Multiverse and the Problem of a Beginning

[Josh]

Scientists are increasingly leaning toward the existence of some kind of multiverse. Here are some thoughts by Jeff Zweerink from RTB on how multiverse theory doesn't solve naturalistically the question of the First Cause:

The cosmological and teleological arguments represent the two strongest evidences (with scientific relevance) in support of the Christian God. Obviously, the multiverse models impact these two arguments and Christians need to be prepared to address these concerns. Here I will focus on the cosmological argument, whereas a past TNRTB addressed the multiverse’s effect on the teleological argument.

Generally, the cosmological argument is articulated like this:

Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
The universe began to exist.
Therefore, the universe had a cause.
As described in Ken Sample’s TNRTB on the relationship between origins science and theism, the relatively recent discovery of the universe’s beginning surprised many scientists because they assumed the universe was eternal. In fact, the singular beginning implied by big bang cosmology readily supports the Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo.

So do the multiverse models eliminate the beginning?

Consider the most common multiverse model derived from inflationary big bang cosmology. Alan Guth developed the first viable inflation mechanism, where our universe is contained within a bubble that formed in an otherwise inflating space. The model predicts that other bubbles (besides ours) exist that contain other universes (the Level II multiverse). At first, this model seemed to indicate that the inflating space that produced our universe operated eternally into the past and future. However, a theorem developed by Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alex Vilenkin demonstrated that the inflating space must have a beginning.

Typically, we like to think of the big bang’s occurrence 13.7 billion years ago as the beginning to all creation. The multiverse argues that creation existed prior to the big bang. While the details are too specific to include here, all viable multiverse models still require a beginning! Although these models make the issue more complex and nuanced, the fundamental Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo still stands on firm ground. In fact, research into multiverse alternatives to a single universe has made the case for a beginning even more robust than big bang cosmology alone.

[stevekimes]

Unfortunately, that line of logic never ends. Even God, assuming He is pre-existing, we can still ask the question what is the cause of God. To say that God doesn't have a cause is just begging the question. And I'd like to see the revelation in which God claims that.

[Josh]

Jan 28, 2011 22:23:52 GMT -8 stevekimes said:

Unfortunately, that line of logic never ends. Even God, assuming He is pre-existing, we can still ask the question what is the cause of God. To say that God doesn't have a cause is just begging the question. And I'd like to see the revelation in which God claims that.

God need have no cause. We only know that things that begin to exist need causes. The infinite regression ends with the Beginning who never began to exist.

The argument is not begging the question. Only the form of the cosmological argument that says "everything has a cause" which can be rebutted with "therefore God must have a cause".


Isaiah 43:10 says there was no God before Yahweh, so if He had a cause it could not be sentient being, and only a sentient mind could have created a multiverse capable of creating minds.

Why would anyone doubt after reading the entire corpus of Scripture from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:13 that God didn't have a beginning? Unless they were just trying to be technically persnickity...

I'd like to see the revelation where God claims to have begun to exist!

[stevekimes]

That's interesting. I believe that we cannot state anything about God unless God states it about Himself-- our knowledge of God is that inadequate. Thus, to insist upon revelation to deny a human thought about God seems unnecessary. If it is a human thought about God, it is automatically insufficient, if not altogether untrue.

And there is no god before God. That is the essence of His Oneness. But this is not the same as saying there is no cause. Just because we have no concept as to the cause of God doesn't mean there was not one. It means it is beyond human comprehension.

[Josh]

That's interesting. I believe that we cannot state anything about God unless God states it about Himself-- our knowledge of God is that inadequate. Thus, to insist upon revelation to deny a human thought about God seems unnecessary. If it is a human thought about God, it is automatically insufficient, if not altogether untrue.

Needless to say, I disagree.

Here's my perspective: God made a rational creation governed by laws. We don't know all the laws, but God doesn't break his own laws. Miracles are His actions that break our best estimations of the laws of the universe. However, logic is the purest of the sciences. God doesn't break logical rules for if He did so the rationality of the universe would be destroyed (He would be contradicting himself). So we can be certain that God can not break the rules of logic (something not expressly stated in the Bible). And in fact, nowhere is Scripture is He said to do so.

Of course our theories may be wrong, our opinions about Him need to be tenative, but when it comes to logic, certain truths are first principles, such as: God cannot create a rock that is too heavy for Him to lift, even though that is never stated in the Bible.

[stevekimes]

God can do whatever He wants to do. The reason he wouldn't create a rock that is too heavy for Him to life is because that's STUPID. It has nothing to do with His mercy or grace or justice. It's just a stupid idea that stupid people made up for their stupid point. )I hope I am not being insulting to any person.) That idea is not logic, it is simply contradiction for contradiction's sake.

What it does say in the Bible is that nothing is impossible for God. That's revelation. I stand on that. And that's enough.

BTW, Josh, you are welcome to disagree with me. It doesn't bother me to have you be wrong.

[Josh]

The rock illustration just demonstrates the law of non-contradiction, which God as well as everything else is bound to.

The Bible doesn't say God is bound to the law of non-contradiction (though it hints at it), but yet his very nature depends on it. So we can postulate it with certainty.

God reveals many truths to us through other means than direct revelation.

[Josh]

That's interesting. I believe that we cannot state anything about God unless God states it about Himself-- our knowledge of God is that inadequate.

BTW, I'd argue that Paul would disagree (depending on what you mean by God stating something*) with this for when he says in Romans 1:20 that

... since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

he emphasises that there are things we can know about God from the natural world independent of special revelations.



