EXAMINING THE NOTION THAT THE UNIVERSE IS A BRUTE FACT

FOREWORD

Christian doctrine is that God made all things and didn't use any powers or materials to do so.  He just zapped it into existence with a command.  The universe is not God but his creation.

This contradicts the doctrine that God would mathematically be the infinite set meaning that there can be nothing that is not made of him.

So creation is incoherent meaning that the universe, as hard as it is to fathom, is a brute fact.

Bertrand Russell said the universe is a brute fact. It's just there so a maker isn't needed.

 Asserting the brute fact doesn't say if it made itself or not. It's clear though nothing makes itself.

Suppose creation is possible.  Then could creation from nothing and the universe being a brute fact be compatible?  Religion says God is creating even now for if he stopped the creation would vanish and there would not be anything at all.  This contradicts science on how energy never vanishes.

Is the Deist view that God makes a universe that can sustain itself so he does nothing any more okay?  Many say yes.  That is a universe that just needs a start and is now a brute fact.

The reality is that there is nothing to show the idea of a brute fact to be incoherent.

[Note: Russell stupidly said that it seems an all-good God can tolerate injustice and evil. He said it is unlikely but possible.  Now if the universe does not need a God at all, or does not need a personal God of love meaning there might be a creator of a different type, faith in God is unnecessary.  It is wrong for brute facts don't care what we think and we need to line up to them.  We cannot disregard them.  This tells us that the type of God that asks for faith and loving commitment is in fact evil and evil logically disproves his existence.]

THE ARGUMENT

Is there a personal Creator God?

A creator that makes no demands on us and to which we owe nothing for it is not like a person even symbolically is compatible with being atheist.

This creator is compatible with the universe being a brute fact.  A brute fact is something that is just there and did not need anything to intend to put it there.

The theory of everything seeks to reconcile the theories of physics. The theories make sense on their own but taken together they seem to contradict one another. Maybe we will never be clever enough to think up a theory of everything. Maybe we will just have to settle for saying the universe and its origin and how it is here is all a paradox. If so, then the existence of all things will be seen as a paradox. It would make as much sense to say that an impersonal intelligence made all things as to say that a personal God did it if not more. Why go as far as saying it was a personal God?
 
The notion that creation is not a brute fact arises from people wanting to believe random things happen but who don't wish the things they like to be random.  They want to see them as gifts. But even if they are they could still dissipate.  They want to believe in random strongly when they hope a brick will fall on their enemies.  Some prefer to wish that bad luck like that would befall evil people and leave the good alone.  The fact that the random can strike you instead of them is not the point.  It is hypothetical.  It is about what you wish.
 
Do you want to believe in random?  Some say, "There would be no comfort in a universe ruled by blind fate or blind randomness. Nobody cares if it is fate or not for its being blind is the problem."  Interesting.

 Some go as far as to hold that if there is no God sustaining and running all things that is all we have. But if God can create randomness then it is possible that the forces in your life are still blind or as a good as.  If your life is 10% random that could be why the brick that will kill you next week is going to kill you.  Is it really a percentages game?  To say it is is as bad as saying that it is okay for a bomb to go off if it kills one person and not a hundred.
 
People have room for comfort and optimism for we know that if all is blind we are not blind and that is what counts. And the luck of the draw can come to you and often does. The desire to bring God into it to assuage anxiety is just exploitative and greedy. You find a random world too scary so you are willing to blind yourself to its blindness. That is just stupid.

PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON
 
The principle of sufficient reason which states, “Everything that happens or exists has a sufficient reason for happening or existing.”
 
There has to be something without an explanation.

That would mean that the something is just a brute fact.

It is forgotten that a brute fact IS an explanation. It usually is not but there are exceptions.
 
The Church says the existence of anything at all needs an explanation.
 
But we all know that if there were nothing that would be a brute fact and need no explanation. There would be no question of why nothing rather than something?

The Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) enunciates: .
 
"The PSR is closely related, if not fully identical, to the principle “ex nihilo, nihil fit” (“From nothing, nothing comes”). One of the most interesting questions regarding the PSR is why to accept it at all. Insofar as the PSR stipulates that all facts must be explainable, it seems that the PSR itself demands an explanation just as much. Several modern philosophers attempted to provide a proof for the PSR, though so far these attempts have been mostly unsuccessful." 
 
 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sufficient-reason/
 
Thus the notion that we need God to account for our existence is just a guess. It rings true to many but it is not as simple as they make it out to be.
 
Why are we told about the Principle of Sufficient Reason? Why not the Principle of Necessary Reason? Sufficient gives it away that they are not as sure as they let on. While chicken is sufficient to keep a dog fed it does not follow that chicken is necessary to keep it fed. Any food would do.

OBJECTING TO GOD AS SUSTAINING CREATION

God does not make a universe like a clock and leave it to run.  Creation means he continues to create every moment the universe is here.  It would vanish into nothing if he backed off for a second.

Talk about God as creator of all things when there was nothing at all before, is based on the doctrine that all things exist for a reason. Another way to phrase it is that there are no coincidences.

This is harmful for if harm really is too big for us to handle we need to know and also we need coincidences.  We like them for they are an antidote to seeing our lives as mechanical and banal.  We like the idea of chance surprising us.  And it is harmful to look for a lesson in all that happens if there is no lesson for we will blame ourselves for not finding one. We risk not looking or grabbing at something stupid and calling it an explanation or lesson.  None of this is compatible with having a smart mature sense of responsibility.  If you see a coincidence as a gift from God then it must have a message.  Why else is God trying to surprise you?  You are bragging in a sense.  You think you are worthy of this message, that you are special.  You think you know better than all the other people who swear they got messages and who end up bickering and discrediting each other.   It is dangerous to see messages in case they are not there.

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