the cosmological argument, 2
However, I’ll stick to your arguments. You assert boldly that ‘the scientific evidence states clearly that the Universe had a beginning – something eternal things do not have’. I’m not sure that the majority of cosmologists, who are, after all, the people who gather and interpret this evidence, would feel comfortable with this way of putting things. Most would probably agree that the evidence tends to support the occurrence of a ‘big bang’ which brought into being the universe (I prefer not to use a capital here, and this is important) as we currently know it, but I doubt if many would consider that this is an end of the matter, and I’m sure there would be some discomfort about your bringing in of the term ‘eternal’. Again, it must not be forgotten that cosmologists deal with space-time values. When space and time are combined in multidimensional formulations as is the case with the current theories and speculations of cosmological physicists, ancient notions of eternity become arguably less viable.
Further to this issue of the beginning of the universe. I note that many cosmological physicists have taken to referring to the big bang as the cause of ‘our’ universe, and in fact there is plenty of speculation as to the cause of this explosion, as a glance at a recent article in New Scientist, devoted to string theory, indicates: String theory suggests that our universe may be a three-dimensional island or ‘brane’ moving through 10-dimensional space, and that the big bang might have been caused by a collision between two such branes (New Scientist, 18 Dec 2004, p31).
The central point here for your argument is clear. We have no real evidence as yet, nor is it clear that there ever will be evidence, to prove that the Universe (as opposed to our universe) had a beginning in any way we can comprehend.
Your second point, that the universe is not self-causing, suffers from similar problems to the above. I agree that self-causation makes little logical sense, and scientists and theorists are ever on the hunt for external causes – hence the speculation about the big bang and its causes. We do not as yet have evidence for a limit to the universe, in time or space, so the issue of self-causation simply doesn’t come up. There is always an external cause to be posited, and there is no reason to suppose that these are anything but naturalistic causes, however weird and wonderful they may seem at first glance.
Of course this succession of external causes may yet return us to some final antecedent cause, which may be God, but if this were so it must be said that this first-cause God seems very remote, increasingly so as we push back the limits of our knowledge of the universe.
Your claim that every cause must be superior to its effect is not one that I’m entirely familiar with. A little reflection immediately problematises the claim. For example, I may decide to kill someone by shooting her. Causation immediately becomes complex. The immediate cause of death is the bullet and its effect upon human tissue, though the ultimate cause is my execution of a decision to shoot. In any case it isn’t at all clear that the cause, whether my decision, my action, the bullet itself or a combination of the above, is ‘greater than’ or ‘superior to’ the effect, a person’s death. The cause must be ‘adequate’ as you say, to create the effect, but this doesn’t indicate superiority in any meaningful sense.
Further to this issue of the beginning of the universe. I note that many cosmological physicists have taken to referring to the big bang as the cause of ‘our’ universe, and in fact there is plenty of speculation as to the cause of this explosion, as a glance at a recent article in New Scientist, devoted to string theory, indicates: String theory suggests that our universe may be a three-dimensional island or ‘brane’ moving through 10-dimensional space, and that the big bang might have been caused by a collision between two such branes (New Scientist, 18 Dec 2004, p31).
The central point here for your argument is clear. We have no real evidence as yet, nor is it clear that there ever will be evidence, to prove that the Universe (as opposed to our universe) had a beginning in any way we can comprehend.
Your second point, that the universe is not self-causing, suffers from similar problems to the above. I agree that self-causation makes little logical sense, and scientists and theorists are ever on the hunt for external causes – hence the speculation about the big bang and its causes. We do not as yet have evidence for a limit to the universe, in time or space, so the issue of self-causation simply doesn’t come up. There is always an external cause to be posited, and there is no reason to suppose that these are anything but naturalistic causes, however weird and wonderful they may seem at first glance.
Of course this succession of external causes may yet return us to some final antecedent cause, which may be God, but if this were so it must be said that this first-cause God seems very remote, increasingly so as we push back the limits of our knowledge of the universe.
Your claim that every cause must be superior to its effect is not one that I’m entirely familiar with. A little reflection immediately problematises the claim. For example, I may decide to kill someone by shooting her. Causation immediately becomes complex. The immediate cause of death is the bullet and its effect upon human tissue, though the ultimate cause is my execution of a decision to shoot. In any case it isn’t at all clear that the cause, whether my decision, my action, the bullet itself or a combination of the above, is ‘greater than’ or ‘superior to’ the effect, a person’s death. The cause must be ‘adequate’ as you say, to create the effect, but this doesn’t indicate superiority in any meaningful sense.
posted by Stewart at 11:32 am
1 Comments:
Regarding the cause necessarily being superior to the effect (in the context that god should be superior to the Universe/our universe), I would suggest that the methane produced from faecal matter is not subordinate to the biological waste from whence it came. It simply "is" and is neither superior or subordinate, greater or lesser, or better or worse than its progenitor. For something to exist does not mean that it materialised as a result of some demotion in the cosmological scheme of things.
Just why people need to make up complex theological stories to explain that which simply can not be explained is a complete mystery to me. Why waste your life on what really amounts to an unwise selection from the great smorgasboard of religion? I would recommend that we all eat elsewhere and steer clear of religion altogether (unless, of course, we could pretend that the Greek or Roman gods we real; it would make for a much more interesting theology and would give us deities that actually had powers to do real things!)
Marc Fearby (Australia)
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