A question from a student: If the Big Bang theory is true, then the universe had a beginning. If the universe had a beginning, it had to be created. Not necessarily by an old geezer with a long white beard who intones like John Gielgud, but there had to be some catalyst of some kind. Intelligent or not, it created the universe and is therefore the creator. I would appreciate it if you could come up with a good argument against this.
Mark Hume, OU student.
My reply: Here you are asking about the first cause, or also known as the first cause argument.
As you mentioned, we have a scientific theory that discusses a Big Bang. The theory goes on to explain that the Universe is the result of a massive explosion so great that it created the Universe as we know it. Assuming that everything has a first cause we then need to ask what was the cause for the Big Bang. Some would argue that God created the Big Bang. Therefore God is the first cause. However, this is a contradiction because if everything has a first cause, then God cannot be the ultimate creator because he needs a cause too.
So, some might say that another God created God, but then you would have to ask who created the God who created the God? Therefore, you would need to follow this path ad infinitum until you have a infinite chain of connections of creators for the creators. Some would dismiss this and would suggest that God is the exception to all of the rules of the Universe. As God does not apply in the realms of logic and naturalism, then those who say He exist will say he just came into existence out of nothing. In that, they make God the exception to the rule and assert that God is the first cause. But why should we stop with God? Why not suggest that the Big Bang came out of nothing? It is just as tangible, is it not? Well no it is not, as we still have the contradiction of the first cause argument to settle.
Let me illustrate the first cause argument another way….
You may have a mountain view outside your window. You might ask what created the mountain? You could answer that the Earth’s plates moved together and pushed the ground up to create the mountain. You would then ask what created the Earth? You could answer that a whole bunch of space debris came together by the force of gravity and formed the planet. You would then ask what created the debris and you could say the Big Bang. But then you would ask what created the Big Bang? And here is where we get stuck! What is the first cause of the Big Bang?
So I now suggest that the question asked does not make sense, and let me demonstrate why…
What is north of England? Scotland. What is north of Scotland? Iceland? What is north of Iceland? The Arctic Circle. Then what is north of the Arctic Circle? The North Pole. And what is north of the North Pole? Well, um….nothing you would say, and you would be right! You see, the final question does not make sense. You cannot go further north than the North Pole as nothing can be more north than north.
As a result, using the first cause argument we ultimatley encounter an unanswerable question. So we are left with a few options. We choose either:
a) Answer the question and say the Big Bang has a cause, but we haven’t discovered it yet.
b) We stop at God being the first cause.
c) We say that the Big Bang just happened and that’s the first cause.
d) Or we accept the question doesn’t even makes sense.
None the options given are satisfactory and here’s why, for each option:
a) The problem is that once we identify the cause we have to ask the question for the solution to the preceeding cause.
b) God becomes the focus of the question and we get the same problem as shown with ‘a)’.
c) Did the Big Bang really happen with no cause? I don’t think so!! I’m still not happy with the answer.
d) If we say the question doesn’t make sense, then what is the right question?
Readers of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy will all smile and have realised the problem pointed out here already. The problem isn’t finding the right answer, the problem is asking the right question!
Based on an idea from: The Philosophy Gym, Stephen Law.
Hi Abu,
Hope you are well. Philosophical inquiry is what this web-site is mostly about. The discipline is as much about asking questions than finding answers. In other words philosophy is about thinking and when we ask questions we are doing just that: thinking. So it is right and proper to suggest people ask the questions I bring up.
That said, if you read through the comments, you’ll see that I do offer my own opinion on the question. Recall, the question is: what started the big bang? My simple answer is I’ve no idea. Not a clue. In fact I’m sure nobody knows and no one will ever know. Or, if we do find an answer, let’s say event X or being Y caused it, we then must ask: What started/created that event? And so you see, we end up in the same place – we have to ask the question again.
To even say God created/started the Big Bang is no answer really. We just push the problem back one level and then we still have the question: Who/What created God?
Some would say that God always existed. But that is an assertion rather than an explanation. I could justifiably say: a bunch of engineers with a Large Hadron Collider did it. But then we have to ask who/what created these engineers?
You see we end up in an infinite regress to the beginning and therefore the question becomes senseless. This is why I suggest that we are asking an impossible question, that there might even be something wrong with it, and therefore suggest we should find the right question.
What do you think now?
Adam
THEORY 4.2
`Nothing’ is infinity and thus not nothing, the only way `nothing’ can be absolutely nothing is if there is only `nothing’.
`Something’ cannot come out of nothing therefore nothing is `nothing’.
Complete nothingness alone is non-existent.
Energy is not `nothing’, for energy to be energy, it has to have a duality. The duality is infinity/nothingness.
Energy arises from infinite nothingness. Over an infinite period of time it will turn into some form of matter. This tiny concentration of matter will accumulate so much energy that it will ultimately burst into a massive explosion, what is described as the `Big bang’. It will mark the birth of a first finite universe and signal the end of the initial infinity/nothingness energy. This universe and its energy will eventually collapse and ultimately fade into infinite nothingness once again. The whole process repeats forming a cycle that is infinite.
At first, this seems like a paradox, infinity is infinite, so why does it end?
Infinity is a consequence of nothingness, if there is no nothingness, there is no infinity.
Once the nothingness is replaced with `something’, it is no longer infinite.
We are `something’ therefore we are not infinite.
Energy and light from the sun and millions of years of evolution made us what we are today. It is the same basic laws that created the cosmos.
-How else can `something‘ come out of `nothing’?
Dan
I think that the right question or answer doesn’t exist because than now your implying that there is in fact a “correct” question or answer and all others would be wrong. Now the question is who decides what is necessarily right or wrong and that one question/answer in either order would somehow determine any real importance to anything? Its an obvious answer, something can not be created from nothing. Than again, in order for nothing to exist, something had to create a nothing for something to be created out of it. So than your left again with what is said above. Its a repetitive circle, but who created that circle? All in all, you cant ask or answer this question or any question relating to it because it all comes down to the same things every single time. Nothing, and a circle. a continuous thought process that can NEVER be answered or asked the proper way because thats how its suppose to be. Or is it?
Infinite+infinite = Infinite
Infinite-infinite = infinite
an unsolvable equation with the same answer no matter how you set it up.
Could humans exist because we are made to not be satisfied with anything but the “real” or “correct” in anything? Is our purpose to somehow solve the unsolvable? Or we’ll we continue to exist in a world reshaped by a society and culture that strays away from whats really important in life. What is our purpose and why are we here now?
Maybe we should be asking “what didn’t create the Big Bang”.
There are many theories about the Big Bang. Here nasha-vselennaia.ru/?p=10056 presents a new hypothesis on the origin of the universe.
For a distant observer, the Big Bang is a result of the collisions in the universe of all galaxies – substances with the speed of light – (C).
For an observer, who is in the middle of the action – Big Bang in the center of the black hole is a result of the collisions in the universe of all galaxies – substances with the speed of 0 km/s.
Because of the great gravity, processes in the center of the black hole slow down in a split second before the Big Bang and the time stretches. On this basis, an observer in the center of the black hole sees that the collision rate between galaxies is 0 km/s.
An observer, who is far from the middle of the action – far from the center of the black hole sees that all galaxies collide with the speed of light – (C).