Is Andalusi/Rasmussen's proof for the existence of God correct?

Question

Summary of his argument:

1. Every limited thing's existence has a cause.
2. The universe is limited.
3. Therefore, the universe's existence must have a cause.

Now, naturally, the question arises: what caused the universe? Andalusi responds: God created the universe. Now, one might ask, who created God? Andalusi responds:

1. Only limited things have a cause (or unlimited things do not have a cause).
2. God is unlimited.
3. Therefore, God does not have a cause.

To understand his position better, you may read this article, and watch this video.

My argument against his argument:

1. God is not unlimited.
2. God must also have a cause

Now, how can I say that God is unlimited? The Islamic God has certain qualities and attributes. For example, He is Wise. There. There's an attribute. Again, He is Strong. There, another attribute. So, He also has a proper definition. That ceases to make him unlimited. Therefore, this "God" must also require a cause.

Do you think that Andalusi's argument is correct?

Edit:

I have recently discovered that Rasmussen also uses a similar approach:

1. Whatever is limited (like turtles, giraffes, cubes, etc.) can have an external explanation.
2. N cannot have an external explanation.
3. Therefore, N is not limited (in its basic nature).

N:= the totality of whatever exists necessarily (including any mathematical objects and other abstracta, if there are any).

Answer 1

As the argument is presented here, as a proof for the existence of God, the possible fallacies are:

Begging the question - assuming the conclusion

When one of the premises is "God is unlimited", this implies that God also exists.

Without this implication, you'd basically just be left with the conclusion that a being that may or may not exist does not have a cause, which doesn't tell you anything about whether that being exists.

That is to say, all you've proven is that being unlimited implies not having a cause.

Special pleading - making an unjustified exception

That would be in "Only limited things have a cause".

One would need to demonstrate why unlimited things don't have causes, and probably also what exactly it means for something to be "unlimited".

Bare assertion - assertion without proof

"God is unlimited" is simply an assertion, and I haven't seen much more than questionable assertions, or series of questionable assertions, to support this assertion. I would not accept this as a premise. One would need to demonstrate that this is the case first.

One could say that this is a definition, as in "God" is defined as an unlimited being, which may be fine (although I'd be careful of equivocation by using a very narrow definition of "God" to prove that one's specific god exists), but then you're left with even less of an argument.

Bare assertion 2

One could also call "The universe is limited" a bare assertion. The Big Bang is simply the furthest back our knowledge of the universe goes, which doesn't mean that is the true beginning. We have no way to know that the universe is, in fact, "limited". It may always have existed in some form.

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One could replace "God" with "the Flying Spaghetti Monster" and the argument would be equally valid. Either you've proven that any hypothetical "unlimited" being exists, or you haven't proven much at all.

Answer 2

I would submit the broad, provocative claim that no logical proof of existence can be convincing, because "proof" assumes logic, but logic does not in and of itself talk about what actually obtains in the world. In this type of proof that claims to establish "existence", the proof can be flawlessly correct from a logical point of view, but the premises will invariably be flawed. Typically, it seems the logical form of the argument is presented as the mechanism that will convince, but relying on a logical deduction is not a guarantee in and of itself that something exists or does not exist. The logical form of the argument does not strengthen it because the rules of logic have no bearing on what actually exists and what does not exist.

So, even if an argument is clad in logic, the mere fact that it uses logic is not enough to lend it authority as a claim about anything existing. Existence has to be observed to be established (note: "observation" is replete with difficulties, and there is a serious rabbit hole here about our senses and what really is in the world, but I will blissfully ignore it in this discussion as it does not really change the point I want to make). Logic can very well take premises that are untrue of the world and carry out flawless logical reasoning to conclusions which are ... equally untrue of the world ("all dogs are blue, Rex is a dog, thus Rex is blue" is perfect logic).

In the argument above, as in other claimed "existence proofs", the premises can all be attacked. The first one is an assertion where "limited" and "cause" beg to be analyzed and clarified. The second is an assertion that has no merit as a claim about the world unless you can adduce enough evidence to support it. For the second argument, "god" begs to be defined in the second premise, and the fact that "god is unlimited" is an arbitrary claim, or a circular definition ("god is the one who is by definition unlimited", maybe, but that presupposes that "god" exists, so we can assert claims about properties of "god"? How can you say that god has such and such attributes without e.g. establishing first that god exists?) etc etc.

But more importantly, it is kind of a category mistake to present a logical proof for the existence of anything, because existence is not something you prove, it is something you observe of something in the world. Even if a logical deduction were based on observed premises, you could conclude to a hypothesis, but you could not assert the complete truth of the existence of something. You would have to add a confirmatory step in the form of an observation to be certain that something "exists". The reason for requiring this, is that otherwise we can very well claim that things "exist" that in fact do not "exist", without any end.

