Carl Sagan: Where Did God Come From?

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"Where did God come from?" This is a popular objection from atheists. Unfortunately, it's also completely misguided, and only exposes the atheist for being utterly unfamiliar with classic monotheism.

To explain…

Starting with Aristotle, which is where classic monotheism begins to really gel, the basic idea is that all changeable things (such as birds, people, planets, stars) cannot collectively be responsible for their own existence, because then they would be causing themselves to exist, and so would have to exist prior to them existing, which is a logical contradiction. To solve this, Aristotle hypothesizes that there must be something unchangeable which is responsible for the existence of changeable things. Because it is unchangeable, it cannot have a cause even in principle. A cause implies a change, so if something is unchangeable then it doesn't need nor can it even have a cause.

It must be emphasized that Aristotle is not speaking of the thing that triggered the Big Bang, but rather of a "substrate" that grounds the existence of changeable things, even if the universe is eternally old. Just like a room full of dancing people, even if infinitely old, still has to have a floor in order to hold the people up.

So now hopefully it is clear why Sagan's objection makes no sense, and is in fact complete gibberish. Asking where God came from is asking about a change in God, that he came from somewhere, or was caused by something. But the whole point of classic monotheism is that God is the unchangeable reality that grounds the existence of changeable things. So Sagan's objection translates as follows:

• What changed the thing that is not changeable?

You can see that this is a nonsense question. It entails a contradiction. It's like asking:

• Which mountain is higher than the highest mountain?

A Defense of Classical Theism #10: God: Summing Up

Let's take one final look at how we can reason to the existence of God from the fact that things change and have causal regularity.

Change entails the distinction between actual and possibly, and most things are a composite of how they actually are and how they possibly could be.

If something is composite, it cannot put (and hold!) itself together, because that would mean it simultaneously exist and not exist. Which means something else must hold it together.

That something else is either A) composite, or B) not composite. If A, then something else holds it together as well.

Something must be holding up the whole stack, and that something cannot be composite.

Which means it must be purely actual.

From this drops the classical attributes of God: omniscient, omnipotent, perfect, immaterial, one, timeless, spaceless.

Furthermore, if something aims at a specific goal, as causal regularity entails that things do, this cannot be by chance. However, most of the things that aim at specific end effects or goals are not intelligent. So there must be an intelligence somewhere else that directs these things to their ends.

So from the simply fact science presupposes that change occurs and that there is causal regularity, we can see that there is a God.

A Defense of Classical Theism #10: Causal Regularity as a Sign of Intelligence

In part 8, we saw that something that is purely actual must be intelligent because it is the basis of all facts and things that occur. More accurately, something purely actual is knowledge itself, rather than merely having knowledge like we do. But this might feel a bit unsatisfactory, so there are two more arguments for the intelligence of the purely actual being we are calling "God." We'll take a look at one of them in this post.

Remember from post 1, we saw that there must be causal regularity in the universe in order for science to proceed. Not only that, but something must have it's effect by it's very nature, which means that it points to that effect even if that effect is never realized. That is to say:

• Cause A points to effect B, even if B is never in fact realized.

So what we can say is that things act for an end. That is, they "point to" or "aim" at specific ends or goals. They don't arrive at those goals by chance, because then they would sometimes have that effect or goal, but sometimes some other effect. In other words, there wouldn't be causal regularity. So if not by chance, then these things must be directed to their ends by intelligence

But many of these things are not intelligent. The rock always moves towards the greatest mass, but the rock is not intelligent and thus not consciously trying to do that.

So there must be an intelligence located somewhere else that directs these things to their ends.

A Defense of Classical Theism #9: A Closer Look at the Argument from Change

In the last two posts, we looked at the general idea that if something is composite, it must be held together by something else. But it's still very abstract. Let's look at a more concrete example.

Remember the stone that can't move itself? Keep that in mind at all times.

If something changes, it goes from one state to another state. That is, it goes from an actual state to a possible state, and the possible becomes actual.

But something cannot be both actually one way and possibly that same way at the same time. For example, liquid water cannot be actually ice and possibly ice at the same time. This is a logical contradiction.

