Overman is a “high-powered,” Washington-based international lawyer whose passionate hobby is cutting-edge science. The following is a “lawyer’s argument” against Stephen Hawking’s rhetorical question, “What place, then, for a creator?”
While not a working scientist, Overman’s critique strikes me as epistemologically immaculate, and opens up a greater appreciation of the logical basis of the kinds of “to-ing and fro-ing” that we have recently been doing here on our present question as to whether life is the result of random processes or of an implicit universal design. Overman writes,
“The answer Hawking is making to this rhetorical question fails to distinguish between causa essendi (a cause of existence) and causa fieri (a cause of becoming). Something which exists may need a cause for its continuing existence without necessarily needing a cause for its becoming. Even assuming, argumenti causa, that [Hawking’s] no boundary proposal reflects reality, a creator who is a necessary and non contingent being is required as a causa essendi for the continued existence of the universe pursuant to the following reasoning:
1. To avoid the fallacy of petitio principii, assume that the universe exists without a beginning. (If we assume a beginning, we beg the question of a creative cause). This is consistent with Hawking’s proposal and is perhaps the main motivation behind it.
2. A distinction must be made between causa essendi and causa fieri. A mare may be a causa fieri of her foal, but a mare does not act as causa essendi of her foal; she is not the cause of the continuing existence of her foal. A mare which passes away while her foal continues to inhabit the earth cannot be the cause of her foal’s continuing existence. A match may be causa fieri of a flame, but oxygen acts as causa essendi because it is a necessary condition of the continuing existence of the flame.
3. Something which needs a cause of its continuing existence at every moment is contingent upon that cause; it is not necessary in and through itself.
4. As we have discussed, this universe is only one among many possible universes which might have existed. We can conceive of other universes which could exist with different characteristics than our universe. Because other universes are possible, this universe is not the only universe that could ever exist. It is not a necessary universe. Because it is merely a possible universe, its existence is not necessary in and through itself. It is not the only universe which can ever exist.
5. Something must exist when it cannot be anything except what it is; it cannot not exist. It is necessary. However, something which could be other than what it is might not exist. A universe which could be other than what it is might not be at all. Such a universe has the possibility or the potential for non-existence.
6. A universe which has the potential for non-existence is a contingent rather than a necessary universe. Anything that is contingent requires a causa essendi, an effective cause of its continuing existence. This merely possible universe is contingent and requires a causa essendi to prevent the possibility of its non-existence. This merely possible universe requires a preservative cause of its continuing existence to protect it from the possibility of annihilation (its reduction to nothingness). This preservative activity is an action of ex-nihilation (coming out of existence out of nothing) as it is juxtaposed to an action of annihilation.
7. Even if Hawking’s boundary-less proposal is correct (which is very unlikely) and the universe does not need a causa fieri for its coming into existence, it does need a causa essendi for its preservation and to protect it from the possibility or potential of a reduction to nothingness or annihilation.
8. To prevent annihilation, the causa essendi cannot be a natural cause because natural causes are themselves contingent things. Contingent things cannot act as causa essendi because they do not have the cause of their own continuing existence in themselves. Something that is necessary and uncaused is required to act as causa essendi of a contingent thing.
9. If we define the concept of God as a necessary rather than a contingent being, God cannot be part of the universe, because the universe and all of the individual things in it are contingent in their existence. A necessary existence means that such an existence is uncaused, independent, and unconditioned. In this concept God has a necessary existence. 10. Thus, even if we assume that Hawking’s questionable proposal is true, the answer to his presumed rhetorical question concerning the need for a creator [implying the rejection of both a beginning and a creative design] is that the creator is necessary as a preservative cause of the existence of the universe.
The important premise in this argument is that the universe is contingent and not necessary. Because other universes are possible, our universe is not necessary in and through itself. If it is not necessary, it is contingent. As Professor Keith Ward argues: To say that the existence of this universe is necessary is to say that no other universe could possibly exist. But how could one know that, without knowing absolutely everything? Even the most confident cosmologists might suspect that there is something they do not know. So it does not look as though the necessity of this universe can be established…. The physical cosmos does not seem to be necessary. We can seemingly think of many alternatives to it. There might, for instance, be an inverse cube law instead of an inverse square law, and then things would be very different, but they might still exist. We can see how mathematics can be necessary, but it is a highly dubious assertion that there is only one consistent set of equations which could govern possible physical realities. We cannot bridge the gap between mathematical necessity and physical contingency. How could a temporal and apparently contingent universe come into being by quasi-mathematical necessity?
In his book, How to Think About God, Mortimer Adler stated this argument and his position that this premise cannot be affirmed with certitude but only beyond a reasonable doubt. He concluded that a preponderance of reasons favor the belief that God exists. Adler himself was persuaded that God exists either beyond a reasonable doubt or by a preponderance of reasons. The reasoning for a causa essendi for the preservation of the universe is consistent with a God whose involvement with the universe is continuous. As causa essendi God would not be simply a cause which began or wound up a universe compossible with life and then left to run on its own, but a cause which intimately and constantly preserved the universe in all of its detail. With respect to the existence of God, one may argue that each person must make an act of free choice in determining his own conclusions. The reasoning on either side of this choice does not produce an absolutely compelling argument. Either conclusion requires a leap of faith. It is up to each individual to decide in which direction he or she will leap. No perfectly ironclad argument destroys the freedom to make that decision.”
But for me, here is the piece de resistance, which Overman cites from Owen Gingerich: “From a Christian perspective, the answer to Hawking’s Query is that God is more than the omnipotence who, in some other space-time dimension, decides when to push the mighty ON switch. A few years ago I had the opportunity to discuss these ideas with Freeman Dyson, one of the most thoughtful physicists of our day. ‘You worry too much about Hawking,’ he assured me. ‘Actually it’s rather silly to think of God’s role in creation as just sitting up there on a platform and pushing the switch.’ Indeed, creation is a much broader concept than just the moment of the Big Bang. God is the Creator in the much larger sense of designer and intender of the universe, the powerful Creator with a plan and an intention for the existence of the entire universe. The very structures of the universe itself, the rules of its operation, its continued maintenance, these are the more important aspects of creation. Even Hawking has some notion of this, for near the end of his book he asks, ‘What is it that breaths fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the question of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?’ Indeed, this is one of the most profound, and perhaps unanswerable, theological question.”
PH, we Christians are no fools, and have been asking the really, really hard questions for over two millennia by now. But that doesn’t necessarily make us “creationists.” (Which, BTW, following Bohr, I consider an illegitimate trespass of theological doctrine into the domain of science. FWIW.)
p.s.: There was no “before” the Big Bang – which created both space and time, out of nothing. “Before” is a time concept that can have no relevance where there is no time.
"What is it that breaths fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the question of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?"
Beautiful. Certainly an admission that science has it's limits.
Somewhere between his paragraph 4 and paragraph 5, Overman slipped on an intellectual banana peel. He goes downhill from there. I could take an hour and dig into it in detail; but I'm not willing to spend more time on him.
Overman doesn't seem to grasp the difference between uniqueness and necessity.