TFY’d: The Universe
“Hey Jonnie, nice
car!” called Dave. “Is that a Porsche?”
“Sure is!” replied
Jonnie. “I just got it.”
“How can you afford
that?” asked Dave incredulously.
“I didn’t pay for it!”
Jonnie said. “I walked out of the house this morning and was about to get
into my old car when this one just popped into existence in my driveway!”
“Ha ha,” said
Dave. “Very funny. But seriously, how can you afford this?”
“I’m serious,” said
Jonnie. “It really did just appear out of nowhere in my driveway this
morning.”
“Things don’t just
appear for no reason, Dave. I’m not an idiot!”
“But just yesterday
you told me that the universe began to exist when the Big Bang happened all
those years ago,” Jonnie retorted.
“Well...I did say
that...” Dave conceded.
“And didn’t you say that
before the Big Bang nothing existed? That the Big Bang created
everything?”
“Yeah, but-”
“So you believe that
things do just pop into existence,” Jonnie pressed. “And
if the universe can simply explode into existence, why can’t my Porsche?”
“Well, I don’t-“
“C’mon, mate, admit
it. You know full well that things simply don’t begin to exist without a
cause!”
“Fine!” Dave
agreed. “So then where do you think the universe came from, Mr
Know-it-all?”
“I think God made it,”
said Jonnie. “But I really don’t have time to get into it now – dad’s
only loaned me his Porsche for the afternoon!”
Puzzle Piece 3: The
Universe – Why is it here?
Last time we looked at
why people should care about moral truths. We also looked at how we come
to know things about the world around us – through the process of
induction. We finished with this question: have I ever seen any effects
that would require a pre-existing supernatural being as their cause? In
other words – is there stuff that goes on around us that there just has to be
someone or something else in charge of in order to explain it? We answered yes
– the universe itself! We deduced that someone or something else outside
of us as humans had to be involved in its creation. So let’s turn our investigation
there and see what it can tell us about whether or not God exists.
There are three basic
options for considering the universe and its origins:
1) ETERNAL: Always has
been. The first option we have is that the universe is eternal, that it has
neither beginning nor end; that it has always existed and always will. No
one created it; it has just always been around. This is not a view that is very
popular, but there are some scientists who are putting this idea forward.
What can we say about this? Well, firstly, there is absolutely no
evidence in favour of this hypothesis. In fact, what we find is that
there is a whole pile of evidence in favour of the opposite, that the universe
is finite; there will be an end and it began to exist at some point in the past.
The vast majority of scientists, secular and Christian, believe that the
universe began to exist about 15 billion years ago in an event called the Big
Bang. Now, some of you may not believe in the Big Bang, and that’s fine,
but, in the spirit of accurate investigation, let’s make a tactical decision
and embrace the idea for a moment. What does the science say?
Astronomy and astrophysics tells us that about 15 billion years ago physical
space and time were created in an explosion, the ‘Big Bang’, as well as all
matter and energy. All the evidence that scientists have point to the
universe having a beginning, not being eternal, and we’ll look at five things
in a minute to show this. So we can strike out the first option – the
universe is not eternal.
2) The second option
you have is the aforementioned Big Bang where the universe exploded into
existence out of nothing and for no reason. Cambridge astronomer Fred Hoyle
points out that the Big Bang Theory requires the creation of
the universe from nothing. This is because as you go back in time it reaches a
point at which, in Hoyle’s words; the universe was "shrunk down to nothing
at all” (more on this later). This means that because the universe is
expanding, when we go back in time we can trace that expansion to the point
where all matter in the universe was created in a single explosion. Thus
what the Big Bang model requires is that the universe began to exist and was
created out of nothing. Now, immediately we can see that there is something
wrong with this idea. What is it?
Answer: you can’t get
something from nothing! This means that when you have a big fat pile of
nothing, what can you get out of it? Nothing! Things don’t just pop
into existence! This has never been observed – nothing has ever been seen
to have just popped into existence out of nothing for no reason. If this
was possible, then we should see things coming into being every now and
then. I mean, if it happened once, why can’t it happen again? But
we don’t see this happening, do we? Nor do we really believe that it’s
possible. Look at the example with Jonnie’s Porsche. Dave wouldn’t
believe him, because Dave knows that things just don’t come into being for no
reason. People seem to make an exception for the universe, though.
