After a night of teenage exuberance, my friends and I would usually end up lying out on a country road, gazing up at the starlit Australian sky, discussing the meaning of it all. We considered ourselves nonreligious, and yet there was something (isn’t there?) about the enormity of the sky that humbled us, stirred us, inspired us to ask deep questions about, well, everything. We called these GLUE conversations—GLUE being an acronym for God, life, the universe, and everything.

One of the questions that always came up was, “Why did this all happen?” This brought us, without knowing it, dangerously close to the contingency argument for the existence of God.

The Case for God

In my new book, 20 Answers: Atheism, I present three arguments for the existence of God. One is the moral argument, which shows that if God does not exist then objective moral facts such as “It is wrong to torture babies for fun” cannot exist. But since objective moral facts do exist—i. e., some things are wrong independent of human opinion—then an objective moral lawgiver (i.e., God) must exist.

The other two are cosmological arguments, or arguments that use the physical universe as evidence for the existence of a being that transcends space, time, matter, and energy. One of them is a first-cause argument called the Kalaam argument. It shows that if the universe began to exist, it must have a cause, since something can’t come from nothing. This is the kind of argument many people arrive at when they ponder the question, “Where did everything come from?”

Medieval philosophers such as Al-Ghazali and St. Bonaventure created and refined the argument, but it fell out of favor until William Lane Craig published a defense of it in 1979. Since then, Dr. Craig’s numerous books, articles, and debates have made the argument well known again, even in atheist circles. One reason it is popular is that it can be simply stated:

Premise 1: Whatever begins to exist has a cause.

Premise 2: The universe began to exist.

Conclusion: Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Some atheists, especially those who frequent atheist websites, might say they’ve heard this “tired, old argument” and refer you to one of the ubiquitous online videos that they claim has “demolished it.” But, to borrow a phrase from Mark Twain, the reports of this argument’s death are greatly exaggerated. Trent Horn’s recent book, Answering Atheism, has two appendices refuting the most common objections to this argument.

Instead of defending this argument, I’d like to present the third argument. This argument is less familiar than the Kalaam argument but just as powerful. It is called the contingency argument for the existence of God.

The “Middle Child” Argument

One reason atheists attack the Kalaam argument is because it’s well known and easy to formulate. However, because the contingency argument is less well known and more complex, it ends up being treated like the middle child, the one everyone forgets about but who is just as special as the others.

In some respects, many theists find the contingency argument even more persuasive than the Kalaam argument. In order to show why, I’ll present a formal version of the argument and then defend each of its premises. The contingency argument can be formulated in different ways, but here is a common one:

1. Whatever exists that does not have to exist requires an explanation.
2. The physical universe does not have to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe requires an explanation.
4. The explanation for the universe is, by definition, God.
5. Therefore, God exists.

How do we know that this is a good argument for the existence of God? Well, first off, we should be reminded that a good argument is one whose premises are more likely to be true than false and does not have a logical error (i.e., a fallacy) in its reasoning. Hardly any arguments have premises that people accept with total confidence. Even basic premises like “The external world is real” can always be doubted (at least if you’ve seen The Matrix).

Since there is no fallacy in the argument, if we can at least show that the premises of this argument are more likely to be true than false, then we will have succeeded in showing that faith in God is reasonable and that to deny that God exists flies in the face of the evidence.

A Reason for Existing

What does the first premise of this argument—“Whatever exists that does not have to exist requires an explanation for its existence”—mean?

Think of the scientist who discovers a star or bacterium that has never been catalogued. He asks the question, “Why does this thing exist?” And, “Why does object X behave in manner Y instead of manner Z?” This is what drives science as well as every other branch of study. It’s the great question: “Why?”

For example, when astronomers discovered red stars, they tried to explain their existence. To say that there isn’t an explanation—not that we don’t know it but that there actually isn’t one—strikes at the foundation of rational thought. It rejects the premise that underlies the quest for knowledge.

We know that nearly all things need a reason to exist. However, it’s possible that some things exist because they must exist; they can’t be anything other than what they are. This brings us to the difference between what is contingent and what is necessary.

Something is contingent if it can be different or can fail to exist. My trip to Six Flags yesterday, what time you went to bed last night, the formation of the moon, and the existence of the physical universe are all contingent things. They don’t have to be. They could have been otherwise.

But the mathematical truth 2 + 2 = 4, or the existence of God, are necessary truths. There cannot be a world where 2 + 2 equals anything except 4.

The contingency argument merely claims that since the universe does not have to exist, there must be a reason for why it exists. This reason must be found in something that must exist, or a necessary being—“And this,” to quote St. Thomas Aquinas, “is what everyone means by ‘God.’”

Is the Universe Necessary?

Notice that the contingency argument avoids a common objection leveled at the Kalaam argument. It will do no good to say that the universe is eternal and so has no explanation for why it exists—the argument works whether or not one thinks the universe simply always was.

In his Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas held that it was impossible to prove, by reason alone, that the universe began to exist in the finite past. So he decided to meet his critics on their own terms and provide five proofs for God that worked even if the universe turned out to be eternal. His third proof was a version of the contingency argument. (Aquinas believed through divine revelation that the universe could not be eternal, but he allowed the possibility in order to strengthen his arguments).

Even if the universe were eternal, we would still want to know why there is an eternal universe instead of nothing at all. We’ve already seen that science is grounded in the idea that whatever exists has a reason outside of itself to explain its existence. We should, at least initially, try to find an explanation for the universe just as we would try to find an explanation for anything else.

Philosopher Richard Taylor offers a thought experiment. Imagine you found a small, translucent orb floating in the woods. You would want to know why it exists. If your friend hiking through the woods with you said, “There’s no reason the orb exists. It exists without explanation; forget about it,” you’d think he was joking or that he just wanted to keep moving. The one thing you probably wouldn’t do is respond, “Ah! Interesting. Let’s move on, then.”

Notice that merely increasing the size of the orb does nothing to do away with the need for an explanation. If the orb were, say, the size of car, you would still ask why it exists. If it were the size of a house, you’d have the same question. In fact, even if the orb were the size of a planet or even the size of the universe, you’d still want to know why it exists. If we ask why such an orb, even as large as the physical universe, exists, then shouldn’t we ask why the physical universe itself exists?

Some atheists may bite the bullet and simply say the universe must exist; i.e., it is necessary and explains itself. As the twentieth-century English atheist Bertrand Russell put it, “The universe is just there, and that’s all.”

