Board index ‹ God

[Bliss is Bliss]

> "Cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning."

Alright, if time began with the expansion of the universe, what does it mean for that thing it expanded from? No time existing is essentially eternal, right? I agree that the BB had a beginning, I agree the universe as we know it (space-time and all) is not eternal. I disagree, that the BB is the beginning of existence and creation of the universe itself.

> Stating it doesn't make it so.

Good, I wouldn't hope so.

[jimwalton]

> Alright, if time began with the expansion of the universe, what does it mean for that thing it expanded from?

That IS one of the ultimate questions now, isn't it. Why does anything exist? The Bible says that God created the universe out of what was not visible (Heb. 11.3). An infinitesimal, non-dimensional singularity fits this description, and science is yet unable to come up with any philosophical (let alone scientific) answer as to what it expanded from. You're welcome to go against the consensus of scientists that BB is the "beginning," but you are still, then, unable to come up with a rational answer. As I said to someone else, "When it comes to rationalizing God's origin, while the existence of God may be improbable, the nonexistence of God is far more improbable."

[Oxygen]

Whoa, massive leaping presumptions! I'm saying that prior to BB is unknown, but I'm not saying it is unknowable. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. It's beyond current methods, but so were many discoveries at one point. To just ask that God be conceded to because we don't know is a logical fallacy.

Isn't it possible the big bang and the universe is part of a higher order nature? Why must the cause of the big bang be a first cause? Why should I accept your premise of a first cause to begin with? Why doesn't your god necessitate a cause? Your asking for an arbitrary starting point because it seems neater and easier to conceive of to you.

The cosmologists you're speaking of aren't precluding a higher order nature. They are referring to a beginning of what we see and know of now, not the absolute beginning. Who can say there is no greater dimensions? No one. This is akin to saying you don't remember before you were born so nothing existed before that. Once the universe was just he earth and sky, then the solar system, then the milky way, then the local group. Now we call the universe the sum of the matter and space that was in an infinitely dense point 13.7b years ago. Why would you be so foolish as to assume the regression stops there or even stops anywhere? It seems the best course would be to reserve judgment and observe with wonder.

[jimwalton]

Thanks for your post. Neither was I claiming that what was in existence prior to BB is "unknowable." I agree that it's beyond current knowledge and methods, as many things have been through the millennia. I said "it is unknown" (check my post), not that it is unknowable.

> To just ask that God be conceded to because we don't know is a logical fallacy.

Again, you are misquoting me and misunderstanding me. Please read carefully. I said "it suffices to rationalize God's origin," not that God be conceded. At least critique me for what I've said, not for numerous things I didn't say.

> Isn't it possible the big bang and the universe is part of a higher order nature? Why must the cause of the big bang be a first cause? AND "Why would you be so foolish as to assume the regression stops there or even stops anywhere."

Of course it's possible, but at this point in our scientific knowledge that's not only a stretch, but counter-intuitive to our definition and understanding of "infinitesimal dimensionless singularity." Obviously more work is being done on this all the time, but at this point the BB is perceived and understood as the beginning of our known universe, in which case it logically and scientifically needs a cause. Why must the cause of the big bang be a first cause? Ultimately we may discover a causative mechanism, but then we will be warranted to ask what caused that. According to Kalam's logic, it's impossible to have an eternal sequence of causes, for we can never arrive at the present if there is no beginning, a line of reasoning that has logic to it. If you're in the grocery store to buy lunchmeat, and the ticket dispenser, says "Before you take this ticket, you must take a ticket from the dispenser to the right." And if the one on its right says the same thing, and IF THEY ALL SAY THE SAME THING, you will never get to the counter to buy your meat. Unless there is a beginning, there can be no present.

> It seems the best course would be to reserve judgment and observe with wonder.

That is an option, but since the the original poster asked about rationalizing God's origin, what we end up with, at least for now, is that the evidence we have sufficiently rationalizes God's origin, and that the existence of God is more probable than the nonexistence of God.

