A Minor Divergence: Is Genesis 1 Creatio Ex Nihilo?

Does Genesis 1 explicitly (or implicitly) convey the idea of creatio ex nihilo? Paul Copan and William Lane Craig, holding the traditional understanding, believe it does. This article examined carefully the case presented in their co-authored work Creation out of Nothing: A Biblical, Philosophical, And Scientific Exploration (2004). My aim is to test, by fairly balancing the considerations of the core arguments in their apologia, and judge whether that which is contended is true.

Creation out of Nothing is a book filled with nothing but beneficial information. Copan and Craig’s defense for creatio ex nihilo is not only persuasive but also sound when it comes to the areas of philosophy and science (2004:147-266). Their biblical defenses from all passages but Genesis 1 are both strong and cogent (ibid. 71-91). It is only in Genesis 1 where our ways part, like summer and winter. This difference ought not overshadow the large, if not almost all, parts of what I am in total agreement with Copan and Craig.

Genesis One: Doubting Creatio Ex Nihilo

“Look up to heaven and earth and see all that is therein, and know that God made them out of things that did not exist” (2 Maccabees 7:28)

Creatio ex nihilo is explicitly taught in 2 Maccabees 7:28 above and other passages such as John 1:1-3, Hebrews 11:3, Romans 4:17 and 2 Enoch 24:2. Philo, thus, correctly stated that “God, when he begat all things, not only brought them into manifestation, but made things which did not exist before, being himself not only a Demiurge but also a Creator” (De Somn. 1. 13).

The question I concisely addressed in this article is whether Genesis 1 is also communicating creatio ex nihilo. I think it does not. Genesis 1 does not articulate the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo. This is why I think it does not:

“The Multiverse Created Itself” and “Who made God after all?” – The Kalam Cosmological Argument

The most reasonable belief is that we came from nothing, by nothing, and for nothing. -Quentin Smith, Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology, 135.

Is this so reasonable? Is it true that we came from nothing, by nothing, and for nothing? The Kalam Cosmological Argument is one of the most compelling arguments for theism. The broad opposition to the Kalam (or, more specifically, to its implications) from atheists has lead to some sophisticated arguments (like those of Graham Oppy or J.L Mackie), but it has also lead to some pretty poor arguments. Below, several objections to the Kalam Cosmological Argument have been outlined, along with rebuttals of varying lengths.

The Multiverse?

Some have objected to the Kalam by raising the possibility of a multiverse. They say that this counters the Kalam because it’s possible that our universe is one of nearly infinite past universes, generated as another “bubble” among untold trillions of other bubble universes. There should be one glaring difficulty with this objection that most can see immediately: “Whence the multiverse?” If the multiverse is proposed as eternal, then every objection about actual infinites applies to the multiverse. Not only that, but the multiverse itself would have to account for entropy. How is it that all the energy in this (nearly) infinite multiverse has not been used if it has existed for all eternity?

Ways around these difficulties have been proposed. For example, regarding entropy, some have argued that perhaps different laws of nature apply to the multiverse as a whole. Clearly, this is an extremely ad hoc theory that is really only invented to try to get around the argument. Once we’re allowed to modify reality to our every whim, we could indeed create anything we like–including (nearly) infinite universes.

Naturalists Faith in Multiverses

“If nature so ‘clever’ as to exploit mechanisms that amaze us with their ingenuity, is that not persuasive evidence for the existence of intelligent design behind the universe?” asked a theoretical physicist Paul Davies, “If the world’s finest mind can unravel only with difficulty the deeper workings of nature, how could it be supposed that those workings are merely a mindless accident, a product of blind chance?”¹ (Davies 1984: 235-6)

Stunning evidences on how complex and delicately fine tuned is the electrical to gravitational force ratio (N = 10 ³⁶), strength of nuclear binding (E = 0.007), normalized amount of matter in universe (Ω = 0. 3), normalized cosmological constant (Λ = 0.7), seeds for cosmic structure (Q = 1/100,000), number of spatial dimensions (D = 3)² et cetera required for intelligent life permitting universe are piling up in the scientific community.

