GOD IS THERE - Week 2

1. Possibility 1: It is all an Illusion
1.1. Introduction – This approach dates to Augustine and we’ll check each of 4 mutually exclusive possibilities. This approach only requires that something exists and consequent to that then something with the power of being in itself must exist. Reasoning principally from the law of cause and effect.
1.2. Descartes – I know it may seem odd to propose that everything is an illusion but some philosophers have. When I was in High School I remember a kid who proposed the idea to me. I didn’t really have a way of arguing against it and thought it was an odd thing to suggest. The student apparently wasn’t familiar with Descartes and I wasn’t either. I don’t think he probably ever found a useful purpose for the argument. For example, I think his parents still made him go to school. Maybe he felt better thinking he wasn’t really there.
Descartes was a mathematician and approached philosophy and logic as one thing with similar tools. He started from a position of skepticism toward everything and then worked forward from there.
What if there is simply an illusion that I’m living in. How can I know that I’m not simply and illusion?
1.3. I Think, Therefore I Am Not an Illusion – Cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am); For Descartes, the presence of doubt or skepticism was a source of confidence for him; If I’m doubting my existence then I must exist. I can’t doubt and worry if I’m not real. Hence Descartes came believe that he was really Descartes and not simply an illusion. I’m sure his mother was proud.
1.4. We can grant that there may be illusions in reality but some have argued that all reality is an illusion (like the kid I ran into in high school). Descartes disproved that everything could be an illusion and in our classical proof of God we are attempting to show that if anything exists then God exists. So, at this point, all we are saying is that at least one or more things exists.
1.5. Skeptic – Descartes made assumptions, if there was doubt in his mind then he was doubting and he must then exist. If a person was an existential irrationalist they might say well maybe he is in an illusion where a doubter can doubt without doubting. They violate the Law of Noncontradiction. So yes if you are an atheist and choose to be irrational then you will reject the argument. Descartes also assumes the Law of Causality. Doubting requires a doubter and so yes you can reject the Law of Causality and choose to be irrational to avoid the conclusion.
1.6. So through formal reasoning alone we can come to the conclusion that we must exist and we can eliminate the possibility that everything is just an illusion. That is a relief right?
2. Possibility 2: Self Creation & Creation by “Chance”
2.1. Introduction – This is actually a popular choice these days but it is usually clouded and not presented clearly as self creation.
2.2. Self-Creation in Analytically False – Just as we said the Law of Causality was true by definition, the idea of self-creation is false by definition. If the universe was self created then it would need to be before it was. That is absurd. So the Law of Noncontradiction tells us that something simply can’t exist and not exist at the same time in the same relationship.
2.3. Self-Creation vs. Self-Existence – Self-existence is not irrational. Aristotle knew that the Law of Causality would lead us to reason back to an eternal being that has the power of being within his or her self. Self-existence is not like self-creation. Even God could not make Himself.
2.4. Varieties of Self-Creation
2.4.1. Creation by Chance – This is an interesting proposal if only because it is so common. Spontaneous generation was an early attempt by atheists to remove God from their thinking. That is now discredited and violated “ex nihilo nihil fit.” It should be obvious that nothing cannot produce something. If there ever was a time when there was nothing then there never would have been anything. The question is, why is there something rather than nothing?
2.4.2. Coins and “Chance” Encounters – I work in statistics all the time and as I mentioned one of the most memorable moments in graduate school, for me, was having a statistics professor turn around in mid-lecture and state that you don’t have to believe that the world is random to find statistics useful as a construct for understanding the universe. Chance is simply a convenient way to express our ignorance of cause and effect without sounding so ignorant. A coin flip is viewed as impartial (chance) because the causes are outside our control.
2.4.3. Can Chance Actually Cause Anything? – No. Chance is not a cause. Chance is used to describe a distribution of effects with variable and unknown causes. Chance is not a thing and therefore to attribute it as a cause is to say nothing caused something. Saying I don’t know what is causing this effect I’m observing is OK but if you say nothing is causing it then you are stating nonsense.
