Most of the objections people raise to the Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA) are bad objections, but there are two good ones. One is that the KCA only works on an A theory of time, but the B theory of time is true. I addressed that in another post. That is the weaker of the two good arguments because (1) the B theory may not be true, and (2) the KCA might work even on a B theory. The best argument against the KCA is that since the beginning of the universe is the beginning of time, there couldn't have been a state of affairs prior to the beginning of the universe in which God existed but the universe did not, and if there was no such state, then it can't be the case that God brought the universe into existence.
I've raised this objection with a lot of Christian apologists and haven't received any satisfactory answers. Most of them don't even seem to understand the problem. Some of them think the problem is solved by appeal to "simultaneous causation." It's not, though. Simultaneous caustion does explain how the universe can have a cause that does not have to precede the beginning of the universe in time, but it doesn't explain how the universe could have come into existence from a state of non-existence. It doesn't explain how there could've been a state of affairs in the real world in which God exists but the universe doesn't.
Other people think the problem can be solved by postulating a metaphysical time that exists independnetly of (and prior to) physical time. This doesn't solve the problem either. It just post-pones it. The arguments for a beginning of physical time apply just as well to metaphysical time, so metaphysical time would also have to have a beginning, and the same problem would arise. Besides that, metaphysical time is ad hoc. It's cooked up to salvage the KCA, but it's not a consequence or conclusion one can draw from the KCA.
This is such a formiddable objection that there have been times when I've almost concluded that the KCA is unsound. The alternative is pretty weird, though. We'd have this inexplicable earliest moment of time without any explanation. So I have thought long and hard on this problem. Although I'm not 100% satisfied that I've solved it, I am mostly satisfied. I had planned to wrestle with this some more until I really had it nailed down before sharing it. I was going to include it in my book. But I haven't got it completely resolved yet, and maybe I never will. But I wanted to share my thoughts anyway.
Since it's been a real struggle in past conversations I've had on this topic to explain myself in a way that avoids misunderstandings, I must ask the reader to give extra care in reading what I have to say so as to understand what I'm saying. I apologize if I'm not being perfectly clear, but I am trying, and I ask that you try as well to understand me.
The A and B theories of time
In an earlier post, I explained how the KCA, as Craig defends it, assumes an A theory of time, but how it might work on a B theory of time. Well, the objection I'm raising in this post only applies to an A theory of time. On a B theory of time, the problem doesn't come up since the universe doesn't come into existence in the usual sense and because God doesn't fall on the time line at all. I explained in an earlier post that I was undecided on the A and B theories of time, but for the sake of the present post, I'm just going to be assuming an A theory of time since that's the only context in which this objection makes sense.
Also, I'm not going to argue that the universe has a finite past in this post. I'm going to take that as a given. In a lot of the apologetic material I've read on the KCA, apologists argue for a finite past and think that's enough to establish that the universe came into being. It's not, though. In Craig's argument, both God and the universe have a finite past, but the universe began to exist and God didn't, so having a finite past is not sufficient to say that something came into existence. Craig recognizes this, too. He said, "Strictly speaking none of those arguments [the arguments for a finite past] reached the conclusion, 'Therefore, time began to exist'" (Time and Eternity, p. 233).
William Lane Craig
The only place I've ever seen WLC address this objection is in his book, Time and Eternity. He writes on p. 233,
"But now we are confronted with an extremely bizarre situation. God exists in time. Time had a beginning. God did not have a beginning. How can these three statements be reconciled? If time began to exist--say, for simplicity's sake, at the Big Bang-- then in some difficult-to-articulate sense God must exist beyond the Big Bang, alone without the universe. He must be changeless in such a state; otherwise time would exist. And yet this state, strictly speaking, cannot exist before the Big Bang in a temporal sense, since time had a beginning. God must be causally, but not temporally, prior to the Big Bang. With the creation of the universe, time began, and God entered into time at the moment of creation by virtue of His real relations with the created order. It follows that God must therefore be timeless without the universe and temporal with the universe.
Now this conclusion is startling and not a little odd. For on such a view, there seem to be two phases of God's life, a timeless phase and a temporal phase, and the timeless phase seems to have existed earlier than the temporal phase. But this is logically incoherent, since to stand in a relation of earlier than is by all accounts to be temporal.
One way Craig attempts to deal with this problem is by suggesting, "But why could there not be two phases of God's life, one timeless and one temporal, which are not related to each other as earlier and later?" I find that hard to wrap my head around. If God exists timelessly without the universe in one phase, and temporally with the universe in another phase, then the timeless phase had to exist when the temporal phase did not. They can't both exist simultaneously. Maybe this is just a shortcoming of my brain that I can't make sense of Craig's suggestion.
He goes on a couple of paragraphs later to give a thought experiment in which God exists timelessly, then initiates time. But this thought experiment seems to place God at least at the beginning of time if not prior to the beginning of time. Anyway, the "conceivability thought experiment" below was inspired by Craig's thought experiment, and while it does make the scenario conceivable, it leaves some things unexplained.
