My article in the Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity, which asks “Does the Universe Need God?” (and answers “nope”), got a bit of play last week, thanks to an article by Natalie Wolchover that got picked up by Yahoo, MSNBC, HuffPo, and elsewhere. As a result, views that are pretty commonplace around here reached a somewhat different audience. I started getting more emails than usual, as well as a couple of phone calls, and some online responses. A representative sample:
- “Sean Carroll, servant of Satan…”
- “God has a way of bring His judgement to those who mock Him… John Lennon stated “Christianity will end, it will disappear.” Lennon was shot six times after saying that… Marilyn Monroe said to Billy Graham after Graham said the Spirit of God had sent him to preach to her: “I don’t need your Jesus”. A week later she was found dead in her apartment.”
- “See you in hell.”
- “Maybe GOD is just a DOG that you will meet when you are walking on the Beach trying to figure out how to get sand out of your butt crack.”
I admit that last one is a bit hard to interpret. The others I think are pretty straightforward.
A more temperate response came from theologian William Lane Craig (a fellow Blackwell Companion contributor) on his Reasonable Faith podcast. I mentioned Craig once before, and here we can see him in action. I’m not going to attempt a point-by-point rebuttal of his comments, but I did want to highlight the two points I think are most central to what he’s saying.
One point he makes repeatedly — really the foundational idea from which everything else he has to say flows — is that a naturalist account of the form I advocate simply doesn’t explain why the universe exists at all, and that in my essay I don’t even try. Our old friend the Primordial Existential Question, or Why is there something rather than nothing?
I have to admit I’m a bit baffled here. I suppose it’s literally true that I don’t offer a reason why there is something rather than nothing, but it’s completely false that I ignore the question. There’s a whole section of my paper, entitled “Accounting for the world,” which addresses precisely this point. It’s over a thousand words long. I even mention Craig by name! And he seems not to have noticed that this section was there. (Among my minor sins, I’m happy to confess that I would always check first to see if my name would appear in someone else’s paper. Apparently not everyone works that way.) It would be okay — maybe even interesting — if he had disagreed with the argument and addressed it, but pretending that it’s not there is puzzling. (The podcast is advertised as “Part One,” so maybe this question will be addressed in Part Two, but I still wouldn’t understand the assertion in Part One that I ignored the question.)
The idea is simple, if we may boil it down to the essence: some things happen for “reasons,” and some don’t, and you don’t get to demand that this or that thing must have a reason. Some things just are. Claims to the contrary are merely assertions, and we are as free to ignore them as you are to assert them.
The second major point Craig makes is a claim that I ignored something important: namely, the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin singularity theorem. This is Craig’s favorite bit of cosmology, because it can be used to argue that the universe had a beginning (rather than stretching infinitely far backwards in time), and Craig is really devoted to the idea that the universe had a beginning. As a scientist, I’m not really devoted to any particular cosmological scenario at all, so in my paper I tried to speak fairly about both “beginning cosmologies” and “eternal cosmologies.” Craig quotes (misleadingly) a recent paper by Audrey Mithani and Alex Vilenkin, which concludes by saying “Did the universe have a beginning? At this point, it seems that the answer to this question is probably yes.” Mithani and Vilenkin are also scientists, and are correspondingly willing to be honest about our state of ignorance: thus, “probably” yes. I personally think the answer is “probably no,” but none of us actually knows. The distinction is that the scientists are willing to admit that they don’t really know.
The theorems in question make a simple and interesting point. Start with a classical spacetime — “classical” in the sense that it is a definite four-dimensional Lorentzian manifold, not necessarily one that obeys Einstein’s equation of general relativity. (It’s like saying “start with a path of a particle, but not necessarily one that obeys Newton’s Laws.”) The theorem says that such a spacetime, if it has been expanding sufficiently fast forever, must have a singularity in the past. That’s a good thing to know, if you’re thinking about what kinds of spacetimes there are.
The reason I didn’t explicitly mention this technical result in my essay is that I don’t think it’s extremely relevant to the question. Like many technical results, its conclusions follow rigorously from the assumptions, but both the assumptions and the conclusions must be treated with care. It’s easy, for example, to find examples of eternally-existing cosmologies which simply don’t expand all the time. (We can argue about whether they are realistic models of the world, but that’s a long and inconclusive conversation.) The definition of “singularity in the past” is not really the same as “had a beginning” — it means that some geodesics must eventually come to an end. (Others might not.) Most importantly, I don’t think that any result dealing with classical spacetimes can teach us anything definitive about the beginning of the universe. The moment of the Big Bang is, if anything is, a place where quantum gravity is supremely important. The Borde-Guth-Vilenkin results are simply not about quantum gravity. It’s extremely easy to imagine eternal cosmologies based on quantum mechanics that do not correspond to simple classical spacetimes throughout their history. It’s an interesting result to keep in mind, but nowhere near the end of our investigations into possible histories of the universe.
