General Relativity Implies that God does not Exist

I. Introduction Well, this promises to be an interesting an engaging debate! I have no doubt we shall be treading deep waters (as if we haven’t already), so I thank our patient readers in advance for working through the arguments presented, and I thank Sargon for agreeing to this debate. II. Implication of the Argument 1. In order for God to cause the universe, God must cause the universe at an instantaneous moment. 2. There is no instantaneous moment of the universe that God could cause. 3. Therefore, God could not have caused the universe. So far as I can tell, the argument is logically valid, but two general remarks are in order. First, note-worthy is the fact that the conclusion of the argument is not “God does not exist”, but merely that God could not have caused the beginning of the universe. But it’s open to the theist to respond by saying, “Fine, God did not create the universe a finite time ago, but He may still be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, and so still deserves to be called 'God.'” I suspect that Sargon will reply the definition of “God” used in this debate is that of a Creator God. But this fails to understand that theologians have distinguished between creatio originans and creatio continuans. That is to say, God’s originating creation (which Sargon has in mind), and God’s continuous creation of the world (His conservation of the world moment by moment). All his argument shows is that creatio originans is implausible, but it says nothing about creatio continuans. And to my mind, one who engages in creatio continuans is still rightly called a Creator. Second, the argument above is a philosophical argument, not a scientific argument. This can easily be seen from the fact that premise (1) is no part of the General Theory of Relativity; rather, it's a philosophical principle concerning the nature of causation. By itself, General Relativity implies nothing about God's creation of the universe, whether or not the above argument is sound. It's only when viewed through the lense of philosophy that atheistic implications may be drawn from GR. So, strictly speaking, Sargon has failed to show that General Relativity implies that God does not exist. But leave all that aside. Must the theist even grant the argument shows God’s originating creation of the world to be problematic? I think not. III. An Examination of Premise (1) Sargon's defense of premise (1) may be summarized as follows: 1. If God created the universe, then either God’s creation of the universe was before the beginning of the universe, or simultaneous with it. 2. God’s creation of the universe cannot have been before the beginning of the universe. 3. Therefore, if God created the universe, then God’s creation of the universe simultaneous with the beginning of the universe. 4. If God’s creation of the universe was simultaneous with the beginning of the universe, then both occurred in an instant of time. 5. Therefore, If God created the universe, God’s creation of the universe occurred in a first instant of time. Three objections may be raised to various premises. First, turning to premise (2), why couldn’t God could have acted prior to the beginning of the universe to create it? It’s often said that according to the standard Big Bang model, time begins to exist with the universe, and so there can be no “before” the beginning. But a distinction needs to be made between physical time and metaphysical time. Physical time only concerns our empirical measurements of time, such as readings on a clock. Metaphysical time concerns time itself. Physical time, then, is only a more or less accurate measurement of metaphysical time; it's not identical with it. Physics only concerns itself with physical time; it makes no remarks concerning time as conceived as independent from physical measures. As such, even if the standard Big Bang model posits a beginning to time, all this implies is that physical time had a beginning, not that metaphysical time did. On a reductionistic view, time is identified with our physical measurements, so one might ask what justification there is for such a differentiation of time. The answer is simply that time can exist in the absence of physical measurements, and as such the two cannot be identical. A series of mental events alone is sufficient for time. God could have led up to the Big Bang, mentally counting down, "Three, two, one. Let there be light!", and this wouldn't contradict any tenent of current cosmology. In short, it has not been shown that God could not have acted to create the universe prior to the Big Bang. Second, I take is that premise (4) is obviously false. The fact that two things happen simultaneously does not imply that they happen instantaneously. Two baseball games may occur at the same time and so occur simultaneously, but of course the games do not happen instantaneously! Concerning the universe, God’s creation of the universe is simultaneous with the universe coming into being, whether the universe came into being at an instant or over a finite interval of time.I take this to be a knock-down objection, so on this count alone, the argument goes out the window. Third, I might add premise (1) is not obviously true. It seems to me that (1) doesn’t present all the options for how God as cause might relate to the universe. Why couldn’t God cause the universe timelessly? Is it because all causes must be temporal? But why think that? It can’t be because all observed causes are temporal, because all that shows is that it's a general property of causes to be temporal, not that it’s an essential property. Indeed, there just doesn’t seem to be anything temporal about the causal relation. God could timelessly sustain an abstract object, or perhaps another mind, in existence, and even though neither entity exists in time, we still understand that God is the cause. At the very least, Sargon has presented no objections to atemporal causation. In short, neither God’s timeless creation of the universe, His acting to create the universe prior to its beginning, or His simultaneous creation of the universe over an interval of time have been shown to be implausible. IV. An Examination of Premise (2) Is this premise any more plausible than premise (1)? I think not, and for two reasons. First, the theist could agree with the conditional statement, “if General Relativity is true, then there cannot be a first instant of time”, but deny that General Relativity is true. The reader needs to understand that Quantum Mechanics, the other pillar of modern day physics, is incompatible with General Relativity. But they’re equally successful theories, and thus we must seek a deeper theory of the world, a quantum theory of gravity which marries General Relativity with Quantum Mechanics. Indeed, General Relativity breaks down when used to describe phenomena below the Plank length, a size the universe possessed near the Big Bang. Stephen Weinstein and Dean Rickles, both philosophers of science, expand on this problem, “Some approaches [to a quantum theory of gravity] view general relativity as in need of correction and quantum field theory as generally applicable, while others view quantum field theory as problematic and general relativity as having a more universal status. Still others view the theories in a more even-handed manner, perhaps with both simply amounting to distinct limits of a deeper theory.” [1] It seems to me that to try to argue that "because a theory we know to be incomplete, a theory we know will need changes, implies the truth of premise (2), therefore premise (2) is true" just isn't a successful argument. We have no idea if (2) will be implied by a quantum theory of gravity, and as such we are left with no reason to hold to its truth.Second, much of what was said concerning metaphysical and physical time will be relevant here. At most, General Relativity implies that physical time began to exist without a first instant, not that metaphysical time has no first instant. General Relativity is only concerned with physical time, not time itself, and as such no conclusions concerning the former apply to the latter. There may still be a first instant in metaphysical time that God may cause. V. Conclusion To sum up, we've seen three objections to premise 1: (1) God could have created the universe in a moment of metaphysical time prior to the beginning of the universe, (2) simultaneity does not imply instantaneity, and (3) God may cause the universe timelessly. Two objections were given to premise 2: (1) General Relativity is an incomplete theory of the world, and (2) metaphysical time may have a first instant even if physical time does not. I conclude that Sargon's argument is not sound. Finally, we've seen that Sargon's argument is a philosophical argument that, even if sound, does not imply atheism.On all of these counts, then, Sargon has failed to prove the resolution. [1] http://plato.stanford.edu......