A simple (well, it started out simple) proof of the existence of God
(Note: New text has been added to the original entry explaining the “rule of eight.” The new text is in the two paragraphs beginning “The first electron shell…”)
Here is a simple, easily understood proof that there is a higher intelligence organizing and guiding the universe.
In the early stages of the universe, after the Big Bang had occurred but before the galaxies had started to form, all that existed was hydrogen atoms, consisting of a nucleus containing one proton plus a single electron rotating around the nucleus. The heavier elements, heavier because they have more protons and electrons, and the various compounds such as water, in which atoms of different elements join together, did not yet exist. But the laws of physics and chemisty governing the formation and characteristics of the heavier elements and the compounds did exist, as shown by the fact that those elements and compounds came into existence. Those laws have to do with the maximum number of electrons that can be contained in each of the concentrically arranged electron “clouds” that surround the nucleus, and with the optimum state of stability toward which all atoms gravitate, and that stable state is also a function of the maximum number of electrons that can be contained in each electron cloud. These highly specific and particular laws were not manifested in—and therefore could not have been discovered from observing—the simple hydrogen atom, with its one electron cloud containing one electron. The laws governing the formation of the heavier elements and the compounds were not “in play” in the case of hydrogen, they only came into play with the heavier elements.
What this shows is that the physical universe is governed by laws that are transcendent to the universe itself.
(Note: I was going to provide the the details about the electron shells and the “law of eight” in a later entry, but since a big discussion is already taking place in this entry, I’d better do so here to make the discussion understandable. Here goes.)
The first electron shell or cloud of an atom holds a maximum of two electrons, the second shell eight, the third shell 18, the fourth shell 32, the fifth shell 50. Helium, which has an atomic number of two, meaning that it has two protons and two electrons, fills the first electron shell and is an inert or stable gas. Neon, with ten electrons, fills up the first shell (two) and the second and outermost shell (eight); it also is an inert gas. However, once we get to the third and subsequent electron shells, it is not the fact that the outermost shell is filled to capacity that makes the element inert, but the fact that the outermost shell has eight electrons. Thus the next inert element is argon, with 18 electrons. It fills the first shell (two electrons), the second shell (eight electrons), and has eight electrons in the third and outermost shell. What makes all the inert gases inert (except for helium) is that they have eight electrons in their outermost shell. Why eight is the magic number, and not four or six or ten, I have no idea. It is not explained in the book on chemisty I have consulted, but is presented as a given.
This “rule of eight” is the fundamental law that determines the formation of compounds. Inert elements are highly stable and it is difficult for them to gain or lose an electron. But elements that have more or less than eight electrons in the outermost shell very easily gain or lose electrons in order to attain eight and so become stable. They do this by combining their electrons with the electrons of other atoms, with the combined electrons being counted as belonging to both atoms. For example, oxygen has eight electrons, two in the first shell and six in the second shell, therefore it is two electrons short of the stable state toward which all matter tends; so each oxygen atom is looking to combine two of its electrons with two electrons from other atoms. Meanwhile, hydrogen atoms have only one electron in their single shell and so are one electron short of the stable state of having the first shell filled with two electrons; so each hydrogen atom is looking to share its single electron with an electron of another atom. One result of these atoms’ longing for completeness is the combination of an oxygen atom with two hydrogen atoms. In this sharing, the oxygen atom combines two of its electrons with the electrons of two respective hydrogen atoms. Now the oxygen atom has eight electrons in its second shell and attains the happy state of stability, while each of the hydrogen atoms shares its electron with one of the oxygen electrons, thus having two electrons in its single shell and attaining the happy state of stability. And this is the way H2O, water, comes into existence. The same basic principle is at work in the formation of all compound substances. Non-inert elements are constantly seeking to combine with other non-inert elements so as to achieve an “inert”-like state of completeness and stability. And it is my idea that this extraordinary arrangement by which the the compounds come into being is in effect a “higher law” relative to hydrogen and thus is proof that matter is governed by something beyond matter.
