Chapter 3: Cosmological Argument for God

[Carl]

I just listened to Emery get his butt kicked by Tony in the podcast of chapter 3 (In the Beginning there was a great SURGE) and I felt I had to respond. I am an atheist and although I do think the cosmological argument is one of the better arguments the theist has in his arsenal, it ultimately does not succeed. Here's how I would have responded to this chapter.

First of all, I noticed that the entire podcast was about what caused the universe; ie. what kind of cause it could possibly be, whether an infinite number of causes is rational or not, whether the explanation of God is better than no explanation, etc. Never was the cosmological argument itself questioned. Emery implicitly conceded, whether he did it intentionally or not, the cosmological argument and essentially let the theist in through the front door which is why Tony won the debate hands down. So let's have a look then at the cosmological argument as stated in the book:

1. Everything that has a beginning has a cause
2. The universe had a beginning
3. Therefore the universe had a cause

Although the authors don't call this Kalam Cosmological Argument in the book, it looks very similar to it. I've actually never seen the cosmological argument written in exactly this way before. According to the back cover of I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist (IDHEFA) Geisler has a PhD in philosophy so maybe there's something I'm missing here, but I have a bone to pick with the wording of this argument. Premise (1) doesn't seem to be entirely correct the way it is written because I can think of some things that have a beginning in a non-temporal sense, but the fact that they have a beginning has no relation on whether they had a cause or not. For example a book has a beginning and an end. The beginning of IDHAFA is the table of contents or the forward, and then end is the Notes or Appendix 3. The fact that the book has a table of contents has no relation at all to whether it has a cause. It is not specifically stated in this formulation of the argument that the beginning is a temporal beginning as it is explicitly stated in the much more well known Kalam Cosmological Argument by Craig:

4. Everything that begins to exist has a cause
5. The universe began to exist
6. Therefore the universe had a cause

I accept (4) but I have to reject (1). He (Geisler) mentions that (1) is the equivalent to the Law of Causality, but in order for that to be the cause he must specify that the beginning is actually a beginning in time because according to the definition of causality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality) "Antecedence postulates that the cause must be prior to, or at least simultaneous with, the effect". You may think I'm nitpicking here but this subtle difference is critical when analyzing the second premise.

I have no problems with (2). I agree with all the evidences for the beginning of the universe that Geisler states in chapter 3, the SURGE. I grant that the universe had a beginning. However I do have problems with (5). The universe did not begin to exist because time came into existence along with everything else in the universe. There was no "before" the universe, as Tony even mentioned in the podcast. "The universe began to exist" implies that there was a time when the universe did not exist, which is not the case. Therefore (5) must be rejected.

How can I reject (5) and agree with (2)? Because just as with my example of the book above, things can conceivably have a beginning and end with that fact having no bearing on its causality. I started at the beginning of IDHAFA at the forward and read through chapters 1-15 and then finished at the appendicies, thus it has a beginning and an end. Yes it is true that the book had a cause, but I did not come to that conclusion because the book has a table of contents, but because I know that there was a time when this book did not exist and therefore it must have had a cause. Just like the book, the universe has a beginning (ie. the Big Bang) and it will have an end, although we don't know the details of that end yet. Again, just like the book, this has no bearing on whether the universe was caused or not. Only if the universe began to exist would that be the case. But the universe did not begin to exist because there was no time when the universe did not exist, therefore although we can say that the universe had a definite beginning, we cannot conclude that the universe had a cause. The universe had a beginning, but it was not a beginning in time, and that's what's important here in terms of this argument.

But what about the fact of the book itself? Regardless of whether it came to exist or not, does it not cry out for an explanation? Perhaps, but realize that is not the type of cosmological argument we are dealing with here. Chapter 3 was all about pointing to the evidence for the Big Bang and using that as evidence for the existence of God. The authors spent over 8 pages of the chapter going over the evidence of the beginning of the universe. They are using the fact that the universe had a beginning as an argument for God and that is what I am responding to here not to the contingency of objects in our universe. That's a different discussion.

So if we compare these 2 formulations of the cosmological argument, Geisler's argument (1-3) has to be rejected because (1) is false, and Craig's argument has to be rejected because (5) is false. I suspect that Geisler had intended a Kalam argument when he wrote this chapter but changed the wording for premise 2 so that he could support it with the SURGE evidence. After all, he didn't write this book for PhD philosophers he wrote it for the general public and he just wanted to get the general point across. Unfortunately the general point doesn't hold when you look at it under a microscope.

