Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Kelin420 on December 26, 2011 at 4:52pm

Whole-heartedly agree- too much known to drop back and punt to goddidit-  that option is dead and never really lived- it has always been an empty net

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Permalink Reply by David England on December 27, 2011 at 6:51pm

Nelson, thanks for the reply, I appreciate it.  Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. 

 

I think this question of the eternality/finitude of this energy is a very important one, perhaps ‘the’ important one.  I take no offence at your chuckle (if I took offence that easily there would be nowhere on this site for me to go! :-)  ) – it seems to me to be the next logical question: this energy exists, where did it come from?  Has it always been here or did it come into being at some point?  These seem like perfectly reasonable questions to me.

 

I don’t agree, however, that at bottom we need to posit either god or the universe as a brute fact.  You clearly don’t believe that god exists, therefore he doesn’t need to be posited as a brute fact in your world, and it is certainly possible to conceive of no universe existing at all (not even the ‘nothing’ we are talking about – unless you hold that the universe exists necessarily) so that doesn’t need to be a brute fact either. 

 

I am surprised to hear you bring out the idea that the universe created itself as a viable option.  For the universe to create itself, it would have to exist before it existed, which seems flatly contradictory and irrational, doesn’t it?  I know Daniel Dennett has promoted this idea when debating William Lane Craig, but even he was forced to admit this after the discussion. 

 

I appreciate your comments about how the march of science has always provided a naturalistic explanation in the past and probably will in the future.  I think this is a very good point, but science deals with the natural world, with naturalistic answers.  In fact, that’s the main beef people have with IDers – they say ID isn’t science because it doesn’t posit a natural explanation.  But if the universe is finite (and ‘universe’ is really a synonym for the natural world), can it have a natural explanation?  The idea that it created itself seems untenable, and what would there be for natural laws to work on when no nature existed?  If the universe is finite, then ‘before’ the universe existed there was actually nothing, a real no-thing, not even the energy of which you spoke.  On what would natural laws work? 

 

Finally, you went to great lengths to point out that we have no experience with something that bears the characteristics of God, as though that should be a defeater to God being an explanation.  It seems to me, though, that we had no experience of particles coming into being from ‘nothing’ until recently.  We had no experience with particles travelling faster than the speed of light – and now perhaps we do.  Just because we have no experience with something should not (I think) be reason to simply dismiss it.  Aren’t all new discoveries things that we previously had no experience with?  That’s what makes them “new discoveries” rather than refinements on existing ideas. Perhaps it should be an explanation of last resort, one we turn to when all other explanations are inadequate – but it’s still a valid possibility. 

 

Cheers,

 

Dave.

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Permalink Reply by Nelson on December 28, 2011 at 2:08am

I started to reply to this but, honestly, it's boring. (Not you personally Dave) The whole God of the Gaps thing is lame. If this is what you want to do then have at it. It hasn't worked for you so far so I'm not sure why you'd be so in love with it but have it if that's where you want to live.

If you have some argument or bit of evidence for why you think your God exists I'd love to hear it. Otherwise this "Ooooo, but maybe God created the vacuum energy! (therefore Jesus!)"-stuff is... well, you seem to be an intelligent person Dave so I think its beneath you.

I will just respond to this for the sake of clarity:

I think this question of the eternality/finitude of this energy is a very important one, perhaps ‘the’ important one.  I take no offence at your chuckle (if I took offence that easily there would be nowhere on this site for me to go! :-)  ) – it seems to me to be the next logical question: this energy exists, where did it come from?  Has it always been here or did it come into being at some point?  These seem like perfectly reasonable questions to me.

I never said that question wasn't important or reasonable (indeed perfectly so). I said that your proposed answer of "Goddidit!" is what's silly.

Certainly scientists should do what they can to answer this question and questions like it (and questions we aren't even aware of yet). But when we do and when we discover the answers, there's just no reason to think they're going to be anything other than naturalistic answers.

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Permalink Reply by David England on December 29, 2011 at 6:02pm

Nelson,

 

I appreciate your sentiment - I'm sure this isn't the first time this topic has been discussed here!

