Theists often use the basic metaphysical principle that something only comes from something as evidence for God’s existence. We reason that if the universe (something) came into being, then it must have been caused to come into being by something else – it could not have simply materialized out of nothing without a cause because out of nothing, nothing comes. The something that brought the universe into being must itself be immaterial, spaceless, and eternal, which are some of the basic properties of a theistic being.
I have heard a few atheists object to this argument by questioning the veracity of the basic metaphysical principle that something can only come from something on the grounds that we have never experienced nothing to know whether or not it is possible for something to come from nothing, and thus we cannot know that it’s impossible for something to come from nothing. While we may not have any direct experience of something that comes into being from nothing, it does not mean it’s not possible. Indeed, in the case of the universe it was not only possible, but it actually happened.
There are multiple problems with this line of reasoning. For starters, the objection assumes that the principle in question is an empirical principle formulated by inductive observations of a large collection of somethings (a posteriori). Since every something we encounter was caused to exist by a prior something, we conclude that something only comes from something. It is possible, however, that our experience is limited, and if we encountered a larger collection of somethings we would find at least one example of a something that came into being from nothing. This characterization of the metaphysical principle misses the boat by a long shot. It is an a priori metaphysical principle whose truth is wholly independent of our experience. A mere reflection on the notions of “nothing” and “something” makes it clear that something cannot come from nothing. Nothing is the absence of any and all things: no matter, no energy, no substance, no potential. For something to come into being, it has to at least have the potential to do so. Since nothingness lacks even potentiality, it is not possible for something to come into being from absolutely nothing.
Then there is the problem of begging the question. These atheists appear to be reasoning as follows:
(1) If the metaphysical principle is true, then the universe has a cause and its cause is God
(2) God does not exist
(3) Therefore the universe does not have a cause
(4) Therefore the metaphysical principle is false (i.e. it is not evidence for God’s existence).
The crucial premise here is premise two. It is presumed from the start that God does not exist, and this presumption is used to invalidate the metaphysical principle, which in turn invalidates the inference to theism from the origin of the universe. The atheist begs the question because the existence or non-existence of God is what we are trying to determine, and thus the proposition “God does not exist” should not serve as a premise in the argument. Would the atheist accept the following parallel argument?:
(1) If the metaphysical principle is true, then the universe has a cause and its cause is God
(2) God exists
(3) Therefore the universe has a cause
(4) Therefore the metaphysical principle is true (i.e. it is evidence for God’s existence).
No. He would charge us with begging the question, and rightly so. So why should we think premise two in his argument is true, particularly given the fact that the metaphysical principle constitutes an a priori reason to think God exists (to cause the universe to exist)? The atheist must do more than merely assert that God does not exist; he must provide evidence in support of this claim.
If the atheist cannot prove that God does not exist, then he can invalidate the theistic inference from the metaphysical principle by providing some independent reason to think the universe came into being uncaused from nothing. This is problematic as well. He can’t appeal to scientific evidence because the methods of science make it impossible to identify uncaused entities, and there are no physics of non-being. He can’t appeal to logic either because there is no logical reason to think the universe had to come into being uncaused from nothing. Reason moves us in the opposite direction. The only reason for thinking the universe came into being from nothing is if one presupposes that God does not exist, which begs the question.
Finally, what if the logic of the atheist’s objection was applied to other matters? Greg Koukl provides a great example. What if I said “I exist” and someone asked me how I know that? I would respond by pointing out that if I didn’t exist, I could not contemplate whether I exist or not. Since I am contemplating it, I must exist. What if the person responded to my reasoning by saying, “You have never known what it is like not to exist and thus cannot know whether it is possible to contemplate your existence if you do not exist. You would have to experience non-existence in order to know that it is impossible to contemplate your own existence while not existing before you can claim that your ability to contemplate your own existence proves that you exist.” We would rightly find this response to be foolish and obviously flawed. In the same way we can know that one must exist to contemplate their own existence, we can know that something can only come from something else. These are obvious rational intuitions that need not, and should not be doubted unless we have overwhelming reasons to do so.
July 17, 2012 at 1:47 pm
The problem here is that you’ve inserted God into a hypothetical atheist’s line of reasoning. A better way of thinking of an atheist way of thinking about the origins of the universe would be.
