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The Epicurean Paradox

The Epicurean Paradox is a philosophical argument that has intrigued thinkers for centuries. It is an argument in favor of skepticism towards the existence of God, based on the problem of evil. The paradox states that if God is all-powerful and all-good, then why is there evil and suffering in the world? This argument has been used to question the existence of God and has challenged theologians and philosophers for centuries.

The Epicurean Paradox is named after the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, who first presented this argument. Epicurus was a proponent of the idea that pleasure and happiness were the highest good in life. According to him, the gods did not concern themselves with human affairs and were not responsible for human suffering. Instead, he argued that the natural world operated according to natural laws, and that human beings were free to live their lives as they saw fit.

The paradox goes as follows: If God is willing to prevent evil but is not able to, then he is not all-powerful. If he is able to prevent evil but is not willing to, then he is not all-good. If he is both willing and able to prevent evil, then why is there evil and suffering in the world?

This argument has been used to challenge the existence of an all-powerful, all-good God. If God exists, then why does he allow innocent people to suffer? Why do natural disasters occur? Why are there diseases and illnesses that cause so much pain and suffering? These are questions that have plagued theologians and philosophers for centuries.

One response to this paradox is that God allows evil and suffering in the world because he wants us to have free will. In other words, God has given us the ability to choose our own actions, even if those actions result in suffering for ourselves or others. This response suggests that God is not responsible for the evil in the world, but rather it is the result of human actions.

However, this response does not fully address the paradox. If God is all-powerful, then he should be able to prevent evil without interfering with our free will. If he is all-good, then he would want to prevent evil and suffering in the world. Therefore, the paradox remains unanswered.

I believe that the Epicurean Paradox is a compelling argument against the existence of an all-powerful, all-good God. It forces us to confront the problem of evil and suffering in the world and question our beliefs about the nature of God. While there may be responses to this paradox, they do not fully address the issue at hand. As a result, I believe that the paradox remains a challenge to those who believe in an all-powerful, all-good God.What is the evidence for/against the existence of God?
April 1998

William Lane Craig vs. Peter Atkins
Carter Presidential Center, Atlanta, Georgia, United States - April 1998

Introduction

Dr. JimÂ Tumlin, Introduction:Â Good evening. My name is Dr. Jim Tumlin, and I am the President of the Faith and Science Lecture Forum. On behalf of the Faith and Science Lecture Forum, we would like to welcome you to tonightâs debate.
For many of us, the first time that we understood the awesome expanse of the universe, the indescribable power of the sun, or the breath-taking complexity and beauty of a single cell, we were driven by a deep desire to know and to be known by the Creator of all this splendor. As the Apostle Paul put it, For since the foundation, the creation of the world, his invisible attributes have been known by that which is made, even his godhead and eternal power.Â [1]
For many others however, the universe and all it contains, while amazing, is the product of mere chance, a random collection of molecules that ultimately does not point toward the hand of a Creator, and in fact has no meaning at all. As the famous Harvard paleontologist George Simpson put it, âMan is the product of a random and purposeless process that never had him in mind.âÂ [2]Â As our knowledge of science has increased over the years, many of us have asked the question, âDid God create us and all that is seen, in him and through him, or have we by an innate fear or a need for significance and purpose, created God?â
Tonight weâre going to address that question, a question that for most of us is most likely the most important question you will ever ask: Does God exist? And to do that in a thoughtful and rigorous manner, the Faith and Science Lecture Forum has invited Mr. William F. Buckley to moderate tonightâs debate. Mr. Buckley was born in 1925 in New York City. He is a widely acknowledged author and lecturer. He is the recipient of over 38 honorary degrees from universities across the country, including the Presidential Medal of Honor in 1991. His recent book, Near My God, is a brilliant treatise of his own journey toward faith, and ultimately underscores his ability to moderate religious lectures. Would you please welcome with me Mr. William F. Buckley.
WilliamÂ F. Buckley, Moderator: Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Iâm happy to be a witness to the forthcoming exchange. Iâm not renowned as a moderator and wonder at the confidence of Dr. Tumlin in nominating me to moderate this titanic struggle. I will of course attempt to be scrupulously fair. I do this for professional reasons, but there is the further reason that to attempt to block either of the protagonists in pursuit of their arguments would betray my utter innocence of scientific abstractions, the mention of which cause me to urge the eminent scientists and philosophers here to talk to us, please, and remember the gentle benefits of the idiomatic mode. We gather together tonight in an effort to communicate with one another, and to do this requires that we have a continuing idea of what it is that weâre talking about. As you are aware, the argument is over whether the evidence for and against the existence of God ultimately prevails.
Whether the preponderance of evidence argues the existence of God, Professor William Lane Craig believing as he does that it does prevail.
Dr. Craig returned from a ministry in Belgium, resides in Atlanta, and continues to work in his various campuses. He received his doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Birmingham, and a second doctorate in theology from the University of Munich. He has published an astonishing 89 papers in peer-reviewed journals.Â [3]Â His latest book is called Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics.
On the side of the devil is Peter Atkins. Dr. Atkinsâ doctorate is in physical chemistry from Lincoln College at Oxford. He also is a prodigious writer having published 36 peer-reviewed articles, many of them designed to undermine a belief in a divine Creator. He is an eloquent and learned advocate. Dr. Atkins has also done considerable work on his ministry over radio and television.
The format calls for initial statements by the two contenders, of eighteen minutes each. They will be followed by nine-minute rebuttals. Iâm not going to pull a lever and cause the speakers to disappear into the bowels of the earth if they go five seconds over their allotted period, but if they do go a half minute over, I will make my impatient presence, our presence, felt. So I do urge them to keep their eyes on the clock, and urge you to pay close attention to them. Please proceed.

