Are you sure you understand your own question?
There was no point in time at which the world did not exist. So whoever says the world did not always exist has no idea what he is talking about.
And this whole direction of thought you’re aiming at suffers from blindness. The intellect cannot accept a state in which something was created out of nothing.

Point, why on almost every question do you write a decisive and usually ridiculous response? Here, for example, you’re disagreeing with almost all physicists (I assume out of your own reasoning). Not advisable.

Quite apart from the criticism of the dogmatism, regarding the substance of your comment, in fact many physicists do think this way. The accepted claim is that the time axis (and space) was created in the Bang.

Rabbi Saadia Gaon argues in Beliefs and Opinions that it cannot be that the world existed backward in time to infinity, because a continuous passage of events occurring one after another will always be finite (if someone starts counting from 0 to infinity, he will never finish counting), and therefore such an infinite sequence of events could not possibly have managed to get all the way to us.

In any case, it seems that if the universe were infinite in time, evolution would have finished long ago (since it requires less than infinite time), and everything physically possible to happen would already be behind us. But in fact World War III, for example, has still not happened (not to mention the war of Zechariah, Gog and Magog, etc.). I heard that Aristotle argued for this reason that one must say that from time to time some catastrophe occurs that returns things to an earlier stage.

In any case, even if the Big Bang cannot be used as a cosmological proof (known as the “Kalam”), it seems to give further support to the claim that the universe is contingent. If everything began from a singular point, but now there is no singularity, then the singularity itself is contingent, as is the universe that developed from it, since what is not contingent exists necessarily and eternally. From here the path is short to recognizing the necessity of the Necessary Being — “I Will Be What I Will Be.”

And if it turns out to you that that point is all there is, and everything you call “developed from” is some kind of conscious quantum illusion — will you start praying to that point?
Or perhaps you will never pray to someone who is not like you.

Point,

The whole point of inferring that the world began from such a point rests on the assumption that the state of the objects perceived in the post-Bang world reflects objective properties in those objects themselves, and not just something in our consciousness. Otherwise I would claim that just as the expansion of the universe (for example) is an illusion, so too is the extrapolation consciousness makes from it (the Big Bang), and all that remains is me, the one having illusions. Even if I were to grant this some degree of plausibility, I still would have no reason to think that the self or its perceptions exist necessarily, because it does not seem that their non-existence involves a contradiction; besides, it is known that its perceptions change (and a necessary being is not changeable), and therefore there must be some external entity to explain its existence, just as we axiomaticaly assume regarding every other inherent contingent property.

In any case, let us suppose I accepted that the whole universe is nothing but an eternal singularity. Even then, there is no contradiction in there being zero, two, or trillions of such singular points. Moreover, apparently the most popular hypothesis skeptics have raised to explain the fine-tuning of the universe is a multiplicity of universes, and it does not seem one can seriously refute it by claiming logical impossibility; nor have we seen anyone try to go in such a far-fetched direction. But it is enough that some essential characteristic *could* or *might have* been instantiated in more than one being (even if not in practice) to determine that the thing is not God. What exists necessarily cannot exist if it does not exist. A possible being that is a necessary being is not a coherent concept.

Even if you say that what is really there is a necessary being, but it is interpreted in our perception as a singular point, that still means the thing perceived is not the necessary being itself but an image produced in us because of it, and again we would have to engage in natural theology regarding what follows from its nature, and we would arrive at the same attributes theologians derived.

Copenhagen,
As a rule, the claims about infinity in the literature of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) are dubious, since they did not really understand the concept of infinity as we understand it today.
For example, the formulation you brought in the name of Rabbi Saadia Gaon is meaningless and baseless. When one says the world is infinite, one does not mean that there was some moment when the world was at minus infinity and from there it started advancing toward us. There is no such point. What is meant is that, looking backward from today along the time axis, there is no far end to the axis. In other words: it is as long as you like. But the starting point in speaking about infinity is always the side that has an edge, not the “far” side.
The claim about evolution is also incorrect. The evolutionary process began from the time the first protein chain was formed, and that happened a finite time ago even according to the views that hold the world is eternal.
As for the contingency of the world, there is room for a litigant to disagree, since it may be that the structure of the entire time axis — in which at first there is nothing and afterward a universe is created — is itself necessary.
And finally, the argument against the eternity of the world because of the problem of infinity can also be turned against God’s eternity.

