Journal
of the American Scientific Affiliation 32.1 (March 1980) 5-13.
[American Scientific Affiliation,
Copyright © 1980; cited with permission]
Philosophical and Scientific Pointers
to Creatio ex Nihilo
William
Lane Craig
Deerfield,
IL 60015
To answer Leibniz's question of why
something exists rather than
nothing, we
must posit three alternatives: the
universe either had a
beginning or
had no beginning; if it had a beginning, this was either
caused or
uncaused; if caused, the cause was either personal or not
personal. Four lines of evidence, two philosophical and
two
scientific,
point to a beginning of the universe. If
the universe had a
beginning,
it is inconceivable that it could have sprung uncaused out
of absolute
nothingness. Finally, the cause of the
universe must be
personal in
order to have a temporal effect produced by an eternal
cause. This confirms the biblical doctrine of creatio
ex nihilo.
". . . The first question which
should rightly be asked,"
Wrote
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, is "Why is there some-
thing rather
than nothing?"1 I want
you to think about
that for a
moment. Why does anything exist at all,
rather
than
nothing? Why does the universe, or
matter, or any-
thing at all
exist, instead of just nothing, instead of just
empty space?
Many great minds have been puzzled by this
problem.
For example,
in his biography of the renowned philoso-
pher Ludwig
Wittgenstein, Norman Malcolm reports,
. . . he said that he sometimes had a
certain experience which could
best be
described by saying that 'when I have it, I wonder at the
existence of
the world. I am then inclined to use such phrases as
"How
extraordinary that anything "should exist!" or "How ex-
traordinary
that the world should exist!"'2
5a
CREATIO EX NIHILO 5b
Similarly,
the English philosopher J. J. C. Smart has said,
". . .
my mind often seems to reel under the immense
significance
this question has for me. That anything
exists
at all does
seem to me a matter for the deepest awe."3
Why does something exist instead of
nothing? Unless
We are
prepared to believe that the universe simply
popped into
existence uncaused out of nothing, then the
answer must
be: something exists because there is an
eternal,
uncaused being for which no further explanation
is
possible. But who or what is this
eternal, uncaused
being? Leibniz identified it with God. But many modern
philosophers
have identified it with the universe itself.
Now this is
exactly the position of the atheist: the
universe
itself is
uncaused and eternal; as Russell remarks, ". . . the
universe is
just there, and that's all."4
But this means, of
course, that
all we are left with is futility and despair,
for man's
life would then be without ultimate significance,
value, or
purpose. Indeed, Russell himself
acknowledges
that it is
only upon the "firm foundation of unyielding
despair"
that life can be faced.5 But
are there reasons to
think that
the universe is not eternal and uncaused, that
there is
something more? I think that there
are. For we
can consider
the universe by means of a series of logical
alternatives:
Universe
beginning no
beginning
caused not
caused
personal not
personal
WILLIAM LANE CRAIG 6a
By
proceeding through these alternatives, I think we can
demonstrate
that it is reasonable to believe that the uni-
verse is not
eternal, but that it had a beginning and was
caused by a
personal being, and that therefore a personal
Creator of
the universe exists.
Did the
Universe Begin?
The first and most crucial step to be
considered in this
argument is
the first: that the universe began to
exist.
There are
four reasons why I think it is more reasonable
to believe
that the universe had a beginning.
First, I shall
expound two
philosophical arguments and, second, two
scientific
confirmations.
The first
philosophical argument:
1. An actual
infinite cannot exist.
2. A
beginningless series of events in time is an actual infinite.
3.
Therefore, a beginningless series of events in time cannot exist.
A collection of things is said to be
actually infinite only
if a part of
it is equal to the whole of it. For
example, which
is
greater? 1, 2, 3, . . . or 0, 1, 2, 3, .
. . According to prevailing
mathematical
thought, the answer is that they are equiva-
lent because
they are both actually infinite. This
seems
strange
because there is an extra number in one series
that cannot
be found in the other. But this only
goes to
show that in
an actually infinite collection, a part of the
collection
is equal to the whole of the collection.
For the
same reason,
mathematicians state that the series of even
numbers is
the same size as the series of all natural num-
bers, even
though the series of all natural numbers con-
tains all
the even numbers plus an infinite number of odd
numbers as
well. So a collection is actually
infinite if a part
of it is
equal to the whole of it.
Now the concept of an actual
infinite needs to be
sharply distinguished
from the concept of a potential
infinite. A potential infinite is a collection that is
increasing
WILLIAM LANE CRAIG 6b
without
limit but is at all times finite. The
concept of
potential
infinity usually comes into play when we add
to or
subtract from something without stopping.
Thus,
a finite
distance may be said to contain a potentially in-
finite
number of smaller finite distances. This
does not
mean that
there actually are an infinite number of parts
in a finite
distance, but rather it means that one can keep
on dividing
endlessly. But one will never reach an
"infi-
nitieth"
division. Infinity merely serves as the
limit to
which the
process approaches. Thus, a potential
infinite
is not truly
infinite--it is simply indefinite. It is
at all points
finite but
always increasing.
To sharpen the distinction between an
actual and a
potential
infinite, we can draw some comparisons be-
tween
them. The concept of actual infinity is
used in set
theory to
designate a set which has an actually infinite
number of
members in it. But the concept of
potential
infinity
finds no place in set theory. This is
because the
members of a
set must be definite, whereas a potential
infinite is
indefinite--it acquires new members as it grows.
