Latest / Brandon Fogal Evolution / #147 - What Came Before the Big Bang? A Response to Alex O'Connor

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#147 - What Came Before the Big Bang? A Response to Alex O'Connor · Brandon Fogal Evolution

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  So what existed before the Big Bang? What was happening before the Big Bang?
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  Are we even asking the right questions? We're going to take a look at this exchange
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  between Piers Morgan and Richard Dawkins.
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  And then Alex O'Connor gave a response to this. And I want to respond to some
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  of the questions that he raised, which were very interesting.
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  First of all, Richard Dawkins, this was a little while ago between him and Piers Morgan going.
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  Piers Morgan is a Catholic, so he's kind of in that viewpoint.
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  That there is a God. Richard Dawkins obviously does not believe in God.
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  So they come at it from two different viewpoints.
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  Piers Morgan gave kind of a, he raised some questions like, how can you not
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  understand that you're not making logical sense by saying what was before the Big Bang?
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  And Richard Dawkins tries to reorient or readjust his question because it might
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  be the wrong question that he's asking.
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  And I kind of agree. Which is, what is there before it starts? what is nothing?
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  This is a question for a physicist, not a biologist. But what I would answer
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  to Professor Meyer is that we need to explain complexity in terms of simplicity.
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  And of course, it's true that I cannot say what was there before the Big Bang.
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  Physicists sometimes tell us that the word before doesn't even mean anything before the Big Bang.
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  But whatever it was, it was simple. But it has to, doesn't it?
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  You cannot suddenly invert. Doesn't it have to?
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  Well, someone as logical as you are, and I believe you are, you know,
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  you think about this all very logically.
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  A logical mind surely has to appreciate, and before the Big Bang,
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  there has to have been something before then. Otherwise, what is nothing?
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  Okay, so we're going to, I want to actually respond to some of the things that
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  Alex raises in answering this, because this is, Richard Dawkins points Piers
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  Morgan to a physicist, and he's a biologist.
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  He says, I can't, I'm stepping out of my lane, and answering that?
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  And is that really a rational response? Because we, everybody has to kind of deal with this.
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  Whether you've kind of studied the, of how the mechanics of the universe work
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  in physics or not, you still got to come to the table and have to answer some
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  of these things. Because-
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  In a logical mind, we always deal with a finite thing. Something happens, causes and effect.
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  If the universe didn't always exist, and that is what the explanation is through
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  the Big Bang, because we know there was an origin, was there something before
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  that? And is that the right question?
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  To me, that is kind of moving past the realm of what Rich Dawkins is getting
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  at, because he tries to change the viewpoint of peers.
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  But I want to answer some of these things that Alex O'Connor raises in his response
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  to this, because I think it's very well founded in what he's saying,
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  because this kind of fits into the Christian worldview,
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  because the before aspect of timelines,
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  if there was something not, if we can't ask that, the Christian viewpoint is
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  before, yeah, God doesn't have a before.
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  He doesn't have a starting point. And he's the one who has always existed.
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  So I think we're coming to the same answer, but looking at it through a different
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  lens and different perspectives.
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  But I want to actually continue on with what Alex raises in what he says.
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  So Piers is struggling with the concept of nothing, which is perfectly understandable,
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  of course, because it seems like you can't really think about nothing.
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  If nothing is truly nothing, it's not something you can think about.
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  But Piers seems to be suggesting that because our brains can't comprehend something,
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  it therefore can't exist or can't obtain or can't be the case.
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  I mean, there is a sense in which my brain simply can't think of nothing,
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  but in the same way, I can't think of, say, not an elephant.
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  I can't think of the concept of, like, no elephants, because in order to focus
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  on the concept of no elephants, I have to have this concept of an elephant in my head.
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  And so while it's possible for there to actually be no elephants in my cognitive
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  perception, I can't conceive of this abstract concept of no elephants,
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  because in order to do so, I kind of have to think about an elephant.
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  If the world began, and so we can't grapple with the idea of nothingness.
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  You can't think about, how was I thinking before I was born?
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  What was I thinking about before I was born? Because you weren't existing.
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  It's asking the wrong question. About God, we're saying that he didn't always...
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  He's just always been. He is the axiom. He is the starting point,
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  the focal of everything.