But is this really a viable option? At one time the universe didn’t contain stars and galaxies. Why do those objects exist now, when they clearly don’t have to? I can imagine the universe not existing, but I can’t meaningfully imagine a universe where 2 + 2 doesn’t equal 4. This shows that the former is contingent and requires an explanation, while the latter is necessary and does not require an explanation.

Is God the Explanation?

Perhaps the universe has an explanation for why it exists, but could that explanation be simply another universe? The problem with this reasoning is that the argument starts all over again. Is that physical universe contingent or is it necessary? Because it is physical, this other universe could have existed in a multitude of different ways, which shows it would be contingent and require an explanation of its own. At some point the chain of explanations must terminate in something that cannot be different, so a random universe or force can’t explain why anything exists.

Whatever this explanation is, it must be greater than the physical universe. It must be something beyond space and time, beyond matter and energy, but with the power to create each of these things and to establish the laws they obey. It must be something that explains its own existence and cannot fail to exist.

Once again, that sounds a lot like God: what philosophers call a “necessary” being. God could not be different than what he is, which is what premise 3 states. Now, while some truths like 2 + 2 = 4 may be necessary, the only being that can be necessary must be a being whose essence (or what it is) is identical to its existence (or that it is). But only one being could simply be being itself and ground the existence of all other contingent realities. This is at the most basic level what God is.

Two Common Objections

So how might an atheist respond to this argument? He might make one of the following objections:

The Fallacy of Composition

Because everything in the universe needs a reason for its existence, it doesn’t follow that the whole universe needs a similar explanation. After all, just because theoretically every cell of an elephant could be lifted by hand, it doesn’t follow the whole elephant can be lifted in this way. Likewise, what applies to the parts of the universe may not apply to the whole universe.

But sometimes what applies to parts does apply to the whole. For example, if every piece of my Lego spaceship is red, then my whole Lego spaceship will be red. Likewise, if every part of the universe is contingent, then the whole universe must be contingent as well.

So the problem with this objection is that the fallacy of composition is an informal fallacy. It can't be formally proven but only recognized after the fact, such as when you acknowledge that an elephant can’t be lifted with one hand even though all of its cells can be.

If the atheist wants to convince a believer of atheism, the burden of proof is on him to show that the contingency argument makes a mistaken part-to-whole reasoning. He can’t merely point out that there is some part-to-whole reasoning being used and call that a fallacy; because sometimes, as we saw in the case of the Lego spaceship, such reasoning is not mistaken. Similarly, it would become a “fallacy of composition” to say that because every part of the universe exists, it follows that the whole universe exists—which is obviously true.

To summarize, unless an atheist can provide an objective reason to think the universe is necessary and not contingent, then he can't rely on the fallacy of composition to prove that the universe is not like all of its parts—in other words, a contingent entity that can fail to exist.

The Parts Explain the Whole

Some atheists say that if we just explain every part of the universe then that will explain why the whole universe exists. Trent Horn refutes this objection in the book Answering Atheism:

"Explaining why each part of the universe exists, even in a “circle of explanation,” does not explain why an entire universe exists at all. That would be like trying to explain why a baseball game is being played simply by explaining what each player in the game does (i.e., the batter is hitting a ball thrown by the pitcher, who takes a cue from the shortstop, who watches the man on second . . .). That strategy may explain each part of the baseball game, but it doesn’t explain why there is a baseball game happening."

The Most Basic Question

In the end, atheists should not brush off the question of why the universe exists instead of nothing at all with a simple, “Science will figure it out.” That’s because science, the universe, and everything we know fall under the umbrella of “that which does not have to be yet is, and therefore must have an explanation for why it is.” Only a being for which existence is not a luxury but the core of what it is can be capable of explaining life’s greatest mystery. And there is only one being who can fit that lofty description: God.
 
 

 
 
(Image credit: Unsplash)

Several people have asked me to comment on the remarks about causation made by atheist physicist Sean Carroll during his recent debate with William Lane Craig on the topic of “God and Cosmology.”  (You’ll find Craig’s own post-debate remarks here.)  It’s only fair to acknowledge at the outset that Carroll cannot justly be accused of the anti-philosophy one finds in recent remarks by physicists Stephen Hawking, Lawrence Krauss, and Neil deGrasse Tyson.  Indeed, Carroll has recently criticized these fellow physicists pretty harshly, and made some useful remarks about the role of philosophy vis-à-vis physics in the course of doing so.

It is also only fair to note that, while I have enormous respect for Craig, I don’t myself think that it is a good idea to approach arguments for a First Cause by way of scientific cosmology.  I think that muddies the waters by inadvertently reinforcing scientism, blurring the distinction between primary (divine) causality and secondary (natural) causality, and perpetuating the false assumption that arguments for a divine First Cause are essentially arguments for a “god of the gaps.”  As I have argued many times, both on my blog and in  my published works, the chief arguments of natural theology (i.e. Aristotelian, Neo-Platonic, Thomistic, and other Scholastic arguments) rest on premises derived from metaphysics rather than natural science, and in particular on metaphysical premises that any possible natural science must presuppose.  For that reason, they are more certain than anything science itself could in principle ever either support or refute.

Arguments like Aquinas’s Five Ways, when properly understood (as unfortunately, these days, they usually are not), no more stand or fall with the current state of play in scientific cosmology than they stand or fall with current gastroenterology or polymer research.  (On this point, see chapter 3 of my book Aquinas, my ACPQ article “Existential Inertia and the Five Ways,” my Midwest Studies in Philosophy article “The New Atheists and the Cosmological Argument,” and many other articles and blog posts.  Or see my YouTube lectures “An Aristotelian Proof of the Existence of God” and “Natural Theology Must Be Grounded in the Philosophy of Nature, Not Natural Science.” )

Carroll’s remarks during the debate are largely directed at the question of whether scientific cosmologists should regard theism as a good explanation for the sorts of phenomena they are interested in, given the standard criteria by which models in physics are judged.  Since I don’t find that a terribly interesting or important question, I have nothing to say about his criticisms of Craig on that score.

