Just_An_Atheist

I'm refering to Smith's earlier one concerning the complete unpredictability of the initial big bang singularity and it's implications for the existence with a perfectly rational being, and not to his argument from Hawking cosmology. The question is whether any one knows of any good rebuttal to this argument, because I havn't found one.

diana

Huh?

onceuponapriori

I haven't studied that argument closely, and haven't even read it in about six months. But I'm pretty sure the most likely rejoinder would be that the "uncertainity principle" applies to human beings, but not to omniscient folks. Some scientists (and not just theists!) believe that Quantum Theory is useful for its predictive properties, but should not be taken to be an accurate picture of the way reality functions.

But, like I said, I haven't looked at the argument closely, and I'm not a physicist. Maybe I'll look at it more closely soon.

Just_An_Atheist

As far as I know, he wasn't depending on quantum mechanics, nor the heisenburg uncertainty principle, so it wouldn't matter much if quantum mechanics was false or if the unpredictability of the heisenburg uncertainty principle turned out to be predictable after all. But it depends upon hawking's principle of ignorance, which, because of the complete lack of any laws that govern a singularity, there is no way to guarantee anything, and this would contrain even an omniscient deity.

Lobstrosity

For the edification of those who are not familiar with said argument (e.g. me and seemingly Diana), could you actually state the argument in explicit detail or profide a link to a place where it's stated in detail. I'd love to participate, but it's hard to rebut something when you don't understand what you're rebutting.

Just_An_Atheist

I apologize about my unclarity, the argument goes somwhat like this:

1.If God exists and there is an earliest state E of the universe, then God created E.

2.God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and perfectly rational.

3.An animate universe is better than an inanimate one.

4.If God created E, then E is ensured to create animate creatures, or lead to a subsequent state of the universe that contains animate creatures.

5.There is an earliest state of the universe, and it is the big bang singularity.

6.The earliest state of the universe is inanimate since the singularity involves the life-hostile conditions of infinite temperature, infinite density, and infinite curviture.

7.The big bang singularity is inheritly lawless and unpredictable and consequently there is no guarantee that it will emit a maximal configuration of particles that will evolve into an animate state of the universe.

8.The earliest state of the universe is not ensured to lead to an animate state of the universe.

Therefore:
9.God does not exist.

(This is just in case people who don't want to visit the link right now can still get a feel for the argument.)

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...cosmology.html

diana

Thank you for the clarification, Just_An_Atheist. (I guess "Huh?" doesn't have quite the communicative powers I thought it did.)

Before I'm off to peruse the link you provided, I have a couple of initial thoughts on the run-down. (And admittedly, the link may answer these questions sufficiently, but since I was posting my thanks, I thought I'd post my thoughts too. What the hell.)

In #2, Is the statment that God is "perfectly rational" drawn from the usual "God's logic is higher than man's logic" response from believers?

#3: Better? What an odd, subjective and fuzzy premise. What is this assertion based upon? "Better" how? To whom? How are we defining this word for the sake of this argument?

This does not follow. The argument forgets it's own premise. Back at point 2,
you granted that God is omnipotent. He can "ensure" anything he damn well pleases.

d

diana

OK. I see he "answered" at least one of my objections. I don't think his answer holds water, though.

This answer forgets that God is "all-knowing," as well as "all-powerful."

Inherent unpredictability and omniscience are mutually incompatible concepts. If he's going to grant the omni characteristics of God for the sake of argument, he must be true to them.

All God must do is start the ball rolling at the precise instant that he already knows will make the unlikely outcome (animate universe) occur.

This argument takes pains to make a case that will be overridden with the simple Christian "God moves in mysterious ways" response.

Besides...you've granted that God is "perfectly rational." I assume man is not necessarily. Many Christians take the position that God's logic is "higher" than ours. This means we are never in the position to say "it is illogical" of God's actions, because who are we to judge? Or so the argument goes.

d

Just_An_Atheist

Thanks for you're thoughts, but I think that I should have included his second defence of his argument. (Which I'll do know.)

As for the claim that God may have forweknowledge, I think that it can be answered by comparing the attributes of omnipotence with omniscience. Omnipotence is not completely unrestricted, as most theists understand that omnipotence is restricted by at least logic. Perhaps omniscience could be understood in the same way. For instance, God couldn't know anything that it would be logically possible to know. I think that the big bang singularity might be just a limitation, because, if the singularity is unpredictable in principle, then it might be argued that any talk of prediction of what will come out of a big bang singularity would seem to be meaningless. (Not that whatever comes out of the singularity is meaningless, but that any attempt at prediction would be logically impossible because there are no laws whatsoever.) Consequently, if it would be impossible for God to have forwknowledge in this case because knowledge would be impossible to aquire concerning what would happen with the singularity, then even an omniscient being couldn't know it.

Furthermore, it doesn't seem that omniscience is incompatible with unpredictability. For instance, many theists purport that God gave us contracausal free will, and since our actions our freely chosen, the theist says that God does not know the future. However, rationality *is* incompatible with the singularity.

Anyway there's my two cents worth. (I'm sure Quentin Smith would probably do a better job with the objection, but it didn't seem right to just type a link and leave it at that.) Here's the other link:

www. infidels.org/library/modern/quentin_smith/bigbang.html

Just_An_Atheist

sorry the link messed up, here it is again:

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...h/bigbang.html