# Creation ex nihilo vs. Gradualism: Is the former necessary to western religion? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 29, 2009, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creation-ex-nihilo-vs-gradualism-is-the-former-necessary-to-western-religion/504659 "2009-07-29T12:07:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creation-ex-nihilo-vs-gradualism-is-the-former-necessary-to-western-religion/504659/21 "2009-07-29T18:47:30Z")
> [@](#): > > If I said that there was nothing north of the north pole, would you imagine standing at the north pole, taking one step north, and finding yourself in a cold dark Land of Nothing? Of course not. You understand that I mean that there is no such thing as “north of the north pole”. Similarly, when theoretical physicists say that “there is nothing before the universe”, they don’t posit a dark vacuum in which the universe began, originated, came into existence, was created, Big-Banged, or any other verb that gets tossed around in careless popular science articles. They mean that there is no such thing as “before the universe”. It has always existed. It should be pointed out, incidentally, that this is not a new idea. The idea that time is itself part of the Universe, and that there was therefore no time at which the Universe did not exist, dates back all the way to Augustine (though of course he didn’t have the detailed mathematical description that modern cosmologists have). ---
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creation-ex-nihilo-vs-gradualism-is-the-former-necessary-to-western-religion/504659/22 "2009-07-29T19:11:43Z")
> [@SentientMeat](#): > > OK, let’s just explore this phrase “strict determinist”. Is the outcome of a dice roll strictly determinist? How about the QM uncertain location of an electron? I’d suggest that if there are _random_ (or even merely pseudo-random) elements at play in human cognition, then “determinism” becomes a difficult word to play around with. I’d say that human cognition is [deterministic, but not determin_able_](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=4435456&postcount=18). I’m not certain precisely the distinction you are drawing. To call a system deterministic is to say that system operates according to a finitely-specifiable set of rules, and so, if one were given all the pertinent data regarding the state of the world at time t, one could calculate the state of the world at any future time. The feasibility of this isn’t really an issue. The contention that components of the system (human brains) are changed by the operations of the system doesn’t make it any less deterministic, so long as these changes occur according to the system’s rules. This might be a bit of a red herring though. Just because strict incompatibilist determinism prevents the existence of free will does not mean the “opposite” of it, usually taken to be randomness, means free will would exist. Randomness is just as injurious to free will, which is after all a consequence of the mind’s ability to translate _mental_ intentions into _physical_ manifestations within the real world. If the real-world is not rule-governed, an explanation has to be provided as to how the mind is able to effect its intentionality in a physical world that works randomly. Briefly on the moral responsibility bit for now: the possibility of moral responsibility is usually thought to turn on the agent’s ability to have done otherwise. So we are not talking about moral agents (if, indeed, “moral” is necessarily a good descriptor for compassionate, other-regarding behavior) but rather morally responsible agents. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creation-ex-nihilo-vs-gradualism-is-the-former-necessary-to-western-religion/504659/23 "2009-07-29T19:50:36Z")
> [@Lib](#): > > I have no doubt that, given the motivation, these tribal “savages” could construct the same sort of edifices that wow us now. Indeed. (Of course, [these edifices](http://webecoist.com/2009/01/04/7-architectural-wonders-of-the-natural-world/) are also pretty darned amazing too!) > [@](#): > > The “stuff” that is within you is identical to the “stuff” that we identify as God. It can be conceived as God sort of breaking off a piece of Himself and placing it in you. So, presumably, termites, beavers, chimps, Eric Erectus and even early Sally Sapiens didn’t and don’t, in your opinion, get a piece? (Again, understand I’m not trying to give you the full hostile witness treatment here – I’m genuinely interested in even your vaguest guesses.) And the sperm, egg or DNA in a watery bubble – does that get a piece, or is it withheld until later in gestation or childhood? > [@](#): > > reminded of a quote by Raymond Hall, of Fermilab, who said, “Stuff is made of atoms. Therefore, atoms can’t be made of stuff.” Quite so – that’s why I