New Scientist published an article last week explaining why the universe must have had a beginning. While they end the article with speculative physics that try to place that beginning so far back into the past so as to be virtually indistinguishable from an eternity ago, a beginning to the universe remains. And if physical reality began to exist a finite time ago, then it must have a transcendent, immaterial, eternal, spaceless cause.
December 11, 2012
New Scientist on why the universe must have had a beginning
Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Cosmological Argument, Science, Theistic Arguments[19] Comments
Thinking to Believe 
December 11, 2012 at 10:09 am
Another valid conclusion is “at least some particular physical things don’t require causes.” The weighty question is whether you have reason to think uncaused physical pnenomena is more extraordinary than a transcendent force, or vice versa.
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December 11, 2012 at 10:32 am
What if that was my response to you when you heard a knock on your door?: “There’s no one at the door. No one caused the knock. It just knocked itself. Some physical things like door knocking don’t require physical causes.”
I doubt you would buy it. In fact, you wouldn’t buy that explanation for any physical phenomena within the universe, so why does everything change when it comes to explaining the cause of the entire universe? Now suddenly, you become skeptical of one of the most certain metaphysical principles we know: causality. Special pleading.
I’m sure you consider yourself rational, so tell me how it is rational to believe that something can come from absolutely nothing, uncaused? That is irrational.
Jason
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December 11, 2012 at 10:40 am
The explanation “the door knocking was uncaused” and the explanation “an entity transcendent to physical reality knocked on your door” are both very extraordinary.
Causality in metaphysics is a dynamic and ongoing discussion, not some settled dogma, and appealing to “acausality for some things” is as much special pleading as invoking an entity transcendent to physical reality.
I’m a Christian, but there’s no won ground here. We can preach to our fellow choir members all the louder, but this doesn’t advance theology.
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December 11, 2012 at 2:02 pm
What is the Title of that article? It requires one to register to read it. I don’t want to register 🙂 But would like the know the title of the article.
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December 11, 2012 at 4:21 pm
Dane, it’s titled “Before the big bang: something or nothing”. While it does require a registration, it’s free.
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December 11, 2012 at 4:24 pm
Stan,
While it is extraordinary to think that the causal principle fails with respect to the origin of physical reality given the uniformity of our experience of this causal principle and the irrationality of something coming into being from absolutely nothing without a sufficient reason, why should we think the existence of a transcendent, perfect being is extraordinary? Or perhaps the better question is why a perfect transcendent being should be thought of as more extraordinary than an uncaused effect?
While one might argue that what makes God extraordinary is that there is nothing else like him that we encounter in our experience, surely that is not as bad as maintaining an uncaused effect and something coming from nothing – since both of those violate our uniform experience. Surely something that violates our uniform experience should be thought more incredible than something we merely have no experience of (although theists claim to have experience of the perfect, transcendent being).
How is there no ground won here? The Bible claims that the universe began to exist a finite time ago. If that is confirmed by science, that is a win for theology.
Jason
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December 11, 2012 at 5:32 pm
I don’t think Stan is maintaining that an a transcendent being is more extraordinary than an uncaused effect, but simply that both are extraordinary; there is no reason to prefer one over the other apart from some inborn bias.
If you say that the universe started at a specific time then sure, we can say “there are no uncaused effects, therefore God” but the logic is hardly water-tight. Firstly the argument presumes that the world is an effect, but who says it is an effect? If your argument is “there are no uncaused effects” then you must first prove that the world is an effect, else your argument is begging the question. Secondly the argument presumes that something cannot be uncaused, yet why can it not be uncaused (as Stan points out) or self-caused. If the god of the cosmological argument doesn’t need a cause why not just cut out the middle-man and say the same thing of the universe itself as a system (Hume and Russell will also point out that it won’t do to argue from causes within a system to causes of the system as a whole). Lastly and most whimsically, you can argue polytheism just as easily as monotheism from this argument, so why prefer one over the other…
Note: I am a Christian, I just don’t think the classic arguments hold any water; they all presuppose what they’re supposed to be proving.
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December 12, 2012 at 7:01 am
Sorry to interrupt, but let me ask…
So, Jeremiah, there is no actual evidence of a transcendent being? Nor is there evidence for an uncaused effect? We merely have a bias?
Personally speaking, I find it odd that a Christian might hold to such a view about God. After all, aren’t the prophecies that fill the Bible as one evidence of The Transcendent Being (God)? Wouldn’t the DNA code would be another? And so on. In contrast, I can’t think of one particular piece of evidence for an uncaused effect. Can you? What might it be?
