Ways to argue that the universe is finite

[catholictiger]

one of the classic arguments by atheist is to claim that the universe has always been, never failed to exist, so the universe acts like God, meaning there is no God.

anyway good ways to argue the universe is in fact finite and therefor it depends on a infinite being that would be good in order to exist.

 

[AntiTheist]

one of the classic arguments by atheist is to claim that the universe has always been, never failed to exist, so the universe acts like God, meaning there is no God.

Well, I don’t often see atheists claim this as a fact – as in, something we know for sure – I’ve seen atheists propose this as a possibility, one that, if true, would render gods of various kinds unnecessary.

After all, if we’re going to say that something that has “always existed,” why bother postulating a supernatural entity that no one can demonstrate exists? If you want to say that something has “always existed,” there needs to be some evidence-based reason that you wouldn’t just say that the universe could have always existed.

Just to note: the Big Bang theory – the best, evidence-supported idea of origins we have – does not assert that the universe came from nothing. The Big Bang is nothing more than the expansion of the universe into its current state. No one knows what came before the Big Bang or if the phrase “before the Big Bang” even makes logical sense.

anyway good ways to argue the universe is in fact finite and therefor it depends on a infinite being that would be good in order to exist.

I’m not familiar with any. We don’t know enough about cosmic origins to say anything with much certainty on the subject.

 

[Barbkw]

one of the classic arguments by atheist is to claim that the universe has always been, never failed to exist, so the universe acts like God, meaning there is no God.

The reasoning isn’t backed up by scienctific discovery.

 

[Barbkw]

The Atheist religion is becoming so unscientific. They’ve always refused to believe what they can’t see and now they refuse to see what they are seeing.

 

[catholictiger]

The reasoning isn’t backed up by scienctific discovery.

neither the universe is finite claim, what i will do is I will say mos people think the universe is finite, and they will respond well couldn’t it be infinite couldn’t it be the necessary primary substance.

yes i understand that there is no evidence either way when it comes to science but there could be a good philosophical argument that would explain it.

 

[po18guy]

The Atheist religion is becoming so unscientific. They’ve always refused to believe what they can’t see and now they refuse to see what they are seeing.

I don’t have sufficient faith to be an atheist. I mean, to be absolutely certain that God does not exist, despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary. What great faith!

As to the OP, what is clearly finite is the expansion of the Atheistic concept of possibility. If God is not possible, then infinity fails to exist. They erect the artifice of finiteness around creation, while themselves being unable to explain either existence or non-existence by their own means.

 

[Elijah_Baley]

The Atheist religion is becoming so unscientific. They’ve always refused to believe what they can’t see and now they refuse to see what they are seeing.

Don’t derail the thread, now.

 

[edwest2]

Here is the Church’s position:

“Much less has been defined as to when the universe, life, and man appeared. The Church has infallibly determined that the universe is of finite age—that it has not existed from all eternity—but it has not infallibly defined whether the world was created only a few thousand years ago or whether it was created several billion years ago.”

For Catholics, at least, the Church tells us that God has given us real knowledge.

Peace,
Ed

 

[mcrow]

Well, God created the universe.

So if it’s finte God created it, if it’s infinite then God made it that way.

The sooner that people understand that God does not conform to our laws the quicker we can drop the whole science vs religion arguements.

God can be neither proven or disproved by science because our laws don’t apply to him, he makes the laws.

 

[catholictiger]

thanks for the answers but how would you word it in a way to present to an atheist who may believe it isn’t finite, not a catholic who just doesn’t know.

 

[mcrow]

thanks for the answers but how would you word it in a way to present to an atheist who may believe it isn’t finite, not a catholic who just doesn’t know.

The angle I would go at is this:

Everthing we know of has been created by something. Right?

However, no matter how far you go to prove exactly how or why anything happens we can’t say for sure. For instance, we know that when a man has relations with his wife and all of the biological environments are right, a child will be concieved. We know what sperm and eggs do, we know that eventually cells beging to multiply at some point. I could go into the complete knowlevdge of humans on this subject but in the end we don’t know exactly how it works. We just have to assume certain things to be true for the theory to work.

The Same goes for the universe. We know about the big bang, but we don’t have any clue as to what caused it or why it happened. Because everything is created by something more complicated and larger (i.e. you cannot create something more complicated than yourself) it only stands to reason that something greater and more powerful than us, or earth or the big bang created the big bang itself.

So if we say God was the origin of the Big Bang, the universe is finite in that it is created in the size, shape and substance that got inteded it to be.