WilliamÂ F. Buckley, Moderator: Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Iâm happy to be a witness to the forthcoming exchange. Iâm not renowned as a moderator and wonder at the confidence of Dr. Tumlin in nominating me to moderate this titanic struggle. I will of course attempt to be scrupulously fair. I do this for professional reasons, but there is the further reason that to attempt to block either of the protagonists in pursuit of their arguments would betray my utter innocence of scientific abstractions, the mention of which cause me to urge the eminent scientists and philosophers here to talk to us, please, and remember the gentle benefits of the idiomatic mode. We gather together tonight in an effort to communicate with one another, and to do this requires that we have a continuing idea of what it is that weâre talking about. As you are aware, the argument is over whether the evidence for and against the existence of God ultimately prevails.
Whether the preponderance of evidence argues the existence of God, Professor William Lane Craig believing as he does that it does prevail.
Dr. Craig returned from a ministry in Belgium, resides in Atlanta, and continues to work in his various campuses. He received his doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Birmingham, and a second doctorate in theology from the University of Munich. He has published an astonishing 89 papers in peer-reviewed journals. [3] His latest book is called Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics.
On the side of the devil is Peter Atkins. Dr. Atkinsâ doctorate is in physical chemistry from Lincoln College at Oxford. He also is a prodigious writer having published 36 peer-reviewed articles, many of them designed to undermine a belief in a divine Creator. He is an eloquent and learned advocate. Dr. Atkins has also done considerable work on his ministry over radio and television.
The format calls for initial statements by the two contenders, of eighteen minutes each. They will be followed by nine-minute rebuttals. Iâm not going to pull a lever and cause the speakers to disappear into the bowels of the earth if they go five seconds over their allotted period, but if they do go a half minute over, I will make my impatient presence, our presence, felt. So I do urge them to keep their eyes on the clock, and urge you to pay close attention to them. Please proceed.

