The Origin of the Universe

The Demise of the Copernican Principle

Around 450 B.C., the Greek philosopher Empedocles propounded the idea that all matter is comprised of four elements: earth, water, air, and fire. Since earth was the heaviest element, he, and Aristotle after him, reasoned that the Earth must be at the bottom and therefore the center of the universe (“geocentrism”). Much later, the Greco-Roman philosopher Claudius Ptolemy (100-170 A.D.) developed an elaborate model of the solar system based on geocentrism, which was not eclipsed (pun intended) until the 17^th Century when Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) showed that the Earth orbits the sun (“heliocentrism”).

[What follows is an essay I wrote for a class while studying for a degree at Biola University in 2010.]

What has become known as the “Copernican Principle,” then, posits that the more we learn about the universe, the better we understand our own insignificance. The notion constitutes a profound misinterpretation on many levels.

First, the Copernican Principle assumes that the relocation of the Earth from being orbited by the sun to orbiting it constituted a lowering of the Earth’s status. This notion is based, however, on the false assumption that Aristotelian geocentrism was anthropocentric – man-centered – which it was not.

Aristotle thought the Earth to be located at the center of the universe not because of man’s importance but because of the Earth’s weight, being the heaviest of the four elements, Earth, water, air, and fire. Also, the sublunar realm (beneath the moon) was deemed corruptible, unlike the heavens. The lowly position of the Earth is seen in Dante’s decision to locate hell, which is even more dishonorable, under the Earth. It is also reflected in Galileo’s insistence, upon discovering proof of Copernicus’ theory, that the Earth “is not the sump where the universe’s filth and ephemera collect.” Thus in Aristotelian terms, moving the Earth away from the center was a promotion. Kepler, too, considered Copernicus’ model to be more anthropocentric than Ptolemy’s because God had given Man an advantageous location – away from the center – the better to survey the universe.

So Copernicus’ theory did nothing to undermine the importance of human life. Emphatically, that was not his purpose. He was a Christian neo-Platonist who expected physical reality to reflect the precision of mathematics and who was disturbed by the Ptolemaic model’s contrivances and lack of elegance.

Second, the Copernican Principle uncritically accepts the idea that the physical universe is governed by impersonal, mechanistic necessity, and uncritically discards the teleological hypothesis in nature.

The Copernican Principle gained plausibility for a while, after we learned that our sun is an ordinary star in a galaxy of a hundred billion stars; more so when we learned (not until the 1920s) that our galaxy is an ordinary galaxy in a universe of a hundred billion galaxies; and even more so when we learned that the universe, though not eternal, is billions of years old, to say nothing of the discovery of physical explanations for the origin of the solar system.

Since Hubble, however, the Principle has been wearing thin. We have learned that the universe is neither infinite nor eternal; that in the finite past the universe began with an enormous explosion of energy from a point in space-time, out of nothing as far as we can tell; and that intelligent life would have been impossible anywhere in the universe were it not for the fact that there are hundreds of physical parameters which must be exactly what they are. Relative autonomy and teleology are back!

Moreover, it is not theists alone who are saying so. Consider the observations of Lee Smolin in The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next (Houghton-Mifflin 2006)). Smolin is not sanguine about the return of teleology. He states that string theory is in crisis. It makes no predictions, and there have been no useful new proposals for fixing it in decades. That leaves us with the standard model of particle physics, which dates to 1973! Says Smolin, we haven’t had that kind of a drought in centuries.

Where, then, does that leave us? In a recent interview, [Leonard] Susskind claims that the stakes are to accept the landscape and the dilution in the scientific method it implies or give up science altogether and accept intelligent design (ID) as the explanation for the choices of parameters of the standard model:

If . . . the landscape turns out to be inconsistent . . . we will be in a very awkward position.Without any explanation of nature’s fine-tuning we will be hard pressed to answer the ID critics. One might argue that the hope that a mathematically unique solution will emerge is as faith-based as ID. (Quoted in Amanda Gefter, “Is String Theory in Trouble?” New Scientist, December 17, 2005; Smolin, p. 197; emphasis added.)

The failure of the Copernican Principle gambit may make it necessary for Smolin and Susskind to reconsider whether accepting ID really means giving up science altogether. Peace between faith and reason may break out sooner than we think.

