Been thinking lately about the'Kalam' argument.
This basically says that everything that has a beginning has a cause; the universe has a beginning (i.e. the Big Bang), and thus the Universe has a cause, which is God.
Clearly, this is a variant on the basic argument that everything has a cause, therefore God caused the Universe. It seeks to avoid the problem of infinite regress (what caused God? And what caused whatever caused God?) by inserting the words 'that has a beginning'. And at first this seems plausible.
But there are many versions of the cosmological argument that fail on closer inspection, and I think that this is one of them. After all, everything we observe has a beginning; why specify that it is the property of 'having a beginning' that links to the property of 'having a cause'? It would be just as easy to say that everything we observe is within (or part of) the universe, so we could argue that everything within the universe has a cause. Therefore, we could argue, the universe as a whole doesn't need a cause because it is not within itself. It seems to me that this is enough to undermine the Kalam argument; it relies on a verbal slight of tongue, rather than a solid foundation.
There are of course other problems with the Kalam argument, some of which it shares with the standard Cosmological Argument. If time began in the Big Bang, it is debatable whether the Big Bang had a beginning - if not, there is no need for God. Then there is nothing in this argument that supports the idea that the cause of the Universe was intelligent, moral, or any of the other attributes usually assigned to God other than being uncaused. More seriously, the premise (which I have accepted for the sake of argument above) that everything that has a beginning has a cause is undermined by quantum physics, which appears to show that, on a quantum scale, almost everything (including the creation of matter and anti-matter) has no cause.
My current opinion is that this is an invalid argument; an attempt to take the persuasive but flawed argument from first cause and make it more convincing that fails logically but may have some success with those who want to find evidence of God's existence.
Before I address your post, I want to be sure that you agree that I understand what you're saying. So I'm going to try to paraphrase your statements:
ReplyDelete(1) We don't know that the first premise is true, for we cannot illustrate the actual connection between an object's limited duration and its property of having been caused to exist. That our experience of finite objects is such that they're usually caused does not tell us that all finite things are caused to exist nor that they are caused by virtue of their finitude.
(2) With regard to how apologists connect causation to beginnings, we have equal warrant for positing a similar connection between causation and physical, spatiotemporal objects (i.e., objects in space and time, that consist of matter or energy). Thus, we can argue with equal success that the universe--that is, space and time itself--is uncaused, insofar as space and time are not themselves spatiotemporal objects.
(3) Everything that begins, begins in time. But we are supposing that time began with the Big Bang. The universe, thus, if it began, did not begin in time. However, the idea of a non-temporal beginning is logically incoherent. Therefore, the universe never began. Hence, even if we assume a connection between causation and beginning, we must suppose that the universe does not have a cause.
(4) The argument consists of three premises, none of which address the nature of some powerful universe-maker.
(5) Quantum physicists have shown that some finite objects have no cause.
Do I have it right?
Hi Cigar,
ReplyDeletePleased you've found something worth commenting on - even (especially) if you're disagreeing with me!
(1) Aside from the quibble that something could come into existence and still have an infinite duration, I would agree with what you say here. To put it another way: everything we experience comes into existence; everything we experience has a cause. It doesn't follow that having a cause is necessary for something to come into existence. I offer 'being within the universe' as another example of a property held by everything we observe - we have as much reason to link 'being within the universe' to 'coming into existence' as we have to link 'having a cause' with 'coming into existence'.
Indeed, it seems clear that either something came into existence uncaused, or something has existed eternally (unless something even stranger happened, such as something being self-caused).
(2) I think this is linked to the point above. I would not necessarily argue that space and time are uncaused - in some versions of the Big Bang theory they come into existence at the moment of the Big Bang, in others they don't - but I would say that if they do have a cause, we have no particular reason to think that that cause is itself uncaused. If that makes any sense.
For instance, space-time may have been caused by a force, such as gravity - and we have never observed a force come into existence, or be caused by anything. So what evidence there is would suggest that forces are exceptions to the premises of the Kalaam.
(3) Yes, that's right - but I offer this as an option, not a statement of fact. As far as I can tell, opinion remains divided among cosmologists as to whether time began at the Big Bang. If it didn't, this objection will be refuted. So this is currently a weakness in the Kalaam, but not necessarily fatal, and not the only one.
(4) Also true, but I was thinking more that the conclusion of the argument is simply that the Universe had a cause - it doesn't actually link that cause to God. There is nothing, for instance, that says the cause needs to be intelligent, omniscient, moral, or a Jewish Carpenter :) It could be a force, such as gravity, for instance. (Of course, the word 'God' means different things to different people!)
