It has been some time since I have written anything on the blog. This was mostly due to finals being quite difficult this year. But now that school is over I am ready to go again!
I have decided to write an Honors Thesis concerning the Cosmological Argument. In my eyes, the most exciting part of this project is that Dr. Micah Green, a professor at Texas Tech and deacon at Redeemer Church has agreed to be my adviser. In the following series of blog posts, I will be sharing some of the correspondence between Dr. Green and myself concerning the Cosmological Argument and related topics. These posts will hopefully move in a more scholarly direction. If anyone has any questions or would like additional explanations of anything please let me know!
Without further ado, here is an email from myself to Dr. Green concerning where I have been thus far with the Cosmological Argument:
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Hi Micah!
I thought it would be helpful to share with you my experience thus far with the CA (Cosmological Argument), so that you know where I'm coming from. Sorry this is so long.
Early in high school I read 'The Case for A Creator.' It was in this book that I was exposed to several forms of the CA. I learned about the Kalam argument from Craig. My favorite version of the argument, however, was that which had to do with the impossibility of an infinite set- especially with regards to time.
My favorite version (while certainly not the only version I knew of) went like this:
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Argument A- "Impossibility of infinite time"
If time goes infinitely into the past (there is no beginning), and travels in one direction at a finite rate, then we would never reach the present. In fact, no point in time would ever be reached because there would always be an infinite amount of time preceding any point in time. However, if a non-time, non-matter, non-energy being that 'just is' (or from it's perspective, 'I AM'), then this being could create a beginning of time. Therefore, it would be possible for us to reach the present only if an outside being had created a beginning.
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Here are the other versions that I befriended:
Argument B(i)- "The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics"
All reactions give off heat. If reactions had been going on infinitely into the past, we would have reached heat death long before we ever got to the present. Once again, an outside being could create a beginning.
Argument B(ii)
Perhaps there were matter that existed but had not reached heat death due to activation energy. Even if this were the case (which seems a little outlandish), there would need to be an outside force to get everything moving.
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Argument C- The Kalam CA
I don't think I need to restate this one.
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Argument D- The Deductive Argument from Contingency
Once again, we've been over this one several times.
[Note: for a summary of Arguments C and D see http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmological-argument/]
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Anyway, those were the four main categories of the CA that I was familiar with throughout high school. I would often times share them with non-believers, with my FCA club, with my friends, and pretty much anyone who would listen. (However, the CA was not even what I considered to be the strongest argument for God's existence, but we can talk about other arguments another time.
It was a few years into college that I identified the assumptions that I was making about the versions of the argument:
With regards to argument A: I was assuming that time flowed in one direction at a finite rate. This is a good assumption to make after the big bang. In fact, this argument is only relevant if the big bang didn't happen. If the big bang did happen, we already know that there was a beginning to time, and we work from there. In addition, time is very unlike what I understood it to be in high school. Summary: I do not understand time well enough to justify my assumption (yet), and the argument's main function is as a fall-back if we were to discover that the big bang singularity did not actually happen (as opposed to the big bang phase).
With regards to argument B: I assumed that the 2nd law of thermo held true in the big bang singularity. This is why in my blog posts I talk about the laws of physics being broken! If the 2nd law of thermo held true at the big bang, then argument B is legit. However, if the 2nd law of thermo does not hold true in a singularity, then argument B breaks down at the very point at which it becomes useful to us.
With regards to argument C: I assumed that cause and effect reasoning held true in a singularity. This is why in my blog posts that I questioned the laws of logic (and I should have just been questioning cause and effect, not the other three laws that I mentioned in an earlier email on that topic). If cause and effect holds true in a singularity (or causelessness is impossible in a singularity), then we have ourselves a legit argument. However, it may in fact be the case that if there were a point in history when it looked like something came from nothing, we would no longer be able to say that it is impossible for things to come from nothing (or lack a cause). So, the argument wraps around on itself and shoots itself in the foot.
With regards to argument D: It seems to me that this argument is dependent on the other arguments. If A,B, and C do not hold true for the specific reasons I mentioned, then argument D also does not hold true.
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In conclusion:
I have identified the assumptions upon which I based my reasoning concerning the CA. Now I am simply trying to find out if those are good assumptions. Can they be justified or will they be demonstrated to be false?
I hope that this will help to focus our discussions!
Thank you for reading!!!
-Josh
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