To the Rabbi,
I agree that the Kalam argument is not strong enough (and in any case it is built on an A-theory of time, about which I am not sure). A cosmological proof in a Maimonidean/Thomistic style that does not rely on the question of eternity seems preferable to me in various respects. Nowadays there is a Christian apologist named Craig who promotes it (I think his doctoral dissertation was on it), and presumably he has better defenses for these points than I do.

When one says of some infinite axis that it is “as long as you like,” the meaning is that it is infinite in a potential sense, and perhaps one should distinguish this from actual infinity — the former does not produce paradoxes like the latter. For example, Hilbert’s hotel paradox, concerning a hotel with an actual infinity of rooms all fully occupied, where one can still admit any additional guest by moving each person in room n to room n+1, and putting the new guest in the first room, and so on for additional guests without limit. If time were infinitely eternal, then the number of events that had to occur would be actually infinite, and perhaps in such a case one cannot answer by saying that a consistent description can be given by looking from the side that has an edge.

As for the first protein, it seems there is some finite chance for its random formation (for the sake of discussion, 1 times 10 to the billionth power). So let us say that the first protein on planet Earth was formed x years ago. We can ask why it did not happen somewhere in the universe x plus 1 times 10 to the billionth years ago (give or take some number). A priori there is a much greater chance that we would be one of the civilizations that arose from one of those earlier proteins, similar to the Boltzmann brain paradox, and therefore that we would find ourselves in a much more advanced civilization than we actually are. Then would come the Aristotelian answer: presumably it indeed was formed, a civilization developed, and meanwhile the star where it happened was destroyed by some black hole that swallowed several regional galaxies. It is not clear to me whether that is a good answer.

I do not find in the concept “a timeline in which at first there is nothing and afterward the universe is created” anything more necessary than I find in the concept of a peach. When I look at a peach it is clear to me beyond any reasonable doubt that its existence is contingent and that there is no contradiction in its non-existence. That is why there is an element of surprise in its existence. Either way, if the universe were necessary, that would mean there are no possible worlds, and therefore no free choice (or moral responsibility), and also that it would be false to say sentences like: “If the scientist had chosen not to carry out the experiment, Schrödinger’s cat would still be in superposition.”

There cannot be infinitely many successive events in God, since by definition He is unchanging.

Regarding the distinction between potential and concrete infinity (and Hilbert’s hotel), see my second notebook.
What I meant here was precisely that when one says the world is eternal, the meaning is that the number of events that occurred in it is infinite in the potential sense (that is, as large as you like). If one wants to offer this as an explanation, that is not enough, and I addressed that in the notebook.
As for the protein, you are talking about a rate and not a probability. But here you returned to the previous problem of contingency. Here I only commented on your argument about evolution, namely that it does not refute the claim of an eternal world. You can of course ask why this has not happened until now, but that is true of every event, including the Bang. We already discussed that, and I explained that necessity may apply to the totality as a whole.
And regarding necessity in this sense, you compared it to a peach. But you are looking at the wrong concept. Instead of looking at the universe and asking whether it is necessary or contingent, you should look at the totality that includes a vacuum and after it a universe.
And finally, when you spoke about the infinity of the time axis, you were not talking about the number of events but about the number of moments. That is also relevant regarding God, who exists for infinitely many moments. So how did He get to us (even if in His own form, without changing, He still has to get from minus infinity to us)?

Let the questioner come (and the Rabbi answer): how indeed can one accept any existence at all if God exists for infinitely many moments?
That proves there is creation ex nihilo in the absolute sense. Only with absence does this problem not exist.

I did not understand. Is there a question here for me?

Yes. If God exists for infinitely many moments, then that is a concrete infinity, so how did He “get” from minus infinity to the present point in time? After all, one cannot get out of minus infinity (if that is even well-defined).

