The "something can't come from nothing" argument

[cottage]

I have seen centuries of attempts to point out these glaring flaws to no avail. The argument keeps marching along from generation to generation without any loss of fidelity while it's challenges do not. I find most of these counter arguments use the grey areas of ambiguity and uncertainty which are minimal in reality but are amplified through the roof by cognitive dissonance to make up for the fact that no good argument actually exists. However do your worst and let's see what you got.

Now here is William Lane Craig’s Leibnizian formulation of the cosmological argument:

1. Every contingent thing has an explanation of its existence.

2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence that explanation will be a transcendent, personal being.

3. The universe is a contingent thing

4. Therefore the universe has an explanation of its existence. (From 1, 3)

5. Therefore, the explanation of the universe is a transcendent, personal being.
(From 2, 4)


Comments:

Premise 1. “Every contingent thing has an explanation of its existence.”

We can certainly agree that things in the universe appear to have a causal explanation, that is to say where two events are observed to be linked by association as in whenever B then A, (although that does not demonstrate causal necessity).

Premise 2. “The universe has an explanation for its existence.”

If the universe as a whole is explained by a transcendent, conscious, personal being, then that being must by the same token have a reason or explanation to explain itself in terms of explaining the world.

Premise 3. “The universe is a contingent thing.”

This is not disputed.

Premise 4. “Therefore the universe has a beginning.”

This is in line with current cosmological thinking and is not disputed.

Premise 5: “Therefore the explanation of the universe is a transcendent, personal being”

In the case of a transcendent, personal being there is nothing to explain contingent existence on terms that don't run to a contradiction. Therefore there is no transcendent, personal cause.

And here is how I explain that conclusion:

The first premise, if true, can only be applied within the world. In that first premise Craig is referring to the argument from contingency, which very roughly is that anything that exists, but need not exist, will only be accounted for by something that does exist and for which there is no possibility of its non-existence; it will therefore necessarily exist. But of course that argument is itself a contingent statement. A thing can exist contingently without having to answer to a supposed necessarily existing thing, and with no contradiction implied. But anyway to say every contingent thing has an explanation for its existence can only be argued by inference from the contingent world! So the argument begins by begging the question.

However, it is true that things in worldly existence can be shown to have an explanation in terms of some other thing, so then we presume to extend this principle to things that can’t be shown to exist. So we say if things in the world have a reason or explanation, then the world itself must have a reason or explanation for being what it is. But if there is a reason or explanation for the world attributable to an intelligent personal being then that being must by the same token have a reason or explanation to explain itself in terms of explaining the world.

Leibniz said: "No fact can be real or existing and no statement true unless it has a sufficient reason why it should be thus and not otherwise". According to the Argument from Contingency and the principle of sufficient reason (PSR) nothing happens by chance and a thing that doesn’t have to exist but does exist needs a reason for its existence. And this sufficient reason or explanation he said will be God, an intelligent being that freely chose to bring the world into existence. Perhaps Leibniz overstates the principle by appealing to a necessary cause, but his argument backfires on him for it is immediately evident that to say an intelligent, personal being freely choose to bring the world into existence is to assign a purpose to the act of creation, which must be the case whether or not the PSR is a criterion of truth. If, as it is argued in classical theism, God is a personal conscious being, omniscient and omnipresent, then no act of creation happens by accident, chance, or adventitiously but only by his will alone.

The world isn’t a necessary aspect of God, and while God’s eternal existence doesn’t demand an explanation, the finite world of creatures does require an explanation or a reason for its creation. And according to Christian theism, God the creator wants a personal relationship with his creation, and logically there can only be one agent that can profit or gain from this arrangement – and it isn’t the formerly non-existent creatures! And this is seemingly confirmed for us by theist philosopher William Lane Craig in his debate with Peter Millican when he speaks of “God bringing people into a relationship with himself, forever.” I think it is clear from that statement that an eternally existent God requires something he does not already have, which is an immediate contradiction even before we consider the implied emotional content, for by no amount of sophistry can it be argued that the greatest conceivable being is at the same time, or at anytime, not wholly entire or in some way incomplete. And it is utterly absurd even to think of created beings gratifying the needs or emotional requirements of the Supreme Creator.
So the contradiction becomes evident because there is a supposed Supreme Being, who, by very definition of the term, is a complete entity that wants for nothing and yet intentionally brought the world of creatures into being. But since nothing existed prior to the act of creation there was nothing that could profit, gain, or benefit from the act other than God himself. Therefore if God intentionally created the world with a purpose, that could only be for his own sake or advantage (as described above). But as the Supreme Being is a concept already augmented without limit an act of creation is purposeless, which is absurd.
There are only the two possibilities mentioned above, one contradicts the concept of a self-sufficient Supreme Being (i.e. that he has needs or desires), and the other is logically absurd for it amounts to saying a no-thing is something.

Now all the above could be easily countered by arguing that the deity isn’t supreme in all things, which would sit perfectly well with what we find in experience. But then of course there would no difference between a fallible God and no God at all.

 

[1robin]

I agree with much of your quote but don't agree with your reasoning for intelligence being necessary. It is coincidence we find ourselves anywhere, nowhere would be any more special or less/more likely.

I did not base intelligence on being special. I based intelligence on being personal and the fat the universe has extreme rationality encoded it.

1. For X to be the cause of Y then two type of actions could have taken place. If Y is a necessary product of x then X can be a dumb thing and does not have to chose. If X existed then Y existed. This is not what we have in the universe. WE have a cause that existed infinitely before the effect occurred. In that case X must be personal. Personal agents can chose to act. Things that cannot chose to act either always have produced their effects or never will and that is not the case we wave. We have an effect that a mind chose to produce a some point a finite time ago. Only minds have choice.


If You imagine us at the

I also take notice of the immaterial thing. Matter is immaterial so the point is rather moot. Science shows nothing is really material.

If material is immaterial then your definition of material no longer functions. I don't care what word you use. However any label you want to slap on natural structure by necessity is independent from it's source. You can refer to matter as energy density of you want, whatever it is it is not eternal and not God. I X is brought into existence then necessarily whatever brought it into being is not X. If every natural entities came into existence then what created it is not natural in the same sense.

