Cosmological Arg.: Infinite Causal Chain Impossible
The following argument seems to be a convincing argument for holding that it is more probable that God exists than that God does not exist. The argument derives from my understanding after reading Aquinas and listening to some secondary Christian resources. Is there something flawed in it?
Premise-1: Everything in the world has a cause.
Premise-2: If we trace the causes back, we arrive at the big bang, and the cause of the big bang.
Premise-3: Even if God was not the cause of the big-bang, and something natural was, still, it is very improbable that there is an infinite chain of causes going back forever.
Conclusion: Therefore, it is very probable that a non-contingent first cause exists; and this must be God, since there is nothing greater than the non-contingent first cause.
I appreciate your criticism. Thanks.
Premise-1: Everything in the world has a cause.
Premise-2: If we trace the causes back, we arrive at the big bang, and the cause of the big bang.
Premise-3: Even if God was not the cause of the big-bang, and something natural was, still, it is very improbable that there is an infinite chain of causes going back forever.
Conclusion: Therefore, it is very probable that a non-contingent first cause exists; and this must be God, since there is nothing greater than the non-contingent first cause.
I appreciate your criticism. Thanks.
Comments (68)
There are two kinds of infinity:
1. Spatial
2. Temporal
1 is not a problem. Infinite space neither helps nor hinders the argument.
2 is problematic. If there's an infinite chain of causation then the past would be infinite. The universe is travelling along a timeline and if the past were infinite, how did the universe traverse infinity to reach this point in time? Impossible.
[I]Therefore[/i], the chain of causation can't be infinite. We need a beginning. God is defined as this beginning of the chain of causation.
That's the crux of the argument in my view.
Anyway, the problem with this argument is that it doesn't prove the omnipotency, omnibenevolence, and omniscience of God (O-O-O God)That's an issue because the Abrahamic God is the O-O-O God.
Also, we can counter the argument by positing a cyclical universe. The beginning causes the end and the end causes the beginning (circular). We get rid of the infinity problem and God isn't needed. If you look at nature, this view isn't that outlandish - water cycle, the elliptical orbits of planets, nitrogen cycle, etc.
Well, does it?
And even if it does, it does not follow that the world has a cause; the wold is not in the world.
Just to mention, here in Yorkshire there are Yorkshire Wolds, which are in the world :)
I don't understand your argument about why the causal chain cannot be infinite. I don't know what you mean by the universe "traversing" the infinite. Could you explain a bit further?
I am hesitant to agree that this is an adequate counter-argument. For, the cyclical universe theory entails the view that there is X-amount of matter that cyclically explodes and implodes, and that matter is eternal. But it is improbable that matter is eternal; rather, it is more probable that the evolving-devolving-matter itself had a cause: viz. why something exists rather than nothing.
I agree. How is one to hold the view of the O-O-O God then? My guess is that the O-O-O view arises from the ontological argument and the argument-from-design: that the mere thought of an O-O-O God in our minds indicates that such a being really exists, and that the immensity, orderliness, and goodness perceived in the universe reflects an O-O-O God, respectively. Or are there other ways to affirm an O-O-O God?
I'm having trouble reading your argument, since I don't see how your premises are all related to one
another (in the sense that they all should point to a single conclusion). Most of them seem to make unjustified assumptions about the world, and others seem to outright contradict each other if not the whole conclusion of the argument (with one of them being just a statement about the conclusion itself).
Quoting Brian A
Wait, wasn't your argument that an infinite chain of causation was impossible? That seems to be your conclusion, but apparently one of your premises assumes that the conclusion is false. If you're trying to prove that it is false by way of a reductio, then I do not see where that comes into play.
On top of that it may not necessarily be the case that the premise is true anyways. This premise assumes determinism but it is not clear that determinism is true.
Quoting Brian A
Willing to grant that current cosmological theories suggest that there was a big bang in the earliest moments of the universe that we know of, but the idea that there was a cause to the big bang is debatable. Some physicists have suggested that there is no meaning to a "time before the big bang" and therefore no meaning to a cause of the big bang.
Quoting Brian A
This is a bald assertion that basically states the conclusion you want to prove. Why is it improbable that there cannot be an infinite chain of causes? That is what your argument is trying to make the case for.
So on the one hand you have a premise that assumes that everything has a cause, and in another you have a premise that basically states that an infinite chain of causes is improbable, and your conclusion is that an infinite chain of causes is impossible.
Quoting Brian A
Your conclusion makes other statements that might as well be additional premises: that there must exist a first cause, that it must be a non-contingent first cause, and that that cause must be God. Like the other premises, I think you need to offer some more supporting reasons for these statements as well.
Let me give you an analogy.
It isn't possible to reach the end of an infinite line because infinite literally means ''without end''.
Say you're at a certain point on that line and now are contemplating the nature of your beginning. Is there a starting point where you began or is it infinity on both sides from the point where you're at?
If there's a beginning there's no problem. However, if you think that it's infinity on both sides of the point you're at there's a problem viz. how did you travel an infinite distance to reach the point you're at? It's impossible to travel an infinite distance and yet there you are at a particular point on the line.
Same reasoning applies to time. If the past is infinite how did you reach the present?
The causal chain if left unchecked suffers the same setback - the infinite regress. How did an infinite chain of causes ever ocur? Infinity can't have ocurred, passed or travelled by definition.
I only posit it to solve the infinite regress problem of the cosmological argument. I'd also like to add to the issue @Mr Bee raised.
