted (even by yourself in this post, but certainly by so many other Evangelical apologists) about issues of cosmology within Evangelical circles, I would think that ChrisB’s dependence on Craig is a highly plausible possibility. I’ll admit that it is an assumption I made with a high degree of certainty, but ChrisB hasn’t denied it and nothing that I argued rests on whether that assumption is right or wrong. Do you have an alternative author or argument for the necessity of causality when the cosmos is at infinite density to put in its place?
@Kevin Winters:
This is most strange to hear you say this. You speak as if you know what was going on in the singularity. You speak as if there was quantum vacuum activity in the densest imaginable circumstance—no even far denser than that! You speak as if the singularity was doing something for some period of time, when (if causality has remained consistent), the singularity could not have lasted longer than the most indefinably tiny fraction of an instant. And above all that, you’re talking about the singularity when the previous discussion on virtual particles was about what might have led to the singularity, not what was in it!
It’s still a matter of plausibility in my mind, and the fact of the Big Bang increases the plausibility of theism. I don’t remember if it was you or Morriston who said that a God is no less implausible than, say, a different kind of causality before Planck time. I respond that the fact we would have to posit a different sort of causality in that period in order to avoid belief in God presents a problem of the sort that increases the plausibility of God.
What is this argument against theism you are hinting at, given what we know?
The Big Bang provides a basis for one kind of argument for theism. It takes commonly (even if not universally) accepted facts as premises: that the singularity has no known cause, that what begins to exist must have a cause, and that effects do not cause themselves. These lead to an increased plausibility for theism. Are you saying there is an anti-theistic argument attached to the Big Bang, using anything like commonly accepted beliefs? What is this argument? Or are you saying “as far as we know,” as in, “we don’t know everything about this so let’s bear in mind we might be wrong”?
About ChrisB’s certitude, you had asked how he knows that the physics break down at that scale, as if he had said something outrageous. Now you’ve changed the question. His certitude about the physics breaking down is completely appropriate, as I have already written. My defense of his certitude, you will recall, was in response to this challenge from you:
The physics do break down at that scale, in the sense that we do not have any way of knowing what was going on in conditions like that. And William Lane Craig is only one of dozens of sources I’ve read that affirm that. When you singled out Craig as being (I use this word from your perspective, not mine) to blame for ChrisB’s statement on the physics breaking down before Planck time, you were taking an ill-aimed shot.
I note in passing, though, that on this point what Craig says is very consistent with scientific consensus. It’s even consistent with what you’ve been insisting all through this thread! Odd that you would chide us for agreeing with Craig about it…
Tom,
Sorry for the rather long delay in responding: I wanted to take some time rather than fire off a quick response…and then I got caught up in other things, but I did want to answer at least one more time (and more after that might not be worthwhile for either of us).
But since neither of us knows “what was going on in the singularity” (as has been repeated multiple times in this thread) then neither of our hypothetical possibilities has any grounding (something I’m more than comfortable with). This makes the following statement rather suspect:
How do we determine “plausibility” when, as has been repeated again and again, we don’t know “what was going on in the singularity”? How can you determine plausibility from near (if not complete) ignorance? Or, more strongly put, how is my hypothesis of a dynamic singularity any less plausible than your hypothesis that, given the state of the singularity (which we both claim we don’t really know), it would instantly expand, when, again, we both claim ignorance and, even more, when we both admit that, given the current data, we cannot know? How do you calculate probability when there are no numbers to calculate?
I’m not trying to “avoid” anything (whatever others may be doing). I’m just saying that, given what we know (or, better put, what we don’t know), we cannot determine any kind of reliable probability or plausibility in relation to the Big Bang and God’s existence. Any attempt to say that it does “in fact” increase the probability/plausibility of God’s existence is entirely ungrounded given the (at present) essential ignorance of the matters at hand.
No, I’m saying that, given our ignorance, we cannot say one way or the other. Put most simply: you cannot determine probability/plausibility from ignorance. Even given your argument before you say the above, we essentially cannot know if what is “commonly accepted” is in fact present in the singularity. As such, any claims of the Big Bang proving any aspect of God’s existence is essentially unfounded.
Forgive me, I should have used italics: “I really need to know how you know how “physics break[s] down at [that] scale”?” I’ve said again and again that physics does break down, but ChrisB was trying to say how physics breaks down, i.e. in claiming that causality as it is currently understood is still present (and somehow that this is obvious). But, as we’ve said many times, we don’t know how it breaks down in the singularity, so his hypothesis is unfounded (yes, as is mine). As such, I was not “chid[ing]” Craig or ChrisB on this issue, but on what I’ve said multiple times: given our ignorance we cannot claim that the Big Bang (or the hypothetical singularity) proves or disproves God’s existence and, even more, that we do not have any data by which we can determine probability/plausibility.