If all wood began to exist then whatever caused it is not wood, If all metals began to exist then what made then is not metallic, etc.....

"Time did not exist". Nonsense, it just has no affect on god.

First of all time is so confusing a subject the only known nonsense about it are claims that things are nonsense. The time we know about (the only one we do it space time). Since that would cease to function before space began to exist then that kind of time (the only kind we know of) would only exist once the universe did. So much for classic tensed time. Now if you want to think of things before space time as sequential, chronological, or tensed that is fine with me but you must be careful to distinguish between time as we know it and some arbitrary time made up for convenience. The bible separates space time from everything else by using eternity to distinguish them. Is that label acceptable. Regardless my claim that the cause of the universe is space timeless is still in tact.

"

Space began to exist". The whole "began" thing is nonsensical.

Might be to a laymen in a forum who is unfamiliar with professional debate but it isn't to those who develop the latest cosmological models.

Vilenkin’s verdict: “All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning.”

There are other names but there are no bigger names except maybe Sandage. But he and much of the rest agree with Vilenkin.

Not even that but there are many good reasons to think no natural infinite exists nor even could, and no good reasons to think they do or can. Whether the evidence is 70%, 85%, or 95% complete it is all on my side.

What it is there was a point when space-time gets hold of the matter and energy, there isn't any indication of anything being created, or any indication of anything not already existing.

There is nothing but indications that everything began to exist and to have done so at the same moment. Scientists can trace back every line of cause and effect in every field (or so they say anyway) and they all dead end at the exact same instant. The moment between T=0 and T = 10>-147th seconds. They not only say it began to exist but say the know the nano second everything began to exist. That is a component of the most dominant models in cosmology and no exceptions exist.

 

[1robin]

We have to leave it exactly where I left it. We don't know if god created the universe, or if it was a system we don't understand or if it was another universe collapsing in on itself, or maybe we are part of a multiverse that has spontaneous universal creations are a common occurrence. Or the more likely choice is that its something beyond our understanding to a point that our conversations here are laughable.

That is untrue. It would depend on your criteria. If certain knowledge is the standard then every single thing we think we know is out except for that we think. If virtually certainty is the standard we can't get much beyond the last few decades. If the most reasonable next steps are allowed we can go to the exact point I made. I don't care what standard you use just use it constantly and across the board. Using your standards that get you to the singularity can also get you to characteristics of what produced it. I can leave it labeled as something beyond our complete understanding but not beyond any understanding. If you use a standard that kills my philosophy then almost all your science goes with it.

 

[1robin]

I hear you.

It is laughable, not so much because it is beyond our understanding but because everyone likes to just make ****** up.

Name one thing I just made up that is not part of philosophical principles which have no known exceptions. I think you made up your accusation.

 

[1robin]

I’m challenging both! All cosmological arguments are causal arguments. And “explanation” means “cause” if it is to make any sense at all in the context of the argument.

Well that is subject to semantics. If I asked how a jet working engine arose on the scene I could explain that Whittle was the cause depending on how rigorous you wanted to get. I would do so because his will is the agency behind it construction. And I could list a bunch of physics, chemistry, and metallurgy as it is a mechanism.

A cause is more of an agent and an explanation of more of a mechanism but the lines blur at points. They may over lap but I think they definitely have differences.

I think you rather misunderstand the argument. It isn’t being proposed, preposterously, that causes don’t exist; in fact we could not survive even for a few minutes without what we understand as the principle of causality, which is necessarily part and parcel of the natural world. But let’s return to the matter in question, fundamentally the existence of God. Now forgive me but you are arguing to a supernatural cause by a celestial being of which there are no known examples and yet with truly startling hypocrisy you reject an uncaused cause out of hand! And that seems to me to be a partiality that cannot be justified. Once you’ve allowed the principle of one unnatural or metaphysical concept you cannot then decry another as inadmissible.

I get claims that causes do not exist for certain things all the time so I am not at fault for including that in interpretation until resolved.

Saying God is not know is first of all not an option for you. When billions claim to know, only arrogance can justify claiming they are all wrong without proof, and proof in unavailable. Second saying something is unknown is not to say anything about it's candidacy. God of all the evidenced based possibilities is by far the best candidate even if no one knows he exists. If being unknown meant it could never be believed mankind would still be in the stone age and half of what we believe today would have to be surrender to the thought police.

Further down the page I argue that the primary premise of the Kalam is falsely inferred, and if an external cause cannot be demonstrated then cause is a phenomenon that belongs to the world. And on that account there can be no demonstrable external cause. Now it’s all very well to say “give me an example of something occurring without a cause” because there are, at least as far as we know, no such examples; and nor would we expect there to be in the universe. But what the issue comes down to, as with every argument including the Kalam, is whether the conclusions we come to are free of contradiction and logical absurdities, and, like it or not, the universe coming into existence without an identifiable cause is the only such example that isn’t contradictory. Of course at some point in the future that conclusion may be proved conclusively wrong by cosmologists or physicists and I will bow to that knowledge, but nevertheless the problem of non-contradiction will still remain a serious problem for a theist explanation.

What the purpose of Kalam is has never been relevant nor even resolved upon by me. Since I was using Leibniz it is even more irrelevant. Bo matter what purpose an argument has it may very well have a better or more emphatic purpose. For example the multi-verse used as a negative theological argument actually makes God more likely, even increased textual errors can be evidence for something. I single source with zero errors is not fractionally as reliable as a text with 5% error but with 5000 sources.

P1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence
P2. The universe began to exist
Conclusion: Therefore, the universe was caused to exist

I can certainly go along here.

The move from P2 to the conclusion doesn’t follow since the major premise (P1) cannot be demonstrated. This is because although the universe may have begun to exist, nothing within the material world is seen to begin to exist but only changes form, therefore P1 can only be based on the universe as a whole beginning to exist. But an argument cannot be made that the universe as a whole began to exist and therefore the universe requires an efficient cause because that is simply to assume what you are supposed to prove. In other words, that would be a circular argument where the major premise and the conclusion are the same as I show below:

Any universe that begins to exist has a cause
The universe began to exist
Therefore the universe has a cause

When you have a data set that includes billions of examples without exception and you have no good reasons to suspect an exception would ever be likely you remain well justified.


