Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?

psychology and physics and chemistry and and so on all study being under certain aspects right for astrophysics but metaphysics studies Aristotle famously said being qua being it studies being as being what is it that makes existence what it is what are the characteristic marks of a being in the measure that it exists now that's not a scientific question that's a question of a different and I would say a higher order not denigrating the sciences in any way but they don't reach that level of abstraction that permits them to raise questions about the nature of being qua being so the question hey why is there being at all CS that's the question of why is there something rather than nothing that is not a question that physics can adjudicate that's a metaphysical question welcome back to the word on fire show I'm Brandon Vaught the host and the content director joining us this week from Santa Barbara is Bishop Robert Barron Bishop Baron good to see you hey Brandon always good to see you let's talk books we haven't talked books in a while and we always like asking each other what we've been reading so it's on what's on your bedside table what are you reading these days well I've been reading a lot for the Creed book I think you mentioned last time that during this weird period I've had more time to research and write this book on the creed so gosh I've been reading wolfhard pond and Burke's book on the Creed Luke Timothy Johnson on the Creed Carl bards dogmatix and outline which is on the Creed I've been reading Lois buiiets great book on the church I'm on that section right now I've been reading con gars true-and-false reform in the church I also just finished Matt levering the latest I think it's ablaze book he writes so many books but it's on the achievement don't he probably he's probably finished another one yeah I wouldn't be at all surprised I think it's what called the achievement of Balthazar or something you you had it there huh anyway I just yelled achievement of Hans where's von Balthasar yeah I just finished that I also I'm not through with you it's giant but Cyril oh Regan's big book on Baltazar which is looking at Baltar in relation to Hegel it's about 900 pages I've got a third of the way through that maybe so that time and then for fun I've been reading this Churchill note I finished Churchill I'm reading the the Roosevelt biography by is it Robert Dalek I think his name is good it's like a one-volume maybe 600 pages on Roosevelt and then I'm reading a napoleon biography because the Churchill one was written by this guy Andrew Roberts and he also wrote the book on Napoleon and Napoleon someone that frankly I just didn't know that much about you know so I'm about a third of the way through that so that's what I'm reading if people write to us all the time asking for Bishop Baron book recommendations so a few years back we finally put together this list I think it's got maybe a hundred books on it all categorized by topic so it's a free download you can find it at word on fire org slash books books with an S word on fire org slash books so if you're looking for something to read check out that list I think you'll find it got a lot of good outfits let me say younger people we show now when you come in when your eyes are okay my eyes are just getting so bad you know and it's just harder and harder to read and just to find the dislike it's a physical act you know so read when you're young well let's talk about a new article that is trending a lot it's it's in the New York Times a big feature piece if you go to view the online version they have it all fancily designed with special graphics and stuff so it's a major article and the title struck my attention because it said why the Big Bang produced something rather than nothing and this is a question I know you and I have discussed it's a perennial question of philosophy some have said it's it's the most important metaphysical question why is there something rather than nothing and so when I came across this article in New York Times which purported to answer it why the Big Bang produced something rather than nothing I lit up and I wanted to to see what it said unfortunately though it's a bit disappointed I think throughout the whole piece you find the lingering scientism that you and I have often decried and so I wanted to talk through the article a little bit we're not gonna Fisk it line by line I want to spend more time on the general philosophical question of why something rather than nothing so let's maybe start there this isn't a new question right people have been asking this question for centuries yeah and you might say it's the oldest the most important about a physical question Leibniz poses it that way and then Heidegger famously in the twentieth century why is there something rather not nothing and of course Heidegger is reliant upon a lot of the pre-socratic philosophers and so it's an ancient perennial question the point I'd like to make Brandon is it's a properly philosophical question it's not a scientific question not a question that can be adjudicated by physics or chemistry or astronomy because they're always looking at events and objects and measurable states of affairs within a finite contingent system and that's fine that's what the scientists are built to do that's what their method gives them access - but when you ask the question we just asked that's not a deeper level scientific question it's a different type of question that takes you out of the epistemological framework of the sciences and introduces you to a higher epistemological framework one of the