None of this matters to Craig. He knows what answer he wants to get — the universe had a beginning — and he’ll comb through the cosmology literature looking to cherry-pick quotes that bolster this conclusion. He doesn’t understand the literature at a technical level, which is why he’s always quoting (necessarily imprecise) popular books by Hawking and others, rather than the original papers. That’s fine; we can’t all be experts in everything. But when we’re not experts, it’s not intellectually honest to distort the words of experts to make them sound like they fit our pre-conceived narrative. That’s why engagement with people like Craig is fundamentally less interesting than engagement with open-minded people who are willing to take what the universe has to offer, rather than forcing it into their favorite boxes.
Oops, one of the sentences I wrote should have been, “Can you provide me evidence that a supernatural, all-knowing, etc., God does or does not exist or is impossible?”
Cheers. 🙂
Sean,
How about if you take a stab at answering my question?
@James, the stickless (comfortable to remain without knowledge of disembodied minds) are to we the sticked, frustratingly apathetic towards the well-funded monotheist institutions busily placing said sticks up thy neighbours tailpipes.
Tom: Carroll says the universe doesn’t need God, which is not quite the same as saying “we’re 100% certain that God does not exist”.
However, something has gone wrong when we even ask the question “well, can you be 100% certain of that?”, and as other commenters have pointed out, it’s a pretty tired argument and it’s not Carroll’s job to educate you. Still, other commenters have tried, and I’ll try again.
You write: “I know the FSM and orbiting teapot don’t exist because their formation out there is incompatible with initial conditions and the laws of physics.” What is incompatible with the laws of physics about there being a teapot?
On the FSM, I think you will find that sophisticated Pastafarian theologians will tell you that His Noodly Appendage is not material, so we should not expect physical laws to rule it out, rather the Appendage is Pure Essence which can only be understood by analogy to physical things (see Feser’s blog postings, which someone linked to above, for an example of this kind of reasoning). Nevertheless, we can see (in an analogical sense) that there is a Noodly Appendage, for why else would the universe be fine tuned for the existence of pasta?
Slightly more seriously, where you’ve gone wrong is to assume that there is something special to be agnostic about when talking about gods. What I mean by that is that there are countless conceivable possibilities which are difficult or impossible to rule out, so strictly we must be agnostic about them (if knowledge requires certainty), but we don’t trouble ourselves with them most of the time. I don’t go around proudly proclaiming that I’m agnostic about invisible gremlins in the walls and berating people who don’t see a reason to believe in the gremlins for their arrogance, yet apparently we’re supposed to see agnosticism about gods as the most fair minded position. The teapot and FSM examples are supposed to point out that this is silly. Google “privileging the hypothesis” for more.
Coming late into this – I was struck by #23 David Lau: science is “discovered,” religion is “made” by man (and woman)
What an opinion! The history of religion is one of discovery as well – our concept of deity is improved as much as our concept of matter – and bound to keep improving
A finer sense of God and a finer sense of Atom are evolutionary
We discover/make destructive religion as well as destructive science (Hiroshima) – and the opposite is also true
My prediction is that we will shed our false duality (mind/body, spirit/matter, etc) and religion and science will be one
The problem is Guide that sceince is not simply a body of facts its a method that combines logical consistency and emperical obervation. Since religion does nto reuqire emperical observation i cannot see how sceince and religion can be one. the religious have a pre conceived conclusion ie god exists. they also by and large teach us not to listen to our doubts. Science does not have this and teaches us that doubt is king, so they are incompatible.
Philh, listen to you…. and the false duality – it is just you….seeing double
Sean,
if you’re interested, part 2 of Craig’s review of your article is out. That is, in case you want a fistful of this charlatan’s nonsense, delivered with that really annoying “unctuous, smug and self-satisfied tone of voice” (to quote Dawkins). here’s the link:
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/sean-carroll-on-science-and-god
Rather than ask whether you need God to create a universe, ask whether you need God to create life. The universe is too big to argue by e-mail.
Watson and Crick have established that there is DNA ladder 2 meters in length in each cell of your body, straddled by 6 billion base pairs, (A,G,C & T) that are unique to each person. In other words, there is a 4-bit model number 6 billion digits long that defines you. We are represented by an impossibly complex and infinitely clever digital number that far predates our computers.
