Could the Universe be Uncaused?

[balto]

Now apply this reasoning to God. We admittedly don’t know enough about God or how He came into existence, so how can we be so sure that He is indeed the Uncaused Cause? Everything had to come from somewhere, apparently. Where did God come from?

What you are asking is what caused the thing that is purely actual and has no potentials needing actualization, which makes no sense. The whole point of the argument is to show that there has to be an uncaused cause that is purely actual, absolutely simple, and grounds the existence of everything. God is the name we traditionally use. To ask what caused the uncaused cause is to ask a meaningless question.

 

[Tomdstone]

What you are asking is what caused the thing that is purely actual and has no potentials needing actualization, which makes no sense. The whole point of the argument is to show that there has to be an uncaused cause that is purely actual, absolutely simple, and grounds the existence of everything. God is the name we traditionally use. To ask what caused the uncaused cause is to ask a meaningless question.

You say that God is absolutely simple, but the Trinity coupled with the Incarnation does not look so simple to many, such as Jews and Muslims and Jehovah’s witnesses.

 

[balto]

Jesus is God, yet He was in time. Also, He asked His Father for the cup to pass if possible. So, although philosophers say that God is all simple, God really is not all that simple as the philosophers may think.

Well now you are raising specific questions about the Christian version of theism, which is not to cast doubt on classical theistic claims at all. The Christian response is that Christ has two natures, a fully human nature which is subject to change like other human natures, and a fully divine one which is purely actual, uncaused, and unchanging. The hypostatic union does not necessarily contradict divine simplicity.

 

[Tomdstone]

Well now you are raising specific questions about the Christian version of theism, which is not to cast doubt on classical theistic claims at all. The Christian response is that Christ has two natures, a fully human nature which is subject to change like other human natures, and a fully divine one which is purely actual, uncaused, and unchanging. The hypostatic union does not necessarily contradict divine simplicity.

The philosophers say that God is unchanging. However, at one point in time God did not have a human form. But at a later point in time God did assume a human form. The Jews and Muslims would say that is a change.

 

[balto]

You say that God is absolutely simple, but the Trinity coupled with the Incarnation does not look so simple to many, such as Jews and Muslims and Jehovah’s witnesses.

Well again you are raising questions against Christian theism when the subject of the OP is about whether the universe can be uncaused. I’ll have to respond to your question later when I am not posting from a phone in an airport

 

[Tomdstone]

Well again you are raising questions against Christian theism when the subject of the OP is about whether the universe can be uncaused. I’ll have to respond to your question later when I am not posting from a phone in an airport

Yes, BUT: someone added embellishments when they declared that not only was God the uncaused cause, but that God was absolutely simple and that God is unchangeable. I am only responding to the assertion that someone made about their belief that God is absolutely simple and unchangeable. . IF these assertions by someone else do relate to the OP, then it seems like I am not off track to ask a follow up question as to how it is possible that God is absolutely simple and unchangeable, when Christianity teaches the Incarnation and the Trinity.

 

[wmw]

Please explain your reasoning as to why deSitter space time cannot fit into any model of the universe.

Because just any model isn’t good enough to be a reasonable model of the universe.

A scientific model of the universe has to agree with the observed conditions that the universe exhibits. This very article abstract you linked to says that it has a few interesting aspects that makes it partly resemble some parts of a model of the universe, but it’s still just math project that doesn’t explain any reality.

Fr. Spitzer speaks about this, he said that some day a person might find a way to overcome the BVG with a model that is infinite in the past and matches the results of the universe we see today. The BVG Theorem stands in the way of any current model just as I said and it’s a huge barrier.

You’re trying to play the “there is no such thing as a proof against all possible future models” card. So, Let’s put that into proper perspective. God is infinite for a reason, there are infinite possibilities, infinite pictures to paint, and math is just another medium of infinite descriptions. Painting a unicorn doesn’t make it real and none of the math professionals can even paint a universe with a full set of legs that has existed forever let alone begin to claim it might be real.

 

[Tomdstone]

Because just any model isn’t good enough to be a reasonable model of the universe.

