(Are welcome the guidance and indications -emails, web
addresses, name of head of area publications, etc.- about publishing houses and
institutions that could publish the book).
Enunciation
The third and most direct way to prove the existence
of God is based on the contingency of beings and is structured as follows:
1. It is evident, and we know by our direct experience
of the world that contingent beings exist, that is, beings that depend on
others to exist.
2. Now, as we just said, a contingent being depends on
another to exist. Then, if we find that exists a contingent being is necessary
to infer that there is another being of which depends.
3. But if we assume that all beings are contingent
will have that this first depends on a second, to be contingent, so that a
third party will depend also contingent, and the third depends on a fourth and
so on. But you can not go on indefinitely because if that is the case could not
exist any being because it would have to spend an infinite process of
ontological dependence so that may exist a being, which is obviously absurd.
Therefore, it is necessary to postulate the existence of a Subsistent Being, a
being that does not depend on any other to exist but rather himself takes fully
the whole foundation of his being.
4. This Subsistent Being which does not
depend on any other to exist and which is constituted as the foundation of the
existence of all other beings is what all we know with the name of God.
5. Therefore, God exists.
(…)
(The detailed explanation of each premise is in
the book. Likewise the answer to the main objections that have been made to
this argument. Here we will only present the answer to one of them)…
Objection 2: It is false
that contingent beings require a Subsistent Being to exist because they in
reality give to themselves continually the existence to each other by means of
a circular chain of ontological dependence, subsisting as a whole. Moreover,
science has proven the possibility of a cyclic universe which is generated to itself
constantly through a continuous process of expansion (Big Bang) and contraction
(Big Crunch). Therefore, the third way is invalid.
Response: It is absolutely wrong to think that the existence
of contingent beings can be fully explained only by saying that "they give to themselves continually the existence
to each other by means of a circular chain of ontological dependence"
because we are talking here of a problem of substance not of a problem of form.
In fact, the issue is not whether
ontological dependence chain is linear or circular but rather that it is an
absolute impossibility metaphysics that mere contingent beings can give us the
ultimate foundation of being. The addition what is contingent can never give
what is subsistent. Multiply zero ad infinitum and never get a positive amount.
Let's gather all the world's blind, and we will have none who can see. The
unlit torches will give never light, no matter how many we have.
As seen, the above
problems are not resolved by the mere fact that beings are grouped circularly
or cyclically and after let us say that “existence is continuously give each
other”, because the alleged “circle of ontological dependence” is not ontologically independent from the
beings which compose it. In any case we should say that the analogy of the
circle could at most explain in part the dynamics
of ontological dependence but not its foundation.
In order to make it clear
this point we will give an example: Imagine a round circle of people holding
hands representing every beings in the universe. All these people are
contingent and their contingency is manifested in that every so often, by turns,
begin to fade. However, when this begins to happen to one of them the person
who is in his right side squeezes his hand tightly, conveying to him something
of being, so that he not disappears.
But when the second person
does this too begins to fade. But at that instant a third person squeezes his
hand tightly to the second and so on to each other along the round. But is it
enough with that to say that these people give sufficient reason for their
being? By no means. That dynamic only explains how they are transferred the
being each other but not why they exist. That's why the example must
necessarily to start from already existing beings without ever explain their
existence, ie without ever resolve the problem that really matters to us: Why
is there something rather than nothing? Or to put it with the analogy: on what
basis the whole round is sustained?
We turn now to the question of Cyclic Universe theory
or Steady State theory. John
Gribbin introduced this model with the following words: “The biggest problem with the Big Bang theory of the
origin of the universe is philosophical--erhaps even theological--what was
there before the bang? This problem alone was sufficient to give a great
initial impetus to the Steady State theory; but with that theory now sadly in
conflict with the observations, the best way round this initial difficulty is
provided by a model in which the universe expands from a singularity, collapses
back again, and repeats the cycle indefinitely”. (1)
As
seen in the quote, given the growing scientific acceptance of the Big Bang as
an explanation of the origin of the universe, the cyclic universe theory became
a sort of “Great Hope” for scientists atheists, who wished with all his might
that be certain to avoid an absolute beginning of the universe.
But
what exactly is the oscillating universe theory? Dr. Hugh Ross explains to us
as follows: “In the oscillating universe model, it is assumed that the universe
has sufficient mass so that gravity eventually put the brakes on its expansion.
And not only stops the expansion, but rather reverses it, causing a total
collapse. However, instead of shrugging himself into a singularity, the
universe somehow bounces right back and is expanded again, and so the cycle
repeats, according to this model. An infinite number of such cycles is thought
to relieve us the need to understand the origin of matter at some finite time
in the past”. (2)
However,
as well reminds us Dr. William Craig, there are two well-known difficulties
with respect to the oscillatory model. The first is that “the oscillating model
is physically impossible. That is to say, for all the talk about such a model,
the fact remains that it is only a theoretical possibility, not a real possibility. You can draft such models
on paper, but they cannot be descriptive of the real universe because they
contradict the known laws of physics. As the late Professor Tinsley of Yale
explains, in oscillating models even though the mathematics says that the universe oscillates, there is
no known physics to reverse the collapse and bounce back to a new expansion.
The physics seems to say that those models start from the Big Bang, expand,
collapse, then end”. (3)
The
second difficulty with this model is that it is clearly contradicted by the
observational evidence. For example, as noted Craig: “There is no way to
account for the observed even distribution of matter in the universe on the
basis of an oscillating model. This is because as the universe contracts, black
holes begin to suck everything up, so that matter becomes very unevenly
distributed. But when the universe supposedly rebounds from its contracting
phase, there is no mechanism to “iron out” these lumps and make the
distribution smooth. Hence, the scientists cited above confess that even if
there is some unknown mechanism that could cause the universe to bound back to
a new expansion, it is still not clear that it would prevent the unevenness
that would result from the black holes formed during the contraction phase. 18
The present evenness of matter universe begins with matter unevenly
distributed. 19 The oscillating model therefore cannot satisfactorily account
for the presently observed evenness of the distribution of matter in the universo”.
(4)
Thus
we see that the oscillating universe model can not even solve physical problems
(in fact, already been rejected by the current scientific consensus).
Therefore, it can not solve metaphysical problems.
Thus is maintained conclusion of the third way.
References:
1. John Gribbin, “Oscillating
Universe Bounces Back”, Nature, nº 259, 1976, p. 15
2. Cf. J. P. Moreland, The Creation Hypothesis, InterVarsity Press, 1994, p. 149.
3. William
Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian
Truth and Apologetics, Crossway Books, Wheaton, 1994, pp. 103-104.
4.
Ibídem.
