In a message from Kevinanity I was presented with an argument for the existence of a "God-Thingy," along with a few others. Trevor Perdue responsed with a short message, and Kevin responded back. This is a response to that response.
I'll cite my sources ahead of time:
Berlinski, David. "The Reason." The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions. New York: Basic, 2009. 86-90. Print.
and
Debate on the Origin of Life featuring Stephen Meyer, Richard Sternberg, Michael Shermer and Donald Prothero (who LIVES IN A VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER)
Note: Sorry, I couldn't resist. ;)
Now, my response:
"The premises of the Kalam are weak. E.g., virtual particles begin to exist. Whether they are caused is arguable. Empirical observation suggests the universe is of a finite age, but theoretical physicists, e.g. Stephen Hawking, are working with models in which the universe has no beginning, end or spatial boundaries (assuming I'm understanding correctly what he is saying.)"
I haven't read a lot in the physics field, so I don't know much about "virtual particles" (though I recently picked up a copy of De revolutionibus orbium colestium or On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres with added commentary by Hawking).
But:
1. There doesn't seem to be any emprical evidence that the universe is endless (I'm using universe because there isn't any empirical evidence for multiverse theories); but it also doesn't seem to explain any pre-existing lines of evidence (or create new ones). This doesn't mean I'm saying it's not science. John Watson and Francis Crick didn't do any experimentation, and in fact it was more like they just sat around thinking and playing with tinker toys, but that doesn't make what they were doing was not science. However, they did do the former (explain pre-existing lines of evidence which they got from Rosalind Franklin) and were able to gather them from more than one discipline of science, which seems to be their advantage over Hawking's situation.
2. In any metaphysical system (no, this isn't science but metaphysics), especially speaking in ultimate metaphysical explanation, you have to go back to some primitive i.e. something from which everything else comes (also called a Prima Causa, Prime Mover, First Cause, Final Cause, or a "God did it explanation). The question in Philosophy of Science is "What is the best candidate to be that primitive?" ...if you have a true singularity at the very beginning of the universe in which the spatial volume is zero (with the universe curving in on itself so tightly). Therefore, I think the best thing to be that primitive isn't a material entity. How much matter can you put in zero spatial volume? None. So which of these two metaphysical systems provides a better starting point? (This was paraphrased from Stephen C. Meyer near the end of the debate at the link. Note: This wasn't what the debate was about however, so if you want elaboration you might have to look somewhere else.)
But assuming it still fails, there is still the second cosmological argument, which is essentially summarized in the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" (which Kevin also brings up: "If the Cosmos could not exist, then why does it exist rather than not? The Cosmos could not exist, but it just happens to exists. Why? It just does.")
David Berlinski, in his book cited above, goes over this question which was first (or at least he was one of the first) forth by Saint Thomas Aquinas in Ch. 5 i.e. "The Reason." Note that Berlinski thinks it could go either way, i.e. he's agnostic, so this is essentially what he's defending, and keep this in mind when reading the following passage which I'm going to quote from his book. (Note: He does defend religion in another chapter in the book, but only in the way an Atheist would defend it i.e. it's ability to console.)
"Let us suppose, then, that the universe passes sedately from the everlasting to the everlasting. It has been there forever and ti will be there forever. This is the universe that Einstein championed before he appreciated the explosive nature of Big Bang cosmology, and it is a universe that has always induced a sense of calm in those who contemplate it. If it does not appear to be the universe and thus our universe, a great many cosmologists in the twentieth century have regarded that as a defect in the plan of creation. A universe of this sort makes a busy, causally imperious God unnecessary; what is worse, it makes him incoherent. A cause must precede its effect, and if the universe is eternal, there was no moment in which God could have brought about the creatio of the universe. In a world with so much time, it is odd to think that God--of all people!--would have no time in which to work. The best he could do from the outside would be to barge into the universe occasionally and cause a great deal of commotion.
Nonetheless, an eternal universe leads to a question very similar to the question that Aquinas asked, and it allows us to recapture some fo the force of the second cosmological argument without the affliction of a very doubtful premise. The reformation strikes for a deeper level of doubt and perplexity than the original argument and for this reason carries an emotional burden that the original argument lacks.
'If the universe was always there and will always be there, why is it there at all?'
There is no point in answering this question by assuming that our own fond familiar universe must exist. With all due respect to the universe, this is an assumption no one wishes to make, because no description that we can offer of the universe suggests that its existence is necessary. But if the universe does not exist necessarily, then plainly it might never have existed at all, even if it has existed for all time.
And that is precisely the problem. With the possibility of inexistence staring in the face, why does the universe exist? To say that universe just is, as Stephen Hawking has said, is to reject out of hand any further questions. We know that it is. It is right there in plain sight. What philosophers such as ourselves wish to know is why it is. It may be that at the end of these inquiries we will answer our own question by saying that the universe exists for no reason whatsoever. At the end of these inquiries, and not the beginning.
No matter how cheerfully physicists may endorse this conclusion, it is dreadful.
This is something we know too.
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Two arguments are now at work. The first is due to Aquinas.
Its first premise:
If the universe is contigent, then at some time it did not exist.
Its second:
At that time, it emerged from nothing.
Its conclusion:
This is crazy.
And the second argument, derived from a mixed sald of philosophical greens of my own devising:
Its first premise:
If the universe is contingent, there is no saying whether it existed forever. Maybe. Maybe not.
It second:
If anything might not exist, then it is reasonable to ask why it does exist.
Its conclusion:
Well, why does it exist? No, I mean really?
The first argument asks of the unvierse how it emerged; the second, why it is there.
The first demands a cause; the second, a reason.
Both arguments are inferences to God, but they proceed from different sources in the imagination.
A causally successful God is what He seems: By creating the universe, He has gotten the job doen, and if in return He demands a good deal by way of worshipful admiration, who is to gainsay Him?
A God who functions as a reason is occupied with what German metaphysicians might call the foundations of being. He functions as an anchor and so as a refuge.
Both Gods are equally necessary, but the God engaged in anchoring the universe does not necessarily bother himself with its creation. Why should He? The thing has been there forever. His role is otherwise, and it is more fundemental. It is to this lfoty and remote deity that the human heart turns when it wishes to assure itself that there is one thing in being answering to the majesty of I AM THAT I AM.
God is in this sense an answer to the question long posed by metaphysicians: Why is there something rather than nothing? If anything exists contingently, the second cosmological argument affirms, at least one thing exists necessarily. There is something rather than nothing, because at least one part of existence has its origins in what must be. As for the rest of creation, in one way or another it may be allowed to take care of itself. In reaching for a God who exists necessarily, the theologians have covered their most important base.
And the scientists, until now scoffing at the sidelines, what have they to say about all this?" (86-90).
It goes on to page 109, so I'll stop there for now.
Now what do you guys, i.e Kevin, the giants of philosophy on FB, et al., have to say about this?
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