Happy New Year!
To create a smooth transition from 2020 to 2021, I have prepared for you another post on the KCA for the second day in a row. Enjoy.
In Bill Craig's formulation of the Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA), he says, "Whatever begins to exist has a cause to its existence." There are a couple of ways one might defend this premise--by appeal to rational intuition or by appeal to inductive reasoning. The inductive case is a little problematic, but I do think it carries some weight.
In the inductive case, one extrapolates from observed instances of things coming into existence with causes to all things whatsoever that come into existence, including the universe. The weakness is in the fact that every observed instance of things coming into being always involve a rearrangement of previously existing parts. When a chair comes into existence, it is made out of previously existing wood. This is called creation ex-materia. But if the universe came into existence, then it didn't do so out of previously existing material. The universe is all of space, time, matter, and energy, so if the universe came into being, then it did so out of nothing. This is call creation ex-nihilo. So the beginning of the universe is very different than the beginning of everything else that we've observed. So what is true of everything we've observed may not be true of everything whatsoever, especially the universe.
But I do think the inductive argument carries some weight in spite of what I just said. I think the inductive case gives us some warrant for thinking that anything at all that comes into being must have a cause. I grant that the distinction between creation ex-materia and creation ex nihilo does weaken the inductive case for the general causal principle, but I don't think it destroys the inductive case.
Let me use an analogy to explain. Let's say every crow I observe in North America has been black and that I've been observing crows my whole life. And all my neighbors tell me they have observed the same thing. This gives me some inductive warrant for claiming that probably all crows are black.
But then suppose somebody comes along and says, "Well, you've only observed crows in North America. How do you know crows in Russia are all black?" It could be, for all we know, that location makes a difference. It's hard to say. It's also hard to say, on purely inductive grounds, that it makes a difference whether something comes to be ex-materia or ex-nihilo. But it seems to me that apart from any good reason to think it makes a difference, one is warranted in at least making a provisional extrapolation that they are open to having corrected later if the evidence warrants it.
Hasty generalization is a fallacy that can happen when reasoning inductively, though. But whether somebody has formed a generalization hastily or not isn't a black and white issue. There's no specific number of crows that one must observe before one is justified in forming the generalization that all crows are black such that observing one less crows means you aren't warranted in drawing that conclusion. This is the problem of heaps.
In the case of inductively reasoning about causes (and crows), the question is whether the difference you have identified is relevant to the generalization or not. It isn't obvious that location makes a difference when it comes to crows.
Let me press the analogy further. Let's suppose that every crow I observe in the northern hemisphere is black, and I form the generalization that all crows are black. But then you say, "Well, you only observed the crows in the northern hemisphere. This doesn't tell you anything about whether crows in the Southern Hemisphere are black." Or suppose all the crows I observed were in the day time. You could then say, "You've only observed crows that come out during the day. You haven't observed any crows that come out at night, so you can't form that generalization."
When it comes to inductive reasoning, you can always point to examples that haven't been observed. That's the very nature of inductive reasoning--extrapolating from the observed to the unobserved. Unless you've observed every crow that has ever existed under every possible set of circumstances, somebody can point out a difference betwen the crows you've observed and the crows you haven't observed. If that is any reason to say you're never warranted in making a generalization about all crows, then by the same reasoning, we're never warranted in making any generalization by the use of inductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning would be out the window.
Any difference you point out between the observed and the unobserved could make a difference. But that is precisely why inductive arguments can only give you probabilities. They can't give you certainty unless you observe every case under every possible set of circumstances. But if you observe every case, then it's no longer inductive reasoning. But merely identifying a difference doesn't mean you aren't warranted in making the generalization.
The inductive argument for the general principle that anything that begins to exist has a cause does not warrant the conclusion that anything that begins to exist must, by logical necessity, have a cause. It only warrants the conclusion that anything that begins to exist probably has a cause. That's the nature of inductive arguments.
The certainty I have about the causal principle as it relates to creation ex nilhilo, especially regarding the beginning of the universe, isn't because of the inductive case. It's because of the intuitive obviousness of it. The inductive case is a separate and distinct argument.
There are some defenders of the KCA that will accuse deniers of the first premise as it applies to the universe of engaging in special pleading because they will agree on the basis of observation that everything we know of that comes into being has a cause, but then they will make an arbitrary exception in the case of the beginning of the universe. I think this is an unfair accusation because the distinction is not arbitrary. There's a big difference between creation ex materia and creation ex nihilo. Whether's it's a relevant different can be debated, but the significance of the difference means that one is not engaging in special pleading by affirming a general causal principle that applies to creation ex materia but doubting that one can extrapolate to examples of creation ex nihilo.
So the bottom line is that I think the inductive arguments gives us some warrant for accepting a general causal principle that applies to the beginning of the universe, but the case is somewhat weakened by the fact that the beginning of the universe is an example of creation ex nihilo, and the beginnings of everything we observe are examples of creation ex materia. The argument from intuition is, in my judgment, much stronger than the inductive argument. I'm aware that a lot of people put no confidence at all in knowledge by intuition, but I've argued many times on this blog that that is a mistake.
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