(1) If the metaphysical principle is true, then the universe has a cause.
(2) We don’t know whether the universe has a cause.
(3) Given that there may be limits to what we can know we may never know exactly how the universe came into being.
(4) The possibility that we might not be able to do something is not a reason to avoid trying, at least until we understand it well enough to know that we will not be able to do it.
(5) Let’s try to find out!
There are very few people who are qualified to speculate on the origins of the universe and expect any sort of meaningful result. I’m not one of them and would need to study physics for many years to have even the slightest chance of becoming one of them.
I’m not saying that there aren’t some internet atheists out there who would follow that line of reasoning, and have the arrogance to suppose that they can uncover the origins of the universe without the necessary education, I’m just saying that this is not the line of reasoning followed by the people who are actually trying to find out how the universe came into being.
July 17, 2012 at 2:10 pm
Ok, let’s take your line of reasoning. Why espouse premise 2? Why doubt the causal principle that being only comes from being and all effects have causes? What is the basis for your skepticism of this principle?
Furthermore, how could you possibly disprove it? As I pointed out in the post, science cannot discover what’s not there and there are no physics of non-being, so it’s not as if some scientific advancement could show that the universe is uncaused.
What about logic? Is there any reason to think that in the absence of any potential something can just pop into being? Would you think this of any other thing other than the universe? If you come home and find a dog in your house that is not yours, are you going to entertain the possibility that it might have popped into existence uncaused from nothing? No, because you know that such things do not occur. So why hold out this possiblity in hte case of the universe?
Furthermore, given the strength of our intuition regarding the metaphysical principle and our uniform experience, why not at least admit that it’s more likely than not that the universe also has a cause, even if you admit that we may have reason to believe otherwise in the future? Shouldn’t we be basing our conclusions on the best evidence we have in the present, and the best reasons, rather than what is possible and what may be discovered in the future?
Jason
July 17, 2012 at 2:27 pm
Well, either the universe had a cause or it didn’t. If it did then we have no idea what that might have been or how it worked. If it didn’t then we have no idea how it worked. If we don’t know something then it’s absolutely fine to admit that we don’t know it. Even if I say “the universe definitely had a cause” I have no idea what that cause may have been. This is simply a gap in my knowledge. I do know how dogs come into being and I assume that it is a different process from whatever process caused the universe to come into being so I have no reason to suppose that the dog came into being by some process that I don’t know about.
July 18, 2012 at 3:47 am
to the both of you…
There is no such ‘thing’ as a thing: Everything, nothing, something, and anything…the “thing” is (at the atomic level) full of space and the space full of a quantum ‘foam’ and the foam is metaphysical in its relationship, information, and force carrying capabilities projected into the ‘coding’ information to evolve (via gravity) to ‘construct’ matter from energy and light. All matter (even at the ‘thing’ level) is energy and light (E=MC^2).
G
July 18, 2012 at 3:19 pm
Theworldsstrongestphilosopher,
You didn’t answer my questions. Let me list them again:
1. What reason is there to doubt the causal principle that something can only come from something? That is one of the strongest and self-evident principles of rationality we have.
2. How could you disprove the causal principle? Science can’t do it. You would have to provide a logical reason to doubt/disprove it. What is it?
3. If we should base our conclusions on the best evidence available to us presently, why doubt that the universe has a cause?
As for your reply, you assert that if the universe has a cause we have no idea what it was. Not so. Given the kind of effect it produced, we can know quite a bit about the nature of the cause. Given that it brought time, space, and matter into existence, it cannot be temporal, spatial, or material itself. Stated positively, it must be atemporal, non-spaital, and immaterial. The cause must be immensely powerful and intelligent as well in order to create all the energy contained in our universe, and to order it into a coherent whole. Furthermore, since the only way for an eternal cause to produce a temporal effect is by an act of will that delays the effect, the cause must be personal. That’s quite a bit we can know.
Jason
July 18, 2012 at 3:24 pm
Gordon,
Even given your reductionism, you can’t reduce the universe to nothing (besides, you even said there is no nothing either, which makes no sense since something and nothing are mutually exclusive categories and by the law of excluded middle one of them must be true). Energy and light are not nothing, so what’s your point? That if we look real closely at “stuff” it has a lot of space in it? So? It’s still a thing: a thing with lots of space in it. What does this have to do with the possibility of something coming into being from nothing?
