The Cosmological Argument: Does the Big Bang Prove
God?
Based on Dr. Moreland's presentation in Scaling the Secular City
One of the more popular arguments today for the existence of God is referred to as the Cosmological Argument. The Cosmological Argument proposes that the existence of the universe proves--or at least strongly suggests--it was created by God. I've read a number of defenses of the Cosmological Argument by authors including Dr. Hugh Ross, Patrick Glynn, John Clayton and others. In Lee Strobel's The Case for Faith, Dr. William Lane Craig provided a short presentation of the argument. Dr. Craig is well known to be one of the foremost proponents of the Cosmological Argument today. He has written at least two books on the subject.
As I said, I've read a number of defenses of the argument, and so far I have not found them to be compelling. I decided to write this paper to explain why, in my view, the Cosmological Argument is flawed. But there are so many variations of the argument, I don't believe it would be fruitful to try to exhaustively compare and contrast the different variations. Therefore I decided to pick one defense of the argument, and use that as my basis for my counter-arguments. Given Dr. Craig's distinction on this topic, using his work as the source of defense of the argument would be a logical choice. The problem with using Dr. Craig, however, is that his presentation in Strobel's book is very brief; but in his own books, very verbose. Therefore, I decided to instead use Dr. J.P. Moreland's presentation of the argument from his book, Scaling the Secular City. Dr. Moreland refers to Dr. Craig as the most thorough and articulate advocate of the argument and acknowledges use of Craig's ideas. My personal feeling of Moreland's presentation is that he gives sufficient detail on the argument to get the most important ideas across, yet more accessible to the common reader than some more elaborate presentations. In other words, his presentation is a "happy medium" between the brief presentation in The Case for Faith while and the overly technical presentation in Dr. Craig's books. Also, it is my understanding that among the Christian community, Scaling the Secular City (and Strobel's The Case for Faith) have a larger readership than Craig's books on the subject. So, for the purposes of this paper, I find Moreland's presentation to be a good reference. But I believe my counter-arguments apply in general to most presentations of the argument, including Dr. Craig's.
I am aware that Dr. Moreland is a well respected, well read author. I must confess to being a mere amateur. Perhaps I am "out of my league" critiquing Dr. Moreland's arguments. But I believe I can demonstrate that the Cosmological Argument is flawed. It is of course up to the reader to determine for themselves after reading my arguments if I have indeed demonstrated such flaws. But I need to say up front that the arguments in favor of the argument are easier to understand by the layman than the arguments against it. For that reason, it may take some effort on the part of the reader to follow some of my arguments. I have revised this paper a number of times to try to improve my clarity, but it may still require some perseverance of the reader.
Before I start to address Moreland's arguments, there is some preliminary discussion to be laid out. I want to discuss the concept of falsifiablity. For a theory to have value, it must have a methodology to be confirmed or denied. Consider a murder case where the defendant claims that Satan committed the crime. Satan put the defendant's blood and fingerprints at the scene of the crime, etc. Although in theory the defendant could be telling the truth, there is no way to confirm or deny it. It is not falsifiable. The defendant might try to claim that burden of proof lays at the prosecution - he may say the prosecution must prove that Satan did not do the crime or set him free. But the prosecution is never expected to falsify the unfalsifiable, as by definition it can never be done. Moreover, the jury is never expected to consider an unfalsifiable theory. If, in the event that the defendant really is telling the truth and Satan really did commit the crime, the defendant is "out of luck" - he must be found guilty. Unfalsifiable theories, though always potentially true, must always be assumed false. If unfalsifiable theories are to be considered potentially true, then nothing can ever be shown to be true or false.
The reason I bring the subject of falsifiability up is because, in my view, some of Moreland's arguments are unfalsifiable. I cannot prove he is wrong, because the unfalsifiable can never be proved false. But, if his arguments do depend on unfalsifiable theories, then they must be assumed false.
Okay, now to address Moreland's arguments. The origins of the Cosmological Argument can be traced to Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274,) one of the most important Catholic apologists. Moreland notes that there are a number of forms of the Cosmological Argument. The Thomist Argument is based on Saint Aquinas' Quinque Viae ("Five Ways"). Moreland says that the Thomist Argument is a good argument, but wanted to focus on the Kalam Argument. Moreland says that Aquinas actually rejected the Kalam Argument, but he did not elaborate why. Nevertheless, some of Aquinas' concepts such as a Necessary Being and a First Cause are employed to support the Kalam Argument. These concepts will be discussed in more detail later in this paper.
In the Kalam Argument, it is first argued that the universe either had a beginning, or it had no beginning. If it had a beginning, it was either caused or uncaused. If it was caused, its cause was either personal or non personal. ("Personal" in this case meaning an intelligent agent.) The Kalam Argument then argues for the following premises:
Before I address the arguments presented by Moreland for each of these points, I’d like to point out something that seems odd. Moreland used twenty (yes, twenty) pages to argue premise 1. He used four pages to argue premise 2. And he used just one page to argue premise 3. I would have to assume that Moreland is trying to convert skeptics. Yet I expect that skeptics would have more trouble accepting premise 2 than premise 1. And far more trouble accepting premise 3 than 2. If anything, it seems he should have devoted increasing space to each successive premise rather than decreasing space. If I was cynical, I might be tempted to suspect that Moreland was hoping to overwhelm his audience with detailed arguments on premise 1 and hope that no one notices that there isn’t much substance to his arguments on premise 2 and 3.