Therefore, something cannot be bother changer and changed. That is to say, it cannot change itself. Remember the stone? The stone cannot move itself.

So whatever is changing cannot change itself, and something else must be changing it. In the case of the stone, we see that an actual stick is changing the stone's location. In the case of water freezing into ice in an ice cube tray, we see that actual cold air is changing it into ice.

But now the same thing applies again, to the stick and the cold air.

The stick is not moving the stone, because sticks can't move themselves either. So we still don't know what is moving the stone and we have to keep going.

Somewhere in this chain, there must be something that can push without being pushed, or cause change without being changed. An unpushed pusher, or an unchanging changer.

Something unchangeable must be purely actual, with no possible future states. And we are thus led again to the existence of God.

A Defense of Classical Theism #8: God's Attributes

In the last post, we saw that if something is composite (either composed of physical parts or more fundamental parts, like actual states and possible future states), then it can't hold itself together because it would have to exist and not-exist at the same time. So something else must hold together the thing that is composite. That "something else" is either A) composite, or B) not composite. If it is A, then it too needs something else to hold it together and we keep going. If B, then we have our conclusion.

Something not composite cannot be a composite of actual and possible, and so must be either just actual or just possible. But something cannot be just possible with no actual existence, because it would simultaneously not exist (because it has no actual existence) and exist (because it is an existing thing that is only possible).

So a non-composite thing must be purely actual. That is, no capability for change even in principle. It has no parts whatsoever. What would it be like?

Non-Physical: It could not be composed of matter or energy, because matter and energy are both changeable and are hence composed of the actual and the possible.

Spaceless: It could not be located in any particular location in space, because then it would be changeable in principle, and hence a mixture of actual and possible.

Timeless: It could not be located within time, because then it would be possibly older than it is now. But it has no possibilities. So it is timeless.

One: Because it is timeless and spaceless, all beings of pure actuality are the same being. Also, if there were more than one such being, there would be some way of telling them apart and so one would have a feature that the other lacked (such as location, size, etc). But something of pure actuality has no unrealized possibilities, and so it lacks nothing. So all beings of pure actuality are one.

Omnipotent: As the causal source of anything that ever occurs or could occur, it can do anything. In addition, if there were things it could not do, then this would be an unrealized possibility, which it does not have.

Omniscient: As the thing that makes all facts true and keeps everything in existence, it does not have knowledge but rather is knowledge itself. In addition, if it possessed less than absolute knowledge, it could possibly learn more. But something that is purely actual has no unrealized possibilities. This topic will also be revisited in future posts.

Perfect: As we saw in part 1 and part 3, there must be not just individuals, but structure or types as well. So each individual (such as Mt St Helens) belongs to a category or type (volcanoes). But each individual has flaws that make it an imperfect version of its archetype. An individual dog, for example, will have injuries, or a gimpy leg, or perhaps just flaws on the cellular level that make it an imperfect version of a dog. So when we speak of "perfection", we mean "getting as close as possible to its archetype". A thing of pure actuality, then, is perfect in the sense that it doesn't lack anything, or have any flaws. If it did. these would be unrealized possibilities, which it doesn't have by definition.

Simple: "Complex" means "consisting of many different and connected parts." And "simple" means "having or composed of only one thing, element, or part." But the non-composite thing is not composed of parts, so it is simple.

As you can see, from the mere fact that things change, come into and go out of existence, and are composites of the actual and the possible, there is a sustaining force that is spaceless, timeless, immaterial, One, simple, omnipotent, omniscient, and perfect. This everyone calls "God."

A Defense of Classical Theism #7: God: An Overview

It's better that we start with a high-level overview of the existence of God, rather than getting too detailed in the specific arguments. Then readers will have a general idea of what is supposed to be going on with this evidence.

We saw that most things are composites. Not just physical composites (an elephant is composed of organs, which are composed of cells, etc), but more fundamental composites as well, such as the actual and possible distinction. The coffee cup in front of you is a composite of the way it actually is right now (filled with coffee and on your desk) and the way it possibly could be (empty and in the sink).