Having said all that, Carroll’s remarks, where they touch on philosophical matters, are pretty shallow, and he does clearly think that what he has to say somehow poses a serious challenge to theism in general, not just theistic arguments grounded in scientific cosmology.  So those remarks are worth a response.  The key passage concerns Carroll’s criticism of Craig’s claim that “If the universe began to exist, then there is a transcendent cause which brought the universe into existence.”  Carroll says:

"The real problem is that these are not the right vocabulary words to be using when we discuss fundamental physics and cosmology. This kind of Aristotelian analysis of causation was cutting edge stuff 2,500 years ago. Today we know better. Our metaphysics must follow our physics. That’s what the word 'metaphysics' means. And in modern physics, you open a quantum field theory textbook or a general relativity textbook, you will not find the words 'transcendent cause' anywhere. What you find are differential equations.
 
This reflects the fact that the way physics is known to work these days is in terms of patterns, unbreakable rules, laws of nature. Given the world at one point in time, we will tell you what happens next. There is no need for any extra metaphysical baggage, like transcendent causes, on top of that. It’s precisely the wrong way to think about how the fundamental reality works.
 
The question you should be asking is, 'What is the best model of the universe that science can come up with?' By a model I mean a formal mathematical system that purports to match on to what we observe. So if you want to know whether something is possible in cosmology or physics you ask, 'Can I build a model?'"

Now, it would take a book to explain everything that’s wrong with this passage.  And as it happens, I’ve written such a book; it’s called Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction.  Since I’ve already said so much about these issues both in that book and elsewhere, I’m not going to repeat myself at length.  Let me just call attention to the key begged questions, missed points, and non sequiturs in Carroll’s remarks.

Carroll tells us that explanation in physics proceeds by way of building a “model” that describes a “mathematical system” reflecting “patterns, unbreakable rules, laws of nature.”  Fine and dandy; I’ve pointed this out many times myself.  If Carroll’s point were merely that, to the extent that theism can’t be formulated in such mathematical terms, it just isn’t the sort of thing the physicist will deem a useful explanation for the specific sorts of phenomena he’s interested in, then I wouldn’t necessarily have any problem with that.  That’s not what classical theism, properly understood, is all about in the first place.

But Carroll goes beyond that.  When he says that once you’ve hit upon the best mathematical model, whatever it turns out to be, “there is no need for any extra metaphysical baggage… on top of that,” he evidently means not just that you don’t need anything more for the purposes of physics, specifically, but that you don’t need anything more than that, period.  For he says that asking for more is “precisely the wrong way to think about how the fundamental reality works” and that “our metaphysics must follow our physics.”

The idea seems to be that once you’ve answered all the questions in physics, you’ve answered all the questions that can be answered, including all the metaphysical questions.  There’s nothing more to be done, not just nothing more for the physicist to do.

Now, why should anyone believe that claim (which is essentially just a version of scientism)?  Carroll gives no argument for it at all; he just asserts it with confidence.  This is a step down from Alex Rosenberg, who in The Atheist’s Guide to Reality did give an argument for a similar claim -- an argument which, as I noted, is extremely bad, but is at least still an argument.

Nor could there be a good argument for Carroll’s scientism, because scientism is demonstrably false.  For one thing, “scientism” is more poorly defined than Carroll claims theism is.  However we tighten up our definition of notions like “science,” “physics,” and the like, the resulting scientism is going to be either self-refuting (since it will turn out that scientism cannot itself be established via the methods of physics or any other natural science), or completely trivial (since, to avoid the self-refutation charge, “science,” “physics,” etc. will have to be defined so broadly that even the metaphysical notions Carroll wants to dismiss will count as “scientific”).

For another thing, to suppose that since physics confines itself to mathematical models, it follows that there is nothing more to reality than is captured by such models, is fallaciously to draw a metaphysical conclusion from a mere methodological stipulation.  The problem is not just that, if there are features of reality which cannot be captured in terms of a mathematical model, then the methods of physics are guaranteed not to capture them (though that is bad enough).  It is that there must in fact be more to reality than is captured by those methods, in part because (as Bertrand Russell noted) physics gives us only structure, and structure presupposes something which has the structure and which a purely structural description will of necessity fail to capture.

I develop these points in detail in Chapter 0 of Scholastic Metaphysics.  I also show, in that chapter and throughout the book, that the appeal to “laws of nature” so routinely made by naturalists like Carroll, simply does not and cannot do the work they suppose it does, and papers over a mountain of begged metaphysical questions.  In fact the very notion is fraught with philosophical difficulty, as writers like Nancy Cartwright and Stephen Mumford have shown.  As I have noted many times, the notion of a “law of nature” was originally (in thinkers like Descartes and Newton) explicitly theological, connoting the decree of a divine lawmaker.  Later scientists would regard this as a metaphor, but a metaphor for what?  Most contemporary scientists who pontificate about philosophical matters not only do not have an answer but have forgotten the question.

One contemporary scientist who does see the problem is physicist Paul Davies, who, in his essay “Universe from Bit” (in Paul Davies and Niels Henrik Gregersen, eds. Information and the Nature of Reality: From Physics to Metaphysics), writes:

"The orthodox view of the nature of the laws of physics contains a long list of tacitly assumed properties.  The laws are regarded, for example, as immutable, eternal, infinitely precise mathematical relationships that transcend the physical universe, and were imprinted on it at the moment of its birth from “outside,” like a maker’s mark, and have remained unchanging ever since… In addition, it is assumed that the physical world is affected by the laws, but the laws are completely impervious to what happens in the universe… It is not hard to discover where this picture of physical laws comes from: it is inherited directly from monotheism, which asserts that a rational being designed the universe according to a set of perfect laws.  And the asymmetry between immutable laws and contingent states mirrors the asymmetry between God and nature: the universe depends utterly on God for its existence, whereas God’s existence does not depend on the universe…
 
Clearly, then, the orthodox concept of laws of physics derives directly from theology.  It is remarkable that this view has remained largely unchallenged after 300 years of secular science.  Indeed, the “theological model” of the laws of physics is so ingrained in scientific thinking that it is taken for granted.  The hidden assumptions behind the concept of physical laws, and their theological provenance, are simply ignored by almost all except historians of science and theologians.  From the scientific standpoint, however, this uncritical acceptance of the theological model of laws leaves a lot to be desired…" (pp. 70-1)

Now some atheists may suppose that at this point I am going to exclaim triumphantly that there cannot be law without a lawgiver and proclaim victory for theism.  But in fact, like Davies, I don’t accept the theological account of laws.  I think it is bad metaphysics and bad theology (insofar as it tends toward occasionalism).  I want rather to make the following two points.

