This argument:

P1) Something can't come from nothing
P2) There is something
...C) There was never nothing

It takes the theist criticism that 'something can't come from nothing', that the universe needs a creator and that creator is god, but that god himself needs no cause of himself and uses it to show that it's the universe that has always existed, presumably, with no need of a cause of itself. Now we no longer need a god to explain the existence of the universe.

But the idea that the universe needs no creator of itself is special pleading, everything that exists has a cause of itself. Ok, but so is the idea that there could be a being that needs no creator of itself, so I'll happily abandon my belief that the universe has simply always existed because of some property it possesses that we don't understand, that is hidden from us, if theists will abandon their belief that god needed no creator.

Yes I'm aware of the problem of the infinite regress, and yes I know that certain properties are assigned to this being such that it needs no creator. However, those properties cannot be explained, and I'm simply assigning some similarly inexplicable properties to the universe itself. And no, entropy doesn't disprove what I'm saying by showing that the universe clearly has a beginning and an end, I'm proposing that it simply restarts, magically... due to the aforementioned inexplicable properties.

P1) seems to me to be a bit shaky. I don’t know that it is certainly false but I have never seen a convincing demonstration that it is true either. All justifications for it seem to boil down to “we have never seen something come from nothing, therefore something cannot come from nothing”. It is a similar argument to the one theists throw out about abiogenesis- life cannot come from non-life, and it seems equally shaky.

Assuming the truth of P1) though still leads to a problem for the theist. The conclusion that there never was nothing certainly does not imply that a personal deity with the properties that are typically ascribed to such a deity is the something that has always existed. A quantum field, the universe itself, a small, magical dog, or pretty much literally ANY entity would qualify as the “something” so long as we maintain that it has always existed. This argument gives no particular reason to assume any properties of this entity other than perpetual existence.

"Last chance to ask this?"

No, RGT isn't closing.

Well yes, pretty much where I am with this.

I recently had a theist of the Craig school try to defeat the argument by using entropy to show that the universe must have had a beginning, so it can't simply have always existed. At that point, I introduced the special pleading to claim that in order to have always existed, the universe must have special properties that allow it to simply regenerate. We don't understand those properties, I guess they're just 'mysterious'. Whilst agreeing with me that I was guilty of special pleading, he failed to agree that so was he.

I think another issue I have with the idea that only a complex being could have created the universe is the assumption that the structure of the universe has some purpose behind it. Remove the idea that there is purpose and meaning, and now we no longer need a god.

Actually there is no reason for special pleading regarding the entropy argument. All that is necessary is the realization that constantly increasing entropy does not necessarily imply any state of zero entropy that must be an initial state. If entropy is governed by a function such as S=C exp (kt) where t is time (t=0 for current time), C is a constant equal to the current entropy of the universe and k is an undetermined positive real number, then there is no “beginning” of the universe implied by a zero entropy state.

This function is an exponentially increasing function. Such a function has the property that there exists a certain time, t-double, such that S(t-double + t) = 2 x S(t). This is true regardless of the value of t. This also works for times earlier than the current time,
S(t-t-double) = 1/2 x S(t). Clearly this implies that there was NEVER any initial state where S=0. Going back t-double in time gives a state with half the current entropy. Going back twice as far gives 1/4 the current entropy, three times t-double gives 1/8 x current entropy, etc.

At no point, even going back infinitely far in time do we get to a state where the entropy is zero. This may or may not be the correct form for the entropy of the universe as a function of time, but it certainly defeats the argument that the constant increase in entropy implies an initial state with zero entropy. Furthermore exponential functions are commonly found in describing nature since many natural phenomena are governed by linear first-order differential equations, and an exponential such as I presented is the general solution to such an equation. Therefore postulating that entropy, much like many other phenomena, is governed by a linear first order differential equation can hardly be regarded as special pleading.

"something can't come from nothing" is not a 'theist' claim it is, for want of a better word, a 'materialist' claim. It is an outcome of the first law that matter and energy cannot be created.
"something from nothing" is exactly the theist claim: some-thing (phenomenal observable existence) from no-thing (divine, supernatural, non-observable, noumenal etc).

So, the argument in OP is valid, but it already assumes God does not exist.
So why not just assume God does exist and frame an equally valid argument:

P1: God is nothing (no thing)
P2: God created something
C: Something came from nothing

'Life cannot come from non-life' is a perfectly reasonable inductive statement.

'Remove the idea that there is purpose and meaning, and now we no longer need a god', I don't think that can be disagreed with. And perhaps shows why we might want to consider our relationship with God/gods/divinity etc.

Thanks for the answer. I understand the line you're taking there but lack the skills to understand the maths, so I'll have to take your word for it for now. I won't be able to use it because I couldn't defend it, although I could share it I guess, and see what others make of it.

Ok, perhaps I should have said 'a claim that some theists make' rather than describing is as a theist claim.