problems we face and you named it correctly as scientism one of its dimensions is a tendency to see philosophy as primitive science so when people like whether it's Aristotle or Heidegger or you know whitehead well you know god bless them they you know they they wish they could do real science what they're doing is some kind of primitive underdeveloped science no what they're doing is something qualitatively different than what the scientists do the collapsing of all the epistemic orders into the scientific is one of the marks negative marks of our time you see that misunderstanding about the purview of science and the very first sentence of this article here's how it begins scientists on Wednesday announced that they were perhaps one step closer to understanding why the universe contains something rather than nothing well what are your thoughts on that opening line it's silly I mean if some scientists can't pronounce on that question because it's outside the range of what their method allows and so it's a category mistake it's a kind of hubris and and it happens to us because we're prideful you know and we reached the limits of what our our proper methods can give us access to but then we step over that and that's a good example of it but see for a lot of people today and and I go back to my old mentor Cardinal George before you even get to religion don't bracket religion for a second it's the collapse of philosophy that's led to a lot of confusion because philosophy is a rational but yet non scientific discipline in other words it's a path and Heidegger used that world time a path that's rational it's reasonable that it's open to any reasonable person of goodwill but it's not a scientific path it's not following the scientific method but when that collapses into nihilism or you know well philosophy is just you know at science then all these confusions arise and then science we're putting a weight on science that it can't bear that's the problem I think one reason why it aligned like this doesn't strike a lot of people as problematic is because we have such a high regard for scientists we think scientists is synonymous with smart person and so scientists weigh in on something they must be right but yeah I think a useful thought experiment would be the like swap it out with somebody from another discipline to say like you know artists have come one step closer to understanding why there's something rather than nothing yeah like NBA all-stars have announced that they're one step closer to understanding the meaning of the universe and we would automatically think well as great as basketball players as they are why would we think they have any expertise on the question of being or the question of the origin of the universe but when it comes to science we think scientists must be experts in every realm of knowledge right and stay with it for a second because you put your finger on the keyword go back to Aristotle ancient times and what he called physics and it's it's roughly the same to this day what he called physics the study of matter and motion right so we look around we see material things and they they change and develop and they're in motion and so we can analyze that empirically good that's called physics if you want in ancient times call it today also chemistry or you know astrophysics or whatever but that's analyzing one dimension of being now beyond that Aristotle says and here he's following Plato you've got the level of mathematics so mathematics is not looking so much at matter in motion it's looking at these pure abstractions that we call numbers and mathematical objects think of people that do and all you did as an engineer I know a lot with these pure abstractions well those are metaphysically very interesting to think about aren't they because we're not talking about the bridge you'll eventually build using those abstractions that's fine and and physics can analyze all that but when you're doing a pure mathematical calculation or you're using pure mathematical objects you've moved to a different level both metaphysical and epistemic now take the next step beyond that aerosol says is the in his Greek the meta tougher Zika the what's beyond the physics right the metaphysical we would say what's the purpose of metaphysics to study not matter in motion not being under this or that aspect so let's think psychology and physics and chemistry and and so on all study being under certain aspects right for astrophysics but metaphysics studies Aristotle famously said being qua being it studies being as being what is it that makes existence what it is what are the characteristic marks of a being in the measure that it exists now that's not a scientific question that's a question of a different and I would say a higher order not denigrating the sciences in any way but they don't reach that level of abstraction that permits them to raise questions about the nature of being qua being so the question hey why is there being at all CS that's the question of why is there something rather than nothing that is not a question that physics can adjudicate that's a metaphysical question now if you want another episode we can do now the step from metaphysics to religion that's another one but even for the bracket religion for the moment I am with Kartal George Brackett that let's just talk philosophy in regard to the sciences and the collapse of philosophy has caused a lot of mischief well moving a little further down this New York Times article the article focuses on the existence of these subatomic particles called neutrinos and the author describes them as quote the flimsiest quirkiest and most