Thus, set
theory has only either finite or actually infinite
sets. The proper place for the concept of the
potential
infinite is
found in mathematical analysis, as in infini-
tesimal
calculus. There a process may be said to
increase
or diminish
to infinity, in the sense that the process can be
continued
endlessly with infinity as its terminus.6 The
concept of
actual infinity does not pertain in these opera-
tions
because an infinite number of operations is never
actually
made. According to the great German mathe-
matician
David Hilbert, the chief difference between
an actual
and a potential infinite is that a potential infinite
is always
something growing toward a limit of infinity,
while an
actual infinite is a completed totality with an
actually
infinite number of things.7 A
good example con-
trasting
these two types of infinity is the series of past,
present, and
future events. For if the universe is
eternal,
as the
atheist claims, then there have occurred in the past
WILLIAM LANE CRAIG 6c
an actually infinite
number of events. But from any point
in the
series of events, the number of future events is
potentially
infinite. Thus, if we pick 1845, the
birthyear
of Georg
Cantor, who discovered infinite sets, as our point
of
departure, we can see that past events constitute an
actual
infinity while future events constitute a potential
infinity. This is because the past is realized and
complete,
whereas the
future is never fully actualized, but is always
finite and
always increasing. In the following discussion,
it is
exceedingly important to keep the concepts of actual
infinity and
potential infinity distinct and not to confuse
them.
A second clarification that I must make
concerns the
word
"exist." When I say that an
actual infinite cannot
exist, I
mean "exist in the real world" or "exist outside
the
mind." I am not in any way
questioning the legitimacy
of using the
concept of actual infinity in the realm of
mathematics,
for this is a realm of thought only.
What I
am arguing
is that an actual infinite cannot exist in the
real world
of stars and planets and rocks and men.
What
I will argue
in no way threatens the use of the actual in-
finite as a
concept in mathematics. But I do think
it is
absurd that
an actual infinite could exist in the real world.
I think that probably the best way to show
this is to use
examples to
illustrate the absurdities that would result
if an actual
infinite could exist in reality. For
suppose we
have a
library that has an actually infinite number of books,
on its shelves.
Imagine furthermore that there are only
two colors,
black and red, and these are placed on the
shelves
alternately: black, red, black, red, and so forth.
Now if
somebody told us that the number of black books
and the
number of red books is the same, we would prob-
ably not be
too surprised. But would we believe
someone
who told us
that the number of black books is the same
as the
number of black books plus red books?
For in this
latter
collection there are all the black books plus an in-
finite number
of red books as well. Or imagine there
are
WILLIAM LANE CRAIG 6d
three colors
of books or four or five or a hundred.
Would
you believe
someone if he told you that there are as many
books in a
single color as there are in the whole collection?
Or imagine
that there are an infinite number of colors
of
books. I'll bet you would think that
there would be
one book per
color in the infinite collection. You
would
be
wrong. If the collection is actually
infinite then ac-
cording to
mathematicians, there could be for each of
the infinite
colors an infinite number of books. So
you
would have
an infinity of infinities. And yet it would still
be true that
if you took all the books of all the colors and
CREATIO EX NIHILO 7a
added them
together, you wouldn't have any more books
than if you
had taken just the books of a single color.
Suppose each book had a number printed on
its spine.
Because the
collection is actually infinite, that means
that every
possible number is printed on some book.
Now this
means that we could not add another book to
the
library. For what number would we give
to it? All
the numbers
have been used up! Thus, the new book
could not
have a number. But this is absurd, since
objects
in reality
can be numbered. So if an infinite
library could
exist, it
would be impossible to add another book to it.
But this
conclusion is obviously false, for all we have to
do is tear
out a page from each of the first hundred books,
add a title
page, stick them together, and put this new
book on the
shelf. It would be easy to add to the
library.
So the only
answer must be that an actually infinite library
could not
exist.
But suppose we could add to the
library. Suppose I
put a book
on the shelf. According to the
mathematicians,
the number
of books in the whole collection is the same
as
before. But how can this be? If I put the book on the
shelf, there
is one more book in the collection. If I
take
it off the
shelf, there is one less book. I can see
myself
add and
remove the book. Am I really to believe
that
when I add
the book there are no more books in the col-
lection and
when I remove it there are no less books?
Suppose I
add an infinity of books to the collection.
Am I
seriously to
believe there are no more books in the col-
lection than
before? Suppose I add an infinity of
infinities
of books to
the collection. Is there not now one
single book
more in the
collection than before? I find this hard
to
believe.
But now let's reverse the process. Suppose we decide
to loan out
some of the books. Suppose we loan out
book
number
1. Isn't there now one less book in the
collection?
Suppose we
loan out all the odd-numbered books. We
have loaned
out an infinite number of books, and yet
CREATIO EX NIHILO 7b
mathematicians
would say there are no less books in the
collection. Now when we loaned out all these books, that
left an
awful lot of gaps on the shelves.
Suppose we push
all the
books together again and close the gaps.
All these
gaps added
together would add up to an infinite distance.
But,
according to mathematicians, after you pushed the
books
together, the shelves will still be full, the same as
before you
loaned any out! Now suppose once more we
loaned out
every other book. There would still be
no less
books in the
collection than before. And if we pushed all
the books
together again, the shelves would still be full.
In fact, we
could do this an infinite number of times,
and there
would never be one less book in the collection
and the
shelves would always remain full. But
suppose we
loaned out
book numbers 4, 5, 6, . . . out to infinity.
At
a single
stroke, the collection would be virtually wiped
out, the
shelves emptied, and the infinite library reduced
to
finitude. And yet, we have removed
exactly the same
number of
books this time as when we first loaned out all
the odd
numbered books! Can anybody believe such
a library
could exist in reality?
These examples serve to illustrate that an
actual infi-
nate cannot
exist in the real
world. Again I want to under-
line the
fact that what I have argued in no way attempts
to undermine
the theoretical system bequeathed by Can-
tor to modern
mathematics. Indeed, some of the most
eager
enthusiasts of trans-finite mathematics, such as
David
Hilbert, are only too ready to agree that the concept
of actual
infinite is an idea only and has no relation to the
real
world. So we can conclude the first
step: an actual
infinite
cannot exist.