Our universe, as theoretical physicist Brandon Carter judged, according to Davies, is just right for life. “It looked like a fix – a big fix”(Davies 2007: x). This raises a further question. What is the most plausible explanation for the seemed big fixed values? Martin Rees gave three alternatives,

If our existence depends on a seemingly special cosmic recipe, how should we react to the apparent fine-tuning? There appears to be a choice between three options: we can dismiss it as happenstance [or coincidence]; we can acclaim it as the workings of providence; or (my preference) we can conjecture that our universe is a specially favored domain in a still vaster multiverse.(Rees 2005:  211)

For atheist scientists and philosophers, work of providence would be surrendering their entire worldview to theism, which view these increasingly modern scientific findings as resurging the argument from design.

Few are prepared to take the route that led a notorious atheist philosopher, late Antony Flew, to migrate from atheism to deism. Following where he thought the evidence led him, given the pilling evidences, Flew admitted that, “multiverse or not, we still have to come to terms with the origin of the laws of nature. And the only viable explanation here is the divine Mind.”(Flew 2007 120-1)

Philosopher Bradley Monton, who is less certain of his atheism after investigating arguments from design,  “think that there is some evidence for an intelligent designer, and in fact, [he] think that there is some evidence that that intelligent designer is God” (Monton 2009: 39) Unlike Flew, Monton does not think that the evidence is enough to make him stop being an atheist.

Rees on the other hand holds an agnostic position that “[w]e do not know whether there are other universes. Perhaps we never shall”(Rees 2005: 210). He would disagree with Flew’s conclusion. Rees supposes that multiverse can still be postulated as a genuine scientific explanation for the fine-turning of our universe. It is still likely that in the distant future, cosmologists would probably have a convincing theory that show whether a multiverse exists contended Rees. He went further,

But while we are waiting for that theory—and it could be a long wait—the “off the shelf” clothes shop analogy can already be checked. It could even be refuted: this would happen if our universe turned out to be even more specially tuned than our presence requires. (Rees 2005: 218)

George E. R. Ellis informed us that the idea of a multiverses, is increasingly receiving attention in the field of cosmology. Vilenkin, Lind, Guth, Smolin, Deutsch, Susskind, Sciama, Tegmark, and Rees are among proponents of different models of multiverses.

Ellis considered that “[t]he very nature of the scientific enterprise is at stake in the multiverse debate: the multiverse proponents are proposing weakening the nature of scientific proof in order to claim that multiverses provide a scientific explanation. This is a dangerous tactic.”(Ellis 2007) He contended,

The extreme case is multiverse proposals, where no direct observational tests of the hypothesis are possible, as the supposed other universes cannot be seen by any observations whatever, and the assumed underlying physics is also untested and indeed probably untestable.(ibid)

Exploring the evidences offered for existence of actual multiverses, Ellis concluded that these “proposals are good empirically – based philosophical proposals for the nature of what exists, but are not strictly within the domain of science because they are not testable”.  He finds multiverses theory not testable because it is so flexible and that it can accommodate almost any observation. “The multiverse theory can’t make any predications because it can explain anything at all.”(ibid)

Ellis concluded that both design and multiverse lack conclusive evidence thus both require an equal degree faith to be believed. “Despite scientific appearances, belief in multiverse is an exercise in faith”(ibid)

Martin Gardner shares Ellis’ position. He wrote,

The stark truth is that there is not the slightest shred of reliable evidence that there is any universe other than the one we are in. No multiverse theory has so far provided a prediction that can be tested. In my layman’s opinion they are all frivolous fantasies. As far as we can tell, universes are not as plentiful as even two blackberries. Surely the conjecture that there is just one universe and its Creator is infinitely simpler and easier to believe than that there are countless billions upon billions of worlds, constantly increasing in number and created by nobody. I can only marvel at the low state to which today’s philosophy of science has fallen. (Garder 2001: n.p)

Does multiverse actually exists? Maybe it does, maybe it does not. I would end by concurring with Ellis’ conclusion that “[t]he claim they exist is a belief rather than an established scientific fact. It is a reasonable faith with strong explanatory nature, but a belief none the less.”