elusive elements of nature they stream from the Big Bang the Sun exploding stars and other cosmic catastrophes flooding the universe and slipping through walls in our bodies by the billions every second like moonlight through a screen door so in other words these are very very very very small particles whose weight we can't even determine they're the most tiny quantity of reality that's ever been measured some scientists think that these neutrinos explain why there's something rather than nothing when I read that I couldn't help but think how you know say ten years back twenty years back the smallest particles we were aware of or could postulate were quirks and if you move back hundreds of century hundreds of years before that you know it might have just been the atom we couldn't even get to the subatomic level we're always like going down down down and discovering new particles and every time we we bumped down a level it inevitably raises the question well what caused that why neutrinos rather than nothing like a material subatomic particle can't in it of itself be the explanation for all being don't you agree yeah there's so much there Brandon you know you're right first of all I'm saying the quest for the see the atomic from the Greek meaning it can't be divided so philosophers from time immemorial have been looking for the atomic what one does and you know think of like like ipis and Democritus and those people who said indeed there are these atoms these indivisible things that are always kind of falling and then they said they bump into each other in form and you know in a way they were his right as scientists today they were speculating about the basic sort of building blocks of physical reality great great fine off you go all of you go from boy khipus to the author of this article fine look for the the most elemental particles you can find but they don't begin to answer the question of why is there something rather nothing I'll give you one little hint even the way he was describing neutrinos right that are streaming and passing through and moving and this and that well the minute you say that I'll apply now a philosophical frame of reference you're talking about a contingent form of existence right if something's in motion something is changing something's unfolding coming from going to all that language implies that conditions within that reality are being fulfilled that they don't have within themselves the reason for their own being therefore they're caused it what the minute you say it's at this speed it's going in that direct it's of this intensity it's at that temperature what are you implying well it could be at some other temperature at some other speeds some other location therefore what and this is not a scientific this is a philosophical point of insight therefore they must be caused to explain why it's in this mode and not that mode right so here you and I are here under these very unique conditions I'm in a studio your were you are where you have cameras and so on well can't you and I could be anywhere else I can be back in my house I could be in LA I could be dead I could be on the moon so how come I'm here what well now okay well let me explain why because I got my car and because we had this appointment to do this thing today because the temperature is okay in this room I'm not gonna either burn up or freeze to death you see what I'm doing here is I'm saying there's all kinds of causes to explain why you and I are in this particular mode of existence so neutrinos streaming coming flowing this why why are they that condition rather than some other condition I got a look for causes right all right so I find some material cause well is that contingent or non-contingent those are contingent to whatever cause we happen to find like the big bang for example oh it all came from the Big Bang well the Big Bang by definition is a contingent state of affairs so there's this there's this hyper concentration of you know matter and energy and that which then boom explodes oh how come it did that and that's something else how come that was there in that enormous concentration that's a mother form so the Big Bang philosophically it doesn't explain anything really it's just another postponement of the question right why is there something rather than nothing so what I would love is if the philosophers and the scientists could respect each other's intellectual integrity and stop overstepping each other's bones I mean that's that's part of the problem anyway to me it does harm to the great discoveries of science when you try to blur the boundaries between science and philosophy because it creates all this infighting between the philosophers and the scientists instead of respecting and celebrating the great discoveries of science which this one appears to be what what it says in the article is that at the beginning of the universe there was what they call a clean balance sheet an equal amount of matter and antimatter but somehow relatively quickly the matter outweighed the antimatter and that's how we got this excess of house cars and black hole cousins and trees yeah so right and in the antimatter really answered that question no way an antimatter isn't nothing antimatter is a type of matter and so these two forms of matter now you know look I I'll bow to the scientists I don't I can't articulate all these things exactly I'm not trained in the sciences but but we're talking here about material states of affairs which means contingent states of affairs so all of a sudden this got unbalanced well how come explain that to me that's a contingent state of affairs oh it's the fluctuating