First Statement - Dr. Craig

Dr. Craig:Â Good evening. I want to begin by thanking the Faith and Science Lecture Forum for inviting me to participate in tonightâs debate, and Iâm delighted that you have come out on a stormy evening to think about this most important of questions with us tonight.
Now in tonightâs debate, we have been asked to address two basic questions:
1. What is the evidence for the existence of God?
2. What is the evidence against the existence of God?
Now, with respect to that second question, I will leave it up to Dr. Atkins to present the evidence against Godâs existence. But notice that atheists have tried for centuries to disprove the existence of God, but no one has ever been able to come up with a successful argument. So, rather than attack straw men, Iâll just wait to hear Dr. Atkinsâ answer to the following question: âWhat good evidence is there to think that God does not exist?â
So, letâs turn to that first question. What good evidence is there to think that God does exist? I believe that there are many reasons for the existence of God, but due to the limits of time, Iâm going to restrict myself to sketching briefly five reasons why I think God exists. Now in all of our reasoning, we have to be careful to follow the basic rules of logic, which have governed all valid reasoning since Aristotle.
1. The origin of the universe. Have you ever asked yourself where the universe came from? Why everything exists instead of just nothing? Typically, atheists have said that the universe is just eternal and uncaused. But the astrophysical evidence indicates that the universe began to exist in a great explosion called the Big Bang fifteen billion years ago. Most laymen do not appreciate that not only were all matter and energy created in that event, but physical space and time themselves. This is of utmost importance, for it implies, as the Cambridge astronomer Fred Hoyle points out, that the Big Bang theory requires the creation of the universe from nothing.
Now, this tends to be very awkward for the atheist. For as Anthony Kenny of Oxford University urges, a proponent of the Big Bang theory, at least if he is an atheist, must believe that the universe came from nothing and by nothing. But surely that doesnât make sense. Out of nothing, nothing comes. So where did the universe come from? Why does the universe exist instead of just nothing? There must have been a cause which brought the universe into being. We can summarize our argument thus far as follows.Â [4]
1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.
Now from the very nature of the case, as the cause of space and time, this cause must be an uncaused, changeless, timeless, and immaterial being of unimaginable power, which created the universe. It must be timeless, and therefore changeless, because it created time. Because it also created space, it must transcend space as well, and therefore be immaterial, not physical.
Moreover, I would argue, it must also be personal. For a changeless, impersonal cause can never exist without its effect. If the changeless, impersonal conditions for an effect are timelessly present, then their effect must be timelessly present as well. For example, the cause of waterâs freezing is the temperature being below zero degrees centigrade. If the temperature were below zero from eternity, then any water around would be frozen from eternity. It would be impossible for the water to just begin to freeze a finite time ago. The only way for the cause to be timeless and for the effect to begin a finite time ago is for the cause to be a personal agent who freely chooses to create a new effect without any prior determining conditions. For example, a man sitting from eternity could freely will to stand up and thus you would have a new effect arise from an eternal cause. And thus we are brought not merely to a transcendent cause of the universe but to its personal Creator.
In his book, The Creation, Dr. Atkins struggles mightily to explain how the universe could come into existence uncaused out of nothing. But in the end he finds himself trapped in self-contradiction. He states, âNow we go back in time, beyond the moment of creation, to when there was no time, and to where there was no space.âÂ [5]Â At this time before time, he imagines a swirling dust of mathematical points which recombine again and again and again, and finally come by trial and error to form our space-time universe. Now it needs to be honestly said that this is not a scientific hypothesis. It is pop metaphysics, and of the worst kind, for itâs obviously self-contradictory since it assumes time and space in order to explain the origin of time and space. As the scientist David Park writes, âIt is deceptively easy to imagine events before the Big Bang . . . but in physics there is no way to make sense of these imaginings.âÂ [6]Â As if this were not bad enough, Dr. Atkins compounds the problem by asking where the mathematical points came from. His answer? âTime brought the points into being, and the points brought time into being.âÂ [7]Â This is like saying, âThe chicken brought the egg into being, and the egg brought the chicken into being.â