Now people who agree with the above argument may reply that any physical law, for example the law of gravity, also demonstrates the existence of higher intelligence transcending matter. But that argument would miss the particular force of the present argument. According to the law of gravity the attraction between two objects varies as the inverse square of the distance between them, meaning that if the distance between two objects is doubled the gravitational force between them is reduced to one quarter. But the law of gravity could be seen as stemming from the nature of matter itself, as something inherent in the very properties of matter, as simply the way matter behaves. But the laws governing the electronic structure of matter do not appear to be inherent in the most basic unit of matter, which is the hydrogen atom.
Thus, if we could imagine a scientist observing the universe at some time after the Big Bang when the only element that existed was hydrogen, he would have no way of knowing that the first electron cloud or shell in an atom would take a maximum of two electrons, and the second electron cloud a maximum of eight electrons, and the third a maximum of 18 electrons. He could not know that because elements that had that many electrons did not yet exist, and there is nothing in the relatively simple structure of hydrogen that would lead to such a particular and specific law governing the more complex elements. Nor could our hypothetical scientist know that elements in which the outer electron shell is filled to capacity are more stable or “inert” (at least up through the first two shells); that all atoms would have a tendency to seek to achieve stable state; and that this “longing” of atoms to attain a stable state would lead the various elements to combine together in very specific ways to form compounds such as water, carbon dioxide, sodium chloride, hydrogen chloride, and so on. The laws controlling the electronic structure of the various elements and compounds do not appear to be inherent in, or predicable from, the observable properties of hydrogen. Thus the laws governing matter pre-existed matter. They are not material. They are mental.
- end of initial entry -
Anthony J. writes:
“But the laws governing the electronic structure of matter do not appear to be inherent in the most basic unit of matter, which is the hydrogen atom.”
They are, they are the laws of physics, which govern the chemical laws.
LA replies:
I’ve never studied chemistry, and never studied physics beyond an Advanced Physics course in high school. My knowledge of the structure of the atom and the laws of valence (how the outer electron shell in each element behaves and combines with the outer shell of other elements) is based on reading Introducing Chemistry, by Hazel Rossoti. If you could explain how the following things are inherent in the laws of physics, I would like to hear it:
- the electron shell structure (2, 8, 18, etc);
- the fact that elements with a certain number of electrons in the outer shell are inert;
- the fact that all elements gravitate toward the inert state, which is what leads to compounds and thus the entire world that we know.
It seems to me that these facts are not inherent in more basic laws of physics such as the mutual attraction of proton and electron, but come from some other source that is not predictable from the basic laws of physics.
Alan Roebuck writes:
I agree with the main point you made in “A simple proof of the existence of God.” But it appears you need to refine your argument. I’m going to have to think about it more, but here are some preliminary thoughts.
The shell structure you speak about is indeed “not inherent in more basic laws of physics such as the mutual attraction of proton and electron” (i.e., the laws of electromagnetism); it requires a more advanced theory (quantum mechanics) in order to be predicted.
An atheistic physicist would say that the laws of physics “cause” the electron shell structure in the sense that when you solve the Schrodinger equation for the case of a hydrogen atom, the purely mathematical solutions correspond to the various possible electron configurations. The Schrodinger equation, in turn, is a consequence of the mathematical laws of quantum mechanics that were formulated because they successfully model various microscopic properties of matter that we know. Thus, it appears that laws of physics do explain these properties of matter. Similar remarks could be made about the other properties of matter mentioned above.
But the problem for the atheist is that the laws of physics do not “cause” anything, in the sense of being entities capable of initiating action. They are descriptions, not metaphysical causes. In other words, they are not “agents” which are capable of making things happen.
So we’re back to your central point: we cannot understand the cause of matter forming itself into more complex structures, whether they be heavier atoms, molecules, planets, cells or humans unless there is a transcendent Cause. To say that matter, laws and chance explain it all is to say, paraphrasing Ayn Rand, “The world is there. How did it get there? Somehow.”