No. He exists through a potential infinity of moments. That is, the meaning of the claim that He always exists is as follows: when I look backward in time, there is no moment in time at which God does not exist. Therefore one cannot speak of the path He traverses from minus infinity to us, exactly as I explained to Copenhagen.

Doesn’t this feel to the Rabbi like wordplay?
After all, in the end both of these definitions agree that God always existed. The only difference in perspective between them is reversed — from top to bottom or from bottom to top. But still, both express the exact same idea.

So if one of the two definitions appears impossible and problematic, is it not right to view the second that way as well? Even if the second definition somehow manages to evade the question.
In the end, the essential question of how a primordial being (God) reached the present moment when before it there were infinitely many prior moments remains the same.

Absolutely not. I do not know how familiar you are with mathematics, but to someone who is, this is self-evident. It is not wordplay, but replacing an expression that lacks meaning and sense with a well-defined expression. Precisely because of that, the two expressions are also not equivalent (contrary to your assumption).

To the Rabbi,

I did not understand. Suppose the universe goes backward in time without end, that is, there is no Big Bang as a boundary point. The universe is supposed to produce a protein at random every so many years. The overwhelming majority of the primordial proteins formed up to now would have given rise to civilizations far more advanced. It seems that in such a universe, regardless of whether it is contingent or necessary, a priori we would expect to find ourselves in one of those civilizations, and I did not understand the Rabbi’s connection to contingency (alternatively, can one provide an answer to the Boltzmann brain problem by means of such a connection?).

The question does not arise regarding the Big Bang because physicists like to explain that space and time themselves were born together with it. For those who deny the insight that the universe is contingent, necessity in the whole does not mean canceling the conclusions that follow from knowledge of the laws of nature, but only the claim that the universe as a whole is itself the necessary being and no further explanation is needed (a transcendent necessary being).

What do you mean by universe plus vacuum? Is there (quantum) energy in the vacuum that preceded the Bang? If so, then presumably it has one property or another to which, in principle, one can attach a number. Whenever one can speak of some numbered property, one can imagine that the thing existed with exactly that property plus or minus 1 (or some other number) without contradiction, and then it follows that its existence is not necessary. Even if we are talking about absolute nothingness, I still have no reason to think that a contingent universe plus a vacuum can produce the wonder of converting something contingent into something necessary. The combination of two elements, one contingent and one necessary, is itself still contingent (quite aside from the fact that it is unclear what could be necessary about absolute nothingness). In principle it seems that any combination of two distinct elements cannot have necessary existence, because one can always conceive of one of the concepts without the other without contradiction.

Regarding the Kalam, I will try to formulate some clear thought on the matter and perhaps comment after Sabbath.

Copenhagen,
Indeed. That is exactly what I said: one has to talk about a rate (= probability per unit time) and not about probability. The average time that will pass (from when?) until a protein is formed is 1 divided by the rate.
What I commented regarding the protein is that even according to believers in eternity, evolution itself began only a few million years ago, and therefore has reached only as far as it has reached. The question you now raised — how evolution did not begin earlier — can be asked about every event (including the Bang), and not specifically about evolution. That is what I commented on in your words.
I wrote that this is similar to the question of contingency, in the sense I will now explain. My claim was that the vacuum + creation is altogether the necessary thing. Therefore the formation of a universe at some specific time, and its absence before that, do not necessarily mean that the universe is contingent. Think of a process described by a time-dependent function (f(t)). Its state (= the values of the function) obviously changes over time. You might think that some particular state occurring at time t0 is contingent because it was not there beforehand. What I am claiming is that one need not look at that state in isolation; rather one should look at the whole process, that is, the entire function over the whole time axis. My claim is that perhaps the whole thing is necessary (it could not have been otherwise). If you look at creation as a function of time, I claim that perhaps the whole process is necessary, even though the universe did not exist until time t0 (= the Bang) and was created only afterward.
As I already wrote, you are right that it is commonly thought that time was created with the Bang (though as is known there are debates about this). But I am claiming that your principled argument — that whatever did not exist at some time is contingent — is not itself necessary.
And that is what I am claiming regarding your second question about evolution. You asked how it did not begin earlier, and to that I answered that you should not look at evolution in isolation, but at the whole process (of which evolution is only the last part, which began at t1 — the moment the first protein formed). That is similar to my answer above about the contingency of the universe.

