General Relativity Implies that God does not Exist

I. He always keeps his discussions impersonal and focused on the arguments, not on the people behind those arguments. And for that, I thank him. To review, his argument goes like this: 1. In order for god to cause the universe, He must do so at an instantaneous moment. 2. There is no instantaneous moment of the universe that god could cause. 3. God could not have caused the universe. II. General Remarks I gave two reasons to think that Sargon's argument, even if sound, does not establish the resolution of this debate. First, I claimed the argument does not establish that God does not exist. Even given the definition of God as Creator set out by Sargon in his opening statement, God could still be a Creator in the sense of the continuous Creator of the world, even if He is not its originating Creator. Sargon objects that “[t]he word creator …means ‘a person or thing that brings something into existence,’”, the implication being that so long as his argument proves that God did not bring the universe into being, it establishes that He is not creator in the commonsense notion of the word. But let me say that Google and related sources are not contemplating the subtle theological distinctions between creatio continuansand creatio originans when they give the definition of “Creator”, and as such they are not authorities when it comes to a theological debate about God (and these distinctions are not from a small group of theologians, as Sargon insinuates; rather, they’re standard distinctions among the majority of theologians). [1] Second, I contended that Sargon’s argument was a philosophical argument, not, strictly speaking, an argument from General Relativity. I have no desire to quibble about whether or not scientific arguments can utilize philosophical principles. As I began to emphasize in my last rebuttal, the real point is this: premise (1) is not part of the General Theory of Relativity, and so it’s inappropriate to say this argument shows that General Relativity disproves God, the resolution of this debate. To give an example, many philosophers have defended the following argument: 1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause. 2. The universe began to exist. 3. Therefore, the universe has a cause. And they will typically appeal to the standard Big Bang model as support for premise (2). Does it follow from this that the Big Bang theory demonstrates the universe has a cause? Not at all, for premise (1) is not part of the Big Bang theory. And what applies to this case applies in the case of Sargon’s argument. For these two reasons then, Sargon’s argument does not establish General Relativity implies that God does not exist. III. Criticisms of Premise (1) But leave all that aside. For the argument, reguardless of what it proves, isn’t sound. Against premise (1) I lodged three objections. First, God could act to create the universe prior to its existence, so long as we allow for the possibility of a metaphysical time prior to the beginning of the universe. Sargon replied that metaphysical time either had a beginning or was beginningless, but that each of these alternatives was unacceptable. He did not reply to my charge that metaphysical time may still be beginningless even if metric time had a beginning, so this first objection stands on that ground alone. The first alternative was said to be unacceptable because it would imply that God began to exist if He is temporal. But I pointed out that so long as God is timeless causally or explanatorily prior to the beginning of metaphysical time, then He cannot rightly be said to begin to exist. And this was using the very analysis of “begins to exist” that Sargon provided. Sargon’s counter response is confused. Nowhere did I say that “god exists timelessly in metaphysical time. ” That would indeed be “nothing but word salad, or a mix of semantically confused words that have no meaning. ” Rather, what I’m saying is that God is now temporal in metaphysical time, but that without metaphysical time in existence (the state of affairs explanatorily prior to the beginning of metaphysical time), God is timeless. That is perfectly understandable and coherent. In sum, whether metaphysical time had a beginning or not, God may still be conceived to act to create the universe prior to its beginning. Second, God could create the universe simultaneously with the universe coming into being, not in an instant, but over an interval of time. But, Sargon rejoins, “[a]n interval…is purely a mathematical concept with no ontology. ” This, it seems to me, is just silly. An interval of time exists just in case things endure for more than an instant. Now, clearly the world has been around for more than one instant. As such, intervals of time exist. Intervals may be composed of instants, but that doesn’t mean they do not exist. To say anything else is just nonsense. It’s ironic that Sargon thinks I’ve made my position implausible by introducing metaphysical time, when he’s forced to deny that intervals of time exist. In any case, Sargon is the one making the claim and he needs to give some argument to think that intervals of time are a fiction. He has not done this, and so his claim hangs in thin air. Third, God could create the world timelessly. He has a timeless intention to create a world with a beginning, and so the world comes into being. Sargon objected to this, saying that efficient causation is temporal. But I rejoined that all he’s shown is that, in efficient causation, the effect must be temporal, not its cause. His counter response is that our observations of causes being temporal suggests that the cause of the universe must be temporal. This is a very weak inductive argument for the cause of the universe’s temporality, one that I don’t find persuasive. Indeed, Sargon himself gave an objection to it, namely, that observations of causes within space-time don’t relate to the cause of space-time itself. His response to this objection won’t work, because he can’t use my views as justification for ignoring objections to his argument. He’s the one with the burden of proof here. In short, premise (1) is vulnerable to at least three objections, so with its demise the whole argument goes out the window. IV. Criticisms of Premise (2) I presented two objections to premise (2). First, if Sargon is to use General Relativity as justification for premise two, he must affirm either (1) that it breaks down at the beginning of the universe, or (2) that there exists an initial spacetime singularity. Sargon rejoins that there is a third option, namely, (3) “General relativity applies to the beginning of the universe and states that an initial singularity is physically unreal. ” But upon reflection, (3) collapses into (1). Sargon has, elsewhere [2] presented independent reasons to think that the singularity should be taken as a mathematical idealization, not as a physical reality. I agree with these arguments. But our insistence of the fact that a singularity is physically impossible suggests that, at the end of the day, General Relativity cannot be applied to the beginning of the universe, because it does predict that a singularity exists. Second, even if physical time has no first instant, metaphysical time may still have a first instant, and so the argument goes down the drain of this point alone. This point deserves underscoring, for it originiated from philosopher and atheist Quentin Smith, who, speaking of an argument similiar to Sargon's, objects, "[One] could best state his case by supposing that there is a metaphysical time series in which God exists and that any physical time correlates to a metaphysical time [One] could then argue that, even though there is no t0, there is a metaphysical time T0 at which there is a divine creative act that causally originates the physical time series and all the universe states in this physical time series. In other words, [one] could plausibly claim that, even if the physical causal history of the universe has no first moment, it is possible that the complete (metaphysical and physical) causal history of the universe does. " [3] In short, all warrant for thinking premise (2) to be true has been removed. V. Conclusion My summation last round still stands, so I won’t repeat myself here. I can only endorse Sargon’s remarks about the nature of debate and voting. Might I only add that you not choose Sargon as winner simply because he’s never lost a debate before. Choose him as winner because he established the resolution. And in my opinion, he has not. But I’ll leave the final word up to you. Notes [1] Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, 555. [2] . http://www.debate.org... [3] . http://infidels.org...