Why? Why should we make an exception for the universe but not Jonnie’s
Porsche?
Let’s look at another
example: suppose you were at your mate’s house and you heard a loud “bang!” and
you asked him, “What caused that bang?” He said, “nothing. It just
happened.” Would you be prepared to accept that answer? No!
So why accept it for the universe? If a little bang needs a cause,
why doesn’t a Big Bang? Now this tends to be very awkward for the atheist
thinker. For as Anthony Kenny of Oxford University says, "A
proponent of the [Big Bang] theory, at least if he is an atheist, must believe
that ... the universe came from nothing and by nothing.” But that’s a
pretty hard pill to swallow. Because, out of nothing, nothing
comes! This leaves us with our final option.
3) The universe was
created by an intelligent being (God). As we have seen, the idea that the
universe is uncreated and just happened to pop into being uncaused seems
illogical and unreasonable. It certainly asks us to make a single exception
for the universe in our knowledge of where things come from, so it seems that
the idea that the universe was caused or created is a much more reasonable
idea. Why not accept the explanation that the unimaginably vast and
awesome universe was made by Someone?
The Kalam Cosmological
Argument
We want to lay this
idea out in a very simple, three step argument, an argument that has been
around since the Middle Ages called the Kalam Cosmological Argument. This
is an argument that was invented by a Muslim philosopher name Al-Khazali and it
goes like this:
- Everything that begins to
exist has a cause
- The universe began to exist,
therefore
- The universe has a cause
This simple argument
sums up neatly what we have just been discussing about how nothing just begins
to exist for no reason, but that everything that has a beginning has a cause,
including the universe. We’ve already discussed the first premise, so
let’s cut straight to Premise B, and find out just what evidence there is that
the universe had a beginning.
SURGE
In their book I
Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist, Norm Geisler and Frank Turek lay
out five pieces of evidence for the beginning of the universe that they sum up
in the acronym SURGE. Let’s see what they are:
S – The S stands
for the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This is a law of science that
says that the universe is running out of energy. One day all the energy
in the universe will be gone and the universe will achieve what’s commonly
called “heat death” –meaning all the heat will be used up and the whole
universe will be cold and dead. Think of it like your car. Over
time it uses up petrol, and unless you put more in it’ll eventually run
out. How does this prove the universe had a beginning? The universe
is a closed system – that means that it’s impossible for the universe to get
more petrol. So if it can’t be refuelled, and it’s using up fuel, and
it’s eventually going to run out, it can’t have been going forever, or it would
have already run out. After all, you know that if a cup of coffee is
still warm it hasn’t been sitting there forever or it would be stone cold by
now.
U – The U stands
for the fact that the Universe is expanding, something that astronomer
Edwin Hubble discovered in the late 1920s. How does this prove the
universe had a beginning? Geisler and Turek say this (p79):
If we could watch a
video recording of the history of the universe in reverse, we would see all
matter in the universe collapse back to a point, not the size of a basketball,
not the size of a golf ball, not even the size of a pinhead, but mathematically
and logically to a point that is actually nothing (i.e., no space, no time, and
no matter). In other words, once there was nothing, and then, BANG, there
was something...
Remember British
author Anthony Kenny’s word from earlier when he pointed out the significance
of this:
According to the Big
Bang Theory, the whole matter of the universe began to exist at a particular
time in the remote past. A proponent of such a theory, at least if he is
an atheist, must believe that the matter of the universe came from nothing and
by nothing.
R – The R in our
acronym stands for Radiation. Back in 1965 Arno Penzias and Robert
Wilson discovered that wherever they looked in the sky they detected radiation
– the radiation from the initial explosion of the Big Bang! They won
Nobel Prizes for their discovery. This Cosmic Background Radiation is
evidence for the Big Bang itself. It’s the last vestiges of the heat from
the original explosion, and it crushed any hope that the universe has always
existed. After all, if it had always existed, there would’ve been no
explosion like the one we’ve found!