Question: Does the multiverses explain the fine-tuning of our universe?

Bibliography:

Davies, Paul (1984) Superforce: The Search for a Grand Unified Theory of Nature. New York: Simon and Schuster.

_________ (2007) The Goldilocks Enigma: Why Is The Universe Just Right For Life?. Penguin Books

Ellis, George E. R. (2007) The multiverse, ultimate causation and God. Talk at Emmanuel College 6^th November 2007.

Flew, Antony (2007) There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind. HarperOne

Gardner, Martin (2001) Multiverses and Blackberries: Notes of a Fringe-Watcher Vol. 25.5 , September / October 2001

Monton, Bradley (2009) Seeking God in Science: An Atheist Defends intelligent Design. Broadview Press.

Rees, Martin (2005) Other Universes: A Scientific Perspective in Ed. Neil A. Manson’s God and Design: The Teleological Argument and Modern Science.  Routledge.

 

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[1] Davies rejects both multiverse and design as appealing to something beyond our universe. He holds to a kind of a self-designed universe.

[2] Martin Rees’ Just Six Numbers

Eternal Cosmos Is Dead, Don’t Tell Stenger

A retired elementary particle physicist Victor J. Stenger, contrary to contemporary cosmology, still stands firm in a possibility of eternal universe.

In his talk given on November 7^th 2012 at the Boulder Socrates Café, “How Can Something Come From Nothing?”, Stenger echoed Bertrand Russell’s 1948’s objection rose in a debate with Frederick C. Copleston while discussing the cosmological argument. Stenger contended,

A common question I get from religious believers is “How can something come from nothing?” They seem to think it’s the final clincher proving the existence of God—or at least some form of supernatural creation. Of course, they don’t say how God came from nothing. Or, if they do, they claim God always existed and so did not have to come from anything. But then, why couldn’t the universe have always existed? In fact, modern cosmology suggests that it did—that the universe is eternal. (Stenger 2012: n.p underline original)

After taking a similar Lawrence Krauss’ route on “nothing” and contending for multiverses, Stenger concluded his talk,

“So, how can the multiverse have come From Nothing? Since the multiverse always existed, it didn’t have to come from anything.”(ibid)

On March 17^th of 2012 in New Scientist, a magazine with the aim of keeping us up to date with science and technology news, Stenger explained that we should have found evidence from astronomy and physics if God were its creator, but we don’t he wrote. He went further to  inform us that “modern cosmology suggests an eternal ‘multiverse’ in which many other universes comes and go”(Stenger 2012: 47)

Should we tell Stenger that a month earlier,  14^th of January, in the same magazine, Lisa Grossman reported that “Death of eternal cosmos: From the cosmic egg to the infinite multiverses every model of the universe has a beginning”? Should we tell Stenger that on 1^st December 2012, New Scientist magazine cover story states that “Before The Big Bang: Three Reasons Why The Universe Can’t Have Existed Forever”? No. Don’t tell Stenger.

Grossman And  Chown: What We Should Not Tell Stenger

Back in January 14^th, in New Scientist magazine featuring Hawking’s 70^th birthday, Grossman’s article, Death of the eternal cosmos: From the cosmic egg to the infinite multiverse, every model of the universe has a beginning, ironically began,

YOU could call them the worst birthday presents ever. At the meeting of minds convened last week to honour Stephen Hawking’s 70^th birthday – loftily titled “State of the Universe”’ two bold proposals posed serious threats to our existing understanding of the cosmos”

Grossman reported that cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin of Tufts University in Boston went through different models and concluded that  space-time can’t possibly be eternal in the past and that all the evidence that modern cosmologist have say that the universe had a beginning.(Grossman 2012: 6-7)

Truth never sleeps. Just in case Stenger missed that issue nor follows updates in  modern cosmology anymore, New Scientist’s cover story of 1^st December 2012 went deeper than Grossman, giving three reasons why the universe can’t have existed forever.

