The Grand Design and the Kalam Cosmological Argument. The Book

Transcription

1 The Grand Design and the Kalam Cosmological Argument Edwin Chong CFN, October 13, 2010 The Book Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, The Grand Design, Bantam, Interest to Christians: Widely discussed claim that it is unnecessary to invoke God in the creation of the universe. 2

2 H & M On Creation Some would claim the answer to these questions is that there is a God who chose to create the universe that way. It is reasonable to ask who or what created the universe, but if the answer is God, then the question has merely been deflected to that of who created God. In this view it is accepted that some entity exists that needs no creator, and that entity is called God. This is known as the first cause argument for the existence of God. We claim, however, that it is possible to answer these questions purely within the realm of science, and without invoking any divine beings. 3 Creation: Media Version As recent advances in cosmology suggest, the laws of gravity and quantum theory allow universes to appear spontaneously from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going. [H & M, Why God Did Not Create the Universe, WSJ, Sep 3, 2010] 4

3 What Argument? What first cause argument for the existence of God? Many forms. Most commonly used: Kalam cosmological argument. Popularized by William Lane Craig. 5 Kalam Cosmological Argument The basic argument (syllogistic form): 1.Whatever begins to exist has a cause. 2.The universe began to exist. 3.Therefore, the universe has a cause. Augment the argument using properties of begin, universe, and cause to give theistic conclusions. 6

4 Physical Support for Premise 2 Craig uses claims by physicists that the universe began to exist. Big bang theory. Astrophysical evidence suggests a point around 15 billion years ago when the universe began to exist. [Craig, God Are You There? RZIM, 2002.] 7 H & M s Response Current theories in physics explain why the universe began to exist; the cosmological argument fails. Not really new. (cf. Hawking s A Brief History of Time.) 8

5 H & M s Explanation What exactly is the explanation? A state of being (extra dimensions, quantum fluctuation, etc.). For our current purposes, unimportant to know exactly what this is. Not even important if they re actually true. The scientific bandwagon 9 Krauss on Creation For over 2,000 years the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" has captured theologians and philosophers. While usually framed as a religious or philosophical question, it is equally a question about the natural world. So an appropriate place to try and resolve it is with science. But data like this coming in from our revolutionary new tools promise to turn much of what is now metaphysics into physics. [Lawrence Krauss, Our Spontaneous Universe, WSJ, Sep 8, 2010.] 10

6 Craig s Response Krauss (and others) commits a fallacy: equivocation with respect to the term nothing. In philosophy, nothing means not being. But Krauss and H & M do not mean not being. They mean some state of being that precedes our physical universe. 11 Craig s Response (cont d) The vacuum state describing quantum physics is far from being nothing in the philosophical sense. He doesn t ask, why is there a quantum state rather than nothing. He never addresses the original question, Why is there something rather than nothing at all. [Craig, Lawrence Krauss on Creation Out of Nothing, RFAudioB, Sep 13, 2010.] 12

7 Application to H & M As recent advances in cosmology suggest, the laws of gravity and quantum theory allow universes to appear spontaneously from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going. [H & M, Why God Did Not Create the Universe, WSJ, Sep 3, 2010] 13 Impact on KCA To theistic philosophers, the universe means the totality of the created being. One consequence of Craig s response: That physicists don t actually think that the universe began to exist! There goes the scientific support for premise 2 of the Kalam cosmological argument. But there s another problem 14

8 But Who Created God? Back to H & M: It is reasonable to ask who or what created the universe, but if the answer is God, then the question has merely been deflected to that of who created God. Standard answer: The question doesn t apply to God because, by definition, God did not begin to exist. 15 Example Defense It s impossible to avoid positing an uncaused cause of the universe. Think about it. If God was caused by something else, then that thing would also need a cause, and we would have an infinite regress without a beginning. Yet if there was no beginning, then nothing could exist. The regression only stops with something that is selfexisting. This thing cannot be physical because physical matter itself began to exist. A supernatural being is the best explanation of the first cause. [Jonathan Morrow, thinkchristianly.org, 2010] 16

9 More Fundamental Question? But what about the question, Why is there God rather than nothing? The standard defense doesn t seem to address this. Yet, Craig s argument seems to suggest this as the real question. 17 Fallacy of Passing the Buck The Cosmological Argument is a prime example of the Fallacy of Passing the Buck: invoking God to solve some problem, but then leaving unanswered that very same problem when applied to God himself. [Donald M, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction, 23 Nov 2009.] 18

10 Summary Hawking and Mlodinow explain the origin of the universe without invoking God. This thesis threatens theism. Craig responds with two critical points. But these critiques seem to have undesirable consequences. 19 Summary I Critique: The physicist s nothing is not equal to not being. Backfire: The theist s universe is not equal to the physical world. Consequence: Reduced scientific support for the KCA. 20

11 Summary II Critique: The physicist s explanation does not address the real question: Why is there something rather than nothing? Backfire: The theist s explanation doesn t address the real question either: Why is there God rather than nothing? Consequence: Theist viewed as committing the fallacy of passing the buck. 21 Other Thoughts

12 Creation: Specialist Version In our view, there is no picture or theory independent concept of reality. Instead we adopt a view that we call model dependent realism: the idea that a physical theory or world is a model (generally of a mathematical nature) and a set of rules that connect the elements of the model to observations. According to model dependent realism, it is pointless to ask whether a model is real, only whether it agrees with observation. If two models agree with observation, neither model can be considered more real than the other. A person can use whichever model is more convenient in the situation under consideration. [H & M, The Elusive Theory of Everything, Scientific American, Sep 27, 2010.] 23 Retraction? On the great project of theoretical physics that might be concluded by the end of the 20 th century: By this I mean that we might have a complete, consistent, and unified theory of the physical interactions which would describe all possible observations. [Hawking, inaugural address, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, 1980.] 24