The Human Question

This helpful distinction, one that I already knew but had no name for, is one that has an elegant formulation in Schoenborn's book. Creatio originalis is the name of a once and for all event that probably happened about 13.7 billion years ago. Creatio continua is the name for God's ongoing conservation of the cosmos in existence.

This in response to his claim that our universe is the result of a fluctuation in a quantum field, and that this dispenses with the need for a Creator. Question: can this field also go out of existence? [did SH say quantum field or quantum law?] (A) If no, then quantum field is a necessary being. In that case, I will argue, the quantum field will exist always and everywhere, that is, in every possible universe. Let me demonstrate (or try to demonstrate) that point by indirect argument. Suppose the quantum field simply must exist but it exists in some universes and not in others. If I ask Hawking can give no answer. For as the points out, the field is prior to matter. So there is no difference in the "environment" inhabited as it were by diverse quantum fields. To put it in scholastic language, there is no matter to individuate this (quasi-) form called the quantum field. So it is either everywhere (that is, in every possible universe) or individuated. Next pre...