Posted: May 17, 2018 2:20 am
Calilasseia wrote:Shagz wrote:Arjan Dirkse wrote:
In debates with Christian apologists they often claim it is impossible for a universe to come from "nothing" without a creator.
I would stop them right there and ask: "How do you know that it is impossible for a universe to come from nothing without a creator?"
If they start with the "all things that move must have a mover" nonsense, I would ask: "How do you know that the universe must follow laws that govern things within the universe?"
One problem being of course, that the whole business of regarding testable natural processes as responsible for the instantiation of the universe, which physicists all subscribe to, is based partly upon the precedent that testable natural processes have been robustly and repeatedly demonstrated to be sufficient to account for vast classes of observable entities and phenomena. As a corollary, physicists see no reason for that precedent to be broken. What those physicists anticipate, when you actually bother to ask them, is that new physics will be alighted upon governing the universe instantiation process, though of course that physics has to be consilient with what has been discovered before.
You say that vast classes of observable phenomena have been robustly demonstrated, which I'm sure is true, but there are still phenomena that are not understood. Dark matter comes to mind, unless that has changed recently. And while it's true that there is a precedent for testable processes explaining phenomena within the universe, I doubt that anyone is absolutely certain that these precedents can be applied to determining the origin of the universe itself. I suggest that anyone who knows with certainty, using our current understanding of physics, that the universe itself must follow laws that govern things within the universe is either kidding themselves or deserves a Nobel prize in physics. Though I'm no expert, and will gladly bow to anyone more knowledgeable than I am if they say I am full of shit.
Now, is it reasonable to say that the universe itself most likely must follow laws that apply to everything within itself? I don't know, but if you say most physicists will say that it is, I'll take your word for it. Let's say that it is reasonable to say that, and, for the sake of argument, let's say that science becomes as certain as is possible that the universe had an absolute beginning. Would it then be reasonable to say that that absolute beginning had some kind of cause? I'm not so sure. I'm not even sure that anyone knows for sure that everything within the universe always must have some kind of cause. Physicists surely can make a better educated guess than I can, but I still would wonder if they could know for sure. One thing that is certain is that the average theist trying to use the "all things that move must have a mover" argument is not going to know for sure.