How did the universe come about?

[expos4ever]

nothing is a relative concept. although I think the word is falling out of practice among atheists the same "nothing" is still there, perhaps with just a different language. this "nothing" is that which science cannot observe and if it cannot observe something then under science it has no basis for existence and thus does not exist.

I am confident that this is not a correct characterization. I do not believe that many scientists would agree with this way of understanding "nothing". Most scientists, I suggest, would not necessarily deny the reality of something unobservable; they would instead say that the "reality" of that something is a matter that cannot be settled by science. That is not the same things as a dogmatic assertion that the "something" does not exist.

I concede there are a minority - called logical positivists, I believe - who would maintain that something that cannot be observed does not exist.

 

[DamianWarS]

I am confident that this is not a correct characterization. I do not believe that many scientists would agree with this way of understanding "nothing". Most scientists, I suggest, would not necessarily deny the reality of something unobservable; they would instead say that the "reality" of that something is a matter that cannot be settled by science. That is not the same things as a dogmatic assertion that the "something" does not exist.

I concede there are a minority - called logical positivists, I believe - who would maintain that something that cannot be observed does not exist.

You're probably right, but still the same point that science is blinded to it. I think most would be careful with their words as you've put it but would act and make choices as though the "something" in question does not exist.

 

[expos4ever]

You're probably right, but still the same point that science is blinded to it. I think most would be careful with their words as you've put it but would act and make choices as though the "something" in question does not exist.

I see no evidence at all for science being blinded to anything. Can you please make a case, supported with evidence, that this is the case.

 

[Panthers]

firstly, this universe is a product of the 1st dimension.
however the first dimension is a line.

now there are 2 major things to know about lines.
#1. they have a beginning and an end. (Alpha and Omega)
#2. they extend forever.

with such a line, you can do two major things.
#1. you can spin it
#2. you can rotate it.

when such a line rotates and spins without any resistance,
time and space are created.

however, when such a line starts to rip apart from speed and momentum, dimensions and matter are created.
after some time, all the matter decays into hydrogen.
all of space eventual becomes a black hydrogen void...
then it is ignited and elements refused.
one byproduct of fusing elements is water,
another is light...

this is all said in Genesis
just in another way...

Genesis 1:1


Now when we look inside hydrogen using electron microscopes, we see something very Biblical...

SOUND!

and God SAID!!!!

to recap, the universe that God is always in is the First Dimension, (as we are in the 3rd)
the third dimension/universe was made out of a destroyed one.
before it was completely destroyed, the Spirit of God triumphed over the waters.
the waters of which were created by spontaneous hydrogen explosions, within the cloud.
this explosion may have "triggered" the reverse doomsday device ON, and brought fourth the BIble and a new Universe.

 

[Panthers]

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.
Revelation 22:13

 

[Mark Quayle]

when science fails philosophy always takes over

But fact, especially brute fact, needs neither one. We are only residents, not landlords.

 

[Mark Quayle]

I'm not sure how God can be known through science, how? Philosophy can reason something, for example an uncaused cause.

I think you answered your own question right there. The fact that "the way of things" doesn't convince everyone of God's existence is irrelevant. Romans 1 says they are without excuse because they should have known.

As you hinted at, though: Through the same means —his revelation of himself in different ways— some are driven away from him, and others are drawn to him.

 

[Mark Quayle]

I'm getting flashbacks to my philosophy classes during my short stint in college. George Berkeley - Wikipedia

The short of it, George Berkeley argued that a thing only has existence because it is observed, there must therefore always be an observer, and that observer must be God.

-CryptoLutheran

To me, that is a really silly argument, and I am a firm believer in creation and causation, 100% theist. Just reading the first line from the link, under Immaterialism, I see he is playing with words, where it says, 'George Berkeley’s theory that matter does not exist comes from the belief that "sensible things are those only which are immediately perceived by sense."' We don't cause anything to be real. We only perceive them. If nobody/nothing else perceives them, then we at best can only cause them to be perceived.