A scientific model of the universe has to agree with the observed conditions that the universe exhibits. This very article abstract you linked to says that it has a few interesting aspects that makes it partly resemble some parts of a model of the universe, but it’s still just math project that doesn’t explain any reality.

Fr. Spitzer speaks about this, he said that some day a person might find a way to overcome the BVG with a model that is infinite in the past and matches the results of the universe we see today. The BVG Theorem stands in the way of any current model just as I said and it’s a huge barrier.

You’re trying to play the “there is no such thing as a proof against all possible future models” card. So, Let’s put that into proper perspective. God is infinite for a reason, there are infinite possibilities, infinite pictures to paint, and math is just another medium of infinite descriptions. Painting a unicorn doesn’t make it real and none of the math professionals can even paint a universe with a full set of legs that has existed forever let alone begin to claim it might be real.

I am not playing card games here. I am simply stating that you really have no reason to rule out the possibility that elliptic deSitter space is a good model for the universe.

 

[wmw]

I am not playing card games here. I am simply stating that you really have no reason to rule out the possibility that elliptic deSitter space is a good model for the universe.

It has only been used by cosmologists as a simplification of more realistic models and doesn’t show any promise of overtaking current models. It’s not up to me the cosmologists have been the ones that use it and yet ruling it out as a realistic model.

From : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Sitter_universe

For simplicity, some calculations involving inflation in the early universe can be performed in de Sitter space rather than a more realistic inflationary universe. By using the de Sitter universe instead, where the expansion is truly exponential, there are many simplifications.

 

[Tomdstone]

It has only been used by cosmologists as a simplification of more realistic models and doesn’t show any promise of overtaking current models. It’s not up to me the cosmologists have been the ones that use it and yet ruling it out as a realistic model.

From : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Sitter_universe

I was talking about elliptic deSitter space, which is not the same as deSitter space.

 

[abucs]

I wanted to make a separate thread on this issue (my original thread was “Is it Rational to Believe God Exists?”).

Carl Sagan once wrote:

“In many cultures it is customary to answer that God created the universe out of nothing. But this is mere temporizing. If we wish courageously to pursue the question, we must, of course ask next where God comes from. And if we decide this to be unanswerable, why not save a step and decide that the origin of the universe is an unanswerable question? Or, if we say that God has always existed, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always existed?” --Cosmos p.257

It seems logical to say that everything that exists has a cause. However, some believe that this statement only applies to events within the universe, not the universe itself. If the universe could be uncaused, would this nullify the existence of God? All answers would be greatly appreciated.

-Phil

We know that our universe is subject to many sets of laws.

One of those sets include ‘cause and effect’ bound in space/time.

There is no reasons why the set of laws which govern our universe, governs the reality that created it.

In fact :

If the science points to a beginning of our universe and also that scientific rules are universal in our universe

and

if those scientific rules make incomprehensible the beginning of reality

then

it makes sense to say that our universe was created by a reality that is not subject to the scientific and logical rules that our universe is.

 

[polytropos]

“In many cultures it is customary to answer that God created the universe out of nothing. But this is mere temporizing. If we wish courageously to pursue the question, we must, of course ask next where God comes from. And if we decide this to be unanswerable, why not save a step and decide that the origin of the universe is an unanswerable question? Or, if we say that God has always existed, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always existed?” --Cosmos p.257

It seems logical to say that everything that exists has a cause. However, some believe that this statement only applies to events within the universe, not the universe itself. If the universe could be uncaused, would this nullify the existence of God? All answers would be greatly appreciated.

If we accept the principle that “everything that exists has a cause,” then we would have to ask whether God has a cause. But no credible philosopher who has defended a cosmological argument has held that principle, so it is ignorance rather than courage to go on to invoke it in order to ask the question as to what caused God.

Proponents hold, for example, that everything contingent or everything that changes has a cause. The universe changes, so the universe has a cause. If the vicious regress (an infinite essentially ordered causal series) is impossible, then something does not have a cause. This is consistent with the causal principles being invoked as long as that which has no cause does not also change.

