Could the Universe have Created Itself?

[Iron_Donkey]

I have to say that I’m a bit confused. Are you making some sort of distinction between reason and logic? otherwise you seem to be saying, “I’m not saying something so strong as that true nothingness is logically impossible. I merely claim that true nothingness is impossible within the context of logic.”

Is there a difference?

Nope. People throw out logic. And then still try to use it. I don’t know why. It doesn’t make sense.

That’s perfectly fine; it is a consistent, possible explanation of how the universe came into existence. I wouldn’t be Catholic if I thought otherwise.

The problem is that the only thing we need is objective truth. We don’t need to postulate a being that that has any power to manipulate matter, let alone a being that is omnipotent. We don’t need to postulate a being that has moral values, let alone a being that is omnibenevolent. we don’t need to postulate a mind, let alone a conscious, personal one. Heck, we don’t even need to postulate a pure act of existence. All we need is to accept that objective truth exists, that it can’t not exist, and that it will never stop existing.

Right, but you don’t have to postulate that whatever it is that fits the bill of existing has certain attributes, because you can prove it. From the mere fact that it is this first principle, the thing that must exist for anything else to exist has these properties. See St. Thomas Aquinas.

I’m going to repeat this, because it is worth mentioning and because I am not going to go into the proof right now and I don’t want it to get glanced over just because I’m trying not to derail the thread with an argument for it:

The fact that the objective truth (or any other principle like the act of existence that you may choose to substitute for its place in the preceding arguments), that guarantees the universe not be truly empty, has all of the attributes of God that can be known by natural reason is not an assumption or an unproved postulate, but a result of reasoning similar to that which got us to admit that such a principle must exist in the first place.

This is not just a consistent idea. This is a result of saying “so there’s this thing called absolute truth (or other similar principle that can’t not exist). What can we find out about it?”

Of course, this only pushes the problem back a little ways. certain abstract concepts must logically exist, but then we can ask, "why are there real things, rather than nothing.

And the answer here is that it is entirely possible that there are real things by complete chance. The odds that there are real things are exactly the same as the odds that there are not. 50% odds of there being real things does not exactly stretch the bounds of the imagination that real things exist completely by chance.

First, I don’t particularly like the distinction between “real things” and things here. It seems somewhat artificial. But assuming that by real things you mean “matter and that which can effect it,” then:

Probability doesn’t apply here, I think, or at least not in any intelligent fashion. To be really applicable at all, there has to be some sort of repeatable process that lends itself to the law of large numbers, and creation of realities is not such a thing. But even so, if there was some way to apply probability, then it is true that there are two options, but no reason to assume they are equally probable. If the first principle is something which has control over everything (which it is, but which arguments I’m refraining from getting into to avoid more being too tangential), then the probability goes something like “the probability of there being rocks and stuff is 1 if the principle wants them to be there and 0 if not.” And if the first principle did not have the God like properties that it in fact has (being God) then the probability is 1 if there are eternal “real things” and 0 if there are not.

But if you do carry this distinction far enough, I think you’ll find that to have any “real things” at all, you must have an eternal “real thing,” and that this eternal “real thing” (using the definition above) will be the same as the eternal “abstract thing”. Of course, the words get a bit muddied, because the eternal real thing won’t really be a thing in the same sense as the other things, but it will definitely be able to affect matter and energy, so I think it would be called real.

 

[zro_x]

Is that all you got?

nope

Objective Truth is an expression of existence itself. You cannot have one without the other. If absolutely nothing cannot exist, then there is a being that is a perfect act of existence, and this is simply to say that there is a being that cannot fail to exist. However, a being that cannot fail to exist is not as such in an arbitrary respect since the impossibility of nothing does not in and of itself efficiently “cause” the necessity of something; but rather a being is necessarily real precisely because it is the fullness of existence and as such is identical to existence. That which is not the fullness of existence is in potentiality to existence and is thus not identical to it (for example the universe is not identical to existence precisely because it changes/moving from potency to act at every instant of change). That which is the fullness of existence cannot be potentially more than what it is because it perfectly exists. Anything less than that can possibly not exist because its nature is not identical to the act of existence even though it participates in it; or rather, there would be no intelligible rational reason to say that it could not cease to be.

