Does the Universe Have a Cause?

Dr. Craig gives a virtual lecture on the Kalam Cosmological Argument and focuses on a much-neglected aspect of the Kalam, the inference to a transcendent cause of the universe.

DR. CRAIG: Hello, I’m William Lane Craig. Today I would like to discuss a much neglected aspect of the kalam cosmological argument which is the inference to a transcendent cause of the universe. But before I do so, I want to show you a pair of short animated videos that we've developed at Reasonable Faith on the kalam cosmological argument to make this argument accessible to laypeople. So we'll run those videos at this time.

VIDEO: Does God exist, or is the material universe all that is or ever was or ever will be? One approach to answering this question is the cosmological argument. It goes like this. Whatever begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist.Therefore, the universe has a cause. Is the first premise true? Let's consider. Believing that something can pop into existence without a cause is more of a stretch than believing in magic. At least with magic you've got a hat and a magician. And if something can come into being from nothing, then why don't we see this happening all the time? No; everyday experience and scientific evidence confirm our first premise. If something begins to exist, it must have a cause. But what about our second premise? Did the universe begin, or has it always existed? Atheists have typically said that the universe has been here forever. The universe is just there, and that's all. First, let's consider the second law of thermodynamics. It tells us the universe is slowly running out of usable energy, and that's the point. If the universe had been here forever it would have run out of usable energy by now. The second law points us to a universe that has a definite beginning. This is further confirmed by a series of remarkable scientific discoveries. In 1915 Albert Einstein presented his general theory of relativity. This allowed us for the first time to talk meaningfully about the past history of the universe. Next Alexander Friedmann and Georges Lemaitre, each working with Einstein's equations, predicted that the universe is expanding. Then in 1929, Edwin Hubble measured the red shift and light from distant galaxies. This empirical evidence confirmed not only that the universe is expanding, but that it sprang into being from a single point in the finite past. It was a monumental discovery almost beyond comprehension. However, not everyone is fond of a finite universe, so it wasn't long before alternative models popped into existence. But one by one, these models failed to stand the test of time. More recently three leading cosmologists, Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin, proved that any universe which has on average been expanding throughout its history cannot be eternal in the past, but must have an absolute beginning. This even applies to the multiverse, if there is such a thing. This means that scientists can no longer hide behind a past eternal universe. There is no escape. They have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning. Any adequate model must have a beginning just like the standard model. It's quite plausible then that both premises of the argument are true. This means that the conclusion is also true; The universe has a cause. And since the universe can't cause itself, its cause must be beyond the space-time universe. It must be spaceless, timeless, immaterial, uncaused, and unimaginably powerful, much like... God. The cosmological argument shows that in fact it is quite reasonable to believe that God does exist.