(It’s also not really a matter of the universe or God having “always existed,” but of God having existed eternally. We could say that God exists “always” if we define an eternal to exist at t for all t. But in that sense the universe also always exists, assuming this is the only universe there ever was and will ever be, even though it is not eternal, or outside time.)

 

[Thorns]

What you are asking is what caused the thing that is purely actual and has no potentials needing actualization, which makes no sense. The whole point of the argument is to show that there has to be an uncaused cause that is purely actual, absolutely simple, and grounds the existence of everything. God is the name we traditionally use. To ask what caused the uncaused cause is to ask a meaningless question.

The term “Uncaused Cause” is a paradox in itself, hence why the question I’ve asked may sound paradoxical and meaningless.

How do you know that God is uncaused? We admit that we don’t know enough about Him. How do you know that the Universe is not uncaused?

 

[polytropos]

The term “Uncaused Cause” is a paradox in itself, hence why the question I’ve asked may sound paradoxical and meaningless.

What do you mean by “a paradox in itself”? (I apologize if you have articulated this previously, as I have not read the entire thread.) There is no contradiction in saying that something causes other things to exist without itself being caused to exist. Perhaps by adding another principle one could try to derive a contradiction, but I personally don’t think there is such a principle that is true. (If there is, the onus would be on whoever makes the charge of paradox to show it.)

If you mean that it is a paradox in the weaker sense that it is difficult to understand but there is no formal contradiction, then there is of course nothing problematic about the concept.

How do you know that God is uncaused? We admit that we don’t know enough about Him. How do you know that the Universe is not uncaused?

Theistic arguments attempt to show that God is uncaused. They do so by arguing (basically) that some feature of the world is not sufficiently accounted for by other things in the world, and that (ultimately) that which explains those features must have certain qualities, which are thought to be shared with the Christian conception of God.

So one might argue (I’m not trying to make this rigorous): Changes in natural substances require changers outside of themselves. So if A changes, then there exists some B that changes A. B either changes or does not change. If there is some B that does not change, then B is an unchanged changer (or uncaused cause).

Given the principle that whatever changes is changed by another, to show that something is an unchanged changer, all one has to do is rule out the possibility of an infinite causal series (or, at least, a causal series in which everything changes). One can argue that by noting that the relevant class of changes occur “per se” or are “essentially ordered,” ie. if A changes B and B changes C, then C’s changing is dependent essentially on the action of A so that an infinite series of changers that themselves change is not sufficient to account for observable change. So some changer in such series is unchanged itself.

So the short answer is that, if such arguments succeed, then something must be uncaused. One would then go on to argue that the uncaused cause is unique and bears other attributes commonly associated with the Christian conception of God (simplicity, eternity, omnipotence, intelligence, goodness, etc.). (Aquinas goes on to say, “And this is what everyone calls God.” But someone who has read the parts of the Summa preceding the Five Ways will recognize that Aquinas is establishing a middle term for the later demonstrations of the divine attributes, not assuming that he has proven that God as conceived by Christians exists.)

Why not be more agnostic about the nature of God? To know that God exists is not the same as knowing and understanding God’s nature. The latter is beyond our intellectual capacities. (Though even that does not prevent us from obtaining notional philosophical knowledge about God based on his effects, ie. that God is omnipotent.)

Why can’t the universe be uncaused? Well, specifiying the argument in terms of the entire universe is a more recent phenomenon and is more characteristic of, for example, William Lane Craig’s formulation of the kalam argument. As I’ve stated the argument for an uncaused cause, it does not rely on any premise about the universe, just that various natural substances in fact change. (Another reason that the universe could not be an uncaused cause is that it is not a “cause” at all, in the proper sense of that term, since it is just the sum of the objects, space-time, etc. constituting “the universe” and is not an object itself that stands in causal relations. Another reason is that the uncaused cause cannot change, and the universe changes. Even for the kalam argument, though I don’t care to defend it, this is prima facie not an issue because that the universe has a beginning is taken to be an empirical question.)