(5) Yes. I have since had some debates on the meaning of the word 'cause' in this context, but I'll see what you have to say before going down that road again...
Gif
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteTentatively, I'll concede that experience does not justify the first premise, insofar as experience does not justify any universal statement. But experience is only one of two justifications that Craig offers in its support, the other being that something cannot come from nothing (an a priori principle).
ReplyDeleteNow this, you think, is belied by quantum physics; however, I'll need you to explain this a little bit better. If vacuum fluctuation is part of your refutation, Craig has already rightfully noted that the quantum vacuum is not literally nothing; rather, it is a sea of fluctuating energy.
You also seemed to imply that there's nothing logically incoherent about a non-temporal beginning, given that there are cosmological models according which time does begin with the Big Bang. That being the case, why couldn't the second premise be true? Couldn't space and time have a non-temporal beginning?
Finally, Craig gives a separate argument for why the cause of the universe would be eternal, immaterial, omnipotent and personal. That this is not contained in the KCA is irrelevant to its soundness.
Hi Cigar,
ReplyDeleteI'll take your points slightly out of order if I may, because responding to your first point leads me directly into your final point. I'll number them for clarity, based on the four paras in your post above.
(1) Well, Craig's 'ex nihilo nihil fit' - 'from nothing, nothing comes' is also in apparent contradition to quantum theory. You will note that Craig offers very little to support this premise beside the insistence that it is so.
(4) Besides, if you are taking the argument for God - as opposed to some unspecified cause - as separate from the Kalaam, as you seem to be in your last point, all you really have is an argument that assumes that everything had a cause and uses that to prove that the Universe had a cause. While this is most certainly true based on the premises, it is hard to see the relevance to God - and the Kalaam is supposed to be a theological argument.
(2) Your second point is around quantum physics and vacuum fluctuations. There are two separate issues here. The first is causation. Quantum theory tells us that an event need not need any immediate, direct cause in order to occur. I will concede that it does require the laws of physics as a 'background cause' - a 'necessary but not sufficient cause'. However, I do not think that this is what is usually meant by the word 'cause', and certainly it is not how Craig uses the word in his supplementary arguments for the existence of God.
The second point is around 'coming from nothing'. Again, what you say is true - it is impossible for us to observe a 'true vacuum'. However, let us be clear - a 'quantum vacuum' is the closest we have, and vacuum fluctuations occur in a quantum vacuum just as they do under non-vacuum conditions, so it seems reasonable to extrpolate to true vacuum conditions. And the energy field present, although enough to allow a little wiggle room around whether this is a 'true vacuum', is not enough to cause particles to come into existence, so it seems reasonable to conclude that vacuum fluctuations would continue even were it not present. Finally, let us not forget that vacuum fluctuations were predicted from theory long before they were observed experimentally - and the theory also predicts that they would occur in a 'true vacuum'.
So I think that we have good reason to conclude that vacuum fluctuations cause matter to appear uncaused in a 'true vacuum', even though we cannot directly observe this.
(3) Finally, your third point: yes, I would agree that it is possible that space and time had a non-temporal beginning - and it is possible that they did not have. So I would say that the second premise may be true, or it may not.
(1) Again, I'd like you to explain this a little bit better. What is it in quantum theory that say something can come from nothing? Keep in mind, I'm not an expert.
ReplyDelete(4) Again, Craig completes the KCA by way of a subsequent argument for why the cause of the universe must have God-like attributes. It's in several of his books. If you need me to rehearse the argument here, I'll be more than happy to.
(2) I was asking you to expound upon that point, keeping in mind that Craig already addresses vacuum fluctuations. But you are saying that this is not relevant, so I'll focus on the next part of your paragraph. There, you say that according to quantum theory, some events do not require a *direct* cause. Firstly, I'll need you to specify what you mean by that, differentiating that from an *indirect* cause. Secondly, I'll need you to actually cite Craig where he stipulates "causation" in these terms, because as far as I know he uses the term in a general, metaphysical way. You say that he makes these stipulations in supplementary arguments for God; can you please give me some citations?
I don't follow your argument. We've never seen a true vacuum, vacuum fluctuations do not occur in a true vacuum, and the energy field present is not enough to cause the particles; therefore, it's possible that the particles come into existence out of nothing? How do you get from "the energy field present is not enough" to "out of nothing?" Why couldn't it just be the case that there's some other causal agent of which we're unaware that works in conjunction with the limited energy available in the quantum vacuum to produce particles?