The brilliance and complexity itself is beyond our comprehension. It could not possibly generate itself by any conceivable form of aggrandizement; entropy turns everything into junk.
Even the paramecium has DNA which code defines it as a paramecium.
The best and only theory science has for the beginning of life is swamp water lots and of lightning.
Charles Darwin would be absolutely staggered to find out what’s really going on, with his “stands to reason” kind of observational science. From this standpoint, it’s absurd for school boards to be pressured to teach evolution as a science, because it will be teaching Darwin’s outmoded but it looks like up to now no one has really noticed that Darwin is completely irrelevant.
Jackpol
Let me clear up Prof. Carroll’s bafflement. The reason I didn’t address his response to what he calls the Primordial Existential Question is that we recorded, not one, but three podcasts on Prof. Carroll’s article, the first dealing with the kalam cosmological argument, the second with the teleological argument from fine-tuning, and the third with the Leibnizian cosmological argument. The Primordial Existential Question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” comes up in the third segment. So hold on, it will come!
The kalam argument concerns the different question of what brought the universe into being. As I explained in the podcast, Carroll avoids this question only by gratuitously reading a tenseless theory of time into certain cosmological models.
Carroll downplays the significance of the BGV Theorem and the conclusions Vilenkin draws from it in his recent paper that I cited. In answer to the question “Did the universe have a beginning?,” Vilenkin concludes “it seems that the answer to this question is probably yes” (arXiv:1204.4658v1 [hep-th] 20 Apr 2012, p. 5). One would never have guessed that from reading Carroll’s Blackwell Companion article. In his oral presentation of his paper at the conference in Cambridge, Vilenkin was clear: “There are no models at this time that provide a satisfactory model for a universe without a beginning” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXCQelhKJ7A). The “eternal cosmologies based on quantum mechanics” so easily imagined by Prof. Carroll are not, in fact, tenable; but his unsuspecting readers would not know that.
I’m disappointed that Carroll cannot have a collegial discussion of these important questions but feels the need to resort to snide, personal attacks in his closing paragraph. His unfamiliarity with my work is evident in his remark that I do not cite the relevant, original, scientific papers (despite my quoting the Vilenkin-Mithani paper in the very podcast to which he is responding), as well as the popular works of physicists (where they often feel freer to express what they take to be the philosophical and theological implications of their work). Carroll will pardon us, I hope, for our scepticism about his counting himself among the ranks of the open-minded.
Hi W L Craig
You should use the Ontological Argument, that way you won’t have so many clever scientists explaining very simply why you are a pretty silly person.
(Because they won’t care)
EDIT: lots of non-love against religious eegits deleted (by me)
the so called open minded are really nasty… why?
WLC is the Best there is. And all you have to do is look at the 25 dodged attempts and refusals from Mr. Richard Dawkins himself, who will willingly debate any priest, Nun, Clergymember, Pastor, or even Bill Oreilly. But he won’t dare step on the same stage with Craig. Attacks like these from Carroll are so typical.
It would be great to have Dr. Carroll on as a guest in the reasonable faith podcast, or even better in a joint academic paper where time can be taken to carefully look at each point made on both sides. I am sure it is hard for either Dr. Craig or Dr. Carroll to sound completely objective to the casual listener/reader when they both seem to have deep beliefs about the inquiry into God’s existence.
It is always refreshing when someone can have a more objective sounding discussion/debate about this important topic rather than to quickly go on the defensive. In my opinion Dr. Carroll did quickly jump to defend himself; too quickly, in my opinion, to sound objective with his response.
I really appreciate the dialogue between people like Alvin Plantinga and Richard Gale, for instance.
From my perspective (after examining the details and claims) it looks like Dr. Craig was rather comprehensive about responding to Dr. Carroll, but (without owning the Blackwell edition in question) I haven’t seen that reciprocated here yet.
Both men seem to be very interested and studied in the idea of “time”. It seems that if objectivity could be approached more closely on both sides, something fruitful might come of it…
or even better in a joint academic paper where time can be taken to carefully look at each point made on both sides
Yeah, but would that be a philosophy paper or a physics paper?
Sam, that would be great!
Don’t let the universe be the universe! Read ”The World Thinker” (Jack Vance)
For God’s Sake Guys! Carroll with this argument of his and other genii like Roger Penrose with his CCC argument are much better than this WLC… at least they have taken time to think and re-phrase their thoughts in mathematical terms; while all that this WLC is doing is trying to defend a faith that was written down much much later than Christ himself!