Of course, you can claim direct evidence for the existence of god, for example by saying that to you, fine tuning for life is evidence for the existence of god. But you don't need logic to lend extra strength to that claim. Cladding the argument in the form of a logical argument will not in and of itself make it more "true". Maybe it will look more impressive, but it is just a kind of trick to impress the audience, the logic form does not make the facts about the world more or less true.

(post scriptum: I would be surprised if many believers required logic to have faith. Belief in god is probably more immediate and direct than any "logic", and no amount of logic one way or another should interfere with faith, so those "proofs" for the existence of god seem unneeded to me. I am not sure what the usefulness of those "proofs of the existence of god" based on logic really is: they are not needed for the faithful who doesn't need any logic to believe in god, and they probably won't convince the unfaithful by themselves, while for the philosophers, the premises will invariably entail some questionable contingent commitment or other)

(post scriptum 2: another problem here, is that this argument may apply to only some understandings of the idea of "god". There could very well be an understanding of "god" as an entity that is limited in some sense for example. Or god may just be the same as all of nature for some others. So, the argument, if successful, would only establish the existence of one type of god, while other types might also "exist")

Answer 3

There are no cast-iron arguments for the existence of 'God'. The Universe might not have needed an ultimate cause. It might have sprung into existence from nothing, or be the latest manifestation of things that have been around forever without beginning.

Even if there was an ultimate cause of the Universe, there is no reason to suppose the cause had to be the kind of omnipotent entity normally associated with the word 'God', or to suppose that if there had been such an omnipotent entity that it would still be around or have the least interest in what humans do.

If you interpret the word 'God' as meaning 'a possible ultimate cause of the Universe, if one was needed' then perhaps there is, or was, 'God', but to go further and attribute any kind of religious baggage to 'God' is clearly irrational.

Answer 4

No, because it isn't an argument. It is equivalent to the following:

1. Every limited thing's existence has a cause.
2. The universe is limited.
3. Therefore, the universe's existence must have a cause.

Now, naturally, the question arises: what caused the universe? Terdon responds: this here lemon I hold in my hand is an unlimited lemon and it created the universe. Now, one might ask, who created this unlimited lemon? Terdon responds:

1. Only limited things have a cause (or unlimited things do not have a cause).
2. This lemon is unlimited.
3. Therefore, this lemon does not have a cause.

Basically, the "argument" can be applied to anything you want since you are, a priori, defining it as "unlimited". Setting aside the obvious problem of whether or not the universe is, actually, unlimited, since you are simply assuming the unlimited nature of God, as I am assuming the unlimited nature of my lemon, you cannot use this argument to prove itself as it just becomes circular and pointless.

To take a similar example:

1. Every red thing's existence has a cause.
2. This ball is red.
3. Therefore, this ball's existence must have a cause.

What caused the ball's existence, you ask? Why, this blue square:

1. Only red things have a cause (or non-red things do not have a cause).
2. This square is not red.
3. Therefore, this square has no cause and, by extension, it is the cause of the red ball.

As demonstrated by the nonsensical statement above, this "Argument" can be applied to anything and used as "proof" of anything. It is, therefore, useless as an argument.

Answer 5

Andalusi's modified Kalam cosmological argument is a good one - effectively terminates the infinite regress via the distinction limited (the universe) and unlimited (god).

My intuitions are in agreement with the Andalusi's premises.

However, the argument doesn't prove this primum movens (first cause) is all-good or all-knowing. Not my favorite counterpoint to such arguments because, obviously, the arguer already knows that.

Your refutation 1 fails because, ask anyone, a limited god is no god.

Your refutation 2 won't fly if refutation 1 doesn't.

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My suggestions by way of a rebuttal is to reinstate the infinite regress by saying unlimited things too have (unlimited) causes. This can be achieved by using Andalusi's own distinction (limited vs. unlimited): All limited things have limited causes and all unlimited things have unlimited causes. This is a kind of mathematical argument. If I need 10 N force to lift 1 kg then for certain I need 20 N to lift 2 kg ... so and forth ad infinitum until I need infinite N force (unlimited cause) to lift (cause) infinite kg (unlimited thing, here god).

Note, Andalusi can't deny unlimited causes because god is one in his argument.

Answer 6

No, the argument (as summarized here, or in the links you provide) are not sound. In fact, he inadvertently reaches the conclusion (which I disagree with) that either God cannot exist or nothing but God can exist, although I don’t think he follows that to its logical conclusion. At one point in the essay, he claims:

If any one object or phenomena [sic] was unlimited, it would be everywhere in the universe and limit out the existence of anything else i.e. nothing except it would or could exist.

