William Lane Craig's Cosmological Arguments

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Even if the premises in each argument of his are plausible, the conclusion doesn't have to be that God, therefore, exists.

William Lane Craig is known for using at least two cosmological arguments to support his belief in God.

The first is the Cosmological Argument from Contingency.

Ok, let's grant (for the sake of argument) that premises 1 to 4 are all (or, rather, mostly) plausible, this does not mean that God is logically necessary.

Let me explain.

Suppose, in place of God, we have a much simpler entity that is beyond the confines of this particular universe and any other universe in existence. Therefore, such an entity would be immaterial and eternal (just like the God proposed by William Lane Craig). And no one here could ever imagine what it is like as it transcends all.

One of the differences between the two is that the simpler entity does not have a mind while God is supposedly an unembodied mind. I will argue soon that, in fact, God could not have used his mind/will to create this universe, but let's discuss more the entity I'm proposing for now.

Because it doesn't have a mind, and because it is eternal and uncaused, it has to do things randomly. What it intrinsically does, by its very nature, is randomly trigger the existence of infinite universe via singularities. We live in one such universe.

So this particular universe is just one among infinite universes brought forth into existence by my proposed entity.

I shall call this entity the Singularitor (merging the terms "singularity" and "creator").

So let's adjust the original Cosmological Argument from Contingency to account for the Singularitor instead.



The Singularitor, like God, is not exempt from the rule demanding that there be an explanation for its existence. But just as William Lane Craig sees that God exists because he is necessary, so, too, do I see the Singularitor in such a manner.

We could also explain the "Kalam" Cosmological Argument (the other cosmological argument that William Lane Craig likes to use) with the existence of the Singularitor instead:



What caused the universe? Why the Singularitor of course!

So what I have done is actually address both cosmological arguments by Craig and show that they don't conclusively support God.

Earlier, I said that William Lane Craig's God could not have created this universe using his mind (or will). Here's why:

His God supposedly has free will.

Free will entails choosing to do one thing rather than another ... and for no predetermined reason at all.

This shows that God's will is really random.

God's will being random is no different from chance.

Which means that God's will did not really play a role in the bringing forth of this universe and, therefore, it was not logically necessary.

William Lane Craig agrees that we shouldn't multiply entities/features unnecessarily.

Conclusion: God himself is rendered unnecessary, and the Singularitor is much more likely to have caused the existence of this universe.

Next thread will address the Teleological Argument from Fine-tuning (as argued by William Lane Craig).

I enjoyed reading this.

However, based on the video you presented on the other thread, I don't think he agrees with "and for no predetermined reason at all".

His belief in "mental states or the soul" allows for causality in decision-making, and yet somehow he asserts that the entity still has free-will. He probably has some analogous reasoning with regards to how GOD can have causality per decision-making, and free-will at the same time.

Thanks.

Here's a video in which he briefly explains what it means for God to have free will.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDT7uuccR-s[/youtube]

In other words, he believes any decision God makes is not predetermined by anything external to him.

However, he also cannot say that any decision God makes is predetermined by his nature. Otherwise, it could not truly be free will but a will that's compelled by his own nature to make one decision and not another.

Either way, it's a no-win situation for him. The Singularitor is logically much more effective than his God in explaining the existence of anything.

Yes.

Having a predetermined nature and free-will are not compatible.

Free will would let GOD choose to be evil, and not be in his predetermined nature (presumably their assumption is that GOD's nature is to be good).

Acting according to a predetermined "good" nature, would not let GOD choose to be evil.


He says, "nothing can cause GOD to choose the way he does".

I am not familiar with the Bible. Somewhere in there, it probably says, ".... and GOD saw X and it was good, so he decided to do Y ...". Seems like I heard that before, and that would show external causation.



I have to spend some time thinking about the Singularitor theory.

Does your theory explain why the world is so intelligently designed ? Randomness and intelligent design are compatible ?

William Lane Craig is a Christian apologist and analytic philosopher. His areas of expertise are the philosophy of religion, philosophy of time, and the defense of Christian theism.

A philosopher and a religionist ... NOT a scientist ...

