From: “Chris Ho-Stuart” <>
Newsgroups: aus.religion.christian,aus.religion
> The study of logic is the study of the form of arguments, independent
> of the application.
>
> Above you give a syllogism:
>
> Matter exists.
> Therefore matter came from something.
>
> We can make a substitution and get the same argument in other ways.
>
> Light exists.
> Therefore light came from something.
>
> God exists.
> Therefore God came from something.
>
> If the argument with “matter” is valid; (valid being a technical
> term here) then so also is the argument with “God”.
>
> The the argument with “God” is not valid, then neither is the
> argument with “matter”.
>
> Perhaps there is an additional unstated premise here (and I think
> there is). To make the argument complete you need to show all
> premises. I cannot see how you can do this without effectively
> assuming your conclusion.
>
> A good way to think of “logic” is that it is the disciplined
> exploration of your starting assumptions. Logic does not give
> new knowledge; it only draws out knowledge that was already
> implicit in the starting assumptions.
>
> But let’s get more concrete. In fact, in modern physics matter
> does, often, come from nothing, and vanish into nothing as well.
> Modern physics violates our normal assumptions in some quite
> drastic ways. But this is not done by deductive logic; it is
> a process of induction from empirical evidence. Scientists have
> learned to question their most fundamental assumptions in trying
> to make sense of this world.
>
> So personally, I do not accept as a basic rule of inference
> that whatever exists must come from something.
>
> Another assumption we tend to make is that time is a kind of
> backdrop to events; so that we can always relate events to
> each other by considering which came first; or by wondering
> what happened before an event.
>
> The first assumption — that we can relate events to each other
> simply by “before” and “after” — was discarded early this century
> with the development of special relativity; and the second assumption
> (that all events have a “before”) was discarded shortly after with
> the development of general relativity.
>
> There is an almost unavoidable tendency for theists giving an
> apologetics for God’s existence to look to “creation” as something
> in the past. Sure, science can explain various processes; but there
> has to be something “before” and — voila — that is God.
>
> This is just the the God of the gaps, and the direction
> modern physics is taking suggests that this gap may close. It
> violates our assumptions, but in fact time may have a beginning,
> and it is not the case that we can speak of “before” in all cases.
> The conventional Big Bang cosmology has a singularity which is an
> origin for spacetime; there is no such thing as “before” the “Big
> Bang”. Neither can be be confident of calling the singularity an
> “event” or consider its “cause”. In fact; “singularity” is a term
> from mathematics, and it is roughly what you get when you divide
> by zero. The singularity is a singularity in the relativistic
> equations for spacetime; not a definite event. In fact, what it
> really means is that classical physics breaks down and is not
> able to describe the events and processes in the very early universe.
>
> But the “God of the Gaps” advocates can draw little comfort from
> the quantum physics which seeks to address those cases. In these
> states, time and space and causality and events are radically
> different from what intuition would suggest; it is certainly not a
> case that time keeps going back as far as you like but a new physics
> is needed past a certain point.
>
> The famous physicist Stephen Hawking is active in considering possible
> models for the early universe, and also in trying to explain it in
> terms which may help make sense for non-experts. He considers that
> approaching the singularity is like travelling north. As you approch
> the north pole (singularity) the concept of “going north” becomes
> harder and harder to identify. At the pole itself, there is no
> one singularity; just a smooth rounded space where north no longer
> means what it does in other latitudes. So also with time and the
> origins of the universe.
>
> To consider God again; I think theists are doomed to dissappointment
> if they associated God with a beginning in time. Science has all kinds
> of unanswered questions; but to stake out a position for God at the
> origin in time of the universe is to commit Him to territory that may
> turn out not to be there.
>
> Curiously, the great theological St Augistine anticipated this
> circumstance right back in the fifth century, in reflecting on
> what God may have done before making the universe. Augustine, in his
> “Confessions” affirmed that time is also created by God; and thus
> it make no sense to locate God’s creative acts in time. God does
> not live in the universe as we do (according to Augustine) with
> past and future. God exists in an “eternal now”.
>
> Science does indeed present a dilemma for Christians. It has taken
> over much that was previously the exclusive domain of the church
> to expound.
>
> In reconciling faith with what we learn of the universe, theists
> need to deal with what we see now. It is futile, in a number of
> ways, to locate creation in the past. Perhaps it may satisfy some
> believers; but it will have little impact on the progress of
> cosmology which deals with time and space and events and causes
> in ways that play havoc with the simple models that try to map out
> a little gap for God some 13.7 billion years ago.
~~~
In big
> bang cosmology, there is a point where “matter” forms; prior
> to that the energy of the universe was bound up in other more
> exotic forms.
>
> The notion of a “superhot particple” is incorrect, and has nothing
> to do with the Big Bang model; and certainly is not corresponding
> to the descriptions from the page you cite (which is quite good,
> but non-technical; from the cosmology group at the Uni of Cambridge).
>
> Cheers — Chris