 

[catholictiger]

The angle I would go at is this:

Everthing we know of has been created by something. Right?

However, no matter how far you go to prove exactly how or why anything happens we can’t say for sure. For instance, we know that when a man has relations with his wife and all of the biological environments are right, a child will be concieved. We know what sperm and eggs do, we know that eventually cells beging to multiply at some point. I could go into the complete knowlevdge of humans on this subject but in the end we don’t know exactly how it works. We just have to assume certain things to be true for the theory to work.

The Same goes for the universe. We know about the big bang, but we don’t have any clue as to what caused it or why it happened. Because everything is created by something more complicated and larger (i.e. you cannot create something more complicated than yourself) it only stands to reason that something greater and more powerful than us, or earth or the big bang created the big bang itself.

So if we say God was the origin of the Big Bang, the universe is finite in that it is created in the size, shape and substance that got inteded it to be.

thanks

 

[danserr]

This is basically the Kalam Cosmological Argument. The primary proponent today is William Lane Craig. Here’s an article on it from his website. reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5174

There’s also a short you tube video of one of his lectures on it: youtube.com/watch?v=Rpd6X5lRII4

It’s a simple enough argument:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause
2. The universe began to exist
3. The universe has a cause

He offers 4 arguments for premise 2. Two philosophical, Two, scientific. I’ll mention one of each for the sake of brevity and other people can mention or look up the others.

I. Impossibility of the formation of an infinite by successive addition

1. The series of events in time if a collection formed by successive addition
2. A collection formed by successive addition can’t be actually infinite.
3. The series of events in time can’t be actually infinite (and therefore had a beginning).

Premise 2 is the key one. The idea is that if the universe has no beginning, then here have occurred an infinite number of past events. But these events happen one after the other. The present added to the past, the next event to that, and so on. But a collection formed this way can’t be actually infinite. It would be like counting to infinity, which is obviously impossible. You could never get to infinity, there would always be one more number you could count first. And if you can never get to infinity, then the number of past events is a cardinal number, which is to say, it had a beginning.

II. The Expansion of the Universe
In 1929 Hubble discovered that the universe was expanding, confirming the theories of a couple early 20th century cosmologists. Before this scientists always assumed the universe was static and eternal. But knowing the expansion of the universe has implications for when one traced back and the universe got more and more dense until it came to a beginning point, the singularity. The Big Bang model of the universe then describes the creation of time, space, and matter from nothing (Fred Hoyle, 1972).
So the expansion of the universe (Big Bang model) offers evidence that matter, and even space and time began at the big bang.

• Another note, I’ll mention this briefly. People sometimes ask why we should infer God as the cause? Craig gives 3 answers, here’s one.
  The universe includes all time, space, and matter, which began at the Big Bang. If it has a cause, the cause can’t be material (since matter began to exist) and the cause must transcend space and time (since they too began to exist). Only 2 things fall into this category, abstract objects (like numbers), and minds. Numbers don’t cause anything, so if the universe has a cause, the cause must be an embodied mind, i.e. God.

 

[cassini]

one of the classic arguments by atheist is to claim that the universe has always been, never failed to exist, so the universe acts like God, meaning there is no God.

anyway good ways to argue the universe is in fact finite and therefor it depends on a infinite being that would be good in order to exist.

OK Tiger, let’s give it a go. First of all any ‘proofs’ that the universe is finite. Any atheists worth their salt must adhere to scientific possibilities as well as certainties. In 1905 Einstein re-introduced the phenomenon of relativity back into science. This relativity has always been there even though it has been ignored since Copernicus. Accordingly, there are two interpretations of the universe possible in science, geocentric and heliocentric. The preferred one is heliocentric, but all the experiments of physics indicates a geocentric, non moving earth. Never once did physics show a moving earth, that is based on theoretical physics, not worth a fig compared to experimental physics in the truth game. Thus SCIENCE favours geocentrism over heliocentrism. Now it doesn’t matter if 99.999% of humanity insist it is heliocentric, science is not a democracy and geocentrism is a very real possibility, more likely than heliocentrism according to science. Thus one can accept geocentrism as a fact, not falsifiable.
OK. Now if in science, the rotation of the universe occuring every 24 hours is a probability, then for those who go with the most likely fact, this shows a finite universe. An infinite universe could not rotate, if you see what I mean. Oh, by the way, a poster above talks about the Big Bang theory. We all know the Big Bang theory is a direct reasoning on the expanding universe theory. Well do any of you know who was the first to propose an expanding universe theory? Well it was Copernicus. But wait for it. He said that if the finite universe is rotating, then like any rotating entity, its parts should expand outwards. Hilarous isn’t it, the geocentric model was confirmed by Hubble’s interpretation of the red-shifts (many other scientists interpret them differently you know). But victory belongs to the victors and science was hijacted by the Heliocentrists, and a Big Bang-heliocentric theory was offered as the only scientific explanation for everything. In other words, true science, the one that holds every possibility as scientific until proven wrong, has not been practiced on earth since the Copernican heretics took over in Church and State.