G – If the Big
Bang actually happened, scientists predicted that we should see variations in
the temperature of the radiation that Penzias and Wilson discovered.
These changes in temperature allowed matter to group together and form
galaxies. In 1992 they found them. So important was this discovery
that world renowned astronomer Stephen Hawking called it “the most important
discovery of the century, if not all time.” Because of the extreme time
it takes for these things to become visible to us, we are actually seeing
images from the past, and what we are seeing are the seeds of Great Galaxies
(the G in SURGE) – we are seeing where the great galaxies and galaxy clusters
would eventually form. Another prediction of the Big Bang is
proven.
E – Einstein
makes up the E in SURGE, and it’s his Theory of General Relativity that is our
final piece of evidence for the beginning of the universe (not the final piece
that exists, just the last one we’ll look at). Einstein’s theory demands
an absolute beginning for time, space and matter. In fact, it shows that
each of these three things depends on the other to the point where you can’t
have one without the others. Einstein himself recognised the significance
of his discovery and acknowledged the problem that comes with proving the
universe is not eternal – you are now faced with the question of how it
came to be!
These five lines of
evidence, wrapped up neatly in the acronym SURGE are five easy to remember and
communicate pieces of evidence that the universe had a beginning, and they are
simple enough for anyone to understand. Let’s now add one that’s a little
more advanced.
In 2003, Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin were able
to prove that any universe which has, on average, been expanding throughout its
history cannot be infinite in the past but must have a past spacetime boundary.
What makes their proof so powerful is that it holds regardless of
the physical description of the very early universe. Because we don’t yet have
a quantum theory of gravity, we can’t yet provide a physical description of the
first split-second of the universe. But the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem is
independent of any physical description of that moment. Their theorem implies
that the quantum vacuum state which may have characterized the early universe
cannot be eternal in the past but must have had an absolute beginning. Even if
our universe is just a tiny part of a so-called ‘multiverse’ composed of many
universes, their theorem requires that the multiverse itself must have an
absolute beginning.[1]
These five lines of
evidence, wrapped up neatly in the acronym SURGE are five easy to remember
and communicate proofs that the universe had a beginning. Let’s return to
Al-Khazali’s argument and see where we stand.
- Everything that begins to
exist has a cause – check!
- The universe began to exist –
check! Therefore
- The universe has a cause
The conclusion that
the universe has a cause follows logically and inescapably because the premises
are logically and factually valid. But we can’t stop here! What
kind of cause would be sufficient to explain the existence of the whole
universe? Let’s watch a short video by Christian philosopher, theologian
and all round good guy Dr William Lane Craig and see what he has to say (the
whole vid is worth watching, but we’ll start just over half way (http://www.leestrobel.com/videoserver/video.php?clip=strobelT1197):
The cause of the
universe must be an:
U
C
T
I
being of U
P who
is also a
P
being.
As Dr Craig goes on to
say, isn't it incredible that the Big Bang theory thus confirms what the
Christian theist has always believed: that in the beginning, God created the
universe? Now, you have to ask yourself: which do you think is more probable,
that the Christian theist is right, or that the universe just popped into
existence uncaused out of nothing?
Contingency
There is another powerful argument for God’s being the cause of the
universe, but it’s a little harder to get your head around. This is what’s called the Argument from
Contingency, and it was first developed by Gottfried Leibniz, the 17th
century German mathematician and philosopher.
Over the years, people have taken his basic idea and modified it
slightly, so you might find some different versions of it floating about, but
the one we will look at is the version defended by Dr Craig, and he offers this
brief explanation and defence of the argument on his website www.reasonablefaith.org, under Question of the Week #25.[2] Here’s what he has to say:
There are three premises in the argument:
1. Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence (either in
the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause).
2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation
is God.
3. The universe exists.
Now what follows logically from these three premises?
