Light On Dark Water

In the discussion on the previous post on this topic (see here), Francesca made the point that “our non-materialist definition of ‘nothingness’ is a consequence of natural theology, of knowing that God exists.” I’m not 100% sure I understand this correctly, but if I do, then I disagree with it. (I think.) However, it does make me see a little differently the situation of the atheist attempting to explain the universe.

My complaint about these attempts is that they claim to explain how the universe could have begun from “nothing,” but they don’t really mean nothing. They mean “not much”—as I understand it, unorganized and not very active quanta of energy in space. I call foul on this—something is not nothing, and transformation and development are not creation. And I’ve been attributing it to intellectual weakness, if not dishonesty.

But I think the roots of the error are deeper. Thinking about what Francesca said, I realized that it’s almost impossible to conceive of something appearing from nothing—a transition from non-existence to existence, and moreover without any causal agency. The mind must supply some form of not-exactly-nothing, and imagine it being transformed and growing into something larger and more complex. And the mind insists on supplying some sort of cause, even if it’s only a “random quantum fluctuation,” whatever that may be. Try it: imagine nothing, no cosmos at all—not empty space, but non-existence—then try to imagine something coming into existence. Your mind will insist on coming up with possible causes, perhaps God if you are disposed to think that way, perhaps some sort of meta-physics if you aren’t, but something that both pre-exists and causes the transition from nothingness to somethingness.

So in the end the intellectual inadequacy of the something-from-nothing argument rests less on the failure of those making the argument than on the nature of thought itself and, I think, on the nature of reality. Perhaps it’s more a failure of will than of intellect. As I said in the earlier post, there’s nothing wrong with saying “we just don’t know” in response to this question of the ultimate origin of things. But if one has a strong emotional commitment to defeating the idea of the Creator God, that’s not enough—some alternative explanation is required. It’s always a little amusing to see the determined rationalist driven by the non-rational.

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