First, when scientists like Carroll confidently proclaim that we can explain such-and-such in terms of the laws of physics rather than God, what they are saying, without realizing it, is: “The explanation isn’t God, it’s rather the laws of physics, where ‘law of physics’ originally meant ‘a decree of God’ and where I don’t have any worked-out alternative account of what it means.”  Hence the “alternative” explanation, when unpacked, is really either a tacit appeal to God or a non-explanation.  In short, either it isn’t alternative, or it’s not an explanation.  This stock, naturalistic “alternative explanation” would be quickly dismissed if it were not so routinely and confidently put forward by otherwise highly intelligent, educated, and widely esteemed people.

Second, the original, explicitly theological Cartesian-Newtonian notion of “laws of nature” was intended precisely as a replacement for the Aristotelian-Scholastic metaphysics of nature.  The Scholastics held that the regularities in the behavior of natural phenomena derived from their immanent essences or substantial forms, and the directedness-toward-an-end or immanent teleology that followed upon their having those forms.  In other words, regularities reflected the formal and final causes of things.  The early moderns wanted to get rid of formal and final causes as immanent features of nature, and thus replaced them with the notion of “laws of nature” conceived of as externally imposed divine decrees.  To keep talk of “laws of nature” while throwing out God is thus not to offer an alternative to the Aristotelian-Scholastic view at all, but merely to peddle an uncashed metaphor.

So, whereas Carroll glibly asserts that “now we know better” than the Aristotelians did, what is in fact the case is that Carroll and other contemporary naturalists have not only chucked out Aristotelian metaphysics but have also chucked out the early moderns’ initial proposed replacement for Aristotelian metaphysics, and have offered nothing new in its place.  This is hardly a problem for the Aristotelian; on the contrary, it is a problem for anyone who wants to dismiss Aristotelian metaphysics.

Like other contemporary Aristotelians, I would say that the right way to interpret a “law of nature” is as a shorthand description of the way a thing tends to operate given its nature or substantial form.  That is to say, “laws of nature” actually presuppose, and thus cannot replace, an Aristotelian metaphysics of nature.  (Again see the discussion of the metaphysics of laws of nature in Scholastic Metaphysics.)  There are other accounts of laws, such as Platonic accounts and Humean accounts, but these are seriously problematic.  Platonic accounts, which treat laws of nature as abstract entities in a Platonic heaven, push the problem back a stage.  To appeal to such-and-such Platonic laws as an explanation of what happens in the world only raises the further problems of explaining why it is those laws rather than some others that govern the world, and what makes it the case that any laws at all come to be instantiated.  Humean accounts, meanwhile, interpret a law as a statement that such-and-such a regularity holds, or would have held under the right conditions.  But in that case an appeal to laws doesn’t really explain anything, but only re-describes it in a different jargon.

Consider, in light of these points, what Carroll says about causation later on in the debate:

"Why should we expect that there are causes or explanations or a reason why in the universe in which we live? It’s because the physical world inside of which we’re embedded has two important features. There are unbreakable patterns, laws of physics -- things don’t just happen, they obey the laws -- and there is an arrow of time stretching from the past to the future.
 
The entropy was lower in the past and increases towards the future. Therefore, when you find some event or state of affairs B today, we can very often trace it back in time to one or a couple of possible predecessor events that we therefore call the cause of that, which leads to B according to the laws of physics.  But crucially, both of these features of the universe that allow us to speak the language of causes and effects are completely absent when we talk about the universe as a whole.  We don’t think that our universe is part of a bigger ensemble that obeys laws.  Even if it’s part of the multiverse, the multiverse is not part of a bigger ensemble that obeys laws.  Therefore, nothing gives us the right to demand some kind of external cause."

Now in fact it is Carroll who has said absolutely nothing to establish his right to dismiss the demand for a cause as confidently as he does.  For he has simply begged all the important questions and completely missed the point of the main, traditional classical theistic arguments (whether or not he has missed Craig’s point -- again, I’m not addressing that here).  One problem here is that, like so many physicists, Carroll has taken what is really just one species of causation (the sort which involves a causal relation between temporally separated events) and identified it with causation as such.  But in fact, the Aristotelian argues, event causation is not only not the only kind of causation but is parasitic on substance causation.

Yet put that aside, because the deeper problem is that Carroll supposes that causation is to be explained in terms of laws of nature, whereas the Aristotelian view is that this has things precisely backwards.  Since a “law of nature” is just a shorthand description of the ways a thing will operate -- that is to say, what sorts of effects it will tend to have given its nature or substantial form -- the notion of “laws of nature” metaphysically presupposes causation.

Furthermore, what “allows us to speak the language of causes and effects” has nothing essentially to do with tracing series of events backwards in time.  Here again Carroll is just begging the question.  On the Aristotelian-Scholastic analysis, questions about causation are raised wherever we have potentialities that need actualization, or a thing’s being metaphysically composite and thus in need of a principle that accounts for the composition of its parts, or there being a distinction in a thing between its essence, or nature, on the one and its existence on the other, or a thing’s being contingent.

The universe, however physics and scientific cosmology end up describing it -- even if it turned out to be a universe without a temporal beginning, even if it is a four-dimensional block universe, even if Hawking’s closed universe model turned out to be correct, even if we should really think in terms of a multiverse rather than a single universe -- will, the Aristotelian argues, necessarily exhibit just these features (potentialities needing actualization, composition, contingency, etc.).  And thus it will, as a matter of metaphysical necessity, require a cause outside it.  And only that which is pure actuality devoid of potentiality, only what is utterly simple or non-composite, only something whose essence or nature just is existence itself, only what is therefore in no way contingent but utterly necessary -- only that, the classical theist maintains, could in principle be the ultimate terminus of explanation, whatever the specific scientific details turn out to be.

Carroll has not only failed to answer these sorts of arguments (which, again, I’ve only alluded to here -- see the various sources cited above for detailed defense).  He doesn’t even seem to be aware that this is where the issues really lie, and that they have nothing essentially to do with scientific cosmology.  That’s not entirely his fault.  As I have indicated, in my view too many people (and not just Craig) put way too much emphasis on scientific cosmology where the debate between theism and atheism is concerned.  That just opens the door to objections like Carroll’s, since it makes it sound (wrongly, but understandably) like theism as such is essentially in competition with the sorts of models Carroll pits against Craig.

NOTE: Dr. Feser's contributions at Strange Notions were originally posted on his own blog, and therefore lose some of their context when reprinted here. Dr. Feser explains why that matters.
 
