Many atheists assert that an eternal universe is explanatorily equivalent to an eternal God. For example, Sagan once asked, “If we say that God has always been, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always been?”[1] And just recently, two prominent atheists made the same claim. In his new book, A Universe from Nothing, Lawrence Krauss writes, “[T]he declaration of a First Cause still leaves open the question, ‘Who created the Creator?’ After all, what is the difference between arguing in favor of an eternally existing creator versus an eternally existing universe without one?”[2] Victor Stenger agrees with Krauss:
Krauss also describes how cosmology now strongly suggests that a “multiverse” exists in which our universe is just one member. So, the real issue is not where our particular universe came from but where the multiverse came from. This question has an easy answer: the multiverse is eternal. So, since it always was, it didn’t have to come from anything.
…
And, to bring religion into the picture, one could ask: Why is there God rather than nothing? Once theologians assert that there is a God (as opposed to nothing), they can’t turn around and ask a cosmologist why there is a universe (as opposed to nothing). They claim God is a necessary entity. But then, why can’t a godless multiverse be a necessary entity?[3]
Apart from the fact that all of the evidence points to a temporally finite universe and a temporally finite multiverse (if a multiverse even exists), is it true that an eternal universe is explanatorily equivalent to an eternal God? No, not at all! An eternal universe would be a brute fact that lacks an explanation for its own contingent existence, whereas God—as a metaphysically necessary being—provides an explanation for both His own existence and that of the contingent world. Edward Feser, in response to Krauss, explains why God is not explanatorily equivalent to an eternal universe:
In general, classical philosophical theology argues for the existence of a first cause of the world—a cause that does not merely happen not to have a cause of its own but that (unlike everything else that exists) in principle does not require one. Nothing else can provide an ultimate explanation of the world. …
“[T]hings in the world can change only if there is something that changes or actualizes everything else without the need (or indeed even the possibility) of its being actualized itself, precisely because it is already ‘pure actuality.’ Change requires an unchangeable changer or unmovable mover.”
“[E]verything made up of parts can be explained only by reference to something that combines the parts. Accordingly, the ultimate explanation of things must be utterly simple and therefore without the need or even the possibility of being assembled into being by something else. … For Leibniz, the existence of anything that is in any way contingent can be explained only by its origin in an absolutely necessary being.
But Krauss simply can’t see the ‘difference between arguing in favor of an eternally existing creator versus an eternally existing universe without one.’ The difference…is that the universe changes while the unmoved mover does not, or, as the Neoplatonist can tell you, that the universe is made up of parts while its source is absolutely one; or, as Leibniz could tell you, that the universe is contingent and God absolutely necessary. There is thus a principled reason for regarding God rather than the universe as the terminus of explanation.
One can sensibly argue that the existence of such a God has not been established. (I think it has been, but that’s a topic for another day.) One cannot sensibly dispute that the unchanging, simple, and necessary God of classical theism, if he exists, would differ from our changing, composite, contingent universe in requiring no cause of his own.[4]
As Feser noted, there are principled arguments for positing a personal creator God, and such a being has great explanatory value. In contrast, there are no good reasons for positing an eternal universe, and even if the universe was eternal, it lacks explanatory value. That, Mr. Krauss, is the difference between positing an eternal universe and an eternal God, and why, Mr. Sagan, we cannot just save ourselves a step and consider the universe to be eternal.
[1]Carl Sagan, Cosmos, 257.
[2]Lawrence Krauss, A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing (New York: Simon & Schuster Inc., 2012), xii.
[3]Victor Stenger, “Nuthin’ to Explain”; available from http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?p=4754; Internet; accessed 20 April 2012.
[4]Edward Feser, “Not Understanding Nothing”; available from http://www.firstthings.com/article/2012/05/not-understanding-nothing; Internet; accessed 16 May 2012.
Thinking to Believe 
June 13, 2012 at 9:31 am
What does “as a metaphysically necessary being” mean?
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June 13, 2012 at 10:45 am
Save a step and call the multiverse a “metaphysically necessary item,” providing an explanation for both its own existence and that of the contingent world. To say that something is “metaphysically necessary” is an “argument from ignorance” fallacy, and to say that such a thing can only apply to God is a “special pleading” fallacy.
Our best evidence indicates that OUR universe began 13.7 billion years ago. Since no evidence exists from before that time (if “before” has any meaning when time itself began with the Big Bang), we cannot be certain what occurred then. However, certain predictions from well-established theories in physics (quantum, M-theory) imply that there could be MANY, perhaps INFINITE universes spawning from a multiverse. Since the energy of our universe balances out to zero, the net energy of our universe appears to be zero, meaning our universe could be nothing more than a vacuum fluctuation–what one might call “something from nothing.”
Our entire universe can be explained by an inherent and inevitable vacuum fluctuation and built using two fundamental particles and four fundamental forces…or you can postulate some infinitely powerful being that is all knowing and all present that has always existed and is curiously concerned about what we do with our genitals. Occam’s Razor would suggest the former over the latter.
