Heresy and pseudoscience

Since all religions say that there is life after death, everyone should know and understand the arguments for the existence of God. Scientists have an infinite amount of time to answer questions about sensory observations, but being patient is not a virtue when it comes to questions about religion. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The faculties of man make him capable of coming to the knowledge of the existence of a personal God. But so that man can enter into a real intimacy with him, God wanted both to reveal himself to man and to give him the grace to be able to accept this revelation in faith. (thus) proofs of the existence of God, however, can predispose to faith and help to see that faith is not opposed to reason. (paragraph 35)

The “proofs” are these two arguments: 1) Since human beings have free will, they are finite beings. Finite beings need a cause, but an infinite being can be the reason for its own existence. The religions originating in the Near East call the infinite being God. One of the Chinese religions calls the infinite being CAT, which means “path”. 2) If moral laws are true and not value judgments, there is a transcendent reality.

These are just arguments because they are based on the assumption or hope that the universe is intelligible. If someone says that the arguments are not persuasive, this does not mean that he has bad judgment or that he does not understand them. However, most atheists and agnostics do not say this. They say, “I don’t know if God exists or not.” This statement implies that there are no arguments for the existence of God. The arguments can be called evidence because the question of whether or not God exists is only relevant if you are deciding whether or not to believe in God and fear His wrath.

Here’s what Robert Spitzer, SJ, Ph.D., author of “New Evidence for God’s Existence: Contributions from Contemporary Physics and Philosophy,” says of the book:

Although many solid books have been written on the ‘first cause/mover’ proof of Aristotle and Aquinas, this is the most accessible and illuminating interpretation I have come across. His explanations make a heavy topic engaging and easy to read. It has an exceptional pedagogical value. (Ignatius Press website)

I was surprised that a Jesuit would advance arguments for God’s existence based on Thomas Aquinas’ “first cause” argument rather than Etienne Gilson’s metaphysical argument. Spitzer considers the Big Bang, the “fine tuning” of physical constants, and the limited explanatory power of quantum mechanics as evidence for the existence of God. I consider this reasoning to be pseudoscience because there is no evidence that God caused the Big Bang, “tuned” the universe, or is entangled in quantum mechanics. In my opinion, this scientific knowledge is evidence that God does not exist because it is evidence that the universe is not intelligible. It is one thing to assume that the universe is intelligible to answer the question of what is a human being and what makes human beings exist. However, making this assumption to answer scientific questions is nonsense.

Father Spitzer understands the metaphysical arguments because he explains that God is “an unrestricted act of understanding” in his book. My guess is that Father Spitzer thinks he will get more converts by saying that God caused the Big Bang instead of saying that finite beings need a cause. In my opinion, it is just as bad to trick people into joining your church as it is to use violence, as was done in Spain in the 14th century. Promoting irrational arguments is heretical because it implies that the existence of God cannot be proven. It also violates Can Law 270 §1, which says: “They must avoid secular novelties and pseudoscience.”

The following two quotes prove that the author does not defend the “first cause” arguments promoted by Father Spitzer. The author is presumably using the phrase first cause to get a favorable review from Father Spitzer:

It is simply impossible for any series of presently cooperating causes to regress without a first cause, so we must admit the existence of at least one uncaused first cause. (rent 453)

Anything else first cause means, means something that needs no cause. (lease 1946)

The word cause arises in three separate methods of investigation. In the research method called historythere he is final cause, which is related to human action. If you spend 30 minutes washing your car, the final cause is a clean car. In the research method called metaphysics, a being that begins to exist at some point requires a cause. A finite being needs a cause because it is a composition of two incomplete beings or metaphysical principles: essence and existence. An infinite being is a pure act of existence without a limiting essence. In the research method called Sciencesa causal system is one where the energy is constant.

When the animals have nothing to do they go to sleep. Only human beings ask about the cause of things. Just because a human asks what caused something doesn’t mean there has to be an answer that can be understood by human beings. In fact, as Professor Augros points out, many atheists and agnostics deny that there is such a thing as causality.

Assuming that the universe is intelligible means that there is a “causeless cause”, a being that “needs no cause”, or a self-sufficient being. Whether or not you make this assumption, there can be an infinite or finite regress of causes without a “first cause”. All that is needed is due to the finite or infinite regression of causes outside the regression.

The proposition that the Big Bang is evidence for the existence of God or that God caused the Big Bang has no value and no truth content. It in no way satisfies our drive to know and understand everything. Furthermore, it leads to the idea that God is something that existed before the beginning of the universe but does not exist now.

Atheists and agnostics understand this and express it by asking: What caused God? The title of the book promises to refute the what-caused-god refutation. The book delivers on this promise because it does not advocate the Big Bang argument, fine-tuning, the origin of life, and biological evolution.

Human beings are finite beings not only because we have free will. We also have the conscious knowledge of humans as opposed to the sensory knowledge of animals. The author refers to this knowledge with the phrase “openness to alien forms” and says:

How the form of another being exists in a knower, how it ‘gets there’, can also vary. The specific way in which this is done (which is in every case mysterious to me, and dare I say to everyone else as well) does not affect the fundamental difference between the knower and the unknower. (1760)

It may seem reasonable to say that human knowledge is mysterious because the metaphysical explanation that knowledge is the opening of the self to the self-manifestation of the self is meaningless. A good way to express the “root difference” is to say that humans are embodied spirits or animate bodies. Another formulation is that the human soul is spiritual. Most atheists and agnostics think that the human soul is spiritual by definition or pretend not to know that the human soul is spiritual.

According to the author, God is intelligent because he gives intelligence to human beings and you cannot give what you do not have. Dr. Augros realizes that the intelligence of God is different from the intelligence of humans:

It would be infinitely smarter than us, without the limitations of brain space and time spent reasoning. (1713)

I understand that intelligence involves asking questions about things we know. Humans have conscious awareness and worms have sensory awareness. Since God exists, like humans and worms, God also has knowledge. We know by analogy. If you prod a lion in a cage with a stick, the lion will roar and try to scratch you. We know by analogy that the lion does not like to be poked with a stick.

I disagree with the author’s explanation of why God, an infinite being, created finite beings:

He makes the universe, after all, not out of personal need, but out of generosity, to communicate his goodness to creatures, but making them good themselves in various ways and making some of them see that the goodness of creatures points to a far superior goodness in itself. (2846)

The only thing that could motivate God to do something is self-love. God created finite beings because he loved himself as a giver. But he could also love himself without giving. Why finite beings exist is a mystery. The existence of God does not explain the existence of human beings or any scientific observation. It is simply the case that a universe without God is less intelligible than a universe with God.