You seem to be saying that if anything can’t not exist, then it is identical to the act of existence itself. I think this is an unwarranted conclusion. I think you can have abstract concepts which can’t not exist, but which also are not identical to the act of existence.
Objective truth can be looked at in this way. Objective truth is something which could merely participate in existence, or have existence as a property, but which is not identical with existence itself, while at the same time being something that can’t not exist. (additionally, I think that if something can’t not exist, then that is sufficient explanation for its existence.)

Heck, it is even possible to have physical worlds which can’t cease to exist. all you need is a world without any change. Granted, such worlds do not need to exist like objective truth, but these worlds would sustain in existence without there being the possibility of ever ceasing existence.

Unless of course you believe in brute facts. I do not because i do not believe it to be a rational concept.

I think brute facts are, at the very least, rational concepts, for reasons I’ll show below. (A bit of a disclaimer here: I don’t believe in Objective truth as a brute fact, I believe in it because I think that the fact that it can’t not exist is a sufficient explanation for its existence.) That is to say, I think it is logically possible for something to to be in existence without any explanation for its existence in principle (“in principle” as opposed to something being in existence which has an explanation merely impossible to discern)

I understand that a being either has the explanation for its existence in itself or in the existence of another being.

The problem here is that many people just assume that things that exist need an explanation for their existence, but think, without reason, that non-entities do not. They would be right for everyday occurrences, and for individual entities, but it doesn’t work when we get reach the metaphysical level, when we are dealing with being and non-being themselves. If we require an explanation for the existence of Something, complete absence of everything non-abstract would require an explanation as well. As I said before, we would ask “why is there nothing, rather than something?” and it would be a perfectly legitimate question. Either that, or neither being nor non-being require explanations. And since non-being does not actually require an explanation for it’s state, neither does the existence of something in general. The existence of something in particular requires an explanation, but the existence of something in general does not.

 

[zro_x]

Nope. People throw out logic. And then still try to use it. I don’t know why. It doesn’t make sense.

Right, but you don’t have to postulate that whatever it is that fits the bill of existing has certain attributes, because you can prove it. From the mere fact that it is this first principle, the thing that must exist for anything else to exist has these properties. See St. Thomas Aquinas.

I’m going to repeat this, because it is worth mentioning and because I am not going to go into the proof right now and I don’t want it to get glanced over just because I’m trying not to derail the thread with an argument for it:

The fact that the objective truth (or any other principle like the act of existence that you may choose to substitute for its place in the preceding arguments), that guarantees the universe not be truly empty, has all of the attributes of God that can be known by natural reason is not an assumption or an unproved postulate, but a result of reasoning similar to that which got us to admit that such a principle must exist in the first place.

This is not just a consistent idea. This is a result of saying “so there’s this thing called absolute truth (or other similar principle that can’t not exist). What can we find out about it?”

I think that is perfectly fair. Going from the knowledge that objective truth must exist to finding out how that gives rise to all the properties ascribed to God would go beyond the scope of this thread. It would be an interesting topic for another thread, though.

First, I don’t particularly like the distinction between “real things” and things here. It seems somewhat artificial. But assuming that by real things you mean “matter and that which can effect it,” then:

By “real things” I think I mean anything non-abstract that can reasonably be considered “something”, which is pretty close to the definition you give.

If the first principle is something which has control over everything (which it is, but which arguments I’m refraining from getting into to avoid more being too tangential), then the probability goes something like “the probability of there being rocks and stuff is 1 if the principle wants them to be there and 0 if not.” And if the first principle did not have the God like properties that it in fact has (being God) then the probability is 1 if there are eternal “real things” and 0 if there are not.

