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Why is the universe the way it is?
One of the most important questions that almost all
thinkers, philosophers and people like you and I have asked is “Why does the
universe exist at all? And why is it the way it is?” In response to this
question there are those who say that the universe is uncaused, in other words
it is eternal, meaning it has no beginning and no end. If this is true,
there should be an infinite history of past events. However, the
infinite in the real world is not possible as it implies a quantity that
is limitless. Let’s take the following examples into consideration: if
there were an infinite number of books in a room and two were taken away,
how many would be left? The response may be“infinity” or for those who
are logically inclined “infinity minus two”. In any case, the responses
don’t make sense because although two have been taken away from infinity there
still remains infinity! Consequently, we’re not able to count the remaining
books left in the room. Therefore the infinite leads to contradictions
and simply doesn’t exist in the real world (although it exists in mathematical
discourse; however it is based upon certain axioms and conventions).
Therefore, it logically follows that the universe must have a finite history of
past events, which indicates that it must have begun to exist at some point in
time.
The above may sound too philosophical, but it is also
supported by scientific evidence, for instance, Stephen Hawking, in his
lecture The Beginning of Time states, “The conclusion of this lecture is
that the universe has not existed forever. Rather, the universe, and
time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago.”[1] According to contemporary
cosmologists, the universe began at time zero with the event commonly called the “Big
Bang”. The theory postulates that the universe began as a “singularity”,
an extremely hot and dense entity that expanded and subsequently cooled,
going from something incredibly small and hot to the current size and
temperature of our universe. In light of these facts, it is interesting
to note that there is no scientific explanation as to what happened before
time zero. In addition to this, the Big Bang theory can only postulate
what happened 1 x 10-34 seconds after the Big Bang but not anytime before
it. What happened before this particular point in time is unknown.
In the context of the above discussion, it can be concluded
that generally physicists agree that as a result of the Big Bang, physical
time and space were created as were energy and matter. So two premises
can be drawn from all the above: 1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause 2.
The universe began to exist - Therefore the universe has a cause.
How do we get to this conclusion? Well, if everything we know and see
that begins to exist has a cause, for example a noise in the room or the
pyramids at Giza ,
then the universe - which also began to exist -must also have a cause.
The Cause for the Universe = God?
Our discussion so far has provided good reasons to believe
that there must have been a cause for the universe. However, this doesn’t
tell us much about what the cause is, but if we think deeply about the nature
of the cause - also known as conceptual analysis - we can conclude that it
must be very powerful as it brought into existence the entire universe,
and it must be:
One...
The cause for the universe must be a single cause for
several reasons. An attractive argument to substantiate this claim
includes the use of the rational principle called Occam’s razor. This
principle is commonly summarised as “the simplest explanation is the best
explanation”. In philosophical terms the principle enjoins that we should
not multiply entities beyond necessity. What this basically means is that
we should stick to explanations that do not create more questions than it
answers. In the case of the cause for the universe we have no evidence to
claim multiplicity, in other words more than one, and if we did it would create
more questions than it answers.
Uncaused & Eternal...
This cause must also be uncaused due to the absurdity of an
infinite regress, in other words an indefinite chain of causes. To
illustrate this better, if the cause of the universe had a cause and that cause
had a cause ad infinitum, then there wouldn’t be a universe to talk about
in the first place. For example, imagine if a Stock Trader on a trading
floor at the Stock Exchange was not able to buy or sell his stocks or bonds
before asking permission from the investor, and then this investor had to check
with his, and this went on forever, would the Stock Trader ever buy or sell his
stocks or bonds? The answer is no. In similar light, if we apply
this to the universe we would have to posit an uncaused cause due to this
rational necessity.
However, some philosophers and scientists claim that “why
doesn’t the cause be the universe itself?” and “why can’t the cause stop at the
universe?” Well, the problem with these claims is that they would imply the
universe created itself, which is absurd because how can anything exist and not
exist at the same time? Finally, it would be irrational to claim that
whatever begins to exist causes itself!
Immaterial...
The cause has to be immaterial since it created
everything. If you were to take any state of physical existence, you
would come to the conclusion that, that state of physical existence owes itself
to another state of physical existence. And that state of physical
existence, owes itself to another state of physical existence. But you
can’t go back states of physical existences ad infinitum. There has
to be a beginning to the entire state of physical existences. Therefore,
the logical conclusion is that the origin of all creation has to be a non-
physical state. After thinking about the nature of the cause for the
universe we come to the remarkable realisation that it has all the basic
attributes of the traditional monotheistic God, namely that He is one, eternal
and immaterial. But what reasons do we have to start claiming that a
particular religion is true? This leads us to discuss the Quran, the book
of the Muslims.
Footnotes:
[1] (http://www.hawking.org.uk/index.php/lectures/publiclectures/62)
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