Thomas Alderman 2010

ps. Don’t miss The Story of Everything, a Discovery Institute feature film in theatres beginning April 30. “We don’t ask you to believe despite the evidence: We SHOW you the evidence!” It’s sure to be worthwhile.

Be Ready!

Apologetics Tools are now available!

Here are concise summaries of several recent posts to joshualetter, designed to be easily remembered so as to equip believers to be ready to address many of the concerns often raised by those who are seeking the truth.

Suggestions welcome!

SEVEN PRACTICAL APOLOGETICS TOOLS

1. The pioneers of modern science were virtually all Christians and were scientists specifically because of their religious beliefs. In particular, they were scientists because they believed in a rational God who created an intelligible universe and man as a rational being capable of comprehending that universe. For more information, see Thomas Alderman, Science and Religion: Exploding the Myth of Conflict, (a five-part series)(go to www.joshualetter.com and search for “exploding”).

2. The universe had a beginning and must therefore have had a cause outside itself. That cause had to be timeless, immaterial, and inconceivably powerful. More info: joshualetter.com, subject index: The Cosmological Argument for God.

3. The laws of physics are incomprehensibly fine-tuned for life. The most plausible explanation (if not the only plausible explanation) is that they were intended to be that way by a cosmic designer. More info: joshualetter.com, subject index: The Fine-Tuning of the Universe.

4. Objective moral values exist. The most plausible explanation is that they are rooted in the character of a good Creator. More info: joshualetter.com, subject index: The Moral Argument for God.

5. Jesus’ disciples were transformed by His post-Resurrection appearances from cowering fugitives to fearless evangelists. Many of them died for their proclamation; none recanted. The best explanation is that they truly encountered the risen Christ. More info: joshualetter.com, search field, “minimal facts.”

6. The authors of the New Testament were honest and had ready access to the eyewitnesses of the events in the life of Jesus. More info: joshualetter.com, search for “honesty.”

7. While it is true that many errors were introduced into the New Testament in the course of being manually copied, scholars have succeeded in identifying and correcting virtually all of those errors – as even skeptical New Testament scholars have acknowledged. More info: joshualetter.com, search for “recovery.”

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editor.joshualetter@thomasowensalderman.com

Postscript to the Cosmological Argument

As children growing up, each of us at some point becomes aware of the laws of cause and effect. Every effect has a cause, and each cause must be sufficient to produce the effect in question.

Then when in childhood or adolescence we become aware also of the beauty and power of nature, most of us will say to ourselves, “There must be an explanation for all of this.” What we see is this magnificent natural world, and we know intuitively that it must have a cause, and that the cause must itself be colossal.

Not only that; but we have also by this time learned to distinguish objects and events that are designed from those which result from impersonal forces such as wind erosion, earthquake, or chemical reactions. We may not be able to articulate exactly how we make such distinctions, but every child can accurately tell a slab of marble from a statue. (We will elucidate the precise criteria for design in a future post.) Finally, we also have understood by this time that design invariably signals personhood – that is, it implies intention, which is an activity of mind, and only of mind. Put it this way: design is a mental activity — and we know this as children.

But then the child returns to her classroom and does not consider the matter further for months or years, until her next experience of nature, and again she tells herself, “There must be an explanation for all of this.” Even then she does not pursue the inquiry in any deliberate way; and before long her elders begin teaching her that her intuition is not true, that it is irrational and superstitious, and that science shows that everything is the unintended result of impersonal forces.

But it is perfectly rational to apply the laws of cause and effect to the universe itself – why wouldn’t we? – and perfectly rational to infer mind from design.

Anything which exists either had a beginning or it didn’t, and if it did, then it either had a cause or it didn’t. The evidence of science overwhelmingly shows that the universe did have a beginning. What is irrational is to suppose that anything could come into existence, uncaused.

What we all need is someone to confirm that our childhood intuition was and is true.

Those who confirmed that intuition for me are men such as William Craig, Michael Behe, Hugh Ross, J. P. Moreland, John Lennox, and Stephen Meyer. I thank my God for each one.

A Little Deeper Into the Cosmos

More on the Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God

Why is there something rather than nothing?

If anything exists, then an uncaused being exists. How do we know this?

