The Burhān by Mohammed Hijab

This chapter will deal with the most common objections to the various articulations of the cosmological and ontological arguments that have been formulated. Some of them are not directly relevant to my proofs and arguments mentioned in the previous chapter, nevertheless I will actively demonstrate why this is the case. Other objections are more relevant to my formulation of the argument, however, and will thus be dealt with more systematically. In addition to outlining these objections, I will outline how they should be dealt with technically and rhetorically by those contending with them in pastoral and apologetic contexts, as delivery can sometimes be of greater importance than content. First, affirming or denying the initial proposition made in the previous chapter ultimately leads to capitulation: Proposition: There cannot be a world with only dependent thing(s) without reference to an independent thing, as a dependent thing(s) cannot continue existing on their own. Existence is only explicable with reference to an independent existence. This is because impossible existences do not exist by logical necessity, and dependent existences cannot self-generate and/or self-maintain. The interlocutor may deny this statement, claiming that there can be a world with only dependent things that can continue to exist, generate, or maintain themselves. With such a claim, the interlocutor will effectively be affirming that such existences collectively are independent, which effectively means that they have in fact capitulated. If the interlocutor agrees with the proposition above, then no further argument is necessary. Unfortunately, for the interlocutor the dependent/independent dichotomy is exhaustive, which means a third option cannot be produced. If the initial capitulation is made, subsequent arguments of composition will then be levelled at the interlocutor.

Since the fallacy of composition suggests that a false generalisation has been made from part to whole, it is perhaps important for us to start by outlining different types of ‘parts’ in the study of mereology. Parts may be ‘attached’, ‘detached’, ‘cognitively or functionally salient’, ‘arbitrarily demarcated’, ‘self-connected’, ‘homogenous’, ‘gerrymandered’, ‘material’, ‘immaterial’, ‘extended’ or ‘un-extended’, or ‘spatial’ or ‘temporal’.90 When I use the term ‘part’ I do so in compliance with the common usage of the term ‘piece’ in the English language, which specifically deals with ‘attached’ and ‘detached’ categories of parthood. In his famous debate with Copleston, Bertrand Russell famously stated that ‘every man who exists has a mother, and it seems to me your argument is that therefore the human race must have a mother’.91 Applying this reasoning to the Kalām cosmological argument, this would translate to a statement like, ‘We see causes in the universe, so there must be a cause of the universe.’ This is analogous to stating that since the parts of a whale are small, the whale itself must be small. Naturally, this is not necessarily the case, as the part/whole distinction does not need to be disparate. Both the individual pearls in the pearl necklace may be white, as well as the entire necklace. To claim (with certainty) that one is committing a ‘fallacy of composition’ (or that one is not), one must have complete knowledge of both the parts and whole of an object to analyse whether the correspondence between the parts and the whole is disparate or not. This has been the standard way of responding to this kind of contention. However, there are other more effective methods regarding the arguments made in the previous chapter that we can employ instead.

As has been shown, the case for dependency can be made both ontologically (on a priori mathematical grounds) and cosmologically. The postulation that something made of pieces is dependent on those pieces for its existence is not a generalisation from part to whole, but a direct definitional claim about the whole. A whole with pieces is the sum of its parts, and the whole would not be as it is without its pieces. If a Gucci pearl necklace is made up of 10 pearl pieces and I replace 3 such pieces with plastic pearls, it is no longer a Gucci pearl necklace. It is now just an imitation of it. If I replace the wheels and engine of a Lamborghini Murcielago with some other wheels and engine, I no longer have the right to call this car a Lamborghini Murcielago. Of course, in everyday examples one may talk of socially acceptable removals and additions, such that if I remove one single bolt from the Lamborghini, it will still maintain its status as a Lamborghini. But on strictly material grounds, it would be impossible to state that it is the same Lamborghini as it was, without redefining what a Lamborghini is. Thus, our definition of the car depends on our understanding of what makes it what it is. Applying this idea to the universe, if we assume that the universe is expanding, then with every passing second, we are confronted with a new kind of universe. Even if we assume that the universe is eternal or static, and we conceive of removing all the pieces of the universe from it to the point where the universe no longer exists, then we have proven that the universe is contingent and dependent. If it were possible for me to destroy your mobile phone or make it change its state to a point of indistinguishability, then I have proven that your mobile phone is not necessary. One may ask that if this is the case, and a human being is made up of his constituent body parts, then assuming that all his bodily cells are replaced, will we be talking about another human being altogether? On strictly materialistic grounds the answer is yes; it is really only religious and philosophical discourses that encourage us to define human beings by the immaterial soul.