made so much of _fields_ in my OP. Another one I like is “Quantum Mechanics: The Dreams Which Stuff Is Made Of.” > [@Kimmy](#): > > call a system deterministic is to say that system operates according to a finitely-specifiable set of rules, and so, if one were given all the pertinent data regarding the state of the world at time t, one could calculate the state of the world at any future time. The feasibility of this isn’t really an issue. OK, but I’d suggest that all kinds of important phenomena, including human cognition, are subject to an effectively _infinitely_ specifiable set of rules, _ie._ they cannot be [reduced](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=7152662&postcount=38) in the way you’re suggesting. > [@](#): > > Randomness is just as injurious to free will, which is after all a consequence of the mind’s ability to translate mental intentions into physical manifestations within the real world. Agreed. And as a supervenience physicalist, of course I hold that mental intentions are effectively physical entities any old how, just as the “intention” of the computer game monster to kill the first-person shoot-em-up character most certainly supervenes on the computational processes going on in the hardware. > [@](#): > > the possibility of moral responsibility is usually thought to turn on the agent’s ability to have done otherwise. And if you rerun the “Moral Computer 2.0” programme, you _do_ find different decisions when faced with the same situation if there are slight changes in the history database, expectation algorithm or random inputs. We still hold aberrant pets, programmes and diminished capacity humans “responsible” insofar as we provide _consequences for their actions_ (as you can tell, I’m a consequentialist too). In any case, I’m not sure you can really say I, or even my more dualist friends here of either theist or atheist persuasion, are really positing free will (or its illusion) as an example of creation ex nihilo, which is what the thread is about. Sure, there are even phenomena which emerge very _suddenly_, such as “matter” from symmetry-broken fields, supernovae from hot dense stars, catalysts from the primordial soup around an undersea vent, or consciousness from a dose of smelling salts after a general anaesthetic. But these are still _gradual, incremental_ emergences, if admittedly for small values of “gradual”. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creation-ex-nihilo-vs-gradualism-is-the-former-necessary-to-western-religion/504659/24 "2009-07-29T21:07:15Z")
> [@SentientMeat](#): > > Indeed. (Of course, [these edifices](http://webecoist.com/2009/01/04/7-architectural-wonders-of-the-natural-world/) are also pretty darned amazing too!) Thank you for that! Wonderful indeed! > [@](#): > > So, presumably, termites, beavers, chimps, Eric Erectus and even early Sally Sapiens didn’t and don’t, in your opinion, get a piece? (Again, understand I’m not trying to give you the full hostile witness treatment here – I’m genuinely interested in even your vaguest guesses.) And the sperm, egg or DNA in a watery bubble – does that get a piece, or is it withheld until later in gestation or childhood? It is my opinion, based upon the teachings of Jesus as revealed by the Beloved (or whoever it might have been) that it happens to the human at birth, because Jesus taught Nicodemus (a Pharisee, who was sympathetic toward Him) that man is born of water and of the spirit. Whereas mainstream Christianity interprets “born of water” to mean baptism, I interpret it to mean childbirth, as when a woman’s water breaks and a child is born. I believe Jesus was teaching that man is a dual creature; i.e., that he is both physical and spiritual — born of water (physical) and born of the spirit (spiritual). I hope that helps you to understand my point of view. > [@](#): > > Quite so – that’s why I made so much of _fields_ in my OP. Another one I like is “Quantum Mechanics: The Dreams Which Stuff Is Made Of.” Ha! 😃 My very favorite of favorites (since we’re sharing these) is a quote from the famous astrophysicist, Arthur Eddington, who said, “Something unknown is doing we don’t know what.” ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2009, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creation-ex-nihilo-vs-gradualism-is-the-former-necessary-to-western-religion/504659/25 "2009-07-30T19:07:45Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > I hope that helps you to understand my point of view. Brave as ever to actually have a go at responding to my pedantic picking, and to furthermore base your guess on something non-arbitrary. Thanks. You would have been executed for heresy almost any time before you were actually born, mate. But hey, so was Jesus. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2009, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creation-ex-nihilo-vs-gradualism-is-the-former-necessary-to-western-religion/504659/26 "2009-08-03T04:58:47Z")
