Patrick

<redacted>

Phil. 333
Research Paper

THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
     To prove the existence of God has been the forefront thought of philosophy pre-dating the modern worldview.  More men, throughout mankind, have tried to reason their way up to an all-knowing, all-perfect God using many different schemas.  God has not only been, arguably, the forefront issue among philosophers but also of every single type of human emotion, thought, and exposition since God created man.  It is my plan to try to use what I believe is the best argument that relates with the most scientific and logical frame of thought.  I do not wish to discredit or take away anything from the other arguments from God; I believe they all have a place within the same frame of thought.  However, in order to more focus my argument for the existence of God I will use just the cosmological argument.  The use of the cosmological argument, I believe, is the best argument that maintains an objective outlook on the subject for proof of the existence of God.  No matter what side of the debate anyone is on it must be noted that the existence of God is just as scary as the non-existence of God.  It is up to us, as mankind, to figure out what the correct answer is.  To go through life believing in a God that doesn’t exist is delusional.  However, going through life not believing in a God that does exist is not only delusional but also reckless and foolish.  We must look at all arguments and facts relating to the subject of God unbiased, without use of religious or scientific dogma or religious or scientific lies.  The knowledge we have about God will shape the way we view the world and all of creation.
     Of course, in order to begin the discussion I must first define a few key words.  God is defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshiped as creator and ruler of the universe”.  Next is the definition of the cosmological argument.  We first begin with the a posteriori assumptions that the universe exists and that something outside the universe is required to explain its existence.  There are three main types of the cosmological argument (from now on referred to as CA for sake of brevity).  There is the Thomist Argument, the Leibnizian Argument, and the Kalam Argument.  My position will be derived by the Kalam Argument.  That is not to say the other two types are worse but the Kalam Argument (KA) has not received the recognition it deserves.  There have been many philosophers who have used and written about the KA, such as J.P. Moreland and William Lane Craig.  It is interesting to note here that the KA was thought of and preserved by Islamic thinkers in the 9th and 10th century A.D.  KA is used by many Christian philosophers to prove the existence of God.  Christianity and Islam coming together?  It truly is a mad, mad world.  
     The KA is as follows:
Whatever begins to exist has a cause
The universe began to exist
Therefore, the universe has a cause
First of all it should be noted that the argument is deductively logical.  I will now provide proof for each step, as well as counter arguments, as well as counter-counter arguments.
     Whatever begins to exist has a cause
     One proof for this statement being true is that things do not just pop up into existence, uncaused, and out of nothing.  However all a skeptic has to say is, “You can’t prove that to be true!”  They are correct since the burden of proof rests on me to prove my theory, but still they shouldn’t hold their standards of proof up so high.  Another reason for this being true is that it is intuitively obvious once you understand the concept of absolute nothingness.  Believing something came from nothing is worse than believing in magic.  With magic you have at least a magician and a hat to pull a rabbit out of nowhere.  However a skeptic says that intuition is not the best kind of proof since it is subjective.  This is agreeable; I must at least try to come up with some objective proofs for this first premise.  The next proof is that we never see things come into being, uncaused, and out of no nothing.  No one ever has to worry about an elephant appearing out of no where and falling on them as they are walking down the street.  This is also consistent with the first law of thermodynamics.  This law says that matter (energy) cannot be created or destroyed.  The skeptic comes in and makes a claim such as, “Quantum theory…holds that a vacuum…is subject to quantum uncertainties.  This means that things can materialize out of the vacuum, although they tend to vanish back into it quickly…Theoretically, anything – a god, a house, a planet – can pop into existence by means of this quantum quirk, which physicists call a vacuum fluctuation.  Probability, however, dictates that pairs of subatomic particles…are by far the most likely creations and that they will last extremely briefly…The spontaneous, persistent creation of something even as large as a molecule is profoundly unlikely.  Nevertheless, in 1973, an assistant professor at Columbia University named Edward Tyron suggested that the entire universe might have come into existence this way…The whole universe may be, to use [MIT physicist Alan] Guth’s phrase ‘a free lunch’.” (Brad Lemley, “Guth’s Grand Guess,” Discover (April 2002)). However, there are a few responses I can make to this.  First of all I can make the claim that these virtual particles are nothing more than theoretical entities.  Therefore there is no proof that these particles actually do indeed exist and seems just as much a belief as one believes in an all-powerful creator.  Another argument I can make is that the use of the term vacuum in the “quantum vacuum” is kind of misleading.  Here it does not refer to absolutely nothing but actually a sea of fluctuating energy.  This sea is a place of violent activity that has a rich physical structure and can be described by physical laws.  The particles are thought to originate by fluctuations of energy in the vacuum.  So in reality, proponents of this theory have only resulted in pushing creation back one step.  They must still then answer where the quantum vacuum came from.  Also, one cannot use quantum physics to explain the origin of the domain that quantum physics operate in.  One needs something that transcends beyond the domain to explain it.  I will even add further proof to the first premise by quoting David Hume, the father of all that is skeptical.  He said, “I never asserted so absurd a proposition as that anything might arise without a cause.” (David Hume, The Letters of David Hume, Two Volumes, J.Y.T. Greig, editor (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923).  If that statement doesn’t help my case nothing will.  I believe then that the first premise is well substantiated.