I’m going to look purely at the second part of your conditional here, because I agree with the first part.We can’t look at this from a perspective of someone who already knows how it comes about. We are asking what the probability is that there are any real things at all, eternal or otherwise, and we can’t ascribe a 100% to the probability just because we know that there actually are real things. Maybe I’m misunderstanding you here, but that’s what it seems like you are saying.

The scenario I’m trying to convey is the one where there is no principle to guide whether or not there actually are real things. Without such a principle, the existence of real things or absence of all real things would be brute facts, without any explanation. In this case, both the possibility that there are real things and the possibility that there no real things are equally probable, and we just happened to luck out.

 

[inocente]

But it is out of nothing! God is not the material from which the universe is made. That’s some Eastern religion, not Christian truth. The problem you are facing is that you are using finite mathematics to try to describe an action of the Infinite God. Can’t do it! God created the universe “out of nothing.” Pure and simple. Believe it, or be other than a Christian. We are entirely other than God, not made out of some part of God, not some kind of emanation of God, but entirely different from and other than God. Before creation there was no matter, no energy, just the Spirit of God, the Infinite God, the Incomprehensible God. It is impossible to describe. Imagine-- at some time in infinity [there is no time in infinity] God created the universe. There was nothing before but God who is spirit, no body, meaning no matter, no energy-- absolute nothingness in terms of the finite world, because He exists outside the limitations of the finite world. God cannot be reduced to something finite, period. Peace.

Math isn’t finite, math can do infinity, and do it much less ambiguously than words.

And I think you’re playing with words. The Spirit of God is very far from being nothing, only an atheist might say that God is nothing. You’re trying to equate an immaterial cause with nothing, the infinite Almighty God isn’t nothing.

 

[CatholicHockey7]

One of the most basic rules of physics is that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. With that in mind, where did all the matter present at the time of the big bang come from?

 

[JamesCaruso]

Math isn’t finite, math can do infinity, and do it much less ambiguously than words.

And I think you’re playing with words. The Spirit of God is very far from being nothing, only an atheist might say that God is nothing. You’re trying to equate an immaterial cause with nothing, the infinite Almighty God isn’t nothing.

No, man is not finite, but his understanding is except by faith. Man’s math cannot even bein to scratch the surface of infinity. Just because we have notations regarding infinity does not mean that we have any understanding of it.

You miss my point. In the material world, the Spirit of God is nothing. It cannot be detected, It has no mass. It is as if it did not exist. That is why so many physicists are atheists. In terms of creation, there was nothing of the material world in existence, no matter, no energy, before God brought it into existence. I have never said that God is nothing, and I am sorry if my communication skills are so weak as to lead you to believe so. Only in terms of the material universe was their nothing before creation. Of course there was God! The Spirit of God is far more substantial than the mere physical world. It was God, a Spiritual Being, who created the material universe out of nothing. The material world did not emanate from God, it is not part of God, but it was made by God, and whereas there was nothing of the material universe before creation, now there is. It defies all mathematical logic that something can come from nothing, and that is because their is nothing observable or measurable in the material world that has this power. Human beings are infinite only in the sense that they have no end, but they are not infinite in the sense that they have no beginning and no end, only God is infinite in this sense. To distinguish this, we generally refer to man’s soul as eternal, not infinite. Only God has no beginning. That is why I say that man’s mind is finite, It cannot fathom the depths of infinity because it cannot go there. The Trinity, which is a dogma of the Catholic Faith, is illustrative of this. There is no science that can fathom the concept of the Trinity, three individual Persons, and yet each Person is wholly God, and to top it off, there is but one God. If you think you have it figured out, try again, It is beyond human comprehension.

 

[Slaney]

God created life, His Son came here and died for us, I do wonder about mankind’s obsession with life on other planets, when the destroy life here on earth via murdering the babies through abortion !

 

[Phil_Marinus]

Why did God create galaxies so far away, we can barely see them with the most powerful telescopes created ? There is no way we could travel a round trip Pluto , so,. Why is it so?

