Christian historian Dr. Wallace Marshall and I are debating whether or not enough evidence points to the existence of a god. For background and format, and Dr. Wallace’s opening statement, see entry one. For subsequent entries, see index.

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That the Evidence Points to God (III)

by Wallace Marshall, Ph.D.

I thank Dr. Carrier for his thoughtful engagement with the Kalam Cosmological Argument (including in his latest response). I’ll start by responding to his five points at the beginning (also outlined his opening summary). 

Regarding assertions (1) and (2), that a cause is “by definition located in time” and “cannot exist nowhere,” this is to beg, rather than argue for, the question under debate.[1] Since time and space are constituent elements of the universe, if there are good reasons to believe the universe began to exist and has a cause, then that cause, whether it is God or something else, will obviously not be located in time and space. So the question is whether the universe beginning to exist and having a cause is more plausible than not.

Regarding assertion (3), “Evidence that our universe began is not evidence that time began”—it most certainly is given the standard and widely accepted model of how the universe began, which includes space, time, matter and energy. As Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose have written about that model, “Almost everyone now believes that the universe and time itself had a beginning at the Big Bang.”[2]

This applies to multiverse models as well. Vilenkin was well aware of such models (indeed, he himself espouses one) when he recently wrote, “We have no viable models of an eternal universe. The BGV [Borde-Guth-Vilenkin] theorem gives reason to believe that such models cannot be constructed.”[3]

The Hartle-Hawking (HH) no-boundary model does not avoid the absolute origin of the universe. Vilenkin made his emphatic comment that I quoted long after Hartle and Hawking developed that model.[4] The reason Vilenkin can say what he does is that on Hawking’s model, the universe still begins to exist. Hawking himself, in his 2010 book The Grand Design, describes the model as the universe originating at a “south pole” rather than in a singularity as he and Penrose originally proposed (visualize the difference between the bottom of a sphere and the point of a “cone” one often sees in Big-Bang-model illustrations).[5] Whether there is a singularity or simply a “rounded edge” (as in the HH model), the universe still comes into existence and (as Sean Carroll says about HH) “there was a time such that there was no earlier time.”[6]  

The fact that cosmologists are “exploring” past-eternal models (Guth’s word concerning the “bi-eternal” model he and Carroll are thinking about) does nothing to overturn the standard consensus.[7] Only when such theories are amply demonstrated and gain broader acceptance can they be considered legitimate rivals to the consensus. This applies to Ahmed Farag Ali’s model, as well as to Christoph Wetterich’s radical proposal that the universe is 5,000-billion years old, is not expanding, and originated from an “eternal light vacuum” that he himself says is inherently unstable.[8]

As Carroll, himself an atheist, has written: “Unsuccessful theories are never disproven, as we can always concoct elaborate schemes to save the phenomena. They just fade away as better theories gain acceptance.”[9] One searches in vain for emphatic statements by physicists affirming past-eternal cosmologies that would parallel statements to the counter I have provided;[10] and note that these statements come from scientists who are atheists or agnostics.

Regarding Carrier’s objection (4), “Causal laws cannot exist in the absence of a structural cause of such laws,” I will ask him to define what he means by “structural.” If he means “physical,” this is again to beg, rather than argue for, the question under debate.

Regarding Carrier’s objection (5), that there is no evidence for disembodied minds, the Kalam provides specific evidence and argument for precisely such an entity. 

As an explanation of the origin of the universe, the God hypothesis is a remarkably simple explanation, and far more plausible than the universe popping into existence from nothing with no cause whatsoever.

I will ask Dr. Carrier to provide a brief articulation of his “Nothing as Cause,” argument, as I would exhaust my 1,100-word limit replying in detail to his linked article. It is not even clear to me, from reading that article, that he and I have a disagreement on that point. Nor do I find any description in that article of what he means by a “lawless minimum state,” which he believes to be the most plausible cause of the origin of the universe. I will evaluate that hypothesis after receiving some clarification. That clarification is also necessary before I respond to Dr. Carrier’s objection that my four reasons given in defense of the causal principle reduce to one, and that that one reason is irrelevant on his hypothesis of the origin of the universe.  

I would also ask Dr. Carrier to clarify what he means by “virtually infinite universe.” If “virtually” simply means a gigantic but finite number, then this would be irrelevant to the absurdities resulting from the instantiation of an actual infinite. 

I am well aware that quantum vacuum models are past-finite. That is precisely why, being merely an early state of the universe, the quantum vacuum cannot be the cause of the universe. On a related matter, I listened again to the 55:50 timestamp Dr. Carrier referenced in the Krauss-Craig debate and do not see where Krauss “explains why Vilenkin is wrong.” As already pointed out in my previous entry, Krauss affirmed at that debate that he agreed with Vilenkin’s strong statement, “All the evidence we have says the universe had a beginning.”[11]

Regarding my philosophical arguments against an actual infinite, Dr. Carrier has yet to respond to the second philosophical argument I offered for the finitude of the past. 