> [@](#): > > Creation ex nihilo has been a central tenet of westen religion since the Greeks I don’t think this is true at all. From what I’ve read–my knowledge comes primarily from Justo L. Gonzalez’s _The Story of Christianity_ and _A History of Christian Thought_ there were Christian thinkers on both sides of the issue from the Middle Ages onward. > [@](#): > > - just look at what atocities befell any who dared to question it. No atrocities befell any who dared to question it. > [@](#): > > I’m asking whether religion can jettison it and still reasonably be called “religion”. Yes it can. You seem to have an exaggerated picture of the importance of that question of creation (or any aspect of creation) in Christianity. The central tenets of Christianity are the Incarnation, the Trinity, and the Resurrection. > [@](#): > > The obvious question, which appears never to have been asked in any seriousness, being so what? This question has been asked and answered. I don’t know whether is was covered by Aquinas & co. but it has certainly been answered by more recent philosophers. There can’t be an infinite series of causes and effects leading up to us because of the definition of infinity. Children generally think that infinity is a very large number; if they count for long enough they’ll eventually reach infinity. But this conception is wrong. Infinity is a concept, and no number equals it or approaches it. Now matter how far you move along the number line, you never reach infinity. In more formal terms, you cannot transcend the infinite. Now look at it from the opposite perspective. If you are at an infinite position, no one can ever reach you. Or in relation to this debate, if the current universe followed after an infinite series of causes and effects, it would have transcended the infinite, which is impossible. Hence there was no infinite series of causes and effects prior to the present moment. (William Lane Craig wrote a much clearer explanation of this argument in one of his books.) ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2009, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creation-ex-nihilo-vs-gradualism-is-the-former-necessary-to-western-religion/504659/27 "2009-08-03T05:15:28Z")
> [@ITR champion to Sentient Meat](#): > > The central tenets of Christianity are the Incarnation, the Trinity, and the Resurrection. Especially the Resurrection. I believe that Jesus died, was buried, and rose from the dead. I think that salvation might be listed also as a central tenet. I do believe that Jesus has saved from death all who will but believe in Him — that is, those who will trust in, rely on, and cling to Him. But I do not believe that physical death is the demarcation point. In other words, I believe that some will not trust in, rely on, and cling to Him until after they die and meet Him face to face, as it were. That is in part due to the fact that He is unfortunately presented as some heinous monster Whose sole purpose is to cast people into lakes of fire. I am reminded of the Pharisees whom Jesus said would search the ends of the earth for a single convert, and then turn him into twice the sons of the hell they were themselves. People who have turned against Christ because of moralistic and bombastic preaching can hardly be blamed for their point of view. If it weren’t for my person epiphany, I would feel much the same way. But upon seeing Him “for real”, I would know that He is what I have searched for my whole life. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2009, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creation-ex-nihilo-vs-gradualism-is-the-former-necessary-to-western-religion/504659/28 "2009-08-03T06:07:12Z")
> [@SentientMeat](#): > > Brave as ever to actually have a go at responding to my pedantic picking, and to furthermore base your guess on something non-arbitrary. Thanks. > > You would have been executed for heresy almost any time before you were actually born, mate. But hey, so was Jesus. Greatly honored. Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_Stimulus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Digital\_Stimulus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_Stimulus)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2009, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creation-ex-nihilo-vs-gradualism-is-the-former-necessary-to-western-religion/504659/29 "2009-08-03T07:03:01Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > …if the current universe followed after an infinite series of causes and effects, it would have transcended the infinite, which is impossible. Succinctly, “followed after” != “transcended”. See, for example, Cantor’s diaganol. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2009, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creation-ex-nihilo-vs-gradualism-is-the-former-necessary-to-western-religion/504659/30 "2009-08-03T11:00:09Z")
