I recently linked to philosopher of physics David Albert’s take down of Lawrence Krauss’s bookA Universe From Nothing. (My own review of Krauss will soon appear in First Things.) A reader calls my attention to this blog post in which Victor Stenger — Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado, Professor Emeritus of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Hawaii, and author of several atheist tomes — rides to the rescue of Krauss against Albert. (If only the other philosophically incompetent New Atheists had such a knight in shining armor! O Dawkins, where is your Stenger? O Coyne, where is your Victor?)
Unfortunately for Krauss, the intrepid Stenger shoots only blanks. And misses. Krauss, as you may know, argues that the laws of quantum mechanics (QM) show how a universe can arise from nothing. Albert demurs, and Stenger responds:
[Albert] asks, “Where, for starters, are the laws of quantum mechanics themselves supposed to have come from?” Krauss admits he does not know, but suggests they may arise randomly, in which case some universe like ours would have arisen without a prescribed cause. In my 2006 book The Comprehensible Cosmos, I attempt to show that the laws of physics arise naturally from the symmetries of the void.
Later Stenger tells us that the “void” or “nothing” in question “can be described mathematically,” “has an explicit wave function,” and “is the quantum gravity equivalent of the quantum vacuum in quantum field theory.”
Of course, the problem with all of this is the same as the problem with the original suggestion that the laws of QM show that a universe can come from nothing. The laws of QM are not nothing, and neither are “the symmetries of the void” nor anything that “can be described mathematically,” “has an explicit wave function,” etc. In general, if you can characterize it in terms of physical law — which Krauss, Stenger, and like-minded atheists all want to do vis-à-vis “nothing” — then it isn’t nothing. It’s something physical, and thussomething rather than nothing. Obviously.
Obviously, that is, unless you are a New Atheist dogmatically attached to the utterly groundless proposition that all genuine questions simply must be susceptible of a scientific answer. At this juncture Stenger does what an increasing number of atheists do when it is pointed out to them that their “explanations” of how the universe arose from nothing merely change the subject — they feign ignorance of English. Writes Stenger:
Clearly, no academic consensus exists on how to define “nothing.” It may be impossible. To define “nothing” you have to give it some defining property, but, then, if it has a property it is not nothing!
But this is the muddleheaded stuff of a freshman philosophy paper — treating “nothing” as if it were an especially unusual, ethereal kind of substance whose nature it would require tremendous intellectual effort to fathom. Which, as everyone knows until he finds he has a motive for suggesting otherwise, it is not. Nothing is nothing so fancy as that. It is just the absence of anything, that’s all. Consider all the true existential claims that there are: “Stones exist,” “”Trees exist,” “Quarks exist,” etc. To ask why there is something rather than nothing is just to ask why it isn’t the case that all of these statements are false. Pretty straightforward.
To admit the obvious, though, would be to admit that there are questions that physics cannot answer, such as where the laws of physics themselves came from — or more precisely, since “laws” are just abstractions from a concrete physical reality that behaves in accordance with the laws, where this concrete physical reality itself comes from. That nothing in physics answers this question was Albert’s point, and Stenger says absolutely nothing to answer it.
Read the rest. It’s really good! and there’s a lot more goodness there. 176 comments at the time I am writing this.
UPDATE: Peter Sean Bradley note that Krauss is now walking back his rhetoric in response to criticisms from people like atheist John Horgan.
I have been writing about Stenger and Krauss a lot lately, so here are the links in case you missed anything:
William Lane Craig made 5 arguments for the existence of God:
the contingency argument
theargument from the origin of the universe (kalam)
the argument from cosmic fine-tuning
the moral argument
the argument from the miracle of the resurrection
These arguments went unrefuted during the debate.