Premise 1: The Universe Had a Beginning.
Often skeptics say something along the lines of, "if a theist says, God is eternal--then why not the universe?" I presume that one of the main purposes of the Kalam Argument in general--and this first premise in particular--is to disprove the universe being eternal. Moreland uses two modes of arguing this premise, the first being based on set theory, and the second based on the Big Bang theory. Though I disagree with Moreland's set theory based line of argument, I don't believe it to be terribly important to the points I wish to raise. So in the body of this paper, I will ignore the set theory issue. (For interested readers, I have at the end of this paper a sidebar on the issues I have with Moreland's set theory arguments. See Sidebar 2)
I accept the Big Bang, so I agree with much of what Moreland has to say about the Big Bang. Even so, I do have a few issues to raise. The first issue to raise is what he calls the two main models to Big Bang Theory. He says the first model is that the universe sprang out of nothing; and the competing model is the oscillating universe model. According to the oscillating universe model, the universe has gone through an infinite number of expansions and contractions, and will continue to do so in the future. Moreland lists several counter-arguments to the oscillating universe model, including the fact that it is currently estimated that the universe will not contract.
However, I want to point out that even if the universe will contract, the oscillating universe model is still impossible. I don’t believe any recognized physicists currently postulate the oscillating universe model. And here is the reason. Time only has meaning within a universe. If the universe contracts, that will be the end of our universe, and the end of time for our universe. Whether or not there are other universes, or other Big Bangs, they cannot be “before” or “after” our universe, as there is no such thing as “before” or “after” outside of a universe! So, our universe cannot “re-expand”. It is important to note that I am completely non-committal on the subject as to whether or not other universes exist--they might or they might not. (See Sidebar 3 for more information.) But, if other universes do exist, the time in any other universe is completely independent of the time in our universe. Similarly, Moreland discussed possible Second Law of Thermodynamics implications of the oscillating universe model, but it is a moot point as the entropy of our universe has no relationship to the entropy of any other universe. (I do have to give Moreland credit though, as he seems to understand the Second Law of Thermodynamics and wasn't using it to try to disprove evolution...) So, basically, I’m agreeing with Dr. Moreland that the oscillating universe model is false, but I come to this conclusion for different reasons.
The second issue I have to raise with Moreland's Big Bang discussion is where he postulates what saying "prior" to the Big Bang means. Here is what he has to say:
There was no time before the first moment. Whatever existed "prior" to the first moment was timeless and immutable. And when we use the word prior here, we do not mean temporally prior to time, but outside time altogether. God existed "prior" to the first moment in that he was--and is--timeless. This may be mysterious and inspiring, but it is not incoherent and contradictory.
There are some things to note about this discussion by Moreland. The first thing to note is that he is implying some sort of realm beyond time and space. He is not specific in whether God exists within this realm, or if God is this realm. But if people go to heaven and are therefore within God's beyond-time realm, but they are not God, that would mean this realm and God Himself are separate entities. And of course it is also theoretically possible that there is a beyond-time realm, but one that is purely naturalistic and no god at all. So, when I'm speaking of this realm, I will usually call it the "beyond-time realm" without implication of God being there or not. Occasionally, I will refer to it as "God's beyond-time realm" when I am specifically speaking of this realm as God's place for heaven and/or other entities outside of our universe. Either way, I'm speaking of the same theoretical place.
The next thing I want to note is that Moreland finds it necessary to redefine the word "prior" from our ordinary understanding. I'm going to spend a great deal of time discussing the meanings for some of the other words Moreland uses. Some critics of earlier editions of this paper have taken issue with my discussions about the meanings of these words--they have said my discussions are philosophical and not science. If my discussions of the meanings of words are philosophical and not to be considered science, then so are Moreland's! But the point is, Moreland does see that at least the word "prior" does not mean the same thing in the beyond-time realm as it does to us. But he uses some other words I believe likewise no longer can mean what we think of them as meaning. And that some of his arguments sound good, and use familiar words, but the fact that these words cannot mean the same thing as we understand them to mean "gets swept under the rug." Therefore I will have to spend time discussing some meanings of words.
Moreland continues his discussion of "prior" to the Big Bang. He goes on to say that a critic might say that, "God existing 'prior' to the first moment is like saying something is north of the North Pole." But he says that the analogy breaks down because God is entirely outside of time. He says his idea of "prior" to the Big Bang is neither "incoherent" nor "contradictory." Maybe--but it is clearly pure unfalsifiable conjecture. Which I believe I have shown to be a rather tenuous basis for a supposed proof of God. I could end this paper right here and say, "Moreland invents a non-falsifiable realm, and to do so requires reinventing meanings of common words and should therefore be summarily dismissed without further consideration." Yes, I believe I would be justified in doing so. But even if this realm does exist, Moreland's argument has other problems. So for the sake of argument, I will now assume the beyond-time realm that Moreland theorizes actually exists and move on.
Okay, since I am now assuming the beyond-time realm exists, what can we say about it? Well, Moreland himself says this realm is "timeless and immutable." I've found that a lot of readers have a very difficult time grasping this and the implications. I'm likely to sound like the proverbial broken record, hammering home Moreland's phrase, "timeless and immutable" as it is critically important to understanding the rest of this paper. So please bear with me and make sure the rest of my material for this premise (Premise 1) are well understood before continuing on to Premise 2.