3. Possibility 3: A Self-Existent Being
3.1. Introduction – With illusion and self-creation rejected we move to the final two options that require something being self-existent. The idea of an uncaused, uncreated being that differs from everything else in the universe (that has a cause) is a rational idea. A self-existent, eternal being is one that has the power to be, in and of itself.
3.2. We Need a Self-Existent Being – We can’t make sense of seeing anything without something that is self-existent. The law of causality demands some sort of self existence as we try to figure out how any thing can exist. If anything exists now then God is a rational necessity. Something somewhere must have the power of existence in itself and has always been. There never could have been a time when there was nothing. An eternal something with the power of being within itself must have always been there. God is necessary ontologically. I am dependent, derived, contingent but God is independent, self existent, and He isn’t contingent on the existence of anything. He cannot not be.
3.3. Does the God of the Bible seem to thing that Self-Existence in His Being Important? – Is this consistent with the biblical revelation of God? The short answer is yes. When Moses asked God who He was then God said, “I am that I am”. God doesn’t pick a name for Himself like we would normally think of a name. He simply says uses the verb “to be” in the present tense. He is always present and unchanging and without Him nothing else could possibly be.
4. Possibility 4: A Self-Existent Universe
4.1. Introduction – This is a fairly popular opinion right now.
4.2. What Caused the Big Bang? - Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover. As an atheist you would need to believe that everything existed in some stable state from all eternity (and I do mean ALL eternity) and then something “happened” that caused the expanse of stuff we see. And that stuff is expanding. Nothing we see looks stable or appears to be in a cycle. In fact, things look far from stable. The universe doesn’t look anything like eternal or self existent. If the universe was eternal then it would be unchanging or at least locked in a repeating cycle. Remember the number 1 hit from 1969? Maybe not huh? Well the one I’m talking about is “In the year 2525” by Zager and Evans. From that hotbed of musical innovation, Lincoln Nebraska. It was number 1 when Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the moon. They attacked the Law of Noncontradiction in the second verse “In the year 3535 Ain’t gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lies, Everything you think, do and say is in the pill you took today” however, I think it is sarcasm. The song suggests that God will judge creation “God is gonna shake His mighty head. He’ll either say I’m pleased where man has been, Or tear it down and start again who oh.” And suggests that we will cycle and start again. “But through eternal night, The twinkling of starlight, So very far way, Maybe it’s only yesterday” and then the song starts all over again. The cycle gives us a way to view the Universe as eternal if, as an atheist, we have a strong motivation to deny the existence of an eternal self existent being that would, naturally, have something to say about us and how we live.
4.3. Is Matter Itself Eternal? Self existence is a characteristic of God but what if someone argues that the Universe is eternal. Well what is eternal? Well nothing in particular right? Even my Harley is mutable (just barely). So the universe we observe isn’t immutable. It is all mutable. So then my Harley is made up of stuff that came from that self existent eternal stuff. So then the self existent eternal stuff isn’t transcendent but immanent and must be someplace we haven’t seen yet. Then you would argue that God is either what the universe is made up of or that He is everything. Back to 1969 and Joni Michell, “We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion year old carbon, …and we got to get ourselves back to the Garden” In Woodstock? Sure you remember that.
4.4. But then no particular part of the universe is eternal or self existent. Even my Harley isn’t eternal. So then you need to argue for an eternal center to the universe that we haven’t found yet that is the source of everything (the cause of all effects). Notice that in this process we are struggling to find an impersonal God who will leave us alone in the universe. The presence of personality was for Francis Schaeffer a critical issue for those who wanted God gone. So the materialist has a hidden unseen source of everything we see but instead of a transcendent God the materialist hides and immanent God in the middle of the universe. But if we as Christians take the universe to include the created universe and the God who is transcendent that haven’t we ended up in a similar place? When we say God is transcendent we mean that He is a higher order of being. It is a description of the being of God. It is ontological since it is part of his being God.
4.5. However, what about the God of the bible? Next week we’ll discuss what kind of God that God must be and look at a few other notable topics.