This is the path to the pinnacle of human intellectual achievement (we being able to think for ourselves, free-thought/will endowed) and coming close to realizing our very origins (OK, I admit that this could be asymptotically reachable)… but did you ever think why if we honestly question rationally the origins of our existence without clinging to any faiths or dogmas, the idea of a creator seems to distance itself…. to a negligible quantity of belief, so to say…? That’s what happens when you climb on the intellectual ladder unhindered by traditional thought processes… and that is what these great minds have come to realize, and eventually anyone else who will trod on these free-willed paths will also…
While I’m not saying that anyone is right or wrong here, what I’m REALLY saying is that the intellectual attempts of people like Carroll are much worthier (even in their actions alone) than what people like WLC are doing…the latter don’t even contribute to the society in any way, save for trying to relegate the world to the Stone Age…
Oh WTF, some people had had their lives ruined thinking like this, what with Gallileo, Bruno, etc., etc…. and this WLC’s forefathers wrought that evil then, and their sons are sowing those seeds now…. God Bless all these Souls! And all those who whine in the names of these unintellectual-hypocrites…
p.s: My definition of Physics is “At any given time, the Current Human State (or compendium of knowledge, if you will) of comprehension of the universe and the dynamics of its phenomena” AND it “does not purport to understand the universe completely, and might never will, but is always evolving ” BUT “the idea of a creator for the universe seems to be distancing itself from the common-sense of the rationally thinking peoples, that is, in the light of the CURRENT state of human understanding (which is always improving)” —- OK, in other words, these two are like two asymptotes of the X and Y axes that are approaching a state of mutually perpendicular-ness (if I may say so)…. in much simpler terms, the idea of a need for a creator is much less required now, than it was 2000 years ago… and it will grow much lesser in the years to come though the thought itself will persist with those who will choose to believe in it in place of rational thinking…
ICD
You don’t need to invoke such reasonable arguments to debunk the religious idiots, just let them fight among themselves (literally) over their conceptions of Nature, there can be only one.
I laugh at people who accuse the likes of me of being “nasty”, yeah, do I tell people how to behave sexually, how birth control must be practised, why biological research that might help/prevent disabilities cannot be allowed. Etc. Yeah, the nasties are the simpleton theists who hope to hitch a ride on the spectacular brilliance that is science to aid their arguments for basically nonsense.
Nobody KNOWS, we just extend our understanding, and FWIW, I believe a TOE, a theory of all particles and the 4 known forces will be just a small step on our journey to understand things, and for that reason we should just all behave nice to each other, basically.
But, we most not allow idiots to dictate things, because they can claim the remaining mystery is known to them is some special stupid/retarded/idiotic/moronic/dumb/deluded manner.
nasty….and pompous?
I’m late to the discussion, but can I point out just how genial and polite Craig is, in contrast with many of the comments against him? I respect that.
I’m looking forward to hearing his comments in part 3 of his podcast. If anyone has a link, let me know.
One reason I found this article disappointing was that accusations were made against Craig that weren’t substantiated. For example:
Where does Craig assert that Sean Carroll ignored the question? I listened to it twice and I didn’t see Craig claim that the Carroll ignored the question, and Carroll gives no reference about where this claim might be found. I also read the transcript and couldn’t find the assertion.
How on earth does Craig quote it misleadingly? We are not told, and this accusation is never justified.
More puzzling though is Carrol’s remark on the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem:
I’m amazed Carroll would think so. Granted, it is not as simple as saying “the theorem says the universe has a beginning” but it’s very significant in the case for a beginning of the universe, as can be seen in the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology’s entry on the kalam cosmological argument, which goes into somewhat lengthy technical detail in how the theorem supports a beginning of the universe. Given the prominence of the theorem in support of that “the universe began to exist” premise of the kalam cosmological argument, I’m surprised that Carroll evidently doesn’t see the theorem’s relevance.
Does Vilenkin really believe we don’t really know as the author seems to suggest? It seems unlikely. On page 176 of “Many Worlds in One” he says, “With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning.” That doesn’t sound much like a state of ignorance, and ironically Vilenkin seems more convinced of the strong scientific grounds for a beginning of the universe than Craig does (on numerous occasions, Craig has reminded people of the tentative nature of science while also claiming that the universe having a beginning is supported by contemporary science).
@Ross
Many deluded people in history could be quite genial too. Does Craig support stem cell research, or does he think disabilities are a natural thing which we shouldn’t interfere with using our evil science techniques?
(I mean, let’s cut to the chase, arguing about the beginning of the universe and god just diverts attention from the nonsense that these people think)