0 holds along these past-directed geodesics. This is a stronger conclusion than the one arrived at in previous work in that we have shown under reasonable assumptions that almost all causal geodesics, when extended to the past of an arbitrary point, reach the boundary of the inflating region of spacetime in a finite proper time (finite affine length, in the null case)" (p. 3). So in the 2003 paper, all inflationary space-times whose Hubble parameters are on average greater than zero were found to be past-geodesically incomplete. As a result of the BGV, Karthik H. Shankar writes in 2020 article:"More generally, it has been shown that if the average expansion rate of the universe is positive, then irrespective of any energy condition or even the underlying theory of gravity, there must exist a singularity in the past (BGV theorem). This has essentially shut the door for the possibility of inflationary models to resolve the big bang singularity issue at the classical level" (p. 23).Of course, atheist physicists readily began searching for loopholes in light of this theorem, one classic example being Sean Carroll. The loopholes quickly spread in popularity after this, ranging from an emergent universe, a cyclic universe, eternal inflation, etc. These options were all shut down by a 2012 paper - co-authored by Vilenkin. In the 2012 article, Mithani and Vilenkin argued against emergent universe and cyclical scenarios. Sean Carroll and Chen then developed another loophole, which even Alan Guth endorsed (negating previous conclusions he has made even in published works). But Vilenkin closed this Carroll/Chen loophole in a 2013 paper, as well as Aguirre's and Gratton's model. William H. Kinney also recently expanded the BGV in a 2021 paper to certain kinds of bouncing cosmologies, with cycles of expansion and contraction, showing that these too have a spacetime boundary in their past. Kinney also extended the BGV theorem in a 2023 paper to rule out Roger Penrose's CCC model as evading a beginning. In a 2015 Inference article, Alexander Vilenkin wrote that "we have no viable models of an eternal universe. The BGV theorem gives us reason to believe that such models simply cannot be constructed."So it is true though that there are some models that can avoid the BGV, and that the BGV alone is not proof of an absolute beginning. But it is evidence in that it rules out almost all options for past-eternal spacetime and matter, and when the theorem is combined with other data and arguments, an absolute beginning to spacetime and matter is very probable.There have been many attempts to claim that a popular Christian philosopher named William Lane Craig misrepresents the theorem in citing it in support for an absolute beginning. However, Alexander Vilenkin explicitly said that Craig was not misrepresenting the theorem when he says (recorded in a Reasonable Faith article): "I think you represented what I wrote about the BGV theorem in my papers and to you personally very accurately."Many people argue that the BGV theorem is probably not applicable when quantum gravity is taken into account. However, as Michael G. Strauss (prof. University of Oklahoma) says in this 2021 article,Such a criticism may seem compelling because it seems to contrast a “classical” theory, which may be incorrect at small distances, with a “quantum” theory, which is applicable at all distances. But that is not the case. Classical space-time is not the same as a classical theory, and quantum space-time is not necessarily the same as a quantum theory of gravity. Classical space-time may indeed extend to infinitesimally small distances. It basically means only that time has a directionality, and causality can be defined. So any universe expanding on average governed by any theory of quantum gravity that retains a direction of time is still constrained by the BGV theorem. An appeal to quantum gravity to invalidate the BGV theorem is not only an appeal to ignorance but also requires the extraordinarily counter-intuitive idea that the correct theory of quantum gravity will ultimately have no direction of time and no causality.We have to keep in mind that in many of the approaches to quantum gravity, including Wheeler-DeWitt proposals, lead to a theory about time emerging from a non-spatiotemporal state. As philosophers Vincent Lam and Christian Wüthrich write in their article "Laws Beyond Spacetime" (2021):Perhaps surprising given their divergencies, one finds a near consensus among the different approaches to quantum gravity according to which the fundamental structure is significantly non-spatiotemporal ... The disappearance and re-emergence of spacetime thus appears to be a generic consequence of quantum gravity. If this is right, then an analysis of laws of nature cannot depend on spacetime. (p. 71).Those who speak of the emergence of classical spacetime from a more fundamental state think that the more fundamental state is some kind of non-spatiotemporal realm. An example of entities with a non-spatiotemporal and mathematical nature are spin networks and spin foams in canonical Loop Quantum Gravity, which claims to get rid of the singularity. But it makes little sense to speak of a non-spatiotemporal quantum realm temporally "prior" to first moment of time. Indeed, as Karen Crowther comments in her 2019 article named "As Below, So Before: `Synchronic' and `Diachronic' Conceptions of Spacetime Emergence" concerning the bouncing cosmologies on LQG's predictions, "there is no continuous notion of time that runs from the ‘pre big bang’ universe through to the ‘post big bang’ universe. Rather, there is an intermediate structure that divides these two phases, and this is purely spatial, with no connected notion of time at all." As a result, some physicists even argue that LQG features a twin birth of two universe from a single non-temporal state in two opposite directions of time. This would remove a bounce. Further, if classical spacetime is both emergent (not fundamental) and has a past boundary or a boundary in the "earlier than" direction, then it can be argued that just as the classical regime has a beginning, so too does the quantum regime. However, if the quantum state of the early universe is still temporal, then it would have to be unstable and thus can't be eternal in the past or in the "earlier than direction." That quantum gravity will not change the conclusions of the BGV theorem is argued by Alexander Vilenkin in Many Worlds in One:“A remarkable thing about this theorem is its sweeping generality. We made no assumptions about the material content of the universe. We did not even assume that gravity