If 1 billion jelly beans have been found to be black so far and no justification nor example exists to think that jelly beans are any other color then the argument jelly beans are black is infinitely better than that they are not black.

Instead of which argument is best you have taken the view that anything that lacks absolute certainty are equally bad. This is abhorrently untrue.

The argument is completely removed from inferential content and is now just making a bald assertion.

No it isn't. If I have selected a meaningful data size I am no making assertions but deductions. Man this is desperate stuff.

Here is the corrected argument (and compare the primary premise with that of the Kalam):

P1. The universe began to exist
P2. Everything in the universe has a cause
C: Everything in the universe began to exist

So far this means exactly the same as above.

P1. Current cosmological thinking is that the world and everything within it began with the Big Bang, and that is taken to mean that there was nothing before it.

I see you have relaxed your hyperbolic standards in your favor here. Now you only need some thinking in agreement to have an argument, when you denied me even things that had no exception. Why are you condemning the strong and validating to week in your favor. Not only that but your premise is invalid. It would only suggest that there was nothing in this world that existed prior to it. It does not comment on things outside this world.

P2. The phenomenon of cause and effect is observed in all things. (This is relatively uncontroversial even though it can never be demonstrated certain or true)

I agree but you seem to accept this in some cases and fight it took and nail in others.

Conclusion:
If causality began with the world then self-evidently it can’t be argued that some external cause brought the world (including cause and effect) into being. And that effectively cancels out the ogre that is an infinite regress of causes and also removes the need for God since without cause there can be no causal agency.

Cause and effect has no dependence on the natural, neither do numbers, morality, math, etc.... Nothing independent from the universe is affected by it's existence. Most would suggest if only God existed he would require cause and effect but it might operate in ways we do not understand.

Christianity is just a believers' argument, and it is also metaphysical in pretending to explain the existence of the universe.

That is like saying that evolution is merely a geneticists argument. And it is not an effort to explain the universe it is a deduction from the universe. I do not get cause and effect from the bible.

No, that’s not correct. What I have to do, and what I have done, is to show an argument or a proposition to be contradictory or otherwise untenable.

You have done neither. At the end of this post, every discussion since the Greeks, and I imagine every future post there will still not be a single exception to the principles I stated known to man. Not even a good argument that one could ever be known. That is why that argument remains almost unchanged for 4000 plus years and is just as potent as ever.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

That is untrue. It would depend on your criteria. If certain knowledge is the standard then every single thing we think we know is out except for that we think. If virtually certainty is the standard we can't get much beyond the last few decades. If the most reasonable next steps are allowed we can go to the exact point I made. I don't care what standard you use just use it constantly and across the board. Using your standards that get you to the singularity can also get you to characteristics of what produced it. I can leave it labeled as something beyond our complete understanding but not beyond any understanding. If you use a standard that kills my philosophy then almost all your science goes with it.

Its not a matter how "how long ago it was". We are fairly certain of many things that happened within seconds of the big bang. It is that the singularity itself shats on every known bit of physics and implications we can put on things. By all accounts it is "impossible". But that is where the evidence leads. That doesn't mean we get to assume anything beyond that. Cause and effect aren't the only things that get thrown out the window. "timelessness", "infinite mass", "infinite energy" ect. And then prior to that is like asking prior to everything we know.

Everything we know as far as relativity and Newtonian physics require cause and effect. However as we delve deeper into QM and the study of particles smaller than electrons, we find all of what we depend on for intuitive deduction is gone. It is counter-intuitive. So your attempt at using intuitive deduction based on your limited experience of our current Newtonian is guaranteed to be inaccurate to some degree.

Though I can't have a deduction any better. No one can. When physics as we know it break down we can't have any certainty of what is what. Could it have been god? Yeah. As far as I know it was the grandfather of Zeus. But my stance is "I don't know" and thats as far as I take it.

 

[bluegoo300]

So there was something after all...

you sir should stop posting stuff you have made me hit my screen like 3 times because of that bug. lol

 

[cottage]

Well that is subject to semantics. If I asked how a jet working engine arose on the scene I could explain that Whittle was the cause depending on how rigorous you wanted to get. I would do so because his will is the agency behind it construction. And I could list a bunch of physics, chemistry, and metallurgy as it is a mechanism.

A cause is more of an agent and an explanation of more of a mechanism but the lines blur at points. They may over lap but I think they definitely have differences.

Well, there’s a perfect example of semantic waffling. The cosmological arguments, whether the Kalam, the Argument from Contingency, Descartes’ version, or others’ formulations are all of them causal – by definition!!

What the purpose of Kalam is has never been relevant nor even resolved upon by me. Since I was using Leibniz it is even more irrelevant. Bo matter what purpose an argument has it may very well have a better or more emphatic purpose. For example the multi-verse used as a negative theological argument actually makes God more likely, even increased textual errors can be evidence for something. I single source with zero errors is not fractionally as reliable as a text with 5% error but with 5000 sources.

I don’t know what any of this has to do with my arguments? You have quite a history of quoting the multiverse thing at me and yet I have never argued for such a hypothesis.

When you have a data set that includes billions of examples without exception and you have no good reasons to suspect an exception would ever be likely you remain well justified.


If 1 billion jelly beans have been found to be black so far and no justification nor example exists to think that jelly beans are any other color then the argument jelly beans are black is infinitely better than that they are not black.

Instead of which argument is best you have taken the view that anything that lacks absolute certainty are equally bad. This is abhorrently untrue.

It seems you’re just throwing anything at the argument. Nowhere have I “taken the view that anything that lacks absolute certainty is equally bad.” All I’ve done is to unpick the argument, identify a false inference, and re-write it with a conclusion that follows from valid premises.

No it isn't. If I have selected a meaningful data size I am no making assertions but deductions. Man this is desperate stuff.