 

[Thorns]

What do you mean by “a paradox in itself”? (I apologize if you have articulated this previously, as I have not read the entire thread.) There is no contradiction in saying that something causes other things to exist without itself being caused to exist. Perhaps by adding another principle one could try to derive a contradiction, but I personally don’t think there is such a principle that is true. (If there is, the onus would be on whoever makes the charge of paradox to show it.)

If you mean that it is a paradox in the weaker sense that it is difficult to understand but there is no formal contradiction, then there is of course nothing problematic about the concept.

Theistic arguments attempt to show that God is uncaused. They do so by arguing (basically) that some feature of the world is not sufficiently accounted for by other things in the world, and that (ultimately) that which explains those features must have certain qualities, which are thought to be shared with the Christian conception of God.

So one might argue (I’m not trying to make this rigorous): Changes in natural substances require changers outside of themselves. So if A changes, then there exists some B that changes A. B either changes or does not change. If there is some B that does not change, then B is an unchanged changer (or uncaused cause).

Given the principle that whatever changes is changed by another, to show that something is an unchanged changer, all one has to do is rule out the possibility of an infinite causal series (or, at least, a causal series in which everything changes). One can argue that by noting that the relevant class of changes occur “per se” or are “essentially ordered,” ie. if A changes B and B changes C, then C’s changing is dependent essentially on the action of A so that an infinite series of changers that themselves change is not sufficient to account for observable change. So some changer in such series is unchanged itself.

So the short answer is that, if such arguments succeed, then something must be uncaused. One would then go on to argue that the uncaused cause is unique and bears other attributes commonly associated with the Christian conception of God (simplicity, eternity, omnipotence, intelligence, goodness, etc.). (Aquinas goes on to say, “And this is what everyone calls God.” But someone who has read the parts of the Summa preceding the Five Ways will recognize that Aquinas is establishing a middle term for the later demonstrations of the divine attributes, not assuming that he has proven that God as conceived by Christians exists.)

Why not be more agnostic about the nature of God? To know that God exists is not the same as knowing and understanding God’s nature. The latter is beyond our intellectual capacities. (Though even that does not prevent us from obtaining notional philosophical knowledge about God based on his effects, ie. that God is omnipotent.)

So something has to be Uncaused. But we just conveniently call that “something” (whatever it is) God? That seems to be a gap and a stretch there. How do we know that is God?

We also admittedly know nothing about God to know if He changes or not.

 

[polytropos]

So something has to be Uncaused. But we just conveniently call that “something” (whatever it is) God? That seems to be a gap and a stretch there. How do we know that is God?

As I said,we do not just conveniently call the Uncaused Caused God because we feel like it. As Aquinas says in the article preceding the presentation of the Five Ways,

When the existence of a cause is demonstrated from an effect, this effect takes the place of the definition of the cause in proof of the cause’s existence. This is especially the case in regard to God, because, in order to prove the existence of anything, it is necessary to accept as a middle term the meaning of the word, and not its essence, for the question of its essence follows on the question of its existence. Now the names given to God are derived from His effects; consequently, in demonstrating the existence of God from His effects, we may take for the middle term the meaning of the word “God”. (Reply to Objection 2)

If I want to show that S is P, then I can introduce a middle term M and show that S is M and M is P, so that S is P. Aquinas is treating “God” as the middle term in his demonstration where S is something like “the Uncaused Cause” and P is some conjunction of the divine attributes.

To say this is what we call God is to say something about how he will treat the results of his arguments in the rest of his works, not to claim that he has proven more than he has.

We also admittedly know nothing about God to know if He changes or not.

We don’t know nothing about God. Even the strongest doctrine of negative theology does not imply that we know nothing about God. (And that we know that God does not change is surely a piece of negative theology if anything is.)

