Godless (24 page)
Where do theists obtain the idea in the first place that there is such a set as NBE? By what observations or arguments is the possibility of beginningless objects warranted? Certainly not via the cosmological argument, which simply assumes NBE. And not from science, which observes nothing of the sort. If theists get their initial idea from a religious document or from “inner experience,” their argument may be more presuppositionalist than evidentialist.
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To say that NBE must accommodate more than one item is not to say that it must contain more than one item. The set might actually contain only one of the eligible candidates. The cosmological argument could be made successful if it could be shown that NBE contains exactly one item from a plural set of possibilities, and if the winning candidate turns out to be a personal creator. The question of accommodation is not whether the set
does not
contain more or less than one item; it’s whether it
cannot
contain other than one. If it
cannot
, then the argument is circular. It would be like a dictator staging an election that permits no other candidates but himself: it’s rigged from the start. (I am indebted to Michael Martin for insights on this matter via personal e-mail correspondence.)
does not
contain more or less than one item; it’s whether it
cannot
contain other than one. If it
cannot
, then the argument is circular. It would be like a dictator staging an election that permits no other candidates but himself: it’s rigged from the start. (I am indebted to Michael Martin for insights on this matter via personal e-mail correspondence.)
Additionally, if the only candidate for NBE were God, then the second premise, “The universe began to exist,” would reduce to “The universe is not God.” If NBE is synonymous with God, the argument looks like this:
1. Everything except God has a cause.
2. The universe is not God.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.
This is logical, if not very useful. The circular reasoning is revealed when theists build from this point. Based on the above “universe has a cause” conclusion, Craig argues for a personal creator:
“We know that this first event must have been caused. The question is: How can a first event come to exist if the cause of that event exists changelessly and eternally? Why isn’t the effect as co-eternal as the cause? It seems that there is only one way out of this dilemma, and that is to infer that the cause of the universe is a personal agent who chooses to create a universe in time. Philosophers call this type of causation ‘agent causation,’ and because the agent is free, he can initiate new effects by freely bringing about conditions which were not previously present.”
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This appeal to a personal creator depends on the premise that “we know this first event must have been caused.” However, as we have shown, if God is the only item allowed in NBE, the argument effectively (if not intentionally) begs the question. In order to avoid begging the question, theists must produce one or more real or hypothetical candidates other than God for NBE.
We have no experience of any NBE objects in the natural universe (how could we?), nor can we propose anything hypothetical that does not begin to exist as a real item in the natural universe.
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We can’t have such a thing within the natural universe if “begin” means “begin in time” because time itself is a result of the Big Bang. No item in the natural universe transcends time, so it cannot “not” begin to exist. Assuming that current Big Bang cosmology is correct, it would be incoherent to say that something happened “before” time began.
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We can’t have such a thing within the natural universe if “begin” means “begin in time” because time itself is a result of the Big Bang. No item in the natural universe transcends time, so it cannot “not” begin to exist. Assuming that current Big Bang cosmology is correct, it would be incoherent to say that something happened “before” time began.
But perhaps there could be something outside
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the natural universe that would be accommodated by NBE, besides God. (Craig seems to allow this ontological possibility when he “infers”
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that the external cause of the universe is an “agent causation,” implying that it might be otherwise.) NBE might be open to an impersonal force as well as a personal force—or a number of impersonal and personal forces. This would not necessarily lead to polytheism, deism or violate the principle of economy—it might be true that
only
the personal agency actually exists from the set of possibilities.
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the natural universe that would be accommodated by NBE, besides God. (Craig seems to allow this ontological possibility when he “infers”
8
that the external cause of the universe is an “agent causation,” implying that it might be otherwise.) NBE might be open to an impersonal force as well as a personal force—or a number of impersonal and personal forces. This would not necessarily lead to polytheism, deism or violate the principle of economy—it might be true that
only
the personal agency actually exists from the set of possibilities.
If theists, however, allow the theoretical possibility of an impersonal transcendent object in NBE—and it seems they must allow this, or some other nontheistic hypothesis—and if they have not convincingly eliminated it (or them) from the set of actual items in NBE, then they must remain open to the possibility that the origin of the universe could be explained in a purely naturalistic manner.
Transcendent does not equal supernatural.