[Leech Man]

> Technically, then, it's both impossible and irrational to come up with a physics framework that describes this existence and/or the space-time in which this existence was contained.

Yes, I agree. But that's really not an excuse. The theist can't just handwave away the need to explain this spacetime. It's like if I postulated an entity that existed for whom time ran backwards, and then just claimed I didn't need to explain how this works physically.

If you claim a being existed in an existence outside the Universe, you need to explain how. If you want to claim that you don't know, but it's a rational possibility, that's fine. So is an army of space turtles. Possible doesn't equal probable.

> Einstein's theory of relativity evidences that time is flexible and can speed or slow as a function of certain other factors. While it has been proved that time can be slowed relative to velocity, it's still theoretical whether or not time can actually stop in certain situations.

Yes, but time slows from the reference frame of the person traveling at, in this case, near c speed. Time dilation is quite difference from 'timelessness', which is being outside of time, not reaching a point where time stops. Even if you could right now 'stop' time, you would not be timeless, there would be a specific moment in time where you just stopped experiencing time.

> I'd love an example of this, not of impersonal causes, because there are plenty of those, but of impersonal FIRST causes.

That just depends on how you define 'first' causes. Is your definition that a first cause must be personal?

> Because informational data ALWAYS has intelligence as its source.

It again depends on how you define 'informational data'. If informational data is defined as how we humans parse data about the natural world, then yes, of course any human action is by definition 'intelligent'. If something like a sedimentary layer in a riverbed is 'informational data' then no, that isn't produced by an intelligent source.

> Donald Page of Princeton’s Institute for Advance Science has calculated the odds against our universe randomly taking a form suitable for life as one of to 10,000,000,000 to the 124th power. ... Furthermore, there are about 2000 enzymes and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in 10 to the 40,000th power, an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup. And this is just one step in the formation of life.

This is just a confusion of a priori and a posteriori probability, and most likely a deliberate one to mislead. I'll explain. Take a deck of cards and shuffle it. Look at the order of the cards you got. Do you know what the probability is that I grab a deck, shuffle it, and get the exact same shuffle as you?
The odds that my first card matches your first card is 1/52. The odds that my first two match your first two is 1/(52x51) or 1/2652. The odds of my first five matching yours is 1 / (52x51x50x49x48) which is 1 in 311 million.

Do you want to know what the odds of me getting the same order in all 52 cards? The odds are 1/80658175170943878571660636856403766975289505440883277824000000000000. That's 8 x 1067 . There are more permutations in a deck of cards than there are planets in the known universe. This would lead me to believe that your shuffle couldn't possibly be the product of random chance, right?
Now, how does this relate to a priori vs a posteriori probability?

You just grabbed the deck and shuffled randomly, and got a result. You weren't looking for a specific result, what you got is what you got.

Now me. I already know what your shuffled order is. That's the order I have to get. If I call you over and tell you "Look! I got the same order as you!!" You know the odds of that happening by chance are 1/(8 x 1067 ). You could reasonably conclude that I 'designed' or sorted the cards manually because for this to happen by chance is astronomically small.

Does this mean, then, that your shuffle was also sorted manually? No.

It's the same with Hoyle's prediction. He is basing this prediction on the a posteriori probability, that is, given this universe, what is the probability that we can recreate it exactly by random chance? Infinitesimally small. I agree.

Does that mean, like the card example, that the initial 'shuffle' couldn't be random? Only if we knew what the universe had to look like before the 'shuffle'.

In nature we only have examples of things that begin to exist only through something already existing.

Yes, and in nature we only have examples of things that exist, beginning to exist. In nature we have no examples of things that exist that didn't 'begin to exist'.

If you want to argue things like 'first causes must be personal because that's what we see in nature', or 'only intelligence can produce information, because that's what we see in nature', then you are equally bound to accept 'everything that exists, began to exist'.

[jimwalton]

Thanks for the post and for good discussion.

