The Problem With Lawrence Krauss' A Universe From Nothing

Lawrence Krauss thinks that we can have a universe from nothing. But what does he mean by "nothing?" Here I describe my surprise and disagreement while reading his book!

Truth Unites is a mixture of apologetics and theology, with an irenic focus.

Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai.

My books:

[DanielApologetics]

It's not "nothing" it's "something"... It's just...that "nothing"....which is really "something"... is just CERTAINLY NOT That's Krauss' logic and heart it seems.

[crazytech]

Nothing, is literally the absolute absence of anything, at all of any kind. Nothing will, could, or would come from it.
Period.

[derekmchardy]

The fool says in his heart ' There is no God.'
Psalm 14v1.

[beowulf.reborn]

The reason we cannot conceive of "Nothing", is because there never has been, nor ever will be "Nothing". "Nothing" does not exist, nor is it possible _for_ "Nothing" to exist. It is an irrational and illogical idea, like trying to conceive of the corner in a spherically round room.

No, there never has been, nor ever will be "Nothing", for, from Eternity Past, God is, and always will be. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.

[jotink]

The fact is that a scientist recognises that nothing in the alsolute sense dosn't exist. This frustrates science because beyond that it breaks down and supernaturalism takes over.

[ScotsThinker]

Romans 1:20 - For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His Eternal Power and Godhead so they are without excuse.

P.S Just because you don't see something doesn't mean it's not there. You can't see Atoms of History or measure Morality in a tube yet we hold them to be real.

[walteryarbrough]

As a scientist (physical chemistry and solid state physics) I found your video very good, and your criticisms accurate. But I want to suggest there's a deeper criticism of Krauss, Hawking and many others that goes well beyond the "multiverse" and similar hypotheses. Essentially, however constructed, these arguments, to the extent they claim to explain the origin of any reality, appeal to the "laws" or "rules" of physics. For example Krauss spends much time, in both his book and interviews, speculating about a putative role for QM and the Uncertainty Principle. However all of physics derives from and is expressed using the language of mathematics. No concept in physics is intelligible without mathematics. But mathematics, and indeed many physical concepts like the idea of energy, is simply an idea or a mental construct. For physics to exist there must exist a mind (or Mind) in which the mathematics or "laws of physics" can be conceived and held. If the birth of the universe, any universe, is simply a consequence of physics, then what "mind" was or is it that gave birth to the physics that in turn, gives birth to reality?

[warrenrae]

Krauss gives the game away by stating that he’s done away with the need for God. So in reality the book seems to be driven by his view that belief in God is to him philosophically unappealing rather than scientific evidence 🤔

[ThePresident]

I'm honestly confused about the Kalam argument, though. The Big Bang model only describes the expansion of space-time from a singularity. It doesn't describe the "beginning" of the universe. In fact, many physicists think the universe is eternal or cyclic. It's really not clear the universe "began" at any point. So why do we need a first cause? Why does the expansion of space time (which is still happening right now) indicate a first cause, or even God?

[AgyeiG]

I honestly feel kind of bad that you had to go through Krauss' whole book to get that ending :/ However, I'm currently wrestling with how creation accords with science and you have been a helpful guide. 🙏🏿

[blackswan]

Just finished reading the book myself. Krauss does his best to water down the technical jargon, but you still need to read it slowly. In the end, I believe that this whole origins enterprise may just end up being a dead end for both sides. We can't definitively prove either case because we weren't there. Yes, we have the Hubble expansion, CMBR, etc. that we can empirically observe, but then we have to theorize and extrapolate out that empirical data based on certain assumptions that may or may not be true. I think it is safe to say that SOMETHING has always existed (be it God, quantum energy, etc.), because you just can't escape logical contradictions when you try to get something out of true nothing. But can you get something out of the type of "nothing" that Krauss describes? Maybe, but I'm still not totally convinced. In the end, a leap of faith is required for either position (regardless of what Krauss says), and we just need to pick what sounds more reasonable to us. I will insist, however, that regardless of which side you're on, this book is not the "final nail in God's coffin" that Dawkins et al. claim it is.

P.S.
-) For a good criticism of Krauss's book by a fellow atheist physicist, check out Sean Carroll's review.
-) For a good theological Christian answer, check out the revised edition of "Not a Chance" by R.C. Sproul and Keith Mathison
-) For a laugh, look up the clip where Stephen Colbert (of all people) shows the problem with Krauss's arguments
-) I would post the links, but YT has a nasty habit of deleting my comments if I do🤷‍♂

[gordonepema]

Stephen Meyer's book "The Return of the God Hypothesis" is very good on this question. There's a part in it where he details the Wheeler Dewitt equation, an attempt to marry up quantum mechanics and general relativity into a theory of quantum gravity. The result is a general differential equation that could describe our universe, and every other conceivable universe. A problem remains - to get a solution that explains our universe, initial conditions and constants have to be imposed from outside, by what else - a Mind. Conceptually similar to the Miller Urey attempt to start life from inorganic chemicals simulating early earth conditions.

[maxwell]

Tell me you don’t understand physics without telling me you don’t understand physics.

[christophekeating]

A good exploration of the actual question would be the Closer to Truth episode 1214 "Why Anything At All?" Lawrence Kuhn wrote a book on the subject which you would find much more interesting than Krauss', I suspect.

[HannahClapham]

I perused YouTube looking for explanations from cosmologists concerning why we have something rather than nothing. They would use a lot of words to answer in one of the following two ways:

1. Why is there something rather than nothing? Why not?

2. Why is there something rather than nothing? I haven’t got a clue.

It honestly seemed that bad. I can see why you were disappointed. They don’t take the question seriously. They’re content to simply DESCRIBE the universe. In the end, it’s a simple tautology for them:

What is there is there because what is there is there.

[GustAdlph]

Dr. Ortlund, thank you for reading that book because at the end, I would have felt that I wasted my money.

[adamvillemaire]

Brother Gavin what do you think of CHUCK MISSLER ❓..worked at NASA ...has a original explanation for creation... I find his thoeries very interesting... He was a scientist who converted to christianity...what is ur opinion on his thoughts & teachings

[wmarkfish]

The multiverse argument is like the chess player moving his king off the board to avoid check mate and saying he is now playing 3D chess.

[cba]

Nothing is the absence of space, matter, AND time. Sounds like Krauss wants to play a game and define nothing as the absence of space, matter, OR time.

[joelbecker]

Michael Rota actually argues in his book *Taking Pascal's Wager* that the God hypothesis is still more probable on a multiverse model than atheism is!

Basically he argues that God would be more likely to createlife-permitring universes than an atheistic multiverse. So if there's a multiverse, a theistic one would have more life-permitting universes, which makes it much more likely that OUR universe would be life-permitting.

And he says that the Anthropic Principle brings in an irrelevant probability, namely, "How probable is it that our universe would be life-permitting AND we would be here to see it?" When really the question is just "How probable is it that our universe would be life-permitting?"