is described by Einstein’s equations. So, if Einstein’s gravity requires some modification, our conclusion will still hold.” (p. 175).So what is the deal here? The BGV assumes a classical spacetime. Some physicists, like Sean Carroll, want us to imagine that within the Planck epoch, classical spacetime breaks down, and therefore the known laws of physics do not apply. Thus, Carroll wants us to imagine that within the Planck epoch, we have different laws of physics, laws of physics that (a) can't currently be described, (b) have no evidence supporting their postulation, (c) contradict known laws of physics, and (d) contradicts metaphysical principles, such as the law of causality. In effect, Carroll says, "yes, an eternal universe contradicts the laws of physics, but we can imagine, can't we, a never-never land in which these laws don't apply? Well, then, let's do so!" He asks to believe that other laws than those we know by science and observation, laws which he himself admits he does not know and cannot describe, must have operated in the past. His model even requires time itself going backward. I think it's obvious that Carroll is trying to get off the hook of an unwanted conclusion.In a letter to Victor J. Stenger (preserved by an atheist blogger who asked for contents of some of the letter in an email exchange), Alexander Vilenkin said this with regards to a beginning to the universe in the BGV theorem:"You can evade the theorem by postulating that the universe was contracting prior to some time. This sounds as if there is nothing wrong with having a contraction prior to expansion. But the problem is that a contracting universe is highly unstable, small perturbations would cause it to develop all sorts of messy singularities, so it would never make it to the expanding phase. So, if someone asks me whether or not the theorem I proved with Borde and Guth implies that the universe had a beginning, I would say that the short answer is yes. If you are willing to get into subtleties, then the answer is no but..."How does Alexander Vilenkin think space, time and matter came into being without God, though? He thinks that the universe quantum tunneled out of "nothing." How does he define nothing? In this 2012 article, Alexander Vilenkin says,"I say “nothing” in quotations because the nothing that we were referring to here is the absence of matter, space and time.In his technical work, the "laws of physics" he refers to is a timeless, beginingless, space-less, immaterial, transcendent realm of mathematical possibilities, called superspace. For example, Vilenkin, who thinks even inflation mist have a beginning, writes at the end of his Many Worlds in One:“The picture of quantum tunneling from nothing raises another intriguing question. The tunneling process is governed by the same fundamental laws that describe the subsequent evolution of the universe. It follows that the laws should be “there” even prior to the universe itself. Does this mean that the laws are not mere descriptions of reality and can have an independent existence of their own? In the absence of space, time, and matter, what tablets could they be written upon? The laws are expressed in the form of mathematical equations. If the medium of mathematics is the mind, does this mean that mind should predate the universe?” - Vilenkin, Many Worlds in One, p. 205.What is this "quantum tunneling from nothing"? The "nothing" being proposed by e.g., Hawking and Vilenkin is actually not a part of material reality. The nothing being proposed indeed is without space, time and matter, but it's not nothing in the philosophical meaning of the term. What they call "nothing" is known as superspace, a timeless, spaceless, immaterial, transcendent realm of mathematical possibilities. As Vilenkin suggests in the YouTube video cited above, it is a Platonic realm of mathematical possibilities, such as our laws which describe our universe. To make matters even more speculative, Vilenkin and Hawking had to arbitrarily restrict the degrees of mathematical freedom inherent in the Wheeler-DeWitt equation in order to solve it (creating what theorists call a “mini-superspace”). Stephen Hawking takes the same tack as Alexander Vilenkin, in his 2010 book titled The Grand Design, coauthored with Leonard Mlodinow: “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing." Lawrence Krauss echoes this claim: “The laws themselves require our universe to come into existence, to develop and evolve” - Krauss, A Universe from Nothing, p. 142. Paul Davies summarizes this type of view spoken of as the following (see this YouTube video):"... Most scientists would stop at the law of physics and that they would accept that they exist for no particular reason; they're just there ... we can imagine that the laws of physics are "there" in some abstract platonic mathematical realm, but there's no physical universe, there's no spacetime, matter, energy or anything like that, but the laws are there so the universe has the potential to come into existence in compliance with those laws. I think actually many of my colleagues would regard ... that would be their world view."As Davies says a minute later in the video, on this "view the reason why there is something rather than nothing is because the laws that are pre-existing, maybe not in a time sense, but in a logical sense, have the power to bring into existence a universe from nothing." Further, here is what a physicist named Ikjyot Singh Kohli says in a 2015 review on Lawrence Krauss’ book,"The concept of superspace is not mentioned a single time, even though this is the entire geometric structure for which the proposal he is putting forward of a universe coming from nothing is based upon. There is also a deep philosophical issue that cannot be ignored. Superspace is the space of all possible 3-geometries, and the question is, what types of universes should be considered as part of a particular superspace. For example, one can consider the Bianchi cosmologies which are spatially homogeneous and anisotropic cosmological models, which have three degrees of freedom in the minisuperspace sense, of which the FLRW cosmologies are special cases. The existence of this structure is not predicted by the WDW formalism, it is assumed to exist, which itself goes 3 back to the theme of this paper. How can one claim that something arises from nothing, when this nothing is at minimum, minisuperspace? (pp. 3-4).Meanwhile, back to Hawking. Hawking, in an interview titled: ''If there's an edge to the universe, there must be a God (interview with Renee Weber)," in Dialogues with Scientists and Sages (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), says, "WEBER: Why is it so important whether there is or is not an edge to space-time? HAWKING: It obviously matters because if there is an edge somebody has to decide what should happen at the edge. You would really have to invoke God."How does Hawking get around the conclusion that God exists, given the singularity on the Standard Model, partially inspired by his own work? Eventually, Hawking introduced imaginary time into one of Einstein’s mathematical expressions that describes the curvature of spacetime. Hawking then simply equated time with imaginary time (t = iÏ„) to make it possible to calculate the probabilities associated with different possible early states of the universe. Mathematicians call this transformation a “Wick rotation.” In A Brief History of Time, Hawking presented this result as a challenge to the idea that the universe had a definite beginning in time. He argued that this mathematical model implied the universe would not, therefore, need a transcendent creator to explain its origin. After he explained how this mathematical manipulation eliminated the singularity, he famously observed, “So long as the universe had a beginning, we would suppose it had a creator. But 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?" (pp. 140-141).The problem with this though is threefold. First, as Hawking admits, the use of imaginary time is merely a "mathematical device (or trick)" - Hawking, A Brief History of Time, p. 136. Second, imaginary numbers have no real-world referent and so have no physical meaning. As Hawking explained, "Imaginary numbers are a mathematical construction. You can't have an imaginary number credit card bill" - Hawking, The Universe in a Nutshell, p. 59. Hawking also acknowledged that once his mathematical depiction of the geometry of space is transformed back into the actual physical realm with a real-time variable—the singularity comes back! As Hawking says, “When one goes back to the real time in which we live, however, there will still appear to be singularities" - Hawking, A Brief History of Time, p. 136. Third, according to Hawking, imaginary time makes time indistinguishable from space. But this is metaphysically impossible, since time is not space. There are other issues with the Hartle-Hawking model too. In the end, both Hawking and Vilenkin think there is a platonic realm of math which the universe came out of.Thomas Hertog (world renowned physicist and collaborator with Stephen Hawking) writes in his 2023 book:"Most physicists continue to follow Plato on this point. They tend to conceive the laws of physics as eternal mathematical truths, living not just in our mind but operating in an abstract reality that transcends the physical world" (On the Origin of Time, p. 15).------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------There seems to only be five options to pick from in light of the predictions made by General Relativity and the extrapolations made from the known laws of physics vis-a-vis the beginning of spacetime and matter:Say that the known laws of physics and predictions from general relativity (GR) are replaced by other laws of physics for which we have no evidence and which can't currently be described, within the Planck epoch. Further, these new laws must not only be new, but must contradict the known laws and predictions from GR. Finally, these new laws must contradict metaphysical principles like causality.Say that spacetime and matter arose out of abstract Platonic mathematical structures and equations. The problem with this is that abstract objects don't stand in any causal relationship with anything concrete—the law of conservation of momentum does not cause a billiard ball to move when another ball hits it, for example. Further, unless the cause has free will, no effect could arise out of a timeless state. Lastly, the laws of nature typically are taken as being merely descriptive in science. So how can they exist without what they describe?Say that the beginning of spacetime and matter was caused by nothing. This is entailed if one says causation can't occur without spacetime. However, if one says that there's no causation without spacetime and matter, they are committed to the view that the beginning of spacetime and matter was caused by nothing and committed to violating the causal principle. Further, there is no counter example of something coming out of literally nothing, even if uncaused.Say that spacetime and matter caused the beginning of the existence of itself. This also violates the causal principle and makes no sense.A timeless, eternal, spaceless, immaterial, powerful, transcendent and personal cause which theists call God.To summarize, let me lay out these six points to conclude. First, the past-finite nature of spacetime and matter is now, and has been ever since the middle part of the last century, the Standard Model of cosmic origins. Yes, there are dissenters among physicists, but that doesn't change the near consensus.Second, scientific knowledge is the reason it is the Standard Model. The red-shift is an observed fact, and unless the known laws of physics can be violated, the necessity of a past-finite nature of spacetime and matter that it entails, given those laws of physics, is a fact.Third, the great majority of scientists would agree more or less with points one to four above. For instance, the atheist physicist Lawrence Krauss, in his book A Universe from Nothing, takes the above points for granted.Fourth, the past-finite universe has massive religious, existential, and moral implications, because it entails the existence of a transcendently powerful creator which resembles the God of Abrahamic faiths. In human beings, the intellect does not operate independently, but is moved by the heart and the will. And physicists are human beings. Some find the conclusion of God so terrifying that they are willing to descend into irrationality rather than follow the science to its logical conclusion, such as positing superspace or claiming that the universe could come into being uncaused (like Lawrence Krauss and Alexander Vilenkin has), thus denying the law of causality. Vilenkin for example argues in that 2015 Inference article that one does not need a cause to the universe.Fifth, we already know that even some of the greatest physicists are biased against a past spacetime boundary. The late great Stephen Hawking says in his famous book A Brief History of Time (1988)Many people do not like the idea that time has a beginning, probably because it smacks of divine intervention ... There were therefore a number of attempts to avoid the