We are here debating the Kalam Cosmological Argument from a deistic rather than theistic perspective. Carlo Alvaro is taking the affirmative; Richard Carrier the negative. See our initial entry for all the details, including an index to all entries yet published.
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Dr. Carrier contends that my argument has two problems:
- The premises are false because they are “contrary to established science.”
- The argument does not prove “anything describable as a god.”
It is not possible to prove the truth of the premises with 100% certainty. The best I can do is to demonstrate that they are more likely true than false. Therefore, I was surprised when Dr. Carrier declared that my premises are 100% false. But why does he claim that they are false? Because he thinks that they are contrary to science. Again, I was surprised to hear this because science has zero evidence that any object (whether material or immaterial) can come, or ever came, into existence without a material or an efficient cause.
I. Premise 1
Premise 1 is consistent with science. Every object that begins to exist that humans always have experienced, and scientists routinely study, come into existence by something else. Every amoeba, every chair, every stone, every baby, and every quark came into existence by something else. Thus, when Dr. Carrier says that science has not established the truth of premise 1, he must mean something different.
Dr. Carrier means something like this: Because scientists have not yet discovered any object that comes into being by nothing, then we cannot rule out such a possibility. But then it does not follow from this that the the first premise of the Kalam is false. At best, it shows some doubt that it is 100% true.
Consider the evolution of life. Is it logically possible that a god created everything and made it look like evolution occurred? Sure. But just because creationism is logically possible, it does not follow that evolution is false. Therefore, Dr. Carrier is entitled to raising doubt to the truth of premise 1 but not entitled to the conclusion that it is 100% false for the reason that science has not yet ruled out the possibility that objects can spontaneously come into being by nothing.
The way Dr. Carrier presents his argument is fallacious. He writes that my premise 1,
…is not logically necessarily true, and therefore must necessarily be only contingently true.
But then, from these premises he jumps to an unsupported conclusion. He writes,
But if it is only contingently true, it is logically possible for there to be states of affairs not subject to it. It is therefore logically impossible that ‘all’ things that begin to exist must come into existence by something else. Premise 1 is therefore logically impossible and therefore false.
If premise 1 is, as he asserts, merely “contingently true”, it does not follow at all that it is “impossible” that at least one object comes into existence by something else. For those who studied categorical logic, A-form and E-form are contraries, i.e., they cannot both be true, but they may both be false. For example, if some judges are lawyers, then the universal affirmative A (All J are L) is false and so is the universal negative E (No J are L). In other words, the falsity of “All things that begin to exist came into being by something else” does not logically entail the truth of “No thing that begins to exist came into existence by something else.” Consequently, his conclusion,
Premise 1 is therefore logically impossible and therefore false.
does not follow at all.
Second, we must be careful with the word “possibility.” In logic, we distinguish between “strict” and “broad” logical possibility. For example, it is logically possible that I throw a baseball to the moon (there is no inherent logical contradiction), but it is not physically possible. Therefore, strict logical possibility does not logically entail metaphysical possibility. Thus, the strict logical possibility that an object comes into existence by nothing does not prove that such an event is metaphysically possible. As I tried to demonstrate, the first premise of the Kalam is a metaphysically necessary truth.
II. Premise 2
Now premise 2. Dr. Carrier claims that the big bang theory does not prove that time, space, and energy came into being a finite time ago. But this is exactly what the theory says. In fact, physicists always correct us when we say things like, “Before the big bang…” because spacetime did not exist without (not prior to) the universe. So, you can cook up some creative model, such as a multiverse or a time-mirror or a quantum gobbledygook, but those aren’t arguments but mere speculations.
Dr. Carrier writes, “the state of affairs of there being nothing that is as yet caused to exist…” The definition of nothing is “not anything.” If I said to you “Nothing beats a glass of Italian wine” and you replied to me, “Then, I want some nothing!” you would commit what logicians call the existential fallacy. In short, “nothing” is not a state but rather the absence of time, space, matter, energy, potentiality, and so on. And from nothing, nothing comes.
