This post is based upon the 3 possibilities for the genesis all things in existence by Guy Woods (Q&A Vol. 1, pg. 161-163) and with further meditation. Before presenting these 3 possibilities, Guy Woods addressed whether things have always existed. He stated, “Our own observations lead us to the conclusion that all material matters are constantly changing; that which undergoes change is not eternal; therefore, neither we, nor the material universe in which we live, are eternal.” In other words, considering the Law of Cause and Effect, the Universe is full of effects for which each and every effect must have a sufficient greater cause. Knowing that the Universe is mass and energy in motion, motion is an effect that must have a cause, so motion is not eternal. Now also know that energy is the ability for motion and mass is stored energy. These truths show that mass and energy cannot exist without motion, since these are essentially related. Therefore, everything in existence cannot exist without motion. What are the 3 possible causes for the existence of motion?
Woods stated, “Things that have begun to exist must have done so in one of three, and only three, possible ways: (a) they are there own makers, having created themselves; or, (b) they began by accident, or chance; or, (c) they were brought into existence by some all-wise, all-powerful, and eternal Being.” That is a bold statement for which no one has been able to offer an alternative. Remembering the Law of Cause and Effect, which is that every effect has a sufficient greater cause with one great cause producing all effects. Let’s examine the three possible causes of all things.
First, could any material thing existing have created itself? The obvious answer is “No”. Something cannot exist before it exists, and therefore a thing cannot create itself.
Second, could any material thing existing have been an accident or by chance from non-existence? Of course not, the answer is “No”. An effect cannot exist with a cause. Something cannot come from nothing.
Third, could any material things existing have been created by one greatest cause? The answer is “Yes”. Every effect has a cause and everything is changing making it not eternal, therefore there must be one great cause. Since no physical thing is eternal, the first great cause must be beyond physical, metaphysical.
Let’s look at the cause of all things.
- Is the cause something or nothing? Why? It must be something since nothing has no effect.
- Does the cause create an effect? Why? It must create or there would be nothing.
- Is the creating cause a creator or a non-creator? Why? The cause must be a creator or there would be nothing.
- Can a creator create without intelligence? Why? Since an accident or non-intelligence cannot create anything with intelligence or design, no creator can be created without a mind.
- Must the creator have enough intelligence to cause the grand effect of all existence? Why? This must certainly be true since none of the universe can be an accident.
- Can the Creator create without power? No. Why? The creator must have all power to be a greater cause for the grand effect of all things.
These are the premises that leave one undeniable conclusion that all physical effects have one metaphysical Creator Mind, who is the great cause and genesis of everything in existence.
18 responses so far ↓
Ubiquitous Che // June 19, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Apallingly weak.
First of all, there are plenty of interpretations of cause and effect that would allow for an eternal universe. I don’t agree with them – but they’re there. And they could be true.
Secondly, you’ve fallen into a ridiculous argument. Firstly, you’ve assumed that there are only three possibilities of what could have been the ‘prime mover’. This is wrong – there are many things that could have been the prime mover – the participatory anthropic principle, the bootstraping of the set of natural numbers through observation of the void, or the proposed nullification of the laws of causality in an atemporal environment just name a few. There’s some very interesting physics research going on into the nature of entropy that could come up with something new. There’s also the option that the prime mover could have been an existing idea that I don’t know about – and also there is the possiblity that the truth of the matter is yet to be considered by our frail mortal minds – and the rather depressing suggestion that perhaps it never will.
So it is clear there are many more than a mere three options. Error the first.
Error the second lies in the overall structure of your argument. You offhandedly surmize that options #1 and #2 are incorrect with no genuine assessment of their potential validity whatsoever, and then state, without any basis in evidence and without any direct support of logic and reason, that because #1 and #2 have been declared false, #3 must be correct.
This is utterly ridiculous. There is always the possiblity that #1, #2, and #3 are all incorrect, and that the real answer is something that we haven’t yet considered. You cannot assert anything as true without some kind of logical reasoning. Essentially, you haven’t given an argument – you’ve given a rather weak and unsupported opinion disguised as an assertion.
Personal credulity is not an argument – it’s a fallacy.
Scott // June 19, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Thank you for commenting. I do not believe that I assume anything except that readers would be have the intelligence to agree with what appears to be assertions to those who believe in relative knowledge. This is certainly no dissertation, but simple logic using simple laws to reach a simple conclusion.
Sure, there is too much of Universe that we do not know nor will ever know, but that’s not to say that we cannot know. Knowing that every effect has a cause, then all anthropic “principles” are thrown out along with anything disregarding scientific law for the sake of conjecture.
Having only 3 possibilities makes one of them, partially some of them, or all of them correct. In this case, only one possibility stands. Feel free to present another. Something in agreement with causality.
