Teleological argument

[Arlene]

I understand that constants and arbitrary qualities are independent, and i understand what a constant is, but please explain exactly what an arbitrary quantity is. Is it just a mathematical equation that determins a law? Can you give an example?

[Michael]

Hi Arlene.

I am assuming that you are listening to audio files by Dr. William Lane Craig. I am glad that you understand the constants well, but the arbitrary quantities I understand are more difficult to grasp.

So Arbitrary Quantities are defined by Webster’s Dictionary as: one to which any value can be assigned at pleasure.

Now Dr. William Lane Craig has given examples of this in his classes and I found a transcript of his Teleological Argument Pt. 1 here: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/defenders-1-podcast/transcript/s07-01

Specifically, here is the quote I believe will be the most helpful:

“The second type of quantity that we are talking about is these arbitrary quantities.[2]

Question: [inaudible]

Answer: You are thinking of F here. That force will vary based upon how you fill in the values for this equation. But what I am saying is that this G has the same value whether [the masses] are a rock and the moon, or the sun and Jupiter, or Saturn and Uranus, and no matter how close they are or far apart, those things all vary. But the G will remain the same when you figure out what that tug is that we feel.

The laws of nature don’t determine what these constants are. They just appear. They are just sort of there. That’s just the way the world is. It has these constants.

The other type of quantity is what I call arbitrary quantities, or we can call them boundary conditions or initial conditions. These would just be arbitrary quantities that are put in at the beginning of the universe on which the laws of nature then operate. For example, remember we talked last time about the amount of entropy in the universe. We said that according to the second law of thermodynamics entropy is always increasing, always growing, as energy is diffused and the universe comes to equilibrium. What that means is that at the beginning of the universe there was just some arbitrary low entropy quantity put in as an initial condition. There isn’t any law of nature, and it is not a constant of nature. It is just a sort of arbitrary quantity that is put in at the creation, and then the laws of nature – like the second law of thermodynamics – operates on this quantity. Another example would be the ratio between matter and anti-matter in the early universe. What quantities of those were put in?

So you have constants of natures, and then you have arbitrary quantities or boundary or initial conditions that are just put in arbitrarily and the laws of nature than operate on these.”

Hope that helps

Michael Thom
Bible College Director

• This reply was modified 8 years, 10 months ago by Michael.

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