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Some news hooks are irresistible, even when they're false or at least incomplete. Case in point: the alleged conflict between science and religion. Is science opposed to religion? The answer depends in large measure on what you mean by religion. If your "religion" is, say, astrology, then you could say there's a conflict between science and "religion". The science of astronomy does conflict with the "religion" of astrology.

Probably most people who speak of a conflict between science and religion, though, don't mean the "religion" of astrology—if they think of astrology as a religion at all. They mean Christianity or perhaps Judeo-Christianity. They have before their minds Galileo and his struggle with the Inquisition of the Catholic Church over geocentrism or, more recently, the argument certain Christians have with the theory of evolution. Or perhaps they have only a vague idea that as science progresses religion becomes more and more problematic. Religion, in this view, is simply a way of talking about things science hasn't yet explained. When science gets around to explaining them, no role for religion will remain, and like the State in the Marxist paradise, it will wither away.

Those ideas about science and "religion" suppose an inherent conflict between the two fields. Conflicts, of course, make for more exciting news stories. But does the constant "hook" of a battle between science and religion reflect reality? Are science and religion—specifically Christianity—inevitably at odds with one another?

No, says physicist and Catholic Stephen Barr, author of Modern Physics and Ancient Faith (University of Notre Dame Press). Dr. Barr is professor of physics at the Bartol Research Institute at the University of Delaware. His writings include essays such as "A new Symmetry Breaking Pattern for SO(10) and Proton Decay" and "Electric Dipole Moment of the Electron and of the Neutron." He also contributes essays and reviews in First Things magazine, where he writes on such topics as evolution, Intelligent Design, and naturalism.

Dr. Barr recently agreed to answer some questions regarding science and religion.
 

 
Q: What is your background in science? In religion?

Dr. Barr: I received my Ph.D. in physics from Princeton in 1978. Since 1987 I have been a professor at the University of Delaware. My field of research is theoretical particle physics, and I have worked primarily in the area of "grand unified theories" and the cosmology of the early universe.

I am a lifelong Catholic.

Q: The controversial issue of Intelligent Design involves a basic question: What is science? How would you define science, as opposed to philosophy and theology? And would you call the "design hypothesis" put forward by the Intelligent Design movement science?

Dr. Barr: Science is sometimes divided into the "natural sciences" (astronomy, physics, chemistry, geology, biology) and the "human sciences" (like anthropology and psychology). The goal of the "natural sciences" is to understand the "natural order" of the physical universe. There are, of course, realities beyond the natural order and beyond the physical, but they lie outside the purview of natural science. Philosophy and theology have a much broader scope.

As I understand the "Intelligent Design movement", they are saying that certain biological phenomena can only be explained as miracles. They don't use that language, but that is in effect what they are saying. I firmly believe that miracles do happen. But a miracle, since it is something that contravenes the natural order, lies outside of natural science. I think it is quite legitimate to use scientific arguments and evidence to make out a case that some event is in fact miraculous. But that means that you have run up against the limits of what natural science can explain, and are invoking something beyond those limits. That is why I do not regard the ideas of the Intelligent Design movement as being hypotheses within natural science.

Let me put it this way. Science may show that a person turned water into wine, but that would be a miracle, not a new effect in the science of chemistry. Nor was the parting of the Red Sea a new effect in hydrodynamics. I am not sure that the "design hypothesis" is a part of biological science. That is not to say that it is wrong.

Q: Some scientists write as if they think that science can answer any question capable of being asked and answered. How would you respond?

Dr. Barr: It's absurd, and I wonder if anyone really believes it. I suspect that most of the people who write such things actually have all sorts of firmly held personal convictions that they could not prove by "scientific" demonstration.

There are many important questions about which natural science has nothing to say. Can science say whether murder is wrong? Or whether human beings have free will? Or whom a person should marry? Or whether a nation should go to war? Or what a man should live for or be ready to die for? And yet these are questions that not only can be answered but must be.

Q: What, in your view, is the most significant misunderstanding when it comes to religion and science?

Dr. Barr: Many atheists believe that all religion is at bottom either a pre-scientific attempt to understand natural phenomena through myth or an attempt to obtain worldly benefits through magic. And since they see science as the antithesis of myth and magic they cannot help but see all religion as antiscientific. Of course, such people have little understanding what true religion is all about.

Q: Do you know many scientists who are also religious believers?

Dr. Barr: Yes, quite a few. Indeed, I have about half a dozen friends in my own field who are devout Catholics. In fact, one of the real geniuses in my field (he would be ranked at or near the very top) is a practicing Catholic. However, in my experience most scientists are non-religious. That may have more to do with general cultural attitudes than with them being scientists. I have found as much atheism in humanities departments as in science departments.

Q: The science/religion debate operates on a number of levels. One is on the cosmic level—the existence of the universe. What can science tell us of the universe's origins? Are there limits to what science can say? What roles do philosophy and theology play in considering the question of the universe's origin?

Dr. Barr: One has to distinguish the question of the universe's beginning moments from the question of why there is a universe at all. In my view, science will never provide an answer to the latter question. As Stephen Hawking famously noted, all theoretical physics can do is give one a set of rules and equations that correctly describe the universe, but it cannot tell you why there is any universe for those equations to describe. He asked, "What breathes fire into the equations so that there is a universe for them describe?"

As far as the beginning moments of the universe go, science may eventually be able to describe what happened then. That is, when we know the fundamental laws of physics in their entirety—as I hope someday we will—it may well turn out that the opening events of the universe happened in accordance with those laws. In that sense, "the beginning" could have been "natural". However, that would not explain the "origin" of the universe in the deeper sense meant by "Creation".

Let me use an analogy. The first words of a play—say Hamlet—may obey the laws of English grammar. They may also fit into the rest of the plot in a natural way. In that sense, one might be able to give an "internal explanation" of those beginning words. However, that would not explain why there is a play. There is a play because there is a playwright. When we ask about the "origin" of the play, we are not asking about its first words, we are asking who wrote it and why. The origin of the universe is God.

Q: What do you think about efforts to develop a "Theory of Everything"?

Dr. Barr: I prefer to speak about a "Theory of Everything Physical". The goal of fundamental physics is to find the ultimate laws that govern all of physical reality. Most physicists, myself included, are convinced that such ultimate laws exist. There are good reasons to suspect that "superstring theory"—or what is now called "M-theory"—may be that ultimate theory. However, we are very far from being able to test it. In any event, to call any physics theory a "Theory of Everything" is to make the unwarranted—indeed false—assumption that everything is physical.