You say “No it isn’t” but then fail to answer the charge or address in any way at all what I said.

So far this means exactly the same as above.

Of course it doesn’t!! “Everything in the universe began to exist” is not the same as or equivalent to “Therefore the universe had a cause”

I see you have relaxed your hyperbolic standards in your favor here. Now you only need some thinking in agreement to have an argument, when you denied me even things that had no exception. Why are you condemning the strong and validating to week in your favor. Not only that but your premise is invalid. It would only suggest that there was nothing in this world that existed prior to it. It does not comment on things outside this world.

Leaving aside the sharp little comment, let me remind you that my position concerning the world’s beginning is the same as it has always been. Second point, I’m not “condemning” anything but simply showing flaws in the argument. Third point, “things outside the world” are not established; you are assuming what the cosmological arguments are supposed to prove but fail to demonstrate.

I agree but you seem to accept this in some cases and fight it took and nail in others.

Utter nonsense! Causality is as essential to our existence as is the sun in the sky. What I question is its contingent truth outside the contingent world.

Cause and effect has no dependence on the natural, neither do numbers, morality, math, etc.... Nothing independent from the universe is affected by it's existence. Most would suggest if only God existed he would require cause and effect but it might operate in ways we do not understand.

Now who would intelligibly claim that causality is “dependent upon the natural”? That makes no sense at all. Causality is simply a contingent phenomenon. No contingent worlds then no causality.

That is like saying that evolution is merely a geneticists argument. And it is not an effort to explain the universe it is a deduction from the universe. I do not get cause and effect from the bible.

Point 1. Genetics is a science. It is open to being challenged and amended, and is not a faith-based doctrine.

Point 2. Genesis is a faith-based doctrine. It presumes to explain how the world began; that is a metaphysical explanation.

You have done neither. At the end of this post, every discussion since the Greeks, and I imagine every future post there will still not be a single exception to the principles I stated known to man. Not even a good argument that one could ever be known. That is why that argument remains almost unchanged for 4000 plus years and is just as potent as ever.

Well I’ve not seen a single refutation to the argument I gave or the conclusion that I drew from it. I’m sorry to say all I’ve been seeing are (rather angry) unsupported assertions, arguments from incredulity, and bluster. I'm coming to realise that you don't know how to respond to arguments in a proper manner.

 

[idav]

First of all time is so confusing a subject the only known nonsense about it are claims that things are nonsense. The time we know about (the only one we do it space time). Since that would cease to function before space began to exist then that kind of time (the only kind we know of) would only exist once the universe did. So much for classic tensed time. Now if you want to think of things before space time as sequential, chronological, or tensed that is fine with me but you must be careful to distinguish between time as we know it and some arbitrary time made up for convenience. The bible separates space time from everything else by using eternity to distinguish them. Is that label acceptable. Regardless my claim that the cause of the universe is space timeless is still in tact.

We don't know space time began to exist.

Here is what we know.

1. Something existed first.

2. Something existed in the beginning that was so powerful that space or time could not affect it.

3. Fluctuations caused space time to take affect the something that first existed. The big bang doesn't say if space time existed, the big bang can only tell us when something like spacetime took affect on a super powerful first object.

 

[1robin]

We have to leave it exactly where I left it. We don't know if god created the universe, or if it was a system we don't understand or if it was another universe collapsing in on itself, or maybe we are part of a multiverse that has spontaneous universal creations are a common occurrence. Or the more likely choice is that its something beyond our understanding to a point that our conversations here are laughable.

No we don't. We can say that we ultimately have no certainty but the effect does point to a type of cause. IOW al candidates are not equal though are equally uncertain. You include here causes who only merit is that we are not sure if they are impossible or not. That does not even begin to complete with a cause that we have ample reason to believe does exist. For some reasons your saying that if it is not 100% certain then anything goes and it does not. BTW God is infinitely intelligent so he is as exotic an answer as possible if you for example value the exotic as you seem to. I may not be 100% certain Jack Ruby killed Oswald but that does not mean Shirley Temple is a likely candidate. Most of science and all of history and theology involves best explanations not certainties.

 

[1robin]

I hear you.

It is laughable, not so much because it is beyond our understanding but because everyone likes to just make ****** up.

Did I write a 400 year old text and make up the exact characteristics required for a cause of the universe? I guess you made up that we made up stuff then.

 

[1robin]

I’m challenging both! All cosmological arguments are causal arguments. And “explanation” means “cause” if it is to make any sense at all in the context of the argument.

This is too petty to drag out. Pick one or both and disprove them. I am not going to debate the labels.

I think you rather misunderstand the argument. It isn’t being proposed, preposterously, that causes don’t exist; in fact we could not survive even for a few minutes without what we understand as the principle of causality, which is necessarily part and parcel of the natural world. But let’s return to the matter in question, fundamentally the existence of God. Now forgive me but you are arguing to a supernatural cause by a celestial being of which there are no known examples and yet with truly startling hypocrisy you reject an uncaused cause out of hand! And that seems to me to be a partiality that cannot be justified. Once you’ve allowed the principle of one unnatural or metaphysical concept you cannot then decry another as inadmissible.

There is a known example to billions. The fact you do not know is not a commentary on what is know. Rejecting causality requires rejecting what is true of every observation. Including God does not require anyone to do that. The two are not even remotely equal. I derive causality and God from evidence. They are both deductions which have no good counter arguments. You misunderstood the claim. To correctly exclude natural cause for the cause of nature requires no principle be violated. There could be another God, there could be another type of entity, it is not impossible there is a natural explanation, what there isn't is a candidate better than my God presently. Somehow your side makes the equivalency that barring certainty all explanations are equal and that flies in the face of everything known. Things with evidence always surpass things with none as candidates.