Black hole analogy
According to general relativity, time slows down in the presence of gravity. The stronger the gravity, the slower the time. And supposedly time stops when you reach the event horizon (or is it the singularity?) of a black hole. So a black hole contains a state of timelessness. And supposedly, a black hole can dissolve by emitting Hawking radiation. If that's the case, then you'd have a timeless state giving rise to or coming before a temporal state. And if that's possible, then it's just as possible for God to have brought the universe into existience from a state of timelessness.
The only problem with this analogy is that time only comes to a stand still from the point of view of outside observers, and it may be that it approaches a stand still but never actually reaches it. If you were to fall into a black hole and not die, time wouldn't slow down from your point of view. You would never reach a state of timelessness. You'd just fall through the event horizon like nothing had happened. So I don't think the black hole analogy really solves the problem.
CONCEIVABILITY THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
Imagine a world in which God exists but never brings anything into existence, including time. In a world like that, God would exist in a state of timelessness. He would have no beginning or end. He wouldn't come into existence or go out of existence. There would be no state affairs in a world like that in which God doesn't exist.
If that is conceivable, then it shouldn't be hard to conceive of a world that's just like that except that God initiates time. The clock starts. I have no trouble conceiving of that.
But does this mean that God existed before time? This thought experiment doesn't really solve that problem, but since it is conceivable to me, it does help to alleviate the difficulty I have with the big objection.
NUMBER LINE THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
A number line is a one dimensional object that contains points, which have no dimension. Now, consider the point, x=0. What is the first point after that? Well, you can't represent that with a decimal or a fraction. No matter what decimal or fraction you think of, there will be a point between 0 and that number. Since x=0 is a point, and since points have no extension along the number line, the very next point is infinitesimally close to x=0. If you think about it, there's barely a distinction between the two. How can there be? If x=0 has no extension along the number line, then the very next point will practically be at x=0.
There is a way to represent this, though. In calculus, we used to talk about intervals on a number line. There were open intervals and closed intervals. In either case, the interval would be bounded on two sides but a number. If it's a closed interval, then it includes the number. If it's an open interval, then it includes everything between the numbers, but not the numbers themselves. In either case, the numbers serve as boundaries to the interval. It's possible to have an interval that is open on one end and closed on the other. It would be written like this:
(-1, 5]
or
-1 < x =< 5
This notation indicates an interval between -1 and 5 that includes 5 but excludes -1. If God was a timeless being who started time, then you could distinguish the existence of God and the existence of the universe on a timeline by using interval notation. It would look like this:
the universe:
(0, infinity) or 0 < x < infinity
God:
[0, infinity) or 0 =< x < infinity
So God would be the closed interval from zero to infinite, and the universe would be the open interval from zero to infinity. T=0 would be the past boundary of time. God would exist at t>=0, and the universe would exist at every t>0.
ANALOGY FROM MOTION
Imagine an object sitting on a line at x=0. It's at rest, so it's velocity is zero. Now, imagine it begins to move in the positive direction. If you think carefully about this situation, you'll be able to see that it could not have been in motion at x=0. It's motion could only be at every x>0. The reason is because as long as it is at x=0, it hasn't moved. If it moves at all, it will no longer be at x=0. So it's entire location is the closed interval from zero on, and its motion is the open interval from zero on. X=0 is a boundary.
Just as the object did not have to be in motion at x=0 in order to have left x=0, so also the universe does not have to be temporal at t=0 in order to have left t=0. But that also means it's possible for God to have existed timelessly at t=0, then brought the univrse into being. In that case, the universe would exist at every t>0. You can think of the beginning of time as a timeless boundary from which time begins. Time doesn't flow at the boundary, but it flows from the boundary.
You might imagine a scenario in which the universe exists timelessly at t=0, then becomes temporal. In that case, the universe didn't come into being even though it has a finite past. But if the universe did not exist in a timeless state, and if the earliest moment of its existence was temporal, then it would appear to have come into being. If there was no material that existed in a timeless state from which the universe was made, then the universe came into being out of nothing. God could have existed in the timeless state and been the cause of the universe coming into being.
So whether the universe came into being or not depends on whether its earliest extreme was temporal or not. If it became temporal from an a-temporal state, then it did not come into being. But if it's always been temporal, then it did come into being.
Well, it's not possible for matter and energy to exist in a state of timelessness. That means the earliest extreme of the universe was temporal, and that means the universe came into being. I'll say more about this in a minute.
THOUGHT EXPERIMENT CONCERNIING THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE
You can think of the past and the future as containing duration. They are intervals of time. But the present is not an interval, and it has no duration. It is the boundary between the past and the future. If you represented it on a time line, the present would be a point, while the past would be everything before that point, and the future would be everything after that point. But the present is the only place we live. If you can imagine an illustration representing the past, present, and future, just remove the past, and the present represents the atemporal cause of the whole duration that happens next.