Carl

[JustJim]

It is not specifically stated in this formulation of the argument that the beginning is a temporal beginning as it is explicitly stated in the much more well known Kalam Cosmological Argument by Craig:

4. Everything that begins to exist has a cause
5. The universe began to exist
6. Therefore the universe had a cause

Apparently, premise (4) is not true (as explained to me by mitchellmckain in the "Am I A Christian" thread, in regard to quarks, which begin to exist but have no cause - known or unknown), and therefore negates the conclusion drawn in (6). If quarks begin to exist without cause, then so could the precipitating substances of the universe.

Welcome to the forum!

Jim

[Lawrence]

It is not specifically stated in this formulation of the argument that the beginning is a temporal beginning as it is explicitly stated in the much more well known Kalam Cosmological Argument by Craig:

4. Everything that begins to exist has a cause
5. The universe began to exist
6. Therefore the universe had a cause

Apparently, premise (4) is not true (as explained to me by mitchellmckain in the "Am I A Christian" thread, in regard to quarks, which begin to exist but have no cause - known or unknown), and therefore negates the conclusion drawn in (6). If quarks begin to exist without cause, then so could the precipitating substances of the universe.

Welcome to the forum!

Jim

If you believe God isn't needed for the universe to exist, does this mean you are now no longer a deist?

[JustJim]

If you believe God isn't needed for the universe to exist, does this mean you are now no longer a deist?

I'm thinking of becoming a godless Christian...

Also, I've never claimed God was "needed" for the universe to exist, as W. L. Craig and others do. I've only said that, to me, a God-created universe is less preposterous than the alternatives. Good thing God made it possible for quarks to exist uncaused, huh?

Jim

[Emery]

Thanks for the breakdown, Carl. I think the points of both Geisler and Craig's first argument are the same: to allow God to escape the "must have been created" dilemma. The clauses "that has a beginning" and "begins to exist" both allow God a loophole out of the obvious question of "who created God," since he is defined as having existed eternally, and hence has no beginning.

It's a nice device, but there is entirely no evidence to support God's eternal existence. Yet it's necessary for the argument to work.

What I'm fixated on, as you heard in the show, is the idea that God can act in a non-temporal state. Though there is more than one way to defeat the Cosmological argument, I think both Geisler & Craig fall into the trap to their own Roadrunner fallacy when they include time in the list of created things, then expect God to act prior to time coming into existence.

[Pseudonym]

Thanks for the breakdown, Carl. I think the points of both Geisler and Craig's first argument are the same: to allow God to escape the "must have been created" dilemma. The clauses "that has a beginning" and "begins to exist" both allow God a loophole out of the obvious question of "who created God," since he is defined as having existed eternally, and hence has no beginning.

It seems to me that this is the central theological problem with the cosmological argument, in all of its forms. If you ask a typical theist what "God" is, the number one answer would not be "why, the uncaused cause, of course!"

It's the same problem that I have with the Intelligent Design movement. If you're looking for God, why would the bacterial flagellum be the place to look?

Though there is more than one way to defeat the Cosmological argument, I think both Geisler & Craig fall into the trap to their own Roadrunner fallacy when they include time in the list of created things, then expect God to act prior to time coming into existence.

Speaking with my armchair physicist hat on, I feel compelled to point out, once again, that there is nothing in the laws of physics which mandates that causality only has to happen "forward" in time. In fact, except for one largely statistical law whose interpretation is hotly debated, the fundamental laws of physics are completely symmetric with respect to the direction of time or, indeed, any element of the Lorentz group. The "past to present" direction of time is no more of a fundamental physical law than the "left to right" direction of space.

[tirtlegrrl]

I'm not an armchair physicist, or a closet physicist, or any other kind of physicist; what are the implications of this possible "reverse" causality with regard to the actions or existence of God?

[Pseudonym]

I'm not an armchair physicist, or a closet physicist, or any other kind of physicist; what are the implications of this possible "reverse" causality with regard to the actions or existence of God?

It depends on who you ask. The person who has probably written the most on this topic is Paul Davies, in particular his books The Cosmic Blueprint, God and the New Physics and The Mind of God. One idea he proposed, for example, is that retro-causality allows the universe to "cause" itself.

Incidentally, anything by Davies is well worth reading, as long as you understand that he doesn't always represent the consensus view. On the other hand, if you look at his Wikipedia page, you will note that his critics are mostly the usual suspects who turn up to object any time that any prominent scientist says something nice about religion.

[Carl]

Thanks for the breakdown, Carl. I think the points of both Geisler and Craig's first argument are the same: to allow God to escape the "must have been created" dilemma. The clauses "that has a beginning" and "begins to exist" both allow God a loophole out of the obvious question of "who created God," since he is defined as having existed eternally, and hence has no beginning.

