Can you prove the Creator exists? Here’s a modern update to Rambam’s argument for the existence of God…
Let’s say, for the sake of discussion, we make the following eleven claims:
1′. The physical, observable universe has a finite history.
2′. The physical universe is governed by laws (that we can express in math!) that are themselves contingent, meaning they could have been otherwise, and physics cannot explain why we have these laws rather than others.
3′. No infinite chain backwards of contingent explanations is an actual explanation of anything. You can reject this, but doing so means accepting brute inexplicability as the basic nature of reality, which is quite the metaphysical commitment.
4′. Every physical state is dependent on the physical states that came before it, plus the laws governing transitions between them.
5′. The laws themselves, and the initial conditions, are not explained by the physical states they govern.
6′. Physical reality considered in totality – laws, constants, initial conditions, spacetime structure – is either self-explanatory or requires an explanation from outside itself.
7′. Whatever can be broken down into separate components or properties requires some explanation of why those properties are combined in that way rather than otherwise.
8′. Whatever is contingent – whatever could have been otherwise – does not contain within itself the reason for its existence or its specific character.
9′. If something exists necessarily (i.e., its nonexistence is impossible), it is uncaused, uncompounded, and not dependent on anything external.
10′. The physical universe is contingent. Its laws, constants, and initial conditions could have been otherwise. This is what the fine-tuning data and the landscape problem in string theory both point toward.
11′. An infinite chain backwards of contingent beings/states, each explained by the one before it, does not explain why there is a contingent series at all rather than nothing. You can have an infinitely long chain of dominos each knocked over by the previous one – but that doesn’t explain why there are dominos, or why any of them are falling.
If you’re on board with each of those claims, then here’s how taken together, they prove the Creator exists in eight steps:
Step 1: The physical universe exists and has specific features – specific laws, specific constants, a specific spacetime structure, specific initial conditions. Call this total configuration CREATION.
Step 2: CREATION is contingent. Its features are not necessary in and of themselves. The laws of physics do not explain why these laws of physics hold rather than others. The constants do not explain their own values. The initial conditions do not explain themselves. There is no known physical principle from which CREATION can be derived as the unique possible configuration. (This is supported by: the fine-tuning of constants, the landscape problem in string theory yielding ~10⁵⁰⁰ possible vacua, the fact that the Standard Model’s parameters are empirically measured rather than theoretically derived.)
Step 3: Every contingent thing requires an explanation for why it exists and why it exists as it does rather than otherwise (Premise 3′). This explanation is either internal (the thing explains itself) or external (something else explains it).
Step 4: CREATION cannot explain itself. Self-explanation would mean that CREATION exists necessarily – that its nonexistence is impossible. But we established in Step 2 that CREATION is contingent. A contingent thing cannot be its own sufficient reason.
Step 5: CREATION cannot be explained by something else that is itself contingent in the same way, because that merely pushes the question back. An infinite chain backwards of contingent explanations doesn’t solve the problem (Premise 11′) – it just gives you an infinitely long version of the same unsatisfied demand for explanation.
Step 6: Therefore, the explanation of CREATION must end in something that exists necessarily – something whose nonexistence is impossible, whose existence requires no further explanation, and which is not contingent on anything external.
Step 7: This necessary being cannot itself be physical in the way CREATION is physical. If it were, it would share CREATION’s contingent character – it would have specific features that could have been otherwise, components whose conjunction requires explanation (Premise 7′).
Step 8: Therefore there exists a non-physical, non-composite, necessary being that is the ground of the contingent physical universe.
This is what Rambam means by the Creator.
Now, like any logical argument, this one isn’t airtight. You can always argue with anything:
– First, the principle of sufficient reason (Premise 3′) is not itself logically required: you can simply deny that contingent things require explanation. Some philosophers bite this bullet and say the universe is just a brute fact. That’s coherent but it means accepting that the most fundamental questions – Why is there something rather than nothing? Why this something? – have no answers, not because we haven’t found one yet, but because there are none to find.
– Second, the claim that an infinite chain backwards of contingent explanations is not a genuine explanation (Premise 11′) has its challengers: some philosophers argue that if each link in the chain is explained by the prior link, the whole chain is explained. Rambam thought this is fundamentally wrong: you’ve explained each domino’s falling but not the existence or activity of the series.
So needless to say, not everyone will be convinced. 😉
But for those of us who do believe there is an explanation for why there is something rather than nothing – and that you have to explain things in the big picture, not just what’s in front of your nose – I think this is a solid argument.
What do you think, friends?