As against Duhring's appeal to faith, as he gives up hope of being able to explain, scientifically, this process of change from one equilibrium state to another, the materialist dialectic effectively predicted the development of quantum theory, because it is obvious, on the basis of such a dialectic, that matter does not change to energy or from one state to another, spontaneously, without some such process, even if that process has not yet been identified or understood.
“In fact, we would have to see the acme of wisdom not only in the self-mutilation of our generative power, but also in blind, implicit faith, if we allowed ourselves to be put off with these really pitiable and rank subterfuges and circumlocutions. Herr Dühring admits that absolute identity cannot of itself arrive at change. Nor is there any means whereby absolute equilibrium can of itself pass into motion.” (p 67)
What Duhring provides, Engels says, is “three rotten swindles.”
Firstly, unable to provide any mechanism of transition from one steady state to another, Duhring says its also not possible to show the mechanism of transition to any of the intermediate, smaller links in the chain of causation, and yet we observe that such transitions do occur. In other words, he can't explain the process of transition on any scale, but we can observe these small transformations, so we just have to accept, as an article of faith, that it happens. Engels responds.
“The establishment of individual transitions and connections between the tiniest links in the chain of existence is precisely the content of natural science, and when there is anything amiss at some point no one, not even Herr Dühring, thinks of explaining prior motion as having arisen out of nothing, but always only out of a transmission, transformation or propagation of some previous motion. But here the issue is admittedly one of accepting motion as having arisen out of immobility, that is, out of nothing.” (p 68)
One of the reasons Fred Hoyle opposed the Big Bang theory was precisely that it implied the act of creation, of something arising out of nothing, and so implied the existence of a creator, i.e. God.
The second swindle in Duhring's argument is the “bridge of continuity”, a bridge between immobility and mobility, between one steady state to another.
“Unfortunately the continuity of immobility consists in not moving; how therefore it is to produce motion remains more mysterious than ever. And however infinitely small the parts into which Herr Dühring minces his transition from complete non-motion to universal motion, and however long the duration he assigns to it, we have not got a ten-thousandth part of a millimetre further. Without an act of creation we can never get from nothing to something, even if the something were as small as a mathematical differential. The bridge of continuity is therefore not even an asses’ bridge; it is passable only for Herr Dühring.” (p 68)
The third swindle is Duhring's claim that, on this basis, of the existing science, it was impossible to explain the transition from immobility to motion. That wasn't true, even then. It was known that heat is simply a manifestation of the movement of molecules, and the faster their movement the hotter the material. As Engels notes, this was, also, not something from nothing, because the heating of an object was the result of energy from elsewhere.
“and this, Herr Dühring shyly suggests, may possibly furnish a bridge between the strictly static (in equilibrium) and dynamic (in motion). But these processes take place “somewhat in the dark”. And that's where Herr Duhring leaves us - in the dark .” (p 69)
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