The Case for a Creator - Lee Strobel [57]
“My opinion,” Craig answered, “is that Ockham’s razor would shave away any additional creators.”
“What’s Ockham’s razor?”
“It’s a scientific principle that says we should not multiply causes beyond what’s necessary to explain the effect. Since one Creator is sufficient to explain the effect, you would be unwarranted in going beyond the evidence to posit a plurality.”
“That seems a little soft to me,” I said.
“Well, it’s a universally accepted principle of scientific methodology,” he replied. “And besides, the kalam argument can’t prove everything about the Creator. Nothing restricts us from looking at wider considerations. For instance, Jesus of Nazareth proclaimed the truth of monotheism, and he was vindicated by his resurrection from the dead, for which we have convincing historical evidence. 28 Consequently, we have good grounds for believing that what he said was true.”
I conceded the point, but at the same time my mind began to fill with other objections concerning the identity of the universe’s cause. Among the most troubling was whether the kalam argument can tell us if the Creator is personal, as Christians believe, or merely an impersonal force, as many New Age adherents maintain.
THE PERSONAL CREATOR
“You said earlier that there’s evidence that the cause of the universe was personal,” I said. “I don’t see how this can be logically deduced. In fact, Smith has complained that arguments like yours cannot establish whether the first cause was, or is, alive or conscious—‘and,’ he says, ‘an inanimate, unconscious god is of little use to theism.’ 29 He has a point there, doesn’t he?”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Craig. “One of the most remarkable features of the kalam argument is that it gives us more than just a transcendent cause of the universe. It also implies a personal Creator.”
“How so?”
Craig leaned back into his chair. “There are two types of explanations—scientific and personal,” he began, adopting a more professorial tone. “Scientific explanations explain a phenomenon in terms of certain initial conditions and natural laws, which explain how those initial conditions evolved to produce the phenomenon under consideration. By contrast, personal explanations explain things by means of an agent and that agent’s volition or will.”
I interrupted to ask Craig for an illustration. He obliged me by saying: “Imagine you walked into the kitchen and saw the kettle boiling on the stove. You ask, ‘Why is the kettle boiling?’ Your wife might say, ‘Well, because the kinetic energy of the flame is conducted by the metal bottom of the kettle to the water, causing the water molecules to vibrate faster and faster until they’re thrown off in the form of steam.’ That would be a scientific explanation. Or she might say, ‘I put it on to make a cup of tea.’ That would be a personal explanation. Both are legitimate, but they explain the phenomenon in different ways.”
So far, so good. “But how does this relate to cosmology?”
“You see, there cannot be a scientific explanation of the first state of the universe. Since it’s the first state, it simply cannot be explained in terms of earlier initial conditions and natural laws leading up to it. So if there is an explanation of the first state of the universe, it has to be a personal explanation—that is, an agent who has volition to create it. That would be the first reason that the cause of the universe must be personal.
“A second reason is that because the cause of the universe transcends time and space, it cannot be a physical reality. Instead, it must be nonphysical or immaterial. Well, there are only two types of things that can be timeless and immaterial. One would be abstract objects, like numbers or mathematical entities. However, abstract objects can’t cause anything to happen. The second kind of immaterial reality would be a mind. A mind can be a cause, and so it makes sense that the universe is the product of an unembodied mind that brought it into existence.
“Finally, let me give you an analogy that will help explain a third reason for why the first cause is personal.