Q: What about the idea of multiple universes? Can we speak meaningfully of more than one "universe"?

Dr. Barr: As most people use the phrase, "multiple universes" is really a misnomer. What they usually really mean is that there is just one universe that is made up of many "domains" or regions, which are mutually inaccessible in practice—for example, because they are too far apart. The physical conditions in the various domains could be so different that they would appear superficially to have different physical laws. However, in all such scenarios it is assumed that the various domains actually all obey the same fundamental or ultimate laws. This "multiverse" idea is a perfectly sensible one. In fact, there are reasons to suspect that our universe may have such a domain structure.

Q: Stephen Hawking, in A Brief History of Time, talks about God and the mind of God. Yet he also seems to question whether there really is the need for a Creator in order to explain the existence of the cosmos. How do you see the matter? Is God a "necessary hypothesis"? Does science have anything to say about the question?

Dr. Barr: Hawking asked the right question when he wondered why there is a universe at all, but somehow he cannot accept the answer. The old question is, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" Science cannot answer that question, as Hawking (at least sometimes) realizes. I think his problem is that he doesn't see how the existence of God answers that question either. Part of the reason that many scientists are atheists is that they don't really understand what is meant by "God".

Anything whose existence is contingent (i.e. which could exist or not exist) cannot be the explanation of its own existence. It cannot, as it were, pull itself into being by its own bootstraps. As St. Augustine says in his Confessions, all created things cry out to us, "We did not make ourselves." Only God is uncreated, because God is a necessary being: He cannot not exist. It is of His very nature to exist. He said to Moses, "I AM WHO AM. ... Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel: 'I AM hath sent me unto you.'"

I think scientists like Hawking would be helped if they could imagine God as an infinite Mind that understands and knows all things and Who, indeed, "thought the world up". If all of reality is "intelligible" (an idea that would appeal to scientists), then it follows really that there is some Intellect capable of understanding it fully. If no such Intellect exists or could exist, in what sense is reality fully intelligible? We need to recover the idea of God as the Logos, i.e. God as Reason itself. I note that Pope Benedict stressed this throughout his papacy, especially in his speech at Regensburg. It is an idea of God that people who devote their lives to rational inquiry can appreciate.

Q: You've written about the creation/evolution/ intelligent design controversy. What is your understanding of the main issues in that debate? Where do you come down?

Dr. Barr: There are really two quite distinct debates going on. One is between so-called "Creationism" and Evolution. The other is between Darwinism and the "Intelligent Design movement".

The so-called Creationists—a specific movement within the broader group of people who simply believe in a Creator—deny that evolution happened. They are charging off an intellectual cliff. There is overwhelming and convergent evidence from many directions for the evolution of species. So it is embarrassing that this "Creationism" versus Evolution battle is still going on. Fortunately, it has never been a Catholic fight. The Catholic Church has never had an objection to the idea of the evolution of species of plants and animals. As far as the evolution of man goes, the Church has always insisted that the human soul, being spiritual, cannot be explained by, or be the product of, merely material processes, whether biological reproduction or biological evolution. The soul of each human being is directly conferred on him or her by God, as taught symbolically in Genesis 2:7. However, the Church never condemned the idea that the human body evolved from pre-existing organisms. The natural origin of the human body by evolution is no more a threat to anything we believe as Catholics than is the natural origin of each human body by sexual reproduction.

Evolution as a biological theory has never bothered the Church, though she has always vigorously rejected radical philosophical ideas that were offshoots of it.

The debate between "Intelligent Design" and Darwinism has to be taken more seriously. The self-styled Intelligent Design (or "ID") movement says that while evolution may have happened the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection acting on random genetic mutations is not adequate to explain it. In particular, the ID people point to the great complexity of life, especially at the cellular level. If they are right, that would be very interesting, as it would almost force one to invoke miraculous intervention by God to explain many of the facts of biology. It would give us a slam-dunk proof for the existence of God. I, for one, would be very happy about that.

But are they right in saying that the Darwinian mechanism is inadequate to explain biological complexity? Most biologists, including most of those who are devout Christian believers, doubt it very strongly. And even if the ID people are right, it will be virtually impossible to prove that they are right because they are asserting a negative. They are saying that no Darwinian explanation of certain complex structures will ever be forthcoming. Well, there may not exist such an explanation now, but there might exist one later. So, in practice, I don't see a slam-dunk proof for miraculous intervention in evolution as coming out of this movement.

Frankly, I don't see this debate as one in which Catholics, as Catholics, have any stake. The traditional arguments for the existence of God are much deeper and more reliable than the ones the ID movement is trying to make. The Catholic Church herself has taken no stance on this controversy. A 2004 document of the International Theological Commission, Communion and Stewardship, issued with the approval of then Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI), said it was an interesting dispute that should be left to scientists to decide, since it could not be decided by theological arguments.

Q: Critics of evolution point to statements made by some evolutionists to the effect that life emerged by chance occurrences or "random mutations" and natural selection. The "randomness" thought to be involved critics take as undercutting a claim that life on earth is the result of the creative act of God. What is your view of the matter?

Dr. Barr: The idea that chance plays a role in events is in no way contrary to Catholic doctrine. St. Augustine in The City of God says that no one in this life "can escape being tossed about by chance and accident". St. Thomas Aquinas devoted a whole chapter of his Summa Contra Gentiles (Book 3 chapter 74) to defending the proposition that "Divine Providence does not exclude chance and accident." The Bible itself talks about chance: "Time and chance happen to them all" (Ecclesiastes 9:11).

Things are matters of chance from a certain point of view. From God's point of view everything is known from all eternity. As Proverbs 16:33 says, "The lot is cast into the lap, but the decision is wholly from the Lord."

In everyday life we talk about the probabilities of things happening, and we talk about chance events, and such talk in no way implies a denial that God is in charge of everything and foreknows everything.

Scientists use the concepts of chance, probability, and randomness in much the same way. In a reasonably well-defined mathematical sense, the motions of the air molecules in a room are "random". There is nothing necessarily atheistic in saying this.

Q: The SETI project seems predicated on the likelihood of extraterrestrial life. Do we have good scientific grounds for thinking such life exists? Would the existence of extraterrestrial life pose any special problems, in your view, to religion in general or Christianity in particular?