Ubiquitous Che // June 19, 2008 at 7:23 pm
If the answer must be in agreement with causality, that answer cannot be an intelligent creator – for what, then, caused the creator?
If the creator is permitted to be acausal, then why can’t the participatory anthropic principle, the bootstraping of the set of natural numbers through observation of the void, or the proposed nullification of the laws of causality in an atemporal environment also be justifiably posited as a possible explanation?
Jens // June 20, 2008 at 6:58 am
I’m glad someone else took the opportunity to whack this mole so I wouldn’t have to. Applause goes to Che. Scott, you have to admit that even by your standards this argument is incredibly weak.
Scott // June 20, 2008 at 9:32 am
The Creator is the eternal cause. Does not Cause and Effect call for such?
Scott // June 20, 2008 at 10:18 am
Jens,
I can see how the simplicity of this fact is insulting and offensive to other worldviews.
Ubiquitous Che // June 20, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Thanks Jens – it’s appreciated. You might enjoy this old posting from Cectic:
Scott:
You’re missing the point. An ‘Eternal Cause’ is, by definition, in violation of cause and effect.
That’s okay. You can argue that cause and effect don’t apply in the case of the prime mover if you like – but then you have to make the distinction between why the concept of the Creator is allowed and why spontaneous generation from the atemporal void does not.
How is this statement:
Semantically any different from this statement:
The concepts of both the Creator and the atemporal void each try to describe the concept of a ’causeless cause’. The only real thing to distinguish them is that the atemporal void is possibly the simplest, most probable thing to ever consider – whereas God is, by definition, the most complex and improbable thing ever conceived. Of the two, the atemporal void is much more likely – and I’ve only considered two of the hypothesese regarding what the ’causeless cause’ might have been.
With just these two examples in mind, do you have any logic or reason to support the case for an intelligent creator over the atemporal void – or do you not?
If your only argument is ‘but God is special’ then you’re engaging in special pleading. That’s rubbish.
Finally:
Not neccesarily.
It should be noted that you still haven’t addressed the fact that the universe could be eternal. One interpretation of the ‘eternal’ universe is that the present moment is all that there is – it is no time at all, and at the same time it is all the time that ever is and ever will be. The illusion of chronological time comes from the fact that the contents of the present moment are in a state of constant flux. The argument here is that the present moment and flux therein are all that have every existed, and that causality is just an illusion borne from our limited perception of the flux in the present. So it would follow from this that there was no ‘first cause’, because the ‘past’ and the ‘future’ are both just ideas existing in the mind, which is itself just a small piece of the content of the present, and it too is in a constant state of flux.
I disagree with this concept, but I can’t disprove it the same way that we can’t disprove any baseless assertion – much like the assertion that there was an intelligent creator. However, two important things should be noted.
Firstly, you have dismissed this potential cosmological explanation for why there is something and not nothing without any basis whatsoever – most likely because you were ignorant of its existence.
Secondly, your entire argument hinged on the ‘elimination of possibilities’ – but as I have very clearly and lucidly shown, not only did you not do any justice to those possibilities that you dismissed so quickly, you also didn’t even prove that your list of possibilities was comprehensive.
It’s like you said: “My car is broken. Either the spark plugs are broken, or it is out of gas. The spark plugs must be working – I don’t have to check, because it would be silly if they just stopped for no reason. Therefore, I must be out of gas.” This sounds all well and good – but not only did you not even check the spark plugs properly, you didn’t consider a flat battery. As a result, your conclusion that the car is out of gas doesn’t follow from your logic.
Ubiquitous Che // June 20, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Oh – in the car analogy, you’ve also reached the conclusion that you’re out of gas, but you’ve tried to show that because of your logic you don’t have to check the gas tank. Even if you logic pointed soundly that the gas tank was empty – which it does not – you would still be required to test your conclusion by actually taking the meter reading.
This ties into your argument, because even if your logic was sound, you would still have to support your conclusion of a divinely intelligent creator with some hard evidence.
Scott // June 20, 2008 at 4:10 pm
What would the eternal something be? Is it matter but not without energy and energy not without motion and motion not without a cause? There’s nothing left to be the eternal cause but a void, nothing, or something metaphysical. We know how something never comes from nothing and how effects come from no cause. Yet, you exclude cause and effect without reason.
What possibilities can there be? You’ve had more than enough comments to present one, but in so doing you have to discard cause and effect though you nor anyone has ever observed the non-existence of such, so one would have to lay aside reason and science. In looking for the cause, is it something or nothing? It must be something since nothing has no effect. It must be either internal or external, but as we’ve noticed, it cannot be internal being self-made. Does the cause create an effect? It must. Is the creating cause a Creator or a non-creator? The cause must be the Creator. Can a Creator create without intelligence? No. The Creator must have enough intelligence cause the grand effect of all existence. Can the Creator create without power? No. The creator must have power and enough to for a sufficient cause for the grand effect of the Universe.