> But that's really not an excuse. The theist can't just handwave away the need to explain this space-time.

I proffered it neither as an excuse nor as a hand wave. Space and time exist in a context of matter, antimatter, velocity, contingency, cause-and-effect, and forces. But what if these vectors don't exist, as is possibly the case before the Big Bang? In that case we are beyond the realm of scientific evidences and proofs, and into the world of metaphysical logic, scientific speculation, and philosophical and theological reasoning. There is nothing in science that requires the universe in which we have our being to be a closed system and to be the necessary sum total of all that is. The forces and laws exist within the system; our observations are within the system, and there is regularity and order within the system, but there is nothing that requires the impossibility of anything existing outside the system. When you ask for scientific proof of something outside the system, you are asking what is logically absurd: Use the system to prove what doesn't belong to the system. It's like asking me to use only the MLB rules manual to explain quantum mechanics. How can a being exist outside the universe? Logically, what's the problem here? Why can't something supernatural and transcendent exist outside of the known universe? Is it incompatible with science? It is only incompatible if it can be proved that nature is a closed continuum of cause and effect, and it can be proved that the existence of something divine is impossible. As you know, scientifically and logically that cannot be proven. You will never find that claim in any science text.

> That just depends on how you define 'first' causes. Is your definition that a first cause must be personal?

A first cause is an uncaused cause. Logic requires ultimately one of two conclusions: either the chain of causes is infinite, with no beginning of sequence at all, or somewhere back there the chain is found to be finite, caused by a first cause, capable of producing the effects that we see. Why must it be personal? A causing mechanism can easily be capable of accomplishing more than the particular effect it produces, meaning that any given effect doesn't necessarily have to utilize the entire capability of the causal mechanism. An effect, on the other hand, can never be greater than its cause. We know and experience the personal in our universe, therefore the first cause had to have been personal.

> It again depends on how you define 'informational data'

No, sedimentary layers are not informational data. Here's a website you may find helpful: (http://www.diffen.com/difference/Data_vs_Information). "When data is processed, organized, structured or presented in a given context so as to make it useful, it is called information. ... Data are simply facts or figures — bits of information, but not information itself. When data are processed, interpreted, organized, structured or presented so as to make them meaningful or useful, they are called information. Information provides context for data. ... The history of temperature readings all over the world for the past 100 years is data. If this data is organized and analyzed to find that global temperature is rising, then that is information." My point was that there is no example of information data that does not come from an intelligent source. Logically speaking, based on the effects we see, there is an eternal, timeless, personal, intelligent and powerful first cause.

> This is just a confusion of a priori and a posteriori probability, and most likely a deliberate one to mislead.

Oh, not one bit, and I think your analogy is misleading because your analogy aims to replicate something that exists, whereas my probability statistics are the odds from the get-go. If I have 1 billion black ping-pong balls in a large net, and one white one, and I am blindfolded and tossed into the net, I have a 1 in 1 billion chance of grabbing the white ball. I'm not talking about replicating that, but just from the starting pistol. Subsequently I am taken to a net of 1 trillion balls and must get the white one. This is the kind of sequence that evolutionary theory proposes, not in terms of "what are the odds I can replicate it," but "what are the odds I can do it even once". Page's calculations (among many other individual's calculations) prove that the odds of our universe coming about by random means is so astronomically small as to be what anyone would call "impossible." We are here, in 2014, trying to infer the origin of the universe to its most reasonable explanation. What I am showing is that the evidence we have seems to offer support for theism, and that, given theism, our universe is not at all improbable. Given atheism (and scientific naturalism), it is. Therefore theism is to be logically preferred to atheism.

[Leech Man]

> Thanks for the post and for good discussion.

You too, it's been quite interesting

> But what if these vectors don't exist, as is possibly the case before the Big Bang? In that case we are beyond the realm of scientific evidences and proofs, and into the world of metaphysical logic, scientific speculation, and philosophical and theological reasoning.