1. Everything has a cause
2. If everything has a cause then there'a an infinite regress of causes
3. Infinite regress of causes is impossible
So,
4. It's false that everything has a cause
As you can see, 4 doesn't need us to entertain a God as an uncaused cause. Why not just conclude the universe as the uncaused cause.
It is, in short, unthinkable that there either is or is not a beginning to time. This is because thought is time. Fortunately, it is not necessary to encompass the world with thought.
The assumption then is that "the world"/nature/universe is uniform everywhere and will remain so into the future. Causes are only known by induction, they are not deductive, they are only contingently possible or probable.
I see that my argument was ill-constructed. Now I understand that space and time are essentially associated with the universe: that is, before the universe "banged" (presupposing the big-bang theory) there was neither space nor time. Let me re-construct my argument. It will argue that it is likely that God exists. I will assume that (a) the big-bang theory is correct, that (b) causality is real, and (c) that causality is not necessarily contingent on time (when considering a cause of the universe).
P1: Everything in the universe (the earth and the activities therein, all the galaxies, etc.) is contingent on the big-bang: that is, without the big-bang, none of these things could have existed.
P2: Time and space emerged at the moment of the big-bang.
P3: Before the big-bang, there was neither time nor space.
P4: It is probable that there was a reason, or a cause, for the big-bang (for, the universe is magnificent and even contains conscious human beings with remarkable minds).
P5: Said reason/cause must transcend space and time (since before the big-bang, space-time did not exist).
Conc.: This supra-spatiotemporal cause is likely to be God.
Also:
Since something cannot cause itself. Also, the universe contains conscious rational beings: this suggests that the ultimate, supra-temporal cause of the universe is conscious, too.
I have issues with the others as well, but P3 has that blatant self contradiction
Seems like you decided to go with the idea that the big bang was the origin of time and space. That seems to create a problem with your P4. though like I said earlier, because if there is no such thing as a "time before the big bang" then how can anything stand in a relation of causality to it? Causality conceptually requires time to exist.
Also, you say that the big bang, which caused the universe must have a cause because the universe is magnificent, but wouldn't the same reasoning apply to God, which I imagine you would also say is magnificent?
The kinds of causation that the natural sciences are concerned with always seem to me to presuppose natural regularity or lawful relationships between cause and effect. For example, the point about physics and physical laws is that the behaviour of mass and energy is predictable, otherwise, there would be no such thing as 'the laws of physics'. But why there are laws is a question of a different order to the kinds of things that can be discovered on the basis of those laws. We might know that f=ma, but why f=ma is another question altogether. It might not even be an answerable question, but I think it is a question.
In respect to the so-called 'big bang' theory, this is why there is an absolute barrier, beyond which physics cannot penetrate. At the moment of the singularity, as mentioned above, there are no laws, no time, no space, nor any of the other fundamentals on which science itself is based. Science can 'see' back to an infinitesmal fraction of a second after that moment, but it can never see the moment.
So an argument from natural theology might be: the Universe that emerges from the complete nothingness of the 'singularity' subsequently assumes a form which gives rise to matter and energy and ultimately also intelligent beings who are able to analyse just these kinds of questions. Why the Universe is such that it produces such an outcome, and doesn't simply remain as an inert mass of chaos, is the kind of question that is being asked by cosmological arguments. So it is a 'why' of a different order, to the kinds of causative explanations that are sought by scientific analysis.
That's not part of the argument. What's essential to the cosmological argument is that there has to be an ''uncaused'' cause. That ''uncaused'' cause can be anything God, the universe itself.
If you insist that the universe has a cause then you'll have to explain why the chain of causation has to terminate with God.
None of the traditional 'proofs of God' were ever intended as 'proofs' in the sense understood by modern or analytic philosophy. They were primarily exercises in intellectual edification; but Aquinas, for instance, never would have deployed such arguments to 'prove' that God existed. I think that like any Christian, he would insist that first you have to have faith in God; absent that, no argument can be convincing on its own merits.
There are some exceptions, however. There was a well-known case of British philosopher, Anthony Flew. who said that after being a convinced atheist most of his life, he came to the view that there must be some kind of higher intelligence, although he preferred to think of it along deist lines.
Two points:
1.) We do not observe causation.
2.) The existence of causation is in doubt:
"It is easy to sympathise with those philosophers who have come to regard causes as, well, a lost cause. The venerable idea that everything that happens is caused to happen by other, distinct and separate, previous happenings – going right back to the First Cause, the mysterious Uncaused Cause (God or the Big Bang according to taste) that got happening to happen – has been under increasing attack for nearly quarter of a millennium. While it has fought back valiantly (mainly by re-defining itself), things are looking pretty bad for the idea of causation..." -- "Causes As (Local) Oomph"; Raymond Tallis; Philosophy Now, Issue 100
How is this "tracing back" of something that we do not observe done?
If causation does not exist--if there is no chain of causes and effects--then what other way would you describe reality?
"At any rate, physical reality is seamless and law-governed, (possibly) unfolding over time, not a chain or network of discrete events that have somehow to be connected by causal cement. Causes, far from being a constitutive stuff of the physical world, are things we postulate to re-connect that which has been teased apart...", Tallis continues.
