General Relativity Implies that God does not Exist

Definitions God--the uncaused, personal Creator of the universe who sans the universe is beginningless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless, changeless, and enormously powerful. Efficient cause--that which brings something into being. A chef is the efficient cause of the food he makes. Logical soundness--all of the premises in the argument are true and the argument is logically valid Logical validity--the truth of the premises necessarily entails the truth of the conclusion Begins to exist--e comes into being at t if and only if (i) e exists at t, (ii) t is the first time at which e exists, (iii) there is no state of affairs in the actual world in which e exists timelessly, and (iv) e’s existing at t is a tensed fact. Universe--the connected or contiguous space-time described by Einstein’s general theory of realativity Introduction In this debate, I will be arguing that general relativity allows us to construct an argument against the existence of god. Considering the technical nature of general relativity, the content of my opening argument will be fairly technical. However, I will explain all of the terms that I use and provide intuitive examples of these terms to make my argument easier to understand. If the reader truly attempts to follow the argument, then it will not be confusing. Finally, I thank the audience and Miles Donahue for taking the time to participate in this debate. 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. (Given that Einstein’s general theory of relativity is true) 3: God could not have caused the universe. *By causation, I mean efficient causation, where something brings something else into being. P1 I expect this premise to be the most controversial in the debate, because it based on philosophy rather than physical fact. However, I believe that an effective argument for this premise can be made based on the so-called “Problem of atemporal causation”. This problem asks us how god can create the universe if the beginning of the universe represents the beginning of time as well. If all of cause and effect takes place within time (we use words like “cause happens before effect”), then is it meaningless to talk about god causing time? In the words of physicist Paul Davies, “Perhaps the most serious objection, however, to the causal version of the cosmological argument is the fact that cause and effect are concepts that are firmly embedded in the notion of time. Yet, as we have seen, modern cosmology suggests that the appearance of the universe involved the appearance of time itself. It is usually accepted that cause always precedes effect in time: the target shatters after the gun is fired, for example. In that case it is clearly meaningless to talk about God creating the universe in the usual causal sense, if that act of creation involves the creation of time itself. If there was no ‘before’, there can be no cause (in the usual sense) of the big bang, either natural or supernatural.” [1] The theist answer to this dilemma is to argue that cause and effect can happen at the same time. To get out of the dilemma, the theist states that god caused the universe simultaneous with the universe coming into being. In the words of the Christian philosopher William Lane Craig, “God's creating the universe is simultaneous with the universe's coming into being.” [2] God creates from a timeless realm, but the act of creation was in time, so the dilemma is avoided entirely. I agree with this solution to the dilemma, and my point in mentioning the “Problem of atemporal causation” was not to argue against theism, but rather to point out that the theist has to commit themselves to god creating the universe at an instantaneous moment. The scenario I described obviously involves a universe which begins at an instantaneous moment, as all things which happen simultaneously also occur instantaneously (Indeed, the word simultaneously means “at the same time”, and the word instantaneously means “without delay” [3]). Therefore, in order for god to cause the universe, he has to cause the universe at an instantaneous moment. Otherwise, the theist faces the “Problem of atemporal causation”. P2 This debate takes place in the context of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Because of this, the term “instantaneous moment” must be addressed in the context of Einstein’s general theory of relativity as well. In Einstein’s general theory of relativity, an instantaneous moment is represented by a plane referred to as a “Cauchy surface”, which is named after the French mathematician Augustin-Louis Cauchy [4]. In terms of topology, a Cauchy surface is a hypersurface, which means that given a Manifold, M, with the dimensions N, a Cauchy surface has n-1 dimensions [5]. An intuitive example of a hypersurface is a circle inside of a sphere. The two-dimensional circle is a hypersurface because it one less dimension than three-dimensional sphere. (Image belongs to CUNYMath Blog) The meaning of the term “manifold” is a topological space that closely resembles Euclidean space (think of basic Euclidean geometry) near its points, but is not necessarily a Euclidean space as whole. Furthermore, a manifold has a neighborhood (a point in a set containing the point where one can move that point without leaving the set) which is homeomorphic (an equivalence relation and one-to-one correspondence between two shapes) to a Euclidean space dimension [6]. For example, a piece of paper is homeomorphic to a cylinder, but it is not homeomorphic to a sphere, because you cannot make a sphere out of a piece of paper. An example of two topological shapes which are not homeomorphic. (Image belongs to Science4All) The final and most important rule for Cauchy surfaces is that if S and S’ are Cauchy surfaces, then the conditions at S’ can be predicted based on the initial conditions at S [7]. The implication of this idea, in the words of the philosopher of science Tim Maudlin [8], is that , for every event you can find an earlier Cauchy surface such that the event follows from the physical state on the Cauchy surface. Every Cauchy surfaces (an instant of space-time S’) is caused by a previous Cauchy surface (an instant of space time S). A Cauchy surface (Image taken from Kyoto University’s Webpage) If Cauchy surfaces represent instantaneous moments, and each Cauchy surface is caused by another Cauchy surface, then it would follow that there is no instantaneous moment of the universe that god can cause, as any given moment is caused by a Cauchy surface rather than god. This is a justification of the second premise. P3 Based on my reasoning under P1, we saw that the theist has to commit themselves to the proposition that god created the universe at an instantaneous moment. However, based on my reasoning under P2, we saw that there is no such instantaneous moment that god could cause. Therefore, it follows logically that god did not create the universe. References God and the New Physics, pg 38 http://tinyurl.com... http://tinyurl.com... http://tinyurl.com... http://tinyurl.com... http://tinyurl.com... http://tinyurl.com... Private e-mail communication