It's a nice device, but there is entirely no evidence to support God's eternal existence. Yet it's necessary for the argument to work.

What I'm fixated on, as you heard in the show, is the idea that God can act in a non-temporal state. Though there is more than one way to defeat the Cosmological argument, I think both Geisler & Craig fall into the trap to their own Roadrunner fallacy when they include time in the list of created things, then expect God to act prior to time coming into existence.

Yeah, I agree with you and Pseudonym on this. Any argument the theist makes to allow God to be the uncaused cause can also be applied to the universe as a whole. The theist loves to argue that God is timeless and from there move on to somehow concluding (or asserting) that God doesn't need a cause, but I argue that the universe itself as a whole could also be considered timeless. If you were a timeless being and you were to look at the universe, how would you perceive it? You would not be experiencing a particular moment in time, say noon June 12 1744, you would be experiencing every point in time all together as a whole. You would be perceiving the universe in a similar manner as we would perceive a book as I mentioned in my previous post; you can see the beginning and the end together all at once. You would perceive the universe as a timeless fact. So then if the universe is timeless, does it need a cause? In order to show that the universe needs a cause the theist would somehow have to show that the universe is contingent and at the same time show that God is necessary (to avoid the road runner fallacy). I have yet to see an argument that does that, at the very least it would take some other version of the cosmological argument.

And by the way, you (Emery) made a really good point in the discussion of Chapter 4 regarding the authors falling victim to their own roadrunner fallacy. I never thought of it that way when I was reading the book. They point it out in their opponent's arguments (rightly in most cases) but fail to see it in their own.

Carl

[Lawrence]

We need to get Mitch into this discussion he's our resident non-armchair physicist, and a Christian.

I'm happy Jim finally abandoned the cosmological argument, I tried to debate him a few months ago but all it took was a passing mention by Mitch about quarks and everything came crashing down.

I wonder if you still believe in the teleological argument, Jim, I see now you've changed your affiliation to "godless christian" does that mean your not buying the arguments anymore?

[JustJim]

I'm happy Jim finally abandoned the cosmological argument, I tried to debate him a few months ago but all it took was a passing mention by Mitch about quarks and everything came crashing down.

I wonder if you still believe in the teleological argument, Jim, I see now you've changed your affiliation to "godless christian" does that mean your not buying the arguments anymore?

How/where would it fit to envision God's manifestation as the universe to be accomplished through quarks? IOW, if the way God becomes the universe is by 'quarking' through the boundary between a timeless, non-dimensional universe and a four-dimensional one. In a sense, would that still allow for a (variation of the) kalam cosmological argument?

Not believing in a theistic god, nor even fully in a deistic god (one with original purpose, intent, intellect, or other human qualities), but rather in a pandeistic "self-conversion" of God becoming the universe, the kalam cosmological argument never fit perfectly for me, especially as applied by Craig and others in reference to the theistic god of the Bible. Within my concept of God, creation of the universe, by "becoming" quarks, is still possible. In that scenario, the "becoming" is the "cause" of the quarks.

(This is all purely fantasy, speculation and conjecture, of course - not unlike the nature of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic ideas of their God(s).)

Oh, and BTW, for me the teleological argument only applies to the setting of things into motion at the origins of things, from which points thereafter, things "follow the rules" to become whatever they become. No intent, purpose, plan, etc. No 'watchmaker'.

Jim

[Rian]

What I'm fixated on, as you heard in the show, is the idea that God can act in a non-temporal state. Though there is more than one way to defeat the Cosmological argument, I think both Geisler & Craig fall into the trap to their own Roadrunner fallacy when they include time in the list of created things, then expect God to act prior to time coming into existence.

What is a Roadrunner fallacy? I've googled it, but only got one reference, and it wasn't helpful.

[Emery]

Rian, it's the authors' of this book's name for the law of non-contradiction. So for example if you believe that nothing is true, then neither can that statement be true. Thus you've destroyed your own argument with your argument. Geisler and Turek call that the Roadrunner fallacy, because Wiley Coyote does that a lot when his very actions to catch the roadrunner end up sabotaging the trap he set for the roadrunner.

[Pseudonym]

Rian, it's the authors' of this book's name for the law of non-contradiction. So for example if you believe that nothing is true, then neither can that statement be true.

For the record, this is not the law of non-contradiction. I suspect this is Geisler et al's mistake, not Emery's.

[Rian]

My guess is that Emery might have misstated what they were saying - the Roadrunner fallacy (in terms of "if you believe that nothing is true, then neither can that statement be true") isn't the name of the law of non-contradiction, but I would say that it could be construed to be an example of the law of non-contradiction.