Last Thursdayism:
Note, this argument could equally be applied to infinite causal chains, and nicely lends support to the Omphalos hypothesis (hence why I named it Last Thursdayism). Another thing to notice about the infinite set of integers: Any two numbers are separated by a number. And this number is also a member of the integers. The integers are closed under subtraction and addition. For the analogy with enumerating past days, this means any two events are separated by a number of days. Not infinite, but a particular number of (possibly fractional) days. That’s any two events. To some folk this is counter-intuitive, but, anyway, there you have it.
The first observation is incorrect. Whether or not the set can accommodate Thursday (one more day), is not dependent on one specific bijection (the first selected), rather it is dependent on the existence of some (any such) bijection. A bijection also exists among {..., t, ..., -1, 0} and {..., t, ..., -1, 0, 1}, and the integers, for that matter.
Therefore, the argument is not valid.
The unnumbered now:
Seems convincing at a glance?
In short, the argument (merely) shows that, on an infinite temporal past, the now cannot have a definite, specific number, as per 1[sup]st[/sup], 2[sup]nd[/sup], 3[sup]rd[/sup], ..., now. Yet, we already knew this in case of an infinite temporal past, so, by implicitly assuming otherwise, the argument can be charged with petitio principii. That is, the latter (conclusion) is a non sequitur, and the latter two could be expressed more accurately as:
Additionally, note that 1,2,3 refer to non-indexical “absolute” moments (1[sup]st[/sup], 2[sup]nd[/sup], 3[sup]rd[/sup]), but the following steps are indexical and contextual (2[sup]nd[/sup] last, now), which is masked by “... and so on and so forth ...”. We already know from elsewhere (originating in linguistics) that such reasoning is problematic.
Still no proof, as some of the religious apologists propose. :-|
So then, my understanding is the following: the human mind simply cannot cognize about "what happened prior to the big-bang", since (1) our minds operate under space and time, and (2) there was either space nor time before the big bang. So to believe in a God requires a leap of faith. But that leap of faith, by itself, does not contradict reason, as the issue of God cannot be adjudicated by reason.
This seems too good to be true. Is it true that if we assume the existence of causality in general (which, incidentally, seems to be a common-sense view), and trace it back, "God exists" is the necessary conclusion? So then, non-theists necessarily hold that causality is unreal?
God is necessarily the first cause: "being the first cause" is analytically a predicate of the subject "God." The reason why God must be the first cause is because that is part of God's definition as it were, viz. "the first cause."
Thanks, I read the article. But the view that causation does not exist contradicts common intuition to such a degree that the view is rendered suspect. We can "trace back" easily, though I am not sure about the technical aspects of how. For instance, I exist due to the coming together of my parents, they exist for a likewise reason, the human species exists because of some original lifeforms in the ocean, the elements supporting life exist because of some exploding star, etc. The "tracing back" is obvious and convincing, in my view. It is true that if causality does not exist, my entire argument collapses. But I confidently assume that causality does exist, because such a view corresponds with experience and intuition.
"Last Thursdayism" I am not smart enough to even follow or understand. I will agree that it fails. :).
The second argument, the "Unnumbered Now," seems to be Aquinas' 2nd of 5 proofs, the one on efficient causes. I agree that this argument fails. (I can follow it).
But has not modern science reached a consensus that time has a temporally finite past, namely via the big-bang? One thing I still haven't figured out for sure, is whether time can theoretically exist before the big bang: say, if a universe existed before the big bang.
Is it safe to say that reason cannot adjudicate the question whether or not a God exists? (And I mean God simpliciter, perhaps as it deism, and not interventionism or superstitions).
You are doing what Tallis says here: "At any rate, physical reality is seamless and law-governed, (possibly) unfolding over time, not a chain or network of discrete events that have somehow to be connected by causal cement. Causes, far from being a constitutive stuff of the physical world, are things we postulate to re-connect that which has been teased apart..."
You are taking things that have been "teased apart" and injecting causation in between them.
If Hume and Tallis are right, it is all in our minds--causes are not, as Tallis puts it, "constitutive stuff of the physical world".
You started out by saying that everything in the world has a cause. But it seems that all of the evidence says that causes do not even exist.
It is going to take more than your subjective experience or anybody's intuition to rescue causes as something that really exists. It is going to take metaphysical evidence or objectively verifiable empirical evidence.
The Kalam argument:
1. There can't be an infinite chain of causes
So,
2. There was a first cause
I agree so far.
You then say God is defined as this first cause.
Ok but that still doesn't prove any of the other defining features of God such as omnibenevolence, omniscience and omnipotence or that he still exists (he could be dead by now). In short, your version of God is rather diminished.
Also, defining God as the first cause is rather tricksy. What I mean is the God-first cause relation isn't an equivalence as is asserted by defining God as the first cause. What I mean is:
1. If God exists then a first cause exists
2. If a first cause exists then God exists
1 seems reasonable but 2 is not. As you said, ''is the first cause'' is a predicate which means God has to, well, first exist before we can check whether the predicate applies or not. Not the other way round as you've done - finding the predicate (first cause) and inferring God's existence from it.
I agree with your last post: I see that the view that the cosmological argument proves the existence of God is begging the question, since a conception of God being the first cause is sort of presupposed: the argument is being constructed in order to fit this belief. In other words, a subjectively attractive belief is being dressed up with a ostensibly rationalistic exterior. And, as you said, even if God is this first cause, we cannot know much about this God from the mere fact that he is a first cause.