If something is a composite, then it can't bring its own parts together in order to exist, because that would mean that it simultaneously exists (so that it can pull its own parts together) and not exist (because it doesn't exist without being put together).

So if something is composite, it must be held together by something else.

But that something else is either A) composite, or B) non-composite.

If B, then it needs something to hold it together as well and the chain continues. Now you see we are in the same situation as we described in the last post.

Which means that there must be something that is not composite that "holds the whole stack together", so to speak. Something that doesn't need to be held together by anything else because it isn't composite. For example, if X is not composite, then it can hold together D, which in turn holds together C, which holds together B, which holds together A. If X were removed, the whole stack would fall apart.

So if that something isn't composite, then it isn't physical, because physical things are made of either parts, or they are located somewhere in space. Which makes them movable (at least in principle) and thus a mixture of actual and possible.

It isn't energy either, since energy can change location, and is thus a mixture of actual and possible.

In fact, the non-composite thing could only be either A) just actual, or B) just possible. But something cannot be just possible, with no actual existence. That would mean that it both doesn't exist (because it has no actuality), and does exist (because it is an existing thing that is just possible), which is a logical contradiction.

So the non-composite thing would have to be just actual.

Why should we label something that is purely actual "God"? Find out in the next post.

A Defense of Classical Theism #6: What is moving the stone?

We take a quick side tour now, to examine an abstract concept. First I'll explain it abstractly, then I'll use a more concrete example.

If A cannot move itself, and then starts to move, then there must be a B that is moving it. But now the same reasoning applies to B: if B cannot move itself either, then there is a C that is moving B (which is in turn moving A). And so on. If the same applies to C, then we need to keep going until we come to whatever is moving the whole chain, as each of the other members of the chain are powerless. So we are led to postulate X, which has the power to move without itself needing to be moved by anything else.

Let's look at a more concrete example. This is imperfect, as you will see, but it will serve to drive home the point.

You see a rock on your kitchen table. It begins to move across your kitchen table. But you know that rocks do not have the power of self-locomotion, so something else must be pushing the rock. Indeed, you see that a stick is pushing it. But that doesn't explain the motion of the rock, because you know that sticks don't have the power of locomotion either. So yet a third thing must be pushing the stick. You see a pair of tongs grasping the stick.

So now you know what is pushing the stone? No. Because the same thing applies yet again to the tongs. Tongs can't move themselves either, so something must be pushing the tongs. Indeed, there is a stick tied to the end of the tongs that is pushing them.

Yet again, sticks can't move themselves, so there must be something else pushing the stick.

Somewhere, there must be something that is pushing the chain of sticks and tongs without having to be pushed by anything else. Something that pushes without being pushed. An "unpushed pusher." For a quick and dirty example, we could say that a hand is attached to the stick and is the unpushed pusher, and you now know what is moving the stone, via the sticks and tongs. Of course, the hand isn't really the end of the chain, because it is being pushed by muscles, which are being pushed by motor-neurons, which are being pushed by electrons, and so on. That, however, gets into the argument proper, which we are not interested in quite yet.

Another way of seeing it is by way of a simple computer program.

Or consider a laser light on the wall. It is coming from a mirror. But you know that mirrors can't produce lasers, so it must be coming from somewhere else. And it's another mirror. So you need to keep going until you find where the actual laser is coming from.

This post is simply a concept that needs to be understood before continuing, and hopefully these rough examples will help to intuit the basic idea. In the next post, we finally move on to the existence of God.

A Defense of Classical Theism #5: Summing up the foundation

So with the first post, we asked "What would have to be true of any world that is scientifically observable, regardless of what the specific scientific facts of that world turn out to be?"

We had three answers, and we unpacked each of them. This post is just to sum them up quickly.

Causal regularity:

X causes Y, and Y is the effect of X. And we saw that if this is true, then X "points to" the production of Y even if Y never in fact occurs. This is also related to the structure of X. The structure is tied to its effect.

