Now to this it was sometimes answered that the universe, given sufficient time, might have “wound itself up” by sheer chance, out of chaos. This was very unlikely to happen, but in infinite time even the very unlikely will happen. God was not needed to “wind the universe up” and set it going.
The classic objection to that was that it was more likely to have wound itself up to its present state than to any previous one, because any earlier state would have had lower entropy, and would therefore have been more highly organized than now. It was actually more likely that we and the world around us sprang from chaos complete with our memories and apparent history than that the primeval universe did. And the question I wanted to raise was, would not the same objection apply to your “emergence from a vacuum,” Geoffrey?
geoffrey
No, I don’t think it would. Entropy is irrelevant to the possible emergence of the universe from a quantum vacuum. The old argument you quoted was trying to show that a world with a low entropy could have emerged by sheer chance out of one with a high—a wound-up one out of a run-down one. And I agree that this won’t do. But we aren’t now talking about a world with high entropy as the background from which the world emerges; we’re talking about a quantum vacuum, a state of affairs where particles, and perhaps more than particles, are constantly coming into being and vanishing again
leslie
But if the only consideration that affects what emerged from the vacuum is its total energy, then any system with zero energy is equally likely to emerge. And of course if the world had zero energy thirteen billion years ago, it has zero energy now. Although the universe as it is now is not more likely to have emerged than the primeval one was (which was the catch in the “old argument” Myra was describing), it is surely just as likely to have done so. And this would make nonsense of the whole scientific enterprise—not to mention common sense.
(There is a pause in which all three try frantically to think of something to add)
myra
I begin to wonder whether we haven’t come to something of an impasse. To Geoffrey this vacuum suddenly exploding into the beginnings of our universe, with no reason for its existence, seems simpler and more probable than belief in God; to Leslie it seems the reverse. I must say, I tend to agree with Leslie. This is no doubt largely because I do in fact believe in God already; but I think I might agree even apart from that belief. A vacuum with the potentiality for this universe, right down to teacups, ladybirds and the ink on this page, strikes me as far from simple, or easy to accept as “brute fact.”
geoffrey
The universe is not simple in its contents. That is quite true. But simplicity is not constituted by the small number or the small range of things implied by a theory. (Indeed, if it were, theism would be more complex than atheism, as I pointed out earlier on; it would have all the “things” to account for that atheism has, plus God.) The simplicity we are looking for lies in the structure of the theory itself. How many laws does it need to generate the variety of its contents? It may be that physics will end up with a single theory (the so-called Theory of Everything) to account for all the forces and particles we have at present; and this will be a massive simplification indeed! Yet the contents of the universe—Myra’s teacups and ladybirds and so on—remain exactly the same. That’s why I cannot see that bringing God into it is going to make things any simpler than treating the universe (or a preceding vacuum) as “brute fact.”
leslie
It is also why I think it does make things simpler to believe in God. The theory of a creator God is simpler in structure than the theory of a “brute fact” universe complete with contents and laws, even granted the great simplification that would doubtless be brought about by a Theory of Everything, if it were ever reached.
myra
I’m not too sure how either of you is going to convince the other. I suggest, therefore, that we bring this first Dialogue to a close and move on to another topic—presumably Leslie’s “second group.” That was composed of those arguments which begin from “the detailed constitution of the world,” was it not? So, when we meet again, perhaps you would tell us, Leslie, how you would split this into sub-groups.
leslie
OK. See you tomorrow!
A clear account of the history of “big bang” theories (including the “quantum vacuum” ones) is given in Gribbin’s In Search of the Big Bang (Corgi, 1989). The relation of these theories to natural theology is discussed at length in W. L. Craig & Q. Smith, Theism, Atheism and Big Bang Cosmology (Oxford, 1993); this also includes material on whether the universe must have a beginning in time. Both Craig (a theist) and Smith (an atheist) discuss and reject “oscillating” models of the universe. Craig has also collaborated with Paul Copan in Creation Out of Nothing (Baker Academic and Apollos, 2004) which covers biblical, philosophical and scientific aspects of its subject. For a defence of the “steady state” theory by one of its original developers, see Fred Hoyle, The Intelligent Universe (Michael Joseph, 1983), chapter 7.
The literature on the “cosmological argument” is enormous. My own doctoral thesis in 1970 was on the subject, and lots more has been added since; Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God (OUP, 1979; second edition 2004) contains a magisterial defence of it (including a discussion of what is meant by “simplicity”), and of the arguments from “the detailed constitution of the world.” Hawking’s ideas are to be found in A Brief History of Time (Bantam, 1988), pages 134–41; a more popular presentation, with jokes and pictures, is to be found in The Universe in a Nutshell (Bantam, 2001), pp. 59–63 and 82–85. Cf. also John Barrow, The Origin of the Universe (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1994), chapter 6.
Dialogue II
Alleged Evidence for Design within the World
Dialogue II looks at the evidence for design in the world, especially in living things. Evolution by natural selection is doubtless true, but does it eliminate the need for a God? Could divine action in or on the process of evolution, even if it took place, be detected? Does the existence of life, and more particularly of conscious life, suggest a God at work? And can actual altruism (as contrasted with altruistic behavior) be accounted for by natural selection?
leslie
I said I’d try and outline some of the arguments from special features of the world. The most celebrated used to be that associated above all with Archdeacon Paley in the 18th century: the comparison of living things, and the organs that make them up, to artefacts like watches, and hence the conclusion that they, like the watch, must have a Designer. Paley himself was, of course, only one in a tradition of apologists which began long before and went on long after. Indeed, perhaps its finest flowering was in the Bridgewater Treatises, in which some of the best scientists of the early 19th century found evidence of design not just in biology but in other disciplines too, such as geology and astronomy.
myra
Let’s leave geology and astronomy out of it, for the time being at least. Biology will keep us going for the present. For you still meet apologists who point to things like the human eye as evidence of design.
Design and Evolution
geoffrey
Which is ridiculous, so long after Darwin and Wallace. We do not need a Designer to explain facts that natural selection will account for.
myra
But natural selection does not mean that there was no Designer: only that He designed the whole process.
geoffrey