Lawrence Krauss’s case
Lawrence Krauss made the following arguments in his first speech:
Dr. Craig is a professional debater
Dr. Craig is not a scientist
Dr. Craig is a philosopher
Disproving God’s is a waste of my valuable time
Dr. Craig has the burden of proof to show evidence
My job is not to present any evidence
I think that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is a nice slogan, but I have no evidence for it
I don’t like that God doesn’t appear on Youtube, therefore he doesn’t exist
I don’t like that God didn’t appear to humans until recently, therefore he doesn’t exist
I don’t like that the stars didn’t come together to spell “I am here”, therefore God doesn’t exist
Dr. Craig has to supply extraordinary evidence, because my favorite slogan says he has to
Dr. Craig talks about logic, but the universe is not logical
Dr. Craig doesn’t have any arguments, just things he doesn’t like
Dr. Craig doesn’t like infinity, and that’s why he believes in the Big Bang cosmology
Dr. Craig doesn’t like chance, and that’s why he believes in cosmic fine-tuning
Dr. Craig doesn’t like rape, and that’s why he believes in the ontological foundations of morality
If people believe in logic, then they can’t do science
The things that science discovers contradict the laws of logic
For example, Dr. Craig doesn’t like infinity, so he believes in the experimental measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation
For example, Dr. Craig doesn’t like chance, so he believes in the fine-tuning of the gravitational constant for the formation of stable stars
Quantum mechanics shows that the universe is stranger than you think, therefore all of Craig’s arguments are false
My t-shirt says 2 + 2 = 5, therefore all of Craig’s arguments are false
Atheism may look ridiculous, but it’s true, and if you don’t like it, too bad – because the universe is very strange
Accidents happen all the time, so that explains the cosmic fine-tuning
We all have to convince ourselves of 10 impossible things before breakfast, and atheism is impossible, so you need to convince yourself of it
I don’t know about the Big Bang, so Dr. Craig cannot use the Big Bang to to prove the universe began to exist
I don’t know about the cosmic fine-tuning, so Dr. Craig cannot use the fine-tuning of cosmological constants to prove the fine-tuning
I don’t know anything about science, so Dr. Craig cannot use science in his arguments
Dr. Craig says that the universe is contingent because it began to exist 13.7 billion years ago based on the state-of-the-art scientific evidence for the Big Bang creation out of nothing from 1) red-shift of light from distant galaxies, 2) cosmic microwave background radiation, 3) helium-hydrogen abundances, 4) experimental confirmation of general relativity, 5) the second law of thermodynamics, 6) radioactive element abundances, etc., but how does he know that? I don’t know that
It’s fine not to know the answer to scientific questions like whether the universe began to exist, it’s more exciting
Thinking that the universe began to exist based on 6 pieces of scientific evidence is the “God-of-the-Gaps” fallacy, it’s intellectual laziness
But all kidding aside, the universe actually did begin to exist 13.72 billion years ago, exactly like Craig says in his argument
I could argue that God created the universe 4.5 seconds ago with all of us sitting believing that we heard Dr. Craig, and how could you prove me wrong? It’s not falsifiable
Universes can spontaneously appear out of nothing, and in fact they have to appear out of nothing
Nothing is unstable, and space and time can come into existence out of nothing, so that’s not a problem
Our universe could have appeared out of a multiverse, an unobservable, untestable multiverse that I have no way of observing or testing
The universe is not fine-tuned for life, and no scientist says so, especially not Martin Rees, the atheist Astronomer Royal, and every other scientist
What if God decided that rape was OK, would it be OK? God can change his moral nature arbitrarily, can’t he?
Here are the arguments in Krauss’ second speech:
We don’t understand the beginning of the universe
We don’t understand whether the universe had a cause
Steven Weinberg says that science makes it possible to be an atheist, so therefore the universe didn’t begin and didn’t have a cause
It’s just intellectual laziness to say that the universe came into being 13.7 billion years ago, and that things that come into being of nothing have a cause
Dr. Craig is an expert on nothing, ha ha ha!