Itâs no wonder that in his review of Dr. Atkinsâ book, in the Times Literary Supplement, the philosopher John Leslie asks incredulously, âHow could such nonsense have been churned out by the author of a superb textbook like Physical Chemistry?âÂ [8]Â In fact, Dr. Atkinsâ Oxford University colleague Keith Ward in his book, God, Chance and Necessity, points out no less than seven such logical fallacies in Dr. Atkinsâ scenario. Ward concludes that it is âblatantly self-contradictory,â and so cannot be true.Â [9]Â By contrast, the view that Christian theists have always held, that there is a personal Creator of the universe, is not only logically consistent, but it also follows logically from the premises that I have laid out.
2. The complex order in the universe. During the last 30 years or so, scientists have discovered that the existence of intelligent life depends upon a delicate and complex balance of initial conditions simply given in the Big Bang itself.Â [10]Â We now know that life-prohibiting universes are vastly more probable than any life-permitting universe like ours. How much more probable? The answer is that the chances that the universe should be life-permitting are so infinitesimal as to be incalculable and incomprehensible. For example, Stephen Hawking has estimated that if the rate of the universeâs expansion had been smaller by even one part in a 100,000 million million, the universe would have re-collapsed into a hot fireball. Brandon Carter has calculated that the odds against the initial conditions being suitable for later star formation, without which planets could not exist, is one followed by a thousand billion billion zeroes at least. P. C. W. Davies estimates that a change in the strength of gravity or of the weak force by only one part in 10100 would have prevented a life-permitting universe. There are around fifty such quantities and constants present in the Big Bang which must be fine-tuned in this way if the universe is to permit life. So improbability is multiplied by improbability by improbability until our minds are reeling in incomprehensible numbers. There is no physical reason why these constants and quantities possess the values they do.
The former agnostic physicist Paul Davies comments, âThrough my scientific work, I have come to believe more and more strongly that the physical universe is put together with an ingenuity so astonishing that I cannot accept it merely as a brute fact.âÂ [11]Â Similarly, Fred Hoyle remarks, âA common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics.âÂ [12]Â And Robert Jastrow, the Head of NASAâs Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has called this the most powerful evidence for the existence of God ever to come out of science.Â [13]
We can summarize our reasoning as follows:
1. The fine-tuning of the initial conditions of the universe is due to either natural law, chance or design.
2. It is not due to either law or chance.
3. Therefore, it is due to design.
3. Objective moral values in the world. If God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist. Many theists and atheists alike agree on this point. Michael Ruse, a noted agnostic philosopher of science, explains, âThe position of the modern evolutionist . . . is that morality is just an aid to survival and reproductionâ¦ and any deeper meaning is illusory.âÂ [14]Â Friedrich Nietzsche, the great atheist of the last century, who proclaimed the death of God, understood that the death of God meant the destruction of all meaning and value in life. I think that Friedrich Nietzsche was right.
But weâve got to be very careful here. The question here is not, âMust we believe in God in order to live moral lives?â Iâm not claiming that we must. Nor is the question, âCan we recognize objective moral values without believing in God?â I think that we certainly can! Rather, the question is, âIf God does not exist, do objective moral values exist?â Like Nietzsche and Ruse, I just donât see any reason to think that in the absence of God, the morality evolved by Homo sapiens is objective, and here Dr. Atkins would agree with me. He says, âI see no evidence for its absoluteness, and the ethics of a lion seem to be quite different than the ethics of an antelope. As for human beings, weâre just slime on a planet belonging to one sun.âÂ [15]