Have theists successfully eliminated all but one candidate for NBE? By what criteria have they concluded that an impersonal force cannot cause a universe? After all, experience within the universe shows us that many impersonal causes “create” many natural effects.
Craig appears to be justifying the hypothesis of a personal external force via the fact that the natural universe contains complex intelligence and free personal agency—humans, for example—and a creator must be at least as complex as the thing it created
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. Otherwise, the creation would have been greater than the creator, which is impossible.
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. Otherwise, the creation would have been greater than the creator, which is impossible.
But is it impossible? What exactly does “greater” mean? Flowing water created the Grand Canyon. Which is greater? Loose pebbles start avalanches. We build machines that are “greater” than ourselves: forklifts, jet airplanes. We create machines that “think” better than we do—witness the defeat of world chess champion Garry Kasparov to IBM’s Deep Blue. A man and a woman who are both of average intelligence can produce a child who is a genius. Nature abounds with examples of complexity arising from simplicity.
If this is true in the natural world then why would it not be equally true in a transcendent or supernatural world, if such a world exists? If we are allowed to draw an inference, as Craig does, from one world to the other, then we cannot rule out the possibility of the universe (or God) having arisen from simpler causes. There is no way to dismiss the option that impersonal forces created the right situation for the universe to arise.
This principle holds in biology. The overwhelming consensus among biologists is that we evolved from simpler ancestors, and so did our ancestors. Theists who agree that the universe originated in a Big Bang about 15 billion years ago should not be uncomfortable with the observation that life evolved over that vast period of time. (Those few theists who accept cosmology but reject biology may be picking their experts based on theology rather than science.) If theists such as Craig think we can infer anything from natural observation about the characteristics of a transcendent creator, then we naturalists could be justified in playing the same game. We might “infer” that the creator (if it exists) evolved from a less complex, non-personal source.
Some theists dismiss biological evolution from simpler origins (some discard only macroevolution, and some only the evolution of DNA), but even if they are right this would not help them. Complex/simple does not necessarily translate to personal/impersonal. Who is to say that personality could not have arisen from an impersonal cause? The impersonal might be more complex. If this is impossible, theists must explain why.
Even if it is wrong (in spite of a wealth of evidence) that complexity arises from simplicity, in order for the cosmological argument to hold, theists must at least acknowledge the possibility of one or more transcendent forces that is not personal. They must ontologically contend with something else “out there” that is not God. They must define it, and then eliminate it, in order to avoid being accused of begging the question.
Theists who get the point might mention that the “something else,” even if clearly defined, would be merely theoretical. True, but so is God.
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If they had evidence for God they wouldn’t need the Cosmological Argument at all.
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If they had evidence for God they wouldn’t need the Cosmological Argument at all.
If an actual infinity cannot be a part of reality, then God, if he is actually infinite, cannot exist.
To get around this problem, some theists insist that God is not a part of “actual” (natural) reality. They regularly talk about a place “beyond” the universe, a transcendent realm where God exists “outside of time.” Craig rapturizes that “
the universe has a cause.
This conclusion ought to stagger us, to fill us with awe, for it means that the universe was brought into existence by
something
which is greater than and beyond it.”
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[emphasis in original]
the universe has a cause.
This conclusion ought to stagger us, to fill us with awe, for it means that the universe was brought into existence by
something
which is greater than and beyond it.”
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[emphasis in original]
Of course, if you live “outside of time,” whatever that means, then you don’t need a beginning in time. A transcendent being, living “beyond” nature, is conveniently exempt from the limitations of natural law. And all complaints that God must have had a cause or a designer (using the same natural reasoning that tries to call for his existence) can be dismissed by theists who insist that God is outside the loop, unaffected by natural causality and beyond time.
Yet theists continue to describe this “timeless” being in temporal terms. Phrases such as “God decided to create the universe” are taken by us mere mortals to be analogous to such natural phrases as “Annie Laurie decided to bake a pie.” If such phrases are not equal or analogous to normal human language, and if they are not redefined coherently, then they are useless. We may as well say “God blopwaddled to scrumpwitch the universe.”