Hi **ITR** , glad you resurrected this thread! > [@ITR](#): > > I don’t think this is true at all. From what I’ve read–my knowledge comes primarily from Justo L. Gonzalez’s The Story of Christianity and A History of Christian Thought there were Christian thinkers on both sides of the issue from the Middle Ages onward. Really? That would be very interesting. If you could tell me any medieval (scholastic or otherwise) Christians who advocated an infinite regress, or even the pantheism of some Islamic sects, I’d be fascinated. > [@](#): > > No atrocities befell any who dared to question it. That’s a very strong claim to make, given the character of the medieval Inquisition. Calling into question the miracles of God as set out by orthodoxy would most certainly be considered a very grave heresy. I had hoped this thread would not become a cite-fest detailing the horrors of the Inquisition, but it can if you like. > [@](#): > > The central tenets of Christianity are the Incarnation, the Trinity, and the Resurrection. Agreed, but the Fall (which the Resurrection is surely all about) is a major part in this story. And how can there be a literal Fall if man evolved gradually? > [@](#): > > There can’t be an infinite series of causes and effects leading up to us because of the definition of infinity. Children generally think that infinity is a very large number; if they count for long enough they’ll eventually reach infinity. But this conception is wrong. Infinity is a concept, and no number equals it or approaches it. Now matter how far you move along the number line, you never reach infinity. In more formal terms, you cannot transcend the infinite. > > Now look at it from the opposite perspective. If you are at an infinite position, no one can ever reach you. Or in relation to this debate, if the current universe followed after an infinite series of causes and effects, it would have transcended the infinite, which is impossible. Hence there was no infinite series of causes and effects prior to the present moment. > > (William Lane Craig wrote a much clearer explanation of this argument in one of his books.) If you could make it clearer still I’d be very grateful - I don’t understand this at all. It seems to be “If the universe was endlessly cyclical, that would transcend the infinite”. My question would, again, be _so what_? ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2009, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creation-ex-nihilo-vs-gradualism-is-the-former-necessary-to-western-religion/504659/31 "2009-08-03T11:01:10Z")
On holiday this week - apologies if there’s no web access. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2009, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creation-ex-nihilo-vs-gradualism-is-the-former-necessary-to-western-religion/504659/32 "2009-08-03T14:59:19Z")
> [@SentientMeat to ITR](#): > > Agreed, but the Fall (which the Resurrection is surely all about) is a major part in this story. And how can there be a literal Fall if man evolved gradually? Damn, I should be working on my own thesis, but this thread is interesting. I must, with greatest respect, disagree that the Resurrection is all about “the Fall”. The Resurrection is not about eternal physical life, which would contradict nearly every physical law we know of, unless God Himself provided a source of eternal energy of some kind, which doesn’t sound like something God would do to me. No point in it. The Resurrected body of Jesus was of another kind. He was not even recognized, at first, when the women saw Him near the tomb. His body had transmorgrified — a sort of shape-shifter for Star Trek fans — such that he could summon the elementary particles into any form he pleased, and house His spirit therein. His ascension was miraculous, of course, but certainly involved some physical law about which we are not yet familiar — some kind of anti-graviton or something. Or perhaps even something as simple as an electro-magnetic force that simply overcame gravity. Or whatever. Plus, the “Fall” thing. Assuming there was a Fall (which I do not), there is no reason that the allegory could not reference a tribe of people, newly cognative of His existence, but failing to follow His instructions. I have never found a case in which evolutionary theory contradicted necessarily the central tenets of Christianity. That’s because Christianity is about love, not the ascent of man. Even Christs’s miracles can be explained by a means of controlling the quantum world, which we do not yet understand. It is a simple matter to turn water into wine when you can summon sub-atomic particles to do your will, or other feats that might have a near — emphasizing \*near \*— zero possibility or occurring naturally or spontaneously. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creation-ex-nihilo-vs-gradualism-is-the-former-necessary-to-western-religion/504659/33 "2009-08-05T00:23:36Z")