 

 

In the interests of clarity, I’ll make a final comment about what you’ve said and then let the matter rest.  You made a comment here that I've heard many times in this discussion that is curious. You seem to think that I’m arguing "God created the vacuum energy therefore Jesus". I'm surprised to hear this type of rejoinder to the Cosmological Argument as though it's a fair critique of it. No apologist that I've ever read has made the jump from God as creator of the universe to Jesus based upon the Cosmological Argument and to make the claim that they have shows either (1) a lack of understanding of what it is that is said, or that (2) perhaps you have heard Christians make this claim, in which case they are misrepresenting the argument.  I’ve certainly never made that claim, and neither did Isaac in his initial post, and I’ve not read it being advanced in this particular thread on TA.  Therefore, it doesn’t seem to me to be a particularly useful criticism. 

 

 

As perhaps the best modern proponent of this argument, William Lane Craig, repeatedly says, arguments like the cosmological, moral, ontological, fine-tuning etc are only designed to show the existence of god, and can be used by any monotheist, Muslim, Jew or Christian.  More is needed to get to Jesus, and that is where the historical arguments like the ones presented in Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Christ” come in.  Greg Koukl of STR gives the analogy of taking a trip – you need a plane to get from airport to airport, but you also need a few taxis to get from home to airport and airport to hotel.  This argument represents only part of the journey, not the whole thing. 

 

 

I respect the fact that you may have found these arguments wanting, but I think it’s important to lay out properly what it is that being rejected.  I’ve read various forms of the argument on this thread, none of which is actually the one advanced by people like Craig; there’s a lot of misunderstanding/mischaracterisation being shown here.  It’s tempting to be dismissive of someone who claims "God created the vacuum energy therefore Jesus" because there is no real link provided there.  But, it’s a much more modest claim to say merely that the existence of god (“a” god) is a better explanation for the universe. 

 

 

Anyway, thanks for your input – I’ve enjoyed our discussion, and the civility with which you’ve approached it.

 

 

Cheers,

 

Dave

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Permalink Reply by Dave Gibbs on December 29, 2011 at 7:20pm

To argue that an undefined god can be the starting point at the beginning of this chain is not useful. A god with no definition, no attributes, no character, no form, no description whatsoever is—what did Jefferson call many Christian tokens?—a nothing. Since the premise of the argument requires that something cannot come from nothing, the argument automatically contradicts itself in this form. A completely definition-less template god is itself nothing, but also if god was not nothing, he would be a something which according to the argument needs a creator. In other words, this argument fails whether somebody provides or implies a specific god or not.

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Permalink Reply by David England on December 29, 2011 at 9:55pm

Dave, thanks for the reply. 

Your statement is a clear example of the very misunderstanding/mischaracterisation I was talking about: your conclusion doesn’t even follow from your own characterisation.  You say that something cannot come from nothing therefore god needs a creator, but that doesn’t follow.  If it is true that something cannot come from nothing, and something exists, then you actually have two options:

1) The something has a cause, and therefore didn’t come from nothing.

2) The something has always existed, and therefore didn’t come from nothing. 

Both of these answers are possible based on your statement, and in both cases the something didn’t come from nothing.  If god is something that has always existed, then he didn’t come from nothing, and his existence is not contradicted by this argument.  Please note, at this stage I am not even arguing in favour of this, I’m simply trying to clarify the position.

 

To your other contention about a god with no definitions etc.  This is another misunderstanding of the argument as this is not the type of cause that is posited.  As you rightly say, this type of thing is really a no-thing since it has no qualities.  Craig lists 5 things that a cause of the universe would need to be: 

1) Timeless (eternal) since time itself began with the universe.

2) Spaceless (immaterial) since all of material reality began with the universe.

3) Personal since only personal timeless causes can give rise to a temporal effect.  An impersonal timeless cause would result in a timeless effect. 

4) Uncaused since it is the first cause.

5) Unimaginably powerful, since it brought into existence the whole material universe.

This is a far cry from the description you offered and, as I said earlier, is consistent with all three monotheistic traditions. 

 

Finally, let me give you the version of the argument that Craig uses, called the Kalam Cosmological Argument.  Then we can at least all be on the same page. 

1) Everything that begins to exist has a cause.

2) The universe began to exist.

3) Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Note that the conclusion that the universe needs a cause is a religiously neutral one. 

 

Hope this clears up a few things!

