The argument that I’ve been making is that the Kalam argument is unsound, which it is, as the first premise cannot be demonstrated as a general proposition in order to find for the conclusion: "The universe has a cause". I don’t think one needs to be a committed atheist or an intellectual colossus to understand that there is no evidence of new matter being introduced in the universe but only existing matter changing form.
The argument of the amount of matter remaining constant is a non sequitur. It just does not follow that creation would increase or decrease the total matter content of the universe. If it were to change every time that something is created then the creation must needs be from nothing. As it is from existing element the universal matter content will remain constant. The matter contained on earth did not increase when I was borne because I have been created, like Adam and Eve, from the dust of the ground, element. I do not see how you can dispute that. Everything is created by element and element has always existed. The creation comes when element is used to construct, in the physical world, or to grow, in the natural world.
1. Everything that is created has a cause.
(a) Everything is defined as all things that exist, as in parameter 6
See Post 2792.
(b) Create is to bring into existence, as in parameter 4.
See Post 2792.
(c) Cause is the Genesis of effect, as in parameter 5.
See Post 2792.
A chair is part of everything. It was created by using element that has always existed. It was caused to exist by the chair maker. All parameters have been met, therefore, the premise is correct. It is as simple as that.
2. The universe began to exist.
Where there was a singularity there is now a universe. It began to exist after the Big Bang.
3. Therefore the universe has a cause.
Self explanatory. No logical fallacies or philosophies to argue over. Just simple common sense.
A particular point to be made though is that the argument cannot be defended by appealing to incredulity or question-begging by asking for, example “So how could the universe come into existence then?” which is merely assuming what the conclusion of the argument has failed to prove. Also, something coming into existence uncaused is a very different matter to supposing that something can come from nothing; the former is not contradictory and may even be true, whilst the latter is logically absurd.
It may be different in context but in principle it is the same. Both cases do not fit in with our current understanding of the universe and the natural laws that we have ascribed to it. Both cases are therefore supernatural events, just like God is. Perceptions that could be true but have no evidence or precedence. Just like God. Both are appeals to incredulity. The latter, at least, has matter and anti-matter in its favour.
I understand your sentiments concerning Mollie and the loss of losing a pet, and if you live in hope of seeing her again in another life then I certainly won’t presume to disabuse you of the idea. Nor do I want to tangle with your religious faith in general, or to be continually tramping over old ground, but I have to say the argument that matter is eternal is not sustainable, logically or philosophically. All material causes must run to an infinite regression, which is impossible (and historically the bane of every atheist argument to an eternal material world). And also by posing any material form as self-existent then that evidently contradicts and challenges the concept of a Supreme Creator, the originator of all existence outside of himself (God)
First thing that I notice in this paragraph was the last sentence.
"And also by posing any material form as self-existent then that evidently contradicts and challenges the concept of a Supreme Creator, the originator of all existence outside of himself (God)" I cannot think of a single instance in the Scriptures where God has been described as the "originator" of all existence outside of himself. The creator, yes, but never the originator. Create is to organise existing matter, ex-materia, whereas, originator suggests making something from nothing. I have read the Scriptures many time but that does not preclude me from being wrong, so, if you know any different then please correct me, however, it just does not fit for him to be the originator of all things when intelligence can neither be created or destroyed. The scriptures teach us about the atom and it's constituent parts and tell us that the electron, a sub-automic particle, is intelligent. Like sub-automic particles know when they are being observed so change their behaviour. It clearly states that light and intelligence are synonymous with each other and we know that light and electrons have characteristic similarities. Scriptures say, there is those that act and those that are acted upon, as in electrons acting upon the nucleus. And then, just last week, I find this scientific article on intelligence (mind) being contained within every single matter molecule.
Absent-minded Science
To bring the problem closer to home, imagine your own development in your mother’s womb. You – originally a single cell – developed steadily in complexity and size. Your body grew, and your nervous system differentiated itself from other types of cells in your little body. Nerve cells grew, lengthened, interconnected, and eventually formed your brain, spinal cord, and so on. Every step of this process was incremental – small change after small change. At what point did your mind emerge? At what point did it suddenly pop into existence where it was wholly absent before? And if it did suddenly emerge, why at a certain point in time and not a moment earlier or later?
Here’s one more way of thinking about the problem: Imagine observing a brain surgery. You are able to peer into the brain from the outside through a hole cut in the skull. You have a microscope that allows you to peer into the structure of the brain. Let’s imagine you could even go further than modern technology allows, and you could look into the living brain with such detail that individual dendrites and synapses are distinguishable. Where is the mind? All we will ever see by looking at a brain and its components from the outside are the electrochemical energy flows that comprise the brain’s activities. We will never see the mind. Yet we know, more than we know anything else, based on our own experience as thinking beings, that it’s there.
There seem to be two options here: (1) Accept that the prevailing view, that mind mysteriously emerges from mindless matter, is not much different than the religious notion of a soul attaching to the fertilized egg or at some point later in its development. (2) Accept that mind is inherent in all matter to some degree and that there is a tiny sort of mind in the fertilized egg (and even tinier minds in the constituents of the egg) and that as the egg complexifies into you, so your mind complexifies.
This second view is known as panpsychism, fleshed out to some degree by Greek and Indian philosophers thousands of years ago and developed significantly since then. David Skrbina’s Panpsychism in the West is a wonderful history of these ideas and more. Panpsychism, while out of fashion for much of the twentieth century, is coming back into fashion in the twenty-first century as more and more thinkers realize that the prevailing “emergence theory of mind,” a type of reductionist materialism, fails as a matter of principle.
Noetic Now Journal | Institute of Noetic Sciences
Just how God created our spirits. Incrementally, bit at a time, by organising the ingelegence that had always existed, making us refined beings of light and knowledge. Not such a far fetched concept now is it? The world is playing catch up to God again. How many more Bible verses can be found for undiscovered phenomena?
As long as we believe that the standard cosmological model is correct we have to believe in the existence of the singularity, which contains the matter of the universe. Matter that must needs be eternal in nature as it exists outside of space and time.