There are multiple versions of nothing, there’s nothing, and then there is something, which is also nothing if I want it to be
There was no space, there was no time, and then the space create the empty space
I’m going to give Dr. Craig a break
At least in the nothing there were laws like F=ma, and those laws created the empty space, because descriptions of matter that does not even exist yet can create space out of nothing
Alan Guth and Alexander Vilenkin are good friends of mine and I talk to them all the time, unlike Dr. Craig
Alan Guth and Alexander Vilenkin don’t mention God in their scientific papers, therefore the universe didn’t begin and didn’t have a cause
Maybe there is a multiverse that cannot be observed or tested? And my unscientific speculations are a refutation of Craig’s scientific evidence for the fine-tuning
Dr. Craig just doesn’t like my speculations about the unobservable, untestable multiverse, and that’s why he believes in the Big Bang cosmology
And if you let me speculate about an unobservable, untestable multiverse, then maybe the inanimate invisible universes reproduce and compete for food and mutate like animals and then there is natural selection so that the finely-tuned universes survive and now we’re in one!
My cool animation of blue goo mutating proves that the multiverse is real! Empty space is not empty!
Darwinism, which is a theory about the origin of species, explains the cosmic fine-tuning that occurred at the moment of creation
The unobservable, untestable multiverse universes all have different laws, I believe
We don’t know what the right answer is, but we are willing to look at any possibility, as long as the possibilities we look at are not supernatural possibilities
The discovery of the origin of the universe could be an accident, I don’t know if the universe began to exist or not, maybe all the six scientific evidences are wrong because if I don’t like the evidence we have, so I’ll just wait for new evidence to overturn the evidence we have which I don’t like
Maybe there are other forms of life that are unobservable and untestable that are compatible with a universe that has no stable stars, no planets, no elements heavier than hydrogen, no hydrogen, no carbon, etc.
Here are the arguments in Krauss’ third speech:
Dr. Craig is stupid
Why should we even care about Dr. Craig’s arguments and evidence, we can just count the number of scientists who are atheists and decide whether God exists that way – I decided everything based on what my teachers told me to believe
What quantum mechanics shows is that virtual particles come into being in a quantum vacuum, and then go out of existence almost immediately – and that is exactly like how a 13.7 billion year old universe came into being in a quantum vacuum, and we’re going to disappear very soon
Space and the laws of physics can be created, possibly, if you accept my speculations about an unobservable, untestable multiverse
I don’t like the God of the Old Testament, therefore he doesn’t exist
Groups of people can decide what they think is good and evil, like the Nazis and slave-owners did, and then that becomes good for them in that time and place, and that’s what I mean by morality
Not knowing things is really exciting! Dr. Craig is not really exciting because he knows things – phooey!
Here are the arguments in Krauss’ fourth speech:
If you will just grant me an observable, untestable multiverse, then there must be some universe where intelligent life exists
Infinite numbers of things exist everywhere in nature, you can see lots of infinite collections of things, like jelly beans and bumblebees and invisible pink unicorns
I don’t like the fine-tuning, but if my speculations about the multiverse are proven true, then I won’t have to learn to live with the fine-tuning
Inflation, the rapid expansion of the universe which occurs at some time after the the origin of the universe (t = 0), explains the absolute origin of time, space, matter and energy out of nothing that occurred at t = 0
Physical processes that develop subsequent to the creation of the universe at t > 0 can explain the fine-tuning of quantities that are set at t = 0
Morality is just a bunch of arbitrary conventions decided by groups of people in different times and places by an accidental process of biological and social evolution, but that practice over there by those people is objectively wrong!
1 Cor 15:3-7, which most scholars, even atheists like James Crossley, admit is dated to within 3 years of the death of Jesus, is actually dated to 50 years after the death of Jesus
The historical case for the resurrection made by people like N.T. Wright in their multi-volume academic works is on par with the story of Mohammed ascending to Heaven on a horse
The OSU [Oregon State University] Socratic Club will sponsor a public dialogue entitled, “Two Philosophers Debate the Existence of God,” on Monday, March 1, at 7 p.m. in the LaSells Stewart Center on the OSU campus. William Lane Craig will argue for the Christian view that a personal God exists and Victor J. Stenger the atheist position that there is no God.