Change:

Things go from state 1 to state 2. When they were in state 1, they were actually in state 1 and possibly in state 2. So changeable things are a mixture of the actual and the possible. This even applies to things that are physically immobile, because they still have parts that are

Structure:

Most things in our experience are a mixture of matter and structure. Matter by itself is not an elephant, but the structure of an elephant (the blueprints) without any matter is not an elephant either. It is only the composite of structure plus matter that makes most of these things real. Once again, these things line up with the actual/possible distinction above. Things come into and go out of existence.

A Defense of Classical Theism #4: Structure

In the first post in this series, we identified three properties that must be true of any world that we could have scientific knowledge of, regardless of what the specific scientific facts of that world turn out to be. In this post, we will unpack the third and last property:

Structure: There must be structure that is in common to all of a single group of objects. For example, in order to have a science of volcanoes, there must be some features that are common and essential to all volcanoes, apart from knowledge of any particular volcano. If every volcano had a completely different feature set, then once you had knowledge of one particular volcano located somewhere, you would not have knowledge of any others. So there must be structure that is common to all objects (or animals) of a set, so that knowledge of a type, and not just an individual, is possible.

A better word might be "type", or "class." There must be structure or form in common to all objects of a certain type or class in order for science and knowledge to be possible.

For example, if there were no structure in common to all volcanoes, then we could never have a science of volcanoes. Each volcano would be its own different thing, and knowledge of one would not entail knowledge of all objects of that class. There would be no class or type if that were the case.

But because there is structure in common to all volcanoes, we can observe a few individual volcanoes and then have knowledge of that type of object in general, abstracted away from any particular volcano. We can observe volcanoes on Mars and have knowledge of them.

In addition, volcanoes could in principle go out of existence everywhere in the universe, and then come to exist again (say, if the universe collapsed but then rebounded in a new Big Bang). So the type/class/structure we call "volcano" exists over and above any particular volcano. It's entirely abstract, but rooted in actual reality.

What makes these things real? In many cases, matter. The structure of a volcano is not a volcano, but neither is unstructured matter. Only the structure plus the matter equals an actual volcano. So the volcano consists of matter + structure, and is thus a composite.

Note that this is closely related the actual/possible distinction we looked at in the last post.  The matter considered by itself (and merely abstracted in this case) is possible, and when conjoined with a structure becomes actual.

It is also closely tied to the causal regularity we looked at [two posts ago.](http://rocketphilosophy.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-defense-of-classical-theism-2-causal.html) The regular effects that a volcano has (venting magma) is closely tied to its structure (a tube from the mantle to the surface).

To conclude:

• Most things of our existence are a composite of structure and matter

A Defense of Classical Theism #3: Change

In the first post we identified several aspects of any world that would be scientifically observable, and in the second post we looked at one of those up close. In this post we continue to examine and unpack these aspects with change:

Change: Change must occur. An experiment consists of something changing from state X to state Y, and afterwards reasoning from premises to conclusion. So the mere act of observing, testing, and concluding about one's environment presupposes that change occurs.

It can't be emphasized enough that this defense of the existence of God depends not upon the specific scientific facts of our world, which is how Intelligent Design and creationists argue their case, but rather upon the facts that would have to be true of any world that we can have scientific knowledge of, no matter what that specific knowledge turns out to be. We are operating on a very fundamental and abstract level in this series of posts.

So change occurs. That is, something goes from one way, to another way. When it was the first way, it was possibly the second way. If it wasn't possibly the second way, then the change never would have occurred.

So change entails that changeable things are a mixture of the way they actually are now, and the way the possibly could be if they change. Most things of our experience are a composite of actual and possible.

Since a possible future state is merely possible, it is not real or actual yet, and therefore cannot make itself actual. So something already actual needs to make the possible actual. To take a concrete example, liquid water is possibly ice, but actual cold air must change the water into ice. It can't change itself into ice.

This distinction also applies at more general levels as well, such as existence. For example, it is possible that tyrannosaurs exist, but they are not real, or actual. It is possible that elephants exist, and it also turns out that they actually do. Here again, something cannot make itself real or actual, for that would mean it would have to exist before it exists, which is a logical contradiction. So something else real or actual must make these possibilities actual. We are thinking here in terms of what sustains something in existence from moment to moment, not what caused it to begin to exist. The elephant's parents may have caused its life to begin to exist, but they do not sustain the elephant in existence throughout its life. What does that would be atomic strong and weak forces, the state of electrons, gravity, atomsphere, and so on.