Moreover, the universe can be conceived of in another way that does not break logical necessities, which further proves its contingency. Anything that can be conceived of in another way in abstraction is contingent; the universe can be conceived of in another way in abstraction, which therefore means that the universe is contingent. An objection may be to say: The necessary existence can be conceived of as creating and not creating the universe. Therefore, the necessary existence is contingent, but (as mentioned in the previous chapter) if necessity characterises every aspect of the necessary existence, it also characterises the necessary existence’s will. Since creation or non-creation is directed by the necessary existence’s will, it may be said that the existence of the universe is necessarily instantiated through the necessary existence. An atheist determinist may object that nothing is contingent since it has been determined by an uninterrupted line of causal events. In reference to determinism this is true, but this is only true by virtue of this connection. On the other hand, it is not true if we isolate the variables of the object or thing in question. For the atheistic interlocutor to prove otherwise, they must show how it is possible that any said object or thing (which could have been conceived otherwise) cannot be so without reference to the causal chain. Such an interlocutor is not required to show that this is the case, but only that it could conceivably be the case in absolute abstraction, which is impossible. This example illustrates how those espousing the theistic position in the field cannot afford to dread questioning the questioner, as doing so will give the atheistic questioner false confidence. Admittedly, the objection has some force with the Kalām argument and arguments like it that explicitly rely on induction in establishing the first premise. For one to make a general claim from a limited sample, there is the secondary issue of the problem of induction (especially considering quantum mechanics), which may weaken these types of arguments. The most that can be said is that Russell’s objection will force the theist who uses the Kalām argument into a gridlock of ignorance, since both the atheist and the theist have ignorance of the correspondence (or lack thereof) between the whole and its part.

As we have seen, this is not relevant to the Burhān inspired argument put forward in the previous chapter.

The Burhān argument shows how an infinite regress is not a necessary existence. It does so by not arguing that infinity is mathematically or actually impossible, but through composition (tarkīb) instead. Even if one assumed the validity of an infinite multiverse, it would not affect the argument at all, since a multiverse is a) dependent on its pieces, and b) able to be conceived of in another way in abstraction. Therefore, this objection, though relevant to some forms of the cosmological argument, has no bearing at all to the Burhān.

Bertrand Russell may as well have said ‘the universe is the universe’ or ‘the universe exists’. It reminds me of when I reprimand my three-year old daughter and ask her why she has misbehaved. In such cases, she simply replies ‘because’, while offering no explanation whatsoever. This causes one to wonder why Russell does not apply the same reasoning to other things in existence, instead of simply peculiarising the universe in this way. Richard Swinburne (in a more than satisfactory refutation of this line of reasoning) states: The objection fails to make any crucial distinction between the universe and other objects; and so it fails in its attempt to prevent at the outset a rational inquiry into the issue of whether the universe has some origin outside itself.92

A vernacular dictionary definition of causation is something which produces an effect. A more formal definition runs as follows: ‘C is a cause of E if, and only if, C and E are actual and C, cetereis paribus, is sufficient for E’.93 A cause does not need to be one directional, or indeed bound by time at all; only some conceptions of causation are envisioned like this. John Mackie refers to this specific type of causality as ‘causal priority’.94 On the issue of directionality, John Mackie states that ‘it is conceivable that there should be evidence for backwards causation, with A being causally prior to P and P temporally prior to A’.95 These conceptions of retro causality require additional evidence. As Karl Popper states, ‘If a stone dropped into a pool, the entry of the stone will explain the expanding circular waves. This would demand a vast number of distant coherent generators of waves – the coherence of which, to be explicable, would have to be shown as operating from one centre’.96The possibility of this proposition (or the lack thereof) depends on one’s conception of the direction of time. William Craig dedicates much of his argumentative effort into arguing against a static theory of time. Since the arguments presented in the previous chapter relating to causation did not have a time element, the issues of backward causation are irrelevant for the analysis articulated here. It must be also remembered that any cause based objection will only be relevant to the last of the five proofs mentioned in the previous chapter, as the first four do not rely on causation. Though causal scepticism (or even causal nihilism) does not pose a threat to our arguments, one must also highlight the implications of taking this objection seriously without a reasonable metaphysical substitute. For one then must call into serious question the scientific method itself, as it ‘can hardly be denied that such knowledge is indispensable in science’.97 Like regularity, causality is presupposed by science, not discoverable by it. Pastorally, if one is discussing the issue with an atheist, it is likely that they believe in Darwinian evolution. Scientific theories like evolution require causality, and so an atheist who is committed to evolutionary theory cannot be a causal sceptic.