Cheers,

Dave

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Permalink Reply by Dave Gibbs on December 29, 2011 at 11:16pm

Timeless (eternal) since time itself began with the universe.

Only our time. Beyond that this is a baseless assumption.

Spaceless (immaterial)

Forces which are not beings can be categorized as such, but then these are principles and mechanics, not beings. A being described as "spaceless" or "immaterial", i.e. something which has never been observed, as far as I'm concerned is nothing. Feel free to argue that something as in a force or principle was necessary for the current state of the universe, but the idea that a being was necessary for anything continues to be disposable, imo.

since all of material reality began with the universe.

This is a baseless assumption.

Uncaused since it is the first cause.

The first cause requires the baseless assumption that "the cause" is the first cause, that the universe is the first thing caused, and the arbitrary rule that "uncaused" beings can exist yet "uncaused" principles, energy and matter (or the naturally caused organization of them) cannot exist.

Unimaginably powerful, since it brought into existence the whole material universe.

Only relative to human understanding. Gravity has such an effect, yet there is no reason to believe that gravity, just because it has an effect, is a being.

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Permalink Reply by David England on December 30, 2011 at 11:32pm

Timeless (eternal) since time itself began with the universe.

 

 

Only our time. Beyond that this is a baseless assumption.

Our time? What reasons to you have for thinking that a different kind of time exists?

 

 

Spaceless (immaterial)

 

 Forces which are not beings can be categorized as such, but then these are principles and mechanics, not beings. A being described as "spaceless" or "immaterial", i.e. something which has never been observed, as far as I'm concerned is nothing. Feel free to argue that something as in a force or principle was necessary for the current state of the universe, but the idea that a being was necessary for anything continues to be disposable, imo.

This is only problematic if you are a physicalist, which I'm not. It seems clear to those of us who hold to the existence of the soul that we observe the effects of immaterial beings all the time, not just ‘forces’. 

 

 

since all of material reality began with the universe.

 

This is a baseless assumption.

Is it? What sense does it make to talk of material reality that exists apart from the universe? I could say that that belief is a baseless assumption...

 

Uncaused since it is the first cause.

 

 The first cause requires the baseless assumption that "the cause" is the first cause, that the universe is the first thing caused, and the arbitrary rule that "uncaused" beings can exist yet "uncaused" principles, energy and matter (or the naturally caused organization of them) cannot exist.

This isn’t arbitrary, it’s based upon the impossibility of having an actually infinite regress of events.  If those arguments work, and I’m persuaded that they do, then you must at some point come to a first uncaused cause because you cannot simply go back to infinity. 

 

It’s important that you realise that I’m not simply asserting that matter and energy can’t be eternal but god can – I’m not addressing the question of the possibility of eternally existing matter (though the arguments against an infinite regress inveigh against it).  However, the standard Big Bang model of the universe is one that posits an absolute beginning for the universe and does not claim that it existed eternally.  Therefore, discussions of the possibility of eternally existing matter are irrelevant because the standard scientific model doesn’t posit them. 

 

If you are interested in the arguments against the infinite regress, Craig’s book “Reasonable Faith” goes into a lot of detail about it.  See also his talk called “How did the universe begin” given in 2009 at Saddleback Church (http://www.apologetics315.com/2009/09/saddleback-apologetics-conference-audio.html)

 

 Unimaginably powerful, since it brought into existence the whole material universe.

 

 Only relative to human understanding. Gravity has such an effect, yet there is no reason to believe that gravity, just because it has an effect, is a being.

The argument isn’t that the cause must be a being because it is powerful – it’s that when you put all five of these together and ask what possesses these qualities, the best explanation is an agent, not an event. 

 

Also, “only relative to human understanding”?  What other kind of understanding do we have?  If we don’t base our beliefs upon the understandings that we have as humans, on what can we base them?

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Permalink Reply by Bharat on December 23, 2011 at 5:50pm

Good reply.

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Permalink Reply by Nelson on December 23, 2011 at 5:51pm

No problem. Cheers!

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Permalink Reply by Bharat on December 23, 2011 at 5:53pm

Thank you very much for the video. Its awesome!

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Permalink Reply by No Nick for me on December 26, 2011 at 8:32pm

An incredible Video, I haven't seen it yet and haven't known some of the facts yet. Thanks for the link.

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