I also think Jason also has some other good points to reconsider in the #6 comment above. Read it again, if you don’t mind.
If you want to dismiss classic arguments, then share a new one with us. If you want to appeal to metaphysics as Stan did in order to show that effects can have no cause (if that’s what Stan was implying), we must remember that it’s a new field. Maintaining that an effect doesn’t have a cause is very, very different from not knowing what caused a particular effect (which is where metaphysics may be currently). In fact, all the weird things observed in the metaphysics world could very well end up to have causes that we just currently don’t understand or don’t have the instruments to measure and observe. What do you think?
Joshua
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December 13, 2012 at 4:40 pm
Jeremiah,
Only Stan can confirm if your interpretation of him is correct, but even if it is, I don’t think an uncaused cause and a transcendent being are equally extraordinary. I presented him with an argument for why we ought to consider one more extraordinary than the other. We’ll see what he says about it.
You wrote, “Firstly the argument presumes that the world is an effect, but who says it is an effect?” What is it then? It’s not a cause. Even if we avoid the “effect” label because that presumes a prior cause, the fact remains that the universe comes into being. That is an event that needs to be explained. It goes back to Leibnitz’s Principle of Sufficient Reason. All things that exist must have an explanation for their existence, either in a transcendent cause or in the necessity of their own nature. Given the fact that the universe is temporal and contingent, it cannot exist out of a necessity of its own nature. That means it must owe its existence to a transcendent cause. The only other option is to deny Leibnitz’s principle. One can do that, but not without special pleading.
You wrote, “Secondly the argument presumes that something cannot be uncaused, yet why can it not be uncaused (as Stan points out) or self-caused.” Self-caused? That’s incoherent. That’s like asking why you needed parents. Why couldn’t you bring yourself into existence. The reason is simple. Self-causation would require that X exist before X exists. That’s nonsense. As for being uncaused, causation is a first principle of rational thought. The burden is not on me to show why there can’t be effects without causes, but for those who think it’s possible to give reasons why we should think it’s possible, particularly given the fact that such a notion contradicts our uniform experience.
You wrote, “If the god of the cosmological argument doesn’t need a cause why not just cut out the middle-man and say the same thing of the universe itself as a system.” The two cannot be compared. There is a reason why God doesn’t need a cause: He never came into being. He’s eternal, and thus could not possibly have a cause. The only entities that need a cause are contingent beings; those whose existence began in the finite past. Since the universe is contingent, and since it came into being in the finite past, it does need a cause.
As for Hume and Russell claiming that “it won’t do to argue from causes within a system to causes of the system as a whole,” I don’t buy that argument. While part-to-whole reasoning can be fallacious (fallacy of composition) in some contexts, it’s clearly not fallacious in all. For example, it would be fallacious to argue that since each tiny part of an elephant is light in weight, the whole elephant is light in weight. But it’s not fallacious when the topic is color. It is correct to reason that if each lego in the lego building is red, then the whole lego building is red. The nature of color is such that the property of the parts transfers to the property of the whole, but the same is not true regarding the property of weight. So to determine whether Leibnizian cosmological arguments commit the fallacy of composition we must determine whether the property of contingency displayed in each part of the universe is more akin to color or weight. I would argue that it is more akin to the property of color. After all, how could it be that while every part of X is contingent, X itself is necessary? X is defined by its properties. If X’s properties could have been different, then X could have been different. But as a necessary being X cannot be different. It is impossible, then, to say each part of the universe is contingent, but the universe as a whole is not. It must share the same property as its parts. So the whole universe is contingent, and as such it requires a cause.
You are right that the kalam argument does not tell us anything about the number of gods. So why prefer theism over polytheism? Simple. The principle of parsimony. As William Craig says, “Ockham’s Razor tells us not to posit causes beyond necessity. That is to say, we are justified in postulating only such causes as are necessary to explain the effect; any more would be gratuitous. In the case of the universe, Ockham’s Razor shaves away polytheistic explanations of the origin of the universe, since only one transcendent, personal Creator is necessary. On atheism there just is no explanation of the origin of the universe. And no explanation is not a simpler explanation.”
And I don’t think the classical arguments presuppose what they are trying to prove. To prove that, you would have to show that each theistic argument is circular; i.e. that the conclusion is presumed in one of the premises. Clearly that is not the case.
Jason
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December 13, 2012 at 5:19 pm
Let me put it this way, and see if I can bind up the various threads this discussion has produced.