(3) If the second premise might be true, then are you recanting your statement "If time began in the Big Bang, it is debatable whether the Big Bang had a beginning"?
Hi Cigar,
ReplyDelete(1) You might like to look into Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle (in it's time/energy formulation) and the Aspect experiments. There is a lot of quantum weirdness behind this that I am reluctant to explain in enough detail to be convincing - perhaps in a future post!
(4) Indeed; but these are not part of the Kalaam. The Kalaam seeks to show that the universe had a cause; Craig's extensions to it seek to specify the nature of that cause. If you wish to suggest one, I will be happy to address it; the versions I have heard Craig use (he uses several) seem weak to me.
(2) As I said, by 'direct' cause, I mean some proximate event that leads directly and inevitably to the effect, as opposed to something like the laws of physics which may be necessary for something to happen but are not usually regarded as a cause in their own right. The situation we have in much of quantum mechanics is that events occur without a specific cause.
I am hedging only because I have heard it argued that the laws of nature themselves can be considered a 'cause'. That is not how I would use the term, and I don't think that interpretation is consistent with Craig's extensions to the Kalaam, mentioned in (1). But I'll let you explain what you mean by 'cause' rather than argue at length against a position you may not hold.
This distinction is not due to Craig as far as I know.
I'm not sure where you got the idea vacuum fluctuations do not occur in a 'true vacuum', especially given your immediately preceding clause that we've never seen a 'true vacuum'. Can you give a source? If you are paraphrasing my argument, you seem to have it backwards, as I am saying that all lines of evidence (except direct observation, which is not available) indicate that vacuum fluctuations would occur in a 'true vacuum'.
It could indeed be the case that there is some 'hidden cause'. A minority of quantum physicists continue to work on a 'hidden variable' version of quantum theory. However, there are big problems, notably that the speed of light in a vacuum ceases to be a maximum, which have caused a broad consensus of physicists to discard these theories. You may like to look up Bell's Theorem to see why most physicist now regard 'hidden variable' theories as untenable. (Einstein's famous 'God does not play dice' comment refers to this debate - Einstein was in the 'hidden variable' camp.)
(3) I don't see why you think that. Note the phrases 'might be true' and 'is debatable' - I do not claim clear knowledge one way or the other on either of the points in question.
In other words, the universe might have had a beginning; and if time began at the moment of the Big Bang, it is debatable whether the Big Bang (and thus the Universe) had a beginning. I don't see any conflict; rather, this seems like a restatement of the same concept.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I've read about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, it just states that the more you know about a particle's spin, the less you know about its momentum, and vice versa. Even without knowing a lick about spins and momentums, I don't see how that proves that something can come from nothing. I tried looking up the Aspect Experiments, but I couldn't understand any of the articles.
ReplyDeleteAre you willing to concede that Craig not including the nature of God in his basic syllogism is not any reason to say that the KCA is "weak"? It's not necessarily a theological argument, but more of a cumulative, theological case for the existence of God. For every presentation I've seen Craig give of the argument, he never mentions one without the other.
To be clear, do you not agree that the KCA works whether God causes the universe in a direct or indirect way? That is, if we find out that God is, say, the indirect cause of the universe--instead of the direct cause--then we cannot say that the existence of the universe materially implies the existence of God?
I think I misunderstood your argument about vacuum fluctuations. That said, what does it mean to say that the speed of light is a "maximum"? And why must that be the case?
On that last point, you are agreeing that non-temporal being is possible, right? So why would it be debatable that the universe began to exist if time began with the universe? What would preclude time and the universe having a non-temporal beginning, such that this objection is actually one worth positing here in this blog?
Hi Cigar,
ReplyDeleteThe Uncertainty Principle can be stated in various ways. There are several pairs of variables that can be uncertain. It turns out that position/momentum uncertainty is mathematically equivalent to energy/time momentum. So if we measure the time at which an event occurs accurately, we cannot know how much energy was involved. But it turns out to be weirder than that - it's not that there is some difficulty in measuring the energy, it is that (if I may speak metaphorically for a moment) the Universe doesn't actually 'know' how much energy is involved. So an electron may not have enough energy to escape from orbit around an atom - but due to the uncertainty in energy, it may nevertheless escape.
Likewise, a vacuum may not have enough energy to produce a pair or particles - but it may nevertheless 'borrow' the energy from the Uncertainty Principle. Usually the particles annihilate a fraction of a second later, and 'pay back' the energy so that the universe doesn't 'notice'.