vacuum well why is it fluctuating and what why is it fluctuating at this rate and not some other rate you know that whenever we try to find you know the foundational reality as a material thing it's just not going to cut it and you know who knew that Aristotle go right back to Aristotle what he would have called materia prima right pry in the matter I mean I think whatever is uh what do they say whatever is is old there's new again I think that's what a lot of the scientists are talking about is some kind of primordial primal energy or state of affairs well okay but what Spri matter characterized by for Aristotle potentia all right potential being it doesn't exist unless it's actualized in some form it can be this it can be that materia prima can take a million different forms and therefore begs the question well why why this form and not that form therefore you look for a cause that's why you need an actual izing principle to realize the potential now see what's going on here Brandon I'm using philosophical language to analyze material states of affairs but at a higher level of abstraction so I'm not competing with the physicist I mask different types of questions than he or she might ask your reference Aristotle reminds me of our good friend dr. Edward fazer the philosopher and he wrote a book recently titled Aristotle's revenge yeah and the same path you described which is modern physics seems to be vindicating the need for an Aristotelian metaphysics otherwise it can't answer these basic fundamental questions yeah oh no quite right it's the it's the different levels of epistemic analysis and when you when you conflate those trouble follows let's pull back from the nitty-gritty of neutrinos and matter and antimatter and zoom out to the more general question of why something rather than nothing there's a lot of people and I'm thinking here of what was the great debate between FC coppleson and was it Bertrand Russell we had that big debate and coppleson's trying to lay out a lot of the things you've just laid out here in the podcast about why a contingent universe needs an explanation why it can't just exist on its own and Russell just resolutely denied that this question would had even had meaning that the universe just is like the whole question of why something rather than nothing is a meaningless dumb question we shouldn't even ask that question what do you say to skeptics who who suggest that that this is even a question worth asking because it's meaningless you can't really mean it and and Russell couldn't really mean it and that's what coppleson did if you watch that debate which is supremely frustrating I remember the years ago when I first I think I read it it's also audience and then you can get it on like the radio version and these two extremely plummy English gentleman you know talking to each other but coppleson lays out it was Leibniz his form of the argument from contingency in a way that was very simple very clear and Russell would not engage him and he kept saying is this kind of logical positivists nonsense that you know well what you're saying is meaningless and and cobbles kept saying look I understand where you're coming from but I don't think it's possible that you don't understand what I'm saying when I use a word like you know necessity versus contingency I know like your ideology is telling you this is meaningless but don't believe you when you say you don't understand what I'm saying so a contingent universe a contingent state of affairs I mean in a way branded bracket the universe because that can often get us into murky waters with people start with this you and I right speaking to each other across the country by way of cameras and lights and tent out this is a contingent state of affairs I don't know how you possibly denied it okay therefore there must be some nexus of causes that explains it mmm-hmm are those contingent or self explanatory most obvious they're contingent to on you go you can't simply keep going along that same epistemological and metaphysical trajectory otherwise you do not fulfill the principle you don't satisfy the principle of sufficient explanation right you just keep postponing explanation indefinitely that's the basic form that these contingency arguments takes I been reading people for years that they claim oh we've debunked this or all we found a way around it actually never found any of them convincing and that's they go back to a manual contour I've never found any of these approaches of convincing all right let's close with this question again we're discussing the major metaphysical question why is there something rather than nothing this question has been answered by philosophers and theologians and now scientists up and down the centuries but what's unique about the Christian answer - why is there something rather than nothing how would a Christian today answer it differently than say Aristotle the pre-christian would have answered it well right and we can use Aristotelian forms of reason to articulate some truth about God and that's exactly what Thomas Aquinas does so when Thomas says well philosophers in different ways have proven God's existence let me share a couple of them with you and then he gives us the famous five arguments Thomas doesn't think for one second that somehow now he's exhausted the meaning of the word God now he's told us everything we need to know about God rather as he himself says I have taken you by the hand a little child and I've shown you something that I hope opens your mind to think more deeply and more accurately about the source of reality but a Christian is gonna say and we can follow this this