Further down the page I argue that the primary premise of the Kalam is falsely inferred, and if an external cause cannot be demonstrated then cause is a phenomenon that belongs to the world. And on that account there can be no demonstrable external cause. Now it’s all very well to say “give me an example of something occurring without a cause” because there are, at least as far as we know, no such examples; and nor would we expect there to be in the universe. But what the issue comes down to, as with every argument including the Kalam, is whether the conclusions we come to are free of contradiction and logical absurdities, and, like it or not, the universe coming into existence without an identifiable cause is the only such example that isn’t contradictory. Of course at some point in the future that conclusion may be proved conclusively wrong by cosmologists or physicists and I will bow to that knowledge, but nevertheless the problem of non-contradiction will still remain a serious problem for a theist explanation.

I am not drawing any argument that solely relies upon Kalam. My argument does not go the way of Kalam even if Kalam can be countered. Kalam is just one version of a uniform argument. I have never seen a credible contradiction to God's creating the universe. I can't even remember one plausible enough to retain as a rival conclusion. A natural entity producing natural however is completely contradictory. Yet I do not even rule that out, I merely claim it is not even in the same realm of likelihood.

P1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence
P2. The universe began to exist
Conclusion: Therefore, the universe was caused to exist

So far so good. The shipwreck must follow.

The move from P2 to the conclusion doesn’t follow since the major premise (P1) cannot be demonstrated. This is because although the universe may have begun to exist, nothing within the material world is seen to begin to exist but only changes form, therefore P1 can only be based on the universe as a whole beginning to exist. But an argument cannot be made that the universe as a whole began to exist and therefore the universe requires an efficient cause because that is simply to assume what you are supposed to prove. In other words, that would be a circular argument where the major premise and the conclusion are the same as I show below:

This is the same old argument of equating lack of certainty with lack of explanatory value. I can be perfectly rational to deduce that the universe has a cause because everything observable is caused. It is caused and it is uncaused are not equally valid. One is far better, in fact potentially infinitely better than the other. There is no get out of creation free card available here. The exact same methodology is used in law, science, history, and pretty much every category of academia. No jury comes to a certain knowledge but makes the best determination based on the evidence we do have.

Any universe that begins to exist has a cause
The universe began to exist
Therefore the universe has a cause

The argument is completely removed from inferential content and is now just making a bald assertion.

This is an argument from principle. Since no exception to it's premise is known, a enormous data set is available, and no credible counter argument is available the soundness of the principle is rational and eminently permissible. The exact same methodology is employed in all human endeavor. In the absence of a defeater the most consistent explanation is the best and rational.

Here is the corrected argument (and compare the primary premise with that of the Kalam):

P1. The universe began to exist
P2. Everything in the universe has a cause
C: Everything in the universe began to exist

That is almost certainly true but just as unproven as the other version since everything in the universe cannot be observed. The exact same methodology that validates the above validates this "corrected" version. They are both best explanations.

P1. Current cosmological thinking is that the world and everything within it began with the Big Bang, and that is taken to mean that there was nothing before it.

I am surprised you would concede even this.

P2. The phenomenon of cause and effect is observed in all things. (This is relatively uncontroversial even though it can never be demonstrated certain or true)

Agreed.

Conclusion:
If causality began with the world then self-evidently it can’t be argued that some external cause brought the world (including cause and effect) into being. And that effectively cancels out the ogre that is an infinite regress of causes and also removes the need for God since without cause there can be no causal agency.

SHIPWRECK. The only thing we know is that cause and effect seems to a universal constant. What we do not find is that is in any way dependent on nature. That is why an entire subject about theological causality exists which has no relevance or dependence on the natural. The same thing can be said about abstract concepts, numbers, ascetic value, morality, and many constants. They seem to exist as brute facts without any dependence on the natural. What you must do is show a better argument exists for causalities' absence in the beginning than its presence. Since you can not link it to the natural then it is a hopeless case. My argument is better, may not be true, but a betting man is well within his senses to side with it.





Christianity is just a believers' argument, and it is also metaphysical in pretending to explain the existence of the universe.




No, that’s not correct. What I have to do, and what I have done, is to show an argument or a proposition to be contradictory or otherwise untenable.[/QUOTE]

 

[idav]

Did I write a 400 year old text and make up the exact characteristics required for a cause of the universe? I guess you made up that we made up stuff then.

I didn't make that up, people indeed make things up. I am just not obliged to believe someone just on their word.

 

[Shad]

Most of science and all of history and theology involves best explanations not certainties.

Theology does not belong in the same category as fields which follow a completely different method. One attempts to prove a presupposition, the others two do not.

 

[1robin]

Now here is William Lane Craig’s Leibnizian formulation of the cosmological argument:

I will respond but Craig's and others' arguments make a more emphatic final conclusion than mine. I argue that the effect suggests a cause very similar to God exists but I do not state that my God is the certain and unavoidable conclusions. I make a softer claim than some.

1. Every contingent thing has an explanation of its existence.

2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence that explanation will be a transcendent, personal being.

3. The universe is a contingent thing

4. Therefore the universe has an explanation of its existence. (From 1, 3)

5. Therefore, the explanation of the universe is a transcendent, personal being.
(From 2, 4)

I have heard make this argument different ways. Are you sure he wasn't quoting someone. This sounds exactly like another scholars argument to me, but for now we will take it as Craig's and move on.

Comments:

Premise 1. “Every contingent thing has an explanation of its existence.”

We can certainly agree that things in the universe appear to have a causal explanation, that is to say where two events are observed to be linked by association as in whenever B then A, (although that does not demonstrate causal necessity).

This is the second most certain an argument can be. The first is about things which can be viewed in totality. This one is a conclusion about all things that have been observed. Only many levels lower than this are bordering on irrational. Keep in mind my claim is that these conclusions are far more warranted than their denials. Not that they are absolute certainties.

Premise 2. “The universe has an explanation for its existence.”

If the universe as a whole is explained by a transcendent, conscious, personal being, then that being must by the same token have a reason or explanation to explain itself in terms of explaining the world.

You really blew it here. Especially since Craig makes this emphatic. Necessary things contain their own explanations. Only contingent things require external explanations.

Premise 3. “The universe is a contingent thing.”

This is not disputed.

Glad to hear it.

Premise 4. “Therefore the universe has a beginning.”

This is in line with current cosmological thinking and is not disputed.