Chown’s article, In The Beginning: Has the cosmos existed forever, or did something bring it into existence? explained that “until recently an answer[to settle the question whether the universe has away been here] seemed as distant as ever”(Chown 2012: 33). He went further,

However, earlier this year, cosmologists Alex Vilenkin and Audrey Mithani claimed to have settled the debate. They have uncovered reasons why the universe cannot have existed forever.”(ibid)

Chown reported that Vilenkin went through singularity theorems/eternal inflation; “[u]niverses have always been inflating from the vacuum and always will”], cyclic universe; “4D universes repeatedly collide together in a fifth dimension crating a big bang events” and emergent universe; “[t]ing universe has existed forever but blew up to its present size”, and showed the flaws in forever.(Chown 2012: 34-35)

So, should we update Stenger on what modern cosmology says on this issue? Should we tell him eternal cosmos is dead? You decide.

Question: Would I be wrong in thinking that Stenger’s faith in eternal universe has nothing to do with science but with religion?

Bibliography:

Chown, Marcus (2012) “In The Beginnning: Has the cosmos existed forever, or did something bring it into existence?” in New Scientist of 1 December 2012:  2893

Grossman, Lisa (2012) “Death of the eternal cosmos. From the cosmic egg to the infinite multiverse, every model of the universe has a beginning” in New Scientist of 14^th January 2012: 2847

Stenger, Victor J. (2012) “The God Hypothesis” in New Scientist of 17^th March 2012: 2856

___________________ (2012) “How Can Something Comes From Nothing?” November 7^th 2012 Talk at  the Boulder Socrates Cafe.

Coverphoto: New Scientist 1 December 2012, Before big bang: New Scientist 14th January 2012 & Andrew David’s Bertrand Russell

Cosmic Beginning And Grousing Of Religious Atheists

The first article of faith in Michael Palmer’s “The Atheist’s Creed” is that he believes, echoing Carl Sagan, that “the cosmos is all that is or ever was and ever will be.” (Palmer 2012:5) “The fact of the matter is that the most reasonable belief is that we came from nothing, by nothing and for nothing” (Smith 1993: 135), so we are told by Quentin Smith.

Was Bertrand Russell correct in deeming that “the universe is just there, and that’s all” [1]? Why are some atheists repelled by the concept of the cosmic beginning? It is time to ponder. Keeping my post short, I have divided this article in two parts, part I Cosmic Beginning and part II Cosmic Genesis.

Eternal Universe: Religious Atheists’ Article of Faith

Michael Ruse quoted Ernst Mayr’s noteworthy observation: “People forget that it is possible to be intensely religious in the entire absence of theological belief.” (Ruse 2003: 335) To avoid painting all atheists with a single stroke, an explanation of what I mean by the oxymoron “religious atheists,” as used in this article, is required.

Cosmic Genesis And Grousing Of Religious Atheists

Michael Palmer’s The Atheist’s Creed records the first article of faith, which characterizes what I call religious atheism, namely “I BELIEVE THAT the cosmos is all that is or ever was and ever will be.”(Palmer 2012:5, emphasis in original), which is contrary to modern cosmology. I recommend reading the first part: Cosmic Beginning And Grousing Of Religious Atheists, before reading its second.

In The Beginning And Religious Atheists’ Fear

Religious atheists’ fear, as echoed in Steven Hawking’s prerecorded speech played on his 70^th birthday, is that “[a] point of creation would be a place where science broke down. One would have to appeal to religion and the hand of God.” (Grossman 2012: 6).