The word “create” is a transitive verb. We have no experience of transitive verbs operating outside of time (how could we?), so when we hear such a word we must picture it the only way we can: a subject acts on an object. Considering the point at which an action is committed, there must be an antecedent state “during” which the action is not committed, and this would be true either in or out of time.
To say that “God created time” is not comprehensible to us. But if he did it anyway, in spite of our lack of imagination, then it couldn’t have happened “after” the decision to commit it because there was no “before.” We might still, however, imagine the act of creation as “following” the decision to create. Or to avoid temporal terms, the creating succeeds the deciding in the logical order. In logic we say that a conclusion “follows,” though we do not mean this happens in space or time. It doesn’t “happen” at all. Craig agrees that “the origin of the universe is causally prior to the Big Bang, though not temporally prior to the Big Bang,”
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but doesn’t seem to realize that causality requires temporality.
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but doesn’t seem to realize that causality requires temporality.
Either in or out of time, the decision of a personal agency to commit an action happens antecedent to the action itself. Even if the deciding and the acting happened simultaneously
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, it would still not be true that the acting was antecedent to the deciding. Imagine God saying, “Oh, look! I just created a universe. Now I’d better decide to do it.”
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, it would still not be true that the acting was antecedent to the deciding. Imagine God saying, “Oh, look! I just created a universe. Now I’d better decide to do it.”
This means that a series of antecedent causal events must exist in the mind of a time-transcendent creator, if such a being exists. Since the Kalam argument claims that “an actual infinity cannot exist in reality,” it shoots itself in the foot. Although Kalam deals with temporal succession, the same logic applies to non-temporal antecedent events, if such things are a part of reality. If the series were infinite, then God never could have traversed the totality of his own antecedent mental causes to arrive at his decision to say “Let there be light.” Therefore, sticking with Kalam, there must have been a “first antecedent” in the mind of an actual God, which means that God “began” to exist. (This means “began causally,” but theists have conceded the appropriateness of expressing non-temporal actions in temporal language.)
If theists counter that the Kalam argument applies only to the impossibility of an actual mathematical infinity within the material universe and that the transcendent, timeless domain of the creator is an entirely different kind of “infinity” that is not subject to the same laws, then they are begging the question, again. Exempting the conclusion, by definition, from the premises by excluding the supernatural (the very thing theists are trying to prove) is circular reasoning. If it is true that an “actual infinity cannot exist in reality,” then a being that is actually infinite cannot be a part of reality. In other words, the Kalam
disproves
the reality of a beginning-less God. If infinity is just a concept, as Kalam insists, then an infinite God is just a concept.
disproves
the reality of a beginning-less God. If infinity is just a concept, as Kalam insists, then an infinite God is just a concept.
If we take Kalam seriously, there is no escaping the fact that God (if he exists) had a beginning, either in or out of time.
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Since this is true, the phrase “Everything that begins to exist…” includes God. Sticking with the cosmological argument, it follows that God has a cause.
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Since this is true, the phrase “Everything that begins to exist…” includes God. Sticking with the cosmological argument, it follows that God has a cause.
We are back to my kindergartner’s question.
By the way, I have never heard a coherent definition of what it means for a god to exist “outside of time.” This seems to be an equivocation, a hand-waving dodge of the issue. To “exist” (as an object) means to occupy space and time. Things that exist are measurable.
St. Augustine was philosophically and scientifically naive when he suggested that God exists outside of time. There is no way to be “outside” of time, as if there were an edge or border to it. Augustine and many modern Christians are still thinking like flat-earthers. Time is a dimension, not a thing. Like all dimensions, it has no existence of its own, and it has no beginning, ending or edge. If you want to measure something, say the height of the page of this book, you start at one point, which you label zero, and then count the number of centimeters from that point to the other side along a dimension. It makes sense to say the page is so many centimeters tall, but what about the dimension itself? How long is the dimension? The zero point was chosen arbitrarily along the dimension. Does it make sense to ask of the beginning of the dimension, or the end? It does make sense to ask about the edge of the book, but where is the edge of the dimension? It is nowhere. Time is a dimension of space-time. Things that exist can be measured along that dimension. We can meaningfully talk about “the beginning of the Civil War,” but we cannot make any sense of the phrase “beginning of time” as if it were just a very long ruler. That would be like measuring the very concept of measuring, which is jumping up one logical sphere.
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