Creatio Ex Nihilo - Forming Something out of Nothing?

[wiploc]

Wiploc said:

A bit of technique, if you're interested. When I'm going to answer multiple people in one post, I right-click the reply button, and open the link in another window.

That gives me two windows, this window I'm typing in now, and the window with the thread in it. I can Alt-Tab back and forth between them.

Then, each time I'm ready to address a new post, I can left click the reply button; trim down the material to the part I want to reply to; copy that to the clipboard; back out of the new reply window, back to the thread; and then alt-tab over to the "real" reply window, and paste in the new material.

That way, each post I'm responding to has link back to that post.

Works for me anyway. Your mileage may very.

It entails infinite regress. It is not reasonable to start with "Out of nothing nothing comes," and conclude that there was a beginning....

It sounds like you're saying the universe is eternal, that it had no creator...

You can have "creation ex nihilo," or you can have "nothing comes from nothing." Since they contradict each other, you can't have both.

To your first point: You are correct that it would not be reasonable to conclude that "there was a beginning" from the premise "out of nothing nothing comes." In fact, the opposite conclusion is the only rational conclusion (as far as I can tell), i.e. that there must have always existed something (whatever that something may be).

If "nothing comes from nothing" means that nothing exists without a precursor cause, then it's not a matter of "as far as I can tell." If nothing comes from nothing, then we are the result of infinite regress. No two ways about it.

There must exist, by logical necessity, some thing that has never not-existed, i.e. a thing which cannot not-exist, a thing whose identity/definition/whatever you'd lie to call it is "existence itself". So the argument goes anyway.

Well, that argument just makes stuff up. There is no way to get from "nothing comes from nothing" to something cannot not-exist.

To your second: I am saying that by rational argument and investigation alone, it is not demonstrable that the universe had a beginning. Rationally, it is certainly possible that the universe is eternal, but it is just as likely that it had a beginning (I think current cosmological investigation supports this, i.e. while the standard model includes a "beginning", there are several competing and strong theories that assume an eternal universe, I am happy to be corrected).

I'm certainly in no position to correct you.

The Christian faith claims, as a revealed truth, that everything that is not god had a beginning. As of now, that does not contradict the findings of reason, but it certainly does not follow as an undeniable conclusion from rational argument. It is important for both sides of the discussion to recognize what exactly is under discussion in the particular arguments.

Usually, Christians claim that nothing comes from nothing, which would entail an infinite regression, and then they reverse themselves by claiming that infinite regression is impossible. The first cause argument is typically based on premises that contradict each other.

To your third point: They only contradict each other if we refuse to seek to understand what is meant in either case. Here they are illustrated quickly and simply

1) Philosophical Argument
Premise 1) If no thing is existing (P), then no thing will be (Q).
Premise 2) Some things are (not Q).

There is only one conclusion. P must always be false. If it were EVER true, Q would be true, which contradicts everything there is about existence. Therefore, there must have always existed at least 1 thing which could not not exist.

Again, that's just made up. There's no way to get from "There have always been things," to, "There has always been one particular thing which cannot possibly not exist."

That is all the argument aims at demonstrating.

But it cannot demonstrate it. It's a non-sequitur.

Is it the universe itself? Energy? Matter? Flying Spaghetti Monster? Too little information to tell from the argument.

If, however, premise 1 is false, then the argument is not sound and should be rejected. The way I have put it, in my haste, might certainly have deficiencies, but I put it up only to illustrate that there are two issues at play that get conflated into one (see below). I have yet to encounter any satisfying argument that could demonstrate that this premise, in its best formulation, is indeed false.

If it's not false, then the universe has always existed, and we have no use for a creator.

2) Creation ex nihilo, on the other hand, is not an argument at all. It is a truth about God's relationship to all things that are not God. Ex nihilo, in this sense, means that God "created" everything else as a participation in his own existence, i.e. he did not need any starting material... God created his own stuff with which to form the universe.

In other words, it rejects the claim that nothing comes from nothing. People who care about logic and consistency shouldn't claim both that nothing comes from nothing and that god made something come from nothing.

The claims cannot both be true.