On the atheistic view then, some action, say rape, may not be socially advantageous and so in the course of human development has become taboo.Â [16]Â But that does absolutely nothing to prove that rape is really wrong. On the atheistic view, thereâs nothing really wrong with your raping someone, thus without God there is no absolute right and wrong.
But the problem is that objective values do exist, and deep down we all know it. Thereâs no more reason to deny the objective reality of moral values than the objective reality of the physical world. Actions like rape, cruelty, and child abuse arenât just socially unacceptable behavior. Theyâre moral abominations. Some things, at least, are really wrong. Similarly, love, equality, and self-sacrifice are really good. Thus we can summarize this third consideration as follows:
1. If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.
2. Objective values do exist.
3. Therefore God exists.
4. The historical facts concerning the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The historical person Jesus of Nazareth was a remarkable individual. New Testament critics have reached something of a consensus that the historical Jesus came on the scene with an unprecedented sense of divine authority - the authority to stand and speak in Godâs place. He claimed that in himself the Kingdom of God had come, and as visible demonstrations of this fact he carried out a ministry of miracles and exorcisms. But the supreme confirmation of his claim was his resurrection from the dead. If Jesus really did rise from the dead then it would seem that we have a divine miracle on our hands and thus evidence for the existence of God.
Now, Dr. Atkins says, âI know of no evidence that the resurrection did take place.â But there are actually three established facts recognized by the majority of New Testament historians today which I believe are best explained by the resurrection of Jesus.
Fact number one: On the Sunday following his crucifixion, Jesusâ tomb was discovered empty by a group of his women followers. According to Jacob Kremer, an Austrian scholar who has specialized in the study of the resurrection, by far most scholars hold firmly to the reliability of the biblical statements about the empty tomb.
Fact number two: On separate occasions, different individuals and groups saw appearances of Jesus alive after his death. According to the prominent New Testament critic of Vanderbilt University, Gerd LÃ¼demann, it may be taken as historically certain that the disciples had experiences after Jesusâ death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ. These appearances were witnessed not only by believers, but also by unbelievers, skeptics, and even enemies.
Fact number three: The original disciples suddenly came to believe in the resurrection of Jesus despite having every predisposition to the contrary. Luke Johnson, a New Testament scholar at Emery University says, âSome sort of powerful, transformative experience is required to generate the sort of movement earliest Christianity was.âÂ [17]
N. T. Wright, an eminent British scholar concludes, âThat is why, as an historian, I cannot explain the rise of early Christianity unless Jesus rose again, leaving an empty tomb behind him.âÂ [18]Â There is no plausible naturalistic explanation of these three facts. Therefore, it seems to me the Christian is amply justified in believing that Jesus rose from the dead and was who he claimed to be. But, that entails that God exists.
5. The immediate experience of God. This isnât really an argument for Godâs existence; rather, itâs the claim that you can know that God exists wholly apart from arguments simply by immediately experiencing him. This was the way people in the Bible knew God. As Professor John Hick explains, âTo them, God was not . . . an idea adopted by the mind, but the experiential reality which gave significance to their lives.âÂ [19]Â Now, if this is so then thereâs a danger that proofs for God could actually distract your attention from God himself.Â [20]Â If youâre sincerely seeking God, then God will make his existence evident to you. The Bible promises, âDraw near to God, and he will draw near to you.âÂ [21]Â We mustnât so concentrate on the external proofs that we fail to hear the inner voice of God speaking to our own hearts. For those who listen, God becomes an immediate reality in their lives.
In conclusion then, weâve yet to see any evidence to show that God does not exist, and we have seen five reasons to think that God does exist. Together, these reasons constitute a powerful cumulative case for the existence of God. If Dr. Atkins wants us to believe atheism instead, then he must first tear down all five of the reasons that Iâve presented, and then in their place erect a case of his own to prove that God does not exist. Unless and until he does that, I think we can conclude that theism is the more plausible worldview.