VIDEO: Did the universe have a beginning, or has it existed from eternity past? If it did have a beginning, this raises a question: did the universe have a creator? In part one, we explored this question scientifically. Now let's look at it philosophically. Aristotle believed the universe was eternal in the past, but Al Ghazali disagreed. He pointed out that if the universe did not have a beginning, then the number of past events in the history of the universe is infinite, but that's a problem, because the existence of an actually infinite number of past events leads to absurdity. It's metaphysically impossible. Why? The mathematician David Hilbert illustrates the problem by imagining a hotel with an infinite number of rooms, all of which are occupied. There's not a single vacancy; every room in the infinite hotel is full. Now suppose a new guest shows up and asks for a room. The manager says sure no problem, then moves the guest who was in room number one to room number two, and the guest who was in room number two to room number three, and so on to infinity. As a result of this shuffling, room number one becomes vacant, and the new guest happily checks in, even though all the rooms were already full, and nobody has checked out. And it gets even more absurd. Suppose an infinity of new guests show up at the front desk. No problem, says the manager. Then she moves each person into a room with a number twice that of his own room. So the person who was in room number one moves into room number two, the person who was in two moves to four, the person who was in three moves to six, and so on. Since any number multiplied by two is always an even number, all the odd numbered rooms become vacant, and the infinity of new guests gratefully checked in. And yet before they arrived, all the rooms were already full. It gets even crazier when the guests start to check out. Suppose all the guests in the odd numbered rooms check out. In that case, an infinite number of people have left the hotel, and yet there are no fewer people in the hotel. But suppose instead all the guests in rooms numbered four and above check out. In that case only three people are left, and yet exactly the same number of people left the hotel this time as when all the odd numbered guests checked out. Thus, we have a contradiction. We subtract identical quantities from identical quantities, and get different answers. These absurdities show that an actually infinite number of things cannot exist in the real world. Here is a second argument Ghazali offers against the past eternal universe. Suppose that for every one orbit Saturn completes around the Sun, Jupiter completes two. The longer they orbit, the further Saturn falls behind. Now, what if these two planets have always been orbiting the Sun, from eternity past? Which has completed the most orbits? Strangely enough, the number of the orbits is exactly the same. Infinity. But that seems absurd, for the longer they orbit, the greater the difference becomes. If the universe has always existed, then an infinite series of past events has been formed by adding one event after another. It's like a sequence of dominoes falling one after another, until the last domino, today, is reached. The problem is that the final domino could never fall if an infinite number of dominoes had to fall first. So today could never be reached, but obviously, here we are. It's today. So the number of events leading to today could not possibly be infinite. The infinite is nowhere to be found in reality. It neither exists in nature, nor provides a legitimate basis for rational thought. The role that remains for the infinite to play is solely that of an idea. What objections might be raised to these arguments? Some people object that, unlike the rooms in Hilbert's hotel, the events of the past don't all exist at the same time. But we can easily tweak the story to get rid of this objection. Suppose the hotel has been under construction from eternity past, one room being added each year. How many rooms would there now be in the hotel? An actual infinite number. So if the past is infinite, that would imply that Hilbert's hotel could exist, which is absurd. Others have objected that an actually infinite number of things do exist, namely, numbers, and other mathematical entities. However, this objection presupposes that numbers really exist, but this is a highly disputed assumption that most philosophers reject. So if Ghazali's two arguments are right, then the universe is not eternal in the past; it must have a beginning. And we know intuitively that whatever begins to exist requires a cause of its existence. Thus we are led to conclude that the universe has a cause of its existence. So what caused the universe? Atheist Daniel Dennett says the universe caused itself, but this is incoherent, because in order to cause itself to come into existence, the universe would have to exist before it existed. The cause of the universe must therefore be outside of the universe, spaceless, timeless, immaterial, and enormously powerful, much like... God.

DR. CRAIG: I've argued elsewhere that we have good evidence from both the expansion of the universe and from the second law of thermodynamics that the universe is not past eternal but had a temporal beginning. The physicist Paul Davies raises the inevitable question,

’What caused the big bang?’ . . . One might consider some supernatural force, some agency beyond space and time as being responsible for the big bang, or one might prefer to regard the big bang as an event without a cause. It seems to me that we don't have too much choice. Either . . . something outside of the physical world . . . or . . . an event without a cause.^[1]

Now, it might seem metaphysically absurd that the universe should come into being without a cause, and that therefore a supernatural agency is the preferred explanation. But some contemporary scientists have contended that quantum physics can explain the origin of the universe from nothing. Unfortunately, some of these scientists have an outrageously naive grasp of language. The word “nothing” is a term of universal negation – it means “not anything.” So, for example, if I say, “I had nothing for lunch today,” I mean “I did not have anything for lunch today.” If you read an account of World War II in which it says that “nothing stopped the German advance from sweeping across Belgium,” it means that the German advance was not stopped by anything. If a theologian tells you that God created the universe out of nothing, he means that God's creation of the universe was not out of anything. The word “nothing,” to repeat, is simply a term of universal negation meaning “not anything.” There's a whole series of words in the English language which are words of universal negation. “Nobody” means “not anybody.” “None” means “not one.” “Nowhere” means “not anywhere.” “No place” means “not in any place.”