Now for a scientific proof for finite time. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics states all matter is in a process of decay. This we can witness with our eyes. Stuff decays, everything. So too the sun burns out. Now if the world was here forever then why hasn’t everything decayed into zero energy matter by now? Look around you, everything look young, the sun and universe work perfectly, the earth still regenerastes every year thanks to the combination of everything. In other words, the world had to have a beginning, and not so long ago, and will end sometime - if science is to be the judge of that. Oh yes, I have seen posts telling me that there are scientific errors and possibilities that show this is not the dogma I make it out to be, but that is all theory. The fact is that things are and do decay. Early human civilisation is proof of that, all gone. The sun is burning out, that is a fact. So call it what you like, this natural law cannot be happening forever, so that shown scientific finity, if thats a word.

 

[danserr]

cassini,
you are essentially correction in your use of the second law of thermodynamics to prove the beginning of the universe. Given finite time, the universe will run down and decay as space and matter continue to expand and get further apart. This shows that the universe is finite in time because given infinite past time, the universe should already have run down and decayed. It clearly has not, so this implies the universe had a beginning.

Your other argument, that the “universe” is geocentric, then the universe must be finite because an infinite universe could not rotate. Here I have a very hard time following you and think you may want to reconsider this argument.

• A good argument should have premises that are plausible, can be defended clearly and simply. But It would be very hard to argue for a geocentric universe, and the fact that there is so much skepticism regarding this will not make an argument based on a geocentri universe very persuasive.
• Can you cite some evidence for a geocentric universe. I admit I am not sure I find this very plausible and it strikes me as a radical claim not supported by current physicists or cosmologists. Do you know of any major physicists or cosmologists who support this view with writings published in peer reviewed journals or presses?
• I think for scientific reasons that the universe had a beginning, it’s better to focus on the evidence for the expansion of the universe and the second law of thermodynamics, which you do in your second reason.

 

[yppop]

one of the classic arguments by atheist is to claim that the universe has always been, never failed to exist, so the universe acts like God, meaning there is no God.

anyway good ways to argue the universe is in fact finite and therefor it depends on a infinite being that would be good in order to exist.

Hi Tiger

One of the reasons that anti-theist cosmologists have proposed multi-verse hypotheses is to dispel the obvious conclusion derived from the big bang theory that the universe had a beginning. Well, you can dispel all of those theories on the basis is that they are not science in the sense that they can neither be measure, observed, or falsified; they are mere speculation. The only theory for which there is legitimate observed data is the big bang theory and it demands a finite universe for at least two reasons:

1. The BB theory claims that all space, matter, time, and energy expanded from an infinitesimal object often referred to as a singularity. Nothing that is infinite can expand; therefore anything that expands must be finite. The universe expands therefore is finite.
2. The cosmic background radiation, which was predicted from legitimate scientific investigation, has been extensively observed and shown to fit the predictions. The basis for the calculations is a scientific curve that relates temperature to wave length of the radiation that is based on what is called “black body radiation” . This means that all of the radiation that is generated is contained in the measurement; nothing is lost. In short as the big bang created “free” photons (sometime around 300,000 years after t=0) they all were contained in the expanding universe by “bouncing off the border”. This can only happen in a finite universe, otherwise all of the radiation would have long dissipated into infinite space.

As for: what came before the big bang? You can reasonably argue that “nothing” (in the sense that there is no space, matter, time, or energy as we know them) came before and only God can create ex nihilo!

Good luck with the challenges from the anti-theists there are plenty of them in the academic environment.

Yppop

 

[cassini]

cassini,
you are essentially correction in your use of the second law of thermodynamics to prove the beginning of the universe. Given finite time, the universe will run down and decay as space and matter continue to expand and get further apart. This shows that the universe is finite in time because given infinite past time, the universe should already have run down and decayed. It clearly has not, so this implies the universe had a beginning.

Your other argument, that the “universe” is geocentric, then the universe must be finite because an infinite universe could not rotate. Here I have a very hard time following you and think you may want to reconsider this argument.