Dr. Craig:

First Statement - Dr. Atkins

Dr. Atkins:Â Thank you. Itâs a great pleasure to be here, and itâs always a great pleasure to come to this country. I come from a college in the University of Oxford that was founded 570 years ago, when the Lollard heresy was proving a threat to both church and state, and the College was founded, and I quote from the foundersâ statute, âTo overcome those who with their swinish snouts imperil the pearls of true theology.âÂ [22]Â I regret to say that my own swinish snout has not been overcome, and I intend to imperil what purport to be the pearls that will be cast about this evening. But I donât intend to be negative in all my remarks. I respect the reason for all your being here, that itâs really a part of the search for truth. I intend to open your eyes to the delights of true understanding. In fact, itâs my intention this evening to take your minds on a journey, and lead you from the darkness of ignorance to the light of comprehension. Iâm here to do no less than to glorify the human spirit and to enhance your joy at being a part of this astonishing, amazing, enthralling, and delightful world.
Now this journey will be strenuous, and take your minds to the highest altitudes of current thought. Therefore, I have to ask you that you divest yourselves of unnecessary baggage. Your souls will have to fly with me to the heights of human understanding. They must not be weighed down with the ballast of preconception, prejudice, and that heaviest anchor of all, the conditioning that societies impose on their young. So I ask you to shed the shackles of prejudice and conditioning, and listen, as though intellectually naked, to my words. I hope that you will gradually dress your minds in my ideas as I unfold them, and so bring enlightenment to your brains, and a bit of joy to your lives.
Now our joint journey begins with a premise of great antiquity and indeed beautiful simplicity. That if a simple explanation of an event or a phenomenon is fully adequate, then a more elaborate one is not warranted. The challenge in this debate therefore is for me to show that everything in and of the world of the body, and of the spirit, can be understood without needing to invoke the action, or mere presence, of a god.
Now I have to stress that whereas the assertion of God as an explanation of anything has an air of sublime simplicity, that simplicity is an illusion. An omniscient, omnipotent being that can create a universe, some say maintain that universe, that can intrude into the universe to achieve miracles and resurrections, is no simple entity. A god is the apotheosis of complexity, not the apotheosis of simplicity, and the implication of a god as an explanation of anything, even the warm sentimental feelings that are said to suffuse us in the presence of the Almighty, is in fact the apotheosis of laziness.Â [23]Â Itâs well suited to armchair brains who prefer to indulge in adipose arguments. Youâre not here, I trust, because youâre one of those. Now the implication of God as an explanation of anything is an admission of defeat and of ignorance, disguised as a pretense of understanding.
Iâve set myself a challenge to show that everything in and of the world, of the body, and of the spirit can be understood without needing to invoke a god. Thereâs no point in being an atheist, and certainly a scientist, without being rigorously intellectually honest. So I have to set myself an honest target, which is nothing less than complete explanation. Nothing fudged, nothing forgotten. The atheist argument fails if in the end it turns out that the universe had to be designed. It fails if any aspect of it had to be made. It fails if it turns out that there had to be a seed the size of a pea, or even the size of a proton. We atheists must not cloud the issue. Thatâs for the religious who do it so admirably and on such a cosmic scale. The atheist argument fails if it turns out there is a purpose for the world. The atheist argument fails if it turns out that there is an afterlife, that miracles occur, or that a god is necessary to maintain the workings of physical law. The atheist argument begins to corrode if there are aspects of the human condition that science cannot touch, such as the supreme joy of artistic creation. That then is the challenge. Nothing less than complete explanation. Therefore, inevitably, I have to disappoint you. Science cannot yet explain everything. It cannot yet tell us what went on at the event we call the creation. It cannot yet provide a theory or even a simulation of consciousness. It would be quite wrong of me to pretend that it could.
However, what I can hope to do is to present you with a scientific view of the world. A view that makes a convincing case that science can elucidate the great questions that have for centuries been regarded as religionâs own. And with your newly cleansed, de-prejudiced minds, you should be able to accept that science provides a richer, more comprehensible, more reliable, more deeply satisfying account of the cosmos than the primitive pseudo-explanations peddled by well-meaning but scientifically under-informed apologists.
Iâll deal with the most difficult problem first. Creation ex nihilo. The adipose argument is that âGod did it.â That of course is the lazy manâs elixir. Sort of a cocktail made up of a swig of credulity and a teaspoon full of unwillingness to think. In short, itâs an explanation that avoids explanation. Science has moved cautiously but steadily towards the provision of a true understanding. I will not bore you with accounts of the events after the Big Bang, which is now universally believed by scientists to be a broadly correct description of the events immediately following the creation. I want to explore whether it is conceivable that science can elucidate the events at the creation, for that is where the atheist stands on the most dangerous ground. Notice that I intend to confront issues, not evade them.