What does "timeless and immutable" mean? Doesn't that mean God is "frozen?" If God isn't frozen, He isn't "timeless and immutable" now is He? I've had readers of this paper insist that God is not frozen. If He is not, then how can He be "timeless and immutable"? It seems like He either must be frozen, or not "timeless and immutable".
Most Christians seem to imagine that in God's beyond-time realm, there is stuff that roughly resembles "matter" to us--and God makes stuff out of this heavenly matter. Most Christians also seem to imagine some form of heavenly time as well. Second Peter 8:3 (NIV) says, "With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day." This is often paraphrased and abbreviated as, "a day to God is like a thousand years to man." This scripture could be interpreted to mean that God is like Moreland says, "timeless and immutable." But I think most Christians interpret this to mean that God simply has an infinite amount of heavenly time to work with. I believe Christians imagine that when they are in heaven with God, there will be some form of sequential order there. They may imagine that they'll talk to some family members, then go talk to Jesus, etc. Yet this is contradictory to "timeless and immutable" as Moreland defined the beyond-time realm. This should be taken as another indication that there are subtle internal contradictions within the Cosmological Argument.
The important point here is that I agree that if God did create the universe and has a beyond-time realm, then He may well have some form of "heavenly matter" and "heavenly time" to work with. Of course this is another unfalsifiable theory. But more importantly, whether heavenly matter or time exists is really immaterial to the Cosmological Argument. The entire purpose of the Cosmological Argument is the contention that our understanding of our own universe, our own time and our own matter proves (or at least strongly suggests) God created it. The issue of any possible heavenly matter or time is moot. Even so, I had to bring it up for the following reason--critics of earlier versions of this paper where I did not make this clear got confused by some of my arguments. I believe they were confusing our time and our matter with their own concepts of heavenly time and heavenly matter--they did not recognize they were blurring this distinction. Also, I believe that Moreland makes this same mistake in some of his arguments. So therefore I'm emphasizing that any theoretical heavenly time or matter cannot be disproved, but cannot be relied upon to support the Cosmological Argument and must be kept distinct in our minds. (Note: since some reader's have insisted that I consider the possibility of time or "heavenly-time" in the beyond-time realm, I will address that issue in Sidebar 1.)
So, if we cannot rely upon theoretical heavenly matter or time in the beyond-time realm, what can we say about the realm? Well, once again, Moreland's "timeless and immutable" comes to mind. But the implications are huge. Every single branch of physics--every single physical law that we know of--deals with one or more of the following concepts: time, space, matter, and energy. This beyond-time realm has literally no time, no space, no matter and no energy--at least none of our time, our space, etc. That means every single law that we know of is completely null and void in the beyond-time realm. There is no Theory of Relativity. There is no String Theory. There is no Second Law of Thermodynamics, etc. Given that every single law that we know of is 100% null and void in the beyond-time realm, it should be clear that Moreland has an extremely difficult task to be able to prove God's existence using our known physical laws! Even if there was good reason to allow the postulation of heavenly time and heavenly matter, there would be no reason to suppose that God would tie the same physical laws to them. So even allowing for the existence of heavenly matter and heavenly time still does not open the door to being able to use our known branches of physics--all of our known laws are still 100% null and void!
Moreland often appeals to our human instinct--what seems to be consistent with our own understandings of things. Even in our own universe, our own instincts can be often wrong. Who could guess that matter is made of electrons, neutrons and protons if we didn't learn it in school or do the research? Wouldn't appealing to human instinct to figure out the composition of matter be of little use? Sure, our instincts can be useful when dealing with things that behave similar to things we are familiar with. But, in the beyond-time realm, where there is literally nothing at all, and none of the physical laws we are used to, then our instincts are clearly of no use at all. Even in ordinary circumstances, appeals to our "common sense" should be treated with some skepticism. But in the beyond-time realm, appealing to common sense is actually completely senseless.
I mentioned that I was going to spend some time discussing the meanings of some words related to the topic at hand. Moreland seems to be saying that the universe is not eternal because it had a beginning. But what does "eternal" mean? Does "eternal" mean "for all time?" The universe does in fact exist "for all time" as time itself began at the Big Bang. So, this seems to say that we should call the universe "eternal." But I'd have to agree that it seems incoherent to say that the universe is "eternal" if it had a beginning. So perhaps the universe is not "eternal." Then does "eternal" mean like Moreland describes "prior" to the Big Bang? Does "eternal" mean "beyond time"? But if so, then that means that time itself is not eternal! Which also seems incoherent. So, in either definition of eternal, we wind up with seemingly incoherent, or at least non-intuitive consequences!
So the meaning of "eternal" isn't necessarily straightforward. I gave two options about what eternal means and whether we should consider the universe eternal or not. But notice that both of those options are really from our perspective, beings within our universe. Now lets look at the universe from the perspective of Moreland's beyond-time realm. Now, from this perspective, what does "eternal" mean? Since there is literally no time in this realm, isn't everything "eternal" from the perspective of this realm? To someone existing within this realm (such as God,) the universe is a self-contained entity containing all time, all matter and all energy. There is no "before" the universe, there is no "after" the universe. The universe just "is."