> [@SentientMeat](#): > > Agreed, but the Fall (which the Resurrection is surely all about) is a major part in this story. And how can there be a literal Fall if man evolved gradually? In [a response to a similar argument](http://www.classicreader.com/book/2281/22/), Chesterton said: > [@](#): > > It is written with earnestness and in excellent English; it must mean something. But what can it mean? How could physical science prove that man is not depraved? You do not cut a man open to find his sins. You do not boil him until he gives forth the unmistakable green fumes of depravity. How could physical science find any traces of a moral fall? What traces did the writer expect to find? Did he expect to find a fossil Eve with a fossil apple inside her? Did he suppose that the ages would have spared for him a complete skeleton of Adam attached to a slightly faded fig-leaf? The whole paragraph which I have quoted is simply a series of inconsequent sentences, all quite untrue in themselves and all quite irrelevant to each other. Science never said that there could have been no Fall. There might have been ten Falls, one on top of the other, and the thing would have been quite consistent with everything that we know from physical science. Humanity might have grown morally worse for millions of centuries, and the thing would in no way have contradicted the principle of Evolution. Men of science (not being raving lunatics) never said that there had been “an incessant rise in the scale of being;” for an incessant rise would mean a rise without any relapse or failure; and physical evolution is full of relapse and failure. There were certainly some physical Falls; there may have been any number of moral Falls. So that, as I have said, I am honestly bewildered as to the meaning of such passages as this, in which the advanced person writes that because geologists know nothing about the Fall, therefore any doctrine of depravity is untrue. Because science has not found something which obviously it could not find, therefore something entirely different–the psychological sense of evil–is untrue. You might sum up this writer’s argument abruptly, but accurately, in some way like this–“We have not dug up the bones of the Archangel Gabriel, who presumably had none, therefore little boys, left to themselves, will not be selfish.” To me it is all wild and whirling; as if a man said–“The plumber can find nothing wrong with our piano; so I suppose that my wife does love me.” > > I am not going to enter here into the real doctrine of original sin, or into that probably false version of it which the New Theology writer calls the doctrine of depravity. But whatever else the worst doctrine of depravity may have been, it was a product of spiritual conviction; it had nothing to do with remote physical origins. Men thought mankind wicked because they felt wicked themselves. If a man feels wicked, I cannot see why he should suddenly feel good because somebody tells him that his ancestors once had tails. Man’s primary purity and innocence may have dropped off with his tail, for all anybody knows. The only thing we all know about that primary purity and innocence is that we have not got it. Nothing can be, in the strictest sense of the word, more comic than to set so shadowy a thing as the conjectures made by the vaguer anthropologists about primitive man against so solid a thing as the human sense of sin. By its nature the evidence of Eden is something that one cannot find. By its nature the evidence of sin is something that one cannot help finding. The doctrine that humanity is sinful is one part of Christian doctrine that can be verified empirically. If anyone thinks that it’s false, all they have to do is produce a grown person who never does anything wrong. But in the absence of any such person, the doctrine is sound. Moreover, events in human history make it even more sound. One could easily name a long list a tyrants who thought that they were so good that they weren’t sinners and had no need of redemption, yet such people committed the worst crimes in human history. Meanwhile the most admired people in human history are generally well aware of their failings. So sin is a fact of life; it doesn’t become less of a fact of life just because we can’t pinpoint the exact moment when it started occurring. After all, we don’t know when, where, or why humans first talked, or wrote, or did math, yet that doesn’t change the fact that we do all those things. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creation-ex-nihilo-vs-gradualism-is-the-former-necessary-to-western-religion/504659/34 "2009-08-08T10:35:36Z")