Concerning Dr. Carrier’s second contention, “None of this gets to anything describable as a god.” The Kalam is not meant to say anything about a god. In fact, nowhere in the syllogism does the word “god” occur.
Regarding an alleged, “unstated ‘Premise 4”, there is no unstated premise 4. The Kalam has only 2 premises. My belief that a god exists is based on an analysis of the conclusion (which I will address that in my next entry because I am running out of space).
The last point is the notion of actual infinity. Dr. Carrier writes “Even your fingernail consists of an actual infinity of geometric points.” And how does he know this? In set theory, an actually infinite set contains a discrete number of members. Conversely, no physical object can contain, or can be divided into, an actually infinite number of parts.
Regarding the stairs example, I never claimed that the present is “the end of all time.” The point is that the present time exists. But if the universe were past-eternal, then it would be impossible for the present to be instantiated because it is impossible to traverse an actually infinite number of events.
III. Conclusion
As a concluding remark, I want to emphasize that, unlike a theist, I did not start from the belief in God and then tried to find an argument that proves God’s existence. Rather, I started from no belief whatsoever and found that the Kalam is a powerful argument that points in the direction of a god. Thus, I will be glad if Dr. Carrier, or anyone else, could show me that the Kalam is unsound because I have nothing to lose. Regrettably, however, Dr. Carrier’s first reply was a sincere but unsuccessful attempt. Thus, I remain convinced the Kalam is more likely sound than not and, therefore, that a god brought the universe into existence.
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🔸Religion: ‘Pudding is the only way’ ‘Pasta is the only way’ ‘Salad is the only way’
🔸Spiritual: ‘It’s all food’
Mystics are the root and trunk of the same tree, the branches of which are different religions.
From youtube film “With One Voice”
https://youtu.be/r3o2kltX7RI
This sounds like a word salad to me
It’s consistent with a lot of what shows up in this blog.
Example or GTFO.
It’s a deepity.
Is it logically possible that a God created everything to look like evolution occurred? OP writes and answers himself “sure.”
It is not “sure.” This question is far more compelling and complicated than “sure.” He means, sure it is possible that a God created everything and made it look like evolution, but my contention is, is it really logical to assume that? It’s not logical.
The first question would be why would a God do that in the first place? He could do it, a God can do anything by definition, but it is the “why?” Why would a God do that? It wouldn’t be logical for a God to do that. Why would a God not only hide the fact, but make it look like something else entirely? It’s possible but definitely not logical in any sense.
Let’s talk about quarks. I’m not a scientist. I like the sciences, and have ready many books and viewed college courses on the subject through video lectures. I did well in high school in my courses except chemistry. I barely passed my regents test. I also took pre calc and physics. So I think it’s fair to say I have a good basic foundation in science.
The OP states everything comes from something, ergo it must be God. Through all the word salad, that is the basic argument. He mentions all things humankind has studied, one thing supercedes another including quarks. Quarks as far as we know are made in two places. When the universe began expansion, and in our particle colliders. I have a question though. What the hell is a quark anyway? From what I’ve read, we don’t really know. Is it a perturbation in a field? Did the field cause it? Is it part particle and part wave? Is it made up of strings? We don’t know, yet. I’ve seen and conducted the wave particle experiment and it boggles my mind every time. Why do they appear to be both? We don’t really know the why, yet. Regardless, none of that indicates a God at work just gaps in knowledge.
Evolution has proof. God’s do not. Philosophical arguments do not prove anything. So to suggest the philosophical argument is enough to prove God, is false to begin with. You can’t phillisophically turn the lights on and off. Just like you can’t assume the first cause was a God. If all things present themselves as not being divinely driven like evolution why assume it must be?
And Daniel’s argument here can be succinctly put in Bayesian terms.
I am confused on two points here, Dr. Alvaro:
One, I believe Dr. Carrier’s response actually states that something logically must begin to exist without a cause. Because so long as the first premise is not logically necessary, what follows is that the premise is only contingent. If it is contingent, then there is some universe in which it is not instantiated, and therefore is false.