You believe that time is only an illusion. Come on. Did time came from nothing too? No. Time is the order of events, which both certainly exist. Then, everything within time is an illusion according to you. This is the abyss that many would rather wonder in than truth. Then again is there truth? Is anything really true? That’s another stupid question. Answering “no” means there is truth and that makes “yes” the only right answer, so there must be truth.
Gordy! // June 21, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Scott, have you read “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins? It’s an absolutely incredible book! I’ve read it 5 times already. Now, I don’t agree with most of his arguments because he belligerently tries to fit God inside the “science box”, he makes some pretty good idea nonetheless and really forces one to at least reprocess their defenses.
While I’m still a 6-day Creationist, Dawkins should should be read by everyone, including Creationists.
Scott // June 21, 2008 at 5:48 pm
I’ll check it out from the library. Thanks Gordy.
Ubiquitous Che // June 22, 2008 at 8:02 pm
I’m starting to think that you’re not actually reading my posts. I clearly stated earlier:
Also this:
This would actually be the scientific objection to God as the Creator – because if God is the prime cause, what caused God?
Creationism requires the suspension of cause and effect in the special case of God. All I’ve been trying to get you to do is show a good reason for why God should be exempt from causality that doesn’t also apply to any of the other candidates for a prime mover that I have mentioned so far. Thusly, you’ve offered only two:
1. God is special.
2. I can’t understand how anythinge else could have done it.
The first is a case of special pleading, so I don’t think I need to focus on it too much. Your second reason is also worthless, because you cannot honestly tell me that you understand how God created the universe either. So we’re back to special pleading again.
For the record, I don’t accept any of the theories I’ve been presenting to you either. I simply don’t know what the first cause was – although I’m as certain as I can rationally be that whatever it might have been, it wasn’t a creative intelligence. This is for the very simple reason that a creative intelligence is complex enough that it would require a cause of its own, and so it could never explain anything.
On top of that, I’m not even convinced that there was a first cause. Maybe time is eternal. Maybe time is cyclical. It’s hard to tell.
So I’m not giving you these theories because I think they are good theories. Quite to the contrary. I think they’re terrible theories. I’m giving them to you to show you that the theory of an intelligent creator is just as illogical, just as unfounded, and just as unsatisfactory as all the rest of the theories that I’ve been suggesting to you.
If you can give me a good reason why the theory of an intelligent creator is superior to the participatory anthropic principle, please do give it.
If you can’t, then accept that your logic and your argument are both flawed. This by no means disproves the existence of God – it merely shows that the elimination of probabilities is in no way a proof of the existence of God.
Scott // June 28, 2008 at 10:58 am
I don’t really care what you believe Che though I do for your poor blind soul. The very fact of the matter is that “in the beginning” did not start with an effect, but must have started with a cause. But, you won’t admit anything nor address any of the fact nor show how I’m flawed in reasoning, but you’d rather assert error. This is not as much a scientific discussion since origins science can never be observable and, or testable. This is philosophic and logical to an honest heart. You’re a liar to yourself and to the world. I know that frustrates you.
Again, your belief in time possibly being eternal or being cyclical is impossible, since asserting such would mean that cause and effect are eternal, which is impossible as has already been shown.
Ubiquitous Che // June 28, 2008 at 1:58 pm
By exactly the same logic, Yahweh is impossible.
If Yahweh is exempt from causality because he’s outside time, I can only point out that the atemporal void is outside time as well. And since you can’t claim to understand how Yahweh made the universe, neither do I have to claim to understand how the atemporal void could give rise to the ’singularity’ that expaned into the Big Bang.
Reiteration of special pleading is not an argument.
Once again – I’m not trying to tell you that any of this proves that Yahweh doesn’t exist. I can no more prove Yahweh doesn’t exist than I can prove that I don’t have invisible fairies in my garden.
All I’m trying to do is show that your logic above that tries to ‘prove’ the existence of Yahweh is terribly flawed and unconvincing. This doesn’t have to matter to you: You can still believe in bronze-age fairytales if you like. But I’m not going to let you propagate this particularly terrible piece of logic as if it were a good argument without objecting to the flaws therein.
Scott // June 28, 2008 at 2:52 pm
I understand that you believe that cause and effect started was started from no cause, an atemporal void. Alright, you’re statement is made.
Ubiquitous Che // June 28, 2008 at 3:54 pm
You don’t understand.
One of the differences between you and me is that I’m not so arrogant as to claim to know the unknowable.
I don’t believe that the ‘first cause’ was the atemporal void because in all honesty I don’t know because I can’t know. And neither can you.
What I do know is that the atemporal void answer to the first cause question is more plausible than the intelligent creator answer for the simple reason that the atemporal void is much more plausible as the only thing that itself would not have required a cause of its own. You can always make the claim that Yahweh is atemporal as well – but as it stands, the atemporal void is the simpler, more elegant question.