stream through Aquinas this reality which grounds all of finite contingent existence must be a reality which is pure energy and pure actuality that in turn implies a being who has mind will freedom personality that means a being that knows himself utterly and loves himself utterly and loving himself utterly must love everything that participates in his manner of being which say all those creatures that flow from his creativity what you've come to you by a few logical steps there from the non-contingent source of contingency you've come to a being that has loved the world into existence that loves everything that he has made now we might be ready to move into the into the great mystical jungle of the Bible which is now gonna reveal to us how this God has interacted with the human race and how he's called us into intimacy with him now what I've done there Brandon is is beginning let's say with someone who's an atheist well you're not gonna just open up the Bible said hey hey hey but look at this it'll answer all your questions you might do what Aquinas did and I just imitated it there let me let me take you by the hand and just let me show you some moves and I'm gonna draw you eventually to the Lord Jesus Christ I'm gonna draw you to his death and resurrection I'm gonna draw you to the sending of the Holy Spirit I want to draw you to sharing in the inner life of the Trinity but it might begin with something as simple as hey you ever think how come this state of affairs is rather than some other state of affairs that can be the first Amanda Duke see all the leading by the hand but now we're talking about the the strategy of a Christian apologist or an evangelist right but I think called for because of where we are culturally today [Music] well it's time now for our question from one of our listeners you can submit your question on the website ask Bishop Baron comm we've got a cool little widget where you can record your question on your phone your tablet your computer so please send in your questions we love getting them today we're hearing from Brandon great name and Atlanta Georgia and he's got a question about the fear of God here's his question hi bishop Aaron my name is Brandon from Atlanta Georgia my question is how do you explain to someone the appropriateness of a fear of God or is it not appropriate because God is all loving and wants what is best for us thank you so much for all your wonderful work through the word on fire ministry you've inspired me tremendously through the years and I know you've done the same for countless others god bless well thank you for that yeah good it's a good question because that phrase comes up out of the Bible it's using the great tradition the team or day team or domine the fear of the Lord it doesn't mean I'm terrified of God right so we shouldn't emotionalize it it's something like a deep and exclusive reverence for God it seems to me what is of supreme value to me and if I can take advantage of that word fear a little bit what am I most afraid of losing or maybe nuances a bit Who am I most afraid of offending or falling out of relationship with you know think of like your dearest friends or family members that you have a fear of falling out of rapport with them you have a fear of not responding adequately to them you know so we see the fear of the Lord beyond money beyond my job beyond my fame beyond even my family beyond even very good things I'm above all afraid of losing my relationship with God because God's the highest good I'm above all afraid of offending God and again don't emotionalize that as though God is you know hurt he's losing something because we're not being good people I'm afraid of not honoring God so in that sense the fear of the Lord is the supreme spiritual stance you know so I would say don't emotional eyes the language but but let the language bring you to a very serious place I think it's meant to do that that I have a fear of the Lord I am supreme reverence for the Lord I'm I'm very much afraid of falling out of relationship with the Lord I think that's what it means well thanks for the question Brandon and thanks all of you for watching this episode of the word on fire show I mentioned this last week that for the last four years we've been quietly working on an extraordinary new project we're calling it the word on fire Bible it's a series of of presentations of the scriptures the first volume which contains the four Gospels is about to come out here in another few weeks and I'm gonna be a little shy about the details I'm not gonna tell you yet what's in it what translation we're using all the content and the artwork and everything inside of it will spill those beans here in the in the coming weeks but suffice it to say it's smart it's beautiful it's resplendent we're describing it as a cathedral and print that's the sense that the Bible conveys if you want to learn more about it and be the first to know when it's available first to know about the details about the Bible visit the website word on fire org slash Bible word on fire org slash Bible just enter your email we'll send you news as it continues to roll out over the next few weeks so check out the word on fire Bible websites word on fire org slash Bible well thanks so much for watching this episode and we'll see you next week on the word on fire show thanks so much for watching if you enjoyed this video I encourage you to share it and be sure to subscribe to my youtube channel [Music]

Channel: Bishop Robert Barron

Views: 49,550

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Id: GLIvMaKuu8Y

Length: 29min 47sec (1787 seconds)

Published: Mon May 11 2020