Yes, I agree. However, in the world of metaphysical logic, the rules of logic still apply. Time is still required for causation. That's a logical limit, not a physical one.

> The forces and laws exist within the system; our observations are within the system, and there is regularity and order within the system, but there is nothing that requires the impossibility of anything existing outside the system.

I'm not saying anything existing outside of our system is impossible. What I'm saying is that anything existing outside our system needs an explanation. If you want to posit "It's logically possible for a being to exist outside what we know as the Universe", then I would agree with you. However, logically possible doesn't equal real or existing. Hindu, Norse, Egyptian, Mayan, and Greek cosmology are all logically possible as well. Were you to claim "an entity does exist outside of time and outside our universe", then I will ask where, how, etc.

> Logically, what's the problem here? Why can't something supernatural and transcendent exist outside of the known universe?

Logically, this is perfectly possible. First I would ask, what do you mean by exist? Second, if this existing is being done outside the Universe, where is it being done? a Multiverse? Another universe that wholly contains this Universe inside it?

> Logic requires ultimately one of two conclusions: either the chain of causes is infinite, with no beginning of sequence at all, or somewhere back there the chain is found to be finite, caused by a first cause, capable of producing the effects that we see.

Yes, and both of these options are on the same level, logically and philosophically. You can't really say "an infinite chain is absurd, but an eternally existing being isn't" just like you can't say the opposite. If one is absurd, so is the other. The only difference is that the theist has decided to ignore this absurdity, and merely assert or define that an eternally existing being is logical.

> Why must it be personal? A causing mechanism can easily be capable of accomplishing more than the particular effect it produces, meaning that any given effect doesn't necessarily have to utilize the entire capability of the causal mechanism. An effect, on the other hand, can never be greater than its cause. We know and experience the personal in our universe, therefore the first cause had to have been personal.

I don't see how you made the case for personal here. I mean, we can accept that an effect can't be "greater" than it's cause (I would ask for you to define what greater means here).

> We know and experience the personal in our universe, therefore the first cause had to have been personal.

We know and experience the impersonal, and we have never experienced any non-human cause to be personal. Why would we assume the first cause is personal then? Assigning personhood brings up a lot of issues to complicate the first mover scenario above. If we have a personal entity, where does this personhood come from? Can this entity think? Does it have a mind? How? A personal cause is much less parsimonious than just merely a cause which could be an electron state change, or a fluctuation in energy or matter.

> When data is processed, organized, structured or presented in a given context so as to make it useful, it is called information. ... Data are simply facts or figures — bits of information, but not information itself.

According to Information Theory, this is not the case. I don't know how this is relevant, what information was passed down by an intelligent source?

> My point was that there is no example of information data that does not come from an intelligent source.

By your definition, if an alien race sends a message, this message is data, not information, and it isn't until we ourselves parse and compile this data that it becomes information.

> Oh, not one bit, and I think your analogy is misleading because your analogy aims to replicate something that exists, whereas my probability statistics are the odds from the get-go.

Exactly, odds from the get-go is what I'm discussing. those are the a priori odds. In your ball analogy, you already know the result you want to obtain (one white ball) and you know the odds of obtaining this (1/1 billion), even before the experiment begins. However, let's change the experiment a bit to introduce a few more possibilities. Let's say the net contains exactly one billion balls, and each ball is a different color. (Assume there are one billion distinct colors). You jump in, and randomly grab one. It's Cyan #3343432. What are the odds of you grabbing Cyan #3343432? One in a billion. And you grabbed Cyan #3343432 on your first try? There's a billion to one shot of you doing that!! How could you have grabbed the ball randomly? You must have known you were going to grab Cyan #3343432 and looked for it, because there's no way you could have gotten a billion to one odds grab on your first try. No way.

> Let's say now we have a net with exactly one hundred trillion balls. Likewise, each ball is a different color.

