The Cosmological Argument - Part 1
In order to keep these posts small and intellectually digestible I'm going to present the argument and the proof for its first proposition in this post and follow-up with the proof for the subsequent proposition in a later post. This approach will also help to keep the comments tightly focused.
The first argument is called the Cosmological Argument. There are several forms to this argument, but I will offer two of them. The first is has the following form:
Proposition 1: Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
Proposition 2: The universe began to exist.
Conclusion: Therefore, the universe had a cause.
Since argument is deductive, if I can prove both propositions to be true, then the conclusion necessarily follows. To render it invalid, only one of its propositions needs to be falsified.
Proposition 1 is supported by one of the strongest and universally maintained laws in existence; the Law of Causality. It's been expressed in various ways, but simply put it means that for every effect, there is a cause.
Without the Law of Causality, science would nearly be impossible since scientists seek causes in their experiments. Moreover, the law is universal because, while the law can't be proven, everyone intuitively understands that events have causes.
In fact, it's hard to imagine life any other way. Medical doctors search for the causes of diseases; lawyers seek to determine motives (cause) for a crime; software developers seek the causes of misbehaving programs.
But, perhaps most compelling of all, even denying the law proves it truthfulness because one can not deny the law without using the law in the process. For example, if someone were to say, "I deny the Law of Causality", simply ask, "What caused you to draw that conclusion?"
Therefore, since the Law of Causality is unquestionably accepted to be true, the first proposition of the Commological Argument has been proven to be true.
Labels: philosophy
posted by Roy Clemmons @ 11:59 PM
4 Comments
4 Comments:
Well, as promised, here are the "classic" rebuttals to the cosmological argument.
The first problem is that the argument seems to lead to an infinite regression, e.g. what caused the cause that caused the universe. ("It's turtles all the way down!")
Thomas Aquinas addressed this problem by adding another, penultimate proposition of the form, "The series of causes cannot reach back infinitely." (This third proposition is still a matter of hot and active debate.)
The second objection is that the Aristotelean notion of first cause or first mover bears little resemblance to the Christian God and so is of little use as an argument for faith.
But, I know this goes beyond your tidy syllogism, Roy, because you have only suggested "cause" and have not yet presented an argument for "first cause." So let me suggest another problem. To do this I have to draw on out understanding of our universe.
CAUTION: WEIRD SCIENCE FOLLOWS!
Physics as we know it does not work for the first 10 to the minus 43 seconds of the existence of our universe. There is no reason to insist that our notions of causality apply during that time. Even if the string theorists are ultimately successful in developing a consistent theory of "everything" that gets us back to the beginning of the universe, because that is also the beginning of time. Let me repeat that. Time as we know it began 13.7 billion years ago when the universe began. There was no before!
Notions of causality are inextricably tied to notions of temporarility. For example, we might say, "A happens before B, so A may have caused B") But if there is no temporal relation between A and B, then no causal relation can be deduced. The causal relations we depend on in science are part of the structure of this universe and can have no bearing on how the universe began.
Here are the middle paragraphs with corrections.
But, I know this goes beyond your tidy syllogism, Roy, because you have only suggested "cause" and have not yet presented an argument for "first cause." So let me suggest another problem. To do this I have to draw on our understanding of our universe.
CAUTION: WEIRD SCIENCE FOLLOWS!
Physics as we know it does not work for the first 10 to the minus 43 seconds of the existence of our universe. There is no reason to insist that our notions of causality apply during that time. Even if the string theorists are ultimately successful in developing a consistent theory of "everything" that gets us back to the beginning of the universe, that will not be of any help, because that just gets us back to zero, the beginning of time. Let me repeat that. Time as we know it began 13.7 billion years ago when the universe began. There was no before!
As you noticed, I have not completed the evidence for the second proposition - only the first - and so have not connected the first cause with God.
My goal for part one was to merely establish the truthfulness of the first proposition which I did.
I maintain that to even suggest the Universe popped into existence from nothing (when even "nothing" did not exist) is completely unpalatable.
Yes, there are highly disputed speculations involving a cyclic universes, mathematical points, branes and strings but all of them mathematical models that even the physicists can't agree on so any statement based on these theories is assumptive, at best.
In the final analysis, some First Cause initiated the birth of the Universe or, if you prefer, all Universes.
The evidence for the second proposition will address these issues - including the infinite regression of turtles and the weirdness in "Weird Science."
Thanks for your comments.
Roy, you said "the Law of Causality is unquestionably accepted to be true." But the law of causality only applies after the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago. The law of causality only works if time exists and has a specific direction. In our universe, the direction of time is well established and accepted to be such that the Big Bang is in the past. So causality is well behaved and dependable.
Now, you may feel "that to even suggest the Universe popped into existence from nothing (when even "nothing" did not exist) is completely unpalatable." Palatable or not, that is what most working cosmologists think and what they teach.
Furthermore, palatability is not scientific proof. In fact, I have maintained all along that I believe in God because I choose to, or more specifically, I choose to reject the idea that this universe is senseless and pointless. When you claim to reject the idea of a universe popping into existence because that is unpalatable, that idea starts to sound similar to mine.
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