It is also important to note that the universe is, surprisingly, changeless from the perspective of the beyond-time realm! This is clearly counter-intuitive, and I suspect some readers will react with incredulity to this claim, so let me explain. To us, beings in this universe, we see constant change as a function of time. But remember that time only exists within the universe. As an analogy, while driving down a road, you may come to a pothole, a gas station, a grocery store, etc. Your view of the road changes as you travel down the road. But, if you took a picture of the road from a helicopter, you'd see the pothole and the gas station and grocery store as fixed elements on the road and no change at all. From the perspective of the beyond-time realm, all of time is like that road. When JFK was shot, for example, was just one event on the strand of time just like the pothole is just one element on the road. There is no "change." So, from the perspective of the beyond-time realm--from God's perspective--everything is eternal and nothing changes!
I said at the beginning of this premise that the thrust of the Kalam Argument seems to be to disprove the universe being eternal. But proving the universe had a beginning is not necessarily equivalent to proving that it is not "eternal!" At the very least, it can be said that the question is less straightforward than it first appears.
If some of the material in this premise has not "sunk in" yet, please review the material before continuing.
Premise 2: The Beginning of the Universe Had a Cause
I have to agree that most things do need a cause. And when things begin to exist, there is usually a cause for it. Houses don't materialize out of nowhere. So, I can agree that our instincts would tell us that the universe shouldn't be any different. It seems like it should have a cause. On the other hand, if the universe needs a cause, shouldn't God also need a cause? Indeed, it seems inescapable that something didn’t need a cause, be it God, the universe, or something else entirely. Regardless, there was something that didn’t need a cause. As far as I can tell, there would seem to be three possibilities:
So, once it is recognized that something didn't need a cause, isn't it just as likely the universe didn't need a cause as God not needing a cause? Moreland does make an attempt to answer this. He does recognize that his arguments would seem to imply that God needs a cause. His response is that things with beginnings must have a cause, but since God had no beginning, He needs no cause. But that begs the question, why would things without a beginning not need a cause? Moreland does attempt to answer this too. He employs use of Saint Thomas Aquinas' concept of the Necessary Being. According to Aquinas (and Moreland) there had to be something that owes its existence only to itself. Therefore this Necessary Being needs no cause and actually could not have not existed. The concept of the Necessary Being has been refuted by many philosophers, notably including David Hume. The problems with the argument are numerous. For example, it would be just as easy to define the universe as a “necessary universe” and say that it could not have not existed. It is the same argument, with the same validity. (Actually, calling the universe a "necessary universe" is actually a better argument than calling God a "necessary Being" because we at least know the universe exists...)
As I said, Moreland's argument seems to hinge on the issue of things without beginnings supposedly not needing causes. So now it is time for another meaning of words discussion. What does it mean to have a "beginning?" First off, for something to have a "beginning," doesn't there have to be a "before" it "began"? This relates to my discussion of eternal, where I said that perhaps the universe is indeed "eternal" despite the Big Bang because there is no time for which the universe did not exist. Which also means there was no time before it existed. For this reason, some philosophers have said that it may not be accurate to say the universe "began to exist" at the Big Bang because there is no time prior to the moment of the Big Bang. Personally, I can understand someone disagreeing with this. I'm sure Moreland would insist that even without a "before" it exists, it is still fair to say the universe "began to exist" at the Big Bang. I can accept that position--so long as it is recognized that the universe has a special from of "beginning to exist." And for this unique form of "beginning to exist" there is a sample size of one--the universe itself. So anything that we might say about "beginning to exist" in general does not for certain apply to the universe's "beginning to exist." So at least perhaps, the form of "beginning to exist" that the universe had might not need a cause. And given that we have a sample size of one and we cannot reproduce it, proving otherwise becomes rather problematic.
There is one more important issue about what it means to "beginning to exist." When we say a house began to exist, we mean it was formed from pre-existing materials. There is a law in physics, known as the conservation of mattergy (matter and energy) which means that matter and energy are never created nor destroyed, they only change in form. Even living things, they "begin to exist" when pre-existing eggs and sperms join. (Of course I'm only speaking of the physical portion, ignoring any possible "soul"--if there is such a thing.) So, really, there is only one true event of "beginning to exist," the Big Bang. Every other form of "beginning to exist" that we commonly speak of, we are merely speaking of something changing form. Therefore, no other "begin to exist" has any tangible relationship to the universe's "beginning to exist." So, once again, anything that we might say about "beginning to exist" in general does not for certain apply to the universe's "beginning to exist."
Moreland is arguing that the Big Bang is a unique event, and as such requires a cause. And I agree that from our perspective within the universe, that would seem to be valid. It seems reasonable. But what about from the perspective of Moreland's beyond-time realm? From this perspective, (God's perspective,) time might resemble a string. A string that does have an end point which we call the Big Bang. But this endpoint has no more of a cause than any other part of the string. You might still say that it would seem like the whole string needs a cause. But that isn't the issue. No point on the string of time, not even the endpoint, from the perspective of being outside of the universe, has any specific or greater need of a cause. Moreland's entire argument of why the universe needs a cause and God does not seems to be entirely dependant on the existence of the endpoint of time--the Big Bang. But if this end point has no more or less of a need of a cause, then the universe no longer has any more or less of a need of a cause than God.
