Science, faith, and theists

[Cato]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that the syllogism could be re-stated as follows:

1) It is reasonable to posit that everything that has a beginning has a cause, but there is no hard evidence of this;
2) The universe may have had beginning, but this is only one of several possibilities and depends on the definition of the word "beginning";
ergo
It is within the realm of possibility that the universe has a cause.

Is this accurate?

Perhaps, but I think it is a bit tedious. I consider Michael's syllogism both valid and sound based on our accumulated experience.

I think the broader argument jumps over a cliff when people then start describing the cause; whether it's God, other creation myths, a multiverse, previous universe contraction, quantum fluctuation, et al. It's all speculation with no corroborating evidence.

Another problem I have with the broader cosmological argument has to do with the invocation of an uncaused cause to overcome the uncomfortable idea of an infinite causal chain. I don't take issue with the idea of an uncaused cause, because I am one of those uncomfortable with an infinite causal chain. What I don't find reasonable about the uncaused cause in the cosmological argument is the arbitrary insertion of it as a cause for our universe. With no evidence it could just as easily be inserted 100, 1000, 10000000000000000000, or more causes back. Regardless of where it resides in the chain, there is absolutely no way to characterize its nature.

The above is why I don't take any issue with a deistic position. I disagree since I am comfortable suspending judgement regarding the mystery, but it becomes a very trivial point since we can then discuss what it is that goes on in our universe without supernatural interference. It also unveils the biggest problem for theists that are descriptive about the nature of their god; there is no way to get from a god produced via the cosmological argument (if granted) to the character(s) in the Bible.

[Tonus]

Number 1 is our universal experience (even quantum effects require a quantum vacuum with fluctuating energy, and Pauli's exclusion principle shows us how even quantum events are interconnected in mysterious ways).

If we are basing the validity of the two points on our universal experience, why would we then conclude something that is completely outside of that experience? I can see where a person would think that everything must have a beginning, and therefore a cause, because of how we perceive and interpret our experiences of the world. But why would that lead us to "a being of incomprehensible intellect and power and complexity must have always existed and created all things"?

[Michael]

Hello Tonus. A couple of points come to mind.

The first is that I don't see any problem of a logical syllogism pointing outside of itself. Inference seems a valid way of knowing to me, though I accept it carries some more risk, just as a scientist knows extrapolation is inherently more risky than interpolation. So we may ground a premise in what we observe but we can still accept inference to something we have not observed. And, I'm beginning to repeat myself here which I do try not to do, but I mentioned before that I think all we get from the Kalam argument is that there is a first cause, an unmoved mover. It doesn't tell us more about 'God' than that, so I see it as one small piece of information that adds to the total God picture. It points us to a creative cause and we call that cause 'God'; we then bundle that with other experience or thoughts to build our bigger picture of what we're calling 'God' (remember his Hebrew name was simply 'I am').

The second is that I don't hold the view that God is totally outside of our experience (Christianity is rooted in an incarnational view of God, for example). That's why I suggested a second possible setting for you guys to think about, and that is how we could tell whether the sense of the numinous pointed to a numen, or whether it was necessarily delusional.

[Ben Davis]

Michael, have you put me on 'ignore' or something?

...all we get from the Kalam argument is that there is a first cause, an unmoved mover.

No, we get nothing from Kalam because of what we know about the start of our universe: there was no time or space for there to have been 'causes', 'movers' or whatever you call them. Whatever 'happened' (for want of an accurate word), we can't know if it was person, mechanism, framework, n-dimensional interference... Automatically ascribing 'personhood' to whatever happened is a false claim that can't be supported by the argument. As I said before, the argument itself isn't even coherent because P1 fails.

Besides, all this is a derail: you were going to provide evidence of your Catholic God (not of a vague 'creator') so that we may suggest experiments based on the evidence. Please can you do so?

[Dawsonite]

I consider Michael's syllogism both valid and sound based on our accumulated experience.

My question did not address logical validity nor experientially soundness, but whether the argument was meaningful. My position on the cosmological argument is that the argument is -- like the concept of god or Russell's teapot -- unlikely to the point of being dismissible.

If I made my point poorly or tediously, perhaps it was partially due to the fact we were already in a "how many angels..." kind of discussion where the question was whether and how to design an experiment to test the existence of an imaginary being.

[Cato]

My question did not address logical validity nor experientially soundness, but whether the argument was meaningful.

Challenging premises by quibbling over the definition of 'beginning' or invoking a concept of 'hard' evidence is a direct attack on the soundness of the syllogism Michael parsed from the broader argument. I agree with you that this part of the argument is meaningless in that it's not where the true disagreement resides. My suggestion is to eliminate the distraction by accepting it in order to concentrate on the meaningful and contentious parts of the argument.

Edit: Just to follow up. Your original point was not made poorly nor do I find it disagreeable. Perhaps I should have said your precision was unnecessary rather than tedious.

[Michael]

Hello Ben

So far I have given the universe as evidence for (not proof of) a creator. I have given the sense of the numinous and subsequently changed lives as evidence for (not proof of) the numen. The question then is whether we can then test these with science (as that is what I was asked to do) . I don't know of a way we can, but I'm interested in any ideas.

But I'll offer you a third evidence that is specific to the Christian faith if you like. And that is the evidence of reports that Jesus Christ, who is reported as saying he is one with God and was sent by God, rose from the dead. Again I do not offer this as proof, but as prima facie evidence for a God who breaks down the barrier of death.

So the challenge given to me was to take my faith into the lab. How might I take any of these three examples of evidence (again, I fully accept they are not proof) into the lab to test whether my faith is sufficiently warranted?

P.S. I believe the sense of the numinous and a positive change in life is sufficient warrant in itself.

[Tonus]

Hello Tonus. A couple of points come to mind.

The first is that I don't see any problem of a logical syllogism pointing outside of itself. Inference seems a valid way of knowing to me, though I accept it carries some more risk, just as a scientist knows extrapolation is inherently more risky than interpolation.

Yes, but if we are pointing to human experience as determining what is reasonable to expect, I think we go off the rails once we point to "an uncaused mover." In dealing with the issue of infinite regress, to accept some form of outside agent automatically puts the initial premises on shaky ground. If there has to be an uncaused agent, why isn't the universe itself that uncaused agent? If it's possible for an uncreated and infinite factor to exist, why isn't the universe that uncreated and infinite factor? What makes an infinite universe without a beginning less acceptable than an infinite creator without a beginning?

[Michael]

Tonus, apart from the mind-bending really really weird stuff that occurs if time stretches back infinitely (infinite regresses are really really hard to get your head around), the evidence we have does suggest a beginning to time and matter, about 15 billion years ago (give or take an hour or so).

[Tonus]

Current theories --if I am not mistaken-- point to a singularity that was smaller than an atom, which then exploded outwards and generated all of the mass of the current universe. There are lots of guesses as to what that means. Perhaps our universe is a lump of mass in a self-perpetuating, trillions-of-years cycle of expansion and implosion. Perhaps it is just one of many, many universes in a massive "universe broth" where universes of all shapes and sizes constantly bubble into and out of existence. Perhaps it's the result of Hans Reinhardt sending the crew of the Palomino through a black hole!

Lots of things about the universe are mind-bending due to scale. Anything we build around it is going to be just as mind-bending. God seems less so because we've shrunk him down to a scale that we are more comfortable with, even as we describe him as the infinite creator of the too-big-to-comprehend universe. But without that protective layer of humanity he's even more big and incomprehensible, IMO.