May Regular Tournament: God Exists

C1) Kalam cosmological argument Con accepts the universe has a cause, and rejects God as the cause of the universe. There is no reason to believe this. As mentioned, if the universe had a cause, the cause of the universe would have to be, sans the universe, timeless, spaceless, immaterial, causeless, and intelligent [1]. I do not deny that vacuum fluctuations may have caused the universe as we know it, i.e. caused the eventual expansion, etc. But vacuum fluctuations are a part of the universe. As mentioned, the quantum vacuum contains a finite amount of energy, and the universe encompasses all energy, including the quantum vacuum [2][3]. So, the question follows--what caused quantum fluctuations? Con concedes that everything that begins to exist has a cause, and quantum fluctuations begin to exist from the quantum vacuum, which is a part of the universe. I have adequately defended that the universe began to exist. Thus, the quantum vacuum itself must have a cause [4]. We now require an ontological analysis of the properties of the cause. The universe encompasses all of time, space, energy, and matter. The cause of the universe existed before the universe, and sans the universe, there is no time, space, energy or matter, thus the cause would have to be timeless, spaceless, immaterial, and energy-less. It is almost impossible to conceive of something that is timeless and spaceless, and there are only two possible things that can be timeless and spaceless--abstract concepts, and disembodied minds. Abstract concepts cannot conceivably cause anything physical, thus it would have to be a timeless, spaceless, energy-less, immaterial, and supernatural disembodied mind that caused the universe [5]. Additionally, it would have to be enormously powerful. God is defined as “a supernaturally powerful, transcendent cause of the universe.” This entirely fits the definition of God, thus it is logical to conclude that God likely caused the quantum vacuum even if the rest of the universe was caused by vacuum fluctuations. As illustrated in the previous round, there are major flaws to the vacuum fluctuation model [6][7]. The vacuum fluctuation model would predict a multiverse, which is dubious due to inter-universal collision [8][9]. Con cites the paper of He, Gao, and Cai (2014), but Con entirely misinterprets their paper--the paper states that, via. the Wheeler-DeWitt equation, quantum fluctuations *could* have created the universe, but it doesn’t mean they necessarily created the universe [10]. And even if they did, the kalam cosmological argument successfully demonstrates that they were caused by God. Next, Con asserts that I’m saying “God created everything”--this is a strawman. I never mentioned that God created everything, and Con quotes the Bible. I never mentioned once that I’m defending the God of the Bible--God created the universe. Infinity is an abstract concept, thus is not part of the universe. Thus, I do not, in any way, assert that God created concepts such as infinity. God caused the universe--that is all my burden of proof requires me to show. The universe cannot have infinite energy, since actual infinities are metaphysically impossible. The concept of an ‘infinite’ is entirely potential and not actual. David Hilbert wrote, “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.” [11] Hilbert’s Hotel and other such paradoxes seem to imply an infinite is paradoxical within the universe [12]. Thus, the universe had a cause, and that cause is God. C2) Ontology necessitates God’s existence Con’s rejection of P4 is entirely based on the Bible. The Bible is *irrelevant*. I completely accept that the Bible’s description of God is to appear and seem human-like, but I entirely reject the Bible. The resolution is about a generic God, not the God described in the Bible. The only definition of God given: “the supernaturally powerful, transcendent cause of the universe.” Which means this definition of God does *not* include a description of how to imagine God. This entails that God is a simple idea, and, as Hume notes, it is impossible to imagine such a simple idea, and one can only conceive of such an idea. With the Bible, Con has used a straw man to dismantle this argument, and, thus, his rebuttals are logically fallacious [13][14]. Crystallization C1: Kalam cosmological argument The kalam cosmological argument is entirely justified by an ontological analysis of the cause required. Con accepts the first three propositions, and then rejects the ontological analysis with no basis. I have also demonstrated that quantum fluctuations emerge from the quantum vacuum which is a part of the universe, thus God must have created it, and demonstrated that an actual infinite cannot exist. Thus, the kalam cosmological argument necessitates God. C2: Ontological argument Con challenges P4, albeit using the God of the Bible, who is *irrelevant* to this debate, which does not concern such complex visions of God. A non-described simple God, as with the definition, completely fulfills all premises, and the conclusion entails that God exists. R1: The beginning of the universe I have shown that the Lambda-CDM model and Big Bang cosmology entail that the universe did begin to exist, along with proper interpretations of quantum mechanics. The cosmological redshift and the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem also justifies the same. This shows that the universe did indeed begin to exist, contrary to Con’s assertion. R2: Causality is not required I have clearly demonstrated that quantum fluctuations emerge from the quantum vacuum, which contains energy, and, thus, is part of the universe itself. This entails that it would need a cause necessarily via. the causal principle, which Con also concedes in his response to the first premise of my C1. This means that quantum fluctuations themselves would have to be caused by God. Conclusion Thus, I have presented two arguments for the existence of God that Con has not come close to refuting, and have completely refuted both of Con’s contentions. Thus, the resolution is resoundingly affirmed. Vote Pro. 1. W.L. Craig and J.P. Moreland. The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, p 194. 2. http://physics.aps.org... 3. http://core.ac.uk... 4. http://plato.stanford.edu... 5. Ibid. 6. http://www.reasonablefaith.org... 7. http://www.reasonablefaith.org... 8. Ibid. 9. Christopher Isham. Creation of the Universe, pp 385-387. 10. http://journals.aps.org... 11. http://math.dartmouth.edu... 12. W.L. Craig. On Guard, pp 80-83. 13. http://www.logicallyfallacious.com... 14. http://www.nizkor.org...