     The universe began to exist
     This part of the argument is probably one of the most attacked parts of the KA.  The good thing about that is that there have been a lot of responses.  I believe the best way to prove this statement is through a mathematical/philosophical approach.  The assertion is clearly made as the following:  the universe cannot be infinite because that leads to absurdities.  Since an infinite past would involve an actual infinity number of events, the past simply cannot be infinite.  To put it in a logical order,
An actual infinite cannot exist
A beginningless temporal series of events is an actual infinite
Therefore, a beginningless temporal series of events cannot exist
To claim that the universe had no beginning is the equivalent to saying that there are an actual infinite number of past events in the history of the universe.  To show why this is wrong I will offer various examples of why actual infinites lead to absurdity even if actual infinities were real.  Example one: Let us suppose that person X had an infinite number of marbles we will call M.  Person X wants to give an infinite number of marbles to person Y.  One way X could give Y an infinite number of marbles is to give Y all the marbles.  So M – M = 0.  X could also give Y every odd number marble; both would end up with an infinite number of marbles.  So M – M = M.  Also X could give Y all the marbles that are numbered 5 and greater.  So M – M = 5.  In all three cases, I have subtracted the identical number from the identical number, but I have come up with non-identical results.  Mathematicians even know this and, as such, are forbidden from doing subtraction and division in transfinite arithmetic.  These lead to contradictions.  Take this example and put “past events” in place of “marbles” and you get a universe that can’t have an infinite number of past events; it then must have a beginning.  Craig, in “Philosophical and Science Pointers”, gave the next example.  Imagine a library with an actual infinite number of books.  Suppose further that there is an infinite number of red books and an infinite number of black books in the library.  Does it really make sense to say that there are as many black books in the library as there are red and black books together?  Surely not.  Furthermore, I could withdraw all the black books and not change the total holdings in the library.  Let us also assume that each book has an actual infinite number of pages.  There would be just as many pages in the first book in the library as there are in the entire, infinite collection.  This is further proof that an actual infinite cannot exist and thus the universe cannot be infinite but rather have a beginning.  Someone who is skeptical can still try and make some criticism of this but all fall short.  One could say that this then show that God can’t be infinitely old, or always existed.  This would be true if God existed in time and space.  However the standard view of God put Him outside of space and time although He can enter space and time whenever He wants; which is a completely different topic altogether.  Another argument is that the mere presence of infinite set theory in math is enough to dispel the above puzzles.  They say the fact that there is such a thing as infinite set theory shows that the language and theory of infinite sets are coherent and we must adjust our world view accordingly.  This objection is also wrong.  The mere presence of a generally accepted theory in math says nothing, by itself, about anything in the real world of entities.  There have been a few other criticism of the existence of actual infinites but all fail.
     Therefore, the universe has a cause
     Since I have stated a deductively valid argument and proven both my preemies then my conclusion holds.  It is of interest to note that in the days of Aquinas the universe was thought to be static and infinite.  He is noted as stating that if he had to start with the premise that the universe had a beginning then his task of proving God would be too easy.  Oh, if only Aquinas had done better in his math classes.
     Personal Creator
     Now I have only proven that the universe has a cause.  I still need to prove that the cause was God.  Well thanks the KA, I can do just that.  Since the universe is caused, I am left with two choices in the Causer.  Either the causer was impersonal or personal.  We must first look at the ontologically prior state of affairs.  This can be described as there was no time, space, or change of any kind.  In this state of affairs, either the necessary and sufficient conditions for the first event existed from all eternity in a state of immutability or they did not.  If they did not, this only leads to an infinite regress of first events.  So the only way a physicalist understanding of the beginning of the universe can avoid the first event being uncaused is to say that the necessary and sufficient conditions for the first event existed from all eternity in a timeless, changeless state.  These conditions for some reasons or another gave rise to the first event.  However in a physical universe X is the efficient cause of Y, then given the presence of X, Y obtains spontaneity.  There is no deliberation, no waiting.  So spontaneous change or mutability is built into the situation itself.  Therefore, if the cause was impersonal then it would have had its initial conditions met eternally and thus it would exist from eternity past.  The effect would be co-eternal with the cause.  There is only one way for the first even to arise spontaneously from a timeless, changeless, spaceless state and at the same be caused is that the event resulted from the free act of a person or agent.  He can create a new effect without any antecedent determining conditions.  Edmund Whittake, in The Beginning and End of the World, stated “There is no ground for supposing that matter and energy existed before and was suddenly galvanized into action.  For what could distinguish that moment from all other moments in eternity?  It is simpler to postulate creation ex niilo (Divine will constituting nature from nothingness).  Some critics may say that this doesn’t show the Creator still in existence today.  In response, it is certainly possible that this Creator still exists since He transcends space, time, and the laws of nature.  Since He created those laws, it’s unlikely that those laws could extinguish the Creator.