You jump in, grab a ball, and look at it. It's Aquamarine #90443. Ok, ok. Your grab of Cyan #3343432 is one thing.
However, now you just grabbed Aquamarine #90443. The odds of you reaching in and grabbing that specific ball are one hundred trillion to one. Maybe I bought your billion to one grab earlier, but now I'm expected to believe, that your grab of Aquamarine #90443, which is a 1 in 100,000,000,000,000 chance, was just done randomly?? Absolutely no way.
That's the difference between a priori and a posteriori knowledge. And that's how Hoyle's example is misleading. Because he (deliberately?) conflates a priori and a posteriori knowledge. He can further confuse the issue by assuming there are only two possibilities, the Universe, and nothingness. Hoyle would probably say "Given a net with one hundred trillion balls, all of them black except for one, which is Aquamarine #90443, what are the odds of you reaching in and grabbing Aquamarine #90443? It's a 1 in 100,000,000,000,000 chance.

[jimwalton]

Wow, the posts are getting unmanageably long. We can't possibly continue discussing all of the threads.

> Time is still required for causation. That's a logical limit, not a physical one.

I'm pretty sure I already addressed this. I said, "There are views of time that hold that there is an absolute metaphysical time that exists independently of physical events. And if that is the case, then it would make sense that something or someone could have caused the universe, as they could both be placed on the timeline of 'absolute time.' " In addition, there is definitely a difference between agent causation ("I raised my arm") and event causation ("My arm raised"). That they are different opens the door for different causal understandings. It's possible that agent causation doesn't need time, while event causation does. A being outside of time, whose first causal action is to create time (Gn. 1.3-5), can perform that act causally without being subject to the constraints of time and space. He is able to function as an agent of causation, initiating the cause-and-effect continuum.

> What I'm saying is that anything existing outside our system needs an explanation. ... Were you to claim "an entity does exist outside of time and outside our universe", then I will ask where, how, etc.

The Bible reveals God as a metaphysical being outside of time and space with the attributes of knowledge, power, love, justice, separateness, creativity, free will, perfect goodness, etc. That would be the "where" and "how," etc. The arguments for his existence (cosmological, teleological, axiological, etc.) explain how its logical to postulate and subscribe to the existence of such a being.

> what do you mean by exist?

Obviously we know of different arenas of existence. The chair I'm sitting in exists, but so do my memories, though in a completely different way. My cognition exists, my laptop exists, and my feelings exist, but all in a completely different sense. My desk exists, and time exists, though they are nothing alike either. God's existence is as a spiritual divine being without corporeal reality or constrained by the boundaries of natural space, time, and the limitations of what is naturally possible. But you know all these things.

> I don't see how you made the case for personal here. I mean, we can accept that an effect can't be "greater" than it's cause

That's the point. Since human life is personal, the cause of such personality must be personality of at least an equal reality, but likely more so. The source of human causality must be what we see (intelligence, knowledge, reasoning, personality, morality, strength, insight, beauty, artistry, design, intentionality, love, justice) but more so.

> merely a cause which could be an electron state change, or a fluctuation in energy or matter.

Fluctuating energy or state changes can bring about other electron states or energies, but they can't "create" something wholly other.

> Ball analogy

Your example is fine if all I need is to pick a ball and it doesn't matter which one. But, given what we know about the minuscule parameters of the possibility of life in the universe, it wasn't a person picking a ball, or an a priori sequence that had to be selected. According to scientific naturalism, there was one ball of a trillion that had to be in a certain place at a certain time, and another ball in a gazillion that had to be hit by lightning, with another ball of exact temperature in a different bag that just happened to be in the chute, with another ball of exact distance in a different bag that just happened to be in place—you know how this works. Forget Hoyle. Just think about the "chance" occurrences of exactitude that had to happen for life as we know it to exist. It's staggering. What I was saying is that theism makes more logical sense than atheism, given what we know and what we have.

> He can further confuse the issue by assuming there are only two possibilities, the Universe, and nothingness.

Those are clearly not the only two possibilities, but the "possibility" we have to deal with is the one that we know as our reality.