Another key argument that Moreland stresses is his contention that "something cannot come from nothing without a cause." This again seems reasonable. As I said, houses don't materialize out of nowhere. But then is it not also true that things cannot come from nothing--with or without a cause? Houses can't materialize out of nowhere, with or without a cause. They can be built, from pre-existing materials. But there is no known "cause" that can cause a house to materialize out of nothing. So, back to Moreland's claim that "something cannot come from nothing without a cause," what is the validity of the "without a cause" contingency of this statement? As near as I can see, the only source of this contingency is so that Moreland can say, "there has to be a cause when things like universes come from nothing, and therefore it had to be God." In other words, the "without a cause" contingency is an ad-hoc contingency so that God can be put into the equation.
Perhaps this can be rephrased in this way. If God can create things from nothing, then it must be true that there is some kind of mechanism that things can be made from nothing. Even if it is true that only God can do this, we still have the fact that some mechanism does exist for things to be created from nothing. But, if this mechanism exists, then why God and only God has this ability is a separate question. If God can create things from nothing, then things can come from nothing in some way. But that invalidates Moreland's premise that something can't come from nothing. In other words, God doesn't solve the problem that Moreland says exists and tries to use God to solve.
I now want to return to the Moreland's defense of his claim that the beginning of the universe must have had a cause. I believe his argument can be summarized as Moreland claiming that a beginning to something without a cause is a fundamental inconsistency. (These are my words rather than Moreland's, but I believe it is a fair summary.) I can certainly agree that this seems reasonable. I’d have to agree that if I were to say, “no, there was no cause to the universe” it would not seem like a very satisfying answer. How could the universe not have a cause? But yet there is (possibly) another fundamental inconsistency which Moreland ignores. I intend to show it is a fundamental inconsistency for something external to the universe to be able to "cause" the universe!
In order to show that something external to the universe being a cause of the universe is a fundamental inconsistency, I will unfortunately require some more discussions on the meanings of words. What does it mean to say one thing "caused" something else? To "cause" something to happen seems to require action. And action requires sequence and order and time. But there is no such thing as sequence or time or order in Moreland's beyond-time realm! How can anything have been "caused" if there was no "before" it was caused? Remember, it is Moreland that defined his realm and his God as "timeless and immutable." It seems to be a fundamental inconsistency for something that is "timeless and immutable" to do or to cause anything!
So now we seem to have two possible "fundamental inconsistencies." Which I will now formalize:
1. It is a fundamental inconsistency for the universe to have a beginning but not have a cause.
2. It is a fundamental inconsistency for something external to the universe to be a cause to the universe.
So, of these two possible fundamental inconsistencies, which is really more problematic? No doubt Moreland would argue that inconsistency 1 is the more problematic--he’d likely say that the laws of physics require a cause to everything that has a beginning. And since nothing within the universe could possibly be a cause of the universe, he'd insist that the universe must have a cause that is external to the universe. Once again, I’d have to say this seems reasonable--at least at first glance. But there is something important here. Such an argument implies that the laws of physics within our universe apply outside our universe! Moreland may not realize he is making this assertion, but he is. He is relying on the laws of physics that apply within our universe as an argument to there being a cause of the universe external to it. But as noted in Premise 1, our laws within our universe cannot be applied to the beyond-time realm. So it seems that "causation" not only requires time, sequence and order which doesn't exist external to the universe, our very understanding of "causation" is tied to our physical laws that likewise do not exist external to the universe. So we run back into inconsistency 2, it is impossible for something external to the universe to be a cause of the universe.
Okay, so if it is impossible for something external to the universe to be able to be a cause of the universe, and any cause of the universe would have to be external to it, we have one conclusion: it is a fundamental impossibility for the universe to have a cause!
One Christian critic of my argument here said that God is simply not limited by our logic or our understanding of causation. So just because I found what appears to be a logical contradiction is no limit for God. True, I cannot prove him wrong. But this is another unfalsifiable assertion and as such is of little value. But even more problematic is that for someone to use such a line of argument to rescue the Cosmological Argument defeats the entire purpose of the argument! The entire purpose to the argument is to supposedly show that science can prove the existence of God. If the argument has to be rescued with appeals to the unknown then it stops being a scientific proof. So then what is the point? For the Cosmological Argument to have any value, we must limit the focus to what we understand about the concept of causation - and when we do so we find that it is impossible for the universe to have a cause.
I suspect that Moreland would still try to fall back on the fact that everything within our universe has to have a cause, so there must be some way around my argument even if he is unable to formulate it. But it may not even be true that the laws of physics within our universe make such a requirement to a cause to everything. In fact, Dr. Moreland attempts to addresses this. He notes that some have argued that according to quantum mechanics, not everything requires a cause. (Note: Quantum mechanics is the field of physics dealing with the ultra-minuscule, such as sub-atomic particles, and even the entire universe at the moment of the Big Bang. Aside from this general description, I make no claims to know anything about the field. All my comments on quantum mechanics will simply be based on what Moreland says about it.)
