Hi, atheist folks. I wonder if you can find flaws in the following argument. If it holds, it'll be part of a book.
I ask: Why is there something rather than nothing?
The question is befuddling. Why should there be nothing rather than what we have around us? Why privilege either "nothing" or "something"? Why cannot this world be everything that has ever been and will be?
On the one hand, we humans privilege nothing readily. We apparently come from nothing and go into nothing. In between we live for a little bit, always in danger, such that if we don't struggle with all our might, the nothing will arrive even quicker. All living things are born, thereby beginning to exist, and die, thereby ceasing to exist. But the inference from this human experience to the universe as a whole need not be taken.
Moreover, "something" is also privileged. The moment we are born, we are surrounded with stuff to use, enjoy, and manipulate. Disembodied existence, while not inconceivable, is not part of our human experience. But "nothingness" is inconceivable; one can't close his eyes and picture nothingness.
However, that nothingness is inconceivable does not mean that it is impossible.
Let possible world Empty be defined as follows: ForAll(X I can think of)[X does not exist in Empty]. Then
(1) Nothing = ThereExists[Empty]. We are dealing with "universes," uni = "one," so any possible world is a maximally consistent state of affairs. As a result, Empty swallows up every other reality, so it is not necessary to say "there exists only Empty."
Let our actual world be called Earth. Then
(2) Something = ThereExists[Earth].
Neither is privileged.
In this case, it does not matter that Earth may have existed forever and will continue to do so indefinitely. We are not looking for a physical cause prior in time to Earth. Moreover, once Earth exists, I grant that it may be forever imperishable. First, there are no "predators" outside it that may kill it. Second, material objects, though they can in the course of their lives change from one form into another and even into energy, nevertheless seem imperishable. We might say that they "follow the law" so faithfully that they are granted immortality. They fear disobedience so much as to persevere in being forever.
But we are seeking an explanation of why (1) is false and (2) is true.
For (2) is a contingent proposition. The question is not what, if anything, preceded Earth in time in the actual world, but why the non-necessary situation prevails. I admit that Earth may never have begun; suppose it always has existed, with time going into the past into actual infinity. I do not consider this either unintelligible or impossible.
We ask for an explanation why (2) which is contingent and certainly need not be true is in fact true. But to explain something is to reduce it to a cause. For example, say, Smith throws a stone which breaks a window. This, too, is a contingent event. We explain why the window was broken by implicating Smith, his actions, the stone, etc. If there is determinism, then we can extend our explanation backward in time forever.
We certainly do not explain why "2 + 2 = 4" is true, because it's a necessary truth, if there was one. If pressed, we say that it is true due to the logical and arithmetical structure of the human mind. The opposite is neither conceivable nor possible, because possible worlds are imagined by human minds, and their ideal content is unavoidably constrained by the structure of these minds.
I fully admit that the cause of (2)'s being true, call it C2, is different from the cause of the broken window, CB, because both CB and its effect, the breaking of the window, are situated in time, with cause preceding the effect; while (2), being an abstract proposition is in any case timeless; it cannot be said to exist either in the past, present, or future. Regardless, it must have some kind of cause.
This cause must have been presented with a choice to make either (1) or (2) true and chose (2). This choice of words does not imply anything regarding the type of causation, whether it was physical, teleological, or some other third type. Note that C2 could not be random, because any random selection still presupposes a mechanism or environment to generate randomness.
How then did C2 make (2) true? By joining Earth with existence, i.e., by creating Earth. As a result, (2)'s being true has a "cause," and Earth's existing has a "ground" of its existence. This ground is called God.
An obvious question that can be asked by an atheist at this point is: When was Earth's essence joined to its existence, given the assumption that Earth is everlasting, i.e., without beginning or end? In reply I suggest that God is eternal, defined as "simultaneously-whole and perfect possession of interminable life": for God, the 4 time periods are folded up, unified as if in a package and present themselves as single eternal moment of boiling divine life. Earth was united with its existence not at any moment in time but as a whole in eternity which "covers" merely everlasting existence.
This is only half the task. Now we ask: What is this God? It cannot be another real thing, for then it, too, would stand in need of its own ground. It must then be "beyond" being. The only non-thing that can conceivably fit that description is "goodness."
Goodness is not a thing but a kind of force, a primal principle that permeates all, that creates this world, so that its inhabitants might enjoy life or try to. That is what we mean when we say "God." Goodness is not a thing but Creator of things. As a result, in the beginning, there was a kind of clean slate, in which whatever is created (by goodness) could be made into a top-notch project or performance from ground up, with no need for backward compatibility.
Now if goodness reigned, then in the beginning (of our story), there could not be anything, because only goodness creates good things, and nothing can exist whose existence goodness has not authorized.
Our options are: (a) goodness + nothing in the beginning and (b) a good thing, i.e., the universe, in the beginning. Goodness implies "nothing," and "nothing" implies goodness; and now we see that their combination, i.e., (a), is also implied.
