How could the universe and life come into existence without God? How could life evolve without God?

[Freddy]

rossum:

Since God exists, then He is a part of the ATE universe. Since God is eternal then the ATE universe is also eternal. Hence, by the Kalaam argument the ATE universe did not have a cause/creator.

…everything that begins to exist has a cause…
…the universe began to exist…
…the universe must have a cause.

Do you just want to work with those assumptions at this point?

 

[o_mlly]

How did the universe and life start by natural causes?

There is no scientific theory yet for this.

Yet?

Empirical (experiential) science at a minimum requires at least one observation, at least one repeatable sensible experience. Upon that observed effect, a testable hypothesis is formed to explain that effect’s cause. Without that observation to build upon there is only speculation as to causation.

Has anyone observed a being that exists w/o cause, a being that just pops into existence, an effect with no cause? If so then that effect escapes the fundamental assumption of science: all nature is regulated by laws of causation.

The beginnings of the universe and life are beyond the realm of science. Those who have only faith in the scientific method (scientism) will not yield but offer the ambiguities of “brute fact” or “emergent property” or “not yet, give us more time”.

 

[harshcshah]

Yes, and those are not mere assumptions. Everything that begins to exist does have a cause. Even atoms. For example, Lawrence Krauss in his work uses the word “nothing” in a very, very misleading way - atoms don’t appear from actual nothingness, Krauss redefines nothing to be something called nothing. That is blatantly misleading. The universe did begin to exist - the Borde-Güth-Vilenkin theorem demonstrates that a universe that has been, on average, expanding throughout its history has to have an absolute point at which it began. Whilst (to my knowledge) physicists are working on attempting to falsify the theorem, it has stood the tests thus far. Also, a past eternal universe would lead to tremendous contradictions - for example, if a planet is orbiting a star 2× faster than its counterpart then a universe that has exists eternally (as in an actual infinite) would require us to believe that both these planets have orbited the star a different number and a same number of times simultaneously. Whilst one could say this works on an abstract one-to-one comparison of the numbers, I am not aware of anyone who advocates for this to be applied in the real non-abstract world.

 

[lelinator]

The Kalam Cosmological Argument is more subtle than that; it argues that everything that begins to exist has a cause and that the universe began to exist and therefore the universe must have a cause.

One of the problems with Cosmological Arguments is that even their proponents can’t agree on their validity. For example, Aquinas rejects the Kalam Cosmological Argument, and instead argues for a completely different version of the Cosmological Argument.

The thing is that most people don’t even realize that these two versions of the Cosmological Argument actually disagree with each other.

Unfortunately Aquinas’ version of the Cosmological Argument makes absolutely no sense. But as Catholics, most people on this forum would be loathe to question Aquinas’ authority on the subject.

So how does one reconcile the fact that these two versions of the Cosmological Argument disagree with each other?

 

[rossum]

The Kalam Cosmological Argument is more subtle than that; it argues that everything that begins to exist has a cause and that the universe began to exist and therefore the universe must have a cause. It does not merely include everything that exists (which would include God). I believe you are mistaken here.

The ATE (All That Exists) universe is eternal, without a beginning since God himself exists and is eternal, without a beginning.

The philosophical ATE universe is not the same as the STEM material universe. The OP to this thread talked about:

For the purpose of this thread, can we define God as the creator of all that is seen and unseen.

That “and unseen” indicates to me that we are talking about the ATE universe, which includes god, and not the STEM universe, which does not. Hence, the Kalaam argument does apply, and the ATE universe does not have a cause any more than God has a cause.

 

[harshcshah]

If they disagree with each other, that’s fine. The argument must stand on its own, not on the basis of the man who formulated it. At any rate, the best argument must prevail. I prefer a more general formulation of the Kalam argument.

 

[Wesrock]

St. Thomas’ arguments make perfect sense. You just disagree with certain suppositions.

 

[lelinator]

St. Thomas’ arguments make perfect sense. You just disagree with certain suppositions.

It’s not that I disagree with the suppositions, it’s that the suppositions have nothing to do with the conclusion. Things change, supposition accepted, potency is actualized, agreed.

But how does that have anything to do with God as the first cause? How does it have anything to do with a hierarchical series which begins with God?

Where in the hierarchical series that begins with God is there change…where is there the actualization of potency?

As has been asked before, describe for me a specific hierarchical series that begins with God, and not simply an analogy.

 

[Wesrock]

As has been asked before, describe for me a specific hierarchical series that begins with God, and not simply an analogy.

