Q&A: Challenge to the Physico-Theological + Cosmological Argument
Challenge to the Physico-Theological + Cosmological Argument
Question
Hello Michi,
before I present the claim, I should say that I’m not getting into scientific evidence (which probably doesn’t exist) that supports it. I’m assuming such evidence could exist.
There is a claim that the universe has always existed, for an infinite amount of time, and that it expands and contracts, so that we are simply one of many species that have existed and will exist in the universe. Likewise, the claim says that the physical constants also change at the end of each contraction (and the beginning of each expansion). Of course, those who make this claim do not explain how that happens, and so on.
On the face of it, this claim undermines both arguments: it undermines the cosmological argument by saying that the universe has always existed, and therefore there is no need for a creator. It also undermines the physico-theological argument by claiming that there have been and will be infinitely many systems of laws, so there is no need for a designer. I’ll just note that this is not the same argument as the one you addressed in the series on faith, meaning there are not infinitely many universes and a universe-generator here; rather, there is one universe that each time produces different systems of laws.
Of course, one can ask what creates the different systems of laws. Their answer would be randomness.
What do you think of this claim? How would you answer it?
Answer
What am I supposed to say about that? Maybe. It’s also possible that we’re dreaming the universe. Everything is possible. When there are such alternating universes, doesn’t one still need an explanation for what brings them all about?
Discussion on Answer
What does it mean that “randomness creates systems of laws”? Is randomness the name of some person or thing?
For the sake of this argument, randomness is a lottery among all logically possible systems of laws (infinitely many), in a way that is not caused by anything at all. You could make an analogy to the spontaneous creation of an electron in quantum theory, only without the creation of a positive charge to balance it out, that is, without a quantum character. So the laws come into being the way the electron comes into being.
If you do not accept the principle of causality (that things need to be caused by something), then these arguments are irrelevant for you anyway. So what exactly is the discussion about? Why invent random universes?
I’ll just note that I do believe in God, and I’m trying to be charitable to those making this argument.
They could say that they accept the principle of causality, except in quantum situations and in cases like this of creating laws. Basically, they claim that this explanation—of infinitely many systems of laws being realized over infinite time within one universe, generated randomly—is just as good an explanation, or even better, than the explanation that God created the one system of laws that exists in our world.
The question I’m asking is whether there is a counterargument to their argument, or at least a reason why the God explanation is preferable to theirs.
Why do you need a counterargument? You could also deny the principle of causality altogether, and there are no arguments against that either. It’s simply not true. That’s all. One can invent lots of ad hoc inventions, and there are no arguments against any of them.
I don’t think God constitutes an “explanation” for any question. Every person’s simple intuition when seeing something in the world is that it has a cause, in light of the experience that for everything one can find a cause (except that there must be a first cause that is outside this system). Explanations involving infinite systems and universes and so on run contrary to this simple intuition, and there is no logical reason to accept them, other than an unwillingness (which in my opinion is puzzling) to accept the possibility of an unfamiliar kind of reality.
Seemingly, you don’t need an explanation of what brings them all about, because as stated there is simply randomness that creates different systems of laws, and those create the world around us and the life in it (if it comes into being).