Just wondering: some new atheists say that it doesn't make sense to say, "Why everything?" But I do think they would grant that it would be okay to ask "Why this galaxy?" or "Why this universe?" (where "universe" is understood as a part of a multiverse).
The difference between the two statements is that in the first case one asks a question about the whole, whereas in the second case one asks about a part. If by "the whole" one means the totality of all that there is or can be, it would not make sense to go looking for something outside of that totality to explain it. Yet that is what "Why everything?" does or seems to do. In the second case, however, one asks a question about one part with the intention of finding an answer in another part. Such an inquiry makes sense if any inquiry makes sense, for that is how questions work.
But isn't the objection to the question "Why everything?" an example of circularity? For in order to object to that question, one must presuppose that there isn't anything else other than the physical universe.
I suppose a good come-back might be that the person who asks "Why everything?" is typically a theist who has already decided that there is something else: when asked by a believer, the question "Why everything?" sounds more like a rhetorical reference to a question with an obvious answer rather than an expression of the desire to know what one does not yet know.
In order to avoid making either presupposition, we need to back up and ask a question about the question (which I'll call the penultimate meta question): is there a reason for thinking that the material universe/multiverse is or is not the sum of all reality?
The following are two responses to that question:
1. Think of how an atheist would pose an analogous question to a theist: is there a reason to think that there might be something other than God that would cause God to be God? The correct answer is that God is precisely the sort of being to which the answer is "no." Or rather, the more you understand what is meant by "God," the more you understand that such questions about God do not make sense. For example, God is unchanging; hence one it would not make sense to ask for an explanation of what causes God to change. Similar answers can be given to other specific questions that one might ask regarding God: it is precisely the ways in which God differs from the world that make the same questions that one might ask of the world nonsensical when posed about God.
From the theistic perspective, the materialist would have to deflect similar questions about the material universe by attributing to it God-like characteristics. And that is what materialists do. The laws of nature account for everything that happens and those laws are unchanging, everlasting, the source of all that is, all-powerful, self-sufficient, etc.
The theist might object to the deification of the laws of nature by asking "What if the laws as we know them are in flux: what causes those changes?"
I suppose that one good answer to this question would be that they would have to be changing in a lawful way, i.e., in a manner that accords with meta-laws that we haven't yet discovered. In a move that sounds strangely similar to the very appeal to the mystery of God that irks materialists, the latter will say that there is something unchanging in the universe, some meta-law, but we just happen not to know what it is.
Another objection to the deification of the laws of nature goes like this: what if these laws are descriptive rather than prescriptive? That is, what if they just describe the way processes tend to happen rather than tell how they must be? In such a case, they don't in any way stand above material processes, causing and/or explaining them. I know of no argument to the effect that laws are prescriptive, but then again, there's a lot I don't know. If there is no such argument, then the appeal to the laws of nature is another way of saying, "Well, things just happen that way: live with it, and don't ask too many questions!"
Such a response would hardly be a triumph of the human spirit.
2. Let's go back to the question "Why everything?" The materialist can reply to the penultimate meta-question by saying that when we ask the question "Why this?" what we really mean is, "What material process can explain this material process?" Hence it makes no sense to ask this sort of question about the totality of material processes when the question itself excludes the sort of answer that would be a material process.
This is an example of definitional stop: meaningful questions are by definition questions about the relationship between one material processes and another. So it makes no sense to ask about the possible dependence of an material thing on an immaterial thing. This response, however, sounds circular: it loads the desired answer into the definition of the terms used to ask the question.
Another response would be historical triumphalism. We are part of a story of how scientific materialism comes to explain more and more. According to this story, features of the world that used to be explained in supernatural terms are now explained naturalistically. So if you wish to be on the right side of history, you must adopt the position that anything that can be explained at all can be explained in entirely materialistic terms.
This is a historical argument rather than a scientific or philosophical one. It is a prediction based upon an interpretation of the past, combined with the exhortation: if you want to be on the right side of history, then think like us! We might call it escatological materialism. Apologists for materialism may argue in this way, but competent historians of science would not.