A reader in San Francisco writes:
As probably one of your few nontheistic readers (a term I prefer to “atheistic,” which implies some kind of hatred or intolerance, emotions I’d rather reserve for our actual enemies), I think there is a point that remains to be demonstrated in your argument.
The evidence of design—and very humanlike design it is (any scientist who tells you that the concept of “God” is not useful as a metaphor is simply lying) is everywhere. As an engineer I prefer to design systems that are simple and elegant. Physics also appears to obey rules that are simple and elegant. It doesn’t appear to need to. This is rather striking.
It is no idle fancy, while reverse-engineering this system, to use the metaphor of a designer, in much the same way that we would if a piece of machinery from the 25th century suddenly somehow fell into our universe. It is very easy to conceive the possibility that we exist, for example, in some kind of impossibly detailed computational simulation, which may be 25th century or 30th century technology, alien technology, etc, etc.
But what this does not demonstrate is any connection between this designer, and the Christian tradition which we associate with the word “God.” It is in fact entirely conceivable that an intelligent designer exists in some meaningful and demonstrable sense, and that he, she or it has nothing at all to do with the Christian tradition, which (like other religions, which we agree are false) is simply invented.
Furthermore, the various data associated with the Christian tradition suggest violations of physical law which are inconsistent with the previously postulated simplicity. While it is possible that the designer is actively observing the system and can adjust it manually at any point, spelling out messages in the clouds or what have you, it would have been relatively easy for such a one-time intervention to retrospectively demonstrate its infallibility, for example by revealing the principles of relativity. That this did not occur suggests that, if the Christian traditions are genuine evidence of manual intervention, it is difficult to impute humanlike motives to the intervenor, making the metaphor less useful.
LA replies:
My article does not purport to demonstrate the existence of the God of the Bible per se. It only purports to demonstrates that a non-material intelligence created the world. This could be some impersonal divine intelligence, or the Supreme Being of the deists, or the Paramatman (the Oversoul of the Hindus), or Jehovah, or God the Father acting through the eternal Logos. Since the reader, though calling himself a non-believer, seems to agree with me that nature presents us with evidence of design, he would seem to have conceded my main point.
However, while it is not easy to understand the reader, he seems to reverse himself by suggesting that if there were a Designer, he would have given us some incontrovertible sign of his existence, and since he has not, therefore he does not exist. But as Christian theologians have pointed out, such a proof, by forcing men to believe, would destroy the whole point of a free and voluntary response of man to God. The whole point of God is that he exists beyond this world. Yes, he communicates to us through the things of this world, and in myriad ways, but not in the literal, material manner that some non-believers demand as proof of God’s existence.
I’m reminded of Heather Mac Donald’s demand that if there were a good God, all persons situated equally would end up with equal results, and that the absence of such equal results proves that a good God does not exist. (By the way, Mac Donald, while demanding an egalitarian God, calls herself a conservative!) That is an example of a human being trying to impose her merely human thoughts on God. Yes, God’s existence is in conformity with human reason, as the pope eloquently argued in his Regensburg address, but that does not mean that God can be reduced to nothing but human concepts.
David H. writes:
This entry is in my opinion one of tremendous value. There is omnipresent evidence of intelligent design, even in my younger (and more foolish) days I could see it clearly in the sciences (I have formal training in geology and chemistry, and great passion for astronomy, physics and biology). My brief, rebellious and irrational exploration of “agnosticism” didn’t stand a chance. Like a good scientist my mind was open (unlike most around me, who were told atheism was the only logical choice, and who completely embraced Darwinian dogma on faith). In the early-mid 1990’s, at a state university, it was a herculean effort just to remain inquisitive, let alone a Christian.
I look forward to your further exploration of this subject.
Paul Nachman, who is a physicist, writes,
Maybe you say the Big Bang was over once the plasma recombined into neutral atoms (and the universe became transparent to visible electromagnetic radiation, i.e. light). OK.
