God (Probably) Exists

Thanks, Romanii, for accepting. Before I begin, I warn readers of possible grammatical and spelling discrepancies. I was not in the best state of mind while writing this, and I apologise in advance for any problems caused. I will build my case for the existence of God based on modern variants of two traditional arguments: the cosmological argument, and the teleological argument; as a matter of fact the Kalām argument, and the teleological argument from fine-tuning respectively. I’ll be utilising William Lane Craig’s formulations of both arguments. Yes, yes, I know. Both arguments are used so much these days, but nevertheless, I believe that they are simple, yet potent. Let’s begin. Kalām Cosmological Argument P1: Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence. P2: The universe began to exist. C1: Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence (God) [1] Obviously, there is a lot that I have to defend, so I’ll get into it immediately without further digression. P1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence. If Premise 1 were to be false, then things would come into existence without a cause of their existence. Yet, this is clearly absurd. The metaphysical principle “ex nihilo nihil fit”, or “nothing comes from nothing” is one of the most fundamental and intuitive principles within metaphysics. Indeed, to deny it, one would collide with what Kantischieder calls the “most successful ontological commitment” within science. [2] Furthermore, ex nihilo nihil fit has never been contradicted in our common experiences. We never see anything that comes into existence without a cause of its existence, whilst everything that comes into existence we observe to have a cause of its existence. This is also true within science. We have never seen anything come into existence uncaused in scientific discovery either. One would say that scientific discovery and advances have vindicated such a notion. Thus, one can then create a probabilistic argument, that, given It would be utterly absurd to insist that the Universe could suddenly “pop” out of nothing. If that were possible, then all sorts of logical absurdities follow. Craig states: “To suggest that things could just pop into being uncaused out of nothing is to quit doing serious metaphysics and to resort to magic. Nobody sincerely believes that things, say, a horse or an Eskimo village, can just pop into being without a cause. But if we make the universe an exception to (1), we have got to think that the whole universe just appeared at some point in the past for no reason whatsoever." [3] Thus, the first premise is affirmed. P2. The Universe began to exist The second premise is strongly supported by modern cosmology. Work from Hawking and Penrose in the 70s strongly suggest that the Universe began in a singularity. The BGV (Borde-Guth-Vilenkin) theorem further builds on other work and is somewhat of a “godsend” towards theists, because , according to Craig, it shows that “any universe which has, on average, been expanding throughout its history cannot be infinite in the past but must have a past space-time boundary.” [4] Vilenkin has this to say about the theorem: “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.” [5] Hence, there are good reasons, from modern cosmology, that the Universe began to exist. Now, there are also philosophical reasons for affirming this premise, but I won’t go into them, because I believe that above argument is sufficient. C1: Therefore, the universe had a cause of its existence (God) Thus, from the above two premises, we have shown that the universe has a cause of its existence. However, we are yet to have shown that the cause is God. Yet, there are good reasons to believe that is the case. Such a cause of the universe must be, and transcendent of space-time, for it would be responsible for bringing both of them into existence. It is immaterial because it is responsible for bringing a material world into existence. It also must be one of immense power, for it is responsible for the creation of the universe. Now, notice that I don’t have to go from here and argue for a personal God, because the definition proposed is one that is not necessarily personal. With that said, we can thus conclude that the KCA is sound, and that a deistic God exists. Teleological Argument From Fine-Tuning Traditionally, teleological arguments have been used to infer the existence of a designer through biology eg. Paley’s watchmaker analogy. However, recent discoveries in cosmology, relevant to the physical laws of nature, also support the notion of a designer; God. William Lane Craig formulates his fine tuning argument as follows [6]: P1: The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design. P2: It is not due to physical necessity or chance. C: Therefore, it is due to design. But, what is this fine-tuning that we speak of? In this context, when we speak of fine-tuning we are referring to the fact that the physical law and the constants of nature governing the universe must fall within a very, very range in order for the conditions that allow life in the universe to form. Thus, if such physical laws are even changed in the slightest, the universe would turn out to be inhospitable. Let’s look at an example of this; the gravitational constant (yes, the one in Newton’s law of universal gravitation). But how fine-tuned is the gravitational constant? According to Robin Collins [7] : “if one increased the strength of gravity by one part in 10^34 of the range of force strengths, then: Every single celled organisms would be crushed, and only planets less than 100 feet in diameter could sustain life with our brain size. Such planets, however, could not contain an ecosystem to support life of our level of intelligence. No long-lived stable stars (that exist longer than a billion years). This would hugely decrease the chance of conscious, embodied life evolving. Another more extreme example of fine tuning is one that is found as an initial condition of the universe; the initial distribution of mass-energy. The physicist Roger Penrose describes the unlikelihood of such a distribution: “In order to produce a universe resembling the one in which we live, the Creator would have to aim for an absurdly tiny volume of the phase space of possible universes-about 1/10^10^123 of the entire volume, for the situation under consideration.” Collins uses an analogy to explain the unlikelihood: “According to Penrose’s calculations, the precisions of the Big Bang explosion must be greater than that needed to blow up a pile of rubble and obtain a fully completed building replete with desks, tables, chairs, and computers!” There are plenty of other examples of this, which one could drone on for months, but the above should be enough as examples of fine-tuning. P1: The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design The whole purpose of Premise 1 is to list out the possible explanations of fine-tuning. Of course, if there were to be any explanations that were excluded, then Con would simply have to point them out, and we’ll add it onto both premises. P2: It [the fine-tuning] is not due to physical necessity or chance If the fine-tuning was due to physical necessity, then it means that the constants simply had to be the way they are. However, it would be spectacularly improbable that this would be the case, and to suggest that they would “simply had to be the way they are” is an unintuitive, intellectually unsatisfying answer. Furthermore, there is simply no evidence; no reason to believe that such fine-tuning was physically necessary, thus making such a “hypothesis” unlikely. Now, what about chance? The problem with arguing that mere chance was responsible for the fine-tuning of the universe is that it is simply too improbable. Consider Penrose’s calculation that the fine-tuning of the initial distribution of mass-energy, for instance. Or perhaps Collins’ analogy to explain such a likelihood. Now, notice how this is only referring to one example of fine-tuning. That’s right. One example. Yet, there are tens of other examples of fine-tuning. Thus, it is exceedingly improbable – not impossible – that chance is an adequate explanation of fine-tuning. C: Therefore, it is due to design This follows logically from the above two premises. Hence, we have discerned that the fine-tuning of the universe is best accounted for by design, thus once again fulfilling our BOP by demonstrating the teleological argument to be correct. Now, I expect all sorts of responses from Con with regard to the fine-tuning argument, due to the fact that I was merely giving a very basic overview of the argument involved. I will wait until him to do so, before making any further comment. Conclusion The resolution has been affirmed. I have provided two potent arguments in favour of God’s existence – the Kalām cosmological argument, and the fine-tuning argument. As of yet, they have not been refuted, and I look forward to interacting with Con’s rebuttals. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] http://calumsblog.com... [3] The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology pp.182 [4] http://www.reasonablefaith.org... [5] http://commonsenseatheism.com... [6] http://withalliamgod.wordpress.com... [7] http://is.gd... [8] http://infidels.org... [9] http://is.gd...