So, if an unlimited Being existed now, according to him, nothing except that Being would or could exist. Therefore, by his argument, we should be either atheists or pantheists. On the other hand, the Big Bang was everywhere in the universe and nothing but it existed in the universe. Space-time is everywhere in the universe too, and is still around. So, the Big Bang (or space-time) might have been “unlimited,” as well as the Uncaused Cause, no problem. He gives no argument that it isn’t both of those things.

The attempt to prove the existence of God by proving the necessity of an Uncaused Cause is a classic one that a lot of people have asked about here over the years. This tries to fill in one of the gaps in it by giving a supporting argument that (in the author’s view) one category of things does need to he caused, that another category of things doesn’t need causes, and that only God is in the second category.

It breaks down in a number of ways, but I think one of the most basic is: does his argument work on, for example, Time? Time doesn’t have any of the characteristics of things he considers “limited.” It doesn’t seem to have components, it has no mass or volume, and it exists everywhere. The concept of anything happening “before” Time existed and causing something else to happen “later” has some obvious difficulties. He claims that no “phenomena” could be “unlimited” because that would “limit out the existence of anything else,” for which he gives no further reasoning. But I think we can all intuitively understand that Time exists where we are, yet it does not stop us from existing too. So, among other problems, it really seems like this argument falls short of proving that nothing but God could be either “unlimited” or “uncaused.”

Answer 7

I first take issue with the use of 'limited' and 'unlimited.' It seems these concepts have implications that are being intuitively assumed. Could you form a logical argument that just one thing in our observable universe is unlimited? I'd argue certainly not, because 'unlimited' doesn't exist physically; it exists only as a mathematical abstraction.

I then take issue to the constraints added to the abstraction: "limited things have a cause" and "unlimited things do not have a cause." This correlation is entirely assumed. I take even more issue with causality being assumed as ubiquitous.

Did you know color isn't ubiquitous? It's unique only to organisms that sense a section of the electromagnetic spectrum. In a universal sense, it doesn't exist. Matter doesn't actually have color. There are many observations I could make like these, but to quote the physicist Brian Greene:

"If time began at the Big Bang, the question "what happened before the Big Bang?" might be meaningless."

I don't think Andalusi's proof is correct because it doesn't prove anything, neither does your response to it. On top of all your assumptions you end with assuming God is real, and I hate to be the one to break it to you but he isn't. I recommend a basic understanding of biology, chemistry, and physics. Then you might be able to start with philosophy.

Answer 8

There are many ways to look at this. First of all, what does it mean for something to be limited? Limited in what respect? For example, can God cease to exist and pop back into existence? If He can't, does this make Him limited?

But let us suppose that we could come up with some sort of coherent definition of this. All we can say that is that every limited thing we've observed has a cause. This doesn't mean that every limited thing must have a cause.

Lastly, there is no evidence to suggest that only limited things must have a cause.

Answer 9

One problem is that the term 'God' with all the cultural and historical context and baggage behind it could be replaced with any other word to describe any 'unlimited' thing we can think of. A random ripple in an 'unlimited' 10th dimensional foam of quantum possibility could have created our universe, and infinite other universes.

Answer 10

Like all ontological proofs, it doesn't prove anything about the real world and only proves something about what it takes to describe something a particular way. What his proof shows is that something that does not exist cannot be called a god. Or, to be more precise, he's shown that the concept of a god can only be applied to an object that exists.

One can trivially make similar proofs that prove literally anything one wants exists simply by creating some term whose definition is both the thing one wants to prove exists and incompatible with non-existence. For example, to prove that the death star exists, simply define "death star" in such a way that it's non-existence leads to a contradiction -- "the death star is the greatest space station imaginable". Now the death star must exist because if it does not exist, we can imagine a greater space station -- one just like the death star but also existing.

This entire type of proof is simply incapable of actually proving anything about physical reality. It can only determine how concept definitions do and don't make those concepts apply to things.

Answer 11

2. The universe is limited.

This assumption is easily used to attack this argument.

It is deducing the existence of something from our understanding of properties of the actual, real, physical universe (the bullet point "2." in your argument) (and in this very specific instance, it's not actually really understanding yet, it's simply a guess).

The fact of the matter is that we actually do not know all details of the universe, especially concerning the Big Bang and whether it is unlimited (or, let's say, eternal in the past, as that's the salient point for this argument). A pre-requisite of knowing a proposition is that the proposition is, in fact, true. False propositions cannot be, or express, facts, and so cannot be known. We most definitely have no reason to believe that we know anything about the universe before whatever short time after the Big Bang we can measure these days. Cosmology is ongoing research with few certainties.