conclusion that there had been a big bang. The proposal that gained widest support was called the steady state theory. (p. 49).So there seems to have been a bias and to some level an agenda to avoid a big bang singularity, sometimes at least being because of its implications for the existence of God.Sixth, many argue that the Kalam stands or falls with an A-theory of time. However, WLC admits in this video (min 36:30) that while giving up an A-theory of time would result in him "giving up the second philosophical argument based upon the impossibility of forming an actual infinite by successive addition," and would force him to "redefend the casual premise in such a way that it doesn't appeal to something's coming into being without a cause, but rather to say that something can't begin to exist without a cause," he also says that "the scientific evidence for the finitude of the past would still go in place. So even though the .... abandonment of an A-theory of time would damage the argument and cause you to reformulate some of its support." title="Science about the beginning of the universe supports the existence of a God.">full image - Repost: Science about the beginning of the universe supports the existence of a God. (from Reddit.com, Science about the beginning of the universe supports the existence of a God.)
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This is a long post, since this is such a controversial and complicated issue. In this post I would like to present scientific evidence for a key premise in a popular argument for God: the second premise in the Kalam Cosmological Argument:Whatever comes into existence has a cause.Spacetime and matter came into existence.So, spacetime and matter has a cause.Here is a weak version of the Kalam argument:If spacetime and matter came into existence, it has a cause.Spacetime and matter came into existence.So, spacetime and matter has a cause.The above assumes an A-theory of time. However, on a tenseless theory of time, past, present, and future is equally real. The universe has a beginning in the sense that the first inch of a ruler is the beginning of the ruler. However, one can still speak of an "earlier than" or "later than" or "prior to" and "posterior to" on this theory of time. Plus, on a B-theory of time, physical events, such as those in 2023, are still dependent on events in 2022 and so on, so "prior to" is still valid in a certain sense. Further, the concept of causation is applicable on B-theory. Here is the reformulated argument:Anything with an edge or boundary to its existence in the earlier than direction has a cause external to itself (i.e. my conception marks the boundary to my existence in the earlier than direction).Spacetime and matter has an edge or boundary to its existence in the earlier than direction.So, spacetime and matter has a cause external to itself.What I mean by beginning to exist on a B-theory of time is this: something begins to exist at t if it exists at t and if there is no time prior to t at which it exists.Why God?Since the cause produced spacetime and matter, the cause must be timeless (and thus eternal/beginningless), spaceless, immaterial, very powerful, transcendent and personal. This cause must be personal because if this cause always had the power and preconditions to create the universe in eternity past but was impersonal, then the effect should also be eternal past. The fact that the effect is finite to the past suggests that the cause had free will to create and chose to do so, implying a personal agent. Here is the problem as WLC points out: "If a cause is sufficient to produce its effect, then if the cause is there, the effect must be there, too. For example, the cause of water’s freezing is the temperature’s being below 0 degrees Celsius. If the temperature has been below 0 degrees from eternity, then any water around would be frozen from eternity. It would be impossible for the water to begin to freeze just a finite time ago. Now the cause of the universe is permanently there, since it is timeless. So why isn’t the universe permanently there as well?" Only the cause having free will can explain this, according to WLC.God of the Gaps?This term was created by Christians to criticize other Christian arguments. The term applied to arguments which appealed to a gap in scientific knowledge as evidence for God. This gap in knowledge is then taken as evidence for God and so it is a God of the gaps argument. The problem is that this is not what the argument does. If the argument was “science has no explanation for what causes the universe therefore is must be God,” then that would be God of the gaps. But the Kalam doesn’t do this. Instead, it appeals to scientific evidence and what we know about causation and the law of non-contradiction to rule out the cause of the beginning of spacetime and matter as being temporal, spacial and material.Quantum Mechanics Denies Causality?Some try and deny the law of causality by appealing to quantum mechanics, where, for example, virtual particles are claimed to come into being uncaused. However I would like to make seven points in response to this before I continue with the scientific evidence for the beginning of the universe:Even if quantum mechanics is non-deterministic and causality is not applicable, the situation is still different with the whole universe. For virtual particles do not come into being uncaused out of nothing, but rather out of a quantum vacuum which operates in the context of spacetime and matter. So how can it explain the origin of spacetime and matter itself? At best these particles arise uncaused, but not out of no pre-existing spacetime and matter!Even if indeterministic interpretations of quantum mechanics is correct, causality is not necessarily done away with. The problem commonly raised is that certain quantum phenomena, like radioactive decay, can only be given a probabilistic description, rather than what will happen in a given case. However, that a quantum event does not have a unique solution for the later state of the system, given an earlier state, is not the same as lacking a cause. Suppose I cast a spell with a 0.7 chance of turning a prince into a frog, and then suppose the prince turns into a frog. Here, my spell sufficiently explains why the prince turned into a frog, even though the spell merely raised the probability of this event.The counterargument from quantum mechanics depends on a non-deterministic interpretation of quantum mechanics anyway, such as the traditional Copenhagen interpretation, even though there are many other interpretations or approaches to QM which are equally