Also, the first cause argument states ‘every cause must itself have a cause’ as its first foundation, then winds up saying ’so there must be a cause that is itself causeless’. It is self-contradictory. It could still be true – metaphysics alone has never been a particularly good predictor of experimental results – but the argument itself is automatically more dodgy than other metaphysical concepts that contain no such internal contradiction.
Also note that even if the atemporal void answer to the first cause question was true, this would not disprove Yahweh. The atemporal void could itself have cause Yahweh – you allow such a bizzare concept the second you claim that causality doesn’t apply in an atemporal environment – and that Yahweh then caused the universe.
So even if Yahweh wasn’t the first cause, that doesn’t mean that Yahwen doesn’t exist, and it doesn’t mean that Yahweh couldn’t have been the cause of time and space.
All it means is that the argument that Yahweh had to exist because the universe had to have a first cause is a completely bogus argument.
Your argument is a bad one. That is my statement – not that I am convinced that there was a first cause and that it was the atemporal void, because I am convinced of no such thing.
Scott // June 28, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Certainly to you, every man who confidently knows and argues anything contrary to you believing it is arrogant. How arrogant is the man who thinks that he cannot know something? How could you know that not knowing it? Do you live your life in such lies and contradictions?
Continue to argue in circles about creating nothings made by a Creator. at no time during this discussion have I mentioned a god, Yahwah, and I do not believe I’ve ever mentioned the God, but only the Creator.
Ubiquitous Che // June 29, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Actually, you do have a point there. I’ve stumbled across your argument on the lips of so many Christians that I jumped to the conclusion that you were pleading the case for Yahweh without just cause. For that, I apologise.
However, my use of ‘Yahweh’ still applies in the sense of an intelligent creator.
Ha!
You’re actually telling me I’m arrogant because I acknowledge that there are some things beyond the ken of human knowledge, and that the origin of the universe is currently on the list of unknowables?
Do you actually read the things you type, or do you just fade in and out?
I acknowledge my weaknesses in the art of knowing what is true. I cannot yet know what the origin of the universe really was – or even that there was one – because as of yet I have no reliable evidence from which to draw that knowledge. This is not arrogance – it’s intellectual honesty.
And while it’s true I do dance in circles during argument (it’s more fun that way) the simple fact of the matter is that you’ve only been able to ignore my points by wilfully failing to understand them.
I’ve been trying to point out several errors in your logic.
You said: “It’s either A, B, or C. I don’t understand how A or B could be true, so C I know, without any evidence, that C must be true.”
I reply: “That’s silly. You don’t really know that A or B are false. Besides, you didn’t even consider X, Y, or Z. Sure, C could be true – but you can’t claim it must be true without any evidence. That’s special pleading.”
You reply: “I don’t understand options X, Y and Z, so that means that option C must be true.”
I reply: “But you don’t really understand option C either, so just because you don’t understand the others that doesn’t mean that they’re not true.”
You say: “But you believe option X, and that’s silly!”
I reply: “I don’t believe option X because I have no good reason to think it’s true. I just know its a possiblity for which I have no hard evidence to invalidate it. It’s just that you haven’t given any evidence for C either, so you haven’t shown why C is any better than X. So you can’t just dismiss X because you don’t like it. That’s special pleading.”
You reply: “But I don’t understand option X, so Y must be true!”
I reply: “Umm… We’ve covered this. You have no evidence for Y other than vauge metaphysics. We can’t claim to know things for which we have no evidence, and it’s arrogant to pretend you do.”
You reply: “Nuh-uh! I’m not arrogant – you’re arrogant! You’re telling me that there’s things you can’t know, and that’s arrogant!”
I reply: “Now you’re just acting like a 12 year old. I acknowledge that we can’t really claim knowledge of something when we have no hard evidence from which to draw that knowledge. At present, we have no hard evidence of the origins of the universe, so for the moment we can’t really know what happened, only guess. That’s not arrogance – that’s intellectual honestly.”
Are you really relying on your stubborn endurance in the face of apt criticism of your initial argument to outlast my tolerance for your inane prattle such that you can get the last word in and pretend you won the argument?
Have you even considered the very plausible possibility that the true underlying nature of reality could be so alien to human intuitions that no human being could ever conceive it, let alone understand it if they were informed of it? I’m not saying that this is the case – only that it could be the case. Once again, you have nothing to show that this could not be the case, so your logic that there must have been a creator because it is the ‘only’ option is highly flawed.
You’re dismissing a limited set of metaphysical claims without evidence of invalidation, and accepting the metaphysical claim you prefer without evidence of validation. This is special pleading, and it’s a bad argument.
Refutations really don’t get any simpler than this.
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