From 1 and 3 it logically follows that:
4. The universe has an explanation of its existence.
And from 2 and 4 the conclusion logically follows:
5. Therefore, the explanation of the universe’s existence is God.
Now this is a logically airtight argument. So if anyone wants to deny
the conclusion, he has to say that one of the three premises is false.
But which one will he reject? Premise 3 is undeniable for any sincere
seeker after truth. So the critic is going to have to deny either 1 or 2 if he
wants to deny the conclusion and be rational. So the whole question comes down
to this: are premises 1 and 2 true, or are they false? Well, let’s look at
them.
According to premise 1 there are two kinds of things: (a) things which
exist necessarily and (b) things which exist contingently. Things which exist
necessarily exist by a necessity of their own nature. Many mathematicians think
that numbers, sets, and other mathematical entities exist in this way. They’re
not caused to exist by something else; they just exist by the necessity of
their own nature. By contrast, contingent things are caused to exist by
something else. They exist because something else has produced them. Familiar
physical objects like people, planets, and galaxies belong in this category.
So what reason might be offered for thinking that premise 1 is true?
Well, when you reflect on it, premise 1 has a sort of self-evidence about it.
Imagine that you’re hiking through the woods one day and you come across a
translucent ball lying on the forest floor. You would naturally wonder how it
came to be there. If one of your hiking partners said to you, “It just exists
inexplicably. Don’t worry about it!”, you’d either think that he was crazy or
figure that he just wanted you to keep moving. No one would take seriously the
suggestion that the ball existed there with literally no explanation.
Now suppose you increase the size of the ball in this story so that it’s
the size of a car. That wouldn’t do anything to satisfy or remove the demand
for an explanation. Suppose it were the size of a house. Same problem. Suppose
it were the size of a continent or a planet. Same problem. Suppose it were the
size of the entire universe. Same problem. Merely increasing the size of the
ball does nothing to affect the need of an explanation.
Premise 1 is the premise that the critic typically rejects. Sometimes critics
will respond to premise 1 by saying that it is true of everything in the universe but not of the universe itself. But this response commits
what has been aptly called “the taxicab fallacy.” For as the nineteenth century
atheist philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer quipped, premise 1 can’t be dismissed
like a cab once you’ve arrived at your desired destination!
It would be arbitrary for the critic to claim that the universe is the
exception to the rule. The illustration of the ball in the woods showed that
merely increasing the size of the object to be explained, even until it becomes
the universe itself, does nothing to remove the need for some explanation of
its existence.
Notice, too, how unscientific this critic’s response is. For modern
cosmology is devoted to the search for an explanation of the universe’s
existence. This attitude would cripple science.
Some people have tried to justify making the universe an exception to
premise 1 by saying that it’s impossible for
the universe to have an explanation of its existence. For the explanation of
the universe would have to be some prior state of affairs in which the universe
did not yet exist. But that would be nothingness, and nothingness cannot be the
explanation of anything. So the universe must just exist inexplicably.
This line of reasoning is obviously fallacious. For it assumes that the
universe is all there is, so that if there were no universe there would be
nothing. [This objection is often made by atheists trying to avoid the
conclusion of some reality beyond the physical universe.] In other words, the objection assumes that
atheism is true! The atheist is thus begging the question, arguing in a circle.
I agree that the explanation of the universe must be a prior state of affairs
in which the universe did not exist. But I contend that that state of affairs
is God and His will, not nothingness.
So it seems to me that premise 1 is more plausibly true than false,
which is all we need for a good argument.
What, then, about premise 2? Is it more plausibly true than false?
What’s really awkward for the atheist at this point is that premise 2 is
logically equivalent to the typical atheist response to the contingency
argument. Two statements are logically equivalent if it is impossible for one
to be true and the other one false. They stand or fall together. So what does the
atheist almost always say in response to the argument from contingency? The
atheist typically asserts the following:
A. If atheism is true, the universe has no explanation of its existence.
This is precisely what the atheist says in response to premise 1. The
universe just exists inexplicably. But this is logically equivalent to saying:
B. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, then atheism is
not true.
