Why is there anything at all? (Introduction)

by Mark , Thursday, June 19, 2008, 20:25 (5790 days ago) @ dhw

Review Part 2 - So we've not got very far with the big question at the head of the thread: "Why is there anything at all?" It is a big question. For atheists it is the one which won't go away. - It may be interpreted as two questions:
1) What is the cause by which anything exists?
2) What is the purpose for which anything exists? - So far the discussion has only addressed the first of these. I cannot see how science can ever answer the first question. To do so it would have to explain how from a proper nothing (not a Stenger nothing) you can get something. Given that by definition there is no science of a proper nothing, science can say nothing about a nothing. Richard Dawkins, incidentally, doesn't appreciate this. All he says, optimistically, is "We don't yet have an equivalent crane for physics". Equivalent, that is, to natural selection for the evolution of species. But the crane he is looking for is just what he says ... a crane for physics ... and to find that you have to step outside of science itself, by definition. - Christian doctrine holds that God is the creator of everything that is not God and that God himself is uncreated. God has aseity, i.e. he is "of himself". Now it may be objected that God is no more acceptable as a terminus than the universe itself. Why is it easier to believe in God as an uncaused origin than, say, an uncaused Stenger nothing? My answer would be that a Stenger nothing (or equivalent) has nothing within it that explains itself. It is understood, or at least ultimately capable of being understood, by science. On the other hand, while God is to us an impenetrable mystery as far as his aseity is concerned, to allow the mystery is to allow that there really is an answer to the question. The fact that we do not know the answer, and that finite human creatures may never have the capacity to comprehend it, doesn't matter. I find it far more satisfactory to believe that there is an answer. To my mind, materialistic atheists rule out the possibility. - It's worth noting that Richard Dawkins misses the point again when he likens belief in God to belief in fairies at the bottom of the garden. The reason I do not believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden is that there is no pressing question to which fairies may be the answer. "Why is there anything at all?" is, for most people in the world, a very pressing question, whether Dawkins likes it or not. - The second form of the question, "What is the purpose for which anything exists?", is even more inaccessible to science. Again, the atheist has to say that there can be found no purpose outside of ourselves. It is for us to create a purpose for the fleeting period we are around. Beyond that, life has no meaning. I rather believe that such things as love, joy, peace, truth and beauty are lasting goals, not ephemeral creations of the human brain which disappear when you study them. And I believe that they are real because they are grounded in God.