How did the religious philosophers come up with a omnipotent, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent God when inductive knowledge could not demonstrably indicate such a God? Could the explanation be something akin to Descartes' trademark argument (in which case, the deist's case would be bolstered), or is the explanation related to the philosophers' psychological need to postulate some grand myth?
Is there any way to rescue the cosmological argument as a reasonable indicator of God's existence (as in an omnipresent, omnipotent, and omni-benevolent God)?
I don't know. I guess power, goodness and knowledge are highly valued qualities. If an entity has the power to create universes, it seems reasonable that it has unlimited power over its creation.
Following the same line of thought, this entity would surely have complete knowledge over its creation from the atomic to the cosmic.
Goodness isn't that easy to explain. There's no necessity in it. Perhaps as a human ideal that is clearly universal in terms of benefit (even plants and animals can be benefited from morality), it's reasonable to project it onto God who we expect loves his creation and has the noblest of intentions for it.
Quoting Brian A
We need separate arguments to prove God is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. We can define him as such but there are inconsistencies associated with each property:
1. Omnibenevolence: problem of evil
2. Omnipotence: the paradox of the stone
3. Omniscience: free will - omniscience problem
You don't know this, though. You seem to be taking certain physicists' word for it, who tend to be ignorant of philosophy, that time began with the Big Bang. The Big Bang is what's known as a singularity, which in layman's terms is code for "we don't know what we're talking about," because the laws of physics break down and we reach the limits of observation. It's more accurate to say, "based on our current measurements (which may change), we can't observe anything past about 13.7 billion years."
Consider also that you have shackled your argument to a claim that may not be made by scientists in the future. There's no reason to believe that another Einstein will not come along and fundamentally change our understanding of the physical universe, such that the Big Bang is then subsumed into an even more expansive and cogent theory, much like how the physics of Newton was subsumed into relativity theory. Who knows what could happen to the claim that time began with the Big Bang in that case. In other words, it would be like a 19th century person basing an argument for the existence of God on the notion of the ether. At the time, scientific consensus accepted its existence, but scientists in the 20th century discarded the notion, and so too would one then have to discard that theistic argument.
The best cosmological arguments don't start from mutable scientific claims but from certain basic concepts, like motion.
Yes, and the deeper problem is that physical laws may actually change with time, but they may change so slowly that we haven't yet managed to perceive the changes. It would be like Newton's laws work on Earth because the curvature of space-time here is so small that it's basically imperceptible to us.
So all our physical laws may work for 10,000 years say, but what is 10,000 years in the history of the universe? It is like the curvature of spacetime on Earth, negligible. What we're doing is basically projecting:
See how what we're doing with the size of the universe is merely projecting backwards and forwards based on theories and conjectures that we form about the model of our Universe (whether it's accelerating expansion, decelerating, etc.). The reality is, that those prior and future conditions could really be anything. Any mathematical function we can imagine, which passes through the points of observable history (which is a few thousand years) can account for the data. Likewise the age of our universe is the result of our projection.
Sure, the evidence we have thus far, which Big Bang (mostly) is based on, suggests that (at least) the observable universe was significantly denser and "smaller" in the distant past, and has been expanding ever since. Supposing a non-infinite past, there are still some options. Whether or not it had a definite earliest time or not is speculation I guess.
The strongest intuitive argument against an infinite past I know of, is allegedly due to Wittgenstein:
[quote=https://books.google.com/books?id=VXEuCgAAQBAJ&lpg=PT197&pg=PT197#v=onepage&q=%22Five,%20one,%20four,%20one,%20dot,%20three!%20Finally%20finished!%22&f=false]However, completing an infinite process is not a matter of starting at a particular time that just happens to be infinitely far to the past and then stopping in the present. It’s to have always been doing something and then stopping. This point is illustrated by a possibly apocryphal story attributed to the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Imagine meeting a woman in the street who says, “Five, one, four, one, dot, three! Finally finished!” When we ask what is finished, she tells us that she just finished counting down the infinite digits of pi backward. When we ask when she started, she tells us that she never started, she has always been doing it. The point of the story seems to be that impossibility of completing such an infinite process is an illusion created by our insistence that every process has a beginning.[/quote]
[quote=http://www.philosophypathways.com/questions/answers_47.html#94]There is no logical or conceptual barrier to the notion of infinite past time.
In a lecture Wittgenstein told how he overheard a man saying '...5, 1, 4, 1, 3, finished'. He asked what the man had been doing.
'Reciting the digits of Pi backward' was the reply. 'When did you start?' Puzzled look. 'How could I start. That would mean beginning with the last digit, and there is no such digit. I never started. I've been counting down from all eternity'.
Strange, but not logically impossible.[/quote]
There are also counter-intuitive implications of a definite earliest time.
That is mainstream Christian doctrine. Furthermore Christians would add that the Biblical narratives constitute evidence, which is why they're called 'revealed truth'.
if the universe were eternal and events are finite then everything would be over already.
Infinites require careful treatment; they're not numbers.
The non-positive integers, {..., -2, -1, 0}, for example, is infinite yet does not contain the number 1.
1. in an infinitude of numbers, there are every kinds of numbers
2. there are infinite whole positive numbers {1, 2, 3, ...}
3. therefore there are negative numbers among them
4. contradiction, 1 is wrong
But it goes further than that.
As it turns out, ? is ambiguous if you will; in fact, there are infinite different kinds of ?, of all things.
Additionally, the rationals and the reals are dense; between any such two different numbers, there's a third number different from both.