• A good argument should have premises that are plausible, can be defended clearly and simply. But It would be very hard to argue for a geocentric universe, and the fact that there is so much skepticism regarding this will not make an argument based on a geocentri universe very persuasive.
• Can you cite some evidence for a geocentric universe. I admit I am not sure I find this very plausible and it strikes me as a radical claim not supported by current physicists or cosmologists. Do you know of any major physicists or cosmologists who support this view with writings published in peer reviewed journals or presses?
• I think for scientific reasons that the universe had a beginning, it’s better to focus on the evidence for the expansion of the universe and the second law of thermodynamics, which you do in your second reason.

Well now danserr, that depends on your idea of plausability and evidence. The plausability exists in the fact that relativity prevails in the universe. Even the dogs in the street know this now.Thus the question passes from the empirical sphere to the metaphysical. According to modern science the geocentric universe IS as plausable as the heliocentric. Now it may not be the PREFERRED order by scientists, but truth is not a democracy. As for experimental physics, well every experiment conducted to confirm heliocentric beliefs failed to find any movement of the earth. So in fact empirical physics FAVOURS a geocentric position, not prove it, but certainly failed to disprove geocentrism.

Next we move over to metaphysical truths. As we know only God can determine them. Not only that but He gave His Church the authority to determine them too. In Scripture He reveals geocentrism. All the Fathers interpreted His Word thus. a sign of infallibility according to Trent and Vatican I. Then in 1616, 1633 and 1664 the Church itself defined and declared it geocentric. This definition was unlawfully ignored in 1820 and Catholics were led to believe that heliocentrism was a truth of Scripture and the physical world. This was done on the basis that proof was supplied for H. In 1905 that proof was blown out of the water by Einstein. Pope John Paul II had the chance and knowledge to return to Church teaching but choose to go along with the suspected heretic Galileo.

Now there are those who argue the geocentric physics. One such person is Robert Sungenis. Just google in his name and read all you like his arguments based on modern physics. Personally I consider the Church’s 1616 decree enough and like St Thomass have no need to argue the truth with fallible science. I totally accept the Word of God and, like Cardinal Bellarmine know science will never prove God wrong.

Note this is a Catholic forum, a philosophical thread, and so my position is as plausable as any here among Catholics. Nobody can prove the G position wrong, only reject it. So, for Gs, this rotation proves a finite universe. If it were infinite then it could not rotate.

Trouble is Ronnie, God crreated it all in a way to prevent anybody REALLY proving His existence. He wanted a minimum of faith involved. If we could prove God’s existence then there would be no faith, no choice. Rather the opposite, He created the universe so that those who reject His existence and creative ability could find an order and mechanism to believe. That invention is heliocentrism, the Mother of all anti-God theories.

 

[cassini]

Hi Tiger

One of the reasons that anti-theist cosmologists have proposed multi-verse hypotheses is to dispel the obvious conclusion derived from the big bang theory that the universe had a beginning. Well, you can dispel all of those theories on the basis is that they are not science in the sense that they can neither be measure, observed, or falsified; they are mere speculation. The only theory for which there is legitimate observed data is the big bang theory and it demands a finite universe for at least two reasons:

1. The BB theory claims that all space, matter, time, and energy expanded from an infinitesimal object often referred to as a singularity. Nothing that is infinite can expand; therefore anything that expands must be finite. The universe expands therefore is finite.
2. The cosmic background radiation, which was predicted from legitimate scientific investigation, has been extensively observed and shown to fit the predictions. The basis for the calculations is a scientific curve that relates temperature to wave length of the radiation that is based on what is called “black body radiation” . This means that all of the radiation that is generated is contained in the measurement; nothing is lost. In short as the big bang created “free” photons (sometime around 300,000 years after t=0) they all were contained in the expanding universe by “bouncing off the border”. This can only happen in a finite universe, otherwise all of the radiation would have long dissipated into infinite space.

As for: what came before the big bang? You can reasonably argue that “nothing” (in the sense that there is no space, matter, time, or energy as we know them) came before and only God can create ex nihilo!

Good luck with the challenges from the anti-theists there are plenty of them in the academic environment.

Yppop

Please yppop, what exclusive evidence is there for the Big Bang theory? In his book, nuclear physicist Robert Gentry has a whole section naming cosmologists, physicists and scientists that have examined the ‘evidence’ of red-shifts and concluded they could be equally interpreted as a revolving universe. Indeed it was Copernicus who first proposed the expanding universe theory. He said it must be so if the cosmic bodies revolve. Why one side is allocated the ‘evidence’ and the other dismissed on ideological grounds shows this science game is determined by the preferences of men. Some evidence.

