What about God? part 2...

In previous posts we have seen that certain things are rationally undeniable. From this we have seen that the universe must have begun, and therefore, had a cause of its beginning. This much is often OK for many people, up to a point. That point being when it dawns on them that God is coming in the conclusion. Richard Dawkins, for example, in his latest book, The God Delusion, illustrates this nicely. On the one hand he recognizes, I think, the need for the regress of causes to terminate. On the other hand, he is definitely not ready for that conclusion to be God.


What I've decided to do is present Richard's argument first. Then I will present mine and you can decide which one makes more sense.


From The God Delusion. On page 77 he is arguing against the "proofs" of Thomas Aquinas. He correctly recognizes that three of them (the unmoved mover, the uncaused cause, and the cosmological argument) are similar in form (they all rely on the impossibility of an infinite regress) and so he takes these three on in the following paragraph.


"All three of these arguments rely upon the idea of a regress and invoke God to terminate it. They make the entirely unwarranted assumption that God himself is immune to the regress. Even if we allow the dubious luxury of arbitrarily conjuring up a terminator to an infinite regress and giving it a name, simply because we need one, there is absolutely no reason to endow that terminator with any of the properties normally ascribed to God: omnipotence, omniscience, goodness, creativity of design, to say nothing of such human attributes as listening to prayers, forgiving sins and reading innermost thoughts. Incidentally, it has not escaped the notice of logicians that omniscience and omnipotence are mutually incompatible. If God is omniscient, he must already know how he is going to intervene to change the course of history using his omnipotence. But that means he can't change his mind about his intervention, which means he is not omnipotent. Karen Owens has captured this witty little paradox in equally engaging verse:
Can omniscient God, who

Knows the future, find

The omnipotence to

Change His future mind?

To return to the infinite regress and the futility of invoking God to terminate it, it is more parsimonious to conjure up, say, a 'big bang singularity', or some other physical concept as yet unknown. Calling it God is at best unhelpful and at worst perniciously misleading."


There you have it. This is pretty much (of course there's more - he wrote a whole book about a being that he really doesn't believe exists...) the guts of his argument. "Well who made God?" That is the point he is making when he says that it is "an unwarranted assumption that God himself is immune to the regress." Now, to be fair, I can't tell for sure if he denies that the idea of an infinite regress is problematic or if he is just opposed to the idea of God terminating it. I think the latter because he says that we could "conjure up a 'big bang singularity' or some other physical concept yet unknown." So it's not the termination of the infinite regress that he finds objectionable, it's God. That leads me to believe that he recognizes the logical implications of an infinite regress. That it's impossible and irrational. That said, he also seems willing to toss logic under the bus at the first opportunity. "Conjure up" indeed.


He also says that we arbitrarily end the regress with God because we "need one." As if "we" are desperate to prove God and so stoop to arbitrariness in a futile attempt to do so. For reasons (not conjuring) that I will now discuss, I think his arguments are atrociously bad. I'm not even a competent philosopher or scientist but I can see the massive holes in this line of "reasoning."


Let's talk about the idea of the infinite regress one more time. Claiming that an antecedent sequence of causes is truly infinite is to say that it never began. What could be more irrational? OF COURSE it began else it would have never terminated in an effect. So how do we terminate an infinite regress? We do it by stopping at First Principles. Being, Identity, Non-contradiction, Excluded Middle, and sufficient cause. As we recall, First Principles are called "First" because they are, well, FIRST. There is nothing that can be said prior to them. They do not need to be explained. Indeed, they cannot be explained. No prior reasoning need be done, or can be done, to recognize existence and identity. We exist and that's it. We are who we are and that's it. So how does this help us solve the infinite regress problem?


I think it goes like this. Let's say that we have an effect, the universe, that we want to explain. Let's say that we start with today and travel back along the antecedent chain of causes looking for the first one. (Keep in mind there MUST BE a first one.) So let's now cut to the chase and skip over the 13.7 billion years or so and think about the First Cause. Is it possible that the First Cause is just like every other cause in the chain of causes? No. It is not. Why? Because if it was like every other cause in the chain, it would itself need a cause. And if it needed a cause, it could not be First. This seems fairly obvious to me but then I've thought about it for a minute or two. The First Cause, it seems, MUST BE of a different kind than the subsequent causes. Are we tracking? Good.