But among those primordial atoms were a significant fraction of helium (25% by mass) and lithium. The exclusion principle is important in the electronic arrangements of both helium and lithium. And with lithium, the second shell starts to be populated. Note that the helium and lithium nuclei had both been present before the end of the Big Bang, as defined above.
Further, there wouldn’t have been absolutely zero heavier elements. Their relative (to hydrogen) abundances would just have been microscopically small compared to their relative abundances today. So all of atomic physics would have been called for right from the start.
LA replies to Paul Nachman:
The Wikipedia article on Big Bang Nucleosynthesis that you linked says this:
Without major changes to the Big Bang theory itself, BBN will result in mass abundances of about 75% of H-1, about 25% helium-4, about 0.01% of deuterium, trace (on the order of 10-10) amounts of lithium and beryllium, and no other heavy elements.
The article doesn’t say anything about any additional heavier elements existing in the early universe.
So, it comes down to minuscule amounts of lithium (atomic number 3, one electron in the second shell) and of berylium (atomic number 4, two atoms in second shell). This is not enough to manifest the (as it seems to me, peculiar and unpredictable) law that eight electrons in the second shell and in subsequent shells makes an element inert, on which the existence of our world of water and carbon dioxide and other compounds depends.
So my theory still stands. In the early universe, there are no elements in which the 2nd electron shell is filled and thus makes the element inert, and no elements in which the 3rd, 4th, etc. electron shells have eight electrons and thus make the respective elements inert. Except for the inert gas helium which is a special case as its inert state is based on just two electrons in the first shell, in the early universe the laws of valence have not yet been demonstrated or brought into play. The laws governing the electronic structure of the heavier elements remain unmanifested on the material plane in the early stages of the universe, though the laws themselves must exist. Therefore, preceding the actual existence of the heavier elements and the compounds, the law determining their existence exists, in a non-material, invisible state. The material universe is ordered by something outside the material universe.
A reader from Colorado writes:
Read God Speaks [the Indian spiritual master Meher Baba’s book explaining the evolution of the universe and of human consciousness]. In the simplest forms such as hydrogen the soul (God) has very little consciousness, but does have the urge (“Who Am I?”) to know itself and has the power to evolve more complex mediums that develop the consciousness needed to achieve that goal. The potential for higher and more complex forms exists within the simplest forms. What you say is esssentially correct, there is a divine power at work that makes this evolution possible, but not necessarily an external divine intelligence. Each soul, regardless of its level of consciousness, is God and possesses God’s infinite Intelligence, Power, Knowledge and Bliss which it uses unconsciously to evolve itself into higher forms, expand its consciousness, and create the world around it until ultimately it may become conscious of Self and experience infinite Power Knowledge and Bliss .
A reader in San Francisco replies
Okay, I think I understand where you’re coming from.
My first problem is that I find the use of the word “God” to denote this postulated entity confusing, because it’s a word we associate with the Christian tradition specifically. If for example you’d declared that your construction was a proof of the existence of “Allah” or “Jupiter Optimus Maximus,” I would feel you were trying to justify some inference related to the Koran, the Sibylline Books, etc. Of course this is not your fault—“Allah” just means “God” in Arabic, so far as I’m aware—but if your argument is not intended to have any relevance to Christianity it would seem clearer to indicate this by choosing a different word. English can be renovated to fit our purposes.
Second, the fact that “design” is a useful metaphor for investigating the natural world does not indicate its truth or falsity in any epistemological sense. A desktop is a useful metaphor for navigating my file system, but my file system is not a desktop. It so happens that humans are equipped with a lot of hardware (“mirror neurons”) for imagining the thoughts of others, and the metaphor of reverse-engineering the Grand Design of a Grand Designer would be useful even if the proposition that such a designer exists could be irrefutably refuted.
Of course, it is possible to argue that truth consists entirely of usefulness. One can define the word however wants. In this sense, it is true that God exists. On the other hand, I also find it useful to believe that my girlfriend is the most beautiful woman in the world. But I’m not completely confident I could justify the proposition to all others.