So the take-home thought is:

• Anything that is changeable or possibly existent/non-existent is a mixture of actual and possible

And:

• Anything that is a mixture of actual and possible cannot make itself actual, and thus must be made actual by something that is already actual

A Defense of Classical Theism #2: Causal Regularity

In part 1, we looked at three things that must be true of the world in order for science to be possible. In this article, we will unpack just one of them. Keep in mind at all times that the question we are answering is not "What are the specific scientific facts about the world in which we live?", but rather, "What would have to be true of any world that is observable and discoverable by science?"

If you'll recall, one answer is causal regularity:

Causal regularity: In order to have a science of, say, photons, photons must have some specific effects they produce by their very nature. If they had a different effect every time, then experiments could never reliably be extrapolated to every photon in the universe. When we do the double slit experiment on photons, we need to be able to say "this is what ALL photons would do under similar conditions." As a result, we can then have knowledge of the nature of photons.

This means that something that has an effect must have that effect by its very nature. A few experiments on an object will reveal that nature, and its effect, which can then be extrapolated to all such objects of that type, thus making knowledge possible. We don't have to examine every single object of that type to know what it does.

If this principle were false, then an experiment involving one or a few photons could never be extrapolated to all photons, since each one might have a different effect.

This also entails that an object "points to" its effect (or range of effects), even if that effect is never in fact realized. So for example a match which is never struck nonetheless "points to" fire but not ice. Or a quantum vacuum "points to" the production of virtual particles but not elephants, even if it never actually produces any virtual particles. Or a volcano "points to" the production of magma but not tulips, even if it remains forever dormant.

Note also that these things may have other "accidental" effects. The volcano may cause bird migrations and mudflows, but these are side effects. Volcanoes by their very nature point to the venting of magma as their effect. If volcanoes did not do this then they just wouldn't be volcanoes. However, it could be the case that volcanoes never cause bird migrations or mudflows, but even so they would still be volcanoes. So some effects are mere side effects, but other effects are tied to the nature of the object in question.

There is a tight two-way correlation between cause and effect:

• A is the cause of B
• B is the effect of A

And a cause "points to" its effect:

• A "points to" B, even if B is never in fact realized

A Defense of Classical Theism #1: Foundational Questions

This post will be the first in a series taking the reader through classical theism. This is the view that there is an all-knowing, all-powerful God who is the creator and sustainer of everything that exists, and that human beings have immortal souls. No particular religion is argued for, although Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all try to claim it as their own.

This is quite a complicated theory, and my blog is aimed at brevity. So the topic will have to be chopped into smaller parts than normal in order to keep them each very short and digestible.

The foundational question we start with is:

• What would have to be true of any world that is scientifically discoverable?  

Alternatively:

• What are the necessary preconditions that make science possible in the first place?

What we are not talking about is what the specific scientific facts of the universe turn out to be. That is the job of science. We are operating on a much more fundamental and general level in this theory.

The answers:

1. Causal regularity: In order to have a science of, say, photons, photons must have some specific effects they produce by their very nature. If they had a different effect every time, then experiments could never reliably be extrapolated to every photon in the universe. When we do the double slit experiment on photons, we need to be able to say "this is what ALL photons would do under similar conditions." As a result, we can then have knowledge of the nature of photons.
2. Change: Change must occur. An experiment consists of something changing from state X to state Y, and afterwards reasoning from premises to conclusion. So the mere act of observing, testing, and concluding about one's environment presupposes that change occurs.
3. Structure: There must be structure that is in common to all of a single group of objects. For example, in order to have a science of volcanoes, there must be some features that are common and essential to all volcanoes, apart from knowledge of any particular volcano. If every volcano had a completely different feature set, then once you had knowledge of one particular volcano located somewhere, you would not have knowledge of any others. So there must be structure that is common to all objects (or animals) of a set, so that knowledge of a type, and not just an individual, is possible.

In the next post, we will expand on these three properties.