Now, because the word “nothing” is grammatically a pronoun we can use it as the subject or direct object of a sentence. By taking these words, not as terms of universal negation, but as words referring to something, we can generate all sorts of funny situations. If you say, “I saw nobody in the hall,” the wiseacre replies, “Yeah, he's been hanging around there a lot lately.” If you say, “I had nothing for lunch today,” he says, “Really? How did it taste?” These sorts of puns are as old as literature itself. In Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus introduces himself to the Cyclops as “No man” or “Nobody.” One night, Odysseus puts out the Cyclops’ eye. His fellow Cyclopses hear him screaming and yelled to him, “What's the matter with you, making so much noise that we can't sleep?” The Cyclops answers, “Nobody is killing me! Nobody is killing me!” They reply, “If nobody is attacking you, then you must be sick, and there's nothing we can do about it!” In Euripides’ version of the story, he composes a very funny dialogue. The Cyclopses say,

Why are you crying out, Cyclops?

Nobody has undone me!

Then there's nobody hurting you after all.

Nobody is blinding me!

Then you're not blind.

As blind as you!

How could nobody have made you blind?

You’re mocking me! But where is this Nobody?

Nowhere, Cyclops!

The use of these words of negation like “nothing,” “nobody,” and “no one” as substantive words referring to something is a joke. How astonishing then is it to find that some physicists whose mother tongue is English using these terms precisely as substantive terms of reference. For example, the physicist Lawrence Krauss has told us with a straight face,

* There are a variety of forms of nothing, [and] they all have physical definitions.

* The laws of quantum mechanics tell us that nothing is unstable.

* 70% of the dominant stuff in the universe is nothing.

* There's nothing there, but it has energy.

* Nothing weighs something.

* Nothing is almost everything.^[2]

All of these claims take the word “nothing” to be a substantive term referring to something; for example, the quantum vacuum or quantum fields. These are physical realities and therefore clearly something. To call these realities “nothing” is at best misleading, guaranteed to confuse laypeople, and at worst a deliberate misrepresentation of science. Such statements do not even begin to address, much less answer, the question of why the universe exists rather than nothing.

In his review of Krauss' book, A Universe from Nothing, David Albert, an eminent philosopher of quantum physics, explains, with regard to Krauss’ first kind of nothing,

vacuum states are particular arrangements of elementary physical stuff . . . the fact that some arrangements of fields happen to correspond to the existence of particles and some don't is not a whit more mysterious than the fact that some of the possible arrangements of my fingers happen to correspond to the existence of a fist and some don't. And the fact that particles can pop in and out of existence, over time, as those fields rearrange themselves, is not a whit more mysterious than the fact that fists can pop in and out of existence, over time, as my fingers rearrange themselves. And none of these poppings . . . amount to anything even remotely in the neighborhood of a creation from nothing . . .^[3]

Albert concludes, “Krauss is dead wrong and his religious and philosophical critics are absolutely right.”^[4]

The cosmologist Alex Vilenkin has a different proposal as to how the universe could come into being from literally nothing. In response to the claim of a supernatural agency, Vilenkin says,

Regarding the BGV [Borde-Guth-Vilenkin] theorem and its relation to God, I think the theorem implies the existence of a rather special state at the past boundary of classical spacetime. Some mechanism is required to impose that state. Craig wants this mechanism to be God, but I think quantum cosmology would do just as well.^[5]

Just what does Vilenkin have in mind here? Well, in his article in the online magazine Inference, he explains,

Modern physics can describe the emergence of the universe as a physical process that does not require a cause. Nothing can be created from nothing, says Lucretius, if only because the conservation of energy makes it impossible to create nothing [sic; something?] from nothing. . . .

And I think that's a misprint here. I think Vilenkin meant to say that the conservation laws make it impossible to create “something” from nothing.^[6] He goes on to say,

There is a loophole in this reasoning. The energy of the gravitational field is negative; it is conceivable that this negative energy could compensate for the positive energy of matter, making the total energy of the cosmos equal to zero. In fact, this is precisely what happens in a closed universe, in which the space closes on itself, like the surface of a sphere. It follows from the laws of general relativity that the total energy of such a universe is necessarily equal to zero. . . .