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  And that's what people think. They struggle with the timelines of our existence
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  compared to the infinite creator. If he is there, and it is asking,
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  I think, the wrong question. And Alex points this out strongly.
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  But dealing with the concept of nothingness, just try to yourself,
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  try to think about not thinking of an elephant. You can't, it's impossible because
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  you're asking the wrong question.
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  Our minds cannot comprehend or can conceive of these things that are greater realities than us.
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  And I think that is what the point of the biblical argument is.
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  It just starts off with in the beginning, God.
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  God was always there. He sprung all of this into existence.
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  He did not have a starting point because everybody always says,
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  well, where did God come from? Where did God come from? How did he start?
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  The thing is he didn't start. And to ask a before question with him,
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  it doesn't make sense. It's asking the wrong question.
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  It's asking the wrong question, but I want to continue what he says.
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  Shouldn't confuse our inability to picture something or comprehend something
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  or entertain an idea with its impossibility.
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  After all, it's possible for there to be no elephants.
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  But just think about that concept of no elephants for a moment.
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  Are you thinking of an elephant? But my real gripe with this is that Piers Morgan is a Catholic.
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  And Catholics have a very particular belief about the nature of God,
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  Specifically, that God is split into three persons, the Father,
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  the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
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  Famously, whilst the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit
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  is God, the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Holy Spirit,
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  and the Holy Spirit is not the Father.
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  This, famously, has been a logical challenge for Christians for thousands of years.
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  Now, there are all kinds of different solutions to the concept of the Trinity,
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  but no one can deny that it's at the very least a very counterintuitive and
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  difficult concept for the human brain to consider.
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  All right, so that's a perfect kind of representation of what the Bible portrays as God.
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  He did not—he's existed as three persons.
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  It's revealed that he is this. We didn't just come up with it.
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  We were taking what it says and trying to understand.
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  Just creating this word person that we've invented, we've made up a word to
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  try to understand what the concept of the Bible is.
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  But it would be kind of weird if we could completely understand and put God
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  in a box and say he fits inside what we understand completely in this world.
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  If he's not within this world, we probably shouldn't expect him to fit everything
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  in the confines of how all our laws work.
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  And I think what Alex is doing in just bringing this up, because this is a good reaction to this.
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  It's a good reaction to the idea of God, if God is there, and we can't deal
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  with the idea of nothingness.
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  So if God is there and there's nothingness and the Trinity makes complete sense
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  to us, it wouldn't make sense. It wouldn't flow.
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  It wouldn't jive. It wouldn't fit our understanding of reality.
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  This is a good point that Alex is making because I think it's reaching the same
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  conclusion, but just coming at it from different avenues.
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  This is, but I want to continue. When three persons exist as one God,
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  if I were to ask this to Piers Morgan, I don't know what he would say,
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  but he would at least have to admit that it's, you know.
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  Unintuitive, maybe running slightly contrary to common sense.
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  And in fact, maybe he would say something like, look, I'm not a theologian.
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  You're better off asking a theologian. There are people much more intelligent
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  than me that might have an answer to that question, but maybe no one really
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  knows or fully understands the nature of God.
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  But I guess that's just one of the great mysteries of my faith.
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  And the problem is, if Piers is allowed to do something like that for something
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  like the Trinity, then why shouldn't Richard Dawkins be able to do the same thing for the Big Bang?
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  All right. So that is, I think we're saying the same thing. We're coming at
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  it from different lenses, but like, it doesn't make sense if we just completely
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  just, it's all naturalistic. Like there was a before that happened before the universe.
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  If there was, if that would fit into the Christian worldview,
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  the Christian worldview would not make sense.
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  And I absolutely understand that. I get that.
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  But like if we understood God completely, I don't think we could rightly call him God.
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  He would just be another idol, another invention of our mind.
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  And this nothingness, if it is out there,
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  which is not even conceivable for us to comprehend or even kind of invent,
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  we would be completely on an island and we wouldn't understand what the heck
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  we were doing in this universe.
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  But I think this is what Alex brings to the table and what he makes up is very
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  understandable and very clearly articulated.
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  So I think he has got the, I think he's going in the right direction.
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  I just think he's kind of missing it in a little way.
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  But if you've enjoyed this video, hit this link and I'll see you all on the other side.