Yes it is, but they just consider it a natural creation and do not use the word creation. Cosmological thinking is not even relevant here. When you run out of universe cosmology is no longer applicable. Craig uses cosmology to get to T=0 and philosophy and theology to add to that. You drug cosmology into where Craig does not employ it then declared it failed. If this is an A + B + C = God argument then cosmology gets you from A to B. Do not use it to get see then cry foul.

Premise 5: “Therefore the explanation of the universe is a transcendent, personal being”

In the case of a transcendent, personal being there is nothing to explain contingent existence on terms that don't run to a contradiction. Therefore there is no transcendent, personal cause.

That is quite a mouth full. I acknowledge no such contradiction so reject this entire contention. The only contradiction I can potentially see is nature crating nature.

And here is how I explain that conclusion:

The first premise, if true, can only be applied within the world. In that first premise Craig is referring to the argument from contingency, which very roughly is that anything that exists, but need not exist, will only be accounted for by something that does exist and for which there is no possibility of its non-existence; it will therefore necessarily exist. But of course that argument is itself a contingent statement. A thing can exist contingently without having to answer to a supposed necessarily existing thing, and with no contradiction implied. But anyway to say every contingent thing has an explanation for its existence can only be argued by inference from the contingent world! So the argument begins by begging the question.

That is not technically the contingency argument. It does not posit only necessary causes for contingent events or entities. A contingent entity can have a contingent cause. It only states that contingent things ultimately end in necessary causes. If you believe that last part then point out which contingent being is not ultimately caused by a necessary one. For one you can't find any, and two if you did you would have only inaugurated the nihilistic eternal regression problem or creation from nothing by nothing issue. Those are real contradictions that God resolves.

However, it is true that things in worldly existence can be shown to have an explanation in terms of some other thing, so then we presume to extend this principle to things that can’t be shown to exist. So we say if things in the world have a reason or explanation, then the world itself must have a reason or explanation for being what it is. But if there is a reason or explanation for the world attributable to an intelligent personal being then that being must by the same token have a reason or explanation to explain itself in terms of explaining the world.

That is true of contingent things only, not necessary ones.

Leibniz said: "No fact can be real or existing and no statement true unless it has a sufficient reason why it should be thus and not otherwise". According to the Argument from Contingency and the principle of sufficient reason (PSR) nothing happens by chance and a thing that doesn’t have to exist but does exist needs a reason for its existence. And this sufficient reason or explanation he said will be God, an intelligent being that freely chose to bring the world into existence. Perhaps Leibniz overstates the principle by appealing to a necessary cause, but his argument backfires on him for it is immediately evident that to say an intelligent, personal being freely choose to bring the world into existence is to assign a purpose to the act of creation, which must be the case whether or not the PSR is a criterion of truth. If, as it is argued in classical theism, God is a personal conscious being, omniscient and omnipresent, then no act of creation happens by accident, chance, or adventitiously but only by his will alone.

I do not see any relevance here but there is a world of assumption. There could be all manner of "God's" that would create a world for no rational purpose at all. Maybe the universe is a byproduct of something that had a purpose, maybe God is irrational, maybe he is random in ways we do not understand. My God would have a purpose but I don't see the relevance yet.

The world isn’t a necessary aspect of God, and while God’s eternal existence doesn’t demand an explanation, the finite world of creatures does require an explanation or a reason for its creation. And according to Christian theism, God the creator wants a personal relationship with his creation, and logically there can only be one agent that can profit or gain from this arrangement – and it isn’t the formerly non-existent creatures! And this is seemingly confirmed for us by theist philosopher William Lane Craig in his debate with Peter Millican when he speaks of “God bringing people into a relationship with himself, forever.” I think it is clear from that statement that an eternally existent God requires something he does not already have, which is an immediate contradiction even before we consider the implied emotional content, for by no amount of sophistry can it be argued that the greatest conceivable being is at the same time, or at anytime, not wholly entire or in some way incomplete. And it is utterly absurd even to think of created beings gratifying the needs or emotional requirements of the Supreme Creator.
So the contradiction becomes evident because there is a supposed Supreme Being, who, by very definition of the term, is a complete entity that wants for nothing and yet intentionally brought the world of creatures into being. But since nothing existed prior to the act of creation there was nothing that could profit, gain, or benefit from the act other than God himself. Therefore if God intentionally created the world with a purpose, that could only be for his own sake or advantage (as described above). But as the Supreme Being is a concept already augmented without limit an act of creation is purposeless, which is absurd.

You made an argument about God's having no need of creation then concluded from that argument God must need us. How did that work? Need will be a tricky word here. God does not need anything else to be more fully God. However that does not mean things do not have value to him. The same way an artist is no less of an artist without painting a Mona Lisa. It is an expression of his nature that has value but no necessity. Now that complete undermines the assumptions of your argument here. The only recourse is to try and split hairs about what need, value, or purpose mean. Every argument with a non-theist winds up at the same place. Semantic technicality. I may very well be wrong but it always reminds of a lawyer defending a guilty client. He knows evidence is against him so abandons it in favor of finding some technical procedural issue to get off a guilty man. God can value a thing and not require it to be God.





Continued below:

 

[1robin]

There are only the two possibilities mentioned above, one contradicts the concept of a self-sufficient Supreme Being (i.e. that he has needs or desires), and the other is logically absurd for it amounts to saying a no-thing is something.

I don't think so though the word desire does make it tricky. I can think of no deficiency unless God had a desire that he could not carry out. I can even conceive he has desires he restricts himself from actualizing without any loss to himself. I don't think a desire equal a need. I have desires for things I am worse off for having so the two do not equate. A desire I would suggest is the wiling of a thing. To will ma thing is not a necessity but a choice. It is also not necessarily a lack to refrain from willing.

Now all the above could be easily countered by arguing that the deity isn’t supreme in all things, which would sit perfectly well with what we find in experience. But then of course there would no difference between a fallible God and no God at all.

So a less that Omni-God is consistent with everything? The only argument I saw against a maximal being was this last semantic one. That means a maximal being is not countered by anything but it and so why all the philosophical contentions. Semantics is not my strong suite so I will give quotes for your last point.

