"In three minutes, ninety-eight percent of all of the matter there is or ever will be has been produced. We have a universe. It is a place of the most wondrous and gratifying possibility, and beautiful, too. And it was all done in about the time it takes to make a sandwich." - Bill Bryson
TODAY'S QUESTION: DID THE UNIVERSE HAVE A CAUSE? AND CAN WE SCIENTIFICALLY PROVE IT?
Where did the universe come from? How did it begin? The bible states that the answer is "God created the heavens and the earth", commanding light into existence and then creating the rest of the universe. It seems to be a logical and good idea to start this investigation at the beginning of everything to see if science points towards a Creator or not. And so we will look at what cosmologists, scientists who devote their lives to studying the origin of the universe, have to say about the subject.
Scientists have now traced the development of the universe all the way back the first 1/10 million trillion trillion trillionths of a second, which is as far back as they believe they can peer. From this we now know that in the beginning, there was an explosion which occurred simultaneously everywhere, filling all space with every particle of matter rushing apart from every other particle. This matter consisted of negatively charged electrons, positively charged positrons, neutrinos, and interestingly, photons. In the beginning, " The universe was filled with light" (pg 94) says scientist Bill Bryson. ( I personally find this really cool.. does "and God said 'Let there be light'" strike anyone else?)
However, the most compelling question is what caused the universe to suddenly spring into existence? Science can explain what has happened since the Big Bang, or the First Cause, (matter gathers into dense regions, gravitational contraction of clouds and protostars create galaxies and stars and so forth and so on), but do scientists have any theories as to what caused the first cause?
The author of "The Case for the Creator" researches this, starting with William Lane Craig, PHD & THD, a widely published expert of cosmology who will walk us through the Kalam cosmological argument (google him if you want, he's written tons of interesting stuff!).
The Kalam Cosmological Argument (part 1)
This argument is millenium old and originated with a man named al-Ghazali. Paired with scienctific evidence of the Big Bang, many scientists find it to be a convincing proponet of God's existence. It is framed in three steps. Today we'll just go through step one for the sake of time and length - I will continue with the argument in subsequent posts.
Step one: Whatever begins to exist has a cause. (What are your thoughts? True, untrue?)
If this statement is found to be true, then we can move on to step two. However, let's take a second to observe all possibilities and test the validity of objections as well.
The atheistic viewpoint maintains that 'the most reasonable belief is that we came from nothing, by nothing, for nothing' (Quentin Smith). However, empirically, it is almost impossible to dispute that if something has a beginning, it could have not popped out of absolute nothingness without a cause to bring it to existence. Whatever you believe that cause may be. This is a statement science has verified over and over again. As one scientist had said regarding the "from nothing, by nothing" viewpoint, "Nobody worries that while he's away at work, say, a horse might pop into being, uncaused out of nothing, in his living room, and be there defiling the carpet..these things..they never happen... it simply amazes me that anyone can think this is the most rational view". (pg 99).
An Objection: If anyone reading is familiar with quantum physics, you know that it has shown us that strange, unexpected things happen at a subatomic level. The rules of classical science are often violated here, and some say that perhaps the universe apparated from something known as a 'quantum quirk', a vacuum fluctuation that would allow things to materialize, although they tend to vanish back into the vacuum quite quickly. One objection to the Big Bang having a cause is that through a vacuum fluctuation, our universe just kind of happened. As scientist Edward Tyron once said, perhaps, "our universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time". Is this scientifically valid?
Response to the objection: In short, not really. The particles that are created in this 'quantum quirks' do NOT come out of nothing. (In fact, these particles that are created are theoretical entities.. science has not yet made it clear if they actually exist yet are not, and are used as of now for theoretical constructs). Anyways, supposing these particles do exist, they do not come from nothing. A "quantum vacuum is not what most people envision when they think of a vaccum- that is, absolutely nothing. On the contrary, it's a sea of fluctuating energy, an arena of violent activity that has a rich physical structure and can be described by physical laws. These particles are thought to originate by fluctuations of the energy in the vaccuum" (pg 101) - PHD & THD cosmologist William Craig.
