in response to one of the original posts on page 1:
The First Cause Argument
Claim:
Every event has a cause. The universe itself had a beginning, so it must have had a first cause, which must have been a creator God.
Typical Response:
1. The assumption that every event has a cause, although common in our experience, is not necessarily universal. The apparent lack of cause for some events, such as radioactive decay, suggests that there might be exceptions. There are also hypotheses, such as alternate dimensions of time or an eternally oscillating universe that allow a universe without a first cause.
2. By definition, a cause comes before an event. If time began with the universe, "before" does not even apply to it, and it is logically impossible that the universe be caused.
3. This claim raises the question of what caused God. If, as some claim, God does not need a cause, then by the same reasoning, neither does the universe
Rebuttal of Response:
Opening Statements
Statement #1 is partially valid but as there is no evidence as of now, to verify these hypotheses, and that neither does verifying these hypotheses answer/refute the above claim, I ask is it is an attempt by some scientists to somehow avoid the issue at hand.
The apparent lack of cause for some events is it not explainable (or at least attempted to be explained) in the methodology of science.
Thus science looks for a cause, and extrapolates backwards.
But the issue comes is, not that there isn’t a cause to these events, is that we assume sometimes that because one event is caused by one agent, a repetition of that event must be caused by the exact same agent. Now this issue is, is the creation of the universe, a repeated event in its fullest extent – of course not. So can the scientific method be actually valid for extrapolating backwards to the beginning of the universe.
Statement #2 and #3 are based on the assumption that God is limited by time and space, since it is reasonable to say that all things explainable by science serve a purpose and have a cause. Evolution will verify that an animal does something because it is beneficial for themselves, or their species. Sciences validates that “order cannot come from chaos”. If God has indeed created the universe, i.e. caused it to come into existence (whether that be by the current scientific explanation or otherwise), then there must be a purpose behind it. These will be addressed more in detail in following statements
I will quickly address Statement #3 because I believe it fallacious and erroneous. If I claimed that something caused a particular event to occur, the following statements need to be made:
1. Everything which has a beginning (i.e. an event) has an efficient cause
2. God is defined as existing from eternity past*, i.e. had no beginning
3. Therefore God doesn’t need a cause
* A term used to describe his continual eternal existence, stressing more so, his precedence over creation
While for the universe it is not the same:
1. Everything which has a beginning has an efficient cause
2. The universe is ordered, as observed by science
3. The universe has a defined beginning as proven so far by science, and can validated from (2)
4. Therefore the universe has a cause
Statement A: All events even unordered ones have a cause. Ordered events have a purpose*
* Note: some events are defined as random because they have no purpose. However, some random events do indeed serve a purpose, even though they might seem unordered.
- A cause is defined as an agent or anything that provokes or initiates the occurrence of a particular event or circumstances.
- Science validates (and this is especially true in natural selection) and can explain all events that have a distinct cause or purpose. For example it can explain why a person gets hungry, why an animal does this.
- What it (science) cannot and fails miserably to explain is the human reality, in particularly suffering. Suffering is a reality, that does need verification from science, but is unexplainable by science because there is not a cause or consistency to these events always (sometimes there is, sometimes there isn’t).
- Therefore if an event is ordered and has a defined purpose, it is explainable by the mechanism of cause and effect i.e. it has a cause, an effect and a purpose. Science can therefore apply the laws and known facts to explain the cause of this event.
The distinction between an ordered event and an unordered event is the following characteristics:
- An ordered event has an explainable cause, defined beginning and a defined end, but not necessarily a known end, and functions/occurs for a particular purpose of that event.
- An unordered event may not necessarily have an explainable cause, although because it does have a defined beginning and an end, it still has a cause. It has no purpose
- An ordered event always has a defined and a (usually) explainable structure and has a defined and a (usually) explainable purpose.
Statement B: All events defined in time and space have a cause and therefore a beginning and end*.
*by end I am making a distinction between if one event causes another, that new event is defined relative to the first event, and independently in the sense that its beginning is defined as the application of the agent (cause). This statement is REVERSIBLE.
- Originally science had theories similar to those mentioned i.e. “eternally oscillating universe”. By observing the ordered nature of the event i.e. the order in the universe – the laws of physics (as presented in the section A), it is illogical to propose theories such as the “steady state theory” which is effectively the same theory as those other hypothesis, and has been strongly disproven by science.
- Unless something existed for eternity, it must have a beginning by definition of an event, not necessarily a cause. Even events that appear to go for long periods of time but yet did not happen for eternity must have a beginning.
- Events that do not have a beginning, i.e. God’s existence, do not need nor can they be explained in terms of cause or effect, because firstly there is no cause to any event that does not have a beginning. In the case of God’s existence, God’s existence is not an event because it is defined independently of time and space, and is either established as a fact and truth (as Christians like myself believe) or not.
Statement C: Unordered events* cannot be the direct cause of an ordered event.
*An unordered event is defined here as one without a purpose.
- This statement is consistent with science. There are several instances that indicate that if an event is ordered, then the agent or thing that caused it must also be ordered in “causing” the event.
- However one of the things about the nature of the current explanations of the origin of the universe is it seems to contradict this.
Conclusion/Summarisation
The three statements A–C are agreed to be true and can be validated using science and logic.
Science is defined as the study of all things observable or explainable by its methodology, bound in space and time, as they can be extrapolated or verified directly using experimentation and by analysing repetition of cause-effect chains in ordered events. Science cannot attempt to explain every facet of these events, regarding their purpose, and sometimes the cause is not necessarily explainable or derivable using its methodology.
1. The universe is ordered and consistent with all laws of physics. Thus the origins of the universe must also be an ordered event from Statement C.
2. As we can claim to understand and extrapolate back to the beginning of the universe, then it must therefore be defined in time and space. Statement B verifies this.
3. Since all events that have a beginning are defined in time and space, because that “beginning” is defined relative to time and space, the universe must have a cause. Statements A and B verify this.
4. An event that caused the creation of time and space (beginning of the universe) can only be caused by an agent (i.e. God) that is not dependent on time and space; otherwise this would be an obvious contradiction of statement A.
Conclusion: Therefore if the universe has a beginning, it must have a cause and a purpose. That cause and purpose must be defined independently of time and space. As Christians, we know and affirm that the God (i.e. Jesus) as in John 1:1-10, Colossians 1:16-23, is not only the creator (cause) of the universe and its purpose (reason why it exists, because he spoke), and also that he sustains his Creation with his Word.
Side Note 1: God is a God of order, and that is the purpose of Genesis 1. (It is also what discredits other creation accounts, because of Statement C – these accounts tended to have multiple Gods waging war against each other).
Side Note 2: I haven’t attempted to explain here, sin or why the world is not perfectly ordered.
Side Note 3: It is erroneous to as some do, look at the effect and assumes a cause, and yet both sides of the argument do that. I have attempted to reason why, the only possible solution
Side Note 4 (important): May I add that stating God caused the universe does not invalidate science, and neither does the science behind cosmology (which I am aware does the exact same reasoning as the initial claim) invalidate the existence of God. It is plain ignorance to say the two are incompatible, just because science cannot definitely prove that God was the cause of life.
To finish with the words of Genesis 1:3-5 (niv):
“And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.”
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If you wish to read more I suggest actually reading one of the Gospels
Mark is the easiest to read and the shortest.
