| 15 February 2003 at 01.50.51 ZuluTime
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Posted by jeremiahthirtythreethree [24.69.255.204 - px3wh.vc.shawcable.net] on 15 February 2003 at 01.50.51 ZuluTime:
People it seems in every age and century throughout human history have asked themselves the question “Is there a God?” This question seems to be a fundamental part of human existence. I remember as a kid trying to fathom the concept of a God that exists having no point at which he came into being. I don’t remember having any problem with the logistics of the concept of self-existence back then but rather was quite intrigued and entertained by the idea of a self-existent being. Children believe in a lot of things though, like the tooth fairy and Santa Claus. Is belief in God equivalent to believing in the tooth fairy?
Metaphysics is the arena where we attempt to distinguish between fact and fiction, between appearances and reality. Metaphysics attempts to tackle the question “Does God exist?” Of those who do believe in God, some argue that the question “Does God exist?” is beyond the scope of evidence. They would argue that believing in God is a matter of faith, nothing more, nothing less. The question of whether or not God exists for them is beyond the scope of rational inquiry. Others, however, believe and that belief is based upon the preponderance of sufficient evidence. These draw their conclusions based on philosophical arguments and logic. Some of the classic arguments that have been used to argue for rational grounds for accepting the existence of God are the moral argument, the ontological argument, the teleological argument and the cosmological argument. This essay will examine the cosmological argument only and attempt to affirm that the cosmological argument is sound and its conclusion is valid.
What is the cosmological argument? The cosmological argument is an attempt to trace the existence of the cosmos back to an uncaused cause, or in other words a being who by necessity of logic must have being intrinsic to his, her or its own nature. Most people, if not all, would grant that things exist or that something exists. Rene Descartes, the French philosopher, from whom the phrase “I think, therefore I am” is derived, attempted to find something that was indubitable. He doubted everything that he ever accepted as true in an attempt to find something that could not be denied. His quest led him to the affirmation that he was a thinking being and to the idea of self-consciousness. He even tried doubting that he was thinking. This attempt only proved to affirm his theory because to doubt that he was thinking was to affirm that he was thinking. According to Descartes, even if the whole world were only an illusion and physical things only existed in the mind, suffice it to say even an illusion is something, therefore something exists. The presence of the cosmos is at the heart of the cosmological argument. That it exists is self-evident, even if it is only an illusion. “Kosmos” is a Greek word meaning order, ornament, universe. Webster’s dictionary defines “cosmos” as “the universe conceived as an orderly and harmonious system - contrasted with chaos”. Let us grant, at this point, that the premise “something exists” is true. It is now necessary to give an account for the premise based upon the law of cause and effect, if indeed the cosmos is an effect.
Augustine, a philosopher and early proponent of theism, attempted to account for the cosmos and reduced the explanation for the cosmos to four possibilities. The four possibilities are as follows:
1. The universe is an illusion
2. The universe is self-created.
3. The universe, itself, is self-existent.
4. The cosmos is a creation of a self-existent being.
Looking at the first possibility the idea that the universe is an illusion. If the universe is an illusion, the illusion itself, must be accounted for, as well as the perceiver or the one having the illusion. The illusion therefore, must have a sufficient cause outside of the perceiver and therefore will be accounted for or explained under the three remaining possibilities. The second explanation presented as a rational reason as to why there is a cosmos is that it is self-created. The idea of self-creation is irrational. The popular scientific term for self-creation is spontaneous generation. In a nutshell, the idea of spontaneous generation claims that it is possible that things can just pop into existence having no point of origin, from nothing. In order for something to create itself, it would have to be and not be at the same time and in the same relationship. In order for something to create itself, it would by necessity need to precede itself in order to create itself but if it precedes itself how could we say it has no being or that it doesn’t already exist, or that it creates itself? If it has no being, how can it produce and effect? Logic and rationality tells you it can’t because things that don’t exist produce no effects. Therefore, the idea of self-creation should be abandoned. The cosmos is full of effects and causes. For example, someone’s nose bleeds because it is punched, frost forms on the window of a car because of the presence of water and temperatures cool enough for frost to form, a page in a book turns because a hand turns it. The bleeding nose is the effect, the flying fist its cause, freezing temperatures and the presence of water are the cause for the effect of frost forming on a window. Such things are simple examples of cause and effect. Are such examples analogous to the effect which we call the cosmos? Noses, fists, water, cool temperatures, car windows, hands and pages in a book are all made up of atoms and molecules. The cosmos is made up of atoms and molecules gathered together in different forms and structures. It is easy to account for bleeding noses and pages turning in a book but is it easy to account for matter itself? Is the Big Bang Theory a rational explanation for matter? Does the Big Bang Theory explain how matter came into being or does it begin with the premise as stated earlier “something exists”. Textbooks and science books, in their attempts to explain the origin of the cosmos by the Big Bang Theory, begin the explanation with something already existing, namely the matter. They must begin with something because they cannot explain how out of nothing something can come. So the crux of the matter is matter. The cosmological argument is an attempt not to explain how existing matter came to exist in its present form and structure, namely mountains, trees, birds etc. Rather, it tries to explain the origin of matter itself if indeed matter is an effect. Suppose the cosmos were a big beautiful chocolate cake with extra icing. The Big Bang Theory explains the big beautiful chocolate cake starting off with the ingredients. The Big Bang Theory does not explain how the ingredients begin to have their being. Therefore, the Big Bang Theory is not in itself an explanation for the cosmos. It is still necessary to find a cause for the ingredients. Self-creation or spontaneous generation, a popular theory for some of the greatest champions of atheism, is an explanation for matter but only if such an idea is possible. As stated earlier, things which have no being, produce no effects. A non-theisitc evolution or Big Bang is equivalent to the concept of self-creation. In other words, going back to the chocolate cake analogy, the ingredients necessary for a big bang pops into existence or spontaneously generates itself in order to produce the cake and the cosmos in its present form. Non-theistic evolution can therefore be subsumed under Augustines’s second possible explanation for the cosmos, namely the cosmos is self-created. If at this point one accepts the argument given to negate the theory of self-creation and if one accepts Augustine’s four possible explanations for the cosmos as being the only possible explanations then we already have rational ground for religious belief. In other words, belief in either a personal God or an Eastern religious concept of an ultimate being. If one and two of Augustine’s four possible explanations are rejected, then three or four is true. Number three states the cosmos is self-existence. To say that something is self-existent, is to say that something is infinite or eternal. To say that something is eternal is to say it is not an effect. To say that something is an effect is to say something is finite or a dependent being. Therefore, to say the cosmos is self-existent, is to say that some part of it is eternal. In other words, there was a cosmos which was always there. Hence, we get the popular idea of “Mother Nature” or the pantheistic paradigm. Augustine’s number four states that the universe is an effect or as defined earlier, it is finite, it came into being at a point in time and has its being from an eternal being. In other words, the cosmos is a creation of an eternal transcendent being. The law of cause and effect applies to a God concept in that God is a cause, but not an effect. The law of cause and effect applies only to finite things. If the cosmos is an effect then it has a beginning and since things cannot create themselves as argued earlier, by elimination the universe was caused by an eternal being. Does the idea of an eternal being violate any law of logic? To say that A = not A is a contradiction. To say that God is an effect and not an effect is a contradiction as well. Is it necessary that the law of cause and effect apply to an eternal being? Yes, but only if God is an effect. The law of cause and effect applies to the finite, to dependent beings not to the infinite or the eternal. Although the concept is difficult to comprehend, it is not a contradiction. An eternal being by definition cannot be an effect. In William Rowes’ critique of the cosmological argument he argues that an infinite regression of dependent beings is possible and is reasonable if is explained by nothing. This is irrational. This is the idea that one billiard ball strikes another, causing the billiard ball struck by the other, to strike another billiard ball and this process carries on to infinity. If the regression is infinite then it cannot be finite and if something isn’t finite then it must be eternal. The billiard balls can logically be dependent but even so, something in his model is infinite and therefore, eternal which again affirms something is eternal and forces us to accept Augustine’s number three explanation for the cosmos. In conclusion, grounds for belief in either a personal God or and Eastern religious concept is warranted by rational investigation and inquiry. If there was ever a time when there was truly nothing, then nothing could ever exist because it logically follows that out of nothing, nothing can come and since something exists, something must be eternal or infinite, giving the finite its being.