The second step is: a beginningless
series of events in
time is an
actual infinite. By "event" I mean something
that
happens. Thus, this step is concerned
with change,
and it holds
that if the series of past events or changes just
goes back
and back and never had a beginning, then, con-
sidered all
together, these events constitute an actually
CREATIO EX NIHILO 7c
infinite
collection. Let me provide an
example. Suppose
we ask
someone where a certain star came from.
He re-
plies that
it came from an explosion in a star that existed
before
it. Suppose we ask again, where did that
star come
from? Well, it came from another star before
it. And
where did
that star come from?--from another star before
it; and so
on and so on. This series of stars would
be an ex-
ample of a
beginningless series of events in time.
Now if
the universe
has existed forever, then the series of all past
events taken
together constitutes an actual infinite.
This is
because for
every event in the past, there was an event
before
it. Thus, the series of past events
would be infinite.
Nor could it
be potentially infinite only, for we have seen
that the
past is completed and actual; only the future can
be described
as a potential infinite. Therefore, it
seems
pretty
obvious that a beginningless series of events in time
is an actual
infinite.
But that leads us to our conclusion: therefore,
a begin-
ningless
series of events in time cannot exist. We have seen
that an
actual infinite cannot exist in reality.
Since a be-
ginningless
series of events in time is an actual infinite,
such a
series cannot exist. That means the
series of all past
events must
be finite and have a beginning. But
because
the universe
is the series of all events, this means that the
universe
must have had a beginning.
Let me give a few examples to make the
point clear. We
have seen
that if an actual infinite could exist in reality, it
would be
impossible to add to it. But the series
of events in
time is
being added to every day. Or at least so
it appears.
If the
series were actually infinite, then the number of
events that
have occurred up to the present moment is no
greater than
the number of events up to, say, 1789.
In fact,
you can pick
any point in the past. The number of
events
that have
occurred up to the present moment would be no
greater than
the number of events up to that point, no
matter how
long ago it might be.
Or take another example. Suppose Earth and Jupiter
CREATIO EX NIHILO 7d
have been
orbiting the sun from eternity. Suppose
that it
takes the
Earth one year to complete one orbit, and that it
takes
Jupiter three years to complete one orbit.
Thus for
every one
orbit Jupiter completes, Earth completes three.
Now here is
the question: if they have been orbiting
from
eternity,
which has completed more orbits? The
answer is:
they are
equal. But this seems absurd, since the
longer they
went, the
farther and farther Jupiter got behind, since every
time Jupiter
went around the sun once, Earth went around
three
times. How then could they possibly be
equal?
WILLIAM LANE CRAIG 8a
Or, finally, suppose we meet a man who
claims to have
been
counting from eternity, and now he is finishing: -5, -4,
-3, -2, -1,
0. Now this is impossible. For, we may ask, why
didn't he
finish counting yesterday or the day before or the
year
before? By then an infinity of time had
already
elapsed, so
that he should have finished. The fact
is we
could never
find anyone completing such a task because at
any previous
point he would have already finished.
But
what this
means is that there could never be a point in the
past at
which he finished counting. In fact we
could never
find him
counting at all. For he would have
already fin-
ished. But if no matter how far back in time we go,
we
never find
him counting, then it cannot be true that he has
been
counting from eternity. This shows once
more that
the series
of past events cannot be beginningless.
For if
you could
not count numbers from eternity, neither could
you have
events from eternity.
These examples underline the absurdity of a
beginning-
less series
of events in time. Because such a series
is an
actual
infinite, and an actual infinite cannot exist, a begin-
ningless
series of events in time cannot exist.
This means
that the
universe began to exist, which is the point that we
set out to
prove.
The second
philosophical argument:
1. The
series of events in time is a collection formed by adding one
member after another.
2. A
collection formed by adding one member after another can-
not be actually infinite.
3.
Therefore, the series of events in time cannot be actually in-
finite.
This
argument does not argue that an actual infinite cannot
exist. But it does argue that an actual infinite
cannot come
to exist by
the members of a collection being added one
after the
other.
The series of events in time is a
collection formed by
WILLIAM LANE CRAIG 8b
adding one
member after another. This point is pretty
obvious. When we consider the collection of all past
events, it
is obvious that those events did not exist simul-
taneously--all
at once--but they existed one after another
in
time: we have one event, then another
after that, then
another,
then another, and so on. So when we talk
about
the
collection of "all past events," we are talking about a
collection
that has been formed by adding one member
after
another.
The second step is the crucial one: a
collection formed
by adding
one member after another cannot be actually
infinite.
Why?--because no matter how many members a
person added
to the collection, he could always add one
more. Therefore, he would never arrive at
infinity. Some-
times this
is called the impossibility of counting to infinity.
For no
matter how many numbers you had counted, you
could always
count one more. You would never arrive
at
infinity. Or sometimes this is called the impossibility
of
traversing
the infinite. For you could never cross
an infin-
ite
distance. Imagine a man running up a
flight of stairs.
Suppose
every time his foot strikes the top step, another
step appears
above it. It is clear that the man could
run for-
ever, but he
would never cross all the steps because you
could always
add one more step.
Now notice that this impossibility has
nothing to do with
the amount
of time available. It is of the very
nature of the
infinite
that it cannot be formed by adding one member
after
another, regardless of the amount of time available.
Thus, the
only way an infinite collection could come to
exist in the
real world would be by having all the members
created
simultaneously. For example, if our library
of in-
finite books
were to exist in the real world, it would have
to be
created instantaneously by God. God
would say:
"Let
there be. . . !" and the library would come into exis-
tence all at
once. But it would be impossible to form
the
library by
adding one book at a time, for you would never
arrive at
infinity.