If all the conserved numbers of a closed universe are equal to zero, then there is nothing to prevent such a universe from being spontaneously created out of nothing. And according to quantum mechanics, any process which is not strictly forbidden by the conservation laws will happen with some probability . . .

What causes the universe to pop out of nothing? No cause is needed.^[7]

I think this is a terrible argument. Let’s grant the supposition that the positive energy associated with matter is exactly counterbalanced by the negative energy associated with gravity so that on balance the total energy of the universe is zero. The key move comes with the claim that in such a case there is nothing to prevent such a universe from being spontaneously created out of nothing. Now, this claim is a triviality. Necessarily, if there is nothing then there is nothing to prevent the universe from coming into being. By the same token, if there is nothing then there is nothing to permit the universe to come into being. If there were anything to prevent or permit the universe's coming into being then there would be something, not nothing. If there is nothing then there is nothing, period. The absence of anything to prevent the universe's coming into being does not imply the metaphysical possibility of the universe's coming into being from nothing. To illustrate, if there were nothing then there would be nothing to prevent God's coming into being without a cause. But that does not entail that such a thing is metaphysically possible. It is metaphysically impossible for God to come into being without a cause even if there were nothing to prevent it because nothing existed.

Vilenkin, however, infers that no cause is needed for the universe’s coming into being because the conservation laws would not prevent it, and according to quantum mechanics any process which is not strictly forbidden by the conservation laws will happen. The argument assumes that if there were nothing then both the conservation laws and the laws of quantum physical would still hold. But this is far from obvious since in the absence of anything at all it's not clear that the laws governing our universe would hold. In any case, why think that given the laws of quantum mechanics anything not strictly forbidden by the conservation laws will happen? The conservation laws do not strictly forbid God's sending everyone to heaven, but that hardly gives grounds for optimism. Neither do they strictly forbid his sending everyone to hell, in which case both outcomes will occur which is logically impossible as they are logically contradictory universal generalizations. The point can be made non-theologically as well. The conservation laws do not strictly forbid something's coming into existence, but neither do they forbid nothing's coming into existence. But both cannot happen. It is logically absurd to think that because something is not forbidden by the conservation laws it will therefore happen.

Finally, Vilenkin’s inference that because the positive and negative energy in the universe sum to zero, therefore no cause of the universe's coming into being is needed is hard to take seriously. This is like saying that if your debts exactly balance your assets then there need be no cause of your financial situation. Vilenkin would, I hope, not agree with Peter Atkins that because the positive and negative energy of the universe sum to zero, therefore nothing exists now and so “nothing did indeed come from nothing.”^[8] For as Descartes taught us, I, at least, undoubtedly exist, and so something exists. Christopher Isham, Great Britain’s premier quantum cosmologist, rightly points out that there still needs to be what he calls “ontic seeding” to create the positive and negative energy in the first place, even if on balance their sum is naught.^[9] Even if one were to concede the absence of a material cause of the universe, the need of an efficient cause is patent.

In conclusion then, we have two independent lines of scientific evidence in support of the beginning of the universe. First, the expansion of the universe implies that the universe had a beginning. Second, thermodynamics shows that the universe began to exist. Because these lines of evidence are independent and mutually reinforcing, the confirmation they provide for a beginning of the universe is all the stronger.

Of course, as with all scientific results, this evidence is provisional. As Sean Carroll reminds us,

Science isn't in the business of proving things. Rather, science judges the merits of competing models in terms of their simplicity, clarity, comprehensiveness, and fit to the data. Unsuccessful theories are never disproven, as we can always concoct elaborate schemes to save the phenomena; they just fade away as better theories gain acceptance.^[10]

Science cannot force us to accept the beginning of the universe. One can always concoct elaborate schemes to explain away the evidence. But these schemes have not fared well in displaying the aforementioned scientific virtues.

Given the metaphysical impossibility of the universe's coming into being from nothing, belief in a supernatural creator is eminently reasonable. At the very least we can say confidently that the person who believes in the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo will not find himself contradicted by the empirical evidence of contemporary cosmology, but on the contrary fully in line with it.