Generally speaking, our understanding of the universe is a set of scientific theories. Science is always only the bow wave of our current knowledge, and it is perfectly reasonable to expect our knowledge about the Big Bang and the nature of the universe to expand, change, or even contract, sometimes in unexpected ways. The very definition of the Scientific Method includes that a theory must be refutable - if it is not, then we call it pseudo-science at best, and do not accept it in our current canon of theories. Specifically, it then cannot be used in any kind of proof that's supposed to be in any way, shape or form rigorous (i.e. not simply rhetorics).

So, no matter how far back physicists measure the background radiation, or whatever measurement they do these days, we will never, ever be able to get past a state of indirectly inferring theories about the Big Bang and whether the universe existed in any sense of the word before that, until we actually do measure something (which might or might not be a total new category of thing, totally unknown to us in 2023) which says otherwise. And nothing in the world suggests that we are at the end of the development - as well as Einstein replaced Newton, something might replace Einstein (or we at least are actively working on it in the name of the Grand Unified Theory which is sorely lacking at the moment, alas).

TLDR: If you have a scientific, peer-reviewed, accepted proof that the universe is, indeed, limited, we can happily continue the discussion and see if we can find attacks on the other parts of the argument.

Answer 12

No, because you are both making an unwarranted assumption

Both arguments implicitly assume that God exists. You are both merely arguing over the nature of that God, on the assumption that He/She/It exists. The possibility of the universe existing without a creator, and the possibility of God and the hypothetical creator of the universe being separate entities, are both implicitly disregarded.

So no, neither argument makes any case whatsoever for the existence of God. Thinking that either argument does make a case for the existence of God is simply false logic and bad philosophy.

Answer 13

Notice how no definition of "limited" is provided. It seems that the word "limited" is conveniently defined in the exact way it would need to be defined to make this argument work, and based on that, we are expected to take the other premises for granted. It equivocates its own definition of "limited" with what we might intuitively perceive as the definition.

Even with a fuzzy intuitive notion of "limited" (which the author wants you to accept and then not question) there is no reason to accept most of the premises, so it is also a proof based on false premises.

Answer 14

There are several issues about the concept of "God".

If "God" is meant to mean the creator of the universe, the physicists believe it happened around 14 billion years ago (take or give a few). There is nothing in that world view that says "God" stayed around to check on his creation, and especially on the little creatures that inhabit the insignificant little planet of Earth revolving around an insignificant sun in an unremarkeable galaxy. And by the way, even if he was, which "God" are we referring to: there are a multitude to select from.

If instead "God" is meant to mean the Father/Son/Spirit of the holy Trinity, there really is nothing connecting "God" to the creation of universe except the word in the bible. And then we are back at the old situation where you either believe or not. In this situation the Andalusi proof is totally void and meningless. Adding logic to belief neither adds or removes from the issue. There are some believers that disregard the 14 billion years and posit that anything we see is created by "God", including the illusion of a very old universe. It could be that way, why not?

Regardless, the so called proof is basically meaningless and mixes unprovably assumptions into a form that mimics logic form.

Answer 15

If you showed a correct proof for God's existence, then I would read it, understand it, acknowledge it, and acknowledge that I was wrong the last forty years or so of my life. I do no such thing.

Statement 1 is quite meaningless unless you define what you mean by "cause". Not even having a meaning means it is unproven.

Statement 2 is unproven.

The conclusion is logical, but since it relies on two unproven statements, it is worthless.

In the second group, Statement 1 has exactly the same problem as in the first group.

Statement 2 is unproven.

The conclusion is as worthless as in the first group.

There is a throwaway remark that God created the universe. Even without the faults in his arguments so far, that is completely unproven, and there is no good reason why it would be the case.

All in all, he is not in the slightest persuasive. And following the maxima "extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence", he hasn't shown any evidence whatsoever.

Answer 16

“correct”

A argument's conclusion is correct when its terms are correct and its logic is valid.

The terms

1. Every limited thing's existence has a cause.
2. The universe is limited.

The logic

"IF (1) and IF (2), THEN the universe's existence must have a cause."

The conclusion

the universe's existence has a cause

Again, this argument's conclusion is only correct if the terms and the logic are correct. One can dispute the terms, so I'd say this argument is disputable, and therefore not irrefutable.

In terms of correctness, a "correct" thing aligns with reality, but a broken clock is correct twice a day, and a bad argument may still reach a right conclusion. So calling an argument "correct" in this sense is not a good way to think about it. Better to think about whether an argument is valid, examining its components, to say whether it's reliable, convincing, probable, irrefutable, etc.

Answer 17

You both have the right answer: God is unlimited OR something else is unlimited and God is limited. Somehow, something MUST be unlimited. For more details, please check: Philosophy - Does Einstein's Block Universe theory prove Nietzsche's Eternal Return theory is true?