Q&A: Refutations of the Cosmological Argument
Refutations of the Cosmological Argument
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I saw a professor of philosophy trying to refute the cosmological argument. Here are his words:
"The premises are not immune to criticism. Why, for example, should we think that the universe began to exist? Why not believe that the universe always existed? Even the 'Big Bang' hypothesis, which as is well known claims that the universe has a finite past, maintains that time itself began with the Big Bang. According to this cosmology, the universe did not begin to exist, because there was no time at which it did not exist. To ask for an event that preceded the Big Bang is like asking for something north of the North Pole. Moreover, the causal principle applied in this argument is suspect. The only causal relations we observe occur between physical events. But if God is conceived as non-material in essence, it is very hard to see the justification for applying the causal principle beyond the limits of space and time to the domain of God."
End quote.
But you too agree that an eternal universe does not require a cause, and seemingly if there was no time before the universe, then it is eternal. Note that this is different from the claim that one cannot look for a cause before time began.
Thank you.
Answer
I answered all of this in the booklet. The last claim does not seem correct to me. There is something here, and I do not see it as plausible that it is here without a cause. And even if you define it as eternal (I am not sure that is correct), it still requires an explanation even if not a cause (the principle of sufficient reason, even if not the principle of causality). It is possible that such a universe would have a cause (and not only an explanation) that did not precede it in time.
By the way, physicists today do in fact speak about what was before the Big Bang.
Discussion on Answer
1) When you explain to me what it means for the time axis suddenly to begin, I will explain to you what it means for a cause not to precede its effect in time. The cause existed at a stage when there was no time, and caused something that happened on the time axis. Don't call it "before," and still such a cause may exist.
2) That is the very argument throughout the booklet: that there must be a primary non-material cause that brought about all this. So the opposite is true: there must be a non-material cause; it is not merely possible.
1) You wrote: "It is possible that such a universe would have a cause (and not only an explanation) that did not precede it in time"—what do you mean? Until now the Rabbi has spoken only about either (1) a cause that chronologically precedes its effect, or (2) an explanation that does not necessarily chronologically precede its effect.
So now there is a third mechanism? Could you expand?
2) Where in the booklet did the Rabbi address the argument that something non-material cannot affect matter?