The creature (in this case humans) has no part in creation (i.e. no authority over reality). What we say or how we think is irrelevant as to reality.

He may be on to something, in that material is only what it is by God's sayso, or by God's assessment, or by God's "upholding its existence" as creatures might describe it, but beyond that, to attempt to prove it by the route he takes there, is simply silly, and that is putting it nicely.

 

[ViaCrucis]

To me, that is a really silly argument, and I am a firm believer in creation and causation, 100% theist. Just reading the first line from the link, under Immaterialism, I see he is playing with words, where it says, 'George Berkeley’s theory that matter does not exist comes from the belief that "sensible things are those only which are immediately perceived by sense."' We don't cause anything to be real. We only perceive them. If nobody/nothing else perceives them, then we at best can only cause them to be perceived.

The creature (in this case humans) has no part in creation (i.e. no authority over reality). What we say or how we think is irrelevant as to reality.

He may be on to something, in that material is only what it is by God's sayso, or by God's assessment, or by God's "upholding its existence" as creatures might describe it, but beyond that, to attempt to prove it by the route he takes there, is simply silly, and that is putting it nicely.

I wasn't particularly impressed with Berkely's arguments either. It seemed to me to be a fundamental rejection of the material world out of a desire to promote Theism over and against a growing philosophical materialism/naturalism of his time--but it just goes through a bunch of funny loops which in the end seems to reject the objective existence of the material.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[ViaCrucis]

I think you answered your own question right there. The fact that "the way of things" doesn't convince everyone of God's existence is irrelevant. Romans 1 says they are without excuse because they should have known.

As you hinted at, though: Through the same means —his revelation of himself in different ways— some are driven away from him, and others are drawn to him.

As Luther notes in his Heidelberg Disputation, it is precisely because "knowledge" of God's power and wisdom doesn't lead one to knowing God that one does not deserve to be called a theologian who speaks of God's invisible power and attributes. Rather one only deserves to be called a theologian by speaking of the visible and external things of God, namely the suffering and death of Jesus Christ on the cross.

Hence the true theologian is, by necessity, a theologian of the cross; as a theologian of glory is no theologian at all. For theologies of glory do not declare the Revealed God of the Cross; they merely entertain ideas about God, hidden and far away behind a veil.

The human response to the invisible qualities of God isn't faith and salvation, but sin and terror. It is only God come down in Christ that gives faith and salvation.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Mark Quayle]

As Luther notes in his Heidelberg Disputation, it is precisely because "knowledge" of God's power and wisdom doesn't lead one to knowing God that one does not deserve to be called a theologian who speaks of God's invisible power and attributes. Rather one only deserves to be called a theologian by speaking of the visible and external things of God, namely the suffering and death of Jesus Christ on the cross.

Hence the true theologian is, by necessity, a theologian of the cross; as a theologian of glory is no theologian at all. For theologies of glory do not declare the Revealed God of the Cross; they merely entertain ideas about God, hidden and far away behind a veil.

The human response to the invisible qualities of God isn't faith and salvation, but sin and terror. It is only God come down in Christ that gives faith and salvation.

-CryptoLutheran

I think I see your point, but I think it is not quite so.

1) At least from a logical POV, if one was to go from effect to causation, one arrives at first cause, and from there the attributes of first cause can be logically drawn. However, not likely anyone will do so as a mere logician, but only as desiring God's glory..

2) To my thinking, at least, a theologian of Glory necessarily is a theologian of the cross. Glory is not without the cross, in God's purpose for creation.

3) Kind of a restatement of 1, here: Speaking of God's invisible power and attributes has everything to do with the cross.

 

[Diamond72]

Here's the thing, there was never nothing.

The universe did not create itself. Something came from outside of the laws of the universe. That is why we have quantum physics to explain what classic physics does not explain.

 

[Mark Quayle]

The universe did not create itself. Something came from outside of the laws of the universe. That is why we have quantum physics to explain what classic physics does not explain.