Therefore, if each of the causes in the chain of causes had an antecedent cause, we could say that each one of those causes was finite. In fact, we would have to say that they are finite. They had a prior cause or, in effect, a beginning. Therefore, they are finite. The First Cause, on the other hand, CANNOT be finite. Why? If it were finite, it would itself need a cause, and thus it could not be FIRST. The First Cause, since it CANNOT be finite, MUST THEREFORE BE INFINITE. There are only two metaphysical categories and they are: infinite and finite. (If you can think of anything, anything at all that is neither finite nor infinite then don't tell me, publish a paper on it in a philosophy journal and you will be famous from now until the end of time.) I call this "doing the math." If 1 + x = 2, then x = 1. If something is either finite or infinite, and it's not finite, then it's ... INFINITE. (This is called a disjunctive syllogism and every logician that Richard knows understands that it is a valid form of argument. Either P or Q. Not P. Therefore, Q. Either finite or infinite. Not finite. Therefore, infinite.


I would be happy to toss this argument over the edge but no one has ever, EVER, been able to explain how a first cause could be like all the other causes in the chain of causes.


Now we get to the good part. If the First Cause is infinite, we also know something else about it. What is that, you ask? Well, we already KNOW that the First Cause is infinite (it has no beginning). But we also know that the First Cause is UNCAUSED. We know this because something either 1. has a cause, or 2. it's uncaused, or 3. it causes itself. Number 1 doesn't work because we know that the First Cause can't have a cause (else it would be just like all the other causes) and number 3 doesn't work because something can't be the cause of itself (if you don't buy that, think about it for a second or two and you'll get it). "Doing the math" leaves us with number 2. The First Cause is uncaused. It HAS TO BE. It's not a "dubious luxury" it is the conclusion that we find ourselves forced to accept from the exercise of REASON. I'm not finished. Since we know the First Cause is infinite, we also know that it is immaterial. Why do we know that? We know that because if the First Cause was material we could count it. But anything we can count is finite. Therefore, once again, we are FORCED to this conclusion. The First Cause is now infinite, uncaused, and immaterial. What else may we infer about this First Cause? It seems that the First Cause is a PERSON. Why do I say that? Because the First Cause ACTED. There wasn't a universe and then there was a universe. An amazingly finely tuned universe, as it turns out. (See any book on the Anthropic Principle for the details. They virtually all (Hugh Ross is a notable exception) come to the wrong conclusion - "it's a really, really lucky thing for us" but the descriptions of the fine tuning are impressive.) So the First Cause is now a PERSON. Don't we know that as sure as we are reading this? Try to imagine a rock, or any non-living thing acting or having a thought or a purpose. Exactly my point. So PERSON also implies living and purposeful. I don't want to push my luck here but a theologian might use different words to describe the First Cause. A theologian would use words like Eternal, Spirit, Transcendent, Sovereign, and so on. I don't know about you but those words sort of sound suspiciously like Biblically God words. My apologies to Richard, but I think my argument is much better. In order to defeat it Richard must show how an infinite regress is possible. Or he must "conjure" some 'big bang singularity' (how to explain that?) or he must show how something that is finite can be infinite. Oh, he has a way to go, I think. An infinitely long way...


Here comes the best part. It's perhaps, possibly, maybe, an original thought. I can't imagine that no one has never thought of this before but I've read a little bit and I've never seen it put like this. So here goes.


It occurred to me as I was thinking about the First Principles of reason that "Being is" is the most concise way to state them. Being means existence, the most fundamental thing we can say about anything. "Is" implies a predicate (Being is Being) but since we know the Law of Identity we don't need to repeat ourselves. We also know by immediate inference that if Being is Being then Being is NOT non-Being. This is the law of non-contradiction. Also we know by immediate inference that Being and non-Being exhaust the ontological possibilities. Something either is or it isn't. All that is summed up in the phrase "Being is."


Then one day I was reading something this ancient Hebrew leader wrote, the one who got the cosmology right thousands of years before the scientists did. It was in the book of Exodus and I was STRUCK, it was almost like a slap in the face, with the phrase that I ran across in chapter 3, verse 14. First, let me set the stage. Moses had been told by God (if you believe in things like that) that he is to go to the nation of Israel and lead them out of (the Exodus) Egypt. Here's how it sounds. Verse 13, "Then Moses said to God, "Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I shall say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you.' Now they may say to me, 'What is His name?' What shall I say to them?" (emphasis mine)


Here it comes. Verse 14. And God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM"; and He said, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you." (emphasis mine)


Wow. God said, I AM. I've been saying "Being is." It's the same thing. I AM WHO I AM. Being is Being. When God was asked His name, He named Himself REASON. Isn't that interesting? But the more you think about it, the more sense it makes. One of the characteristics of God is REASON. It's part of His essence just like righteousness. So it would make sense that REASON (GOD) is the ultimate authority of what is true about the universe. Even God can't violate reason just like He can't sin. He cannot violate His essence. Well, food for thought, anyway. But it seems to me to be correct to say.