Back from holiday in beautiful Pembrokeshire. **Lib** and **ITR** , yes, you’ve both picked up on a throwaway line in my last post, regarding the Fall and Resurrection. Of course western religion no longer posits anything but an allegorical Fall, if any. (At least, _reasonable_ theism doesn’t: in my dealings with Young Earth Creationists I’ve gleaned that it’s not so much a literal 6 days that YEC’s are unwilling to divest themselves of, but the story of the Fall.) Still, I don’t think you could argue that the Fall wasn’t _traditionally_ central to western religion, despite the ease with which theists can now rather sweep it under the doctrinal carpet. As for my other points to you **ITR** , I must say I’m a little disappointed that you chose to ignore them completely. Nevertheless, on holiday I read an excellent little Penguin Classic: “Medieval Thought: St Augustine to Ockham” by Gordon Leff ( **Lib** in particular would appreciate it I think, and you could probably pick it up Used on Amazon for literally a dollar) and it provided some fascinating examples of western (_ie._ west of, say, India) philosophers who did indeed reject creation-from-nothing. The Arabic philosophers Avicenna and Averroes favoured an eternal model, the latter very strongly, and both were highly influential in medieval theology. The 12th Century saw William of Conches take a strongly Averroist position, as did Sigler of Brabant in the 13th. And the grandfather of science himself, Roger Bacon, was indeed a Latin Averroist who took matter to be eternal and approached pantheism closely. So there were, in fact, a few prominent philosophers who questioned creationed _ex nihilo_. However, one could not by any stretch say that they did not endure atrocities for doing so. All three died in atrocious medieval prisons, the last two after the Paris Condemnation of all things Averroist in 1277, and the torture and burning of later Averroist heretics is well documented. But all this is by the by, really. If **ITR** says creation-from-nothing isn’t very important to western religion, I’m happy to take his word for it. What is far more interesting to me, **ITR** , is the argument you put forth against an eternal universe (of either cyclical universes or “timeless” fields), because I simply don’t understand it. You say that the “infinite regress, so what?” question has been answered many times – I’d say it’s been _avoided_ many times, and hope that you don’t here. You mention transcendence of the infinite as a reason why the universe can’t be eternal – I simply can’t see what that’s got to do with modern cosmology and theoretical physics. So, please forgive me pestering you, but: 1. _How_ does an eternal universe “transcend the infinite”, exactly? 2. Even if it does, _so what_? I can’t access the book you refer to. If you could summarise the argument I’d be very grateful. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creation-ex-nihilo-vs-gradualism-is-the-former-necessary-to-western-religion/504659/35 "2009-08-08T23:55:00Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > In [a response to a similar argument](http://www.classicreader.com/book/2281/22/), Chesterton said: Chesterton is right in that a fall wouldn’t show up in a dig, but he did not know that we can prove that there was no Adam and Eve - at least not 6K years ago. > [@](#): > > The doctrine that humanity is sinful is one part of Christian doctrine that can be verified empirically. If anyone thinks that it’s false, all they have to do is produce a grown person who never does anything wrong. But in the absence of any such person, the doctrine is sound. Moreover, events in human history make it even more sound. One could easily name a long list a tyrants who thought that they were so good that they weren’t sinners and had no need of redemption, yet such people committed the worst crimes in human history. Meanwhile the most admired people in human history are generally well aware of their failings. Whether people are sinners depends strongly on what you define as sin. It is not just doing wrong - a guy can do wrong by throwing to the wrong base, but I trust he isn’t sinning. The existence of evil hardly proves the nonexistence of a person without sin, whatever that means. > [@](#): > > So sin is a fact of life; it doesn’t become less of a fact of life just because we can’t pinpoint the exact moment when it started occurring. After all, we don’t know when, where, or why humans first talked, or wrote, or did math, yet that doesn’t change the fact that we do all those things. Sin, however you call it, wouldn’t start the first time a person did something sinful - it would start the first time a person realized that he or she did something sinful. When we were only animals did we sin? Plus, do you think all sins began at the same time? If nudity is a sin, was it before clothes were invented? Sin is also a function of which religion you follow, clearly. So, sin as the absolute you seem to consider it is quite problematic. ---