     Other Types of Universes
     The above only works in the type of universe I have described.  So what if the universe is not like how I, and most scientists, described it?  This would be a perfect way for skeptics to try and foil me.
     One type of alternative universe is the Steady State theory proposed by Fred Hoyle.  This theory states that the universe was expanding but claimed that as galaxies retreat from each other, new matter comes into being out of nothing and fills the void.  So as this universe violates the first law of thermodynamics, the universe is supposedly constantly replenished with new matter.  In order to prove the existence of God I must come up with a solution under these new types of criteria.  So I will look at the scientific evidence that is used with this theory.  There is none!  The steady state theory has never produced one single piece of experimental verification.  The only reason it was thought up was to avoid the absolute beginning of the universe in our original universe model.
     Another type of alternative universe is the Oscillating Model proposed by Carl Sagan.  This theory eliminates the need for an absolute beginning of the universe by suggesting the universe expands, the collapses, then expands again, and etc. to infinity.  I don’t find pleasure in disagreeing with Dr. Sagan, which I was a fan of his Cosmos programs when I was young, but I must.  The first problem is that this theory contradicts the known laws of physics.  As long as the universe is governed by general relativity, the existence of beginning is inevitable, and it’s impossible to pass through a beginning to a subsequent state.  There is no known physics that could reverse a contracting universe and suddenly make it bounce before it hits the beginning.  Another problem with this theory is that in order for the universe to contract at some point it would have to be dense enough to generate the sufficient gravity to not only slow the expansion to a halt but also, with increasing rapidity, contract into a big crunch.  Estimates have consistently indicated that the universe is way below the density needed.  Finally, even if physics were to allow the universe to contract, entropy would be conserved from one cycle to the next.  This would have the effect of each expansion getting bigger and bigger.  Now if we trace that backwards in time we see something interesting.  The expansions get smaller and smaller, until you reach a point of the smallest cycle.  This is the beginning of the universe!  So Dr. Sagan just helped me in my proof of God!
     Now for my favorite part…I will refute Steven Hawking!  I will do this humbly, of course.  In Hawking’s book, A Brief History of Time, he writes, “So long as the universe has a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator.  But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end:  it would simple be.  What place, then, for a creator?”  Now let us remember here that he said “if a universe has a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator”.  Hawking’s model of the universe looks like a cone but instead of coming to a point the end is rounded.  The model shows no singularity, hence the round end instead of the normal sharp edge of the model we now use.  If one were to start at the mouth of the cone and go backward in time you would not come back to a beginning point.  One would not come back to a beginning point but, instead, follow the curve and thus one would be heading forward in time again.  Well there we go.  His model shows no beginning, no singularity, and no need for God.  Do I believe Steven Hawking made a mistake here?  I would never be so bold.  However one must look at what is true in math and what is true in the real world.  I believe Dr. Hawking has made a philosophical error in his model.  His model still has a beginning in the sense that one must pick a point which will have a finite past duration.  Also, I believe, he has made another error.  He is only able to achieve his round portion of his model because he uses imaginary numbers in his equations.  He does this to turn time into a dimension of space.  However, imaginary numbers only help in making the math easier and more able to fit the results wanted.  When you want to use the model in the real world you must convert the imaginary numbers into real ones.  So what happens if I do Hawking’s work for him?  Why, by golly, singularity appears again!  Now to be fair, Hawking has admitted to using the imaginary numbers because, he says, he doesn’t know what reality is.  Also, remember what I told you to remember he said.  “If a universe has a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator”.  Is that Steven Hawking proving the existence of God?!
     Conclusion
     Now I am in no way claiming that the KA or even the CA proves the existence of God conclusively and there is so much more on both sides of the debate that I have not discussed.  However, I believe that this argument is unfairly brushed aside not only by the skeptics but by some believers as well.  The beauty of these arguments is that it leads to so much more of an understanding of us and everything in the universe.  It ranges from the very big universe, to nature, to our own interactions.  We must take the subject of God very seriously because to refuse to believe in Him because of bias or ignorance is only faulted on those who do so.  The end results and consequences will be there.  It is up to all of us, individually, to find the Truth.

     Sources

•      Moreland, J.P. and Kai Nielsen.  Does God Exist?  Amherst, NY:  Prometheus, 1993
•      Moreland, J.P.  Scaling the Secular City – A Defense of Christianity.  Grand Rapids, MI:  Baker Books, 1995
•      Strobel, Lee.  The Case For A Creator.  Grand Rapids, MI:  Zondervan, 2004.
•      Craig, William Lane.  “Design and the Cosmological Arugement.”  In Mere Creation, ed.  William A. Dembski.  Downer’s Grove, Ill.:  InterVarsity, 1998.
o      Reasonable Faith. Wheaton, Ill.: Corssway, revised edition, 1994.
o      , and Quentin Smith.  Theism, Atheism, and Big Band Cosmology.  Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 1993.