I address this issue along with numerous other arguments theists use to argue for the existence of God in the following video:
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June 13, 2012 at 12:10 pm
Grundy,
A metaphysically necessary being is a being/thing that cannot not exist; i.e. it must exist. Put another way, it is a being that exists in every possible world. If God exists, He is a metaphysically necessary being. But God is not the only such being that is thought to be metaphysically necessary. Even many atheists, who are Platonists, consider abstract objects such as numbers as the laws of logic to be metaphysically necessary.
Jason
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June 13, 2012 at 3:04 pm
Derek,
If there is a multiverse, it cannot be eternal, and thus cannot be metaphysically necessary. So you can’t just say the multiverse is metaphysically necessary. Indeed, nothing physical can be metaphysically necessary because all physical things are contingent. Not only do they depend on something else for their existence, but they could be different. For example, even if our universe was eternal, it could not be metaphysically necessary because that would require that it exist exactly as it does. It could have no more or no less energy; no more or no less quarks. Even atheistic philosophers recognize that the universe could not be metaphysically necessary.
You can’t just assert that saying something is metaphysically necessary is an argument from ignorance. You have to demonstrate how. And frankly, the charge doesn’t even make sense. There is no assertion involved. If God exists, he is a metaphysically necessary being by definition. And as I pointed out to Grundy, even many atheists believe in the existence of abstract objects such as numbers and the laws of logic, and think that abstract objects such as these exist necessarily. The reason to think that numbers and God are metaphysically necessary beings has to do with the kind of things they are. The question is not whether God and numbers are metaphysically necessary beings, but rather whether or not such beings exist. That requires evidence, and if you peruse my blog under “theistic arguments” you’ll find plenty of arguments on behalf of theism.
Jason
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June 13, 2012 at 3:05 pm
Derek,
M-theory is hardly a well-established theory. They haven’t even worked all the equations out yet. String theory was once quite popular, but like so many other cosmological fads, it is a dying theory. But wholly apart from M-theory, there could still be a multiverse. The problem is that even if there is a multiverse it cannot be eternal given the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorems (as well as the philosophical impossibility of an actual infinite). So you can’t explain the origin of physical reality by appealing to a multiverse because the multiverse itself is finite and contingent. All you do is press the problem back a large number of stages. But even if the multiverse was eternal, as I noted in my last post, physical reality cannot be metaphysically necessary because there is nothing about the nature of physical stuff that requires it to be as it is. An eternal multiverse still requires a transcendent explanation that is itself not contingent. There’s no getting around that. Either you have to claim the universe has no explanation, or the explanation is a metaphysically necessary being (eternal, immaterial, etc.).
As for the net energy of our universe being zero, that has not yet been established scientifically. All we know now is that it is very close to zero, if not actually zero. But let’s say it is truly zero. So what? How does that provide an explanation for the universe’s existence? The positive and negative energy, though they may net a zero amount when contrasted against each other, are still two existents whose origin must be explained. They are something, not nothing.
As for the universe being a vacuum fluctuation, let’s say it is. Does that explain the origin of physical reality? No, it simply explains the current form of physical reality. Even if our universe was preceded by a vacuum state of quantum energy, you have to explain the origin of the quantum vacuum. It cannot be eternal. Even Krauss admits that it is unstable, which is why our universe formed out of it. If the vacuum was eternal, then our universe should have spawned from the vacuum an eternity ago, and yet it only spawned 13.7 billion years ago. So the vacuum cannot be eternal, and thus its origin must be explained by something beyond itself.
The bottom line is that no matter what you point to—quantum vacuum, multiverse, etc.—all of these are contingent realities that require a source/cause for their being. Trying to explain the origin of physical reality by appealing to physical reality is a dead-end street.
Jason
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June 13, 2012 at 5:36 pm
How can you say a multiverse isn’t eternal. There’s simply no way to know at this point, and thus it could indeed be “metaphysically necessary.” A multiverse isn’t necessarily physical, either, although it’s products (universes) would be. An eternal vacuum that spawns universes would not necessarily be physical but could be necessary. And it is FAR more parsimonious to expect the cause of our universe to be naturalistic (since we have no evidence of anything supernatural), simple (since we have no evidence that anything complex does not have a simpler earlier state) and non-intelligent (since we have no evidence that intelligence ever emerges before a non-intelligent state).
If God exists, you cannot claim he is metaphysically necessary “by definition” since he could indeed have been created by another god. You may not LIKE the idea of postulating a god creating a god, especially since it can lead to an infinite regression…but even if one were to dismiss the possibility of infinite regression you cannot dismiss the possibility that any god of OUR universe might have a god himself. Furthermore, he wouldn’t necessarily even KNOW he had a god.