**Author:** ![PBear42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PBear42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PBear42)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2009, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creation-ex-nihilo-vs-gradualism-is-the-former-necessary-to-western-religion/504659/36 "2009-08-09T05:25:33Z")
I have to say that I think **ITR’s** central point is sound. Christianity is about Jesus, as described in the New Testament. The Muslim faith is about Allah and his laws, as revealed to Mohommed in the Koran. Those are the central precepts. The story of creation is almost trivial theologically, except insofar as it points to the great power of God/Allah. It’s main appeal is that it fills a gap, where did we come from? For whatever reason, most people apparently want a beginning. But that doesn’t make it a linchpin belief for religion. As an atheist and a materialist, I have no illusion that proving gradualism would disprove religion. And, please, let’s remember the universe-without-boundaries conjecture isn’t proven. Or, if it has been, I missed the memo. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2009, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creation-ex-nihilo-vs-gradualism-is-the-former-necessary-to-western-religion/504659/37 "2009-08-10T23:09:51Z")
> [@SentientMeat](#): > > 1. _How_ does an eternal universe “transcend the infinite”, exactly? > 2. Even if it does, _so what_? 1. A eternal universe is one that has existed for an infinite amount of time. Hence any object in such a universe must have existed for an infinite length of time. In other words, if you take any fixed time step, any object in an eternal universe must have existed for an infinite number of those time steps, and that’s transcending the infinite. In other words, it’s moving through an infinite sequence of events that are all distinct from each other, and are all in order. 2. Transcending the infinite is impossible. This follows directly from a correct understanding of what the infinite is. No matter how long you count, you never get to infinity. Yet a hypothetical observer in an eternal universe who counted the passing time would do exactly that, leading to a logical contradiction. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2009, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creation-ex-nihilo-vs-gradualism-is-the-former-necessary-to-western-religion/504659/38 "2009-08-10T23:12:02Z")
I’ve always found infinite regress to make much more sense than creation ex nihilo myself. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creation-ex-nihilo-vs-gradualism-is-the-former-necessary-to-western-religion/504659/39 "2009-08-11T09:04:16Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > 1. A eternal universe is one that has existed for an infinite amount of time. Agreed. (Note that it might not have undergone _change_ for that infinite amount of time, however. The universe might be infinitely old but has undergone _change_ for only 13.7 billion years.) > [@](#): > > Hence any object in such a universe must have existed for an infinite length of time. Hang on, what? The Earth is only 4.5 billion years old. It formed from dust from supernovas coming together under gravity. It is an example of an object which has _not_ existed for an infinite length of time (although the fields whose broken symmetry lead to the emergence of the “matter” Earth is made of _have_ existed forever.) If you could clarify your premise in light of this example I’d be grateful. > [@](#): > > In other words, if you take any fixed time step, any object in an eternal universe must have existed for an infinite number of those time steps, and that’s transcending the infinite. > … > 2) Transcending the infinite is impossible. This still makes no sense. A _year_, say, is a fixed time step (assuming we’re not invlving relativity here, or are we?) Are you saying that if the universe is eternal, any object in it (_eg_ the Earth) must have existed for an infinite number of years? That’s clearly a false premise, surely? And that’s also a very screwy definition of [transcendence](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendence_(mathematics)) in any case - did you mean in the medieval sense, (opposite to “immanence”)? Surely an object that has existed for an infinite number of years (or whatever) is merely _infinite_? > [@](#): > > No matter how long you count, you never get to infinity. Yet a hypothetical observer in an eternal universe who counted the passing time would do exactly that, leading to a logical contradiction. _What?_ You seem to be saying “If, hypothetically, you could count to infinity, you would contradict the rule that says you can’t count to infinity. Therefore the universe can’t be infinite.” Can you just clarify that you are seriously presenting this as an argument? ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creation-ex-nihilo-vs-gradualism-is-the-former-necessary-to-western-religion/504659/40 "2009-08-11T13:07:42Z")