empirically valid, including deterministic interpretations of QM, which maintain common understandings of causality, such as the Bohmian interpretation, or at least allow for it, like approaches to QM such as Superdeterminism.That quantum mechanics does not eliminate causality is made clear by the fact that quantum events follow a consistent pattern. For example, uranium atoms consistently decay into other elements, such as thorium and lead, and they never decay into, day, pigs or tanks. This gives philosophical reason to think that quantum events are not causeless but occur within a causal structure governed by the laws of quantum mechanics.If one adopts the Copenhagen interpretation, then we have another argument for God. This is because, as WLC points out, "As a physical object, he [the observer] can be described by quantum physics. That means he exists in an indeterminate superposition of states unless somebody else observes him. But then the same thing is true of that person, and you get a chain where nobody is collapsed! There is no reality, and yet classical reality obviously exists. Here we are! So what collapses the ultimate indeterminacy of the whole universe? Ultimately it leads to a kind of ultimate observer who collapses the indeterminacy in the universe and therefore is implied by the Copenhagen Interpretation. Otherwise it would never get collapsed and nothing would ever truly exist. So this Copenhagen Interpretation, I think, ultimately implies the existence of such a being which is necessary to collapse the indeterminacy of the universe and halt the infinite regress of measurers. That is the answer to the measurement problem – you halt it with a non-physical observer."------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------"... There is a beginning, there is a point in time in which it all started, and that's a remarkable thing because it has very strong theological flavor to it. And that intrigued me because I am an agnostic, and if there was a beginning, a moment of creation of the universe, then there was a Creator, and a Creator is not compatible with agnosticism. And I ... found that message so interesting that I felt a strong compulsion to share it with others" - Robert Jastrow (agnostic physicist and founder of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies for NASA)."General Relativity predicts a beginning of time" - Stephen Hawking, "Theoretical Advances in General Relativity," in Some Strangeness in the Proportion: A Centennial Symposium to Celebrate the Achievements of Albert Einstein (1980), p. 14."It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning" - Alexander Vilenkin, Many Worlds in One (2007), p. 176."We don't know for sure whether the Universe began, but to the extent that our present-day knowledge is an indicator, it probably did" - Aron Wall.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The Science.The Standard (or the ΛCDM) Model is the most popular model of cosmic origins, with an initial singularity and a beginning to spacetime and matter. The Standard Model takes seriously extrapolations made from the known laws of physics, as well as predictions made by General Relativity, which (with observations) predicts that space, time and matter came into existence a finite time ago. This is what I turn now. The late great Stephen Hawking says in his famous book A Brief History of Time (1988):The final result was a joint paper by Penrose and myself in 1970, which at last proved that there must have been a big bang singularity provided only that general relativity is correct and the universe contains as much matter as we observe ... So in the end our work became generally accepted and nowadays nearly everyone assumes that the universe started with a big bang singularity. . . (p. 53).In the 1980s however, Alan Guth theorized a phase around 10 to the minus 36 seconds to 10 to the minus 32 seconds after the Big Bang, known as "inflation." Inflation, according to the Standard Model, takes place after the creation of matter, space, and time. It is true that some physicists fold inflation into a theory of an eternal universe. But that is not true of most. And it should also be pointed out that, while the inflationary theory is widely accepted, a goodly number of physicists reject it, especially since it was tailored specifically to get around the assumption of fine tuning concerning the flatness and smoothness of the universe. But the concept of inflation did change things a bit: if it is correct, then one can theoretically get rid of the initial singularity and replace it with the end of an earlier epoch of inflation. But this raises the question: can you get rid of singularities in altogether, and make the universe infinitely old (again, if inflation is to be accepted)? A theorem produced by Alvine Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin showed that the answer is NO, as long as the universe is expanding and the known laws of physics hold, one can push the singularity as far back as one likes, but one can't get rid of it. In a 1994 paper, Arvine Borde and Alexander Vilenkin showed that most "almost all points in the inflating region will have a singularity somewhere in their pasts" (p. 3307). In other words, most, but not all, null and timelike geodesics are past incomplete. However, the aforementioned 2003 paper showed "that null and timelike geodesics are, in general, past-incomplete in inflationary models, whether or not energy conditions hold, provided only that the averaged expansion condition Hav > 0 holds along these past-directed geodesics. This is a stronger conclusion than the one arrived at in previous work in that we have shown under reasonable assumptions that almost all causal geodesics, when extended to the past of an arbitrary point, reach the boundary of the inflating region of spacetime in a finite proper time (finite affine length, in the null case)" (p. 3). So in the 2003 paper, all inflationary space-times whose Hubble parameters are on average greater than zero were found to be past-geodesically incomplete. As a result of the BGV, Karthik H. Shankar writes in 2020 article:"More generally, it has been shown that if the average expansion rate of the universe is positive, then irrespective of any energy condition or even the underlying theory of gravity, there must exist a singularity in the past (BGV theorem). This has essentially shut the door for the possibility of inflationary models to resolve the big bang singularity issue at the classical level" (p. 23).Of course, atheist physicists readily began searching for loopholes in light of this theorem, one classic example