What Caused the Universe?
Elegant Ladies at Rest - Louis-Emile Adan, c1880
Most people suspect there is something wrong with the idea that a woman can give birth to herself. In order to pull off a feat like that, she would have to be born before she was born, so that she would be in a position to give birth to herself. It puts her in the difficult position of having to both exist and not exist at the same time …. something known as a logical contradiction.
Logical contradictions are logically impossible …. meaning they cannot happen in any possible world. The implications are enormous when we realize that nature had a beginning, and therefore, something must have caused it to come into existence.
We only have two logical choices for the origin of nature … the cause was natural, or the cause was not-natural (i.e., supernatural). By this I mean …
Nature: The complete physical system composed of space, time, matter, and energy, governed by the laws of physics. E.g., the entire universe (or if you believe in the multiverse, it would be the entire physical system represented by the multiverse).
Natural: The set of all things that satisfy two criteria––a) dependent upon space, time, matter, and energy and, b) completely determined by the laws of physics. E.g., chemical reactions, ocean waves.
Not-natural/supernatural: The set of all things that do not satisfy both criteria above. E. g., axioms of logic and mathematics, moral absolutes, God, the human soul.
Just as a woman cannot give birth to herself, so nature could not have brought itself into existence. It is logically impossible, therefore, to find a natural explanation for the origin of nature. To quote Sherlock Holmes …
“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
Logic dictates, therefore, that the cause of nature must be supernatural.
The philosophical implications are huge. For one, this physical world exists within a larger, supernatural reference frame; the foundation of the natural world is actually supernatural.
Of course, this raises certain questions. Could the cause of everything be absolutely nothing at all? Another great question is, “If there is a supernatural cause for this physical world, then what caused the supernatural cause?” I’ll look forward to addressing these questions in my next couple posts. In the meantime, you can watch a short, two-minute video I made on this topic, just below.