To admit the existence of a need in God is to admit incompleteness in the divine Being. Need is a creature-word and cannot be spoken of the Creator. God has a voluntary relation to everything He has made, but He has no necessary relation to anything outside of Himself. His interest in His creatures arises from His sovereign good pleasure, not from any need those creatures can supply nor from any completeness they can bring to Him who is complete in Himself. - See more at: Does God Need Anything? | Tough Questions Answered

First of all, what logically prevents God from creating if He is perfect? Perfection means that God is complete, without error, totally wise, and self-sufficient. So, what in these qualities means God can't create the universe? This atheist says God would be susceptible to greed if He did so. Really? So now it is greedy for God to create a universe? I have to ask, what justifies the atheist to assign such a sin to a holy God? What does greed have to do with creating anything? Why can't God create for His own glory--which would be the greatest good for the most perfect being? Why can't God create people so He could love them? After all, since God is love (1 John 4:8), love gives (John 3:16), and the greatest act of love is to die for another (John 15:13), then why can't God create the universe and people in order to display the greatest act of love by becoming one of us and dying for us as is the case with Jesus?
A perfect God would not need to create anything | Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry


Let me ask in what way would God be less God without the universe?
Is gravity less or more lawful whether it has anything to attract?

 

[Shad]

Fallacy of composition. To infer that mechanics behind the parts of an object must apply to the whole is false. "Every man which has existed has a mother so the human race has a mother." "If someone stands up out of his seat at a baseball game, he can see better. Therefore, if everyone stands up they can all see better." "Objects in the universe are contingent so the universe must be contingent."


P1 is false as object exist both due it their nature and external nature of other things.

P2/P5 is not one single explanation. There are many theories within theoretical physics such as the multi-verse just is super-natural but not a God. QM could be neccessary not a personal God. Non-sequitur.

The argument is unsound and invalid.

There are other issues with creation such as change without time nor space. The definition of God in absence of space-time completely fail. One could suggest matter or the quantum vacuum are necessary objects.

 

[1robin]

Its not a matter how "how long ago it was".

I do not recall suggesting it was.

We are fairly certain of many things that happened within seconds of the big bang.

That certainty has a relative range of obvious to infinitely obscure. Just depends on grant money, TV time, peer pressure and review which end of the spectrum a thing lands in many times. You are going to have to post a realistic and specific scale of certainty before the term has any relevance.

It is that the singularity itself shats on every known bit of physics and implications we can put on things.

That is why the very narrow band of natural science is of no use at that point. I have no need to know what the singularity was. My only need is to know it occurred. I will let scientists haggle over the first nano-second, even if 90% of our ocean is unknown. I only need to know it began.

By all accounts it is "impossible". But that is where the evidence leads. That doesn't mean we get to assume anything beyond that. Cause and effect aren't the only things that get thrown out the window. "timelessness", "infinite mass", "infinite energy" ect. And then prior to that is like asking prior to everything we know.

It most certainly does. If it can be shown that suspect X did not do the crime then something besides X not only is suggested it is mandatory. Cause and effect are not affected by nature because they have no dependency on it. They are brute facts like abstract concepts, numbers, morality, ascetics, certain constants, etc..

Everything we know as far as relativity and Newtonian physics require cause and effect. However as we delve deeper into QM and the study of particles smaller than electrons, we find all of what we depend on for intuitive deduction is gone. It is counter-intuitive. So your attempt at using intuitive deduction based on your limited experience of our current Newtonian is guaranteed to be inaccurate to some degree.

That the QM get you out of cause and effect is one of the most misunderstood ideas in history. The quantum never suggests that. It always has a cause. The causes are more mysterious that in Newtonian physics but never absent. Regardless we ought to let this infant science get training wheels before we make eternal judgments on it. There are at least ten different methodologies for graphing the quantum with and no one knows which one is correct and some claim we can never know.

Though I can't have a deduction any better. No one can. When physics as we know it break down we can't have any certainty of what is what. Could it have been god? Yeah. As far as I know it was the grandfather of Zeus. But my stance is "I don't know" and thats as far as I take it.

Not one aspect of physics is certain depending on how you set the criteria for certainty. You want to use Aquinas, Hume, Craig, yours, mine. I do not care what standard you use just be consistent. Don't arbitrarily accept the quantum as certainty without justification. Nor is the evidence for Zeus (which was not even a creation ex nihilo God anyway but was derivative product) equal with God. Your standards are all over the place and drawn by arbitrary means. My explanation is by far the best, given current evidence, of any and that is independent of any standard you chose because it is a relative quality.

 

[1robin]

Well, there’s a perfect example of semantic waffling. The cosmological arguments, whether the Kalam, the Argument from Contingency, Descartes’ version, or others’ formulations are all of them causal – by definition!!

An explanation of thermodynamics will never get an F-14 airborne. Only energy will. They are not equal. Mechanism and causal agent are not identical. I do not have to know the first thing about how God did it or how anything does anything to posit them as an agent. Only if asked for mechanism would I require the nuts and bolts. I am not sure if the difference is meaningful in this case but it definitely exists. That is why those two arguments come under different labels.

I don’t know what any of this has to do with my arguments? You have quite a history of quoting the multiverse thing at me and yet I have never argued for such a hypothesis.

I have debated 100's of non-theists and can't always keep track of each specific version. Sometimes I use typical arguments of a type to illustrate a methodological error. You seem to equate anything less than certainty with having no value or as anything that is not impossible as having merit if it is not God. Multiverse were just an example of the latter. I should have used your denying cause and effect for a first cause because it is not impossible but multiverses are the same exact type of argument and that was the point.

It seems you’re just throwing anything at the argument. Nowhere have I “taken the view that anything that lacks absolute certainty is equally bad.” All I’ve done is to unpick the argument, identify a false inference, and re-write it with a conclusion that follows from valid premises.

I think you have. You dismissed cause and effect for the formation of the universe. Since it is present in every observation ever taken it's uncertainty is the most minimal possible of a claim that is not certain.