Jason
July 18, 2012 at 4:55 pm
1. What reason is there to doubt the causal principle that something can only come from something?
If the universe was caused then something existed before it, but if there was nothing before the universe then the universe had no cause. If the universe had no cause then there is reason to doubt that something can only come from something – at least one thing came from nothing.
2. How could you disprove the causal principle? Science can’t do it. You would have to provide a logical reason to doubt/disprove it. What is it?
Well, a logical reason to doubt it would be if at least one thing was apparently uncaused.
3. If we should base our conclusions on the best evidence available to us presently, why doubt that the universe has a cause?
See my answer to 1 (and my previous answer). Either the universe had a cause or it didn’t. If it did then something existed before the universe (perhaps a previous universe if the big bounce theory is correct) so where did that come from? If it didn’t then something was uncaused. What that was we may never know. Using God to explain the origins of the universe doesn’t work either because then you have to explain God. Did God have a cause? If not then how did God come into being? Either way there is a gap in our knowledge.
I’m perfectly happy saying that I have no idea how the universe came into being and, although it would be fascinating if we could find out how this happened, we may never know. Adding God into the causal chain just moves the gap in our knowledge back a step, it doesn’t remove it.
July 19, 2012 at 4:27 pm
TWSP,
The idea that something cannot come from nothing is a principle of rational thought. If things can pop into existence, uncaused, that would erode our rational connection with the world. We could never tell if we were not committing the post-hoc-ergo-prompter-hoc fallacy.
When you say “if there was nothing before the universe…” your “nothing” is a metaphysical assertion. But then you would need a lot of philosophical argument to tell us that nothing existed prior to the universe. Science cant tell us that something can come from nothing, nor can it tell us that something beyond the realm of space-time (such as God) does or does not exist. However, since you are the world’s strongest philosopher maybe you’re up to the challenge.
You seem to fail to grasp the problem when you say “a logical reason to doubt it…” the problem is how you could know if one thing was uncaused. Science can’t tell you a thing was uncaused. So you’ll need a philosophical argument.
Concerning 3, even if we have to explain God that doesn’t entail that “using God doesn’t work.” after all, if a prior universe explains the present one then we have to explain that prior one too, so your own proffered explanation doesn’t work by your own logic.
Adding God to the casual chain provides us with an explanation for the universe coming into being. There are other things that could be said here (arg. From contingency, etc.) but ill leave it short. To say “well I’ll just reject that explanation and say I don’t know” isn’t a rational move unless you already have good reason to think the explanation given is false. but, again, as the world’s strongest philosopher I’m sure you have your reasons
July 23, 2012 at 11:11 am
This is a pristine example of begging the question. You are simply assuming that nothing existed before the universe, and then using that assumption to overturn one of the most basic, self-attesting metaphysical principles of rational thought. You would have to have a very compelling reason to think it is not possible for something to exist prior to the universe before you would be justified in giving up such a basic, and repeatedly verified metaphysical principle. And frankly, I don’t think any reasons could be given that are more compelling because it is so self-evident that something cannot come from nothing. Nothing is non-being. How can non-being produce being if non-being doesn’t even have the potential for anything?
I am always amazed when atheists raise this objection because it shows their unfamiliarity with the very thing they are criticizing. Whether God exists can be debated, but we have to understand the kind of being whose existence is being debated. The very concept of God is that of an uncaused cause. God is a metaphysically necessary being who cannot not exist. While you may not agree that such a being exists, to say that if such a being did exist we would have to ask what caused Him is a nonsensical question similar to asking whether what sound silence makes. Silence is soundless, of course, so it makes no sense to ask what kind of sound it makes. Likewise, the question, Who created God? is a meaningless question because by definition God is an eternal, uncreated being. To ask, Who caused God?, then, is to ask, Who caused the Uncreated Being to exist? which is meaningless. So your claim that God just moves the problem back a step is unfounded. God solves the problem of both identifying the cause of the universe and avoiding an infinite regress of causation.
Jason
July 28, 2012 at 12:20 pm
You are well within your rights to claim that atheists are wrong, however you are not entitled to insert God into what they think. In most cases, if not every case, where you might want to insert God an atheist will insert “I don’t know”.