Let’s say it’s a given that the physical universe began somehow. Let’s also say it’s a given that all physical phenomena require causes, whether physical or transcendent (somehow) to the physical universe. If we assume a single transcendent cause for prudence, we can nickname that cause. Let’s nickname it Causeless Eruptor.
Causeless Eruptor is a superphysical entity or object or force of some kind that produced the physical universe.
Now, this is only using the word “superphysical” because certain theologians have insisted that all physical things have causes. So we have to use a different word, even if the Causeless Eruptor is actually observable and built from similar stuff with which we are familiar. Since it’s causeless, it must be superphysical (so say various theologians).
Now, metaphysical naturalists don’t really have a problem with Causeless Eruptor. They just have an issue with calling it superphysical. But if forced to adopt the insisted-upon definition by various theologians, they would say, “Okay, sure, Causeless Eruptor.”
At that moment, everyone, theist and atheist, is on the same page. If we insisted that anything causeless must be called superphysical, then even an atheist could rightly say, “Very well; a superphysical ‘Causeless Eruptor’ generated the physical universe.” It is only the semantic quibble (and arguably a very good quibble) that prevents them from admitting this in practice.
Now, where has this gotten us? All we’ve done is convinced the occasional atheist to adopt what he considers bad semantics for a moment. The Causeless Eruptor does not translate necessarily into God. It takes a good deal of added ‘entities’ (for instance, preferences and preference-driven volition) to get from the former to the latter.
As an aside, abstraction by aggregation almost always leads to fallacy of composition. Even color can be guilty; compare the frozen image on a CRT television from a distance to what you see with your face pressed to the screen. More directly, a mathematical set can contain infinite members without itself being infinite in count.
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December 14, 2012 at 2:51 pm
Stan,
I don’t see how that is drawing anything together. It seems to be a whole different conversation. Be that as it may, this is not just a matter of semantics because the issue is not merely did the universe have a cause and what do we want to label that cause. It’s a matter of figuring out what that cause was. And I think philosophical reflection leads us to conclude that the cause must be a personal, immaterial, transcendent, spaceless, timeless being of immense power and intelligence. Such a being has all the properties traditionally ascribed to God.
As for the fallacy of composition, I’m not sure what your point is. Do you believe that it’s always false that a property ascribed to a part also belongs to the whole? I hope not, because it’s evident that such is not the case. The only thing that can be said is that in some instances it is a fallacy, and in other instances it is not. So which is the case for the universe? I’ve made an argument that if each part of the universe is contingent, then the whole universe is contingent. Indeed, it would be quite strange for the universe to be necessary, but each part in the universe to be contingent.
As for your TV analogy, it’s not analogous because it involves an example in which not every part of the whole even has property X, so of course the whole will not necessarily have property X.
Could you please respond to the points I raised in #6?
Jason
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December 15, 2012 at 12:53 pm
@Joshua: I’m not positing that we merely have bias or that there is no reason to believe in a transcendent being. What I am saying is that the classical arguments (that is, arguments derivative in some form from the proofs of Aquinas), offer only bias and no logical reason for believing in the transcendent being; and even if you do accept their premises, there’s no reason for the nonbeliever to assume that the ‘god’ they arrive at is the Christian God (especially when the god that Aristotle – who first developed those sorts of proofs – used them to arrive at was the polar opposite of the Christian God).
Classical Apologetics is only one form of apologetic, and in my opinion is the least persuasive. As for sharing a new form of apologetic, it’s hardly necessary, especially since in your post you offer one of them. Using fulfilled prophecy, DNA and historicity of Scripture are all forms of Evidential Apologetics, not Classical Apologetics (which is what I’m arguing against, not apologetics as a whole). Then there’s Presuppositional Apologetics, which is what I lean towards, as well as what is generally just called the reformed apologetic. The former tends to argue against the internal consistency of opposing views and also employs the Transcendental Argument for God. The latter tends towards fideism.
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December 15, 2012 at 1:13 pm
The problem with 6 is that your only real point is “Surely something that violates our uniform experience should be thought more incredible than something we merely have no experience of.” That is mere bias, nothing says one is necessarily more incredible, and regardless, both are incredible. The unbeliever has no reason say something violating our experience is more incredible than something of which we have no experience. Science even has less of a reason; things are constantly violating the experience of science, most notably electrons.
As for “To prove that, you would have to show that each theistic argument is circular; i.e. that the conclusion is presumed in one of the premises. Clearly that is not the case.” It has been shown by others, therefore I don’t need to.