WILLIAM LANE CRAIG 8c
Therefore, our conclusion must be: the series of events
in time
cannot be actually infinite. Suppose there were, for
example, an
infinite number of days prior to today.
Then
today would
never arrive. For it is impossible to
cross an
infinite
number of days to reach today. But
obviously,
today has
arrived. Therefore, we know that prior to today
there cannot
have been an infinite number of days.
That
means that
the number of days is finite and therefore the
universe had
a beginning. Contemporary philosophers
have shown
themselves to be impotent to refute this
reasoning.9 Thus, one of them asks,
If an infinite series of events has
preceded the present moment,
how did we get to the present moment? How could we get to the
present moment--where we obviously are
now--if the present
moment was preceded by an infinite series
of events?10
Concluding that this difficulty has not
been overcome and
that the
issue is still in dispute, Hospers passes on to an-
other
subject, leaving the argument unrefuted.
Similarly
another
philosopher comments rather weakly, "It is dif-
ficult to
show exactly what is wrong with this argument,"
and with that
remark moves on without further ado.11
Therefore, since the series of events in
time is a collec-
tion formed
by adding one member after another, and
since such a
collection cannot be actually infinite, the
series of
events in time cannot be actually infinite.
And
once more,
since the universe is nothing else than the series
of events,
the universe must have had a beginning, which
is precisely
the point we wanted to prove.
The first scientific confirmation: the evidence from the
expansion of
the universe. Prior to the 1920's,
scientists
assumed that
the universe as a whole was a stationary ob-
ject--it was
not going anywhere. But in 1929 an
astrono-
mer named
Edwin Hubble contended that this was not
true. Hubble observed that the light from distant
galaxies
appeared to
be redder than it should be. He
explained this
WILLIAM LANE CRAIG 8d
by proposing
that the universe is expanding.
Therefore,
the light
from the stars is affected since they are moving
away from
us. But this is the interesting
part: Hubble not
only showed
that the universe is expanding, but that it is
expanding
the same in all directions. To get a picture of
this,
imagine a balloon with dots painted on it.
As you
blow up the
balloon, the dots get further and further apart.
Now those
dots are just like the galaxies in space.
Every-
thing in the
universe is expanding outward. Thus, the
rela-
tions in the
universe do not change, only the distances.
Now the staggering implication of this is
that this means
that at some
point in the past, the entire known universe
CREATIO EX NIHILO 9a
was
contracted down to a single point, from which it has
been
expanding ever since. The farther back
one goes in
the past,
the smaller the universe becomes, so that one
finally reaches
a point of infinite density from which the
universe
began to expand. That initial event has
come
to be known
as the "big bang."
How long ago did the big bang occur? Only during
the 1970's
have accurate estimates become available.
In
a very important
series of six articles published in 1974
and 1975,
Allan Sandage and G. A. Tammann estimate
that the big
bang occurred about 15 billion years ago.12
Therefore,
according to the big bang model, the universe
began to
exist with a great explosion from a state of in-
finite
density about 15 billion years ago. Four
of the
world's most
prominent astronomers describe that event
in these
words.
The universe began from a state of
infinite density. Space and
time were created in that event and so was
all the matter in the
universe.
It is not meaningful to ask what happened before the big
bang; it is somewhat like asking what is
north of the north pole.
Similarly, it is not sensible to ask where
the big bang took place.
The point-universe was not an object
isolated in space; it was the
entire universe, and so the only answer
can be that the big bang
happened everywhere.13
This event that marked the beginning of
the universe
becomes all
the more amazing when one reflects on the
fact that a
state of "infinite density" is synonymous to
"nothing." There can be no object that possesses
infinite
density, for
if it had any mass at all, it would not be in-
finitely dense.
Therefore, as astronomer Fred Hoyle
points out,
the big bang theory requires the creation of
matter from
nothing. This is because as one goes
back
in time, he
reaches a point at which, in Hoyle's words,
the universe
was "shrunk down to nothing at all."14 Thus,
what the big
bang model requires is that the universe had
a beginning
and was created out of nothing.
CREATIO EX NIHILO 9b
Now some people are bothered with the idea
that the
universe
began from nothing. This is too close to
the Chris-
ian doctrine
of creation to allow atheistic minds to be
comfortable. But if one rejects the big bang model, he
has
apparently only two alternatives: the
steady state
model or the
oscillating model. Let's examine each of
these.
The steady state model holds that the
universe never
had a
beginning but has always existed in the same state.
Ever since
this model was first proposed in 1948, it has
never been
very convincing. According to S. L.
Jaki, this
theory never
secured "a single piece of experimental veri-
fication."15 It always seemed to be trying to explain away
the facts
rather than explain them. According to
Jaki, the
proponents
of this model were actually motivated by
"openly
anti-theological, or rather anti-Christian motiva-
tions.16 A second strike against this theory is the
fact that
a count of
galaxies emitting radio waves indicates that
there were
once more radio sources in the past than there
are
today. Therefore, the universe is not in
a steady state
after
all. But the real nails in the coffin
for the steady state
theory came
in 1965, when A. A. Penzlas and R. W. Wilson.
discovered
that the entire universe is bathed with a back-
ground of
microwave radiation. This radiation
back-
ground
indicates that the universe was once in a very hot
and very
dense state. In the steady state model
no such
state could
have existed, since the universe was supposed
to be the
same from eternity. Therefore, the
steady state
model has
been abandoned by virtually everyone.