Your contention that premise 1 is more likely true than not doesn’t seem to be measurable. If we know it is false in at least one universe and (mostly) true in another (our own), then we have at best a 50/50 chance. That this premise is strained even within out own universe with quantum events means we may not even be able to fully count our own universe as instantiating it. This leaves us with something less than 50/50. How can we measure the likelihood of an event outside the contingent laws of our universe?
Two, I think you are merely misunderstanding the Big Bang. Yes, it does become almost impossible to talk about a “before” the Big Bang, but that’s not because there was a true nothing prior. Indeed, check even the basic Wiki, it will state that the Big Bang is an expansion (not creation) from an existing hot, dense state. That time emerged from that expansion is a funny inversion of our expectations. Time doesn’t have to work like we experience it always (indeed, we know it doesn’t). The Big Bang explains expansion of something, not the beginning from nothing. It’s a bit like the difference between Evolution and Abiogenesis. Evolution only begins to act once there is something to act upon. The question of how and what first was able to become subject to evolution is a separate issue.
Personally, I don’t find premise 1 compelling when it comes to cosmological arguments. Though it certainly seems to be the case within our universe, and I rely on it for everything near my size and speed. I am mostly agnostic on premise 2. Whether or not the universe actually has a cause seems unknowable.
Also, your continued appeal to a past infinity being impossible seems to stem from a simple assertion. You keep saying we cannot get to any point if we have no start. But why? Do the distinct points somehow cease to exist on a number line? If not, why would discreet events in spacetime? This has been show mathematically to work, so what are you relying on to say it’s impossible?
I don’t accept either premise, but even if I did I would still conclude that I had no reason to think that the conclusion (the universe had a cause) wasn’t answered by physics, or more accurately, yet to be understood physics.
“Kalam is a powerful argument that points in the direction of a god” ie pointing in the direction of giant argument from ignorance. We don’t (currently) know the cause therefore God.
“Because scientists have not yet discovered any object that comes into being by nothing, then we cannot rule out such a possibility.”
Except Carrier isn’t arguing that something can’t come from nothing. In fact, I believe he argued that in a state of genuine nothingness, the creation of something is 100% likely for the simple reason that no constraints would exist to prevent it. If constraints do exist (e.g. some law making it the case that “all things that begin to exist come into existence must do so by something else”), then something is giving rise to that constraint, and thus we don’t have a true state of nothingness. As such, P1 is not metaphysically necessary and reduces to speculation. And speculation in, speculation out.
If P1 is true, then all things that come to exist do so by other things, logically necessitating the existence of some prior thing creating this “law”, making it necessarily the case that a genuine state of nothingness could have ever existed.
If P2 is true, then the law “all things that come to exist do so by other things” came into existence with the creation of the universe.
Thus, P1 and P2 cannot both be true at the same time. UNLESS one wants to argue that our universe is not all that is and that it exists within a larger reality that imposes rules on universe-creation. This indeed might be the case. But if so, there is no logical way to leap from this possibility to an intentional, moral agent with the ability to create universes. Thus, the “something else” can literally be anything (since we don’t know the rules outside of our local universe), and Occam’s Razor requires that we assume the simplest explanation. A universe-creating god does not qualify as “simple” by any measure, especially compared to the very simple models within modern physics, making a god very unlikely as the explanation.
Impossible? No. But the Kalam provides no reason to assume that a god is more likely than an invisible unicorn. Which is just a way of saying that the Kalam is unsound, as Carrier demonstrated.
Dr. Alvaro states:
All we can actually observe is our universe today (it’s properties and ongoing expansion).
