figuer

From quotation of the minute:

"God does not exist if Big Bang cosmology, or some relevantly similar theory, is true. If this cosmology is true, our universe exists without cause and without explanation." Quentin Smith in William Lane Craig and Quentin Smith, Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993) ,p. 216.

I don't agree with this premise. The Big Bang is the "birth" of our universe, but the question remains: Who is the "mother"?? For an atheist the answer would probably be "a previous universe" , but for a theist the answer would be "God". Thus "Big Bang cosmology" resolves nothing pertaining to the question of the existence of God.

Biff the unclean

It seems to me that cosmology completely rules out God. You don’t even need the big bang, the bible will do.
The claim that God created the universe is a claim that Xians love to take out of context.
The original claim doesn’t stop with an unspecified “creation” but goes on to spell out just how and what was created. When you compare the universe created in the original claim with the actual universe it becomes very clear, very quickly, that it isn’t talking about the real universe.

Baalazel

If BB cosmology is valid the theist is confronted with the fact that his God can not exist as the theist proposes. To account for a creation by the theist God through the BB the theist must jettison all previous positions regarding the creator and in essence recreate his deity.

Baal

GenesisNemesis

I think it's safe to say the Big Bang was the cause, since there was no "before" the Big Bang.

figuer

The Big Bang is the cause of the Big Bang?? - Circularissimo.

How do you know that there was no "before" the Big Bang? That is a metaphysical statement without empirical support. At present there seems to be no method of describing conditions prior to the Big Bang, but that is not equivalent to saying there were none. To affirm so is to state that the Universe came into being out of nothing. The Big Bang cosmology states that the Universe has been expanding into its present state from an earlier condition of extreme density and heat. A condition of extreme density and heat requires 'something' to be dense and hot. What is the origin of this something?

figuer

I see little validity to this statement. It seems most theist are quite content to use the BB theory as a prop for their belief in a creator God, without it implying any significant theological reconfiguration.

Dante Alighieri

I think GN meant that the Big Bang singularity (pretending that BB cosmology really entails the existence of a singularity) is the ultimate brute fact of the world, there is no cause to it.

I agree that BB cosmology says nothing about whether or not it is ultimate brute fact, or if there were indeed events prior to it.

This is not correct. I have addressed this point here:

Secondly, while the causal premise is indeed plausible within time, it makes no sense to apply it to the "beginning" of time. First of all, it is extremely plausible to regard "time" as simply referring to the progression of events and the concrete relations that hold between them. If time isn't the progression of events, then just what is it? So, I don't have much sympathy for the coherence of timelessness. Suppose that Big Bang theory proves that there is an initial singularity. (And this is far from clear; Big Bang theory at best speaks of events up to planck time, but not earlier. Indeed, one of the most significant disagreements between relativistic cosmology and quantum cosmology is the existence of a singularity at all. So, it doesn't seem that BB cosmology really says anything about whether or not physical reality had a first event [what Craig inappropriately calls that the universe "began to exist"]; we simply don't know enough about the universe, and Craig is, shall we say, inferring too much from the available data) What makes Craig think that this singularity must somehow be caused, if this singularity is initial? There are no events at all prior to this event since this event is initial. So, showing that the universe had a first event does not prove anything in terms of showing that it was caused at all.

If the Big Bang singularity is the initial event, then it did not come from nothing since it did not come at all; there were no causal antecedents, much less any antecedents whatsoever. So, that point is mistaken.

If this something is initial, it has no origin. In any case, it is unclear whether or not BB really entails a singularity, especially given the disagreement today between quantum cosmology (which tends to eliminate the singularity) and relativistic cosmology (which tends to keep it); moreover, neither say whether or not this singularity (or lack thereof) is initial or not.

Hedshaker

What do you mean no "before" the Big Bang? How could anyone possibly know anything about the state of existence before the Big Bang?

I see no reason to presuppose a "no before" scenario. The very term makes no sense.

GenesisNemesis

Didn't time and space start with the Big Bang? :huh:

figuer

Did they?