Moreland seems to dismiss that quantum mechanics can really explain the universe not having a cause. He says that surely for someone to make such a claim, the burden of proof must be on them. Of course I could throw the burden of proof back on him and say, "hey, you're the one proving God, you have to prove that quantum mechanics cannot explain the universe not having a cause." Of course this would likely degenerate into a "pissing match" solving nothing. The fact is, the requirement of causes of everything even within this universe is debatable, but really immaterial. If the universe had a cause, it had to be external to the universe, in the beyond-time realm. As I noted, there is no quantum mechanics in the beyond-time realm, so what quantum mechanics has to say on the subject is irrelevant.
To repeat, I do understand that to say the universe didn't need a cause does indeed seem hard to believe. The existence of the universe is confounding. Yet for some reason, people seem to have a lot of trouble accepting the universe not needing a cause and yet have no problem at all accepting God not needing a cause. I find this confusing. Why would one be harder to accept than the other? Isn't answering the origin of the cause of the universe with God an exercise in answering a mystery with another mystery? Bottom line is, something didn't need a cause, be it God, the universe, or something unknown. But we know the universe exists. And a "cause" to the universe as we are able to understand causation is impossible. So the only reasonable conclusion is there was no cause to the universe. Anything else is just trying to answer a mystery with another mystery. And anything else is just unfalsifiable conjecture.
Premise 3: The Cause of the Universe was Personal (an Intelligent Agent)
In Premise 2, I argued that it is actually fundamentally impossible for the universe to have a cause. But I suspect some readers will not be convinced by my arguments. Probably Moreland wouldn't. So, for the sake of argument, say I'm wrong and the universe did have a cause. If the universe was caused, was it God? One would think Moreland would have devoted a lot of effort to defending this premise, instead he gives it the shortest shrift. And, frankly, the lamest argument. He simply claims, “the only way for the first event to arise spontaneously from a timeless, changeless, spaceless state of affairs, and at the same time be caused, is this--the event resulted from a free act of a person or agent.” Really, Dr. Moreland? And how do you know this? What experiments have you run in a "timeless, changeless, spaceless state" laboratory to prove this?
At the beginning of this paper, I noted that in my opinion, Moreland makes use of a number of unfalsifiable theories. And theories don't get any more unfalsifiable than this one! But most of Moreland's unfalsifiable theories at least sound plausible. This one doesn't even make any sense!
Moreland does make an attempt to explain his assertion--he gives a rather peculiar analogy. He says that if all the necessary and sufficient conditions for a match to light are present, the match will light spontaneously. But for him to be able to raise his arm, even if all the “necessary and sufficient” conditions are present, it still takes him to freely act. Huh? C’mon Dr. Moreland. If this were true, it would be impossible for an involuntary muscle spasm to raise his arm. The “necessary and sufficient” conditions for his arm to raise is sufficient upward force. And yes, given sufficient upward force his arm will indeed spontaneously raise. There isn’t anything mysteriously different between the lighting of a match and the raising of his arm.
Perhaps Moreland's analogy could be dismissed as simply a poor choice of analogy. Maybe with some more thought he could come up with a better way to explain his point. But I think his choice of analogy, besides being silly, perhaps reveals something else. His analogy seems to reveal that he is anthropomorphizing the universe! He undoubtedly really knows that his arm can be raised by something other than his thinking about it. But at least most of the time, when his arm is raised it is indeed because he decided to raise it. So he seems to be extrapolating from how he himself does things to how he imagines God to do things. So he thinks that creating a universe to God is like lifting an arm to man. In short, Moreland's methodology of discernment seems likely to be rather ineffective for validating causes of universes.
In Premise 1, I noted that many theists have some sort of concept of "heavenly matter" and "heavenly time" and then blur the distinction between real matter and time with the heavenly ones. I think that also applies here. I believe Moreland is thinking about how God could create a universe assuming He has heavenly matter and heavenly time within His heavenly realm to do so. But as I also noted in Premise 1, appeals to our human instincts and "common sense" is of little to no use for discerning how things could work in a beyond-time realm. Really, the only thing we can say about the beyond-time realm, if it even exists, is that we know nothing about it! We simply cannot apply any of our laws or instincts to it as the realm literally has no time, no space, no matter and no energy!
To conclude Premise 3, Moreland's argument is an entirely vacuous anthropomorphism of the universe.
Concluding Thoughts
Moreland had to redefine the word "prior" in order to try to fit the word within his concept of the beyond-time realm. But he didn't seem to recognize that some of the other words he uses, "eternal," "beginning," and "cause" also, at the very least, need similar redefinitions. And if we have to redefine these terms to try to get them to fit the theory of the beyond-time realm, the only conclusion we can come to is that we know nothing about it. We don't know if it exists. If it does exist, we don't know if God is there. Everything that can be said about it is pure unfalsifiable conjecture.
The Kalam Argument seems to be just fancy words to say, "a universe that pops into its own seems impossible, so it had to be God." Moreland's arguments come across as "ad-hoc" meaning that they are used in order to reach a predetermined conclusion. I understand that the universe "popping into existence" on its own seems not particularly intuitive. But is it really any more intuitive to say that there is a Being capable of creating a universe by saying, "let there be a universe where there is no universe"? Is that really a more logical answer? And more importantly, I believe I have shown that regardless of what seems more logical to us, it is really of little value in finding causes of universes.
I have noted that something must have not needed a cause, be it God or the universe or something else unknown. I can agree that saying the universe didn't need a cause seems like an unsatisfying answer. Everything seems to need a cause. But once it is realized that something didn’t need a cause, it might as well be the universe--particularly when the entire concept of "causing" the universe to exist seems to be inherently self-contradictory.
