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When looking back into our universe’s history just after the Big Bang, t = 10⁻⁴³ seconds is as far back as we can go and still be able to rely on physics and mathematics to describe the conditions of our universe. This is the point in time when the equations that are known to govern our universe begin to function; before this point there are no viable mathematical equations to model the universe.
At this moment, our universe was infinitesimal, extremely hot, and all energy and matter where combined. Scientists have very little to say about the universe before this point including what caused the Big Bang.
What initiated the Big Bang? This is the most important and fundamental question that can be asked; that is, what caused the universe and everything in it to exist? The answer to this will answer our most basic question, is there a God?
This question has only two basic options for an answer. Either, the universe arose from nothing and therefore no God or it was created by something with sufficient power to create everything in our universe.
The first option, whereas the universe arose from nothing is a fiercely debated topic. This is because the definition of nothing cannot be settled upon and physicists have many definitions of what that nothing would contain.
Yes, it is that absurd.
In this discussion, we will divide the meaning of nothing into two distinctions.
First, the meaning of nothing that is truly nothing, no matter, space, time, energy, or laws of physics, absolutely nothing. This nothing would be a complete void that is beyond anything that we can conceive of in our existence. It is a state that physics can’t even begin to describe and is best described in terms of philosophy.
This state of existence is the best explanation of the physical conditions that the universe expanded out from after the Big Bang. This is because the universe contains all matter, space, and time that we know of and when extrapolated back using the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem [1] the universe has a beginning and thus a point in which all matter, space, and time did not exist. Without those attributes, we are left with truly nothing before the big bang and the philosophical paradox of something arising out of absolute nothing.
One of the first times the paradox of something coming from nothing was addressed by Parmenides of Elea and first written down in Aristotle’s Physics [2]:
“τί δ᾽ ἄν μιν καὶ χρέος ὦρσεν ὕστερον ἢ πρόσθεν, τοῦ μηδενὸς ἀρξάμενον, φῦν; οὕτως ἢ πάμπαν πελέναι χρεών ἐστιν ἢ οὐχί.”
Translation by John Burnet:
“Yet why would it be created later rather than sooner, if it came from nothing; so, it must either be created altogether or not [created at all].”
This literature sets up the philosophical principle of “ex nihilo nihil fit” or Latin for “nothing comes from nothing”. Very few scientists even attempt to argue that the universe sprang forth from absolute nothing. Even the Scottish skeptic, David Hume, wrote [3]:
“But allow me to tell you that I never asserted so absurd a proposition as that anything might arise without a cause.”
Usually, this problem of ex nihilo nihil fit is circumvented by inserting a causal agent into the absolute nothing.
Second, is a definition of nothing that includes a something, like the laws of physics. This definition of nothing reveals the true philosophical problem of something (our universe) arising from truly nothing. It necessitates the need for a causal agent of some sort with sufficient power to bring forth the Big Bang. This is illustrated famously by what physicist Stephen Hawking wrote in his book with Leonard Mlodinow, The Grand Design, Hawking states [4]:
“Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.”
Hawking in this quote gives causal power to the Law of Gravity; this power is what would be traditionally ascribed to the classical ideal of God. The problem with this approach is that it makes the mistake of transferring the causal power of God for what would be an attribute of God that has no causal power in it apart from God. This amounts to their definition of God being too small. Any causal agent of the universe will have unfathomable attributes that are His alone and these attributes cannot be separated from the causal power of God.
To illustrate this point, the Law of Gravity by itself cannot create anything, just like the law of thermodynamics cannot create the internal combustion engine; laws in of themselves cannot create anything they need causal power. It seems physicists trivialize the immense power that brought forth our universe by ascribing that power to a physical law. By giving causal power to any physical law sounds exceedingly close to what God would be like without the baggage of traditional religion for the scientist.
This is a rhetorical sleight of hand to wiggle out of the concept of God and place the creation of the universe firmly into the materialist worldview.
They are playing a shell game.
A further problem with this approach of laws having causal power is that when the universe was before its singularity, where or when did the laws reside? There was nothing physical that would have the imprint of such physical laws upon it.
If the laws could not have any base in the physical universe they would have to reside in a metaphysical mind of some sort. This mind would have to reside outside of our space-time and have the causal attributes to bring forth the whole universe. This still sounds exceedingly close to God.
Whether you ascribe the causal power of the Big Bang to a physical law or to the classical ideal of God, the result is the same for both. To be able to create time, space, and all matter and energy; the cause must be timeless, beyond the constraints of space, and immensely powerful. This again sounds exceedingly close to God whether you call it a law or God, it doesn’t matter.
Richard Lewontin, in his review of Carl Sagan’s last book, The Demon-haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, acknowledges the clash between scientific materialism and common sense. Speaking of scientists, he says [5]:
“Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”
A Divine Foot in the door indeed…
REFERENCES:
[1] Borde, Arvind, et al. “Inflationary Spacetimes Are Incomplete in Past Directions.” Physical Review Letters, vol. 90, no. 15, 2003, https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.90.151301.
[2] Parmenides, Fragments 1–19, https://lexundria.com/parm_frag/1-19/b.
[3] Hume, David, and Greig J Y T. “David Hume to John Stewart, February 1754.” The Letters of David Hume, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1932.
[4] Hawking, Stephen, and Leonard Mlodinow. The Grand Design. Bantam Books, 2010.
[5] Lewontin, R. Review of Billions and Billions of Demons, The New York Review of Books, 9 Jan. 1997, pp. 7.
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