Ac-
cording to
Ivan King, "The steady-state theory has now
been laid to
rest, as a result of clear-cut observations of
how things
have changed with time."17
But what of the oscillating model of the
universe? John
Gribbin
describes this model,
The biggest problem with the big bang
theory of the origin of
the universe is philosophical--perhaps
even theological--what
CREATIO EX NIHILO 9c
was there before the bang? This problem alone was sufficient to
give a great initial impetus to the steady
state theory, but with that
theory now sadly in conflict with the
observations the best way
around this initial difficulty is provided
by a model in which the
universe expands, collapses back again,
and repeats the cycle
indefinitely.18
According to
this model, the universe is sort of like a
spring,
expanding and contracting from eternity.
It is only
in the last
three or four years that this model has been dis-
credited. The key question here is whether the universe
is
"open" or "closed."
If it is "closed," then the expansion
will reach a
certain point, and then the force of gravity
will pull
everything together again. But if the
universe
is
"open," then the expansion will never stop, but will
just go on
and on forever. Now clearly, if the
universe is
open, then
the oscillating model is false. For if
the universe
is open, it
will never contract again.
Scientific evidence seems to indicate that
the universe
is
open. The crucial factor here is the
density of the uni-
verse. Scientists have estimated that if there are
more than
about three
hydrogen atoms per cubic meter on the aver-
age
throughout the universe, then the universe would be
closed. That may not sound like very much, but
remember
that most of
the universe is just empty space. I
shall not
go into all
the technicalities of how scientists measure
the density
of the universe,19 but let me simply report
their
conclusions. According to the evidence,
the universe
would have
to be at least ten times denser than it is for
the universe
to be closed.20 Therefore,
the universe is
open by a
wide margin. Let me share with you the
con-
clusion of
Alan Sandage: (1) the universe is open, (2) the
expansion
will not reverse, and (3) the universe has hap-
pened only
once and the expansion will never stop.21
The evidence
therefore appears to rule out the oscil-
lating
model, since it requires a closed universe.
But just
to drive the
point home, let me add that the oscillating
CREATIO EX NIHILO 9d
model of the
universe is only a theoretical possibility, not
a real
possibility. As Dr. Tinsley of Yale
observes, in os-
cillating
models
. . . even though the mathematics
says that the universe
oscillates, there is no known physics to
reverse the collapse and
bounce back to a new expansion. The physics seems to say that
those models start from the big bang,
expand, collapse, then end.22
Hence, it
would be impossible for the universe to be os-
cillating
from eternity. Therefore, this model is
doubly
impossible.
The second scientific confirmation: the evidence from
thermodynamics. According to the second law of thermo-
dynamics,
processes taking place in a closed system al-
ways tend
toward a state of equilibrium. In other
words,
WILLIAM LANE CRAIG 10a
unless
energy is constantly being fed into a system, the
processes in
the system will tend to run down and quit.
For example,
if I had a bottle that was a sealed vacuum
inside, and
I introduced into it some molecules of gas, the
gas would
spread itself out evenly inside the bottle.
It
is virtually
impossible for the molecules to retreat, for
example,
into one corner of the bottle and remain.
This
is why when
you walk into a room, the air in the room
never
separates suddenly into oxygen at one end and
nitrogen at
the other. It is also why when you step
into
your bath
you may be confident that it will be pleasantly
warm instead
of frozen solid at one end and boiling at the
other. It is clear that life would not be possible
in a world
in which the
second law of thermodynamics did not
operate.
Now our interest in the law is what
happens when it is
applied to
the universe as a whole. The universe is
a gi-
gantic
closed system, since it is everything there is and
there is
nothing outside it.23 What
this seems to imply
then is
that, given enough time, the universe and all its
processes
will run down and the entire universe will slowly
grind to a
halt. This is known as the heat death of
the uni-
verse. Once the universe reaches this state, no
further
change is
possible. The universe is dead.
There are two possible types of heat death
for the uni-
verse. If the universe is "closed," then
it will die a hot
death. Tinsley describes such a state:
If the average density of matter in the
universe is great enough,
the mutual gravitational attraction
between bodies will eventually
slow the expansion to a halt. The universe will then contract and
collapse into a hot fireball. There is no
known physical mechanism
that could reverse a catastrophic big
crunch. Apparently, if the
universe becomes dense enough, it is in
for a hot death.24
If the
universe is closed, it is in for a fiery death from
which it
will never re-emerge. But suppose, as is
more
WILLIAM LANE CRAIG 10b
likely, the
universe is "open." Tinsley
describes the final
state of
this universe:
If the universe has a low density, its
death will be cold. It will ex-
pand forever, at a slower and "lower
rate. Galaxies will turn all
of their gas into stars, and the stars
will burn out. Our own sun will
become a cold, dead remnant, floating
among the corpses of
other stars in an increasingly isolated
milky way.25
Eventually,
equilibrium will prevail throughout, and the
entire
universe will reach its final state from which no
change will
occur.
Now the question that needs to be asked is
this: If given
enough time,
the universe will reach heat death, then
why is it
not in a state of heat death now if it has existed
forever,
from eternity? If the universe did not
begin to
exist, then
it should now be in a state of equilibrium.
Its
energy
should be all used up. For example, I
have a very
loud wind-up
alarm clock. If I hear that the clock is
ticking
--which is
no problem, believe me--then I know that at
some point
in the recent past, it was wound up and has
been running
down since then. It is the same with the
universe. Since it has not yet run down, this means, in
the words of
one baffled scientist, "In some way the uni-
verse must
have been wound up."26
Some scientists have tried to escape this
conclusion
by arguing
that the universe oscillates back and forth
from
eternity and so never reaches a final state of equilib-
rium. I have already observed that such a model of
the
universe is
a physical impossibility. But suppose it
were
possible. The fact is that the thermodynamic properties
of this
model imply the very beginning of the universe
that its
proponents seek to avoid. For as several
scientists
have pointed
out, each time the model universe expands
it would
expand a little further than before.