I'd like to summarize what I believe my arguments show:
I admitted earlier that my knowledge of quantum mechanics is pretty much limited to how to spell it. So, I probably have no business trying to define whether or not it is possible for something “prior” to the Big Bang to be able to “cause” the Big Bang. Additionally, as we humans are inherently time-limited, I'm not sure we can even really understand what a "timeless and immutable" state would be like. (An expert on quantum mechanics might beg to differ, I don't know.) So, for all I know, everything I've said about such a state could be completely erroneous. In fact, I wouldn't have even tried to comment on it, except of course that is where Dr. Moreland placed his God. So I really had no choice but to attempt to conceptually enter that postulated state and see what it seems like. After all, if it is fair to speculate God could be there, it is equally fair to speculate why He might not be there.
At the very least, I believe I have shown that Moreland has directed his arguments towards his predetermined conclusion of God and not that the evidence is in any way conclusive. And since he is the one offering his arguments as proof of God, I can only conclude that he has failed in his proof.
Earlier in this paper I said, "I could end this paper right here and say, 'Moreland invents a non-falsifiable realm, and to do so requires reinventing meanings of common words and should therefore be summarily dismissed without further consideration.'" I didn't do so then, but I think it is now time to do so. Moreland's theories are at best unfalsifiable and at worst just silly--and should be summarily dismissed without further consideration.
Sidebar 1: What if there really is some form of "heavenly-time" in the "beyond-time" realm?
Until now, I resisted speculating on the possibility of "heavenly-time." I believe it is pure, unfalsifiable speculation that it exists. Moreland didn't seem to speculate its existence, or at least not directly. Still, some readers have insisted that such a concept is implied because they insist God is not frozen.
I'm afraid that anything I might say about such "heavenly-time," readers could simply dismiss it and say I must be wrong. From my perspective, it appears that readers want to "rescue" God from being in an eternal frozen state by inventing "heavenly-time," but then won't consider any possible problems with the idea. In other words, the "heavenly-time" concept seems to just be a convenient tool to sweep problems with the Cosmological Argument "under the rug." So, I may be in a no-win situation to try to comment on the concept. But, I decided to give it a shot.
So, if we are going to speculate about heavenly-time in the beyond-time realm, we seem to get a picture that the beyond-time realm is roughly like our realm--our universe. I actually seriously doubt this is true, but okay, lets consider the idea. Then the beyond-time realm seems to be a "super-universe" in which at least one ordinary universe, ours, is wholly contained in. Therefore, I'm now going to change terms. I'm now going to term "heavenly-time" as "super-time" and the "beyond-time realm" as the "super-universe". The reason for making this change in terminology is simply to convey the fact that if these concepts exist, at least in theory they must be considered as possibly naturalistic. Therefore, I now want to use terms that still reasonably describe these things that we are speculating on without using overtly theistic terms.
Okay, so now we have theorized the existence of a super-universe which has super-time in it. But if they exist, then did the super-universe have a beginning, like a "super Big-Bang"? I'm going to guess not, because then we need to have a super-super universe, on infinitum. Therefore, I'm going to conclude that the super-universe is truly "eternal," existing for all time and all super-time. But remember, the entire reason why the Cosmological Argument says that the universe had to be created was because it has a beginning. If this super-universe doesn't have a beginning, then it no longer needs to have been created by God now does it? Therefore it seems to me that the theist that tries to rescue the Cosmological Argument by introducing the super-universe and super-time winds up flushing his own argument down the proverbial toilet!
If the theist still wants to insist that God did create the "super-universe" and "super-time" then, at least until God did so, we're back to having God frozen! How could God have ever created the super-time and super-universe if He was frozen until He did so? The final possibility is that the super-universe and super-time existed prior to God. But if the super-universe predates God, then where did God come from? Who created God?
Also, so far, I have avoided speculating on multiple universes. Generally, most theists complain about speculating about other universes, saying it is unfalsifiable speculation. And I agree. But, if I'm stuck considering the possibility of a super-universe with super-time, then it only seems natural the that super-universe would have many universes, maybe infinite universes. Remember, its not my idea to consider the idea of the super-universe, I'm just saying that if there is a super-universe, then there is no good reason to not expect many or infinite regular universes. And if there is many or infinite regular universes, then the probability that one of them is like ours, capable of life, isn't so unexpected anymore.
Therefore, I must conclude that even if I have to consider the possibility of "heavenly-time" or "super-time," such a concept does little to help rescue the Cosmological Argument. I agree that our existence is a mystery. But again, answering our existence with God seems to just be answering a mystery with another mystery.
Sidebar 2: Can there be real infinites?
Moreland spends roughly ten pages on a set-theory based argument to show the universe had a beginning. Frankly, I think that whether his set-theory arguments are right or wrong, they do him little good. But he spent so much time on it, I guess he thinks it important. He says some things in this line of argument that I believe are incorrect. The issue is pretty much academic, but I'm going to include my thoughts here anyway. If this sidebar bores you, I won't be offended if you skip it.
