Can 'Nothing' cause Something?
Is It Logically Possible for 'Nothing' to produce Everything?
Is it Logical to think that "nothing can do something"? If nothing is defined as non-existence or as non-being, then how could this work?
This would also violate a Law of Logic known as the "Law of Causality" which states that "Non-being cannot produce Being". This is shown true in our experience thousands of times a day, and also is the undergirding of the scientific enterprise.
Even Quantum Physics doesn't violate the Law of Causality, since the Heisenberg Indeterminacy Principle only says that certain quantum events can't be predicted. But it never states that they are uncaused.
To say that "Nothing produced Something" or "Nothing produced Everything", would appear to be worse that magic. At least there we have the evident cause: the magician and his hat.
I'm glad that in Christianity, Logic is on our side!
- Pastor J.
Here is some more sound logic for you, Pastor J. It's the text of a letter I sent to my hometown newspaper shortly after the death of Christopher Hitchens. It was published under the title of "One final debate point for Hitchens," and picked up and republished by a Christian Website - the same day. It is of some length, but I think you will find it informative and interesting. In fact, I've never heard the argument expressed like this before, so it might be of some future use to you. Forgive any typos I might make in the process of retyping it. This tiny box creates some eye strain for me.
ReplyDeletePublished 01/04/2012.
I regretted reading about the death of Christopher Hitchens. Of all vigorous atheists, he was perhaps the most lucid in presenting his arguments against the existence of God. I fall short of calling him brilliant because I think he was profoundly wrong. Still, he was lucid if one limits the definition to being clear in his denunciations. Consequently, he challenged me to think more critically about what I believe and the precise reasons for it.
To that end, I want to challenge all of you to thoughtfully reflect on one argument that he frequently made, which was to label God as the equivalent to a celestial North Korea. He defined this point by saying that God was a thief of individual thought and personal freedom, and a totalitarian in his approach to keeping his flock suppressed. Thus, in philosophical jargon, I would define him as an existentialist in the broadest sense of its meaning. He was also an evolutionist in its purest form, from what I can deduce by listening to him.
My specific point is to correctly reverse the argument and expose nature (as a subject of evolution) as the actual thief and totalitarian of individual thought and freedom - and life, itself. Let's examine the compelling evidence in realistic and logical terms, by means of final outcomes.
Put yourself in the position of nature and say to humankind, "OK, I'm going to give you 70-plus years of love, great affection for life, treasured personal interactions, cherished family relationships, ambition and goal setting, positive attitudes about the outcome of all manner of things, and any other fixation you want to consider as making your life worth living. At the end of it I'm going to rip it all away, stomp on it, tear it to shreds, make it thoroughly profitless, turn it into a laughable joke, and otherwise - well - just kill it. What a pathetic and meaningless creature you really are."
That's what nature is saying to you folks - if you don't believe in eternal life. Oh, you can deny it if you care to, but you're not going to beat it. It's of no consequence how much kicking and screaming you do, or how much you complain that it's unfair. Viewed in such an illuminating light, who or what is the real thief and totalitarian? Come and let us reason together and ask the following question: Would you do to any individual what nature says it's going to do to you? Of course not, unless you are the most brutal of nihilists. The threat of nature's lie is so demonstrably obvious as to need no explanation.
No, God is the great liberator from the cruelty of death through nature. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, all of us have been offered the great escape. It's free for the taking. We can wallow in the ultimate sorrow of nature's 70-plus years, or we can take the free gift of eternal life. There is little reason to wait for the sudden pop quiz. It's time to stop being imprudent and accept what God and Christ provides all of us, or let nature keep us in malicious bondage and the chains of physicial death. I say again, "Come and let us reason together." The clock is ticking.
1 Cor. 15:26 "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."
There you have it, Pastor J. I hope it might be of some use to you.