I ask: Why is there something rather than nothing?
The question is befuddling. Why should there be nothing rather than what we have around us? Why privilege either "nothing" or "something"? Why cannot this world be everything that has ever been and will be?
On the one hand, we humans privilege nothing readily. We apparently come from nothing and go into nothing. In between we live for a little bit, always in danger, such that if we don't struggle with all our might, the nothing will arrive even quicker. All living things are born, thereby beginning to exist, and die, thereby ceasing to exist. But the inference from this human experience to the universe as a whole need not be taken.
Moreover, "something" is also privileged. The moment we are born, we are surrounded with stuff to use, enjoy, and manipulate. Disembodied existence, while not inconceivable, is not part of our human experience. But "nothingness" is inconceivable; one can't close his eyes and picture nothingness.
However, that nothingness is inconceivable does not mean that it is impossible.
Let possible world Empty be defined as follows: ForAll(X I can think of)[X does not exist in Empty]. Then
(1) Nothing = ThereExists[Empty]. We are dealing with "universes," uni = "one," so any possible world is a maximally consistent state of affairs. As a result, Empty swallows up every other reality, so it is not necessary to say "there exists only Empty."
Let our actual world be called Earth. Then
(2) Something = ThereExists[Earth].
Neither is privileged.
In this case, it does not matter that Earth may have existed forever and will continue to do so indefinitely. We are not looking for a physical cause prior in time to Earth. Moreover, once Earth exists, I grant that it may be forever imperishable. First, there are no "predators" outside it that may kill it. Second, material objects, though they can in the course of their lives change from one form into another and even into energy, nevertheless seem imperishable. We might say that they "follow the law" so faithfully that they are granted immortality. They fear disobedience so much as to persevere in being forever.
But we are seeking an explanation of why (1) is false and (2) is true.
For (2) is a contingent proposition. The question is not what, if anything, preceded Earth in time in the actual world, but why the non-necessary situation prevails. I admit that Earth may never have begun; suppose it always has existed, with time going into the past into actual infinity. I do not consider this either unintelligible or impossible.
We ask for an explanation why (2) which is contingent and certainly need not be true is in fact true. But to explain something is to reduce it to a cause. For example, say, Smith throws a stone which breaks a window. This, too, is a contingent event. We explain why the window was broken by implicating Smith, his actions, the stone, etc. If there is determinism, then we can extend our explanation backward in time forever.
We certainly do not explain why "2 + 2 = 4" is true, because it's a necessary truth, if there was one. If pressed, we say that it is true due to the logical and arithmetical structure of the human mind. The opposite is neither conceivable nor possible, because possible worlds are imagined by human minds, and their ideal content is unavoidably constrained by the structure of these minds.
I fully admit that the cause of (2)'s being true, call it C2, is different from the cause of the broken window, CB, because both CB and its effect, the breaking of the window, are situated in time, with cause preceding the effect; while (2), being an abstract proposition is in any case timeless; it cannot be said to exist either in the past, present, or future. Regardless, it must have some kind of cause.
This cause must have been presented with a choice to make either (1) or (2) true and chose (2). This choice of words does not imply anything regarding the type of causation, whether it was physical, teleological, or some other third type. Note that C2 could not be random, because any random selection still presupposes a mechanism or environment to generate randomness.
How then did C2 make (2) true? By joining Earth with existence, i.e., by creating Earth. As a result, (2)'s being true has a "cause," and Earth's existing has a "ground" of its existence. This ground is called God.
An obvious question that can be asked by an atheist at this point is: When was Earth's essence joined to its existence, given the assumption that Earth is everlasting, i.e., without beginning or end? In reply I suggest that God is eternal, defined as "simultaneously-whole and perfect possession of interminable life": for God, the 4 time periods are folded up, unified as if in a package and present themselves as single eternal moment of boiling divine life. Earth was united with its existence not at any moment in time but as a whole in eternity which "covers" merely everlasting existence.
This is only half the task. Now we ask: What is this God? It cannot be another real thing, for then it, too, would stand in need of its own ground. It must then be "beyond" being. The only non-thing that can conceivably fit that description is "goodness."
Goodness is not a thing but a kind of force, a primal principle that permeates all, that creates this world, so that its inhabitants might enjoy life or try to. That is what we mean when we say "God." Goodness is not a thing but Creator of things. As a result, in the beginning, there was a kind of clean slate, in which whatever is created (by goodness) could be made into a top-notch project or performance from ground up, with no need for backward compatibility.
Now if goodness reigned, then in the beginning (of our story), there could not be anything, because only goodness creates good things, and nothing can exist whose existence goodness has not authorized.
Our options are: (a) goodness + nothing in the beginning and (b) a good thing, i.e., the universe, in the beginning. Goodness implies "nothing," and "nothing" implies goodness; and now we see that their combination, i.e., (a), is also implied.