If I understand correctly, neither classic physics nor quantum physics try to explain where the universe comes from, but rather to simply search that direction as far as possible. Some claim quantum physics does demonstrate that things can "pop into existence by chance", but others say quantum physics is only an attempt to describe what we think we know so far.

What is rather 'curious' to me is that the language that either view of quantum physics uses, so nearly overlaps philosophical language, or imagery.

 

[ViaCrucis]

If I understand correctly, neither classic physics nor quantum physics try to explain where the universe comes from, but rather to simply search that direction as far as possible. Some claim quantum physics does demonstrate that things can "pop into existence by chance", but others say quantum physics is only an attempt to describe what we think we know so far.

What is rather 'curious' to me is that the language that either view of quantum physics uses, so nearly overlaps philosophical language, or imagery.

Though, as I understand it, it's not by chance. An equilibrium is maintained because fundamental particles are paired, otherwise it would violate the first law of thermodynamics. So an electron might pop out of existence, but a paired positron would then pop into existence, and then back again. I don't know if that's really "by chance"; but rather there is an underlying mechanism and principle that governs it--I don't know what that is, but everything in the material universe has some mechanism or principle that governs it.

As such, what happens at the quantum level with elementary particles can't be scaled up to the macroscopic; so that wouldn't (as far as I understand it, which may not be much at all) translate into the whole universe popping into existence.

We still are left with the annoying question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?", an annoying question for science because there is no scientific answer for that question. While the Christian offers the answer, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." So that, regardless of how far back, or how elementary we go as far as the nature of the cosmos, there is ultimately always on the other side, God.

In a sense it's like being inside a house and not being able to leave it. All we can know about the house must be observed from the inside; but we can never observe the house from the outside. To know anything about what is outside the house, and including what the house looks like from the outside, someone would need to enter the house who is from the outside and reveal it to us.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[ViaCrucis]

I think I see your point, but I think it is not quite so.

1) At least from a logical POV, if one was to go from effect to causation, one arrives at first cause, and from there the attributes of first cause can be logically drawn. However, not likely anyone will do so as a mere logician, but only as desiring God's glory..

2) To my thinking, at least, a theologian of Glory necessarily is a theologian of the cross. Glory is not without the cross, in God's purpose for creation.

3) Kind of a restatement of 1, here: Speaking of God's invisible power and attributes has everything to do with the cross.

And yet, if such things could bring us to God in faith then we would not see what Paul says and describes. Men saw the invisible power and glory of God displayed in His creation but it did not lead them to worship Him, it led them to idolatry. When we try to know God through glory we become idolators.

The cross is not glory, the cross is God as God truly is: The One who meets us not in fire or thunder or glorious light--but who meets us in the weak and mortal flesh of Jesus. And so He has told us, no one can come to the Father except by Him.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Mark Quayle]

Though, as I understand it, it's not by chance. An equilibrium is maintained because fundamental particles are paired, otherwise it would violate the first law of thermodynamics. So an electron might pop out of existence, but a paired positron would then pop into existence, and then back again. I don't know if that's really "by chance"; but rather there is an underlying mechanism and principle that governs it--I don't know what that is, but everything in the material universe has some mechanism or principle that governs it.

Agreed. It is self-contradictory to say anything is by chance.

As such, what happens at the quantum level with elementary particles can't be scaled up to the macroscopic; so that wouldn't (as far as I understand it, which may not be much at all) translate into the whole universe popping into existence.

Yes, but in the same sense as the macroscopic is composed of the microscopic, the beginnings of the macro are supposed to be the 'coming into existence' of the micro.

We still are left with the annoying question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?", an annoying question for science because there is no scientific answer for that question. While the Christian offers the answer, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." So that, regardless of how far back, or how elementary we go as far as the nature of the cosmos, there is ultimately always on the other side, God.