being Sean Carroll. The loopholes quickly spread in popularity after this, ranging from an emergent universe, a cyclic universe, eternal inflation, etc. These options were all shut down by a 2012 paper - co-authored by Vilenkin. In the 2012 article, Mithani and Vilenkin argued against emergent universe and cyclical scenarios. Sean Carroll and Chen then developed another loophole, which even Alan Guth endorsed (negating previous conclusions he has made even in published works). But Vilenkin closed this Carroll/Chen loophole in a 2013 paper, as well as Aguirre's and Gratton's model. William H. Kinney also recently expanded the BGV in a 2021 paper to certain kinds of bouncing cosmologies, with cycles of expansion and contraction, showing that these too have a spacetime boundary in their past. Kinney also extended the BGV theorem in a 2023 paper to rule out Roger Penrose's CCC model as evading a beginning. In a 2015 Inference article, Alexander Vilenkin wrote that "we have no viable models of an eternal universe. The BGV theorem gives us reason to believe that such models simply cannot be constructed."So it is true though that there are some models that can avoid the BGV, and that the BGV alone is not proof of an absolute beginning. But it is evidence in that it rules out almost all options for past-eternal spacetime and matter, and when the theorem is combined with other data and arguments, an absolute beginning to spacetime and matter is very probable.There have been many attempts to claim that a popular Christian philosopher named William Lane Craig misrepresents the theorem in citing it in support for an absolute beginning. However, Alexander Vilenkin explicitly said that Craig was not misrepresenting the theorem when he says (recorded in a Reasonable Faith article): "I think you represented what I wrote about the BGV theorem in my papers and to you personally very accurately."Many people argue that the BGV theorem is probably not applicable when quantum gravity is taken into account. However, as Michael G. Strauss (prof. University of Oklahoma) says in this 2021 article,Such a criticism may seem compelling because it seems to contrast a “classical” theory, which may be incorrect at small distances, with a “quantum” theory, which is applicable at all distances. But that is not the case. Classical space-time is not the same as a classical theory, and quantum space-time is not necessarily the same as a quantum theory of gravity. Classical space-time may indeed extend to infinitesimally small distances. It basically means only that time has a directionality, and causality can be defined. So any universe expanding on average governed by any theory of quantum gravity that retains a direction of time is still constrained by the BGV theorem. An appeal to quantum gravity to invalidate the BGV theorem is not only an appeal to ignorance but also requires the extraordinarily counter-intuitive idea that the correct theory of quantum gravity will ultimately have no direction of time and no causality.We have to keep in mind that in many of the approaches to quantum gravity, including Wheeler-DeWitt proposals, lead to a theory about time emerging from a non-spatiotemporal state. As philosophers Vincent Lam and Christian Wüthrich write in their article "Laws Beyond Spacetime" (2021):Perhaps surprising given their divergencies, one finds a near consensus among the different approaches to quantum gravity according to which the fundamental structure is significantly non-spatiotemporal ... The disappearance and re-emergence of spacetime thus appears to be a generic consequence of quantum gravity. If this is right, then an analysis of laws of nature cannot depend on spacetime. (p. 71).Those who speak of the emergence of classical spacetime from a more fundamental state think that the more fundamental state is some kind of non-spatiotemporal realm. An example of entities with a non-spatiotemporal and mathematical nature are spin networks and spin foams in canonical Loop Quantum Gravity, which claims to get rid of the singularity. But it makes little sense to speak of a non-spatiotemporal quantum realm temporally "prior" to first moment of time. Indeed, as Karen Crowther comments in her 2019 article named "As Below, So Before: `Synchronic' and `Diachronic' Conceptions of Spacetime Emergence" concerning the bouncing cosmologies on LQG's predictions, "there is no continuous notion of time that runs from the ‘pre big bang’ universe through to the ‘post big bang’ universe. Rather, there is an intermediate structure that divides these two phases, and this is purely spatial, with no connected notion of time at all." As a result, some physicists even argue that LQG features a twin birth of two universe from a single non-temporal state in two opposite directions of time. This would remove a bounce. Further, if classical spacetime is both emergent (not fundamental) and has a past boundary or a boundary in the "earlier than" direction, then it can be argued that just as the classical regime has a beginning, so too does the quantum regime. However, if the quantum state of the early universe is still temporal, then it would have to be unstable and thus can't be eternal in the past or in the "earlier than direction." That quantum gravity will not change the conclusions of the BGV theorem is argued by Alexander Vilenkin in Many Worlds in One:“A remarkable thing about this theorem is its sweeping generality. We made no assumptions about the material content of the universe. We did not even assume that gravity is described by Einstein’s equations. So, if Einstein’s gravity requires some modification, our conclusion will still hold.” (p. 175).So what is the deal here? The BGV assumes a classical spacetime. Some physicists, like Sean Carroll, want us to imagine that within the Planck epoch, classical spacetime breaks down, and therefore the known laws of physics do not apply. Thus, Carroll wants us to imagine that within the Planck epoch, we have different laws of physics, laws of physics that (a) can't currently be described, (b) have no evidence supporting their postulation, (c) contradict known laws of physics, and (d) contradicts metaphysical principles, such as the law of causality. In effect, Carroll says, "yes, an eternal universe contradicts the laws of physics, but we can imagine, can't we, a never-never land in which these laws don't apply? Well, then, let's do so!" He asks to believe that other laws than those we know by science and observation, laws which he himself admits he does not know and cannot describe, must have operated in the past. His model even requires time itself going