In this debate, Victor Stenger does affirm his belief that the universe could be eternal in his second rebuttal (1:02:30), thus denying the standard Big Bang cosmology. He also denies the law of conservation of energy and asserts that something can come from nothing in his concluding speech (1:33:50). He also caused the audience to start laughing when he said that Jesus was not moral and supported slavery. There is almost no snark in this summary. Instead, I quoted Dr. Stenger verbatim in many places. I still think that it is very entertaining even without the snarky paraphrasing.
The debate includes 30 minutes of Q&A with the students.
There is no scientific evidence for God’s existence in the textbooks
There is no scientific evidence for God acting in the universe
God doesn’t talk to people and tell them things they couldn’t possibly know
The Bible says that the Earth is flat, etc.
There is no scientific evidence that God answers prayers
God doesn’t exist because people who believe in him are ignorant
Human life is not optimally designed and appears to be the result of a blind, ad hoc evolutionary process
The beginning of the universe is not ordered (low entropy) but random and chaotic
It’s theoretically possible that quantum tunneling explains the origin of the universe
The laws of physics are not objectively real, they are “our inventions”
Regarding the beginning of the universe, the explanation is that something came from nothing*
Nothing* isn’t really nothing, it is “the total chaos that we project existed just before the big bang”
If something has no structure, then “it is as much nothing as nothing can be”
Consciousness is explainable solely on the basis of material processes
There are well-informed, rational non-believers in the world and God would not allow that
Dr. Craig’s first rebuttal:
Stenger’s argument that there is no objective evidence for God’s existence:
First, it is not required that God rely only on objective evidence in order to draw people to himself (Alvin Plantinga)
Second, God is not required to provide evidence to everyone, only to the people who he knows would respond to him
Third, Craig gave lots of objective evidence, from science, history and philosophy
Stenger asks for certain evidence (answered prayers, prophecy, etc.), but Craig presented the evidence we have
Stenger’s argument that the balance of energy is zero so “nothing” exists:
if you have the same amount of assets and liabilities, it doesn’t mean that nothing exists – your assets and liabilities exist
Christopher Isham says that there needs to be a cause to create the positive and negative energy even if they balance
the quantum gravity model contradicts observations
the vacuum is not the same as nothing, it contains energy and matter
the BVG theorem proves that any universe that is expanding must have a beginning
Stenger’s argument that mental operations can be reduced to physical operations:
mental properties are not reducible to physical properties
epiphenomenalism: is incompatible with self-identity over time
epiphenomenalism: is incompatible with thoughts about other things
epiphenomenalism: is incompatible with free will
substance dualism (mind/body dualism) is a better explanation for our mental experience
God is a soul without a body
Dr. Stenger’s first rebuttal:
Craig’s cosmological argument:
Craig’s premise is “everything has a cause”, but quantum mechanics has causeless events
There are speculative theories about how something could have come into being uncaused out of nothing
“I don’t know of a single working cosmologist today who believes there was a singularity prior to the Big Bang”
“If there wasn’t a singularity then there’s no basis for arguing that time began at that point”
“There’s no reason from cosmology that we know of that the universe can’t be eternal”
“When I talk about an eternal universe, I mean a universe that has no beginning or end”
The Hartle-Hawking model doesn’t have a beginning
“There was no violation of energy conservation by having a universe coming from nothing”
“The universe could have come from a previous universe for example or even just from a region of chaos”
The paper by Vilenkin is counteracted by other papers (he doesn’t specify which ones)
Craig’s moral argument:
Dr. Craig is arguing from ignorance
But morality can be decided by humanity just like governments pass laws, and that’s objective
Dr. Craig has too little respect for the human intellect
I don’t need to tell me that slavery is wrong
The Bible supports slavery
Atheists can behave as good as theists
Morality just evolved naturally as an aid to survival
Craig’s resurrection argument:
No Roman historians wrote about the execution of Jesus but none of them did
The empty tomb is doubtful because it is only mentioned in the gospels, not by Paul
John Dominic Crossan says there was no empty tomb
Christianity only survived because the Roman empire thought that they were useful
Dr. Craig’s second rebuttal:
Craig’s cosmological argument:
There is no reason to prefer an indeterministic interpretation of quantum mechanics
Dr. Stenger himself wrote that deterministic interpretations of quantum mechanics are possible
The vacuum in quantum mechanics is not nothing
The quantum vacuum he proposes cannot be eternal
The cosmological argument does not require a singularity
The Hartle-Hawking model is from 1983
Hawking says that there is a beginning of space and time after that model
The Hartle-Hawking model does still have a beginning of time – the model is not eternal
The BVG theorem that requires a beginning for expanding universes is widely accepted among cosmologists
Craig’s moral argument:
Stenger redefined objective to mean that most people agree with it – but that’s not what objective means
Objective means right and wrong whether anyone accepts it or not
Richard Dawkins himself says that on atheism there is “no evil and no good” – why is he wrong?