There is one last piece of business tonight and I hate to end on a negative note but I must point out one more bit of irrationality in the passage from Richard. Remember that "engaging" little poem? The one that illustrates that omniscience and omnipotence are logically incompatible? Here's the fallacy. If God is omniscient then He would know everything all at once. We can't begin to get our finite intellects around that but if He knows everything all at once then He's not "changing His mind" as the situation unfolds. If Richard wanted to attack the essence of God he'd be better off trying something like: if God is omnipotent then can He make a rock so big He can't lift it? The idea being that we have some sort of fatal dilemma here. Because either way God is not omnipotent. Here's the fallacy. You've seen it already, I'm sure. It's called a category mistake. A rock is finite and God's omnipotence is infinite. It's like asking, "What does blue smell like?" The question is nonsensical because blue is a color and related to the sense of sight and smell is a different sense that is concerned with odors, not colors. We would ask what some things would smell like, but a color would not be one of those things. So the question makes no sense. I'll have more to say on that subject (apparent contradictions) later. In the meantime, please feel free to let me know where I'm wrong.

So what about God?

Isn't this the real question? IF God does not exist, THEN there can be no Son of God or Word of God or acts of God (miracles). This much seems clear. On the other hand, IF God DOES exist, THEN there can be a Son of God. There can be a Word of God. And there can be acts of God (miracles). Pretty hard to argue with that, I think.

So how do we answer such a question? Philosophers and theologians throughout history have wrestled with this and what you are about to read is not original with me. But I think I can explain it better (we'll see) so here goes.

In order to answer this question we need to do a couple of things. We need to start at the beginning and we need to follow the evidence, interpreted by reason, wherever it goes. It is apparent to me, and surely to you too, that believing in a God that doesn't actually exist is about the most brainless thing a person could do. But it should also be clear that not believing in a God that does exist doesn't seem to be a very shrewd move either. We live in a binary world of true or false. Things are a certain way (God exists) or they are not (God does not exist). There is no hedging this bet. If you have ever seen Texas Hold 'Em on TV you understand that when players go "all in" they are risking every chip, every dollar, that they have. So it is with us. Perhaps this is Pascal's wager updated to the 21st century. Regardless, we, all of us, are going "all in" with the biggest cosmic bet one could ever possibly make. If we have eternal souls, then we do, and we will spend eternity in one of two places (if it turns out that the Bible actually is the Word of God). If we don't, well then, we don't and as soon as we die that's it and who cares. But whether we believe in the "God universe" or the "not God" universe, one of them surely exists. I'm not trying to put a lot of pressure on this choice but it does seem to be significant. That's why I will be very careful with the arguments. Please note that one of my arguments for the "God universe" will not be "to hedge your bets." It's either true or it's not. I think we should figure that out and act like it. Whatever that way is.

The cosmological argument has a long and illustrious history and if you want to read more about it may I suggest you get William Lane Craig's book The Cosmological Argument From Plato to Leibniz. Meanwhile, I will walk through the background to it in my own way.

The key insights are two in number and both of them involve the concept of infinity. If you get this then the rest will make perfect sense. Infinity is the idea that something has no beginning and no ending. For example, the set of all integers has no beginning (what is the smallest negative integer?) and no ending (what is the largest positive integer?) On the other hand, if something is finite (that is, not infinite) then, it has a beginning and is countable. Note that a finite series may not have an ending but it will never be infinite because you can't make something finite into something infinite by adding one more. Why? Because you can always add one more. This may seem trivial or pedantic but bear with me. This is an exercise in pure reason and it will pay off because it will make your brain bigger. Or something like that.

The first thing we notice is that it is impossible to traverse an infinite amount of time or an infinite distance. Let's pretend for a moment (philosophers call this a "thought experiment") that we have a combination space ship and time machine. It is a most powerful vessel. It can leap through time at the rate of a trillion years per second and it can travel through space at a trillion times the speed of light.

Now, here's the question. Can we, in this space ship, cross from point A to point Z if there is an infinite distance between A and Z? (Assume for a moment that an actual infinite is possible in the physical universe, which it isn't, but we'll get to that in a moment. For now, pretend.) Obviously not. For even if we traveled for trillions and trillions of miles, we wouldn't even be started on getting across an infinite distance. Why? Well because for every trillion miles we covered there remains an infinite number of miles to cross. In the same way, if point A is sometime in the past and point Z is some time in the future and an infinite number of seconds lie between A and Z, we can never get from A in the past to Z in the future.