Dr. Barr: There are too many things we don't know for anyone to be able to say that extraterrestrial life "probably exists" or "probably doesn't". For one thing, we don't know how big the universe is. Given what we now know, it is not unlikely that it is infinitely large. (I have found that many people have the false impression that the Big Bang theory implies a universe of finite size. Actually, in the standard Big Bang theory the universe can be either finite in volume or infinite depending on the value of a certain parameter, called Omega, and whether it is bigger or smaller than 1. Present theory suggests that Omega is so close to 1 that it will be very hard, and probably impossible, to determine by observation whether it is larger or smaller than 1.) Even if the universe is of finite size, it is likely to be exponentially larger than the part we can observe with telescopes. In short, we cannot set any limit at present on how many stars and planets exist. It could be 10 to the 20th power, or 10 to the millionth power, or indeed infinite. That is all-important in deciding how likely it is that advanced life exists elsewhere.

However, if there is life elsewhere, there are strong reasons to suspect that it is so far away that we will never make contact with it. So many conditions have to be satisfied for a planet even to be habitable, that it seems probable that we are the only sentient beings in our galaxy.

I don't see why extraterrestrial life raises any problems at all for Catholic theology. God might have created free and rational beings in other parts of the universe. If so, they would have immortal souls. If they fell, Christ could have redeemed them. He could have redeemed them in the same way He redeemed us. If the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity can assume unto Himself a human nature, He can assume unto himself the nature of another kind of rational creature as well.

Q: You've written about the issue of artificial intelligence. Many scientists and technicians seem to think it only a matter of time before a genuinely artificial intelligence, capable of engaging in all the kinds of intellectual activities of human beings is created. What is your view?

Dr. Barr: I think they are wrong. I do not believe that the human intellect and will are reducible to the operations of a machine. There are philosophical arguments going back to Plato and Aristotle for the immateriality of the human intellect. And I think that there are very suggestive indications from both modern physics and mathematics that seem to dovetail with these philosophical arguments. I am thinking in particular of quantum theory in its traditional formulation and Goedel's Theorem in mathematics. There are some great scientists (like Sir Rudolf Peierls and Eugene Wigner) who argued on the basis of quantum theory that the human mind could not be explained by mere physics. And there are several eminent philosophers and mathematicians who believe that Goedel's Theorem shows that the human mind cannot be explained as a mere computer. I explain these arguments in the latter part of my book.

Q: What do you think of Nancey Murphy's non-reductive physicalism? (Assuming you've followed her discussion.)

Dr. Barr: I haven't followed her writings, but I know that there are many people who would argue that "spirit" is an "emergent" property of matter. I look askance at such theories. As far as I am concerned, to say that the spiritual is "physical" is reductive. "Non-reductive physicalism" sounds to me like a contradiction in terms.

While the spiritual can be incarnate in matter, it cannot emerge from matter. The spiritual powers of man (i.e., his intellect and will) cannot be explained as growing out of the natural potentialities of matter, in my view. As I argue in my book, matter cannot understand and the merely physical cannot have freedom. I think Pope John Paul II said the same thing when he claimed that between man and the lower animals there is an "ontological discontinuity". And I think that Pope Pius XII was saying the same thing when he insisted that the human spiritual soul cannot have evolved by material processes. And I think that Genesis 2:7 is saying the same thing in speaking of God "breathing" the soul into Adam.

There are a lot of people nowadays who are made uncomfortable by the idea of a human "spiritual soul". I am not one of them. I am happy to see that we in English-speaking countries now once more say at Mass "and with your spirit" and in the Domine non sum dignus "only say the word and my soul shall be healed". There has been too much embarrassment over the idea of the soul.

Q: Many scientists are outspoken when it comes to social issues. Does science, qua science, provide objective values and an ethical code that is in principle universal? Or do scientists get their ethical principles elsewhere, like the rest of us?

Dr. Barr: Even Richard Dawkins admits that science cannot provide us with the answers to moral questions. I frankly don't see how materialism can ground any objective morality. In fact, I think materialism leads logically to a denial of freedom of the will; and if there is no free will any talk of morality is utterly meaningless.

Q: Obviously, such things are beyond the power of strict prediction, but do you think it likely that we will see another Copernican revolution in thought that affects our worldview, including our theological worldview? If so, in what area of science do you think it likely this will occur?

Dr. Barr: Before answering that, let me say something about the past revolutions in scientific thought. It can be argued that the Copernican Revolution and Newtonian Revolution gave rise to a worldview that was in some tension with traditional Jewish and Christian theology. However, in my view, several of the "revolutions" in twentieth-century science have actually moved us back toward a view of the universe, of human beings, and of our place in the universe that is more consonant with traditional Jewish and Christian ideas than with materialism and atheism. In fact, that is what my book Modern Physics and Ancient Faith, is all about.

If there are future revolutions in thought that come from science, we should not assume that they will move us away from traditional theological positions. I expect them to move us closer.

In physics, the most likely revolution in thought, in my view, would concern our understanding of space and time. I don't think that would have any significant effect on theology, except on naive theologies that are already at odds with what we presently know about space and time (like "process theology"). The greatest blank areas on the map of science are in biology and in the understanding of mind. I don't think those blank areas will ever disappear altogether, since it is unlikely that man is capable of fully understanding himself.
 
 
Originally published at Ignatius Insight. Used with permission.

There's an old saying about giving a man enough rope, and he'll hang himself. The idea is that if someone is wrong or lying, the longer they go on, the more obvious this becomes.  Well, Bantam Books gave Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow all the rope they wanted, and the result is The Grand Design, a new book in which they argue against the necessity (and existence) of God.  Here's the core of their argument:
 

“[Just] as Darwin and Wallace explained how the apparently miraculous design of living forms could appear without intervention by a supreme being, the multiverse concept can explain the fine tuning of physical law without the need for a benevolent creator who made the Universe for our benefit. Because there is a law like 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.”

 
They then explain the basic theory behind the "multiverse," which presupposes that multiple universes exist:
 

“According to M-theory, ours is not the only universe. Instead M-theory predicts that a great many universes were created out of nothing. Their creation does not require the intervention of some supernatural being or god. Rather these multiple universes arise naturally from physical law.”