A perfect way to illustrate this point is the concept of virtual worlds. We ourselves may be artificially intelligent denizens of a virtual world. (While that may sound unlikely, a study of the advances in both virtual worlds and A.I. shows we are likely to have virtual worlds indistinguishable from our world within a decade or so, and A.I. matching or exceeding our intelligence within about 2-3 decades. And even now we have many more virtual worlds than “real” ones, so it may actually be highly unlikely that we DON’T live in a virtual world.) Existing virtual worlds often have gods that are neither intelligent nor aware they are programmed. And this would make THEIR gods essentially computer game programmers who are not necessarily any more intelligent or “godlike” than computer programmers in our own world. I illustrate this point in two videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBKYVwQl3RQ (which illustrates how advancing technologies will pose challenges to religion)
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax27g5ZKa-w (which highlights the errors make in the Kalam Cosmological Argument)
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June 13, 2012 at 5:53 pm
You’re right that M-Theory is hardly well established (I should have clarified that), but quantum theory IS. And quantum theory DOES have other universes as a predicted consequence.
If the universe’s net energy is zero, and quantum fluctuations exist as an inherent state of the dynamic vacuum, then universes could be like particles that pop in and out of existence in “empty” space. Nothing is created nor destroyed, merely rearranged or transferred in a potentially eternal process. Our universe may be one of a long line of universes stretching back into infinity. We simply do not know…and we certainly can’t say the vacuum can’t be eternal. You’re making claims about conditions we can only begin to understand.
The bottom line is that resorting to an intelligent being (who gets upset with what people do with their genitals, no less!–for those who believe in Judeo-Christian-Muslim religions) as the first metaphysically necessary source is not a reasonable concept, since an infinitely simpler possibility in the form of, say, a dynamic vacuum, could take its place.
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June 13, 2012 at 8:53 pm
derekmathias, you said:
” A multiverse isn’t necessarily physical, either, although it’s products (universes) would be.”
Can you explain how a multiverse is not necessarily physical? It would seem to me that a multiverse is simply a collection of many universes bound together, and perhaps sharing some commonality. But your quote seems to indicate, at the least, the possibility that a multiverse is ontologically different than the universes which it would appear to spawn.
Thanks.
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June 16, 2012 at 12:44 pm
Aaron, it’s a matter of how one would define “multiverse.” If the dynamic vacuum is eternal, that alone is arguably not physical. If you don’t include its products (universes), since they are mere fluctuations that come and go, then you could say the multiverse is not physical…sort of like one can say (with only partial accuracy) that empty space contains no matter, even though it produces and destroys particles constantly. It could be that the vacuum is “metaphysically necessary” while its products are not (except to the extent that fluctuation would be inherent to the vacuum).
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August 1, 2012 at 11:56 pm
The question “Who created God?” has already been answered here:
http://www.scigod.com/index.php/sgj/article/view/76/85
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August 2, 2012 at 8:20 pm
The quantum fields are hardly contingent as their content are eternal. Why evade the fact that natural causes themselves are the sufficient reason and that as Aquinas’ superfluity argument argues, God adds no explanation! But,he tried with his five failed ways- suggestions- to overcome his better argument!
That the Metaverse is eternal requires no such nonsense as that superfluity! God the Sustainer is in the end the reified intent that science denies, but woo-meisters insist has to explain, but He Himself is no more than that Supreme Mystery, abutted by still other mysteries, ostensibly the sufficient reason but in the end just an obfuscation!
Fellow rationalists, do I understate the case?
That whole business about His being exempt from what designed and what made Him rests on special pleading and a begged question!
No such matter then of His having reason in Himself as to His existence and also for the Metaverse is just mumbo-jumbo! Prof. Irwin Corey makes more sense!
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September 10, 2016 at 2:03 pm
Why does all change ultimately require an unchangeable changer or unmovable mover? This has been asserted by Edward Fesser without evidence.
There are good reasons from the natural world to think this might not be true. In the quantum vacuum, particles pop into and and out of existence. According to the math these spontaneous events cannot have a cause and this has been experimentally verified (3 experiments come to mind) and as a theory this has proved to be one of the most successful in all of physics.
The other effect from physics which seems to defy causality is the spontaneous decay of radioactive materials.
I think that Fesser is ultimately just ignorant of modern physics and seems to be suffering from a case of Dunning Kruger.
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June 28, 2018 at 3:51 pm
Brother Jason, since you’re not a Thomist, how can you rely on Feser’s metaphysical argument to counter an atheist’s eternal universe proposal? I, of course, am a Thomist, so I consider Feser’s argument conclusive, but given your rejection of Thomistic metaphysics, your reliance on it is somewhat curious.
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June 28, 2018 at 3:56 pm
Bob Murphy states:
Feser has repeatedly defended that statement in his numerous writings, including his books Aquinas, The Last Superstition, and Scholastic Metaphysics.
Science has NOT proved that quantum particles are uncaused. Science cannot, in principle, draw a conclusion on what does not exist on the basis of what it fails to observe. There’s a world of difference between unknown or unexplained and uncaused.
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June 28, 2018 at 3:58 pm
The last paragraph in Post 14 should read:
Feser actually addresses QM in his books and numerous posts in his blog.
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