The whole point is to not make any assumptions beyond what can be tested, if it can’t be tested then it leaves us with “I don’t know”. Personally I regard the question of God’s existence as irrelevant and uninteresting because it fits firmly into both “I don’t know” and “there is no way of finding out”. No serious investigation into the origins of the universe would start with any assumption of God or not God. Such an investigation may give us answers or it may not, if not then we are left with “I don’t know”. If you are going to give accounts of atheist reasoning then please take the time to find out what atheists actually think and don’t rely on the common internet atheist who is more interested in debating the existence of God than actual progress. For you, and anyone interested in debating it, the existence of God may be the important question. For the rest of us the interesting question is “where did the universe come from?”
Your claim that God is somehow exempt from causation itself violates the principle you are trying to defend unless you are going to claim that causation only occurs in the physical universe and does not apply outside it. If causation only occurs in the physical universe then you have to answer the question of how the non-physical can cause anything physical. In other words how a principle which doesn’t apply in the circumstances applies.
August 6, 2012 at 5:25 am
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August 6, 2012 at 3:02 pm
An atheist may very well insert “I don’t know,” but I don’t think that is an appropriate response since we’re not dealing with matters of ignorance here. The theist is not engaging in some kind of god-of-the-gaps reasoning and just plugging God to fill gaps in our reasoning. Rather, we are arguing abductively (inference to the best explanation). Atheists simply beg the question by saying God doesn’t exist, and thus can’t be the best explanation. But when the evidence points in that direction, we should not claim “I don’t know.”
You wrote, “Your claim that God is somehow exempt from causation itself violates the principle you are trying to defend unless you are going to claim that causation only occurs in the physical universe and does not apply outside it.” Not so. The causal principle is that anything which begins to exist needs a cause. God is exempt because He didn’t begin to exist. It has nothing to do with whether or not causation is in or outside of the universe, and everything to do with the fact that God is an eternal being.
Jason
August 15, 2012 at 12:41 pm
“You have never known what it is like not to exist and thus cannot know whether it is possible to contemplate your existence if you do not exist. You would have to experience non-existence in order to know that it is impossible to contemplate your own existence while not existing before you can claim that your ability to contemplate your own existence proves that you exist.”
My view is that the above quote is exactly the hypothesis that atheists, knowingly or unknowingly, are attempting to validate. It is clearly insanity but from my own conclusions and your above corroborating conclusion it is the only logical outcome of that viewpoint. They need to 1st prove God, or existence, doesn’t exist before they will accept God, existence, does exist. The only possible way to keep this cognitive dissonance afloat is to shield it without “it is impossible to know”, therefore, negating any chance that knowledge is possible. This is fundamentally rooted in Socrates saying: “the only thing i know is that i know nothing” wherein the latter not knowing negates the former knowing of knowing nothing leading to an absurdity which is nothing more or less than an attempt to completely negate existence itself. An existence which can be rooted in nothing else than that “we know we know.”
October 4, 2012 at 8:28 am
Getting something from nothing…hmmmmm!? So, if you had nothing what would you do with it…and/but better still, where would you put it so that you could find it when you ‘need’ it? But what is nothing good for, anyway? I guess when it comes to cleaning out all the ‘stuff’ we collect in life (i.e. time to clean out the garage) that ‘it’ would be easy to get rid of…that is, if you could find it…in all the ‘real’ stuff. Those that have bunches of money and so want to try everything and even collect all stuff would want to get it (have some nothing)…but I believe that once they got nothing they would then find that they did not want it (for nothing seems to poison all somethings). The only reason one might be able to suppose nothing is because there is something around it to define the nothing—ever seen a donut hole without the donut around it…or who has ever dug a hole in the ground without that hole having sides?
