Conversations For Transformation: Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

Conversations For Transformation

Essays By Laurence Platt

Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

And More
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Something From Nothing

Napa Valley, California, USA

March 4, 2024


"God's greatest work wasn't creating the universe: it was disappearing into it afterwards."
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"I don't talk about God with people who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground."
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"What is out there for you is not what is out there - that is, what is 'out there for you' is not the so-called 'objective reality'. While we can confidently assume that there is an objective reality out there, that is not the reality that shows up for you. What shows up for you is a 'reality' generated by your brain. Put in another way, while we assume that what we perceive is the reality that is actually out there, in fact every shred of what shows up for you as reality is being wholly generated by your brain."
... 
"For me this is a practical matter. Instead of having the answer about God like some guy or some thing or some explanation or some anything, I have a space of possibility like an openness, like a place for God to show up in my life."
... 
speaking with Reverend Terry Cole-Whittaker about God
"One creates from nothing. If you try to create from something you're just changing something. So in order to create something you first have to be able to create nothing. To make sure a person doesn't find out who he is, convince him that he can't really make anything disappear. All that's left then is to resist, solve, fix, help or change things. That's trying to make something out of something."
... 
"God only creates what is."
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This essay, Something From Nothing, is the twentieth in a group of twenty reflections of God:

Whenever it's touted, whether in a debate or in an argument or social banter, it's mostly as proof of an answer to the question "Is there a creator / is there a God?". It's a grand, honorable, ancient, elegant, intelligent, inquiry. And when it's offered as proof in that inquiry, it's by way of saying that all this  being here (a bold, sweeping gesture of hands for emphasis) proves that there's a creator ie it's evidence that God exists. It infers it from the assumption that all this could not  have come from nothing* ("Everyone knows  ... something can't come from nothing  ... right?"), and so there must  be a creator / a God.

Now watch: the assumption "Something can't come from nothing" is touted as true, long before it's fully examined. Here's a Rolex ... so there must be a watchmaker;  here's the Mona Lisa  ... so there must be a painter; here's the Taj Mahal  ... so there must be a builder; here's all this  ... so there must be a creator / a God. Everyone knows something can't come from nothing, so if there's all this, it's proof of a creator / a God. And the debate is assumed won.

That's the gist of the discussion, the thrust of that argument. Technically, it's called reductio ad absurdum  (Latin for "reduction to absurdity"). We call it an apagogical  argument, which is a form of argument that attempts to establish a claim by showing that the opposite  scenario would lead to absurdity. It is absurd  to think that something could come from nothing ... so there must  be a watchmaker, there must be a painter, there must be an builder ... and like that, there must also be a creator / a God. That's now presumed to be QED  (Quad Erat Demonstrandum - Latin for "that which was to be demonstrated").

Let's pause for a minute. In this conversation, I want you to know / I declare (and please be clear) I'm not here to deny or confirm / disagree with or agree with there's a creator / a God, or not (this is not about that). There's something. It's obvious. Call it what you will, I'm OK with it, whatever it may be. What I would  like to do is look at how we approach the assumption "Something can't come from nothing", and what is almost always left unexamined about it.

If we tell the truth about it unflinchingly, there is a pressing answer to "Can something come from nothing?". Aside from "No" or "Yes", it is "I don't know.". Now I'm OK with "I don't know.". And I grant you that not everyone is. We're thrown  to go for pat answers. We're addicted  to pat answers. The difference between "No" (or "Yes") and "I don't know", is this: both "No" and "Yes" end / shut down the space of inquiry (it ends, it is over), whereas "I don't know" leaves the space open for the inquiry to continue. I'm OK being in the open inquiry of "I don't know.". I can bear "I don't know" (and even "Maybe")  as an answer to "Can something come from nothing?". I can bear to keep the inquiry open, to not be thrown to end it / to shut it down with a fast "No" or "Yes".

I assert there's an arrogance (or a naïveté?) we labor under that has us think we can decipher the rules God plays by (good luck with that  one, Einstein!). For us to keep the space of inquiry open as to whether there's a creator / a God or not, we're going to have to give up our arrogance that we can get (one) an answer, (two) the  answer, and (three) the right  answer. So if there really is a creator / a God (outside of if we believe or hope there is), then there is a creator / a God, and stop making that significant. And if there isn't  a creator / a God, then there isn't a creator / a God, and stop making that  significant.

In the end, this inquiry veers away from whether there's a creator / a God or not, and from proving there's a God or not with the unexamined assumption "Something can't come from nothing", and so it all comes down to how we deal with the question "Can something come from nothing?". Even if we don't allow "Yes" as a possible answer, can we sit with "We don't know"  as a possible answer? Can we sit with we really don't know?  Can we sit with "Maybe."? Can I stay open to the question, getting lots and lots of possible answers, and not shut it down with "No" ie with just one measly, stingy possible answer?

Here's what the bottom line of this inquiry is for me: just because it sounds  absurd that something could come from nothing (and therefore by inference, there must  be a creator / a God), it isn't a reliable proof of anything. In Zen, something comes from nothing all the time  ... and that segues  into the next phase of this inquiry, which is the possibility that we  are the source of / the creators of all this, including the space in which a creator / a God can show up in our lives, a space in which examining the unexamined assumption "Something can't come from nothing" provides an entirely fresh slant on the grand, honorable, ancient, elegant, intelligent inquiry into whether there's a creator / a God or not, and if there really is, who (or what)  the creator / God may be.

For now, let's just leave that as a subject for another conversation on another occasion (this feels like a good place to end). To be continued ...

* Citation: "Scientists create matter from nothing in groundbreaking experiment", Joshua Hawkins, BGR  (Boy Genius Report), September 22, 2022

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