Even Dr. Stenger says that morality is the same as passing laws – it’s arbitrary and varies by time and place
But on his view, right and wrong are the same as deciding which side of the road to drive on
But somethings really are right and some things are really wrong
Craig’s resurrection argument:
Josephus is a Roman historian and he wrote about Jesus, for example
There were four biographies of Jesus are the best sources for his life
The scholars that Stenger mentioned are on the radical fringe
Dr. Stenger’s second rebuttal:
Knowledge and the burden of proof:
Dr. Craig has to bear the burden of proof, not me – because his claim is more “extravagant”
“I don’t have to prove that a God was not necessary to create the universe”
“I don’t have to prove that a God did not design the universe and life”
“I don’t have to prove that the universe did not have a beginning”
“I don’t have to prove that God did not provide us with our moral sense”
There are a lot of books written about how morality evolved naturally
“I don’t have to prove that the events surrounding the supposed resurrection of Jesus did not take place”
Bart Ehrman says that the gospels are generally unreliable (Note: Ehrman accepts all 3 of Craig’s minimal facts)
Just because people are willing to die for a cause, does not make their leader God, e.g. – the Emperor of Japan
Aesthetic concerns about the universe:
I don’t like dark matter and I wouldn’t have made the universe with dark matter
I don’t like the doctrine of penal substitution
I don’t like the doctrine of original sin
I don’t like the heat death of the universe
Dr. Craig’s conclusion:
The case for atheism:
Dr. Stenger had two arguments and he has to support his premises
Dr. Craig addressed his two arguments and each premise and Dr. Stenger never came back on it
The contingency argument:
Dr. Stenger has dropped the refutation of this argument
The cosmological argument:
The theoretical vacuum he proposes cannot be eternal
The moral argument:
He asserts that things are wrong, but there is no grounding for that to be objective on atheism
The resurrection of Jesus:
There are surveys of scholars on the empty tomb and 75% of them agree with it
Bart Ehrman agrees with all 3 of the minimal facts that Dr. Craig presented
Ehrman’s objection to the resurrection is not historical: he’s an atheist – he thinks miracles are impossible
Religious experience:
No response from Dr. Stenger
Dr. Stenger’s conclusion
The cosmological argument:
“I argued that we have very good physical reasons to understand how something can come from nothing”
“There is a natural tendency in the universe… to go from.. simpler thing to the more complicated thing”
The transition from a vapor to a liquid to ice shows how something could come from nothing
“It cannot be proven that the universe had a beginning”
The moral argument:
Objective morality, which is independent of what people think, could be developed based on what people think
“Jesus himself was not a tremendously moral person… he had no particular regard for the poor… he certainly supported slavery… he was for the subjugation of women” (audience laughter)
The resurrection argument:
Bart Ehrman says that the majority of the gospels are unreliable
Religious experience:
I don’t see any evidence that there is anything more to religious experience than just stuff in their heads
God’s purpose of the world should be to make people feel happy:
God could have made people feel happier
God could have made people not die
God could could have made the universe smaller: it’s too big
God could have made it possible for humans to live anywhere “even in space”
WINTERY KNIGHT 