Therefore
if you
traced the expansions back in time they would
get smaller
and smaller and smaller. Therefore, in
the
WILLIAM LANE CRAIG 10c
words of one
scientific team, "The multicycle model
has an
infinite future, but only a finite past."27 As yet
another
writer points out, this implies that the oscillating
model of the
universe still requires an origin of the uni-
verse prior
to the smallest cycle.28
Traditionally, two objections have been
urged against
the thermodynamic
argument.29 First, the
argument does
not work if
the universe is infinite. I have two
replies to
this. (a) The universe is not, in fact,
infinite. An actually
spatially
infinite universe would involve all the absurdities
entailed in
the existence of an actual infinite. But
if the
universe is
torus-shaped, then it may be both open and
finite. The objection is therefore irrelevant (b)
Even if the
universe
were infinite, it would still come to equilibrium.
As one
scientist explained in a letter to me, if every finite
region of
the universe came to equilibrium, then the whole
universe
would come to equilibrium.30
This would be
true even if
it had an infinite number of finite regions
This is like
saying that if every part of a fence is green,
then the
whole fence is green, even if there are an infinite
number of
pickets in the fence. Since every single
finite
region of
the universe would suffer heat death, so would
the whole
universe. Therefore, the objection is
invalid.
The second objection is that maybe the
present state
of the
universe is just a fluctuation in an overall state of
equilibrium. In other words, the present energy is sort of
like just
the ripple on the surface of a still pond.
But this
objection
loses all sense of proportion.
Fluctuations are
so tiny,
they are important only in systems where you
have a few
atoms. In a universe at equilibrium,
fluc-
tuations
would be imperceptible.31 A
chart showing
fluctuations
in such a universe would be simply a straight
line.
Therefore, since the present universe is in disequilib-
rium, what
are we to conclude? According to the
English
scientist P.
C. W. Davies, the universe must have been
created a
finite time ago and is in the process of winding
down.32 He says the present disequilibrium cannot be
WILLIAM LANE CRAIG 10d
a
fluctuation from a prior state of equilibrium, because
prior to
this creation event the universe simply did not
exist. Thus, Davies concludes, even though we may
not
like it, we
must conclude that the universe's energy "was
simply 'put
in' at the creation as an initial condition."33
Thus, we have two philosophical arguments
and two
scientific
confirmations of the point we set out to defend:
the universe
began to exist. In light of these four
reasons,
I think we
are amply justified in affirming the first alter-
native of
our first disjunction: the universe
had a begin-
ning.
Was the
Beginning Caused?
Having concluded that the evidence points
to a be-
ginning of
the universe, let's now turn to our second set
CREATIO EX NIHILO 11a
of
alternatives: the beginning of the
universe was either
caused or
not caused. I am not going to give a
lengthy
defense of
the point that the beginning of the universe
must have
been caused. I do not think I need to. For
probably no
one in his right mind sincerely believes that
the universe
could pop into existence uncaused out of
nothing. Even the famous sceptic David Hume admitted
that it is
preposterous to think anything could come into
existence
without a cause.34 This is
doubly true with
regard to
the entire universe. As the English
philosopher
C. D. Broad
confessed, "I cannot really believe in any-
thing
beginning to exist without being caused by some-
thing else
which existed before and up to the moment
when the
thing in question began to exist."35 As still an-
other
philosopher has said, "It seems quite inconceivable
that our
universe could have sprung from an absolute
void. If there is anything we find inconceivable it
is that
something
could arise from nothing,"36
The old principle
that
"out of nothing nothing comes" is so manifestly true
that a
sincere denial of this point is practically impossible.
This puts the atheist on the spot. For as Anthony Kenny
explains,
"A proponent of (the big bang) theory, at least
if he is an
atheist, must believe that the matter of the
universe
came from nothing and by nothing."37 That is
a pretty
hard pill to swallow. In terms of sheer
"believ-
ability,"
I find it intellectually easier to believe in a God
who is the
cause of the universe than in the universe's
popping into
existence uncaused out of nothing or in the
universe's
having existed for infinite time without a be-
ginning. For me these last two positions are
intellectually
inconceivable,
and it would take more faith for me to
believe in
them than to believe that God exists.
But at
any rate, we
are not dependent upon just "believability,"
for we have
already seen that both philosophical and
empirical
reasoning points to a beginning for the universe,
So the
alternatives are only two: either the
universe was
caused to
exist or it sprang into existence wholly uncaused
CREATIO EX NIHILO 11b
out of
nothing about fifteen billion years ago.
The first
alternative
is eminently more plausible.
It is interesting to examine the attitude
of scientists
toward the
philosophical and theological implications
of their own
big bang model. It is evident that there
are
such
implications, for as one scientist remarks, "The
problem of
the origin (of the universe) involves a certain
metaphysical
aspect which may be either appealing or
revolting."38 Unfortunately, the man of science is, as
Albert
Einstein once observed, "a poor philosopher,"39
For these
implications seem either to escape or not to
interest
most scientists. Since no empirical
information
is available
about what preceded the big bang, scientists
simply
ignore the issue. Thus, Hoyle, after
explaining
that the big
bang model cannot inform us as to where
the matter
came from or why the big bang occurred,
comments,
"It is not usual in present day cosmological
discussions
to seek an answer to this question; the question
and its
answer are taken to be outside the range of scien-
tific
discussion."40 But while
this attitude may satisfy
the
scientist, it can never satisfy the philosopher. For as
one
scientist admits, the big bang model only describes
the initial
conditions of the universe, but it cannot explain
them.41 As yet another astronomer concludes, "So
the
question
'How was the matter created in the first place?'
is left
unanswered."42 Thus,
science begs off answering
the really
ultimate question or where the universe came
from. Scientific evidence points to a beginning of
the
universe; as
rigorous scientists we may stop there and
bar further
inquiry, but as thinking men must we not
inquire
further until we come to the cause of the beginning
of the
universe?