Ah, [Here we are](http://www.leaderu.com/truth/3truth11.html). This is an article in the “Truth Journal” by William James Craig arguing that the universe must have begun to exist. (No surprise you mangled his argument a bit in summary, **ITR** – he mangles it himself quite admirably!) > [@William James Craig](#): > > With regard to (2.12) [“_An infinite temporal regress of events is an actual infinite_.”], the most frequent objection is that the past ought to be regarded as a potential infinite only, not an actual infinite … Such a position is, however, untenable. The future is potentially infinite, since it does not exist; but the past is actual in a way the future is not, as evidenced by the fact that we have traces of the past in the present, but no traces of the future. Hence, if the series of past events never began to exist, there must have been an actually infinite number of past events. This is all rather linguistical smoke and mirrors in which he pulls out arbitrary and highly questionable assertions to counter the perfectly reasonable position that an eternal universe is ∞ (_ie._ potentially infinite), not **א** (actually infinite), as held by Aquinas _et seq_. The difference between past and future may be a particularly human illusion, such that “now” has no genuine actuality. Indeed, his entire argument contradicts _itself_: If the series of past events is continually growing, _how can it be actually infinite??_ In any case, the entire argument reminds me of one of Zeno’s paradoxes, given that Achilles _does actually_ catch up with the tortoise eventually. Either the universe is actually infinite or it is not. Craig seems to go to some effort to show that the universe _cannot_ be merely potentially infinite (a task which IMO he fails – he merely _asserts_ such, which is no better than simply asserting that an infinite regress is absurd in the first place.) Then the conjurer reveals his other empty hand, telling us that actual infinities are impossible, too. He concludes, therefore the universe must have a beginning! I could just as easily conclude: therefore the universe doesn’t exist, therefore the world is 6000 years old, or therefore David Icke was a better snooker presenter than David Vine. (I think there’s a phrase for such an A & ¬A -\> C fallacy, but I can’t remember it.) > [@William James Craig](#): > > Premiss (2.21) [“A collection formed by successive addition cannot be actually infinite.”] is the crucial step in the argument. One cannot form an actually infinite collection of things by successively adding one member after another. Since one can always add one more before arriving at infinity, it is impossible to reach actual infinity. Sometimes this is called the impossibility of “counting to infinity” or “traversing the infinite.” Amazing – I see that you were actually repeating his argument pretty accurately, **ITR** (with “traversing” replacing your “transcending”). He _is_ seriously proposing this as an argument! The whole point of an eternal universe is that **there is no starting point** , any more than the surface of the Earth has a starting point. That’s why it’s called an _infinite regress_. Again, he is not making any further _argument_ here beyond: > [@William James Craig](#): > > the idea of a beginningless series ending in the present seems to be absurd. As for his first and second scientific confirmations, well, my OP bemoaned the carelessness with which even great scientists throw around terms like “began”, “came from”, “created” _etc._ I repeat: the fields or previous universes which gave rise to “our” expanding fireball were not **nothing**. And _of course_ the thermodynamical tendency towards equilibrium only applies to “our” expansion: it is the relationship between said fields that determines the entropy of the initial point or points of expansion in the first place. Nevertheless, this was a good effort at answering my “so what?” even if, in the end, I feel he’s just taken the _avoidance_ of the question one step back, so thanks for drawing my attention to it **ITR**. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creation-ex-nihilo-vs-gradualism-is-the-former-necessary-to-western-religion/504659.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creation-ex-nihilo-vs-gradualism-is-the-former-necessary-to-western-religion/504659.md?page=3)