Why a Quantum-Mechanical Universe Still Requires a Cause

 

 

One of the recurring points of controversy in Christian-atheist debates these days is the idea of causality in science. For many centuries Christians were able to affirm as an accepted premise that if the universe has not existed forever, for example, then it must have been caused by something external to it. There was no viable third option. Today that basic disjunctive premise has been presumed falsified with the advent of quantum mechanics, specifically in arguments to an atheist cosmology from the quantum notion that particles can "pop into existence" uncaused.[1]

 

Of course quantum mechanics has long been known for its many weird if not seemingly irrational aspects: indeterminacy, wave-particle duality, entanglement, and so forth. And it could be said that there would be no history of science without some deeply counterintuitive realities – or at least, that history would not be nearly as interesting as it actually is. But the popular interpretation of q.m. as a scientific confirmation of uncaused physical entities ("virtual particles") would, if valid, undermine the very meaning and methodology of science itself.

 

Now it may be that virtual particles violate the first law of thermodynamics (conservation of energy) locally and temporarily, and from what I understand of all this (very little), such appears to be the case. If virtual particles are somehow materialized and then annihilated within the probabilistic constraints of the Heisenberg Uncertainly Principle, then I suppose neither science logic would have a problem with that. Local and temporary violations of the second law (increasing entropy) likewise happen all the time.

From what I can tell, however, the atheistic argument from non-causality goes far beyond local and temporary, and proceeds somewhat like this:

 

1. Virtual particles come into existence uncaused.

2. Virtual particles are physical objects.

3. Physical objects come into existence uncaused. (from 1 & 2)

4. The observable universe is a physical object.

5. The observable universe has come into existence uncaused. (from 3 & 4) [2]

It seems to me that the main problem with such an argument, were someone to make it explicit, is that it suffers from a category mistake resulting from an undistributed minor term in premise 2. This may explain why the argument is rarely made explicit (I for one haven't seen it formalized anyway). Physical objects at the macro level, let alone at the scale of the universe itself, do not generally appear to be uncaused, even if some teensy-weensy virtual particles do.

 

A greater problem here is that permitting certain inexplicably uncaused entities redefines science. Clearly if we reserve the right to assert that some things just happen without explanation, then at that point we forfeit the claim that the natural universe is scientifically explicable. But of course the claim that God is not scientifically explicable is one of the most common reasons, if not the most common reason, that atheists cite for rejecting theism in the first place. Evidently some atheists are trying to have their science and eat it, too.  

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[1] See for example Mark Vuletic, "Creation Ex Nihilo – without God," Secular Web (1997, 2011), http://infidels.org/library/modern/mark_vuletic/vacuum.html.

 

[2] Lest I be accused of constructing straw men, I am not saying that this is definitively "the atheist's argument." I am merely trying to piece together the logical implications of the statements I've heard from atheists regarding quantum mechanics and the origin of the universe.