In a sense it's like being inside a house and not being able to leave it. All we can know about the house must be observed from the inside; but we can never observe the house from the outside. To know anything about what is outside the house, and including what the house looks like from the outside, someone would need to enter the house who is from the outside and reveal it to us.

Yes, and that is the question that the scientism-ists talk like science is on the cusp of providing for us.

 

[Diamond72]

Agreed. It is self-contradictory to say anything is by chance.

Nothing is by chance, but there are things too complicated to figure out.

 

[stevevw]

Eh...not necessarily. Speculations on how the universe began can be purely secular, and an answer "I don't know" is simply "I don't know," no more, no less. An atheist who says he doesn't know how the universe begin isn't making a statement about believing in God.

I think when an atheist says they don't know its not a case of them then being open to any possibility. Even though they don't know they rely of a promissory note from science that 'though we don't know the answer now whatever the answer will be in the future it will fall within a naturalistic cause'. So in some ways that is based on faith in science which will explain everything.

 

[stevevw]

This is the one question that changes everything, the game changer. Here's what I mean by that. If the Atheist answers and says "I don't know", than that Atheist has just confessed to being an Agnostic. If the Atheist answers and says "The purple people eater created it", than the Atheist has just confessed to being a Creationist, with the creator being the purple people eater. If the Atheist answers and says "Nobody created it", again confessing a creator named Nobody.

Here's the thing, there was never nothing. There was always something. Nothing can't produce something because it can't produce anything...it's nothing, with nothing in it to make something, otherwise, it wouldn't be called nothing, it would be called something. Thus GOD - from everlasting to everlasting.

The big bang doesn't work because - "nothing" can not produce an accident, even by accident. The big bang can not exist without the Elemental "LAWS" : formation, compression, combustion...etc. Who made the laws?

In the beginning GOD created the heavens and the earth. What a breath of fresh air knowing that while we were laying in the dust of the earth GOD administered mouth to mouth and we became alive with a purpose - to express the righteousness of God to the whole creation.

Romans 8:1 19
19 For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the children of God. Halleluiah!

Or it could be that what we see is just a reflection of something deeper and non material.

Romans 1:20, For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

If there is a God who created the universe then maybe the universe is just an expression of God. We intuit that as conscious beings belonging to something greater than the universe itself.

If there is a multiverse then it must have had a beginning. Lawrence Krauss thinks our universe came from nothing. A sort of nothingness that has always been there. But there was something in that nothingness which was the quantum vacuum. To say that this has always been there is more or less the same as saying God has always been there. So I think either way we end up at a point where we have to posit something as always being there.

 

[ViaCrucis]

I think when an atheist says they don't know its not a case of them then being open to any possibility. Even though they don't know they rely of a promissory note from science that 'though we don't know the answer now whatever the answer will be in the future it will fall within a naturalistic cause'. So in some ways that is based on faith in science which will explain everything.

Philosophical naturalism is a belief. So it could be called a kind of faith; but it's less a "faith in science" and more a belief in a kind of dogmatic naturalism--a belief about the nature of reality that is wholly contained within nature.

Because one can take the position of methodological naturalism without holding to naturalism as a philosophy. For science to be science it requires methodological naturalism; otherwise "gasoline engines work because of pixies" would be a valid "science". That means science is limited to only addressing naturalistic things--observations and hypotheses and experimentation and theories, the scientific method. So science can't say "God did it", not because science requires a lack of belief in God or what God can do; but because that's not science. Science can only be used to explain what can be observed of the natural order within the natural order itself. Thus requiring methodological naturalism.

Philosophical naturalism is what takes that and argues that the entirety of reality must be contained within the natural.

The Theist, however, can take methodological naturalism and recognize that it is itself an expression of the Divine will and work. God established nature to be the way it is, and science explores and observes and explains those observations. So science does not lead us to the answer of "God", God does provide motivation for many to do science--which is in a lot of ways exactly how modern science developed in the first place. Both in the Islamic and Christian worlds of the middle ages.

-CryptoLutheran