The answer is simple (it is us…who confuse and complicate ‘things’): nothing is nothing…equating to everything being something (of course). Yet these words are playing a game with your head. What words? ANS: Nothing, something, everything and anything. It is the word “thing” that is the problem. And frankly, (and seemingly contradictory), there is no such thing as a thing! Anyone who has dug into particle physics knows that at the atomic level there is more space in any atom than there is substance—to the tune of about 99.99% empty space. So if it were not for the negative properties of the valance electron in each element (basically) we could walk through walls and fall through the ground to the center of the planet (sounds sort-ta silly huh?). Really when you reach out to touch some ‘thing’ or someone you never are touching them (there is nothing there to touch) rather you just deflect the negative outer electron (the valance electron) which sends a signal to your brain which you then say (or call) being touched!! Then there are the properties of dark matter and dark energy…which purport to mean that every’thing’ we take as normal (to include us) and the entire universe (that we can use our five-senses on) equates to only 4% of what is really ‘out-there’. So if one had to sum up what existence is they would have to say (in some manner of words) that we only have a partial clue to 4% of the substance and that that substance is made up of 99.99% space. OUCH my head!
So what is going on? Whatever it is that is going on…it is not primarily about physical stuff (‘things’)…it looks to be more about electromagnetic waves and nuclear functions (strong and weak forces). OK then; what about all the abstracts that we value so much, such as: integrity, honesty, courage, love, mathematics, information, numbers, relationships, perfection, fairness, energy, forces, trust, etc etc.
It would seem (and here I go with mind-play) that information always points back to intelligence and that whatever that intelligence is it is in the science and not in the gaps (of the science…for that is where ignorance would hide). Now you can go philosophic and too religious (and I would not be so close-minded or hard-heart…if I were you) but there is no sense limiting our investigative areas by keeping our searching for ultimate meaning to an area that disregards 96% of entirety and yet focuses on just the remaining 4% and yet out of that 4% 99.99% of it is emptiness (or better) abstractness! For example, numbers are abstracts. We were never taught that 2+3=5 rather we were ‘poisoned’ into a materialist worldview (which we thought made it easier to learn) that 2 apples + 3 apples = 5 apples. Then once ya got that figured out just remove the apples (and it still ‘all’ works). But numbers count on toward infinity but not so the apples (you cannot have an infinity of apples on this planet whereas you can move toward infinity with numbers JUST in your head!).
Only stuff, the things of the materialist’ world have finite ends. All the abstracts listed above have no ability to be measured but rather are infinite (and also typically are of high value to our inner self—your spirit if you wish to call it). Maybe, it would be wise to consider the majority of what existence and life is…the 96% that we cannot sense and the 99.99% of the ‘empty’ space where all these ‘abstracts’ could ‘hide’. Perhaps energy is seeded with information and that resides within the quantum foam ‘telling’ where it is that the electrons (and various ‘particles and waves of the particle zoo) are to go and how they are to function and relate. To quote Stephen Hawking, “What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?” Maybe we need to be more open-minded, soft-hearted, and spiritually concerned especially when it comes to abstracts. Maybe life is a paradigm shift and that reality is what is abstract (even to include our conscious level). Maybe we’ve got ‘things’ backwards and see ‘things’ dimly as if through a fog. When we were younger we all asked great (pure) questions but our adults gave us little or no answers; now that we are adults we could get the answers but we no longer ask the good questions. What is it that calluses up our curiosity ‘solar cells’ covers them with the dust of a caught-in-the-rut of a materialist worldview life? We are responsible for renewing our minds…feed it garbage and garbage is where you’ll have your worldview. Frankly, I do not believe that this is our ‘home’. I think we are just travelers in a foreign land caught in the vortex of time and make-believe things when all along it is the abstract values that satisfy.
April 12, 2013 at 9:19 pm
If “nothing” exists, then potentiality does not exist, I agree. However, this does necessarily mean that something cannot come from nothing. This is because, if “nothing” exists, then:
1) There is no potentiality for a universe to exist
2) There is no potentiality for a universe not to exist
These two things are contradictory, yet they are the direct result of “nothing”. Until you give a reason why 1) trumps 2), the the principle of ex nihilo nihil fit is unjustified. Also, even if the universe could not have come from nothing, that doesn’t mean it didn’t. That may sound like a logical/ metaphysical contradiction (I mean, how can something happen, if it could not have happened?). However, the great thing about “nothing”, is that if “nothing” exists, then neither do the laws of logic or any metaphysical principles.
No human is in an epistemic positio to claim that something cannot come from nothing a priori. Even if something could not come from nothing, that doesn’t mean it didn’t. This is because, “nothing” is void of any logical or metaphysical restrictions.