I don't think it assumes that god doesn't exist, it takes an objection that some theists make and shows how it can lead to a conclusion that god doesn't need to exist to explain the existence of the universe. If theists who use that objection want to withdraw it, fine, but now they have a problem explaining the 'always' existence of their god without a cause of itself.

Sorry I do tend to assume others know what I do when I post and that probably was unnecessarily opaque to a non-math geek. Think of it this way. Suppose you deposit $100 in some kind of investment account that pays 7% return. The math says that every 10 years the value of your account will double. In 10 years you have $200. In 20 years you have $400, in 30 years $800 and so on. This is the fundamental property of what is called an exponential growth function. Any time that the rate of change in a given quantity depends on the current value of that quantity you get this kind of growth. For an investment account, the amount of change in the value during any given year is equal to 7% of the current value, so this type of growth applies.

Now realize that the math doesn’t care whether you run time forward or backwards - the same fundamental property exists. If you look at your account value 10 years from now it will be double what it is now. If you look at the value 10 years ago, it was half the current value. 20 years ago it was 1/4 of its current value, 30 years ago it was 1/8 of its current value, and so on.

The analogy now breaks down because money is not infinitely divisible (we can’t have less than $.01 in our account), but real observables can take on smaller and smaller values. No matter how far we go back, the value of our “account” can never reach zero. It can become extremely close to zero, but can never actually get there. Take any number and divide it by 2 repeatedly. It will get closer and closer to zero as you keep dividing, but it can’t ever actually get there. That is the crux of the argument- the constant increase in entropy implies a low entropy state in the past, but it does not necessarily imply a zero entropy state at any past time.

Note that this is perfectly consistent with a constantly increasing entropy. The second law of thermodynamics says entropy is increasing, but does not say by how much it is increasing at any given time. If you go from one very small almost zero number to a second very small, almost zero number that is greater than the first, that is still an increase, even if it is a very small one.

Thanks for the explanation, I get it now.

It does seem to depend though on whether or not entropy is an exponential function, and opinion seems divided on that?

Well that was just one specific example of how a quantity can constantly increase without necessarily implying a starting condition with a zero point. It is certainly unclear how the entropy of the universe changes (or to be honest, if the concept of total entropy of the universe even makes sense).

Furthermore the Second Law does not imply that entropy must always increase. It actually says entropy cannot decrease. It can stay the same. This is the case for all reversible processes. In practice we don’t observe truly reversible processes - these are processes that essentially proceed with only infinitismally small variations from equilibrium. In a small enough universe, though, it is entirely possible that the entire universe would be in an equilibrium state (which could last indefinitely until a large enough quantum fluctuation disturbed the equilibrium) in which there is no entropy change. So there is yet another answer to the entropy argument for a universal beginning.

How is this special property behind the universe which has made the universe always exist and restart functionally any different than the concept of an original creator god or point of origin (first cause)? What you've effectively done is to simply rename "God" to "property X of the universe". It's more scientifically and materialistically palatable, if you will, but you've have done anything different, I'm afraid.

You've also added a different kind of problem for yourself. The concept of god as an infinitely powerful and ever-existing being is a conscious being with supreme agency who, in essence, willed the universe into existence through whatever power and mechanisms that are fundamentally unknowable to us. This special property X is merely mechanistic and has no conscious mind, will or power to do anything else except algorithmically reset the universe once certain conditions are met. The concept of this property does not ontologically supersede the concept of the creator god, even though both may technically be cases of special pleading.

What is nothing? Give an example of it.

The number zero.

You might say that's not nothing, because it's a concept that exists, and concepts aren't nothing, therefore it's not nothing, and you would be correct.

But it does represent nothing. That's the closest you could get to a nothing while having something.

Nothing is not a thing can exist in any concrete, phenomenal sense. It's a logical state, purely abstract. In fact I don't think you could make the argument that it could exist in any noumenal sense either, since by definition, existing is the state of something, not nothing.

Agree. I mean it a bit more than the inherent contradiction of "a thing that is nothing/doesn't exist." As in is it possible? There seems a very deep inherent problem with "what is a state of nothing," or an "expression of nothing," or for nothing to actually be a possibility.

The state of nothing can be a logical possibility, but the necessary and contingent condition for it is that there to had to have been a something initially. There can be a cause now somehow that results in complete nothingness. It may or may not be the "first cause," or what the Greeks to use it call it referring to God.

One of the inherent problems with this is that the first cause (God) is defined as something all-powerful that always exists, has always existed, and will always exist. This leaves us with a handful of possibilities for the state of nothing to logically be possible. There either must be a different kind of limited and finite, causally-independent first cause, or the first cause as God has to end its own existence, or there is some other final cause that ends everything which is possible only in the case of the limited and finite, causally-independent first cause, not the original notion of the first cause as God.

A big point from my end is the "something from nothing" argument is weak because it presupposes a very dubious nothing. It reminds me of "life can't come from non-life" ... the whole something from nothing does. Just seems very faulty.