THOUGHT EXPERIMENT CONCERNING THE END OF TIME
Imagine a situation in which time has an end. I’m not talking about the heat death of the universe or anything like that. I’m asking you to imagine that time comes to an end tomorrow. What would it be like once we reached that farthest boundary of future time? There’s one of two ways we could think about it.
On the one hand, we could imagine people walking about and all of a sudden freezing permanently. In that case, we would still exist, but we would be in a state of timelessness. That’s how it would be at the future boundary of time.
On the other hand, we could imagine that when we reach time’s end that we cease to exist. Rather than freezing in our tracks, we poof out of existence. In that case, the future boundary of time would be nothingness.
As far as I can tell, there doesn’t seem to be a third option. Either we freeze and exist timelessly because time has stopped, or we poof out of existence altogether and nothing temporal exists.
Well, if you change the direction of time in this thought experiment you get what we have in reality—a beginning of time. And again, there are two possibilities—either physical things once existed in a state of timelessness, then became temporal, or else physical things came into existence from nothing at the beginning of time. If there’s no third option on the supposition that time has an end, then there’s no third option on the supposition that time had a beginning either.
After learning how subatomic particles and quantum fields work, I realized it’s not possible for matter and energy to exist in a state of timelessness. An electron can’t simply freeze. Quantum fields cannot stop having some vibrational energy. Subatomic particles and fields exist as waves, and waves are in motion. They cannot be timeless because that would entail their non-existence.
I don’t want to get too technical, but there are two other reasons for why physical stuff can’t be timeless. One is because of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. The other is because of the third law of thermodynamics.
THOUGHT EXPERIMENT WHERE TIME STOPS, THEN STARTS AGAIN
Consider a situation in which time stops then starts again. What would happen to us? It’s tempting to think that we’d just freeze, then unfreeze. There have been movies and TV shows based on this theme. Usually, there’s somebody else who is not affected. While everybody else freezes, that one person continues to move in their own time. But if you think about it, if you were one of the people who froze when time stopped, then unfroze when time started again, you wouldn’t know that anything had happened.
But is that possible? I would say no. An atom couldn’t exist in a state of timelessness since the structure of an atom depends on the electrons or electron clouds being in motion. Without a wave function, the electron could be no more than a point particle, but that would destroy the structure of the atom. Since atoms couldn’t exist in a state of timelessness, neither could we. As soon as time stopped, we’d cease to exist.
Let’s say that time stops at exactly noon. Then it starts again. And let’s suppose, hypothetically, that once time starts again, all the physical things that existed earlier come back into existence. Now we’ve got a situation in which physical things exist at every moment before and after noon, but they don’t exist in the instantaneous moment of noon. But does that mean there’s a gap between the “before” and the “after”? Think about that. Time reaches a certain point and stops. Then it starts again. The moment at which it stops is an instantaneous moment. It contains no duration at all. If there is no duration between the “before” and the “after,” then is there a sense in which the “before” and “after” touch? Is the moment at which time stops the same moment as the moment in which is starts again? For there to be any kind of continuity, that would have to be the case. Now remove, conceptually, the “before,” and you are left with what I claim we have at the beginning of the universe. You have an instantaneous moment of timelessness at the beginning of time. It isn’t before time. Rather, it’s the earliest extreme of time. It’s the boundary of time in the past direction.
Some final thoughts
Of all these thought experiments, the one that resonates with me the most is the thought experiment concerning the end of time.
I'm sure there are other thought experiments I could come up with. Some of them start sounding the same after a while. But this is as far as I've come. Some of these thought experiments make sense of God existing in an atemporal state, then bringing the universe into existence, but they only make it seem possible. Other thought experiments go further. They shows that if the earliest extreme of the universe is temporal, then the universe came into being. And since it's impossible for physical things to exist in a state of timelessness, then the universe did come into being. So God brought the universe into being out of nothing. Whether we should think of God's timless state without the universe as being "before time," or "a boundary of time" or whatever, I'm not 100% sure, but however we characterize it, it seems not only possible but likely.
You might wonder why I've thought so much about this. Why expend so much mental energy trying to salvage the KCA? Well, it isn't just because I'd like the argument to be sound, though I would. It's because the alternative strikes me as being even more problematic than God existing timelessly without the universe "before" bringing the unvierse into being. If God did not bring the universe into being from a state of timelessness, then we'd have a really weird situation in which there's this beginning of time with no explanation. If the universe was timeless, then became temporal (through the big bang or whatever), it wouldn't seem as weird (though there is a good argument against that possibiilty). But if the earliest extreme of the universe is a situation in which the clock is already running, that seems to require a cause, and that cause must be timeless. So there must be some way to make sense of it. I am mostly satisfied that the KCA is sound, but I'm just not as certain as I once was.
No comments:
Post a Comment