Regarding my first philosophical argument for that point:

  • Dr. Carrier seems to confuse infinite-set theory in mathematics with the question of whether infinite quantities can actually be instantiated. 
  • I quoted Herb Silverman verbatim;[12] Dr. Carrier references a different source where Silverman says something similar. 

In addition to Hilbert’s Hotel (see here for a 6-minute video presentation), there are numerous illustrations of the absurdities resulting from the actual existence of an infinite number of things. Many of these revolve around the problem of subtracting identical quantities from identical quantities and coming up with non-identical results. Imagine the Federal Reserve having an infinite number of sequentially numbered bills and giving away either (1) all the odd numbered bills (infinite quantity), or (2) all the bills from #500 upward (also infinite). Case 1 leaves the Fed with an infinite number of bills [∞ – ∞ = ∞]; case 2 leaves the Fed with 499 [∞ – ∞ = 499]. Yet in each case it gave away an identical number.

-:-

Such is Dr. Marshall’s second response. 

Continue on to Dr. Carrier’s reply here.

-:-

Endnotes

[1] For the benefit of our readers, it’s worth clarifying that in popular culture and the media, the phrase “begging the question” is frequently misused as if it meant raising or implying an additional question (for example, “What you’re saying about the futility of the war in Iraq begs the question of whether we should be in the Middle East at all”). The proper meaning of “begging the question,” however, has to do with a question that is being debated, and it means to assume—usually implicitly—the answer you are trying to argue for as a premise in your argument. The idea is that one is thereby “begging” to be judged correct rather than “working” (arguing) to show that he is in fact correct.

[2] Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose, The Nature of Space and Time, The Isaac Newton Institute Series of Lectures (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996), 20 (emphasis mine).

[3] Alexander Vilenkin, “The Beginning of the Universe,” Inference: International Review of Science, Vol. 1, Issue 4 (23 October 2015). Accessed 4/16/2017. Vilenkin obviously means past-eternal, not future-eternal. “Everlasting” (having no end) is a clearer designation than “future-eternal,” and we should simply use “eternal” for models that have neither beginning nor end.

[4] “All the evidence we have says the universe had a beginning.” From a talk Vilenkin delivered on January 8th at Cambridge University to a group of scientists gathered to honor Stephen Hawking’s 70th birthday, as quoted in Lisa Grossman, “Why Physicists Can’t Avoid a Creation Event,” New Scientist (Issue 2846) 11 January 2012. You can view a scanned PDF of the story here.

[5] Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, The Grand Design (New York: Bantam Books, 2010), 135.

[6] Sean Carroll, “Does the Universe Need God?” in The Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity, eds. J.B. Stump and Alan G. Padgett (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell), 190.

[7] Interview with Alan Guth in “Before the Big Bang 4: Eternal Inflation & The Multiverse.” Carrier linked this interview in his previous reply. I do not even view the “bi-eternal” Carroll-Guth hypothesis as truly eternal in the past. It rather seems to consist of two different arrows of time moving forward in different universes, not a single arrow stretching into both the infinite future and the infinite past. As Vilenkin pointed out to the late Vic Stenger, their model still has a “t=0 moment.”

[8] Ali’s paper, incidentally, does not even mention, much less address, the problems the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem poses to such models. For a detailed presentation of Wetterich’s model, see his “Expanding Universe or Shrinking Atoms?” (March 2019); see slide 49 on the instability of his “Eternal Light Vacuum.”

[9] Sean Carroll, “Does the Universe Need God?” in The Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity, eds. J. B. Stump and Alan G. Padgett (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 196.

[10] “All the evidence says the universe had a beginning” (Vilenkin and Krauss) is a remarkable statement. Vilenkin expresses it still more emphatically when he writes, “It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning.” Alexander Vilenkin, Many Worlds in One (New York: Hill and Wang, 2006), 176.

[11] It’s worth mentioning that in the Craig-Krauss Debate, Krauss seriously misrepresented Vilenkin’s views by quoting to the packed audience from a personal email he received from Vilenkin and carefully omitting Vilenkin’s specific remarks in that very email about the difficulties faced by past-eternal models. This was revealed when Craig corresponded with Vilenkin after the debate and asked him about this email. Vilenkin responded and gave Craig permission to publish both his email to Craig and his email to Krauss. Readers can access that material in Reasonable Faith Question of the Week # 336, “’Honesty, Transparency, Full Disclosure’ and the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin Theorem” (Sept. 23, 2013). Note also Vilenkin’s comment to Craig about the accuracy of his (Craig’s) presentation of Vilenkin’s theory, as well as his humble recognition that his scientific expertise does not extend to the question of what theological implications might be drawn from the theory: “I think you represented what I wrote about the BGV theorem in my papers and to you personally very accurately. This is not to say that you represented my views as to what this implies regarding the existence of God. Which is OK, since I have no special expertise to issue such judgements.”

[12] “The most important lesson I learned was that … the number ‘infinity’ does not exist in reality.” The source again (same as I referenced in my first entry): Laura Paull, “South Carolina’s Secular Crusader,” Tablet Magazine, 21 June 2012. Accessed 9/18/2012.

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