Nothing can be defined as the absence of something. New Atheist Lawrence Krauss wrote a book entitled A Universe from Nothing. In this work, he uses the term ‘nothing’ as interchangeable with ‘empty space’. In an important passage of his work, he states:

To summarize then: the observation that the universe is flat and that the local Newtonian gravitational energy is essentially zero today strongly suggests that our universe arose through a process of inflation, a process whereby the energy of empty space (nothing) gets converted into energy of something, during a time when the universe is driven closer and closer to being essentially exactly flat on all observable scales.98

In the following pages, Krauss essentially refutes his own earlier comment by stating: While inflation demonstrates how empty space endowed with energy can effectively create everything we see, along with an unbelievably large and flat universe, it would be disingenuous to suggest that empty space endowed with energy, which drives inflation, is really nothing. In this picture, one must assume that space exists and can store energy…so if we stop here, one might be justified in claiming that modern science is a long way from really addressing how to get something from nothing. This is just the first step, however. As we expand our understanding, we will next see that inflation can represent simply the tip of a cosmic iceberg of nothingness.99

This assertion is essentially self-refuting. In a famous debate between Krauss and Hamza Tzortzis in 2012 which garnered over four million views, Krauss was asked why he named chapter 9 of his book ‘Nothing is Something’. To this question Krauss responded with the following answer: ‘I like catchy phrases, and when I said nothing is something, it’s a chapter title’.100 As we have seen, the strongest types of ‘nothing’ arguments have been delivered in a modal language and refer to conceivability. This was in fact the argument of David Hume. It is the very same modal language that can establish ‘positivity’ or ‘necessity’ over ‘non-existence’ and ‘negativity’ (refer to the discussion of Gödel’s ontological argument in the previous chapter). Since the existence of the former in some possible worlds overrides the non-existence of the latter, it follows that the existence of the latter is established.

These objections are by no means exhaustive. As alluded to in the previous chapter, there are individuals who, like Quine, are sceptical of the modal categories, while others reject any kind of ontological reasoning whatsoever. It is beyond the scope of this book to have a full exposition of these points in this section and decisively deal with each objection in considerable depth. This chapter’s purpose was to address the most relevant objections expressed against the arguments provided in the previous chapter. In practical application, one must discern the atheist’s epistemological starting point to subsequently offer them the most effective arguments that are least vulnerable to attack. In this way, one can ultimately choose to start with an ontological or cosmological argument, and a cause based or a dependency-based argument. All of this depends on the identity of the interlocutor.

The kind of objections I tackle in this chapter are the most common ones I have encountered in the field. I have mentioned the top-5 for the sake of brevity and conciseness not because other more sophisticated renditions of the Burhan (or arguments I have presented) do not exist. Having said this, based on my experience in the field, the likelihood that an interlocutor will use one of the five objections (or a combination of more than one of them) is high. On the point of retro-causality, Richard may use quantum mechanics to cast aspersions on the process and function of causation. He may argue, using the grandfather paradox for example, that future causes can create prior effects. The grandfather paradox states that if a grandson goes back in time and kills his grandfather, this should make his own existence impossible. Applying this to the universe, Richard may want to argue that the universe may have caused itself. One can argue that this kind of thing is impossible on logical grounds just as in the case of a mother giving birth to herself. Retro-causation, however, is not the same as retro-contingency or retro-dependence. The latter imply a perpetual reliance of the universe on itself. If Richard makes this point, one agrees that the universe is independent and self-sufficient, which is an untenable position as per the arguments presented in this book. Betty may accept the arguments on face value and suggest that there is a necessary existence. ‘What about the other religious attributes of God?’ she may ask. ‘What about love, mercy and forgiveness?’. It could be said that details of the divine attributes are understood through a religious text wherein God has revealed who he is to the world. Of course, Betty needs to be convinced that such text is inspired by God, but this goes beyond the scope of this book. It may be useful to engage Betty experientially, drawing upon her first-person subjective experiences. Love, for example, is inexplicable to most people but from whence did it come? Religious narratives would indicate that the source of love is the necessary existence itself. This is because an entity which is deplete of something cannot usually cause another entity to have a quality that it doesn’t have. An explanation must be given, for example, for someone who wants to suggest that life can emerge from lifelessness.