So the Rabbi thinks that the universe is its own cause? (not contingent)
If so, why does the Rabbi mention in the notebook the cosmological proof and the physico-theological proof?!?

Where did I say it is its own cause? What I wrote is that the claim raised here in favor of the universe’s contingency is not an argument. By the way, even within the possibility I presented (in order to show the lack of necessity), I did not write that the universe is not contingent, but that the totality as a whole (including the Holy One, blessed be He) is not such.

I understand.
By the way, on this topic, does the Rabbi have a good reason to assume that the universe as a whole is not its own cause?
If you say that matter is usually not its own cause, then one could answer and say that matter is energy. And energy is its own cause. See the laws of conservation of mass-energy.
B. If we assume that creation ex nihilo in the absolute sense (without God) is possible and coherent, would such a creation always be called contingent?

Yes. Everything I know in the universe is not its own cause, and it does not seem reasonable to me that the totality is. As I wrote here, the universe by itself certainly is not its own cause, for it was created 14 billion years ago. At most, the whole process (the vacuum + universe) is necessary, but even if that is so, something stands behind it (and that is the real necessity), and that is God.

I did not understand question B. I do not understand where that assumption comes from, and why, if it is true, the creation is contingent.

Thank you.
Does the Rabbi think that this assumption comes merely from a general intuition? Or is it an assumption with a stronger basis?

B. The assumption comes following the claims of many atheists (I encountered this mainly on American YouTube) that the reasonable and expected thing to assume is creation ex nihilo in the absolute sense. So I am asking: according to their view, is it possible that such a creation would produce a reality that is necessary existence? That way, according to them, they would gain the ability to hold onto both horns against the cosmological proof and the physico-theological proof 😉

Yes. What do we have besides intuition?
I did not understand the question. If the universe was created, then it is not necessary existence (because before that it was not there). Perhaps the whole process is necessary. But I do not really understand the need for this pilpul. An atheist can also decide that the world is contingent and still came into being just like that out of absolute nothingness. If one is looking for possible options even if they are not plausible, there is no need to go far.

One can assume that the universe is necessary, and our perception of it is contingent.
And still, one who worships the universe is worshipping idolatry.

Rabbi,
The opposite of a contingent universe is necessary existence or being its own cause.
What I meant was whether it is possible that the world, created by creation ex nihilo, is its own cause. Not necessarily necessary existence. The practical difference would be whether the universe has to be eternal or not.

Point, is our perception not necessary by virtue of our being part of the totality of the universe?
Or do you mean only at the subjective level of perception and not the actual objective level?

Copenhagen, through verbal magic, causes many good people to fall into the trap.
He uses the words “necessary” and “contingent” as if they were real things in reality, whereas they are only concepts in his soul and nothing more. The universe does not have Copenhagen’s mental properties. Projecting mental properties onto one’s perception of the universe is altogether an instinctive act. The instinct wants to take over perception — over the universe as the soul perceives it through the mediation of the instincts. So it shapes the universe in its own image. That is all imagination and nothing more.
Science succeeded in freeing the perception of the world from this primitive instinctive worldview by using mathematics on the one hand and measuring instruments on the other. But there are those who still remain in an instinctive worldview.

Copenhagen is welcome to invent a measuring instrument that measures necessity in reality. The result will be that Copenhagen himself is the measuring instrument…

To the Rabbi,

If according to the majority view (apparently) time began together with the Big Bang, then the question does not arise regarding it. In any case, the whole matter to begin with rests on an Aristotelian conception of a beginningless universe (and one in which time is also constant and does not converge).

The main insight that things in the physical universe (and the universe as a whole) are contingent comes from the fact that when we grasp their essence, we do not see anything from which necessary existence can be derived. On the contrary, there are things in it such as numerical properties that indicate contingent existence. The talk about the beginning of the existence of objects or their future destruction is intended mainly for purposes of illustration, and I have no problem qualifying it if necessary.