 
Let's leave aside the question of the "multiverse" theory, which John Haldane addresses in First Things. Hawking and Mlodinow have done a thoroughly sufficient job of defeating their own argument. Let's simply outline their three major claims above:

1. Claim 1: Spontaneous Creation is the reason that there is something rather than nothing, including the Universe; (“Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists”).  This applies to all universes, meaning it applies to the entire multiverse.
2. Claim 2: Spontaneous Creation requires the law of gravity; (“Because there is a law of gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing”; “Rather these multiple universes arise naturally from physical law”).
3. Claim 3: The multitude of universes are responsible for producing fine-tuned physical laws (“the multiverse concept can explain the fine tuning of physical law”)

Reduced to its bare-bones, the argument looks like this:
 

 
The problem, of course, is that it's circular. You can't have a universe without it being created, you can't have spontaneous creation without physical laws, and you can't have physical laws without a universe.

As Hawking and Mlodinow concede, without Creation, there's nothing.  To have anything - a universe, a multiverse, the law of gravity, "finely-tuned" physical laws, anything - you have to first have Creation.  And they've shown pretty effectively that "spontaneous" creation is impossible, since it requires physical laws like the law of gravity. So we've established that there was Creation, and that the universe/multiverse didn't (and couldn't) create itself.

On this view, it seems the only two possibilities are "God" or "circular irrational nonsense."  Hawking and Mlodinow may be brilliant physicists, but at least in this book they present themselves as poor philosophers and logicians. Their futile efforts to outline an atheistic creation story lend more credence to theism than atheism.
 
 
Originally posted at Shameless Popery. Used with author's permission.
(Image credit: ABC News)

Although the argument fell into relatively obscurity after it was promoted in the Middle Ages, it received new life through William Lane Craig’s 1979 book The Kalam Cosmological Argument. Craig has become the argument’s leading proponent, and thanks to his famous debates with atheists that end up on YouTube, the kalam argument has become well-known and is vigorously dissected by critics.

Understanding the Argument

 
One reason I think that the kalam is so hotly debated is that it is deceptively simple. This is the entire argument:

Premise 1 (P1): Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
Premise 2 (P2): The universe began to exist.
Conclusion(C): Therefore, the universe has a cause.

You can find hundreds of websites or videos dedicated to the kalam argument, but hardly any that describe, much less refute, other arguments for God such as those from St. Thomas Aquinas (even fewer can be found that actually understand what Aquinas is arguing). Part of this may be due to critics' impatience toward the need to tease a syllogism out of the Summa Theologica. He may instead opt for the nice and neat kalam argument, which seems an easy target for a few swings.

I can’t comprehensively defend the kalam argument in a blog post, but I’d like to put forward a new piece of evidence for the kalam argument I have not seen argued in previous literature—specifically, a piece of evidence for the first premise (P1).

Craig provides two main reasons to think that “whatever begins to exist has a cause.” The first is intuition, or the conclusion we come to upon thoughtful reflection about the idea that something can’t come into existence from nothing. The second is induction, or the conclusion we draw from universal observation that things which begin to exist always have causes. Critics counter that our intuitions can be mistaken (such as the intuition that the sun revolves around the earth) and therefore we have no reason to think something can't come from nothing. Furthermore, some aspects of quantum physics may undermine the inductive data we have for P1. While I don’t think these objections are sound, I think there is another reason we should accept P1. The reason is that the intuitions behind P1 are also behind the “evidence” atheists admit would change their minds about God’s existence.

New Support for the Kalam Argument

 
When atheists say theists have failed to show God exists, they must have a standard of what would show God exists in order to know that theists haven’t succeeded in that task. Almost all of these standards share the same evidential pattern: the requirement that something come from nothing without a natural cause. Here are some examples:

• An amputated limb is healed with prayer.
• A message announcing that God exists appears in the sky in every known language.
• A towering giant says he is God and through an act of will rearranges the solar system.

Each of these have been proposed in the Strange Notions comment boxes. Of course, if it turned out that the limb appeared as a result of a random quantum fluctuation of particles, or that the planets were moved by massive spaceships using gravity devices, then these would not count as proofs for God, because these events would be natural, not supernatural. Rather, it seems that an event can only be considered an act of God (and not an act of technologically advanced aliens) if it involves something coming from nothing without a natural cause.

We wouldn’t think to worship a scientist who said, “I shall bring 5,000 loaves of bread into existence merely by thinking,” and then “thinks” to build a machine that reassembles the molecules in the surrounding environment in order to form the bread. However, we might worship a rabbi who said, “I shall bring 5,000 loaves of bread into existence by thinking,” and then thinks and so makes bread appear (along with some fish for protein so that everyone has a balanced diet).

The requirement that evidence for God involve something coming from nothing without a natural cause also applies to “knowledge” coming from nothing without a cause. Many atheists say that if the Bible predicted man would walk on the moon in the twentieth century, then they would believe God exists. Well, if it turned out that time-travelers went back and manipulated the manuscripts, that would nullify this alleged evidence for God. However, if the authors of the Bible said they knew it because “God revealed it to them,” then a divine explanation may not be far off.

The Bottom Line

 
Why should atheists believe P1 of the kalam argument, or why should they believe that “whatever begins to exist has a cause for its existence?” They should believe P1 because they already believe that something cannot come from nothing without a supernatural cause. They already believe that limbs appearing out of thin air, accurate prophecies that just appear in the mind of a prophet, and demonstrations of power of nature that only involve the will can be the result only of God (at least if they are open to the idea that evidence can show God exists).

This shows that when our intuition suggests something can’t come from nothing without a natural cause, it's reliable because atheists use this intuition in order to devise evidence that would convince them God exists. If an arm or an accurate prophecy, coming into existence from nothing without a natural cause, is proof of God, then why isn’t an entire universe coming into nothing without a natural cause proof of God?

Granted, proving that the universe began to exist from nothing without a natural cause is a much larger task (though if the universe came to be from nothing, then by definition there could be no natural cause because then it would have come from a natural thing that exists, notnothing).

My only goal in this post is to show that if P2 could be established and since atheists already implicitly accept P1, then they should accept the conclusion of the argument and seek out the transcendent cause of the universe.
 
 
(This post was inspired by one of my previous articles at Strange Notions. To learn more about the arguments for and against the existence of God, stay tuned for my new book Answering Atheism: How to Make the Case for the God with Logic and Charity to be published by Catholic Answers Press this fall.)
 
 
Originally appeared at Catholic Answers. Used with author's permission.
(Image Credit: Redshift)