CONCERNING THE METAPHYSICAL NECESSITY OF THE UNIVERSE BEGINNING UNCAUSED: A REPLY TO GEORGE NAKHNIKIAN
Quentin Smith
Originally Published in: Philo: A Journal of Philosophy, Volume 2, 2000, Spring-Summer issue.
Abstract: In George Nakhnikian’s interesting and stimulating paper, “Quantum Cosmology, Theistic Philosophical Cosmology, and the Existence Question” [Philo 2000 vol. 3, no. 1] he addresses the fundamental issue of whether it is metaphysically possible or justifiable to believe that our universe began to exist without a cause, divine or otherwise. His conclusion is negative, and he argues that, contrary to my views, quantum cosmology is consistence with theism. In this paper, I shall evaluate Nakhnikian’s arguments.
Both Nakhnikian and I focus on thee Hartle-Hawking quantum cosmology.[1] Nakhnikian gives an admirably clear and accurate presentation of my position at the beginning of his paper, up to the point where he makes the questionable assertion: "Smith and Hawking seem to presume that a creator would have to be a physical cause preceding the beginning of the Big Bang."[2] This is not true. Both in my writings and in Hawking’s writings we have explicitly asserted (many times in my case) that a divine creator is not a physical cause, and does not precede in physical time the beginning of the Big Bang, (the Big Bang is also the beginning of physical time). The “God” we are talking about is not Zeus, but is the standard deity of perfect being theology (a disembodied person who is omnipotent, perfectly good, and the creator of the universe),
II
Nakhnikian says that the HH theory (Hartle-Hawking theory) "says or implies nothing about there being or there not being a Creator who is not physical and produces effects that are not physically caused."[3] This is false. They have much to say about the nonexistence of such a Creator. For example, Hawking writes: "The idea that space and time may form a closed surface without boundary also has profound implications for the role of God in the affairs of the universe… if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?"[4]
III
Nakhnikian's main argument is that metaphysical necessities (such as those pertaining to theism) are distinct from and override merely scientific necessities or truths, such as the HH law ("the wave function of the universe"). He says: "A scientific proposition can be true, only if it does not assert or imply the denial of a [metaphysically] true theistic or theological proposition."[5] Further, Nakhnikian says that theistic cosmology and quantum cosmology "are logically independent of each other" and thus that quantum cosmology cannot entail the falsity of theism. The HH theory is consistent with theism, he believes, since the HH theory is merely about scientific matters, whereas theism is about metaphysical matters.
But Nakhnikian's theory on this point seems implicitly self-contradictory. He says about his view of metaphysical necessities: "Causal necessities, too, on this view, are metaphysical necessities. The nature of salt and the nature of water are such that whenever and wherever a pinch of salt is dropped into a volume of unsaturated water, the salt will dissolve in the water (=The water will dissolve the salt), assuming of course that no special circumstances prevent the process."[6]
These causal necessities are scientific laws of nature. It follows that causal scientific laws are "not merely scientifically necessary" but are also metaphysically necessary. But it is arbitrary and unjustified to think the deterministic scientific laws are metaphysical whereas indeterministic scientific laws (such as the HH wave function of the universe) are not metaphysical. The justified, symmetrical thesis is that both determinist and indeterminist scientific laws are true of metaphysical necessity. It is metaphysically necessary that there is a .99 probability that a universe such as ours begins to exist uncaused (this would be H H's basic law of nature).
This refutes Nakhnikian's entire argument, for his argument is that the HH law is merely a scientific truth and thus cannot override meta- physical truths, such as "Any universe that exists must be caused by God." Thus Nakhnikian’s following conclusion is based on a self-contradictory argument: "Smith's argument that the quantum cosmological answer to EQ [the Existence Question] is logically inconsistent with the theistic answer fails to honor the distinction between metaphysical modalities and scientific propositions."[7]
IV
I believe the source of Nakhnikian’s error on this point is that he conflates or identifies the epistemic notion of certainty with the non-epistemic, metaphysical notion of necessity. But as Plantinga,[8] Kripke,[9] and others have shown, epistemic certainties need not be entailed by or entail metaphysical necessities. (For details, see my four chapters in The New Theory of Reference: Kripke, Marcus and its Origins.[10]) Nakhnikian's conflation of the epistemic notion of the a priori with the metaphysical notion of necessity is evincned throughout his paper, in such sentences as "It is evident that no [observational] activities of that sort are relevant to the establishment of metaphysical necessary truths. If there are such truths, they can be ascertained only a priori.”[11] Contrary to Nakhnikian, and siding with Plantinga and Kripke, metaphysically necessary scientific laws are ascertained a posteriori, whereas metaphysically necessary) mathematical truths (for example) can be ascertained a priori.
V
In conclusion, I believe that Nakhnikian’s argument that HH cosmology and theism are logically compatible is an invalid argument. For the reasons given in my earlier works, I think that the HH cosmology logically entails that God does not exist.[12] Nakhnikian’s article is interesting article is interesting and well-worth studying, but it has not refuted the argument that HH cosmology implies atheism.
[1] James Hartle and Stephen Hawking, "The Wave Function of the Universe," Physical Review D 28 (1983): 2960-75
[2] Nakhnikian, "Quantum Cosmology," 64,
[3] Ibid., 64.
[4] Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam Books, 1998).
[5] Nakhnikian, “Quantum Cosmology,” 70.
[6] Ibid., 65.
[7] Ibid., 66
[8] Alvin Plantinga, “World and Essence,” The Philosophical Review 79 (1970): 461-492.
[9] Saul Kripke, “Naming and Necessity,” in Semantics of Natural Language, ed. Donald Davidson and Gilbert Herman (Dortrecht: D.Reidel. 1972): 253-355.
[10] The New Theory of Reference: Kripke, Marcus and Its Origins, ed. Paul Humphreys and James Fetzer (Dortecht: Kluwer Academic, 1998).
[11] Nakhnikian, “Quantum Cosmology,” 66.
[12] Quentin Smith, “Why Stephen Hawking’s Cosmology Precludes a Creator,” Philo vol. 1, no. 1 (Spring-Summer 1998), and “Stephen Hawking’s Cosmology and Theism,” Analysis 54 (1994): 236-43.