god

"No question is more sublime than why there is a universe: why there is anything rather than nothing."[1] "Or were they created by nothing? Or were they the creators (of themselves)? Or did they create heavens and earth? Rather, they are not certain." Quran 52:35-36 Before we proceed, the first presupposition has to be subtantiated, as it forms the basis for the Qur'an's argument for the existence of God. This first assumption is that the universe began to exist. If the universe did begin to exist it logically follows that there had to be a cause because if there wasn't you would be saying that universe came out of nothing, but we know out of nothing, nothing comes. Did the universe begin to exist? To substantiate the view that the universe began to exist we can bring into our discussion a plethora of philosophical and inductive arguments: 1. The second law of thermodynamics 2. The absurdity of an infinite history of past events 3. Astrophysical evidence 1. The second law of thermodynamics The concept of entropy was introduced to explain the direction of various processes that occur in the natural world. Entropy is a measure of how evenly energy is distributed in a system. For example, heat always flows from a body of a higher temperature or energy (low entropy) to one of a lower temperature or energy (high entropy). Take the following illustration of a container with gas, when the partition is removed, the gas in one end of the container will spread to the whole of the container, going from a state of low entropy (higher temperature or energy) to high entropy (lower temperature or energy). Hence, according to the second law of thermodynamics, processes in a closed system tend towards higher entropy, as their energy is being used. Applying the second law of thermodynamics to the universe we will conclude that it must have began to exist. Since the universe is a closed system, with enough time the universe will suffer a heat death or thermodynamic equilibrium. When systems are in thermodynamic equilibrium, they cannot transfer energy. This is because entropy can only increase over time. Therefore, as the universe continues to expand it will eventually become cold and dead. However this raises a question, if the universe never began to exist it would imply that the universe has existed for an infinite amount of time. If this is true then why isn't the universe already in a state of heat death? This strongly suggests that the universe must have had a beginning, because if it didn't it would imply that it has existed for an infinite amount of time, which would mean that it should already have suffered a heat death. Since it hasn't suffered a heat death, it strongly indicates that the universe is finite, meaning it began to exist. 2. The absurdity of an infinite history of past events Some philosophers such as Bertrand Russell argued that the universe is eternal, meaning it has no beginning and it will never end. However if we think about this we will conclude that this position is irrational. If the universe never had a beginning it means there must be an infinite history of past events. Yet does an actual infinite exist in the real world? Is it possible? The concept of the actual infinite cannot be exported into the real world, because it leads to contradictions and doesn't make sense. Let's take the following examples to illustrate this point: 1. Say you have an infinite number of balls, if I take 2 balls away, how many do you have left? Infinity. Does that make sense? Well, there should be two less than infinity, and if there is, then we should be able to count how many balls you have. But this is impossible, because the infinite is just an idea and doesn't exist in the real world. In light of this fact the famous German mathematician David Hilbert said, "The infinite is nowhere to be found in reality. It neither exists in nature nor provides a legitimate basis for rational thought…the role that remains for the infinite to play is solely that of an idea."[2] 2. Imagine you are a soldier ready to fire a gun, but before you shoot you have to ask permission for the soldier behind you, but he has to do the same, and it goes on for infinity. Will you ever shoot? No you wouldn't. This highlights, the absurdity of an infinite regress and this applies to events to. Therefore, there cannot be an infinite history of past events. 3. Take the distance between two points, one may argue that you can subdivide the distance into infinite parts, but you will always be subdividing and never actually reach the ‘infinitieth' part! So in reality the infinite is potential and can never be actualised. Similarly the ancient Greek Philosopher Aristotle explained, "…the infinite is potential, never actual: the number of parts that can be taken always surpasses any assigned number."[3] So if we refer back to an infinite history of past events we can conclude, since events are not just ideas they are real, the number of past events cannot be infinite. Therefore the universe must be finite, in other words the cosmos had a beginning. 3. Astrophysical evidence The ‘Big Bang' is the prevailing theory in cosmology. It was first formulated by the aid of some observations made by an American Astronomer called Edwin Hubble. While Hubble was trying to understand the size of the universe, he observed immensely luminous stars called Cepheid Variables and noticed something peculiar. He observed that some of these stars were further away than initially anticipated, and that their colour was slightly changed, shifting towards red, something now known as red-shift. From Hubble's observations we were able conclude that everything seems to be moving away from each other, in other words the universe is effectively expanding. As time moves on the universe continues to expand, but if time is reversed, the theory is that everything starts to coalesce and come together. Coupled with the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation, which is the radiation uniformly filling the observable universe, the idea of the ‘Big Bang' was born. In other words the universe began at a cataclysmic event which created space-time and all matter in the universe. The physicist P. C. W. Davies explains, "If we extrapolate this prediction to its extreme, we reach a point when all distances in the universe have shrunk to zero. An initial cosmological singularity therefore forms a past temporal extremity to the universe. We cannot continue physical reasoning, or even the concept of spacetime, through such an extremity. For this reason most cosmologists think of the initial singularity as the beginning of the universe. On this view the big bang represents the creation event; the creation not only of all the matter and energy in the universe, but also of spacetime itself."[4] Thus the ‘Big Bang' model describes our universe as having a beginning a finite time ago. As Alex Vilenkin, one of the world's leading theoretical cosmologists, writes, "It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning."[6] Other models have been proposed to try and explain away the obvious metaphysical questions that arise from a finite universe, for instance P.C.W. Davies questions, "What caused the big bang? . . . One might consider some supernatural force, some agency beyond space and time as being responsible for the big bang, or one might prefer to regard the big bang as an event without a cause. It seems to me that we don't have too much choice. Either…something outside of the physical world…or…an event without a cause."[7]