On the other hand, if we're talking nomological (or physical), then who knows; things are suddenly much more complex.
Regardless, both an infinite past, and a definite earliest time, have counter-intuitive implications.
EDIT: I read this snippet roughly as "if the universe has an infinite temporal past [...]", which may have been a misinterpretation.
Quoting Wayfarer
It makes intuitive sense, but as we now believe in the so-called Big Bang, it's probably irrelevant, as the BB doesn't posit a universe of endless duration. It seems likely to me that the BB model is one of eternal cycles of expansion and contraction. That also seems intuitively appealing to me, not least because it has precedents in some traditional philosophies. (The Hindu Purana refer to the 'inbreathing and out-breathing of Brahma').
In any case, in respect of 'the first cause', I also think it might be incorrect to conceive of the whole idea in terms of temporal sequence i.e. what comes first in a sequence. In Platonistic Christianity, the 'first cause' is not so much 'at the beginning' but 'at the source of being', which is present, right at this moment - the 'ever-present origin' in Gebser's phrase 1. I think in the esoteric traditions. 'creation' is understood on a micro- as well as macro level, i.e. creation (and destruction) are occuring moment by moment, as well as over billions of years; and 'the source' of that is something that is 'revealed' or realised in contemplation:
SEP entry on Schopenhauer.
If yes, then there might be infinitudes of different "almost alike" changes among, say, different expansions and/or contractions ('inbreathing and out-breathing of Brahma', as you put it).
Even finite (definite) constraints might allow infinite possibilities; over an infinite duration, no two identical "states" may ever have been.
Anyway, I think these considerations can easily become rather complicated.
Peripherally related: No-cloning theorem
I still cling old-fashionedly to the notion of 'universe', 'uni' meaning 'one'.
Disclaimer, I haven't read the rest of the thread and I don't know where it's gotten to by now.
I did happen to look at William Lane Craig's cosmological argument a while back. His first premise is:
* Everything that begins to exist must have a cause.
Eventually his argument gets around to saying that there must be something that never BEGAN to exist ... it has always existed. That must be God.
Now this is a very disingenuous argument. The phrase "begins to exist" sounds a little odd and most people just dismiss it. But it is actually a sneaky rhetorical maneuver. Because there are now two classes of things in the universe: things that "began" to exist, and therefore have causes; and things that exist but never actually "began" to exist. That thing would be an uncaused cause, which we call God.
That in effect is Craig's argument, and frankly it's silly. The conclusion is baked into the premise. If you right away distinguish between things that "began" to exist and things that didn't; it's easy to wave your hands and obfuscate around for a while and then end up proving the existence of something that exists but did not "begin" to exist.
Your paraphrase misses all of this and it's therefore not Craig's argument.
As far as whether there can be a chain of things infinite to the left, I like the simple mathematical example of the negative integers: ..., -3, -2, -1. This anti-sequence or backwards sequence has an order type called *?, pronounced "star omega." That's because ? is the order type of the natural numbers; and *? is the reverse of ?.
*? provides us with a perfectly sensible mathematical model of a system in which each thing has a predecessor and there is no firstmost element. I'm not saying that's how the universe works. I"m just saying that Craig can't say it doesn't. If people would contemplate the negative integers, they would gain insight and familiarity with infinite regress. It's really no more complicated or strange than the fact that if you have a negative number you can keep on subtracting 1 as many times as you like, and you'll never get to the beginning. Because there is no beginning.
Craig's argument is just sophistry. I'm astonished that anyone takes his argument seriously.
On the other hand your own argument or paraphrase is not Craig's argument; and I haven't looked at yours in detail. So I can't tell if you mean to give your own version of the argument or are inaccurately paraphrasing Craig.
Either way, infinite regress ain't no thang. Just subtract 1. Or take one step left on the number line. And here's another mathematical model. Start with 1 and keep dividing by 2. You get 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, ... Once again, there is no first element. Although you can take the limit and say that 0 is God. If that makes anyone happy.
Hey hey, I don't want to be one with Stalin. Gross. :D
hey fishfry, what kinds of things exactly don't 'begin to exist'? I think if you look at any object in the known universe, then all of them 'began to exist' at some point in time, didn't they? Even atoms began to exist, we are told. So, without any hand-waving, what kinds of things, generally speaking, don't begin to exist?
I'm stating William Lane Craig's argument in order to characterize it as disingenuous and silly. Was that unclear in my post?
"Premise one: "Whatever begins to exist has a cause."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalam_cosmological_argument
It was clear enough, but my question stands. You say that 'dividing the world into things that don't begin and things that do' is a 'sneaky rhetorical maneuver'.
So I asked the question: what is an example of the types of things that don't have a beginning? Because I can't really see why an argument based on this is 'disingenuous'.
The uncaused cause is God. That would be Craig's point. If you find it sensible I guess we'll agree to disagree.
How does the fact that the premise used is specifically picked to make the argument work make the argument any less valid or sound? Let's say that Craig admits that he made his version the Kalaam argument by working backwards from more basic cosmological arguments in order to avoid criticisms and point towards God. What exactly is wrong then? Most philosophical arguments develop that way. The entire point of the rephrasing is to avoid the problem with saying "everything has a cause," as God would have no cause. That's it. Beyond that, the argument is a pretty standard fare cosmological argument, just with a lot more science to discuss.
No the anti-thesis is that causes are necessarily contingent, only probabilities, contingent events that could have always been otherwise, that's all that is available to us.
