Th
..
hand
of
God?
205
reason, which he interpreted
to
mean
that
if
something exists, then there
must be
a
good
reason.
Thus,
the existence
of
the world
and
of
the eter-
nal truths
of
mathematics
and
logic must have a reason. Something must
have
caused these things
(0
come into existence.
He
claimed that there
is
within the world itself no sufficient reason for its
own
existence, As
time elapses,
the state
of
the world evolves according to certain physical
laws
of
change. It could be argued, then,
that
the cause
of
the existence
of
the world
at
anyone
moment
is
to
be found in the existence
of
the
world
just
a
moment
before. Leibniz rejected this
argument:'
'
...
however far you go back
to
earlier states,
you
will
never find in those
states a full
,eason
why
there
should be any world
ralher
than
none,
and
why it should be such
as
it
is.'
The
world
cannot
jusl
happen
10
exist,
and
whatever (or whoever)
caused it to exist must also
exist, since the principle
of
suffident
reason
demands
that
something
cannot
come from nothing:
ex
nihilo, nihilofit.
Furthermore, the ultimate,
or
first, cause
of
the
world must exist outside
the world.
Of
course, this first cause
is
God.
God is the
only
sufficient
rcason for the existence
of
the world.
The
world exists, therefore it
is
necessary for
God
also
to
exis!.
The
cosmological
proof
has a long history,
Plato
used something akin
to
it in his discussion
of
God-as-creator in the Timaeus. It also has an
entirely modern applicability. We now
have good reason
to
believe that
the world (which in its
modern
context we take
to
mean
the
universe) was
formed
about
15
billion years ago in the big bang
space-time
singularity,
The
subsequent expansion
of
space-time has produced the universe
as
we
know it
today,
complete with galaxies, stars, planets and living creatures.
Modern theories
of
physics
and
chemistry allow
us
to
deduce the reasons
for
the existence
of
all these things (possibly including life} based
on
the earlier states
of
the universe, In
other
words, once
the
universe was
off
to
a
good
start,
the rest followed from fundamental physical
and
chemical laws, Scientists
are
generally disinclined
to
suggest
that
we
need
to call
on
God
to
explain the evolution
of
the post big bang universe. But
the universe
had
a beginning; which implies
that
it
must have had a first
cause,
Do
we need
to
call
on
God
to
explain the big bang? Stephen
Hawking writes:' 'An expanding universe does not preclude a creator,
btl!
it
does place limits
on
when he might have carried
out
his
job!'
To
be
sure,
there are a
number
of
theories that suggest the big bang
might
not
have been the beginning
of
the universe but only the beginning
of
the present phase
of
the
universe. These theories invoke endless cycles
each
consisting
of
a big bang, expansion, contraction
and
collapse
of
the
universe in a 'big crunch', followed by
another
bang
and
expansion,
It
t Leibniz.
Goufried
Wilhelm (191'3), Philosophical writings.
J.M.
Dent. Londof1.
1 Hawking, Stephen
W. (1988). A
brief
history
o/rime.
Bantam Press. London.