My personal epistemology follows Ockham: propositions whose converse is not clearly refuted are not assigned a truth value. It is possible that the metaphor is not only useful but also true, and the simplicity of the universe is the result of a designer or system administrator (corresponding to deism and theism respectively) who is personal in the human sense and will perhaps at some point demonstrate this unambiguously, as surely a system administrator could. Until then the proposition is neither shown nor refuted, and it joins an infinite set of other such propositions in my epistemology. Since I don’t have an infinite set of neurons, I choose not to ascribe it much importance.
My third point (“God could reveal himself”) is not relevant because it relates only to the connection between the argument from design and the Christian tradition, which you have disowned. (Which is fortunate, because I didn’t state it very well.) Absent this connection both my argument and your refutation are very well-chewed theology.
That said, I want to reiterate how much I enjoy the refreshing honesty and directness of your writing. Obviously I do not agree with everything Orwell believed, either, but it is for exactly the same reason that his essays remain readable after 50 years, as I believe yours will as well. Eradicating cant from one’s thinking is no easy task.
LA replies:
Primarily I’m seeking to demonstrate that a higher intelligence—unspecified—exists and orders the universe. Secondarily, since most readers of this site are Christians or Jews or people who identify with a Christian society, naturally they will think of this higher intelligence in biblical terms. In other discussions I’ve argued for Christian truth. That is not the subject of this discussion.
“Propositions whose converse is not clearly refuted are not assigned a truth value.”
Well, since it is impossible that the material universe was not created by something beyond itself, I assign a truth value to the statement that the universe was created by something beyond itself. By the way, I am not saying this on the basis of my argument in the current blog entry, which is admittedly experimental. But this is a topic that we’ve discussed at length elsewhere.
I’m not sure of the meaning of your penultimate paragraph.
As for your last paragraph, thank you very much for the compliment, wildly extravagant though it is. However, since our society is not yet ready to hear traditionalist ideas, and since it may be a long time before it is ready to hear them, the fifty year shelf life that you predict may not be extravagant, but simply necessary.
Scott C. writes:
I have to take exception with your proof of the existence of God. You cannot deduce the existence of God from an atom, because an atom is a thing that does not exist!
An atom is a model, not substance itself. The model is not the thing it represents. As a model, an atom may be accurate, even mathematically precise, but it cannot be the substance of the universe; it can merely be a model which exists only in the minds of men, not in substantial nature.
Your argument reminds me of Descartes’s, which strove to prove the existence of God with mathematical certainty using geometry. But Descartes could not prove the existence of the Trinity with a triangle, because a triangle has no existence. It is merely a shape concocted by men. Matter may be in the shape of a triangle, but there is no existent thing we can point to that is a triangle. It’s the same with the structure of an atom.
I refer you to the debate between Newton and Leibniz, which dominated the late eighteenth century. Leibniz argued that Newton’s atom could not exist. He rejected the idea of an inanimate particle. He proposed an alternate model, the monad, which unlike the atom has intellect and is capable of self-organization.
Leibniz’s system presages, by two centuries, contemporary chaos and complexity theory. Recent studies in these fields have shown that matter is indeed capable of self-organization, notably in high non-equilibrium states. This is not possible in Newton’s system. The random behavior of inanimate particles simply cannot explain the self-organizing complexity of the universe.
Robert B. writes:
My response to Mr. Nachman is a simple one:
Big Bang =
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.”
If there was a void, as physicists admit, just exactly what was it that caused the “Bang”? No one ever wants to answer that question anymore—I asked it many times in college. The response was always a smirk followed by a sardonic smile.
LA replies:
Did Robert B. ever follow up and say, “If you have no answer, then you are admitting that the universe comes out of something that is not itself”?