By definition, a first cause is not 'sensible', insofar as by definition it is not perceptible by sense. All of these arguments are broadly speaking rationalist and abductive, i.e. arguing from perceived effect to probable causes.
And the question still stands - what kinds of actual things - existing objects, not numbers - do not begin in time? It seems categorically true that all phenomena begin and end in time and are composed of parts. If anyone has an exception I would be interested to hear it.
Yes. Naturalism would oppose supernaturalism as immanence vs transcendence. So the first cause or prime mover would have to be understood as a self-organising tendency arising "within", instead of some externally imposed agency.
Thus it makes more sense to talk of a first accident rather than a first cause. Or in modern technical parlance, a first fluctuation that spontaneously broke a symmetry. An accident clicked and turned out to be the first step in a chain of events - like whatever random thing happened to tip a first domino and send the rest rattling flat.
This still leaves the question of creation rather unsolved. But it is a better place to start. Instead of needing the overkill of an all-powerful supernatural agency - a big daddy in the sky - it says the first cause was the very least of all things, a random fluctuation. Zero agency, zero identity. Any slight push of any kind could have done the trick because ... "things were poised".
Maybe the cat's tail brushed the waiting dominos. Maybe it was a puff of breeze or the rumble of traffic. The point is that it never mattered and is antithetical in being non-agential - merely the kind of accident that was inevitably going to happen.
Oh I see. Yes I agree that my objection applies pretty much to every logical argument. After all if I prove that the order of a subgroup must divide the order of a finite group, that's only because of the way I defined a group! (That's a mathematical example for those unfamiliar with group theory).
So yes I do concede that my objection that Craig's conclusion is baked into his premises is no objection at all, since it applies equally to any logical argument.
I suppose what I mean here is that some of the moral or persuasive force of Craig's argument is weakened. The phrase "began to exist" carries within it the fact that the universe must have had a cause (if we believe the universe began to exist) hence there must be an uncaused cause which is the all-powerful benevolent God of Christian theology. Although why it couldn't just be the Uncaused Flying Spaghetti Monster, Craig doesn't say.
The 'inside vs outside' or 'immanent vs transcendent' division doesn't have to be understood in terms of a sky-father, indeed in Platonist philosophy it generally was not understood in those terms at all. That came later, when the Greek-speaking theologians tried to reconcile Biblical revelation with Greek philosophical speculation. But there was always a tension in that enterprise, 'what does Athens have to do with Jerusalem', 'folly to the Greeks', and so on.
From the Greek perspective, it is more the point that the intelligibility of the Universe seems always a given - there is a logic to the way things inter-operate, which was one of the original meanings of 'logos' (before, again, that was hijacked to mean 'God's word.) But it's more akin to that saying of Einstein's -
He says elsewhere that he sees this as being more like 'Spinoza' than like theistic religion, which he too associates with 'sky-father' religiosity, something he never accepted. But there's a lot of blurry lines around this topic.
Premise-1: Everything in the world has a cause.
Premise-2: If we trace the causes back, we arrive at the big bang, and the cause of the big bang.
Premise-3: Even if God was not the cause of the big-bang, and something natural was, still, it is very improbable that there is an infinite chain of causes going back forever.
Conclusion: Therefore, it is very probable that a non-contingent first cause exists; and this must be God, since there is nothing greater than the non-contingent first cause."
Two BIG problems with this are:
1) If "EVERYTHING" has to have a cause then it is a given that "God" (whatever he/she/it or even they are has to have a cause as well, however since "God" aka. the unmoved mover by normal definition doesn't and can not have a cause then it is a given that in a universe (or multi-universe if such things are possible) where "EVERYTHING" must have a cause then it is a given that a "God" who is also the one and the same as the unmoved mover can not exist in such a universe or multi-universe.
2)As soon as a theist or someone claims "God" aka. unmoved mover is an exception to this rule, then it is a given that it is plausible that if "God" to be an exception then it is plausible that A) "God" isn't the only exception b) there could be some kind of process or thing which is uncaused cause even if "God" doesn't exist.
In reality whether or not there is uncaused causes or there isn't it doesn't really matter since it involves stuff that is WAY outside of the field of useful philosophy and serves more as a form of intellectual and/or academic "chest puffing" for those not dealing with other matters. Centuries ago the concept of the unmoved mover/uncaused causes was sometimes used theists to help their arguments, but those who know something of medieval philosophy/logic usually understand the fallacies of such positions.
Yes, Platonism, or better yet Aristotelianism, is more sophisticated. Instead of just being anthropomorphic, the larger cause of being is assigned to top-down formal and final cause. Or what in the systems approach we would call constraints. Forms and purposes place limits on the scope of accidents.
But still the transcendent vs immanent distinction remains central. Platonism wanted to place the forms in a transcendent realm of ideas. Aristotle was striving after a more immanent naturalism. Modern holism would talk about form and telos - as the globalised constraints - being what evolve and so emerge to regulate their worlds in determinate fashion. Law grows as its shape is already logically necessary.
So Greek metaphysics was largely organic and immanent in spirit. The early dudes spoke about logos and flux, peras and apeiron - or regulating constraints and chaotic degrees of freedom. Being became determinate by potentiality becoming self-restricting or shaped by a common trajectory.
But then Plato stood apart in asserting that the forms of nature did not emerge in time, rather they stood apart as eternal. And somehow from there - Platonia - they managed to shape the Chora, the materiality that was somehow the receptacle or whatever could take such an impression.
