PROOF OF THE TRANSCENDENT BASED UPON CHANGE: A PROOF FOR LOGIC NERDS

This theistic proof is closely related to the theistic proof based on the need for a first uncaused cause – a requirement that only eternal and uncaused God can fulfill. This proof argues that everything that changes, and this includes everything in this universe, requires an external Cause. This also includes the universe itself. Therefore, there must be something or Someone who transcends this space, time, and matter universe.

·       PREMISE 1: Everything in the universe changes.

·       PREMISE 2: The universe and everything in it changes, because something external to the universe acts upon them.

·       CONCLUSION: There must be something external to the universe that causes it to change!

PREMISE 1: Everything in the universe changes. This seems to be an indisputable fact. Scientists agree that even the smallest components are in motion. At least, their positions in space are changing. Also, it is apparent that energy changes into matter and visa-versa. Besides, all things are decaying.

PREMISE 2: The universe and everything in the universe changes, because something external to the universe acts upon them. This is a little more controversial. What causes these changes? Can something cause itself before it even exists? We can find no uncontroversial examples of this. This leads us to the next, more contentious, question – Can something cause itself to change before the change exists?

Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli have written against this possibility:

·       The changing thing cannot have now, already, what it will come to have then. The result of change cannot actually exist before the change. The changing thing begins only with the potential to change, but it needs to be acted on by other things outside if that potential is to be made actual. Otherwise, it cannot change. (Handbook of Christian Apologetics, IVP, 50)

According to Kreeft and Tacelli, the potential for change is not the same as the change itself. The change requires more than just potential. It requires an agent outside of itself to act upon it. Even the movement of molecules requires change agents beyond themselves. The laws of science are first required to work upon them in formulaic and predictable ways. Likewise, a ball cannot dribble itself. It too needs a cause from  outside itself; nor can it cause itself to do anything, even to decay.

Either an effect is self-caused or externally-caused. This same principle also includes the entire universe. We cannot attribute the universe’s change to its inner parts or some aspect of itself. This would be to say that something causes itself, a logical and scientific impossibility. For example, a car doesn’t run without gasoline and gasoline doesn’t combust with the unchanging causal laws of combustion. Besides, these various forces hold together every atom of the car. Consequently, without these laws we cannot have the universe or any knowledge of it.

CONCLUSION: There must be something external to the universe that causes it to change!

Kreeft writes:

·       If there is nothing outside the material universe, then there is nothing that can cause the universe to change. But it does change. Therefore, there must be something in addition to the material universe.

The inseparable conglomerate of universe components, time, matter, and space, are always in flux. Consequently, something or Someone must be acting upon them.

Interestingly, this Someone has nothing acting upon Him. Why? He is beyond all change agents, dwelling in transcendence, apart from time and space. Besides, He created these changes agents, the laws of science, and maintains them immutably without any other supporting and unchanging agents.