Theism and Atheism

In studying philosophy, no question is more compelling to me than the question of whether a God is necessary for the Universe and life to exist. The reason I took this course was to explore this very question. Essentially the argument for theism vs. atheism comes down to an argument a materialist, naturalist, and mechanist view of the way the universe works against a determinist and purposeful view of the world. To be clear, I will not be arguing for a theistic or atheistc view of the universe, because through my research and personal experience, this view I have an impartial argument would be ideal to find the truth of the matter. Although as a warning it is nearly impossible to take an issue this personal to both myself and many others in such an impartial manner.

I will first go through C.S. Lewis’s famed argument from reason in defense of Christianity as analyzed by Victor Reppert in the Book C.S. Lewis: Life, Works and Legacy. I this argument, a materialist or naturalist account of the universe describes a world where everything that has happened or will happen is causally connected in a closed causal system. Each cause produces an effect which then goes on to produce another effect and so on for eternity. The Argument from reason cites that this account of the universe has several holes which cannot be accounted for. Lewis thought that if Naturalism was true then all beliefs could be explained through nonrational causes, and if no thought is valid if it is explained nonrationally, then if naturalism were true all thoughts are invalid. Naturalism, he presumes, does not leave room for cognition and rational thought. Because human beings reason and are conscious naturalism is invalid. The most important Argument from Lewis, however, is the inclusion of miracles. While Lewis argues that Biblical miracles could not be possible in a causally closed universe. I wish to extend his argument to say that life itself is a miracle. That we live in a universe that is organized and able to support life when it is much more likely in the naturalistic view that life cannot and should not exist. In the face of all that improbability a miracle has happened on this planet and in our universe, therefore, the universe is not causally closed. Moreover, Lewis makes the argument that consciousness does not lend itself to an evolutionary advantage. Nature, he says, would only allow us the opportunity to associate that a specific event follows the preceding event. Inferential, logical reasoning, or being able to deduce that events in general are causal, to say an even follows another, would be unlikely to arise evolutionarily and therefore must have been endowed by a creator. The final argument comes not from Lewis but from Aristotle’s Metaphysics and from Leibniz’s Discourse on Metaphysics. A Naturalistic or causally connected view of the universe ultimately needs an ultimate cause or prime mover. Because something cannot exist from nothing, God must exist because the Universe exists.

However, a physicist and atheist named Lawrence Krauss in his lecture entitled, A Universe From Nothing, seems to counter the validity of a prime mover argument. While Krauss’s lecture is a physics lecture, and not a philosophy lecture, it does have profound religious and philosophical implications, and the tone of the lecture itself seems to be attacking religious beliefs. In his lecture, Krauss proves 2 fundamental properties of the universe that, in his view, prove that god does not need to exist for the universe to exist. He first proves that most of the energy in the universe, including the energy contained in ordinary matter like stars, planets, and humans, is held in empty space. So, in essence empty space isn’t empty at all, in fact its less empty than the rest of the universe, it is just undetectable. The second property is that the spatial curvature of the universe is flat, as opposed to a closed universe that curves back in on itself like a sphere, and an open universe, which is curved but open ended like a 4 dimensional piece of paper that has been folded almost in half but not quite. The combination of these two inferences about the universe produces some surprising conclusions. Krauss concludes that energy is empty space is constantly coming in and out of existence at a quantum level. Like matter/anti-matter inhalations, energy is constantly separating from and combining with negative energy. This means that the total energy of universe is zero. While that sounds like there is no energy in the universe, that assumption is incorrect. While the total energy of the universe is zero, energy and matter exist because there is an equal amount of negative energy and matter somewhere else in the universe. And because the total energy in the universe is zero, and energy a matter spontaneously come into existence from nothing on the quantum level, so long as an equal amount of negative energy and matter is also produced, this means that when the universe was sufficiently small is was entirely possible to come into existence from nothing. A universe that exists from nothing therefore does not require a deity to exist. This account also addresses the miracle argument that Lewis makes. Krauss postulates that the reason we exist in this universe is because we are here to observe it. Out of all the infinite possibilities of universes to exist in, we exist in this one because in all the other universes we cannot observe them therefore they are unknown to us. While the theist argument might conclude that because the conditions for life are so rare only with the assistance of a directing force outside our universe can life exist. Krauss proposes instead that because entire universes can be created spontaneously those universes could have existed and may exist in the future but only the ones where life is possible can conscious beings observe them.