So we know that we cannot traverse an infinite time or distance, because, by definition, an infinite number of seconds or miles is without beginning or end.

The second insight about infinity is that nothing that is material, that is, is part of the physical structure of the universe, can actually be infinite. This includes space/time. We've already seen that an infinite series of miles or seconds cannot be traversed but the fact of the matter is that it is impossible for an actual infinite to exist. Here's why. Just imagine, if you can, an infinite number of seconds (or miles or rocks or atoms or whatever). Now it's not infinite because we can always add one more second or mile rock or atom or whatever. In fact, we can add a trillion more. A trillion plus a trillion more. A trillion times a trillion more. A trillion raised to the trillionth power more. You get the point. It is impossible to have an actual physical infinite. (Space and time, or space/time, is part of the structure of the physical universe - Einstein proved that with General and Special Relativity.) Here is an easier way to understand that nothing "material," including space/time, can be infinite. It's because if something is physical, or measurable, then it can be counted. It might take a long time, but it can be counted. And if it can be counted, it isn't infinite.

This allows us to understand that the universe had a beginning. It HAD TO HAVE A BEGINNING. Why? Because if it did not, if time were infinite in the past, we could never have arrived at today. But we are here, today. Therefore, time had a beginning. Another way to think of this is to imagine that the series of seconds that terminates at this instant had to START sometime. If it never started then how could we arrive at today? If we say that it didn't have to start, then we say that the beginning of our series of seconds had no beginning (is infinite). Which, of course, is nonsense - to say that the beginning had no beginning. As we remember the law of Identity and the law of non-contradiction.

This is pretty "out there" if you've never thought about it before so I'll try to explain it in a slightly different way and perhaps that will help. This time we'll think of it in terms of causes.

Let's conduct another thought experiment. Let's assume that we have a pot of water sitting on a stove and it is boiling. Let's also assume that we want to investigate this scientifically. That is, we are engaged in the investigation of the causal chain that is producing the effect of the boiling water. So we see the water in the pan. We see the bubbles. We see the steam rising. We see the flame from the burner. We see the stove. We see the gas line. We wonder about these things. They must also have explanations. If we keep tracing things back in time we will eventually trace our chain of causes back to the beginning of the universe. But wait, you say, what if the universe, and thus our antecedent chain of causes never began? Then you are saying that the antecedent chain of causes is infinite, which is to say that it never started. But it did start because we are looking at the boiling water. To claim that an infinite regress of causes could actually terminate in an effect is to say that the antecedent chain of causes that resulted in the effect, in this case, the boiling water, never began. But it obviously did begin. Witness the boiling water.

From this, we KNOW beyond all doubt, because it is an exercise in pure reason, that the universe had a beginning. Not surprisingly, science has confirmed this and not so long ago. It started around the time of World War I with Einstein and his theory of General Relativity and continued on to include Hubble's observations in the late 20's about the red shift of star light and the background radiation found by Wilson and Penzias in the mid-60's. (For which they eventually were awarded a Nobel prize. It's a funny story in a way. They were looking for something else, quasars or something, who knows, and they kept getting this interference that they couldn't explain. They even cleaned the pigeon stuff off of the satellite dish but the "noise" wouldn't go away. The "noise" turned out to be the left over radiation (heat) signature of the "Big Bang" creation event.) See? We KNEW that the universe had a beginning from our reasoning exercise and that's exactly what science found. It's what we would expect since nothing can contravene reason. Interestingly enough, science had pretty much settled on an infinite universe for a couple thousand years. It was called the "steady state" theory by Sir Fred Hoyle (Who also "named" the Big Bang. It was a term of derision at first.) It's biggest plus was that it avoided the implication of God. For after all, if the universe was eternal, if the universe "always was," then its existence didn't have to be explained. But since the realization has slowly dawned that it did begin, cosmologists have been desperately, and to no avail, trying to explain the beginning of the universe without recourse to God. (That would be "unscientific" I guess.) Would it be uncharitable of me to mention at this point that an obscure Hebrew leader got it right thousands of years ago when he wrote: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." It took modern science a while but they finally caught up to Moses.

Now here's where things get interesting. If something begins, then something caused it to begin. This is the essential insight of the cosmological argument, which we'll explore in more detail in the next post. But for now, it goes like this. (I believe this is William Lane Craig's formulation of it.)

Major Premise: Every thing that begins has a beginner. (True by definition.)

Minor Premise: The universe began. (True by reason and confirmed empirically.)

Conclusion: The universe has a beginner. (Necessarily true. It can't possibly be false.)

Details next time. Plus a bonus. Deriving God as an exercise in pure reason.