Either the universe was caused to exist
or it just came
into
existence out of nothing by nothing.
Scientists refuse
to discuss
the question; but philosophers admit that it
is
impossible to believe in something's coming to exist
uncaused out
of nothing. Therefore, I think that an
unprej-
CREATIO EX NIHILO 11c
udiced
inquirer will have to agree that the beginning of
the universe
was caused, which is the second point we
set out to
prove: the universe was caused to exist.
Now this is a truly remarkable
conclusion. For this
means that
the universe was caused to exist by something
beyond it
and greater than it. Think of what that
means!
This ought
to fill us with awe, for it is no secret that the
Bible begins
with these words, "In the beginning God
created the
heavens and the earth."
Personal or
Impersonal Creator?
I think there is good reason to believe
that the cause
of the universe
is a personal creator. This is our third
set
of
alternatives: personal or not
personal.
The first event in the series of past
events was, as we
have seen,
the beginning of the universe.
Furthermore,
we have
argued that the event was caused. Now
the
question
is: If the cause of the universe is
eternal, then
why isn't
the universe also eternal, since it is the effect
of the
cause? Let me illustrate what I
mean. Suppose
we say the
cause of water's freezing is the temperature's
falling
below 0 degrees. Whenever the
temperature is
below 0
degrees, the water is frozen. Therefore,
if the
temperature
is always below 0 degrees, the water is
always
frozen. Once the cause is given, the
effect must
follow. So if the cause were there from eternity, the
effect
would also
be there from eternity. If the
temperature
were below 0
degrees from eternity, then any water
around would
be frozen from eternity. But this seems
to imply
that if the cause of the universe existed from
eternity
then the universe would have to exist from eter-
nity. And this we have seen to be false.
One might say that the cause came to exist
just before
the first
event. But this will not work, for then
the cause's
coming into
existence would be the first event, and we
must ask all
over again for its cause. But this
cannot go
on forever,
for we have seen that a beginningless series
CREATIO EX NIHILO 11d
of events
cannot exist. So there must be an
absolutely
first event,
before which there was no change, no previous
event. We have seen that this first event was
caused. But
the question
then is: how can a first event come to
exist
if the cause
of that event is always there? Why isn't
the
effect as
eternal as the cause? It seems to me
that there
is only one
way out of this dilemma. That is to say
that
the cause of
the universe is personal and chooses to create
the universe
in time. In this way God could exist
change-
lessly from
eternity, but choose to create the world in
time. By "choose" I do not mean God
changes his mind.
I mean God
intends from eternity to create a world in
time. Thus, the cause is eternal, but the effect is
not. God
chooses from
eternity to create a world with a beginning;
WILLIAM LANE CRAIG 12a
therefore, a
world with a beginning comes to exist.
Hence,
it seems to
me that the only way a universe can come
to exist is
if a Personal Creator of the universe exists.
And
I think we
are justified in calling a personal creator of
the universe
by the name "God."
I would just like to make a few concluding
remarks on
God's
relationship to time. Many people say
God is out-
side
time. But this is not what the Bible
says. According
to James
Barr in his book Biblical Words for Time, the
Bible does
not make it clear whether God is eternal in
the sense
that he is outside time or whether he is eternal
in the sense
of being everlasting throughout all time.43
Thus, the
issue must be decided philosophically.
It seems
to me that
prior to creation God is outside time, or rather
there is no
time at all. For time cannot exist
unless there
is
change. And prior to creation God would
have to be
changeless. Otherwise, you would get an infinite series
of past
events in God's life, and we have seen such an
infinite
series is impossible. So God would be changeless
and, hence,
timeless prior to creation. I think that
the
doctrine of
the Trinity can help us to understand this.
Before
creation, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit existed
in a perfect
and changeless love relationship. God
was
not lonely
before creation. In the tri-unity of his
own
being, he
had full and perfect personal relationships.
So
what was God
doing before creation? Someone has said,
"He was
preparing hell for those who pry into mysteries."
Not at all
He was enjoying the fullness of divine personal
relationships
with an eternal plan for the creation and
salvation of
human persons. The Bible says Christ
"had
been chosen
by God before the creation of the world, and
was revealed
in these last days for your sake."44 Nor was
this plan
decided on several eons ago. It is an
eternal plan:
The Bible
says, "God did this according to his eternal
purpose
which he achieved through Christ Jesus our
Lord."45 Why did God do this? Not because he needed
us, but
simply out of his grace and love.
WILLIAM LANE CRAIG 12b
So in my opinion, God was timeless prior
to creation,
and He
created time along with the world. From
that
point on God
places Himself within time so that He can
interact
with the world He has created. And
someday
God will be
done with this creation. The universe
will
not, in
fact, suffer cold death, for God will have done with
it by
then. The Bible says,
You, Lord, in the beginning created the
earth,
and with your own hands you made the
heavens.
They will all disappear, but you will
remain;
they will all grow old like clothes.
You will fold them up like a coat,
and they will be changed like clothes.
But you are always the same,
and you will never grow old.46
We have thus concluded to a personal
Creator of the
universe who
exists changelessly and independently
prior to
creation and in time subsequent to creation.
This
is the
central idea of what theists mean by "God."
REFERENCES
1G. W.
Leibniz, "The Principles of Nature and of Grace, Based on
Reason," in Leibniz Selections, ed. Philip P. Wiener,
The
Modern Student's Library (
1951), p. 527.
2Norman
Malcolm, Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir (
University Press,1958), p. 70.
3J. J. C. Smart,
"The Existence of God," Church Quarterly Review
156 (1955): 194.