From there scientists try to make some logical theories or deductions. That our universe (as we now know it) started from a “Big Bang” is one such theory. What if anything existed before then is all “speculation” in some sense, it is just a matter of which ones seem to hold up better scientifically. Scientists don’t know for certain that space and time started with a “Big Bang”, or that absolutely nothing (in the way that you mean and understand) would’ve necessarily been the reality before then. But the Kalam Cosmological Argument depends on it being an established (or at least highly probable) scientific fact. You seem to me making such an assertion.
Dr. Carrier contends that these premises are “contrary to established science”, and provided link to articles in his end-notes in support of his assertion. I see no such references to any such sources in your response defending your assertion. Can you please provide those to substantiate your position and for us to review?
Concering your problem with “nothing”, please see the following article which helps explain how the “nothing” proposition that you are objecting to, is based on a different understanding of “nothing” that is being described within the scientific field (cosmological domain). And why the “nothing” as you understand might not even be possible.
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/universe-wasnt-empty-before-big-bang/
Dr. Alvaro states:
And by “god” do you mean an intelligent designer (necessaily)? Please clarify.
Because if not could some other eternal non-intelligent agent (for example dark matter as discussed in the above reference article) possibly be behind and explain the “cause” of our universe that you understand came into existence? Or are you trying to smuggle in some other properties (of the supposed “cause”) that necessitate that it be referred to as a “god”?
If so what are those specific properties that would warrant it being labeled in such a way and why would you assume such properties would inherently exist or be required for such an agent?
“Now premise 2. Dr. Carrier claims that the big bang theory does not prove that time, space, and energy came into being a finite time ago. But this is exactly what the theory says. In fact, physicists always correct us when we say things like, “Before the big bang…” because spacetime did not exist without (not prior to) the universe.”
no, they say we don’t know what was before the “big bang”. We have no evidence in either direction if there was time or space, or something else entirely or nothing.
This sure looks like a clarification of Anselm’s definition of God to me: (from Wikipedia).
Just n.b. Alvaro’s position is more coherent than W.L. Craig’s. Craig asserts God to be timeless; yet at the same time has that God fully attached to and involved in time. Alvaro carries the statement to its actually logically entailed conclusion: if God is timeless, then he doesn’t exist in time—at all. Christianity is therefore necessarily false. Because no timeless God can have been talking to anyone, or thinking about anyone, or arranging futures for them, much less have visited Earth.
I have three questions for Dr. Alvaro.
1) Your first premise talks about things which come into existence, which you later apply to the universe. What do you mean by “come into existence”? In ordinary discourse “X came into existence” means “the universe changed from a state where there is no X to a state where there is an X”. But if you apply that to the universe then you’re referring to a universe in a state where there is no universe, and I can’t figure out what that would even mean.
2) You seem to be assuming that an infinite past and an earliest moment are the only two possibilities. Am I correct in that? If so, then what’s your argument against a finite past which doesn’t have a beginning? Mathematically that’s possible, if it’s isomorphic to the positive reals, for instance.
3) I don’t understand your Empire State Building analogy. Walking an infinite distance to get to the bottom is only impossible because humans have finite lives. If you posit an immortal being, though, who walks 100 floors a day, then there’s no contradiction is saying that N days ago he was on floor 100N, for all N. You seem to feel there is a contradiction, though. What would that contradiction be?
Just a footnote to Dennis’s Question 2: the positive reals includes infinite numbers between zero and one (all possible fractions); as opposed to the positive wholes, which excludes fractions. This is why the positive reals are both infinite into the past (count back from 1 and you will never reach 0 in finite time) and at the same time finite into the past (they stop at zero).
This has relevance to cosmological models such as Penrose’s Conformal Cyclic Cosmology where scale continues to grow infinitely and thus can shrink infinitely into a nevertheless finite past, allowing an infinite series of past universes prior to ours and a measurable beginning to them all.
Thank you for arguing from a deistic perspective, Dr. Alvaro! As a pantheist myself, I think this is really the only useful way to begin.
You say “from nothing, nothing comes”.
Have you, or has anyone else, observed a nothing?
If not (and the answer is of course “No”), how do you know at all, let alone to deductive certainty, what a nothing does or does not do?