Sure, though there’s additional background material I’ll gloss over. You’re actual existence in this very moment is an actualized potency explained by both accidental and essential series of causes. We’re concerned specifically with the essential series, which is hierarchical. Your actuality is not something essential to being you or a human being. If existing was part of the essence of being a human being, that human being would just exist. They could not fail to exist as a human being at any point in time, nor would he have ever had a beginning. You are only actual in this moment because all of your component parts are actual, your cells, to pick one example. However, again, we encounter the same type of actualized potency in these cells for the same reason. What of the carbon atoms that make up the cells? Same deal. What of the protons, neutrons, and electrons of those carbon atoms? Same deal, on down the line. Such a series cannot be infinite or circular, because if the actuality of all things was merely derivative and no term in it just is underived, pure actuality then the system has no explanation or reason to be at all, and furthermore could not be. We could do the same type of analysis on the actualization of prime matter by form, and the actualization of essence by existence, but the look at physical components should be more accessible.

In analogies I provided elsewhere, I likened it to a book on a shelf. The question wasn’t how the book got on the shelf, or what “changed” in the book’s location. The analogy was in regards to the book’s current position on the shelf being currently actualized by the shelf even when it’s already there. Not an accidental change but the continued actualization of a potency. Same deal with my example above, in which existence or actuality of a thing can’t be predicated on the essence of the thing, and on which a sufficient explanation for the actuality of a thing requires such an hierarchical series. (And you said you wanted an example, not an analogy. I did provide an example in my first paragraph, this second paragraph was only to help illustrate where you’re going wrong in consideration of the series.)

Note, you didn’t challenge it based on disagreement with certain suppositions or ask me to justify those suppositions. You only asked me to provide an example of a series. I’m not saying the suppositions can’t be justified, only that was not your angle.

 

[anneramones]

Every person that doesn’t believe in God responds to me saying “the Big Bang created the world,not God.” This is all I’ve got…

 

[Eric_Hyom]

There is no need to discuss God in this thread. From the OP -

Where is the science to show how the universe and life came into existence without God?

The following quote might help focus more on the science.

Together, helium and hydrogen make up around 99 percent of known matter in the universe. Did helium and hydrogen have no beginning? Or did they just pop into existence and not come from anything?

Something had to defy logic and reason by having no beginning, or just come onto existence without coming from anything, but what and how?

Where is the science?

 

[lelinator]

We’re concerned specifically with the essential series, which is hierarchical.

Agreed, as opposed to the Kalam Cosmological Argument, which concerns an accidentally ordered series, which Aquinas contends may be infinite. So immediately Aquinas disagrees with the Kalam Cosmological Argument.

Your actuality is not something essential to being you or a human being. If existing was part of the essence of being a human being, that human being would just exist. They could not fail to exist as a human being at any point in time, nor would he have ever had a beginning.

Again we agree. But my existence, and my continued existence is all thanks to one creative act which didn’t involve the actualization of potency, or the change of one thing into another thing. There’s no change, or actualization of potency involved in the creating, or sustaining, of God’s creation.

So why does Aquinas mention it?

You are only actual in this moment because all of your component parts are actual, your cells, to pick one example. However, again, we encounter the same type of actualized potency in these cells for the same reason.

I agree that I only exist because all of my component parts exist. And this is true within each and every moment of time. Each moment in time is a static snapshot of my component parts. Beginning with God as the sustaining power underpinning those parts. But when you start to talk about change, or the actualization of potency, then you’ve switched to an accidentally ordered series. And that’s not the type of series that Aquinas was referring to. You’re inferring that although Aquinas was referencing moving things, He was actually referring to a series in which things aren’t moving, at all.

But why does Aquinas do that…reference changing things when he’s specifically talking about non-changing things?

The analogy was in regards to the book’s current position on the shelf being currently actualized by the shelf even when it’s already there. Not an accidental change but the continued actualization of a potency.

So, let me get this straight…you’re saying that change is the actualization of potency…and not changing is also the actualization of potency? Is this correct?

So in the hierarchical series that begins with God, and ends with me, God is actualizing my potential to exist. Is that what you’re saying?

If so, then I have to ask. Is my existence in this moment in time the result of God’s one creative act? And did that creative act involve the actualization of potency? If not, then my existence here and now, doesn’t involve the actualization of potency, because it’s a result of God’s one creative act which itself didn’t involve the actualization of potency.

So I think that your argument fails, because it implies that God’s one time creative act involves an ongoing actualization of potency.

 

[goout]

The creation of the universe is history and we cannot change history.

Where is the science to show how the universe and life came into existence without God?

God’s existence and action are simply not scientific questions. Science can reinforce faith but it cannot provide or prove the substance of faith.

 

[lelinator]

Note, you didn’t challenge it based on disagreement with certain suppositions or ask me to justify those suppositions.

