According to this Wikipedia article, Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing, “is a question about the reason for basic existence which has been raised or commented on by a range of philosophers and physicists, including Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Martin Heidegger, who called it “the fundamental question of metaphysics.””
German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz introduced his inquiry more than three hundred years ago.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, according to this Wikipedia article, “was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is credited, alongside Sir Isaac Newton, with the creation of calculus in addition to many other branches of mathematics, such as binary arithmetic and statistics. Leibniz has been called the “last universal genius” due to his vast expertise across fields, which became a rarity after his lifetime with the coming of the Industrial Revolusion and the spread of specialized labor. He is a prominent figure in both the history of philosophy and the history of mathematics. He wrote books on philosophy, theology, ethics, politics, law, history, philology, games, music, and other studies. Leibniz also made major contributions to physics and technology, and anticipated notions that surfaced much later in probability theory, biology, medicine, geology, psychology, linguistics, and computer science.”
According to this article, Gottfried W. Leibniz (1646-1716) posed the question “in regard to the origin of the universe as part of his argument for the existence of God.” The argument that justifies God as the answer to “Why Is There Something Rather Than Noting” is known as the Leibniz Contingency Argument or the Leibniz Cosmological Argument.
The Leibniz Contingency Argument comprises four parts.
- Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence.
- If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
- The universe exists.
- Therefore, the explanation of the universe’s existence is God.
The author wrote, “As with all such logical arguments, if the premises are true (points 1-3), then the conclusion must be true (point 4). The question is whether or not the first three points are more likely to be true than they are false.“
“Certainly, everyone would agree that the universe exists, so at least we are safe with point number 3.
But what about points 1 and 2? Is it accurate to say that everything that exists has an explanation for its existence and that the sole explanation for the existence of the universe is God?“
Furthermore, the author opined that Leibniz’s Argument “uses the very existence of the universe as a means to show that there must be an uncaused cause of all things. It argues that there must be a Creator of the universe. There must be a God.”
However, from the Buddhist perspective, one must ask a fundamental question: “Is making assumptions necessary when discussing the origin of the universe?”
Scientists make assumptions, and philosophers argue on a priori grounds because their knowledge comes from inferentially connected word-based knowledge. However, as Dr. Kuhn understood, while inferentially connected word-based knowledge informs how “everything is related to something else,” it provides “no foundation between what I believe and what the world really is. So, how do I know anything?” Without a foundation for understanding what the world really is, making assumptions becomes the necessary first step in the scientific method and in philosophical inquiries.
However, the phrase “I opine” does not appear in Buddhist sutras. Indeed, Buddhism is not a philosophical dissertation based on the Buddha’s personal assumptions. Buddha does not need to make assumptions because his understanding of reality comes from direct perception and becoming part of nature. Without making assumptions, it is unnecessary to make logical arguments.
An unavoidable problem with making assumptions is that they necessarily exclude other options, no matter how reasonable they seem to those who use inferentially connected word-based knowledge.
- For example, by assuming that his God created the universe, Leibniz ruled out the possibility that the universe was not created as if something comes from nothing.
- Furthermore, by limiting the origin of the universe to something “non-physical and immaterial” and assuming it must be God, Leibniz excludes the possibility that the origin is indeed “non-physical and immaterial” but not God.
- By theorizing that the “uncaused cause of all things” must be God, Leibniz excluded the possibility that the “uncaused cause of all things” could be natural.
Indeed, while Leibniz’s assumptions all seem reasonable from the standpoint of those limited to using word-based knowledge for understanding the world, they are not so from Buddha’s perspective. By using direct perception to become part of nature, Buddha can understand the nature of reality by encompassing “all objects of knowledge” nature has to offer.
Indeed, Buddha teaches that:
- The universe is not created by God, as if something came from nothing. However, this is not Buddha’s premise; it is the reality he perceived directly. In Buddhism, there is no anthropomorphic creator.
- The universe originated from something noncausal and “non-physical and immaterial,” but it is not God.
- Instead, it is a mentality.
We start the discussion with Buddha’s teachings in the Mohe Zhigua.
Mohe Zhiguan (Chinese: 摩訶止觀) is a “voluminous” and “comprehensive Buddhist doctrinal summa which discusses meditation and various key Buddhist doctrines. ….. It is particularly important in the development of Buddhist meditation….,” and “a major focus of the Móhē zhǐguān is the practice of Samatha (Chinese: 止) (calming or stabilizing meditation) and Vipassana (Chinese: 觀) (clear seeing or insight). Most importantly, Mohe Zhiguan “is founded firmly on scripture; with every key assertion of the text is supported by sutra quotations.” Therefore, Mohe Zhiguan is not only comprehensive but also highly credible and authoritative.
In Mohe Zhiguan, Buddha teaches that at the highest level of the meditative state, one can perceive the inconceivable realm (Chinese: 不可思議境) directly.
As discussed earlier, inconceivability means that mentality is “beyond all conceptualization.” “Beyond conceptualization” refers to the fact that, when sensed, mentality cannot be conceptualized “in ways we do not govern,” as Dr. Fisch puts it. In other words, like natural gas, mentality is a reality that cannot be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or touched.
So, what insight can one expect after reaching the inconceivable realm (Chinese: 不可思議境)?
First, a rhetorical question:
“What insight can be had (Chinese: 所觀者何)?”
The answer:
“Nothing outside of rupa and citta (Chinese: 不出色，心).”
“Citta gives rise to rupa (Chinese: 色從心造).”
“All are ontologically citta (Chinese: 全體是心). “
While Citta (Chinese: 心), by definition, is mentality, Rupa (Chinese: 色), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “in Sanskrit and Pali, ‘body,’ ‘form,’ or ‘materiality, viz., that which has shape and is composed of matter. More generally, rupa refers to materiality, which serves as the object of the five sensory consciousness (vijnana): visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and tactile.”
In other words, Rupa represents the “body,” “form,” or “materiality” of the physical world humans experience through sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch.
So, “Citta gives rise to Rupa (Chinese: 色從心造)” is Buddha’s statement that the world arose from mentality, and not created by an anthropomorphic deity as if something from nothing. The “mentality” referred to in the statement is the fluctuating mentality of non-luminosity (Chinese: 無明), which, like the quantum energy field in quantum mechanics, is the foundational block of the universe, discussed in Post 13.
To discuss Buddha’s teaching that mentality exists naturally and uncausally, we start with the Buddha’s teaching known as Such is the way of Dharma (Chinese: 法爾如是). In Such is the Way of Dharma, Dharma specifically defines that the nature of both Citta and Rupa is “eternal.” Furthermore, both are “noncausal (Chinese: 非因緣).” In other words, Citta and non-luminosity exist without being caused by any external factors. Additionally, there is an adventitious (Chinese: 不定的, 偶然的, 外來的) relationship between Citta and Rupa, indicating that no causal relationship exists between them either.
So, since Leibniz’s assumptions are unnecessary, the answer to “Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?” is no longer about how an anthropomorphic deity created the universe from absolute nothingness. Instead, “Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?” is about how the inconceivable universe is manifested.
The answer to that is observation. The details on how the universe is conceptualized in the observer’s mind, “in ways he does not govern,” and manifested as “projections of consciousness” during the observation process, please visit Post 27, entitled “The Five Aggregates – How the Universe is Manifested.”
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