The CRB is another contrived science. Based on theory, when it suits the theory it is considered ‘evidence’ for the theory to be called a fact. In the book describing this find they first thought it was pidgeon s**t on their instruments. They also found ‘evidence’ that showed the earth moving in space. The fact that it could have been a rotating ether acting on the earth never even occurred to them. They only find what they want to find.

 

[hecd2]

The only theory for which there is legitimate observed data is the big bang theory and it demands a finite universe for at least two reasons:

It is certainly true that some form of Big Bang cosmology (specifically lambda CDM with inflation and dark energy) is a good fit to our observations and is therefore the best current theory. However LCDM does not preclude an infinite universe. See below.

1. The BB theory claims that all space, matter, time, and energy expanded from an infinitesimal object often referred to as a singularity. Nothing that is infinite can expand; therefore anything that expands must be finite. The universe expands therefore is finite.

I don’t think that this is right - there is nothing about the nature of a flat geometry (ie infinite in extent) universe that precludes its expansion. The geometry of the universe can be globally flat and infinite and still arise in a Big Bang with or without inflation and with current expansion.

1. The cosmic background radiation, which was predicted from legitimate scientific investigation, has been extensively observed and shown to fit the predictions. The basis for the calculations is a scientific curve that relates temperature to wave length of the radiation that is based on what is called “black body radiation” . This means that all of the radiation that is generated is contained in the measurement; nothing is lost. In short as the big bang created “free” photons (sometime around 300,000 years after t=0) they all were contained in the expanding universe by “bouncing off the border”. This can only happen in a finite universe, otherwise all of the radiation would have long dissipated into infinite space.

And this is not right - the idea that photons need to be contained in the expanding universe by bouncing or reflection is simply wrong. The photons of the CMB have travelled freely from their source at decoupling, ie from the surface of last scattering, to us, by following geodesics that do not involve reflection from any surface. The idea that the radiation would ‘dissipate’ in an infinite universe is not correct. All points within the universe emitted freely propagating photons at the time of decoupling. What we observe are those photons, coming from every direction in the sky from matter lying on a sphere that is now (co-moving) of the order 46 billion light years in radius.

The fact is that Big Bang cosmology does not a priori preclude an infinitely large universe - in fact discerning the geometry of the universe is one of the ambitions of cosmology based on a posteriori observations.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[danserr]

A response to a few ideas mentioned since my last post, but I’ll just respond to them all in this post rather than individual ones.

First comment, the original question “ways to argue the universe is finite” meant finite in time, ie., that the universe has not existed for an infinite amount of time, and therefore that it had to have a beginning. Some people have made arguments that the universe is finite in size, I don’t think this is a disputed point though, and it’s not the issues at hand (though it is an interesting question).

The fact is that Big Bang cosmology does not a priori preclude an infinitely large universe

-Actually it probably does. (though note first, that the issues of this thread is if the universe had a beginning, that it is finite in time, not size). If the universe expanding from a singularity (as Big Bang cosmology holds), then it could not actually be infinite in size because it is still expanding. Like counting to infinity is impossible, an expanding universe could never be infinite in size.

• As for the cosmic background radiation, that was emitted during a very hot dense phase of the universe, which confirms the expansion of the universe. So this is evidence that the universe is finite in time and in size.

According to modern science the geocentric universe IS as plausable as the heliocentric.

-Cassini, I really am pretty skeptical of the idea of a geo-centric universe. Sungenis, for instance, who is the only guy you cite is a theologian, he does not have a degree in physics, and doesn’t publish peer-reviewed sources.
-As I understand, his and your primary concern is that you believe that God tells us that the Earth is the center of the universe. Now, of course, I agree that if God told us the earth was the center of the universe we should believe it, but I don’t think he does. The bible doesn’t say much about it really. There’s that reference to God making the sun stand still, but there is no reason to interpret this literally. I mean, Jesus, told his disciples they were the salt of the earth, he wasn’t literally saying that they were literally salt. I mean, I myself believe that the sun is stationary and is the center of the solar system (not universe, just solar system), and that the earth moves around it, but I still myself will talk about the sun “moving” through the sky. It doesn’t mean I literally think it does, just that this is how it appears. Similarly, this is just how the sun “stopping” would have appeared to the israelites. It doesn’t mean God is saying that the sun literally stopped, just that it appears that way.

[God] wanted a minimum of faith involved. If we could prove God’s existence then there would be no faith, no choice.

Actually, I am not sure. Faith isn’t just a matter of belief, it’s a matter of committing oneself to God. So would still have to choose whether to commit ourselves to him or not.