 

[VTA365]

Carl Sagan in Cosmos
“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

Well, that “scientist” has done his homework and obviously knows what he’s doing considering it is due to scientists that we have advanced so far since ancient times such as in medicine, technology, research etc. We know how to constantly make new vaccines that kill viruses that evolve to become immune to the previous vaccines, we know how to treat diseases which, in turn, reduced the number of deaths from these diseases to the point where we don’t even have to worry about them killing us like they did in ancient times because we now have doctors who can prescribe us the medication to make us healthy again. We know how planets, stars, moons etc. form, how galaxies form, how gravity operates, what life forms there were way before humans, how we evolved to become the Homo Sapiens we are today and who we share a common ancestor with. These are all things that science has brought forth and who knows how much farther advanced we could’ve been today had it not been for the Christian dark ages where nearly everyone had that mentality that you quoted. With all of those wasted centuries we could’ve been advancing to the point where Cancer, HIV and AIDS could’ve been nothing to worry about today. So don’t act like scientists are ignorant for using open, rational minds to figure things out instead of relying on faith.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Theistic arguments attempt to show that God is uncaused. They do so by arguing (basically) that some feature of the world is not sufficiently accounted for by other things in the world, and that (ultimately) that which explains those features must have certain qualities, which are thought to be shared with the Christian conception of God.

Indeed, as you point out, metaphysics should follow your physics. In other words, you need to use science to discover the “features of the world” before you can reason from those features. For example, the arguments for God from motion are no longer really convincing, because Aristotelian physics has been supplanted by Newtonian physics. In Newtonian physics, objects in motion tend to remain that way and do not require some sort of “underlying pusher” to explain motion. Before this discovery, the “motion” argument was very similar to the “first cause” arguments which argues that without something constantly supplying existence, things would cease to exist.

What will remain of the cosmological argument, I wonder, should science discover there is no cause for the universe; that the universe simply exists without a reason.

 

[polytropos]

Indeed, as you point out, metaphysics should follow your physics. In other words, you need to use science to discover the “features of the world” before you can reason from those features.

I did not point that out. The “features of the world” are not the same as the “features discovered by science” (though there may be overlap), not the least because science requires metaphysical and epistemic presuppositions that it does not internally justify. By “features of the world,” I simply mean things like the reality of change, the existence of contingent substances, etc.

For example, the arguments for God from motion are no longer really convincing, because Aristotelian physics has been supplanted by Newtonian physics. In Newtonian physics, objects in motion tend to remain that way and do not require some sort of “underlying pusher” to explain motion. Before this discovery, the “motion” argument was very similar to the “first cause” arguments which argues that without something constantly supplying existence, things would cease to exist.

You are equivocating between local motion (Aristotle’s understanding of which having been supplanted by Newton’s, whose understanding was then supplanted by Einstein’s) and Aristotle’s motion (ie. substantial or accidental change). The Newtonian understanding treats constant velocity as equivalent to a state of rest in another reference frame, so that changes in velocity require external forces. There is prima facie no inconsistency with the principle of change/motion of Aristotle, that that which is moved is moved by another. (It’s more helpful to read “moved” as “changed” in the Aristotelian context.)

What will remain of the cosmological argument, I wonder, should science discover there is no cause for the universe; that the universe simply exists without a reason.

Even if that were true, science would certainly have no capacity to determine it. Empirical observation in principle cannot distinguish between a “brute fact” and an unobserved cause. (Even things like Bell’s theorem can’t demonstrate empirically that there are no hidden variables in quantum mechanics, for instance. For it would always be consistent to posit that every electron in the universe has been preordained to act in all of the ways that it does.)

I think this is a counterfactual hypothesis, anyway. Cosmological arguments (classically, at least) purport to be metaphysical demonstrations. They are not extraordinarily difficult to formulate validly. If their conclusions are false, then, it must be the case that one of the premises is false. But I think that there are at least a few variants of the cosmological argument that have true premises, so I don’t regard it as even epistemically possible that science should discover that the universe has no cause (even apart from the above considerations that such a discovery is not within science’s epistemic domains). (Barry Miller’s cosmological argument does not even rely on the principle of sufficient reason.)

 

[Linusthe2nd]

You say that God is absolutely simple, but the Trinity coupled with the Incarnation does not look so simple to many, such as Jews and Muslims and Jehovah’s witnesses.