The first premise is false, not everything that begins to exist has a cause. In quantum field theory, virtual particles pop in and out of existence all the time due to quantum vacuum fluctuations, randomly and without cause. In fact, even the motion and position of particles cannot be determined precisely, the whole of quantum mechanics is based on chance. The concept of determinism died as soon as quantum mechanics was discovered. The reason why this is relevant here is because the question about the origin of the universe is really a question to do with quantum gravity, i.e. the physics in the regime where Einsteins theory of general relativity and quantum mechanics are both important. One possible explanation for the origin of the inverse is Vilenkin's Eternal Inflation theory, where universes pop in and out of existence all the time as tiny bubbles in the quantum foam. Sometimes, they disappear instantly after they appear, like virtual particles, and other times they start expanding to become a real universe like our universe. Furthermore, the concept of cause and effect only makes sense when there's a concept of time and since there was no before "before" the Big Bang, it does not follow that it had a "cause".

The second premise may also be false because even if the universe had a cause, it does not follow that this "cause" must be God.

Deductive argument's only lead to true conclusions if the premises are true and since the first premise is false while the second one is questionable, the conclusion should not be taken to be valid. This is called the GIGO principle (garbage in, garbage out).



By singularity, you're talking about the initial Big Bang singularity of the universe, right? If so, then according to Alex Vilenkin's Eternal Inflation theory, this "Singularitor" as you put it is the quantum foam (chaotic space-time at the Planck Scale) and the singularity was the space-time "bubble" that emerged from it and started expanding to become our universe. According to the Eternal Inflation theory, these bubbles do indeed appear randomly, where I think I've read that the quantum fluctuations of the space-time of any particular universe gives birth to an average of 10^32 new universes per cubic inch per second in the parent universe. In short, universes give birth to universes. Whenever, this theory is mentioned in a debate with William Lane Craig, he likes to shift the goal posts, saying that he doesn't believe that the quantum foam could of existed "forever" either. However, he doesn't take into account that there is no concept of time when talking about the quantum foam as time breaks down at that scale and it only exists locally for each individual universe. There is no such thing as global time for the whole multiverse, therefore for intents and purposes, time for us still started at the Big Bangand there was no "before" even if the Eternal Inflation idea is true.



Again, the first premise is false. An explanation for the fine-tuning argument is simple: if the multiverse is infinite then the probability that it contains universes that appear "fine-tuned" for life is 1.

I searched online, and apparently the first law of thermodynamics still applies at the quantum level - that energy is still conserved in quantum mechanics ? Energy MUST of came from somewhere, because of conservation of energy.

So, your virtual particles that pop in and out of existence , already existed as energy in another form. You suggest that energy in one form can convert to another form without a cause. Do you have some evidence of this? It does not sound right. If true randomness could happen then we would see it, instead science increasingly finds matter functions orderly.

It seems to me that a casual force must act to change energy from one form to another in the universe?


I cite this as a source ...

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index ... 958AA8BFF8

Quoted: "The first law of thermodynamics however is not statistical. At least not in the sense that a large number of particles is required. Energy is always conserved regardless of the number of particles, even a single particle at the quantum scale will conserve energy".



The outcome of throwing dice is a random action that can be determined in advance if the various factors of the event are known such as dice weight, starting positions, dice throw angle, table friction... "Based on chance" does not mean non-deterministic.

Uncertainty and chance can still be deterministic.

See, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randomness

According to several standard interpretations of quantum mechanics, microscopic phenomena are objectively random. That is, in an experiment that controls all causally relevant parameters, some aspects of the outcome still vary randomly. For example, if you place a single unstable atom in a controlled environment, you cannot predict how long it will take for the atom to decay—only the probability of decay in a given time

This shows that determinism still happens in quantum mechanics i.e., the atom will still decay ?

Fundamentally, determinism is energy determinism and quantum mechanics might say there is randomness, and uncertainty in monitoring the conversions of energy, however there is still a "fate" determined for the energy.

Last edited by LoveNotHate on 31 Dec 2013, 11:32 am, edited 1 time in total.

I think both Fnord and Jono are missing the bigger picture here. This isn't about being scientific, but about finding clever ways to beat Christian apologists at their own games.

Not everyone is ok with, say, the argument that things can come out of nothing for no reason, and William Lane Craig likes to make a distinction to his audience between "nothingness" and the quantum vacuum anyway.

Also, I'd like to keep the entity I'm proposing separate from whatever scientific theory there may be that might sound similar to it. William Lane Craig, and others like him, like to denigrate anything that is conceived by them as physical to a state of contingency. I don't want my entity to have that perceived flaw.

That's for the next thread I will make soon.

Also, it's not a scientific theory what I'm proposing. It's just something to provide as a simpler alternative to Craig's God.