It seems that the claim that one should look at the function along the whole time axis and then perhaps one can say it is necessary may sound right in the sense of physical necessity, but not as logical necessity in the broader sense on which the claim of contingency rests. In the definition of such a function there is nothing from which one can derive necessary existence or any progress toward solving the problem of why it exists, any more than one can do so regarding the object itself. In any case, the concept of a ‘process’ presupposes the existence of some concrete objects as the basis on which (or because of which) it occurs, and then the question arises what exactly compels those objects to exist.

In general, if it were reasonable to say of functions of this type that they might be necessary in the broad logical sense, then we could look at any conceivable possible world, for example one in which there is only a solitary peach appearing out of nothing, and claim that the function describing the process on the time axis might be necessary, and therefore there is no puzzle as to why it exists. But that seems to me an ad hoc claim. It also follows that there is not much rationality in the near-zero probability I assign to the possibility that this very moment a green flying elephant will appear for me on the balcony out of nothing, since how do I know that the function describing its formation on the time axis is not necessary?

Copenhagen,
1. I am not sure you are right even according to the view that time began with the Bang. Even if one does not use temporal terms, there is still room to ask why the universe was created דווקא then (where “then” does not denote time).
I actually think time was not created with the Bang, but perhaps only the time of our terms. There are two time axes, one of which has always existed. See briefly here:

חיצו של זינון והפיסיקה המודרנית[1]

1. I will look into it later.

2. An argument that relies on coming into being is meant to prove that *the thing created itself* is contingent. What exists necessarily *cannot fail to exist*, and *cannot exist if it does not exist*. But anything created does not exist before it is created; moreover, it *can exist while it (still) does not (yet) exist*, and therefore it does not exist necessarily. The question whether it is reasonable to raise a hypothesis according to which there is another entity, let us call it a ‘process,’ that is not contingent, does not touch this proof, and that can be discussed separately.

3. It seems to me that the ability to determine whether some entity is contingent is not connected to any sensory experience, but to an intellectual ability to understand the concept (I spoke about this a bit in the new question I opened), and I find it hard to see a strong reason to think that in this respect it is fundamentally different regarding functions. If one wants to claim that a certain function has necessary concrete existence (if that has any meaning), one has to show, or at least give some direction, how the property of necessary existence follows from the properties of the function, or how the properties of the function follow from necessary existence. When classical theologians discussed the subject, they reached conclusions like these: from necessary existence one can derive immutability, independence from time and space, lack of composition, negative theology, and the like. But I agree that there are attributes where there is room to discuss how far the derivation is proven and how far it stems from the desire to create a synthesis between the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the God of the philosophers.

I will have to think about 4 and 5; there is agreement there.

From your answer I understand that the refutation of the eternity of the world is: “Material objects are usually not eternal and have a cause that brought them into being.”

A. But if it is only that they “usually are not eternal,” how do we know there is no exception that is eternal?
Is there a proof that material objects are not eternal?

B. Are there additional refutations of the claim of the eternity of the world?

C. You wrote, “In general, I do not think belief in the eternity of the world is all that severe from the standpoint of faith.”
Why not — after all, it contradicts the Book of Genesis?

A. That is how you can ask about any scientific generalization. How do we know it is always true and has no exceptions? That is the assumption until proven otherwise. There are no proofs for any factual matter on earth.
B. The Big Bang. Beyond that, I explained in the third notebook that even an eternal world requires a reason (even if not a cause).
C. The Book of Genesis may describe creation from a certain stage onward, or be interpreted as a parable whose purpose is a message and not a historical description (as Nachmanides writes on Genesis chapter 1). For example, Nachmanides in chapter 3 of his commentary on Song of Songs (attributed to him) writes in accordance with Plato that the world was created from primordial eternal matter.

Point, the concepts “necessary” and “contingent” do not exist “only” in our minds, if only because of the simple fact that they have a clear definition. You can say that the concept “beautiful” exists only in the mind, but “necessary” is a well-defined concept.