My point is that there is no direct cause for this event. (As I noted previously, I have seen it argued that the Uncertainty Principle itself is a necessary-but-insufficient cause, and I am open to this line of argument if you wish to pursue it.)
The Aspect experiments constitute experimental proof (or as close as we can get) that quantum events are uncaused, rather than due to a cause we don't yet know of.
None of this is 'introductory level' quantum physics - the Aspect experiments in particular - so if you are interested in looking further into this, 'In Search of Schrodinger's Cat' by John Gribbin is a very accessible but detailed source. Meantime, the best Wikipedia has to offer are the following:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_Aspect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_test_experiments
Craig does not include mention of God in the Kalam; but nevertheless he does present it as evidence that God exists. So on its own terms - and if the premises are granted - it is sound, but uninformative. On Craig's terms, it is invalid since it does not support his conclusion, that God exists.
Yes, I would agree that the Kalam works whether God created the universe directly, indirectly or not at all - which is why it provides no evidence for God's existence, cumulatively or otherwise.
The speed of light in a vacuum is the fastest that anything can travel. This is an observation famously explained by Einstein's General Relativity. Please don't ask me 'why' questions about physics... :-)
I am saying I don't know whether a non-temporal being is possible. (If you mean a thinking being, I have trouble visualising that but perhaps that's just me.) So I would say it's 'possible' in the sense that I can't say it's 'impossible', rather than in the sense of making a positive claim that it is logically consistent - there's probably a technical philosophical term for the difference, but if so I don't know it. Does that explanation make any sense?
From this rather agnostic stance, it may be clearer why I don't know whether the universe could have a 'pre-temporal' beginning, or however we are phrasing it. My objection is that there is a possibility here that Craig does not address (at least as far as I am aware).
I don't see why I can't ask you "Why" questions regarding physics. If I don't know enough about a topic, and you do, is it unfair for me to press that you inform me?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, it sounds like you're saying that quantum particles aren't uncaused; rather, you're saying that they just have no direct cause. So I go back to the original point, does the first premise of the KCA say "Everything that begins to exist has a direct cause," or does it say "Everything that begins to exist has a cause"? Therefore, even if God created the universe *indirectly*--say, if he created a series of universes in which our universe popped up along the way--Craig's entire case for God still works; not only does our universe have a cause, but the cause of the universe is eternal, immaterial, omnipotent and personal. In the same way, God could be regarded as an indirect cause of human beings, to the extent that he uses evolution as the process by which we come to be.
What Craig presents as evidence that God exists is not the basic syllogism, but the cumulative case. The conclusion of the syllogism itself his not that God exists; rather, it's that the universe had a cause. Therefore, it is at least deductively valid.
When I wrote "non-temporal being," I meant "non-temporal beginning." So you agree that a non-temporal beginning is possible, right? So why would it be debatable that the universe began to exist if time began with the universe?
But anyway, are you saying that Craig does not address the *possibility* that a non-temporal beginning is not a logical possibility? Or are you saying that Craig does not address the possibility that the universe is actually eternal and did not begin? Or are you saying that Craig does not address the possibility that the universe is eternal but did begin (not that I agree that his makes any sense, or anything)?
Hi Cigar,
ReplyDeleteSorry, that was my attempt at humour. There is a well-known dictum (OK, not that well known, obviously) that science answers 'how' questions, not 'why' questions. So I can tell you what gravity does, for instance, but not why gravity exists.
Arguing that quantum events have an indirect cause would certainly rescue the Kalaam from this objection, at least as far as establishing an eternal cause. But as we have just discussed, this still leaves us some way short of concluding that that cause is God. Of the list of attributes you give, I would like to focus on 'personal', since that seems to me to be the defining difference between God and a physical cause. Perhaps you would like to give a justification for this conclusion...?
For your penultimate paragraph, you seem to have strayed from what I initially said. If time began at the moment of the Big Bang, it is not clear to me that the Big Bang had a beginning - how can something 'begin' when there is no time in which to 'begin'? To me, 'begin' implies a change of state, yet in this case there is no 'prior state'. Note that I am not going so far as to confidently declare that this is impossible, only that there is a prima facie case that rings alarm bells for me.
The drift of conversation means you have ended up phrasing this as something close to 'is a pre-temporal beginning a beginning?', which is obviously a pretty simple question.
I am not aware of Craig addressing the possibility of a non-temporal beginning. He's addressed an eternal universe via Borde-Guth-Vilenkin (which is another debate entirely). My response to your third option would depend on how you are using 'eternal' - but I don't think it will be relevant to the debate anyway as it is not what I am saying.