That doesn't makes sense. Although it does start to make more sense once you start talking about emergent structure mathematically - as symmetry-breaking maths does. So that does cash out Platonic form in a self-organising way. Once you have constrained dimensionality to just three spatial dimensions, there are only a limited set of completely regular polygons or Platonic solids. It is just a timeless inevitability that cubes, tetrahedrons, etc, will emerge given a temporal process which limits the dimensionality of chaotic being to flat 3D space.
So we can work our way back to Plato. But only by showing how forms are emergent and therefore immanent rather than transcendent. They come after the fact as an actuality, even if they were already present latently at the beginning as an as yet unexpressed potentiality.
This is nitpicking, but I would slightly modify Premise 1: Not everything in the world has a cause, if we include the first cause as part of the world (part of the things that exist). Rather, everything that begins to exist has a cause, due to the ex nihilo nihil fit principle. That way, the first cause conclusion does not contradict premise 1, and it follows that it has no beginning.
I concede that if causality is not assumed, the cosmological argument dissolves. So I will just assume the existence of causality. This seems reasonable given that the same assumption is made in science, I think. Tallis' views cannot cohere with the methodology of many sciences, since these sciences often presuppose it: eg. these icebergs are melting because of XYZ reasons.
Also, it seems that the word "God" has a lot of baggage along with it. Some posters have referred to "sky-father" or some type of objectified thing -- and understandably so, given the religious claims that exist in the world -- whereas the God to which the cosmological argument points is beyond objectification/space/time. So I will use the term "X" to refer to this thing.
And after some thought, it seems to me that the cosmological argument does indicate something (say, X), about which the use of the term God is, incidentally, reasonable. For, if one holds the view that space and time began with the big bang (mainstream cosmological view, I think), then that which was responsible for the big bang must have transcended time and space. Admittedly, X is thereby inferred to be merely supra-spatiotemporal, and not all-good or all-loving. X is something quite amazing, though, since X was responsible for all the matter and energy in the universe.
But I can think of two arguments showing that if X is beyond time and space, X must be good.
1. If X is beyond time, then X cannot change.
2. Evil implies change.
3. Goodness is essentially static, and tied up with the nature of being.
4. Therefore, X is good.
1. Love is of the nature of unity.
2. If X is the cause of the universe, then X is something unified.
3. Therefore, one of the predicates of X is "love-nature."
Therefore, adopting mainstream scientific views on reality (namely, assuming the existence of causality, current cogency of big-bang theory), it seems that the cosmological argument points to cause-of-the-universe X, where X = (i) beyond time and space, (ii) something so amazing that all the matter and energy came from it.
Regarding causality: Isn't the existence of causality necessary anyways? Everything that begins to exist necessarily requires a cause outside of itself for its existence. And we observe that some things begin to exist; therefore causality necessarily exists.
Regarding your first argument on X being good: Can you expand on premise 2: Evil implies change? It seems to me it is possible for a thing to be evil and unchanging; and conversely, for a thing to be good and changing, that is, changing for the better. As such, this unchanging X could be unchangingly evil.
My intuition is that actions are evil, either intrinsically or due to their consequences. But mere existence, unchanging, cannot be evil, since it is action-less. If some object doesn't do anything (if it is beyond action), then there is no basis for calling it evil. Mere existence must be good. Therefore since X is beyond change (being beyond time), it must be good.
The conclusion violates premise 1. Therefore the chain of reasoning must be wrong.
Also what do you mean by saying that "is very improbable that there is an infinite chain of causes going back forever?" Why is that improbable? What is the probability? Define your probability model and show your calculations.
I agree. My aim is to show that the universe must have a cause. Perhaps I can change P1 to, "All contingent things have a cause/explanation." Since the universe is a contingent thing, I would be enabled to proceed toward the "cause of the universe" in the latter premises.
The term "improbable" just refers to my rudimentary intuition. It is not at all sophisticated. I am not equipped to furnish a probability model or calculation. But I think the intuition points to something; that actual probability models/calculations might exist. But I admit that my intuition might exist merely because an infinite chain is counter-intuitive, not impossible. Perhaps someone who agrees with the conclusion "God exists" can help me out at this juncture of the argument.
Understood. First I thought that by 'unchanging', you meant 'does not change its mind', not 'action-less'. But now I have two objections to this new meaning:
(1) An action-less thing is not 'good' but neutral. Not moral or immoral, but amoral. A rock comes to mind. I think good acts are required to be a morally good being.
(2) This argument points to deism, not theism. A passive being, not the passionate being that I have heard being described by Aquinas.
Occam's razor would judge that a hypothesis involving finite things is simpler than one involving infinite things. As such, until it is refuted, we should stick the simpler 'finite chain of causes' hypothesis.
Better yet, I think gave a pretty good argument here (point #2).
If causal chains must be finite then there must be a first cause, who is God.
Now if Occam leads to the conclusion that it's simpler to believe in an imaginary supernatural being than it is to believe in a naturalistic explanation of the universe ... then Occam's razor needs a new blade.
Hmm... Good point. So our choices are (1) a simpler hypothesis with a more complex conclusion, or (2) a more complex hypothesis with a simpler conclusion. It appears that Occam's razor is not effective here. I'll take that card back.