So you can’t affirm (A) and deny (B).
But (B) is virtually synonymous with premise 2! So by saying in response
to premise 1 that, given atheism, the universe has no explanation, the atheist
is implicitly admitting premise 2, that if the universe does have an
explanation, then God exists.
Besides that, premise 2 is very plausible in its own right. For think of
what the universe is: all of
space-time reality, including all matter and
energy. It follows that if the universe has a cause of its existence, that
cause must be a non-physical, immaterial being beyond space and time. Now there
are only two sorts of thing that could fit that description: either an abstract
object like a number or else an unembodied mind. But abstract objects can’t
cause anything. That’s part of what it means to be abstract. The number 7, for
example, can’t cause any effects. So the cause of the existence of the universe
must be a transcendent Mind, which is what believers understand God to be.
The argument thus proves the existence of a necessary, uncaused,
timeless, spaceless, immaterial, personal Creator of the universe. This is
truly mind-blowing!
The critic has one alternative open to him at this point. He can retrace
his steps, withdraw his objection to premise 1, and say instead that, yes, the
universe does have an explanation of its existence. But
that explanation is: the universe exists by a necessity of its own nature. For
the atheist, the universe could serve as a sort of God-substitute which exists
necessarily.
Now this would be a very radical step to take, and I can’t think of any
contemporary atheist who has in fact adopted this line. A few years ago at a
Philosophy of Time conference at City College in Santa Barbara, it seemed to me
that Professor Adolf Grünbaum, a vociferous atheistic philosopher of science
from the University of Pittsburgh, was flirting with this idea. But when I
raised the question from the floor whether he thought the universe existed
necessarily, he was quite indignant at the suggestion. “Of course not!” he
snapped and went on to say that the universe just exists without any
explanation.
The reason atheists are not eager to embrace this alternative is clear.
As we look about the universe, none of the things that make it up, whether
stars, planets, galaxies, dust, radiation, or what have you, seems to exist
necessarily. They could all fail to exist; indeed, at some point in the past,
when the universe was very dense, none of them did exist.
But, you might say, what about the matter out of which these things are
made? Maybe the matter exists necessarily, and all these things are just
different contingent configurations of matter. The problem with this suggestion
is that, according to the standard model of subatomic physics, matter itself is
composed of tiny particles called “quarks.” The universe is just the collection
of all these quarks arranged in different ways. But now the question arises:
couldn’t a different collection of quarks have existed instead of this one?
Does each and every one of these quarks exist necessarily?
Notice what the atheist cannot say at this point. He cannot say that the
quarks are just configurations of matter which could have been different, even
though the matter of which the quarks are composed exists necessarily. He can’t
say this because quarks aren’t composed of anything! They just are the basic units of matter. So if a quark
doesn’t exist, the matter doesn’t exist.
Now it seems obvious that a different collection of quarks could have
existed instead of the collection that does exist. But if that were the case,
then a different universe would have existed – a universe made up of different
quarks, even if identically arranged as in this universe, would be a different
universe. It follows, then, that the universe does not exist by a necessity of
its own nature.
So atheists have not been so bold as to deny premise 2 and say that the
universe exists necessarily. Premise 2 also seems to be plausibly true.
But given the truth of the three premises the conclusion is logically
inescapable: God is the explanation of the existence of the
universe. Moreover, the argument implies that God is an uncaused,
unembodied Mind who transcends the physical universe and even space and time
themselves and who exists necessarily. What a great argument!
[1] William Lane Craig, ‘Question of the Week #308: Fact-Checking the Fact-Checker of the Craig-Rosenberg Debate’, http://www.reasonablefaith.org/fact-checking-the-fact-checker-of-the-craig-rosenberg-debate, accessed 12 March 2013.
[2] William Lane Craig, ‘Argument from Contingency’, www.reasonableaith.org/argument-from-contingency,
accessed Friday 21 February 2014.
Prepared by D England,
using various material from Dr William Lane Craig and Chapter 3 of I
Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Geisler and Turek, unless
otherwise cited. Translated for Youth by J Simmons.