The difference between the two statements is that in the first case one asks a question about the whole, whereas in the second case one asks about a part. If by "the whole" one means the totality of all that there is or can be, it would not make sense to go looking for something outside of that totality to explain it. Yet that is what "Why everything?" does or seems to do. In the second case, however, one asks a question about one part with the intention of finding an answer in another part. Such an inquiry makes sense if any inquiry makes sense, for that is how questions work.
But isn't the objection to the question "Why everything?" an example of circularity? For in order to object to that question, one must presuppose that there isn't anything else other than the physical universe.
I suppose a good come-back might be that the person who asks "Why everything?" is typically a theist who has already decided that there is something else: when asked by a believer, the question "Why everything?" sounds more like a rhetorical reference to a question with an obvious answer rather than an expression of the desire to know what one does not yet know.
In order to avoid making either presupposition, we need to back up and ask a question about the question (which I'll call the penultimate meta question): is there a reason for thinking that the material universe/multiverse is or is not the sum of all reality?
The following are two responses to that question:
1. Think of how an atheist would pose an analogous question to a theist: is there a reason to think that there might be something other than God that would cause God to be God? The correct answer is that God is precisely the sort of being to which the answer is "no." Or rather, the more you understand what is meant by "God," the more you understand that such questions about God do not make sense. For example, God is unchanging; hence one it would not make sense to ask for an explanation of what causes God to change. Similar answers can be given to other specific questions that one might ask regarding God: it is precisely the ways in which God differs from the world that make the same questions that one might ask of the world nonsensical when posed about God.
From the theistic perspective, the materialist would have to deflect similar questions about the material universe by attributing to it God-like characteristics. And that is what materialists do. The laws of nature account for everything that happens and those laws are unchanging, everlasting, the source of all that is, all-powerful, self-sufficient, etc.
The theist might object to the deification of the laws of nature by asking "What if the laws as we know them are in flux: what causes those changes?"
I suppose that one good answer to this question would be that they would have to be changing in a lawful way, i.e., in a manner that accords with meta-laws that we haven't yet discovered. In a move that sounds strangely similar to the very appeal to the mystery of God that irks materialists, the latter will say that there is something unchanging in the universe, some meta-law, but we just happen not to know what it is.
Another objection to the deification of the laws of nature goes like this: what if these laws are descriptive rather than prescriptive? That is, what if they just describe the way processes tend to happen rather than tell how they must be? In such a case, they don't in any way stand above material processes, causing and/or explaining them. I know of no argument to the effect that laws are prescriptive, but then again, there's a lot I don't know. If there is no such argument, then the appeal to the laws of nature is another way of saying, "Well, things just happen that way: live with it, and don't ask too many questions!"
Such a response would hardly be a triumph of the human spirit.
2. Let's go back to the question "Why everything?" The materialist can reply to the penultimate meta-question by saying that when we ask the question "Why this?" what we really mean is, "What material process can explain this material process?" Hence it makes no sense to ask this sort of question about the totality of material processes when the question itself excludes the sort of answer that would be a material process.
This is an example of definitional stop: meaningful questions are by definition questions about the relationship between one material processes and another. So it makes no sense to ask about the possible dependence of an material thing on an immaterial thing. This response, however, sounds circular: it loads the desired answer into the definition of the terms used to ask the question.
Another response would be historical triumphalism. We are part of a story of how scientific materialism comes to explain more and more. According to this story, features of the world that used to be explained in supernatural terms are now explained naturalistically. So if you wish to be on the right side of history, you must adopt the position that anything that can be explained at all can be explained in entirely materialistic terms.
This is a historical argument rather than a scientific or philosophical one. It is a prediction based upon an interpretation of the past, combined with the exhortation: if you want to be on the right side of history, then think like us! We might call it escatological materialism. Apologists for materialism may argue in this way, but competent historians of science would not.
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