We agree that a 'finite chain of causes' is to be preferred. And this premise leads to the conclusion that the first cause is beyond space and time. Now, to be disinclined to accept a 'supernatural' cause of the universe based in an innate predisposition favoring naturalism, seems unreasonable, given that the empirical evidence points towards a supernatural first cause. An 'imaginary supernatural being' is not being postulated; but simply some 'supernatural cause' where 'supernatural' means 'beyond space and time.' It seems that a predisposition towards naturalism, in this case, leads one to accept uncogent conclusions, and to be illogical.
In current cosmology, the big debate on whether 'the universe' is 'only one' of a possibly infinite number of 'multiverses', which might forever be undetectable, even in principle.
I'm sure Ockham will be rolling in his grave.
That's okay. There should a universe where he is not. :D
Quoting Wayfarer
How is this hypothesis backed up? Because if the other universes are undetectable, then I am guessing that it was not brought up from empirical data. Then was it deduced somehow?
That question - 'how is it backed up' - is the subject of a very large and even acrimonious debate between many big time scientists. It is being called a crisis in cosmology ( here are some references.)
You and I are plainly never going to resolve this problem (or even understand it, for that matter.) But the point I was making, whenever anyone refers to 'Ockham's Razor' in defense of 'naturalism' with regards to cosmology, then just look at where naturalism is at right now. It is far more extravagant and a good deal stranger than anything in medieval metaphysics.
It apparently fell out of some interpretations of quantum mechanics, and later some string theories.
Quantum mechanics is well-established, string theories aren't.
These other universes are not QM worlds, but other spacetimes with different physics and numbers of dimensions and such. They're more an answer to the teleological argument than the cosmological one. The view doesn't answer the first-cause issue, it just puts it further behind our big bang.
... or whatever they all are.
Modal realism pretty much covers any of them. I don't think of think of that as any kind of metaphysical stance, but rather a set of tools for describing them and an assertion that there is no preferred world that is more actual.
For instance, a universe that is undetectable just because it is outside the Hubble-sphere is another world just like the worlds of inflation, QM, or whatever. Is it not real? Some say not.
Yeah you are probably right about this topic being too convoluted. I usually walk away whenever someone pulls the Quantum Mechanics card into a philosophical debate.
- "Nothing can come from nothing."
- "Actually, in QM, particles pop in and out of existence ..."
The contemporary Kalam cosmological argument as it is presented and defended by academics like the Christian theologian/philosopher William Craig, has its roots in the thought of the 12th century Muslim scholar, Al-Ghazali, who argued that the notion of a beginningless universe was absurd. He formulated his argument very simply in the following statement:
"Every being which begins has a cause for its beginning, now the world is a being which begins, therefore, it possesses a cause for its beginning."
Al-Ghazali recognised that if the universe was "past-eternal" and never began to exist in time there must have been an infinite number of (cause -and -effect) events prior to today, but he denied that an infinite number of things could actually exist. He realised that if an actual infinite number of things could really exist then various absurdities would result like, for instance, "Hibert's Hotel" as illustrated in David Hibert's famous thought experiment. If "Hibert's Hotel" could really exist, then it would have a sign posted outside saying " No Vacancy ( guests welcome) which is patently absurd.Briefly, It is clearly unreasonable, I think, to expect that such a Hotel could actually exist. And since nothing depends on Hibert's illustration involving a Hotel, the argument can be generalised to show that that the existence of of an actual infinite number of (any) things - such as an infinite number of past events prior the existence of universe as we observe it is today is frankly absurd.
Your repeated objection is that developments in modern mathematical set theory have seen the use of actually infinite sets become commonplace, such, for example, as the set of negative integers ( 0, -1, -2, -3, -4...) which has ( in set theory) an actually infinite number of numbers in it. You suggest that this invalidates or at least undermines premise (2) of the Kalam argument, but does it ? In my opinion the answer is "No, it does not.". I fully accept that if , as a mathematician, you adopt certain axioms and rules, then you can TALK about actually infinite collections in a way that is consistent and without contradicting yourself - BUT, insn't it true that all this ultimately achieves is showing how one can set about constructing a particular universe of discourse for talking consistently about actual infinities. That is, It does absolutely nothing to show that an actually infinite number of things can really exist. So, in short, if Al-Ghazali is right, ( and I believe he is) we can dismiss this universe of mathematical discourse as a merely fictional realm, like the world of Sherlock Holmes or Harry Potter, or something that exists only in your imagination. The onus is on you to show that this is not the case.
Another objection to the Kalam argument you forward is that premise 2, namely the proposition that that the universe did have a temporal beginning, makes things too easy for a natural theologian like Craig because it patently "bakes in" ( as you put it ) the necessity of a creating cause of the origin of the universe. Even if this were true and Craig was being "disingenuous", the fact remains that overwhelming majority ordinary lay persons (people, that is who are not employed as professional astrophysicists , cosmologists or philosophers etc) ,would agree with the Kalam argument's conclusion that there MUST be a creating cause of the universe. When, for example, the fundamental principles of the "Big Bang" theory is first explained to most non-expert adults, their very first question is: "What caused the Big Bang ?" This question evinces a pre-philosophical/pre-scientific intuition that whatever begins to exist has a cause, and that things do not somehow simply "pop" into existence ( ex nihilo) without having a distinct cause. In my view, this is a perfectly rational and reasonable intuition and therefore offers strong prima facile justification for thinking that if the universe did begin to exist in time and that it's origination must therefore have been the effect of some transcendent cause ?
What do you think?
Regards
John