Very perceptive. But faulty on seveal accounts. God, in all his Divine Simplicity, existed for an eternity before the creation of the universe and the universe was created 13 billions of years before Jesus Christ was born, who was himself a product of creation. So the objecton fails on this account.

Secondly, the Second Person of the Trinity possesses the complete Divine Nature in all its uncomposed Simplicity, as does the Father and the Holy Spirit. The Second Person of The Trinity did not give up his Divine Simplicity when he assumed a human nature. So the objectors argument fails. Jesus Christ possesses One, Simple, Divine Nature, to which he assumed a human nature, but not a human person. The only Persion in Jesus Christ is the Divine Second Person which has One, Simple, and Divine Nature.

See the CCC, Part 1, Chapter 2, paragraphs 422 - 478 and meditate on it.

" … the fourth ecumenical council, at Chalcedon in 451, confessed:
Following the holy Fathers, we unanimously teach and confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, composed of rational soul and body; consubstantial with the Father as to his divinity and consubstantial with us as to his humanity; “like us in all things but sin”. He was begotten from the Father before all ages as to his divinity and in these last days, for us and for our salvation, was born as to his humanity of the virgin Mary, the Mother of God.91

We confess that one and the same Christ, Lord, and only-begotten Son, is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division or separation. the distinction between the natures was never abolished by their union, but rather the character proper to each of the two natures was preserved as they came together in one person (prosopon) and one hypostasis.92

468 After the Council of Chalcedon, some made of Christ’s human nature a kind of personal subject. Against them, the fifth ecumenical council, at Constantinople in 553, confessed that "there is but one hypostasis [or person], which is our Lord Jesus Christ, one of the Trinity."93 Thus everything in Christ’s human nature is to be attributed to his divine person as its proper subject, not only his miracles but also his sufferings and even his death: "He who was crucified in the flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ, is true God, Lord of glory, and one of the Holy Trinity."94

469 The Church thus confesses that Jesus is inseparably true God and true man. He is truly the Son of God who, without ceasing to be God and Lord, became a man and our brother: “What he was, he remained and what he was not, he assumed”, sings the Roman Liturgy.95 and the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom proclaims and sings: "O only-begotten Son and Word of God, immortal being, you who deigned for our salvation to become incarnate of the holy Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary, you who without change became man and were crucified, O Christ our God, you who by your death have crushed death, you who are one of the Holy Trinity, glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit, save us!"96

IV. HOW IS THE SON OF GOD MAN?

470 Because “human nature was assumed, not absorbed”,97 in the mysterious union of the Incarnation, the Church was led over the course of centuries to confess the full reality of Christ’s human soul, with its operations of intellect and will, and of his human body. In parallel fashion, she had to recall on each occasion that Christ’s human nature belongs, as his own, to the divine person of the Son of God, who assumed it. Everything that Christ is and does in this nature derives from “one of the Trinity”.

The Son of God therefore communicates to his humanity his own personal mode of existence in the Trinity. In his soul as in his body, Christ thus expresses humanly the divine ways of the Trinity:98

The Son of God. . . worked with human hands; he thought with a human mind. He acted with a human will, and with a human heart he loved. Born of the Virgin Mary, he has truly been made one of us, like to us in all things except sin.99

Christ’s soul and his human knowledge

471 Apollinarius of Laodicaea asserted that in Christ the divine Word had replaced the soul or spirit. Against this error the Church confessed that the eternal Son also assumed a rational, human soul.100

472 This human soul that the Son of God assumed is endowed with a true human knowledge. As such, this knowledge could not in itself be unlimited: it was exercised in the historical conditions of his existence in space and time. This is why the Son of God could, when he became man, “increase in wisdom and in stature, and in favour with God and man”,101 and would even have to inquire for himself about what one in the human condition can learn only from experience.102 This corresponded to the reality of his voluntary emptying of himself, taking “the form of a slave”.103

473 But at the same time, this truly human knowledge of God’s Son expressed the divine life of his person.104… "

Linus2nd