backward. I think it's obvious that Carroll is trying to get off the hook of an unwanted conclusion.In a letter to Victor J. Stenger (preserved by an atheist blogger who asked for contents of some of the letter in an email exchange), Alexander Vilenkin said this with regards to a beginning to the universe in the BGV theorem:"You can evade the theorem by postulating that the universe was contracting prior to some time. This sounds as if there is nothing wrong with having a contraction prior to expansion. But the problem is that a contracting universe is highly unstable, small perturbations would cause it to develop all sorts of messy singularities, so it would never make it to the expanding phase. So, if someone asks me whether or not the theorem I proved with Borde and Guth implies that the universe had a beginning, I would say that the short answer is yes. If you are willing to get into subtleties, then the answer is no but..."How does Alexander Vilenkin think space, time and matter came into being without God, though? He thinks that the universe quantum tunneled out of "nothing." How does he define nothing? In this 2012 article, Alexander Vilenkin says,"I say “nothing” in quotations because the nothing that we were referring to here is the absence of matter, space and time.In his technical work, the "laws of physics" he refers to is a timeless, beginingless, space-less, immaterial, transcendent realm of mathematical possibilities, called superspace. For example, Vilenkin, who thinks even inflation mist have a beginning, writes at the end of his Many Worlds in One:“The picture of quantum tunneling from nothing raises another intriguing question. The tunneling process is governed by the same fundamental laws that describe the subsequent evolution of the universe. It follows that the laws should be “there” even prior to the universe itself. Does this mean that the laws are not mere descriptions of reality and can have an independent existence of their own? In the absence of space, time, and matter, what tablets could they be written upon? The laws are expressed in the form of mathematical equations. If the medium of mathematics is the mind, does this mean that mind should predate the universe?” - Vilenkin, Many Worlds in One, p. 205.What is this "quantum tunneling from nothing"? The "nothing" being proposed by e.g., Hawking and Vilenkin is actually not a part of material reality. The nothing being proposed indeed is without space, time and matter, but it's not nothing in the philosophical meaning of the term. What they call "nothing" is known as superspace, a timeless, spaceless, immaterial, transcendent realm of mathematical possibilities. As Vilenkin suggests in the YouTube video cited above, it is a Platonic realm of mathematical possibilities, such as our laws which describe our universe. To make matters even more speculative, Vilenkin and Hawking had to arbitrarily restrict the degrees of mathematical freedom inherent in the Wheeler-DeWitt equation in order to solve it (creating what theorists call a “mini-superspace”). Stephen Hawking takes the same tack as Alexander Vilenkin, in his 2010 book titled The Grand Design, coauthored with Leonard Mlodinow: “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing." Lawrence Krauss echoes this claim: “The laws themselves require our universe to come into existence, to develop and evolve” - Krauss, A Universe from Nothing, p. 142. Paul Davies summarizes this type of view spoken of as the following (see this YouTube video):"... Most scientists would stop at the law of physics and that they would accept that they exist for no particular reason; they're just there ... we can imagine that the laws of physics are "there" in some abstract platonic mathematical realm, but there's no physical universe, there's no spacetime, matter, energy or anything like that, but the laws are there so the universe has the potential to come into existence in compliance with those laws. I think actually many of my colleagues would regard ... that would be their world view."As Davies says a minute later in the video, on this "view the reason why there is something rather than nothing is because the laws that are pre-existing, maybe not in a time sense, but in a logical sense, have the power to bring into existence a universe from nothing." Further, here is what a physicist named Ikjyot Singh Kohli says in a 2015 review on Lawrence Krauss’ book,"The concept of superspace is not mentioned a single time, even though this is the entire geometric structure for which the proposal he is putting forward of a universe coming from nothing is based upon. There is also a deep philosophical issue that cannot be ignored. Superspace is the space of all possible 3-geometries, and the question is, what types of universes should be considered as part of a particular superspace. For example, one can consider the Bianchi cosmologies which are spatially homogeneous and anisotropic cosmological models, which have three degrees of freedom in the minisuperspace sense, of which the FLRW cosmologies are special cases. The existence of this structure is not predicted by the WDW formalism, it is assumed to exist, which itself goes 3 back to the theme of this paper. How can one claim that something arises from nothing, when this nothing is at minimum, minisuperspace? (pp. 3-4).Meanwhile, back to Hawking. Hawking, in an interview titled: ''If there's an edge to the universe, there must be a God (interview with Renee Weber)," in Dialogues with Scientists and Sages (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), says, "WEBER: Why is it so important whether there is or is not an edge to space-time? HAWKING: It obviously matters because if there is an edge somebody has to decide what should happen at the edge. You would really have to invoke God."How does Hawking get around the conclusion that God exists, given the singularity on the Standard Model, partially inspired by his own work? Eventually, Hawking introduced imaginary time into one of Einstein’s mathematical expressions that describes the curvature of spacetime. Hawking then simply equated time with imaginary time (t = iÏ„) to make it possible to calculate the probabilities associated with different possible early states of the universe. Mathematicians call this transformation a “Wick rotation.” In A Brief History of Time, Hawking presented this result as a challenge to the idea that the universe had a definite beginning in time. He argued that this mathematical model implied the universe would not, therefore, need a transcendent creator to explain its origin. After he explained how this mathematical manipulation