LA writes:
I realize that the illustration with which I began this entry may seem idiosyncratic. But that is the very reason it struck me the way that it did and why I wrote about it. The familiar physical laws seem to proceed logically from the nature of matter itself, for example, if you push an object with a steady force, the velocity of the object will keep increasing at a rate proportional to the force with which you are pushing it. This law and other laws of motion seem to be built into the very nature of matter. But the “rule of eight” in the electron shells does not seem to be built into the nature of matter, it seems peculiar, almost arbitrary. Yet this peculiar thing is the foundation of our entire world. It is the combination of its peculiarity with its foundational character that to me is a sign that it comes from intelligence, not from matter.
The same could be said of many phenomena, in both the natural and the human world.
However, I realize that it was not necessary for me to establish that hydrogen existed for eons before the heavier elements came into existence for my argument to work. The heavier elements could have come into existence at the same time as hydrogen, and it would still raise the question, what is the source of the rule of eight in the more basic levels of physical matter?
And I am still waiting for someone explain why the “rule of eight” exists.
RB writes:
I enjoyed your recent posting about the existence of God. If you go back even further to just before the Big Bang there is what mathematicians call a singularity. The equations of physics give only indeterminate or infinite solutions—there are no laws of physics. Then an instant later the universe comes into existence and its laws unfold. But many theorists tell us that if the Big Bang happened again there is no reason that the laws or the constants of nature would be as they are. These constants are so fine-tuned that even infinitesimal differences in them mean that life could not exist.
One curiosity regarding the eight electrons filling a shell—that is the number of notes in an octave beginning with do and ending with the do of the higher octave. Perhaps the Pythagorean view that nature is “musical” has something to be said for it. These musings may not nail down the proof of a higher intelligence, but they certainly show that the great astronomer and physicist James Jeans was on to something when he said that “the universe is not only stranger than we imagine, but it’s stranger than we can imagine.”
LA replies:
That is really interesting, eight being the number of a completed octave, when it goes from the seventh note “si” (a note that belongs to the dominant chord, like B in the dominant G chord in the key of C) to the “do” of the next octave (belonging to the tonic chord) and the tension of the dominant chord is resolved in the tonic chord. In the same way, in the electron shell, a number of electrons greater or less than eight wants to get to eight and once it gets there the tension is resolved and the atom becomes stable.
LA writes:
I just came upon a passage in my notes written in June 2001 on Richard Rhodes’s book The Making of the Atomic Bomb that is relevant to the current discussion. Neils Bohr’s discovery of the electron shells was crucial in explaining the atom because mutual repulsion between electrons would make them unstable in their orbits, and also because the process of losing electromagnetic energy would result in the electrons falling into the nucleus. Something else was needed to hold the electrons in their orbits. Note my last sentence in the below paragraph, where I make the same point I do in the current blog discussion: that the laws governing the atom’s shell structure seem to supercede other physical laws. The atom cannot be constructed of the laws governing the relations of electron and proton and electromagnetism, something of a higher order is required to hold it together.
1913 Neils Bohr (1885-1962) figures out structure of electron shells. Rutherford’s model was impossible in terms of known laws. Since the electrons having the same electrical charge would repel each other, there seemed to be no way they could be stable in their orbits. Also, in giving up energy they should fall out of their orbits. James Clerk Maxwell had predicted that an electron revolving around a nucleus will continuously radiate electromagnetic energy until it has lost all its energy, and eventually will fall into the nucleus. Yet atoms were the most stable things there were. Around this time Bohr shows up at Rutherford’s lab and applies himself to this problem. He combines the quantum (discovered by Max Planck and then applied by Einstein to light to discover the photon) to the atom. Electrons have discrete levels of energy. With each new higher energy level, they jump to a higher orbit around the nucleus. With lower level, they jump to lower level. But within these levels or shells, they are stable. The way I put this to myself is that the laws governing the electron shells supercede the laws governing electric repulsion between the electrons.
LA writes:
Paul Nachman addresses and answers my questions, at least in part, in another entry.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 19, 2007 01:13 PM | Send