Science proceeds by exposing the true simplicity that underlies perceived complexity. Scientists are hewers of simplicity from complexity. I believe that it is possible for science to formulate an account, and it will be a mathematical account, full of precision, full of logical authority, full of the testability that is such a kingly quality of science, of what went on at the Big Bang when spacetime itself and the laws of nature came into existence. Science can already show that a creator had less to do than perhaps meets the eye.Â [24]
Let me present one tiny technical argument this evening. How much electric charge is there in the universe? The answer is ânone.â We know experimentally that there is an equal amount of positive and negative charge, which if summed together, gives zero charge overall. At the creation, no charge separated into opposite charges. Nothing separated into opposites.
Secondly, and more potently, how much material is there in the universe? Another way to answer this question is to ask how much energy there is in the universe, for Einstein showed that mass and energy are equivalent. When the sum is done - and that involves adding together all the masses of all the protons, all the people, all the priests, all the planets, all the stars and all the galaxies, as well as the gravitational attraction between them, the answer is close to zero. I suspect that as observations are refined, the total will approach zero. There is no energy in the universe. Nothing did indeed come from nothing. Science shows that the universe is in fact a big confidence trick. There is truly nothing here. All there is, is a separation of opposites.
Now what that argument shows is that the event that took place at the creation is very much simpler than one might think. God, if he had to do anything, did not have to make anything. All he had to do, if he had anything to do at all, was to separate nothing into equal and opposite components. Now that doesnât solve the problem of what went on at the creation, but it makes creation ex nihilo a far simpler process than you might have thought, for literally nothing had to be made. That argument at least diminishes Godâs role.
I could also sketch in an argument that suggests how the reorganization of nothing could take place a-causally. There is of course no causality before the arena of space-time has been established. So it would be absurd to project backwards our familiarity with causality in our current arena and use it as an argument for God in an arena when space-time did not exist. No one knows how space-time came into being a-causally, but there are hints. I would like to say what I think happened, but happily Dr. Craig has done that for me. But, quite honestly, I donât think it matters what I think went on at the creation because it would be just pure speculation. Speculation without the rigor of mathematics and observation is as syrupy a bog as religion.
What I want to leave you with is the realization that the universe is an engagingly reorganized form of nothing, and that speculative a-causal events are capable of seeing it come into being without intervention. No god was needed to make the universe or even to make it happen. My argument diminishes the role of a creator god to zero.
Another potent argument produced by adipose brains in favor of a mental labor-saving god is the apparent fine-tuning of the structure of the universe as it tumbled into existence. People intent upon proving the hand of a designer bandy about amazing figures. 10 to the this, 10 to the that. Weâve had tens followed by unimaginable numbers of zeroes already this evening. All such calculations are hocus-pocus and bunkum. There is no a priori way of calculating the probability of the existence of the universe.
However, I do have to admit that it gives the impression of being well designed. Had I a lazy brain I would lie back and leave it at that and accept that design implied designer and hence a god in one of his disguises. But not having a lazy brain, I look for a simpler explanation. Several spring to mind.
One possibility is that by chance the universe tumbled into being with this particular mix of fundamental constants. Thereâs no way of calculating the probability of that, but it would, I concede, be exceedingly remote.Â [25]Â Nevertheless, if something can happen, it could happen. Someone wins the lottery.
A second possibility is that a universe can come into existence only with a particular mix of fundamental constants. Other universes, some with Ï = 42, others with bright pink electrons weighing a ton, might bubble into incipient existence but collapse again through want of stability or in some way being logically self-inconsistent.
A third possibility is that there are trillions and trillions of universes with trillions more popping up into existence as I speak. Now I must emphasize that I most definitely do not have in mind the profligate many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, which I find personally distasteful. I mean real, actual universes defining their own space-time and with a unique mix of fundamental constants. Some have Ï = 3.15, others have Ï = 3.16, ours happened to have Ï = 3.14, and bingo, it permits the emergence of life.
Now there will be some who say that a trillion universes is more demanding than a single universe with its one creator. Thatâs logical nonsense. An unstructured, unmade, totally chaotic emergence of random universes without a god is a far, far less complex happening than a single, awesomely well-defined universe with an omnipotent creator. One is random, the other structured. Unless you can show explicitly that this random, chance event cannot account for all there is, you have no right to resort to the extraordinarily complex proposition that there is a god who did it.

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