eliminated the singularity, he famously observed, “So long as the universe had a beginning, we would suppose it had a creator. But 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?" (pp. 140-141).The problem with this though is threefold. First, as Hawking admits, the use of imaginary time is merely a "mathematical device (or trick)" - Hawking, A Brief History of Time, p. 136. Second, imaginary numbers have no real-world referent and so have no physical meaning. As Hawking explained, "Imaginary numbers are a mathematical construction. You can't have an imaginary number credit card bill" - Hawking, The Universe in a Nutshell, p. 59. Hawking also acknowledged that once his mathematical depiction of the geometry of space is transformed back into the actual physical realm with a real-time variable—the singularity comes back! As Hawking says, “When one goes back to the real time in which we live, however, there will still appear to be singularities" - Hawking, A Brief History of Time, p. 136. Third, according to Hawking, imaginary time makes time indistinguishable from space. But this is metaphysically impossible, since time is not space. There are other issues with the Hartle-Hawking model too. In the end, both Hawking and Vilenkin think there is a platonic realm of math which the universe came out of.Thomas Hertog (world renowned physicist and collaborator with Stephen Hawking) writes in his 2023 book:"Most physicists continue to follow Plato on this point. They tend to conceive the laws of physics as eternal mathematical truths, living not just in our mind but operating in an abstract reality that transcends the physical world" (On the Origin of Time, p. 15).------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------There seems to only be five options to pick from in light of the predictions made by General Relativity and the extrapolations made from the known laws of physics vis-a-vis the beginning of spacetime and matter:Say that the known laws of physics and predictions from general relativity (GR) are replaced by other laws of physics for which we have no evidence and which can't currently be described, within the Planck epoch. Further, these new laws must not only be new, but must contradict the known laws and predictions from GR. Finally, these new laws must contradict metaphysical principles like causality.Say that spacetime and matter arose out of abstract Platonic mathematical structures and equations. The problem with this is that abstract objects don't stand in any causal relationship with anything concrete—the law of conservation of momentum does not cause a billiard ball to move when another ball hits it, for example. Further, unless the cause has free will, no effect could arise out of a timeless state. Lastly, the laws of nature typically are taken as being merely descriptive in science. So how can they exist without what they describe?Say that the beginning of spacetime and matter was caused by nothing. This is entailed if one says causation can't occur without spacetime. However, if one says that there's no causation without spacetime and matter, they are committed to the view that the beginning of spacetime and matter was caused by nothing and committed to violating the causal principle. Further, there is no counter example of something coming out of literally nothing, even if uncaused.Say that spacetime and matter caused the beginning of the existence of itself. This also violates the causal principle and makes no sense.A timeless, eternal, spaceless, immaterial, powerful, transcendent and personal cause which theists call God.To summarize, let me lay out these six points to conclude. First, the past-finite nature of spacetime and matter is now, and has been ever since the middle part of the last century, the Standard Model of cosmic origins. Yes, there are dissenters among physicists, but that doesn't change the near consensus.Second, scientific knowledge is the reason it is the Standard Model. The red-shift is an observed fact, and unless the known laws of physics can be violated, the necessity of a past-finite nature of spacetime and matter that it entails, given those laws of physics, is a fact.Third, the great majority of scientists would agree more or less with points one to four above. For instance, the atheist physicist Lawrence Krauss, in his book A Universe from Nothing, takes the above points for granted.Fourth, the past-finite universe has massive religious, existential, and moral implications, because it entails the existence of a transcendently powerful creator which resembles the God of Abrahamic faiths. In human beings, the intellect does not operate independently, but is moved by the heart and the will. And physicists are human beings. Some find the conclusion of God so terrifying that they are willing to descend into irrationality rather than follow the science to its logical conclusion, such as positing superspace or claiming that the universe could come into being uncaused (like Lawrence Krauss and Alexander Vilenkin has), thus denying the law of causality. Vilenkin for example argues in that 2015 Inference article that one does not need a cause to the universe.Fifth, we already know that even some of the greatest physicists are biased against a past spacetime boundary. The late great Stephen Hawking says in his famous book A Brief History of Time (1988)Many people do not like the idea that time has a beginning, probably because it smacks of divine intervention ... There were therefore a number of attempts to avoid the conclusion that there had been a big bang. The proposal that gained widest support was called the steady state theory. (p. 49).So there seems to have been a bias and to some level an agenda to avoid a big bang singularity, sometimes at least being because of its implications for the existence of God.Sixth, many argue that the Kalam stands or falls with an A-theory of time. However, WLC admits in this video (min 36:30) that while giving up an A-theory of time would result in him "giving up the second philosophical argument based upon the impossibility of forming an actual infinite by successive addition," and would force him to "redefend the casual premise in such a way that it doesn't appeal to something's coming into being without a cause, but rather to say that something can't begin to exist without a cause," he also says that "the scientific evidence for the finitude of the past would still go in place. So even though the .... abandonment of an A-theory of time would damage the argument and cause you to reformulate some of its support.
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