A mediocre example of this being done can be seen here: http://www.reformed.org/webfiles/antithesis/index.html?mainframe=/apologetics/classical/ant_v2n3_thomism.html
Another here: http://www.cmfnow.com/articles/PA061.htm
Though really, it’s hard to find thorough examples of it being done that are online. Better to pick up any text by Van Til, Frame or especially Bahsen (he’s the one who most likes to point out the circularity of the proofs); you can find Classical Apologetics dismantled from the Christian perspective just as thoroughly as they have been from the secular perspective.
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December 17, 2012 at 1:53 pm
Jeremiah,
I don’t even know how to make sense of a statement that says philosophical arguments for God’s existence offer “no logical reason” for believing in God. Philosophical arguments trade on logic and rationality by their very nature.
I agree that the traditional arguments do not arrive at the Christian God, but they arrive at theism, which narrows down one’s religious options considerably. There’s no question that other arguments are necessary to arrive at Christian theism (such as arguments for the resurrection of Jesus), but that’s not a minus against the traditional arguments for God’s existence since no one argument can prove anything. And those arguments don’t set out to prove Christian theism per se. They can’t be faulted for not achieving what they are not designed to achieve.
I wrote, “Surely something that violates our uniform experience should be thought more incredible than something we merely have no experience of.” You responded by saying “That is mere bias, nothing says one is necessarily more incredible, and regardless, both are incredible.” How can I argue against a mere assertion like this? How is it “mere bias”? And I think we can say one is more incredible. Let’s say you went to a jungle and encountered primitive men who are cut off from the rest of the world. You told them two things. First, you said water can exist in a solid state such that one can actually walk across a river. Then, you told them that in other parts of the world things can just pop into existence out of nothing without a cause. While they will find both claims incredible, their lack of experience with frozen water will surely be viewed as a more credible claim than something popping into existence uncaused from nothing, since this contradicts their uniform experience and rationality.
For an argument to be circular means that one is presuming the conclusion in one of the premises, such that the only reason for accepting the premise is that you already agree with the conclusion. None of the arguments do that.
Jason
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December 17, 2012 at 2:56 pm
You ask, ‘How can I argue against a mere assertion like this’? Yet, how can I argue against a mere assertion like “Surely something that violates our uniform experience should be thought more incredible than something we merely have no experience of.” The answer is that I can argue against it by pointing out that it is a mere assertion – I do not deny that it is a mere assertion, I’m simply pointing out that your statement is as well. You might say one is more incredible, but there is no *necessity* which says one is. The classic proofs are not *proofs*, because they show no *necessity*, they show *probability* (and only then if you accept their premise) – this fact is Van Til and every presuppositionalists chief problem with such arguments. Even if I cede the point that one of them is ‘more extraordinary’ than the other, it still doesn’t *prove* anything, except the fact that one is more probable. Even if the god of the cosmological argument is more probable than not, this says nothing as to whether he actually *is* – probability isn’t a proof. Occam’s Razor, similarly, is not a proof in the sense of arguing for necessity; therefore you can use it to argue that it’s more likely that there is only one god, but you can’t argue that it is a certainty.
They offer no logical reason because they are circular. I gave links which demonstrate as such, and recommended authors who do a much better job of demonstrating the case than do the links or than I could do here. Honestly, given that you’re familiar with Dr. Kruger I’m surprised that you’re not familiar with the presuppositional critique of the classic proofs, given that most Reformed theologians are presuppostionalist, and indeed it is the method of apologetics taught at RTS where Dr. Kruger teaches.
You say that “There is a reason why God doesn’t need a cause: He never came into being. He’s eternal, and thus could not possibly have a cause.” But the cosmological argument in itself makes no such claim, that’s extra stuff you’ve arbitrarily tacked on. Unless we presuppose the truth of Christianity no such argument can be made.
So, without presupposing the truth of Christianity, if the *god of the cosmological argument* doesn’t need a cause why not just cut out the middle-man and say the same thing of the universe itself? To say ‘because God is eternal and doesn’t need a cause’ is to presuppose the truth of your case and Christianity, which is the very thing you are trying to prove – hence circular!
At the outset of the cosmological argument it has not been established that God is eternal and doesn’t need a cause, indeed, it hasn’t even been established that God exists – that is what the argument is trying to prove – therefore it cannot be the basis on which you argue. That is to argue in a circle, and even if it weren’t arguing in a circle, it would still only show probability, not necessity, and is therefore worthless as a proof.
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December 17, 2012 at 3:30 pm
>>> While one might argue that what makes God extraordinary is that there is nothing else like him that we encounter in our experience, surely that is not as bad as maintaining an uncaused effect and something coming from nothing – since both of those violate our uniform experience.