4Bertrand
Russell and F. C. Copleston, "The Existence of God," in
Existence of God, ed. with an Introduction by John Hick,
Problems of Philosophy Series (
1964), pp. 174, 176.
5Bertrand
Russell, "A Free Man's Worship," in Why I Am Not a
Christian. ed.
Paul Edwards (
1957), p. 107.
WILLIAM LANE CRAIG 12c
6See Abraham
A. Fraenkel, Abstract Set Theory, 2d rev. ed.
(Amsterdam: North-Holland Publlshmg Co., 1961), pp. 5-6.
7David
Hilbert, "On the Infinite," in Philosophy of Mathematics, ed.
with an Introduction by Paul Benacerraf and Hilary Putnam
(Englewood: Cliffs, N.J.:
Prentice-Hall, 1964), pp. 139, 141.
8Ibid.,
p. 151.
9For an
in-depth discussion of this see my forth-coming book with
Macmillan, The Kalam Cosmological Argument,
Appendixes 1
and 2.
10John
Hospers, An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis, 2d ed.
(London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 1967), p. 434.
11William L.
Rowe, The Cosmological Argument (
12Allan
Sandage and G. A. Tammann, "Steps Toward the Hubble
Constant. I-VI," Astrophysical
Journal 190 (1974): 525-38;
191 (1974) 603-21; 194
(1974): 223-43, 559-68; 196 (1975):
313-28; 197 (1975): 265-80.
13J. Richard
Gott III, James E. Gunn, David N. Schramm, Beatrice
M. Tinsley, "Will the Universe Expand Forever?" Scientific
American,
March 1976, p. 65. This article is a
popular rewrite
of their article, "An Unbound Universe?" Astrophysical
Journal
194 (1974): 543-53.
14Fred
Hoyle, Astronomy and Cosmology: A Modern Course (San
Francisco: W. H. Freeman
& Co., 1975), p. 658.
15Stanley L.
Jaki, Science and Creation (
Scottish Academic Press, 1974), p. 347.
16Ibid.
17Ivan R.
King, The Universe Unfolding (
Freeman & Co. 1976), p. 462.
18John
Gribbin, "Oscillating Universe Bounces Rack," Nature 259
(1976) 15.
19See Gott, et.
al. for a good synopsis.
20J. Richard
Gott III and Martin J. Rees, "A Theory of Galaxy
Formation and Clustering," Astronomy and Astrophysics
45
(1975): 365-76; S. Michael
Small, "The Scale of Galaxy
Clustering and the Mean Matter Density of the Universe,"
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
172 (1975): 23p-26p.
WILLIAM LANE CRAIG 12d
21Sandage
and Tammann "Steps Toward the Hubble Constant. VI.,"
276; Allan Sandage, "The Redshift Distance Relation.
VIII.,"
Astrophysical Journal 202 (1975): 563-82.
22Beatrice
M. Tinsley, personal letter.
23In saying
the universe is a closed system, I do not mean it is closed
in the sense that its expansion will eventually contract. I rather mean that there is no energy being
put into it. Thus, in the
thermodynamic sense the universe is closed, but in the sense of
its density the universe is open.
One must not confuse "open"
and "closed" in thermodynamics with "open" and
"closed" in expansion models.
24Beatrice
M. Tinsley, "From Big Bang to Eternity?" Natural History
Magazine,
October 1975, p. 103.
25Ibid.,
p. 185.
26Richard
Schlegel, "Time and Thermodynamics," in The Voices of
Time, ed. J. T. Fraser (London: Penguin Press, 1968), p. 511.
27I. D.
Novikov and Ya. B. Zel'dovich, "Physical Processes Near
Cosmological Singularities," Annual Review of Astronomy
and
Astrophysics 11
(1973): 401-02. See also P. C. W. Davies, The
Physics of Time Asymmetry (
1974), p. 188. These findings are also confirmed by P. T.
Landsberg and D. Park, "Entropy in an Oscillating
Universe,"
Proceedings of the Royal Society of
485-95.
28Gribbin,
"Oscillating Universe," p. 16.
29R. G.
Swinburne, Space and Time (London: Macmillan, 1968), p.
304; Adolf Grunbaum, Philosophical Problems of Space and
Time, 2d
ed.
12 (
1973), p. 262.
30P. C. W.
Davies, personal letter.
31P. J.
Zwart, About Time (
Publishing Co., 1976), pp. 117-19.
CREATIO EX NIHILO 13a
32Davies, Physics,
p. 104.
33Ibid.
34David Hume
to John Stewart, February 1754, in The Letters of
David Hume, 2
vols., ed. J. Y. T. Greig (
Press, 1932), 1:187.
35D. Broad,
"Kant's Mathematical Antinomies," Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society 55 (1955): 10.
36Zwart, Time,
p. 240.
37Anthony
Kenny, The
God's Existence (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), p. 66.
38Hubert
Reeves, Jean Audouze, William A. Fowler, and David N.
Schramm, "On the Origin of Light
Elements," Astrophysical
Journal 179
(1973): 909-30.
39Albert
Einstein, Out of My Later Years (
Library, 1950), p. 58.
40Fred
Hoyle, Astronomy Today (London: Heinemann, 1975), p. 166.
41Adrian
Webster, "The Cosmic Background Radiation," Scientific
American,
August 1974, p. 31.
42J. V.
Narlikar, "Singularity and Matter Creation in Cosmological
Models," Nature: Physical Science 242 (1973): 136.
43James
Barr, Biblical Words for Time (London: SCM Press, 1962),
pp. 80, 145-47.
441 Peter
1:20. (TEV)
45Ephesians
46Hebrews
This material is cited with gracious
permission from:
ASA
http://www.asa3.org/
Please report any errors to Ted
Hildebrandt at: thildebrandt@gordon.edu