Q&A: Question about the cosmological argument
Question about the cosmological argument
Question
Hello,
In the cosmological argument in the notebooks, in order to avoid a situation of infinite regress, you reformulated the argument roughly like this:
Everything that we have experience of must have a cause or ground, and what we have no knowledge of does not necessarily have to have a cause; from here, the first reality that has no cause is actually God.
My question is: why is the world itself, with its basic non-composite fundamental components, considered something that we have experience of? After all, we have never actually seen whether, for example, earth and water were created (as with other materials that were produced in a laboratory, about which one can say with certainty that we have experience of them and that they have a cause), or whether they have existed forever (as Gersonides claimed regarding primordial matter). So what exactly do you mean when you say that our experience relates to this fundamental component?
Thank you.
Answer
As I mentioned here a few days ago, for the time being I’ve taken a break from dealing with these topics. I assume that searching the site will yield a few answers to your questions.
Discussion on Answer
Hi Kobi, I didn’t really understand your answer, but thanks for the attempt anyway..
Actually, a quick search through the questions turned up a few similar questions that the Rabbi was asked in the past; see for example here:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%A4%D7%99%D7%A8%D7%9B%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%A2%D7%9C-%D7%94%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%A1%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%92%D7%99%D7%AA/
As I understand it, the straightforward reading is that primordial matter really is eternal. (A logical contradiction if not :))
But there still needs to be a mechanism that produces form from it, because there cannot be an infinite number of forms.
And if that mechanism is external, then it is God. (And that fits well with the physico-theological argument.)
And if it is internal, the Rabbi didn’t answer me about that back then. He would say that it is God, that’s obvious. But it really doesn’t make sense to ascribe will to it. (Though there’s still a small difficulty: what happened that for an infinite amount of time it didn’t explode, and then suddenly it did…? Will can explain that easily, but you can answer it differently, like unstable energy, etc.) Also, if the laws of nature are not entities, then it is easier to imagine that energetic instability would cause material changes. Just as in quantum mechanics things are created out of primordial matter. And the law of conservation of energy is included in primordial matter.
In short, the cosmological question is about changes of form, not about energetic essence.