Does God Exist? Quentin Smith's Conclusion

Quentin Smith



[Note: The transcription of this five minute speech is not reliable because the recording is not clear enough].

Ok, Bill said that I have no reason to believe that the line of events there extend indefinitely to the left or indefinitely to the right and that I have no reason to believe that the universe is spatially infinite. Whether that means potentially infinite or something else. But in fact there is very strong scientific confirmation of that view since 1998. And now all the astronomers and cosmologists believe that. You're not going to find anyone who does not believe that the universe is spatially infinite. And what happened in 1998 is they observed two quasars that were accelerating at a faster pace than they should have been according to the previous theory. And the explanation of that is that the expansion of space is accelerating at an ever increasing rate and that implies that the universe will expand forever. Now it follows from Einstein's general theory of relativity, particularly the solutions by Friedman, that if the universe expands forever it is spatially infinite, if what you mean by infinite is potentially infinite. And so, therefore, there is very very strong scientific evidence that that first line there goes on indefinitely, or potentially infinitely in both directions. That space is infinite. And so what reason do I have to believe that? Well, because all astronomers and cosmologists believe that, because of the basis of evidence.

Ok, I think that I might grant to Bill that he is an honest scholar, at least for the sake of argument, I'll grant it. OK,  and I think that the quotes from my book are right and accurate and that he did present them right by saying that it's the whole of the facts of the serial killer makes the serial killer wrong. And that the desire of the serial killer by itself is just a part of the whole, it is only a part, is intrinsically good. Now the reason why it's intrinsically good is because we consider only the satisfaction of the desire from the person. But once you consider the whole, which means the consequences of satisfying the serial killer's desire, then you realize that the whole is wrong, therefore the whole should not exist and therefore the serial killer should not satisfy his or her desires.

And he claimed my ethical theory is ethically wrong or repugnant or otherwise worthy of scorn or criticism, because it implies people can be ethically right. Well, obviously some people are ethically right. Some people are better than others, morally. It's a fact of common sense. If you say that every single person of the world is just as morally good as everybody else - who believes that Hitler is just as morally good as Ghandhi? Whether people are morally right depends on how good they are.

And as for Bill's final remarks, if atheists believe the universe is uncaused then it popped into existence. Well, I spent the whole night explaining this theory that says that the universe did not pop into existence without a cause. The universe does not have a cause. Everything in the universe has a cause. This didn't pop into existence uncaused, it was caused by that. That didn't pop into existence, it was caused by that. So there is nothing that lacks a cause and since everything is caused by some other part of the universe, there is nothing in the universe that lacks a cause, therefore there is nothing that needs God for its cause. I mean, what theists need to show - what is it that God needs to cause to exist? Everything that exists has a cause. And if you add God to it, what did God do? If God exists, he was already caused to exist by some other part of the universe. That's not what God is though. <unintelligible> necessary something <unintelligible> it actually contradicts <unintelligible> universe.

[ Previous | Table of Contents | Next ]


Copyright © William Lane Craig. All Rights Reserved.