You say “No it isn’t” but then fail to answer the charge or address in any way at all what I said.

I can't remember but I usually make declarative statements to declarations. I probably failed to recognize anything that required disproving.

Of course it doesn’t!! “Everything in the universe began to exist” is not the same as or equivalent to “Therefore the universe had a cause”

It would be very close if they had a necessary link and they do. It would be nonsense to say everything began to exist without a cause. You only have two choices. My point is drawing the astronomically inferior one not that mine is absolutely certain.

Leaving aside the sharp little comment, let me remind you that my position concerning the world’s beginning is the same as it has always been. Second point, I’m not “condemning” anything but simply showing flaws in the argument. Third point, “things outside the world” are not established; you are assuming what the cosmological arguments are supposed to prove but fail to demonstrate.

Sharp? That was a very blunt observation. Nothing hidden or barbed about it. My biggest complain with your side (though you are not by any means it's chief practitioner) are inconsistent standards. Almost every argument against God relies heavily on them and maybe I have become more sensitive to them but there was no personal insult here. Just a point of order. I could grant you every flaw that can be reasonably attributed to my argument and it would still be by far the best current explanation. It would be like trying to destroy any evidence of Mt saint Helens with a sledge hammer. No matter what damage you think you have done or actually done there is still a mountain left.

Utter nonsense! Causality is as essential to our existence as is the sun in the sky. What I question is its contingent truth outside the contingent world.

I know, but what I have never seen is any justification for doing so. It is as if you are incensed by cause and effect but stuck with it until there is not obvious and undeniable proof. The first hint or ambiguity and your out of there. My point is that there is far better justification for retaining cause and effect than denying it though it is not certain either way. I still have not seen even a bad reason to become suspicious of it's existence. This is another it is not impossible so it is valid argument.

Now who would intelligibly claim that causality is “dependent upon the natural”? That makes no sense at all. Causality is simply a contingent phenomenon. No contingent worlds then no causality.

It was not a debate. If you do not deny that causality is independent of the natural then why do you think the natural's existence has any effect on it.

Point 1. Genetics is a science. It is open to being challenged and amended, and is not a faith-based doctrine.

What? Nothing in human history is challenged as much as faith. You are claiming faith is immune to being challenged in a challenge to faith. I could make that one up.

Point 2. Genesis is a faith-based doctrine. It presumes to explain how the world began; that is a metaphysical explanation.

It is more of an answer to why, purpose, source than mechanism. The bible is not a science book. From God's point of view I imagine that science is pathetically trivial. As a matter of fact;

New International Version
Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge,

New International Version
who foils the signs of false prophets and makes fools of diviners, who overthrows the learning of the wise and turns it into nonsense,

Calling something science does not make it any truer IMO.

Well I’ve not seen a single refutation to the argument I gave or the conclusion that I drew from it. I’m sorry to say all I’ve been seeing are (rather angry) unsupported assertions, arguments from incredulity, and bluster. I'm coming to realise that you don't know how to respond to arguments in a proper manner.

Half the time I am laughing and the other half distracted by sciences failures I have to constantly fix. I am to lazy to get angry. I have responded to your argument in an earlier post to my satisfaction. As Luther said "Here I stand, I can do no other".

 

[Monk Of Reason]

That certainty has a relative range of obvious to infinitely obscure. Just depends on grant money, TV time, peer pressure and review which end of the spectrum a thing lands in many times. You are going to have to post a realistic and specific scale of certainty before the term has any relevance.

If I was to find some scholarly sources would you take them seriously? I remember having a lot of trouble with you in the past about this and before I embark on something that will be quite a lot of time and effort on my part I just want to make sure it won't be totally wasted.

That is why the very narrow band of natural science is of no use at that point. I have no need to know what the singularity was. My only need is to know it occurred. I will let scientists haggle over the first nano-second, even if 90% of our ocean is unknown. I only need to know it began.

Apparently all you need to know is that it "began" in order for you to make assumptions and claims beyond your realm of knowledge.

It most certainly does. If it can be shown that suspect X did not do the crime then something besides X not only is suggested it is mandatory. Cause and effect are not affected by nature because they have no dependency on it. They are brute facts like abstract concepts, numbers, morality, ascetics, certain constants, etc..

If you claim cause and effect are universal elements then you must admit defeat in the matter as we are talking "pre universal" which I still don't think you fully grasp.

That the QM get you out of cause and effect is one of the most misunderstood ideas in history. The quantum never suggests that. It always has a cause. The causes are more mysterious that in Newtonian physics but never absent. Regardless we ought to let this infant science get training wheels before we make eternal judgments on it. There are at least ten different methodologies for graphing the quantum with and no one knows which one is correct and some claim we can never know.

You've stated a lot but not defended your argument. I agree that QM is the single most misunderstood thing in current physics by the layman. However it still doesn't ruin your idea of classical cause and effect. It even brings up possibility of retro-causality and necessity clauses as well as impossibilities by normal physics. I am not going to delve any deeper in it till you give me a single reason to believe that in a world where logic and physics don't work your arbitrary claims still hold meaning.

Not one aspect of physics is certain depending on how you set the criteria for certainty. You want to use Aquinas, Hume, Craig, yours, mine. I do not care what standard you use just be consistent. Don't arbitrarily accept the quantum as certainty without justification. Nor is the evidence for Zeus (which was not even a creation ex nihilo God anyway but was derivative product) equal with God. Your standards are all over the place and drawn by arbitrary means. My explanation is by far the best, given current evidence, of any and that is independent of any standard you chose because it is a relative quality.

There is no "best" explanation. There is no "explanation" in general. Nothing supported or even plausible in terms of evidence. Mainly due to the fact we don't have the evidence yet (if we ever will). That is what I am trying to get through to you. Based on YOUR world view you have a PRESUPOSITION about the universe that "sort of" fits with what "MIGHT BE". But NOTHING is actually KNOWN to verify or falsify your claim.

Therefore there is no good answer. Not mine, not yours. That is why I don't have an answer and I simply go with "I don't know". Beyond that there isn't any way to argue for or against it.