Something does exist: the universe; and the universe either had a beginning or it didn’t. If it didn’t, then it has an infinite past, and neither has a cause nor can it have a cause, and that would end the inquiry.

But we happen to know that the universe did have a beginning, and since it did not create itself, it must have had a cause outside itself. Thus there exists, in addition to the universe itself, at least one other being – specifically, whatever it was that caused the universe to exist.

Either the cause of the universe was itself uncaused, or it was preceded by an infinite regress of caused causes. An actual infinite regress of caused causes is impossible. Therefore, the universe was caused by an uncaused cause. QED.

What kind of being is this uncaused cause of the universe?

Big Bang cosmology entails that space and time themselves came into existence with the matter and energy of the Creation event. Therefore, the cause of the universe must be:

Uncaused

Spaceless

Timeless

Immaterial

Stupendously powerful

Other observations enable us to add to the list of divine attributes. The fine-tuning of the universe shows that the First Cause has crafted the constants of physics to achieve a particular purpose, namely, a universe hospitable to complex life. Purpose is a mental activity: only minds have purposes. Therefore the First Cause is a personal being. The fine-tuning demonstrates also that the First Cause is transcendently intelligent.

Why does the universe exist? Why is there something rather than nothing? Because God caused the universe to exist. Then why does God exist? I do not believe there is an answer to that question. God does not exist for a reason: he just is. He is the uncaused cause. He, and only He, contains in Himself the explanation of His own existence. As He said to Moses: “I am that I am. Tell them that I am sent you.”

So to someone who asks, “If God created the universe, then who created God?” the proper response is to point out that the answer is obvious, but that it is the wrong question. The question is not who created God, but how can it be that God exists, uncaused? What is the reason for God’s existence? And the only answer I know of is that He just exists. He and He alone contains within himself the explanation for his own existence.

And we are in awe once again, and our hearts overflow with gratitude.

Many philosophers maintain that the reason God exists is that He is the necessary being. I’m not clear on what that means. Wouldn’t it be possible that nothing at all exists? Then God would also not exist, right? Then He doesn’t exist by any sort of logical necessity. In what sense, then, is he the necessary being?

I suspect the answer is that if God did not exist, then nothing would exist.

So my answer to the question how we know God exists is that we know it from the fact that something that is not God exists and had a beginning. Everything else follows by logical necessity.

The Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God is Virtually Conclusive

I cannot leave this argument alone. Every time I sit down to write about the teleological argument for the existence of God (the argument from design), my thoughts turn to the cosmological argument instead. Here is my latest effort to reduce the argument to its essence.

There are only four possible explanations for the existence of the universe:

The universe is past-eternal;
The universe had an uncaused beginning;
The universe was caused by a caused cause; or
The universe was caused by an uncaused cause.

We can eliminate the first three explanations.

If the universe is past-eternal, then it did not have a beginning. If so, then it did not have a cause, but just is. God may or may not exist, but an uncaused universe does not require it.

Empirical science has shown, however, that the universe did have a beginning. This leads to two more possible explanations for its existence: either it had a caused beginning, or it had an uncaused beginning. If the universe had an uncaused beginning, then God may or may not exist, but as noted above, an uncaused universe does not require it.

But an uncaused beginning is unlikely because it would violate the laws of cause and effect. At the very least, it would seem to do so: there is no plausible basis for maintaining that the universe could have had an uncaused beginning.

The universe, then, must have had a caused beginning. If so, then again there are two possible explanations for its existence: either the cause itself had a beginning and hence a cause, or the cause itself did not have a cause and hence was past-eternal.

A caused cause is merely one element in an infinite series, unless the series itself has a beginning; and it can only begin with an uncaused cause. An actual infinite series is impossible and absurd. Therefore the series of causes must “end” (begin) with an uncaused cause, which uncaused cause must be past-eternal.

(Every caused universe is past-finite and every past-finite universe which can be actualized is caused. Every uncaused universe which can be actualized is past-eternal and every past-eternal universe is uncaused.)

Thus three of the four possible explanations for the existence of the universe have been excluded: a past-eternal universe; an uncaused beginning; and a beginning brought about by an infinite series of caused causes. The remaining explanation, that the universe was brought into being by an uncaused, past-infinite cause, must be true.