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[Newbie]

This seems like a stupid question, because it is, but I've always wondered. What do Christians believe their God came from? How did he/she come to be?

[jimwalton]

I think this is the way the argument generally runs:

1. There is something rather than nothing. According to science, nothing that exists can explain its own existence.

2. Nothing cannot produce something. Nothing in science supports the contention that nothing can produce something. For there to be a “something,” there must have been a cause. Skeptic and philosopher David Hume says, “I never asserted so absurd a proposition as that anything might arise without a cause.”
Reason is always found to depend on another reason, and so on; it would not matter how far this process was carried provided you found Reason coming from Reason at each stage. It is impossible to posit a transcendent basis for reasoning if the original source is not reason itself. The only other alternative is material determinism, where what you end up with is predetermined by what you start out with. If non-reasoning matter is all there was in the beginning, the result can only be what non-reasoning matter produces. John Locke states, “It is impossible to conceive that ever pure incogitative matter should produce a thinking intelligent being, as that nothing should of itself produce matter.”

3. Therefore, nature had a beginning and is not infinite.
a. There could not have been an infinite number of moments before today, otherwise today would have never come (which it has). This is because, by definition, an infinite can never be traversed—it has no end or beginning. But since the moments before today have been traversed—that is, we have arrived at today—it follows that there must only have been a finite (limited) number of moments before today. That is, time had a beginning. David Hume said that it was absurd to believe there were an infinite number of moments: “The temporal world has a beginning. An infinite number of real parts of time, passing in succession and exhausted one after another, appears so evident a contradiction that no man, one should think, whose judgment is not corrupted, instead of being improved, by the sciences, would ever be able to admit it.”
b. Also, according to the second law of thermodynamics, the universe is running out of usable energy. But if the universe is running down, it cannot be eternal. While you cannot run out of an unlimited amount of energy, eventually you will run out of a limited amount of energy. Hence the universe is not eternal, and thus had a beginning.

4. Whatever had a beginning must have had a cause, for something cannot come out of nothing. Whatever begins to exist is cause to begin to exist by something else already existing.

5. Since something exists rather than nothing, there has to be at least one being who always existed.

6. It is impossible that there are an infinite number of beings who have existence in themselves.

7. Therefore God exists and always has, for he has existence in himself, as something must.
a. The universe, by necessity, had to have a cause, since it had a beginning.
b. The cause of the universe had to have been a cause with reason, not non-reason, since reason exists.
c. There has to be a being of reason who has existence in itself.

[Newbie]

Doesn't the discovery of the fact that we live in a zero net energy universe destroy this idea (second law of thermodynamics, universe running down)? There is no "running out" or "running down" because the energy isn't really here; it is just currently asymmetrical from non-existence.

[jimwalton]

While we may live in a zero net energy universe, the universe is running out of usable energy. While the energy in gasoline gets changed when your car uses it, it's no longer gas. Astronomer Robert Jastrow has observed that once hydrogen has been burned within a star and converted to heavier elements, it can never be restored to its original state. Thus, minute by minute, and year by year, the supply of hydrogen grows smaller. Eventually, "the car will run out of gas." If the overall amount of actual energy stays the same, but the universe is running out of usable energy, it has never had an infinite amount, for an infinite amount, by definition, can never run out.

[Newbie]

I don't see how that matters. This Universe may be running out of "usable" energy, but that doesn't matter. We don't know what happens once all the decayed matter is spread out almost evenly across the Universe, and we can't know if these fluctuations occur often or not.

An eternal Multiverse may yet still exist.

[jimwalton]

Well, I was reasoning from known qualities and logical premises. What you are doing now is trying to discredit logic with pure speculation. You might as well say, "We don't know what happens if hydrogen starts to replenish itself, or if other universes transfer their energies across universe membranes." I feel like this isn't a rebuttal, it's an invention. Pure speculation without any evidence. So I guess I'll try to give you the benefit of the doubt, and say, "OK, what's your evidence?" Otherwise, I'll stand by what I've said so far.

[Newbie]

"Nothing cannot produce something. Nothing in science supports the contention that nothing can produce something."

As far as I am aware, nothing in science suggests 'nothing' is even possible. Do you have other information?

"There could not have been an infinite number of moments before today, otherwise today would have never come (which it has)."

Consider a second of time. I divide it by two, to get 2 'moments'. Then I divide those 2 moments into 4 moments. Is it your contention that I can only do this a finite number of times? If so, could you provide this number?

"The universe, by necessity, had to have a cause, since it had a beginning."

Could you explain the definition of causality you are using, in the absence of time?

[jimwalton]

Hey, great conversation. Thanks. I'll admit that I'm not an astrophysicist. It's my understanding (and correct me if I am wrong), that the theory behind the Big Bang believes that about 15 billion years ago, space, time, and the universe began when an initial singularity with zero dimensions sudden began expanding unimaginably rapidly. I guess I'm considering that something with zero dimensions constitutes "nothing." My question is, if it had zero dimensions, from where did the original energy derive to cause the bang, and also from where did matter that is of gargantuan proportions come?

As far as your second point, the flaw in your reasoning comes in that you are starting from yourself rather than from infinity past. If you start with yourself, you start with a reference point. But if you start from infinity past, you will never even find the starting point, let alone a reference point. If I were to take a walk to an infinitely distant point in space, it would not just take me a long time to get there; rather, I would never get there. No matter how man steps I took, a part of the journey would still remain. I would never arrive at my destination. That's what I mean by infinity cannot be traversed.

Similarly, if I were to start counting to infinity, it would not just take me a long time to get there; I would never get there. It doesn't matter how long I had been counting for, I would still only have counted to a finite number. It is impossible to traverse the infinite set of numbers between zero and infinity. The point is that this also applies to the past. If the past were infinite, I wouldn't even find a place to start, let alone a place I could call "the present." "The present" would not just take a long time to the present to arrive; rather, it would never arrive. No matter how much time had passed, we would still be "walking" through the infinite past. It is impossible to traverse an infinite period of time.
Clearly, though, the present has arrived, the past has been traversed. The past, therefore, cannot be infinite, but must rather be finite. The universe has a beginning. That's the thought process anyway.

I am considering causality from the standpoint of agency (what Aristotle would have considered efficient cause, if I understand him correctly), since time is a relativity governed by matter, energy, and velocity. Again, I'm not a physicist, but it's my understanding that if there is a theoretical singularity of zero dimensions, space and time don't exist, and any causal theory would have to be based on agency rather than energy or matter.