Age of Benightenment
‘Nothing comes from nothing’ is an axiom without which scientific reasoning, or any reasoning, is impossible.
If entropy is irreversible, the cosmos has an origin point: the Big Bang.
The options are:
- Creation came from nothing for no cause.
or - Creation was created by the Creator.
Option one violates the axiom of all reason.
The only counterargument I know is from Stephen Hawking, who speculates that time and space both come into existence at the Big Bang, and therefore there is no “before” before creation, any more than there is “further north” from the North Pole. This argument, however, merely produces the same problem at one remove.
If no natural event can “cause” time to begin on the grounds that cause and effect only exist within time, the only options are:
- Creation came from nothing for no cause.
or - Creation came from nothing for no natural cause; therefore the cause was supernatural.
And this all men know to be God.
This argument assumes efficient cause is the sole type of causation. It is not. It is merely one of four. The other three are formal, final, and material.
If a man speaks or writes a word, the meaning of the word springs from his intent: final cause. No description of the mechanics of his nervous system, vocal chords, air vibrations, or penmanship will describe the meaning of the word, since this meaning is not found in any measurements of air compression waves nor ink molecules.
Likewise when God speaks a Word. There is no efficient cause in any meaningful sense of that term for the timeless act of the Eternal Will, hence no need for the event to take place inside timespace.
As well ask for the duration, extension, or location in timespace of the square root of negative one.
Hawking’s ignorance of fourfold causes springs from modern ignorance of the basics of Aristotelian philosophy, and a neglect of philosophy generally. This ignorance was spread, quite deliberately, by anti-intellectual writers, as Hobbes, Hume, Voltaire, Rousseau, Boehme, Hegel. They attempted a revision of philosophy that rejected theology: physics without metaphysics.
The thing is impossible by definition. The attempt was idiotic to the point of malice.
The result is in ethics, aesthetics, epistemology, economics, politics and religion, in order, is just this: nihilism, postmodernism, Gnosticism, Marxism, despotism, Satanism.
The result is a culture of sterility, neurosis, paranoia, narcissism, drug-addiction, aborticide, child sexual mutilation, euthanasia, porn, tumult, arson, suicide. The result is a culture of death.
The period called the Enlightenment was actually the most benighted period in history. Future historians will call it “The Dark Ages” and the period currently called the Dark Ages will be called “the Enlightenment” as it was the triumph of the Church over northern barbarians.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