The laws of thermodynamics are not violated. The energy required to create the virtual particles is borrowed from the vacuum (yes, you can have "negative energies" for short periods of time). There is no force required, virtual particles can appear and disappear randomly due to quantum vacuum fluctuations. According to the energy-time uncertainty principle, the precise energy of the background becomes less certain, the shorter you make the time interval in which you measure it. It's this uncertainty in the energy that allows large amounts of energy to be randomly borrowed from the vacuum to become virtual particles for short amounts of time. Of course, you do generally need a force in order for virtual particles to become "real" (i.e. permanent).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_vacuum

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle#Energy.E2.80.93time_uncertainty_principle



Wrong. True randomness is non-deterministic. The throwing of a dice is not truly random because in principle, the outcome can be still determined precisely if all the other factors were known. Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, is truly random unlike the throwing of the dice. In fact, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle makes it a fundamental law of nature that both the momentum and position of a particle cannot be known precisely at the same time.



It is only probabilistically determined. There is no theory of physics that can predict precisely which atom will decay and when. As a matter of fact, the laws of quantum mechanics make this determination impossible. Thus there is no absolute determinism here, only probabilities are determined.

Why are you so obsessed with this? You aren't beating them at their own game. You essentially use the same arguments and just get different answers. It accomplishes nothing for either side, as both have already made their minds up using that same specific set of reasoning. Neither side is "winning" anything.

Watch the debate that William Lane Craig had with Shelly Kagan (I think it's on Youtube somewhere). I think that he managed to do that.



People being "ok" with something has no bearing on whether it's correct or not. The distinction between the quantum vacuum and "nothingness" isn't really valid because if you define "nothingness" as the absence of everything including the quantum vacuum, then there is no such thing as "nothingness". In that case, you could argue that the quantum vacuum always existed.



I think that William Lane Craig would still assume that you're talking about Alex Vilenkin's multiverse.

That's exactly what it means to beat them at their own game.

I wouldn't say I'm obsessed. It's good to exercise one's brain in various ways.

Jono, I'm sure William Lane Craig would argue that. But this is where one has to be prepared to make it clear to such people that the entity is an immaterial one. And come to think of it, one could also cleverly defend the quantum thingy in such a way. As I'm not an expert on science, however, I'm steering clear of anything to do with science that's beyond my understanding.

And I agree with you about Shelley Kagan. That's exactly the kind of atheist I want to see debating someone like William Lane Craig. Stephen Law was alright as well against him, but he held back quite a bit. All other atheists who have debated him didn't fare so well.

I read the links you provided above. If I understand you correctly, you believe the randomness and/or uncertainty in the borrowing of energy from the vacuum proves no casual force is creating the virtual particles ? You believe the virtual particles can pop in and out of existence without a means ?

Further, consequently, since you believe the first Law of Thermodynamics holds at the quantum level, then the transfer of energy from a first form of enegy to the form of a virtual particle - happens without causality? Energy can change form by itself ?

First question, you state that "quantum vacuum fluctuations" cause the particles ? That appears to show causality? Secondly, what borrows the energy to make the particles? Isn't that a casual force ? Thirdly, I would think, that the capability of energy to convert to different forms by itself would have a scientific name? Thank you.

My opinion on this as a non-physicist:

1. The Uncertainty Principle of "the more precisely the position of some particle is determined, the less precisely its momentum can be known, and vice versa", contrary to its name, seems to indicate determinism, because it expresses a logical, functional order to these particles. I fail to see why uncertainty in something would mean non-causality?

We know people will die if they don't eat and drink. How long will it take before a person will die? Well, there is uncertainty, however, we do know they will die. Uncertainty has no bearing on the casual force of not eating/drinking leading to death?

2. I fail to understand why randomly borrowing of energy from the vacuum indicates non-causality? It appears like there is a casual force, and it is the thing that is borrowing the energy to create these particles?

Thanks



I agree.

I stated the deterministic dice-throw, because I wanted to have you tell me if "true randomness" or mere "illusion of randomness by an observer" was happening. Thank you for your explanation.

Last edited by LoveNotHate on 31 Dec 2013, 10:47 pm, edited 5 times in total.

Well Craig would probably agree with that statement, he is an incompatibilist libertarian. I would not, but that is a different matter. The objection would be meaningless to Craig, he would agree with your argument but dispute the truth of the dichotomy between determinism and indeterminism. I don't know of anyone on this forum that takes his view on the matter so I don't think your argument has a foil.

The quantum vacuum is the cause of random particles but they are still caused. I would also say that the vacuum is not nothing, the statement that there is no such thing as a real 'nothing' and then proceeding on from there are two positions that are not logically connected.