*I assume you mean in the Scripture

[christopher]

Hi Steve,

you wrote:

we can still ask the question what is the cause of God. To say that God doesn't have a cause is just begging the question. And I'd like to see the revelation in which God claims that.

So, I'm wondering what you think Jesus is claiming when He says He is the beginning and the end in the book of Revelation (1:8, 1:11, 21:6, 22:13). To me, that as close to a claim of no beginning as the bible comes IMO. I guess you could also include Col 1:

Col 1:16-1816 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.
NKJV


If God has a cause, how can He be said to be before all things? It may not be a direct revelation, but can't we say it's not a very far leap to make?

[stevekimes]

Again, I want to emphasize that I am not saying that God does have a cause. I am saying that there is insufficient reason to insist that He does not. We don't have enough knowledge about God to make a determination about it.

When Jesus says he is the Alpha and Omega, beginning and the end, that was a formula used by emperors to show their authority. Jesus is before all created things, which implies our universe.

And if you take these passages as proof that God has no cause, that's fine. I'm not meaning to quibble about it. I just don't think it is saying anything of the sort.

And, Josh, you are right, that Paul is saying that creation can show certain things that God's revelation already showed-- that He created all things. But Paul isn't saying that creation says something about God that God didn't reveal.

[Josh]

Thanks for some clarification there.

However, the problem with the very idea that God had a cause is that an effect cannot be greater than it's cause.

So, if God had a cause, the cause would be greater than He. And since there is nothing or no one greater than God, He cannot have a cause.

[christopher]

Steve wrote:

When Jesus says he is the Alpha and Omega, beginning and the end, that was a formula used by emperors to show their authority. Jesus is before all created things, which implies our universe.

And if you take these passages as proof that God has no cause, that's fine. I'm not meaning to quibble about it. I just don't think it is saying anything of the sort.

Well, I can't argue with that (especially since you argue almost exactly the same way I do ;D)

That's an interesting factoid about the emperors as well*. Thanks for that.

I think Josh makes a good point though about the effect being greater than the cause. That is one of the first principles.




* BTW, I'd love to know the source of that for future reference if you still have it.

[steve]

What I seem to here being implied in this thread is a Richards Dawkins proposition that because the universe is complex, that God himself must be even more complex and therefore demands an even more complex agent behind him. It is here that Dawkins reveals himself to be not as good at philosophy and math as he is at biology.

The dimension of time in our universe is linear and finite. It is linked directly to the strength of gravity, the law of enthropy and the mass of matter and energy. Given that our universe began with a singularty, the dimension of time which we are familiar with, also began at this moment and thus causation with it. (A multiverse as an explanation of the singularity is an interesting idea which at the moment doesn't have a shred of impirical data, only a mathematical formula. Should the Higgs Bozon particle turn up, then we can start talking seriously about the implications.)

Anyway, it is philosophically difficult to place any causational terms upon whatever it was which existed before the big bang. Talking about "before" and "after" become logical absurdities. Some philosophers have posited that because infinity as a concept exists only abstractly in closed systems within our own dimension of space and time, it therefore exists non-abstractly in open system outside of our universe. Mathematically, all that is necessary for this is more than one linear dimension of time.

It is therefore non sensical to speak about the transcendent causal agent (God or whatever you'd like to call Him) as himself needing a cause if indeed infinity is the cradle from which all finite thing have been birthed.

As far as biblical proof for this is concerned, I don't think the bible need to be a source for all information. We have other sources of revelation: logic, math, nature, relationships, etc. The bible also doesn't give me a good recipe for enchiladas, although that would be nice. ;D

[Kirby]

The bible also doesn't give me a good recipe for enchiladas, although that would be nice. ;D

Clearly enchiladas are of the devil.

I like where you are going with this line of thought, Steve.

[Josh]

What I seem to here being implied in this thread is a Richards Dawkins proposition that because the universe is complex, that God himself must be even more complex

I agree with Dawkins up to this point.

But not with this:

and therefore demands an even more complex agent behind him.

Would you agree with the first proposition, Steve?

[steve]

Yes, of course I would agree with the first proposition, but that God himself demands an explanation seems to fly in the face of the definition of God. God himself must be the source of all particuliars. The very notion of "cause and effect" must come from Him. He himself cannot be subordinate to it or a product of it. He must be the true Universal which Plato was getting at. Experience conveys something meaningfull and personal. If we were merely "dancing to our DNA" we should never have even gotten to the point of having this discussion. The discussion itself would be meaningless.
The particuliars themselves cannot supply an explanation for themselves, despite what Dawkins says. He confuses the "how" question with the "why" question. Simply because you can see the cause and effect mechanism which leads to a certain outcome doesn't mean you can say what the thing really is. Cutting something up into its different parts does not explain the thing, it only tells you what it is made of. We may have evolved to this point through a long chain of speciation with the mechanisms of natural selection and gene drift, but this only tells us how and not why. The why question should never arise from naturalist processes.

[Josh]

Picked up a copy of a newish Stephen Hawking book. I was very interested in his discussion of the anthropic principle. He basically implied that the fine-tuning in the universe should imply a creator, but he believes in the multi-verse.

This is fascinating that in the last 20 years we've come this far- where there is now only one real escape hatch for materialists/ atheists in cosmology.

How big or valid that escape hatch is remains to be seen...