 

[Paddy_Walker]

Why did God create galaxies so far away, we can barely see them with the most powerful telescopes created ? There is no way we could travel a round trip Pluto , so,. Why is it so?

you’ll be able to go anywhere you want to when you’re dead, across galaxies just by thinking about it. So you’ll see them all yet.

 

[Phil_Marinus]

you’ll be able to go anywhere you want to when you’re dead, across galaxies just by thinking about it. So you’ll see them all yet.

Doubt that, because then we will ( hopefully ) be in the spiritual realm, not the human mortal realm, time will tell I guess

 

[Paddy_Walker]

Doubt that, because then we will ( hopefully ) be in the spiritual realm, not the human mortal realm, time will tell I guess

don’t the saints in the spiritual realm see you on earth. I’m sure they can see things and go where they please.

 

[Phil_Marinus]

don’t the saints in the spiritual realm see you on earth. I’m sure they can see things and go where they please.

Well… Never having been to the other side, nor having spoken face to face to a saint,or spirit, I have no idea, have you ?

 

[Paddy_Walker]

Well… Never having been to the other side, nor having spoken face to face to a saint,or spirit, I have no idea, have you ?

I’m pretty sure they can look down on earth… if they want to…, the universe is also part of infinity and infinity is their realm.

 

[Phil_Marinus]

I’m pretty sure they can look down on earth… if they want to…, the universe is also part of infinity and infinity is their realm.

Mmmmmmm… Well me thinks there is a difference between thinking something , and knowing something as actual fact… I guess one day we will know for sure…
How do you know for sure that the universe is the realm of the spiritual realm ?
Seen one buzzing by your house ?

 

[Paddy_Walker]

Mmmmmmm… Well me thinks there is a difference between thinking something , and knowing something as actual fact… I guess one day we will know for sure…
How do you know for sure that the universe is the realm of the spiritual realm ?
Seen one buzzing by your house ?

“How do you know for sure that the universe is the realm of the spiritual realm ?”

did you mean this? or mean, is the universe within part of the geographical infinite boundaries of the invisible spiritual realm?

I pick the second one. something about it being close at hand and in the twinkling of an eye suggest that we don’t go on a long trip far far away but stay close or rather ‘cross over to the other side’ without necessarily going far away, and why not see what is close?
Have I seen spirits? have they buzzed my house? have they said something? i couldn’t say I’m sure, spirits are not made of matter for ordinary eyes to see…

 

[SentinelofTruth]

If I was an atheist, and I discovered a city on another planet, no aliens, just the buildings, I would conclude without a doubt that these buildings must have been built by aliens. But human biology is 1,000,000,000s of times as complex as the structure of buildings. So if a mere skyscraper can’t just evolve out of the ground, why can a human?

 

[ServantPD]

If I was an atheist, and I discovered a city on another planet, no aliens, just the buildings, I would conclude without a doubt that these buildings must have been built by aliens. But human biology is 1,000,000,000s of times as complex as the structure of buildings. So if a mere skyscraper can’t just evolve out of the ground, why can a human?

That reply is just a complete win!

 

[RinoaHeartilly]

So many pages, so many replies and so much stuff I barely understand…:hypno: But I’m glad that I went through all of this. Reading all these responses and comments has strengthened my faith.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Depends on your definition of “universe” and whether this universe is one or one of many.

No matter how many universes you imagine, the same inferences would apply. Any one or all of them can exist only if God caused them to exist.

Simply not true. Any number of scientific experiments can be shown to have proved your statement false.

I beg your pardon. None have proved this. And no Catholic can believe such to be true. When there is a conflict between a Dogma of the Faith and science, then we have to examine where science went wrong.

If he were so smart, why didn’t he know about quantum theory and relativity? Or even something simple like the casimir effect? How come he didn’t know the uncertainty principle?

Oh come now. How could you say something so unreasonable? How could Thomas be expected to know something that took the efforts of science for over a thousand years to reach its present state?

Linus2nd.

 

[SentinelofTruth]

Linusthe2nd:

simply not true. Any number of scientific experiments can be shown to have proved your statement false. /quote]

Did you mean to quote this?