No, it is certainly more extraordinary, because God himself is uncaused, in addition to having deliberate intent, superpowers, etc. “God” certainly represents many times more entities than simply, “something uncaused that exists.”
>>> And I think philosophical reflection leads us to conclude that the cause must be a personal, immaterial, transcendent, spaceless, timeless being of immense power and intelligence.
“Philosophical reflection” alone doesn’t get you anywhere near “personal” or “intelligent,” and it’s disturbing that so many intelligent Christians buy into that.
>>> As for the fallacy of composition, I’m not sure what your point is. Do you believe that it’s always false that a property ascribed to a part also belongs to the whole?
No, of course not. My point was that abstraction by aggregation almost always leads to fallacies of composition.
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February 12, 2013 at 11:22 am
[…] temporal finitude of physical reality, even if physical reality extends beyond the Big Bang (see here and here). And yet, scientists continue to come up with mathematical models that permit an […]
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May 9, 2013 at 1:48 pm
Jeremiah,
It was not a mere assertion. I even provided a concrete example for you. But I take it as almost axiomatic that it is easier to believe some X that we may not have personal experience of, rather than some Y that contradicts our experience. It’s one thing to say that we are merely ignorant of some X, but it is a wholly other matter to say that Y is true despite the fact that it contradicts our uniform experience.
You do not understand what philosophers mean by a “proof.” You are thinking in terms of certainty and necessity, but in philosophy, a proof is based on the form of an argument. Deductive arguments whose premises are more likely true than not, and whose form is logically valid, are proofs. So if I argue:
All men are mortal
Jeremiah is a man
Therefore, Jeremiah is mortal
I have given a proof. So long as the premises are true, the conclusion follows necessarily. But that does not mean that the premises are necessary, or even certain. They need only be more likely true than their negation.
You seem to be suggesting that unless we can be certain of X, we cannot claim to know X is true (and hence, believe X). But this is a flawed epistemology. Indeed, we cannot be certain that this principle itself is true, which invalidates the very point it is trying to make. There is almost nothing in this world that we can be absolutely certain about, and we should not reserve judgment while we wait for certainty (and we don’t). It is not fair to require a level of epistemic justification for God’s existence that we do not require of anything else. If the evidence in favor of God’s existence is better than the evidence against God’s existence, then we have a rational obligation to believe God exists. Our level of certainty that this conclusion is the correct one will be proportional to the evidence, but we must conclude it nonetheless (just as we believe in other things with varying degrees of certainty).
As for circularity, I’m sorry, but this is just flat out wrong. Even atheists who do not subscribe to the traditional arguments for God’s existence agree that the form of the arguments are valid. They simply dispute the truth of the premises.
You quote me as saying, “There is a reason why God doesn’t need a cause: He never came into being. He’s eternal, and thus could not possibly have a cause.” And then you say, “But the cosmological argument in itself makes no such claim, that’s extra stuff you’ve arbitrarily tacked on. Unless we presuppose the truth of Christianity no such argument can be made.” First, there is no single cosmological argument. Rather, there is a family of cosmological arguments. Secondly, I don’t claim that the cosmological argument supports my claim. No cosmological argument addresses the nature of the first cause, or asks whether or not eternal beings have causes. And one does not need to presuppose the truth of Christianity to see that eternal things do not need causes. Indeed, atheists once believed the universe was eternal, and therefore claimed it needed no cause. They were drawing on the same philosophical intuitions that theists do when we say that God, being eternal, needs no cause.
We can’t just cut out the middle man, as you say, and say the universe itself needs a cause for two reasons. First, unlike God, we know that the universe began to exist, so it must have a cause. Secondly, physical reality is contingent by nature, and contingent beings must have their existence caused by an external reality.
Jason
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May 9, 2013 at 1:49 pm
Stan,
You seem to have missed my point. There is a difference between not having an experience of X, and having uniform experiences that violate X.
You say that “’Philosophical reflection’ alone doesn’t get you anywhere near ‘personal’ or ‘intelligent,’ and it’s disturbing that so many intelligent Christians buy into that.” Thanks for the assertion. Do you care to provide some reasons for this? Particularly in light of the fact that I and others have provided reasons for thinking that the cause of the universe must be personal.
If you do not think that it’s always a fallacy for a property belonging to a part to also belong to the whole, then you need to tell me why we should think that when it comes to the universe, that if each part of the universe is contingent, that somehow the entire universe is not contingent. Given the fact that the universe is simply a term referring to the sum total of all things in the universe, it seems impossible to avoid the conclusion that if each part of the universe is contingent, the entire universe is contingent.
Jason
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