In other words, this 'quantum quirk' is not an example of something coming into being without a cause. The energy in the vacuum, which is a verifiable and scientifically proven substance, is the cause of these particles. All this objection has done is pushed back the issue of creation - now you must account for how the energy within the vacuum came into being. Scientifically you cannot use the laws of quantum physics to explain the origin of quantum physics itself. On this topic, Craig stated that "You need something transcendant that's beyond the domain in order to explain how the entire domain came into being. Suddenly, we're back to the origins question" (pg 101). Even the famous atheist David Hume wrote once that "I never asserted so absurd a proposition as that anything might arise without a cause". Historically, scientists have not supported this either. The scientific confirmation for the beginning of the universe in the twentieth century has led us all to ask - did something cause the universe, or was it truly an accident?
What do you think? I personally believe that the Big Bang is an undeniable piece of evidence that some single, focused point of energy that transcends the domain we are in created the universe. I believe yes, the universe did have a cause (God). After analyzing the quantum physics of it, scientifically a cause for the universe is hard to get around. Where do you stand?
We will continue to investigate this question, and other implications of God, in later posts.
Thanks for reading, and let me know if you have any comments or questions on the "Got Questions" page located above!
Thanks for reading, and let me know if you have any comments or questions on the "Got Questions" page located above!
Hey there, this is quite an interesting read; I've got a few questions regarding the reasoning behind this argument.
ReplyDeleteMy understanding of the argument is as follows: That by assuming that something cannot come out of nothing (the origins question), we conclude that the big bang must have been precipitated by some kind of creator (God). Wouldn't we then have to ask where the creator (God) originated? Would that mean that this creator would have their own creator, etc...?
If this creator (God) could exist without any higher order, wouldn't it also be possible that the universe itself could exist by itself without any external organization? Or is there an infinite series of creator's creators stacked like matryoshka dolls?
Thank you for taking the time to write all this, and I am interested to hear what you think!
Hey! Thanks for the question! This is a very important one that I actually plan on covering more in depth later. But I will try to answer it now as precisely as I can!
ReplyDeleteIf I'm understanding what you're asking, you're first wanting to know
1. If God created the Universe, who created God?
The answer to this is, is that God would not have a creator. Because we can safely infer that the cause of the universe transcends our domain, meaning the cause (God) transcends both time and space, the cause would not be a physical reality, nor would it have a beginning or ending. The cause would have to be nonphysical or immaterial. There are only 2 types of things that can be timeless and immaterial. One would be abstract objects, like numbers or mathematical entities. The other would be a mind (God). Because God would be outside of time and space, there does not exist cause or effect in this domain. Without the dimension of time, there is no cause and effect, and all things that could exist in such a realm would have no need of being caused, but would have always existed. Therefore, cause and effect would not apply to the cause’s (God’s) existence.
2.Your second question is if God could exist without any higher order, wouldn't it be possible that the universe itself could create without external organization?
My answer to this is, theoretically, no. The only reason that God can exist without higher order is because is transcends our dimensions of time and space. Our universe, however, IS time and space. The universe exists in only one dimension of time, which Stephen Hawking, George Ellis, and Roger Penrose tell us must have begun at the moment of the Big Bang. Therefore the universe must have been created at the beginning of our dimension of time. Therefore, our universe is finite. The creator is infinite and eternal – we know that his existence was not dependent on a cause. But a finite object must be. The two are different in nature. This goes back to the question of can something finite be created from nothing - There is an abundance of scientific evidence saying no- everything finite has a cause. Most scientists who are atheist agree with this statement concerning our universe. Science has proven the universe almost indefinitely that our universe had a cause. Atheist scientists point to the multi-verse theory (I will cover later), while Christian scientists point to God. Either way, when it comes to our finite universe that obeys physicals laws and is in a proven realm of time and space, there is no really getting around the fact that something external caused it. The cause (God) and the effect are not assumed to be co-eternal, since we know the effect is not, and therefore as far as science shows, the effect must follow external organizational law.
I hope that I answered what you were asking, and if I did not, please let me know and I will do my best once again! Questions like this regarding the nature of the creator himself cannot be established by science- those you have to leave to faith :) Science can only really lead to proof of a creator, designer, and cause for life as we know it - there are other types of evidence for who God is and so forth that is not scientific that I plan on covering later on, once I can establish with science that there is indeed a creator in general. Thank you again for your time and let me know if you have any other questions/ I didn't quite answer what you needed for sure!