Moreland's purpose to his set-theory argument is to show that time must be finite, and therefore the universe must have had a beginning. Moreland argues that infinities are always theoretical, never real. You could never actually have an infinite number of books, for example. If you could, he argues some apparent inconsistencies arise. Say you did in fact have an infinite number of books. And say half of them are red and half are black. Now say you take away all of the black books. Since there is no such thing as one infinity being “bigger” than another infinity, after taking away half of the books (all the black books) you still have just as many books as you started with. Which seems illogical and therefore supposedly proves that real infinites are impossible.
Dr. Moreland offers a possible counter-argument to consider, the “paradox of the race course”. (This is better known as "Zeno's Paradox" in mathematics.) He says to consider a runner that is traversing from A to B. To do so, this runner must first reach the midpoint between A and B. And before he can reach the midpoint, he must reach the midpoint between A and the first midpoint. And so on. So he says, seemingly, “a runner must traverse an infinite number of points and this is impossible.” But his solution to the paradox is most peculiar. He says, “but the infinite of this puzzle is a potential infinite only. No matter how often one divides the line between A and B into midpoints, one will have only a finite number of points to traverse.” Um, Dr. Moreland, what the heck does how many of the midpoints I care to specify have to do with how many actual points there are between A and B? If I only specify one midpoint, does the runner dematerialize at A, reappear at the midpoint, dematerialize again, and reappear at point B? No, there are still an infinite number of points to traverse, whether I specify them or not. So, real infinites do exist.
Another similar example is to consider an ordinary ruler, of twelve inches long. Intuitively, one would think that a ruler would have twelve times the number of points in total compared to the number of points in the first inch. But since one infinity is as big as another infinity, there are the same number of points in the entire ruler as in the first inch. Moreland argued that this kind of apparent paradox is illogical and therefore disproves real infinites. But despite the fact that it seems illogical for a twelve-inch ruler to have the same number of points as just the first inch, it still does. Therefore, just because Moreland argues that there are unintuitive consequences to real infinites is not the same thing as disproving real infinites. Also note that Moreland's arguments about infinite books is really an argument about a different class of infinites, his book argument is about discrete items. I grant that Moreland at least might be right about discrete items--it may indeed be impossible to have an infinite number of discrete items, such as an infinite number of books. But I think it erroneous to apply an argument that may work for discrete items and extrapolate it to concepts such as time and space.
But perhaps the best counter-argument to Moreland's set-theory argument is his own contention that the universe will not contract. Remember that Moreland's entire purpose to his set-theory argument was to supposedly show that time must be finite. I believe he is correct that current theory is that the universe has insufficient mass to contract and will continue to expand forever. So that means that time is infinite, but only in one direction! Frankly, I don't understand how he could have spent ten pages trying to prove time is finite and then not notice that he contradicts himself by saying the universe will expand forever!
But what if current theory is wrong--what if the universe will contract? I'm not sure that helps Moreland either. He was also trying to prove that there cannot be an infinite number of events. Dr. Moreland equates finite time with finite number of events and infinite time with an infinite number of events. But is this true? Even in finite time, are there not infinite events? How do you even count events? In one minute of time, the Earth travels roughly 1000+ miles. How many events is that? Didn’t the Earth pass through an infinite number of points, and therefore this is an infinite number of events? So, it would seem that events would still be infinite regardless of whether or not time is infinite.
In summary, I find little value to Moreland's set-theory arguments. They seem to be erroneous. Nor any particular help to him even if he is right. In short, a complete waste of ten pages.
Sidebar 3: Are There Other Universes?
I often get asked about my position on multiple universes. Do I believe that there are universes other than our own? And my official answer is, "I don't know."
For some reason, I've even had readers who have somehow misinterpreted my arguments here to mean that I am arguing for the existence of multiple universes. I am not sure how they got that idea as I do not believe that the arguments I presented here are at all affected by the question.
I've heard many theists complain that multiple-universe theories are unfalsifiable theories. And, I believe they have a valid complaint. I don't believe we have any way, at least at this time, to verify existence of any other universe.
However, if it ever becomes possible to verify the existence of other universes, I do not believe that will appreciably help or hurt either the theist or atheist positions. If it ever happens that we have proof of other universes, theists will contend that God created them all, while atheists will disagree.
So, now, if you were to ask me to make a wild, unsupported guess as to whether I think there are other universes, my guess would be probably yes. Most things that there are one of, there are more than one of. So, given there is one universe, it doesn't seem unlikely that there are others. But I repeat, I know that is just a pure guess and none of my arguments here are in any way dependant on my guess.
After writing the above article, I did some searches on the web for other articles on the subject. I found a much more scholarly critique of the Kalam Argument (based on Dr. William Lane Craig's presentation of the argument) available at the link below, written by a Mr. Wes Morriston. After reading his article, I wondered if perhaps my article above is a waste of time, as Morriston's article is clearly more scholarly. But we write differently, and I happen to like my presentation better, at least in some parts. Also, I think my article may be easier to follow by the average layman. Bottom line, if you felt my article was too elementary, then by all means read Morriston's. On the other hand, if you found my article complex enough, then probably don't bother with Morriston's. (Note: I recently revised my article, and I couldn't help but borrow from Morriston where I noted that a Being capable of saying "let there be a universe where there is no universe" isn't intuitive. He has a very similar statement and I am giving him credit for the idea.)
http://stripe.colorado.edu/~morristo/kalam2.html
Copyright 2002, Paul Jacobsen