The reason that I say that Aquinas’ First Way makes no sense, is that it specifically begins by referring to things that are moving, which is an accidental series, but if your interpretation is correct, then Aquinas was actually referring specifically to things that aren’t moving. God is the sustaining agent behind each individual static moment in time.

So why did Aquinas reference moving things, when his conclusion is in regard to non-moving things?

 

[rossum]

Every person that doesn’t believe in God responds to me saying “the Big Bang created the world,not God.” This is all I’ve got…

Except for the people who say “Vishnu created the world” or “Amaterasu created the world”. There is more to theism than the Abrahamic religions; the people who believe in all those gods and goddesses about whose existence Christians agree with atheists.

 

[Wesrock]

So, let me get this straight…you’re saying that change is the actualization of potency…and not changing is also the actualization of potency? Is this correct?

…

So I think that your argument fails, because it implies that God’s one time creative act involves an ongoing actualization of potency.

Snipped to fit the character limit, not to ignore anything. Let me know if you want me to comment on something specific that was left out.

God’s all-time creative act extends to all moments of time and yes, does extend to the actualization of the potency of things here and now. You stated there’s no actualization involved in sustaining creation. I’m not sure where you got that from. It’s principles like this in all the Five Ways that are the reason we can conclude God is eternally active in sustaining creation.

As I’ve stated numerous times, the First Way is specifically regarding the principles of Act and Potency, and “motion” in the classical and Aristotlean sense refers to the actualization of potency. The First Way concerns things that must continue to be acted upon to keep their potency actualized. And let me reiterate that, just because they’re physically stationary (relatively so, given all the movements of the universe…) doesn’t mean they are not being acted upon. So to revisit the first sentence I quoted, it’s not that “not changing” is itself the actualization of potency, it’s that the object is being acted upon, and that it’s potency to be in such a state is only actualized because it is so acted upon.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

Note, you didn’t challenge it based on disagreement with certain suppositions or ask me to justify those suppositions.

The reason that I say that Aquinas’ First Way makes no sense, is that it specifically begins by referring to things that are moving, which is an accidental series, but if your interpretation is correct, then Aquinas was actually referring specifically to things that aren’t moving. God is the sustaining agent behind each individual static moment in time.

So why did Aquinas reference moving things, when his conclusion is in regard to non-moving things?

I don’t want to read like I’m copping out, but the few sentences given as the First Way in the Summa Theologica are not sufficient unto themselves for his point. St. Thomas was writing a summary (summa) of theology and was in very few words recapitulating arguments his audience (already studied theologians) were already educated on. I should also clarify that St. Thomas wasn’t writing of just physical motion, but motion in a broader sense. Change is the most immediately literal reading, but as an Aristotlean it would be specifically regarding the actualization of potency. The Act and Potency distinction is perhaps one of perhaps two most significant Aristotlean positions in metaphysics, as I understand it (the other being hylemorphism). This background is assumed as far as the Summa Theologica goes.

It can easily be dismissed that St. Thomas was referring to any type of accidental/linear series (and any type of change over time you’re referring to would be accidental), because just a little later in the same book of the Summa he denies that we can prove the world had a beginning by appealing to linear series, and the ST was written near the end of his life near the height of his writing and thought.

He kind of goes over this whole line of thinking regarding the being of things (in which there is a distinction between their existence and their essence) as requiring actualization (in an essential series) in his work On Being and Essence, which is actually fairly short as far as these things go. From memory I think it comes to 17 pages in a Word document? But I might be misremembering.

Anyway, I think it took me too long to get to sum up my point. He’s appealing specifically to the actualization of potency when he brings up motion.

 

[Michaelangelo]

Where is the science you ask. Have you even bothered to do a online search targeting scientific institutions? There are plenty of sources answering your question about hydrogen and helium for example because there is a well established theory for the development of the universe from when the hot big bang started, which we still can be said to live in. And no, the theory is not believed to be a complete model of this evolution. But it holds up pretty well against observations.

 

[Dan_Defender]

The universe did begin to exist - the Borde-Güth-Vilenkin theorem demonstrates that a universe that has been, on average, expanding throughout its history has to have an absolute point at which it began.

Not only that, but the rate of accelerated expansion, by the laws of physics, should have caused the universe to fall apart and become a soup of particles by now. The fact that it has not collapsed, is the reason scientist have to scramble and introduce concepts such as dark matter and dark energy, to try and maintain a working model.

 

[AlNg]

the Borde-Güth-Vilenkin theorem demonstrates that a universe that has been, on average, expanding throughout its history has to have an absolute point at which it began.

Sean Carroll comments on his debate with William Lane Craig on this and on the Kalam argument:

Post-Debate Reflections – Sean Carroll