If God created the universe, then who created God?

[Gerry]

Originally posted by Freodin
I see another big problem with the "God was not created" thesis.

To solve the logical problem with God and the cause/effect situations in our space/time reference frame, you just put him outside of this frame.

Fine, this solves this problem - but created heaps of new ones.

By putting God outside of everything existing, you have also put him beyond understanding.
We can SAY that he is outside of time and space, but we cannot UNDERSTAND that.

There is HOPE for you yet! You finally have it! Yes God is OUTSIDE of time as we know it, and YES, He is beyond understanding. Keep studying, and soon you will be aware of just how BIG God is! Then you will be praying too. Congratulations. You are on your way to becoming a member of the Family of God!

 

[npetreley]

Originally posted by Freodin
By putting God outside of everything existing, you have also put him beyond understanding.
We can SAY that he is outside of time and space, but we cannot UNDERSTAND that.

Bingo.

So what's the solution? Pretend G~d is other than He is in order to "understand" Him? That would be pretty foolish, don't you think?

So you've got a choice. Either you decide that G~d does not exist, or accept the possibility that He exists and may very well be outside of our full understanding. It's not that He cannot be understood at all -- but that we must make do with what He has chosen to reveal about Himself according to His wisdom.

It all comes down to trust.

 

[Didaskomenos]

Nick, that was your best post ever.

 

[JereReagan]

Once again, easy answer. We are human, we use 10 % of our brain, we cannot understand how God was always there, He is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end... He has no beginning for himself, nor an end.. Hes eternal, spirit, everlasting... He didnt have to be created... We are so use to something being born and something dieing.. God doesnt have that.. We do! So stop trying to understand that, cause you cant, and it will only hurt your faith...

Jere

 

[lithium.]

Everything has a creator, even the singularity that created the big bang. So if there is a god something created him. And I believe we did. We wanted to be center of the universe and the only way to make that possible is to have a powerful god. But That is just (MO). No one else has to agree with it.

 

[Freodin]

Make me wonder if you even use the 10% of your brains, as you claim.

If you (all of you) would have read my post correctly, you would have seen that I did not said "fully understand", but simply "understand".

There is no way to "make do with what he reveals". You cannot understand what is revealed, as you cannot understand if there even is a revelation, as you cannot understand if there even is something that might reveal.

You are talking about an absolute unknowable condition - and yet make assumptions about its nature. You are guessing, nothing more.

 

[lithium.]

I can tell you right now I am only using probably 3% of my brain right now. I need coffee.

 

[npetreley]

Originally posted by JereReagan
Once again, easy answer. We are human, we use 10 % of our brain

I thought it was supposed to be 15%, and I also thought that was a myth. (Actually, it could be true, since I know of several people who I suspect use 0% of their brain...)

 

[Rohatu Bhangaa]

WHAT IT ALL COMES DOWN TO:
We human beings command a very limited knowledge of the world and universe around us. It's fine to speculate about how God might have created the universe, and from what plane of existence, but we can't think about what kinds of conditions our supposed God - infinitely deep, knowing, present, powerful, large, and transcendent - is subject to. We either choose to believe in a Creator of EVERYTHING or we do not.

We can and should try to understand Him, but we can't limit our view of who He is or what He is capable of based on our own finite ideas of Him.

We can't try to put God into boxes. We humans can't build a box big enough for God.

 

[Rohatu Bhangaa]

As far as MAN creating GOD, I'd say that we can't prove one way or the other, especially based on Rhetoric. The question of God is and always will be one based on faith.
However, we might say the God created Man, but Man created most of religion. How about the Pharisees and their limit of the number of steps on the sabbath? In an effort to ensure that people made use of God's beautiful, benevolent, and freedom-conducive day of rest, they used an oppressive standard. We should try to get to know the nature of God, and be wary of flawed interpretations from inherently flawed human beings. Jesus was the ONLY pure revelation God gave us - His presence COULD NOT have been fabricated (only subsequent stories of it). We ought to focus more on Him than on earthly interpretations of religion.

 

[lucaspa]

As far as MAN creating GOD, I'd say that we can't prove one way or the other, especially based on Rhetoric. The question of God is and always will be one based on faith.

I agree that the existence of God is independent of all rhetoric. That is, rhetoric won't cause a deity to disappear if there is one and rhetoric won't cause a deity to appear if one does not exist.

However, I disagree that the question of God is based on faith as you are using the word faith = without evidence. Theists have evidence for the existence of God in the form of personal experiences of individuals. For the apostle Thomas, if the story is correct, his belief in the risen Jesus was not a matter of faith. He had evidence that would convince anyone IF they had his experience. Similarly, if the stories of the Exodus are correct, the Hebrews escaping Egypt did not have "faith" in the existence of Yahweh. They had overwhelming evidence.

The problem is that Thomas' and the Hebrews' evidence is not OUR evidence. We weren't there. So unless we have some experience of our own -- such as Thomas Aquinas or CS Lewis had -- we have no way ourselves to confirm or deny the experience.

We should try to get to know the nature of God, and be wary of flawed interpretations from inherently flawed human beings.

Which is why many of us object to creationism. It fits your definition of "flawed interpretations from inherently flawed human beings"

Jesus was the ONLY pure revelation God gave us - His presence COULD NOT have been fabricated (only subsequent stories of it).

The Jews disagreed. That there was a person named Yeshu ben Joseph that lived and preached in first century Palestine is not disputed. But that this Yeshu is the risen Jesus and a pure revelation of God is said, by Jews, to have been fabricated.

What you have stated is faith, not fact.

 

[Rohatu Bhangaa]

Exactly - His presence could not be denied to those who witnessed It. Only to us, who must choose or choose not to rely on the sources He gave us based on the information that He has learned. But for the writers of the Gospels and all who witnessed, it was an experience they couldn't deny. So I guess you are right about my double standard there! Thanks for pointing it out!

 

[Arikay]

Not to off track this a little bit, but how many writers of the Gospels actually witnessed the events in the bible?

 

[Jet Black]

The problem is that Thomas' and the Hebrews' evidence is not OUR evidence. We weren't there. So unless we have some experience of our own -- such as Thomas Aquinas or CS Lewis had -- we have no way ourselves to confirm or deny the experience.

even "experience" of our own is questionable since there may be alternate explanations. I will try to hunt down an article I read a while ago about people with a certain brain disorder having holy visions....

 

[tcampen]

It simply will not do to create a definition for God that "gets around" the proposed rule that everything that exists must have a cause. Doing this causes the exception to swallow the rule, rendering the rule meaningless.

One could just as easily claim the universe needed no creator via several theories, some better than others. The spontaneous appearance of the pre-universe just prior to the big bang in a perfect vacume has some scientific, observable support, and is gaining more and more credibility within cosmology.

Because god exists as a supernatural force, it is impossible to test, directly observe, predict, quantify or predict God as a cause for the existence of the universe. This is the issue with anything supernatural. There are really no rules to it - anything goes. (Just look at the variety of beliefs regarding the supernatural in the world.) Plus, absolutely nothing about the supernatural can be discredited for the same reasons.

Probabilities, therefore, simply cannot be applied to something like God. It is foolhearty to make a claim like "Any natural explaination is so improbable that it is more likely this supernatural explanation occured," precisely because no probability can be assigned to the supernatural explanation. Until that can be done, one cannot honestly say anything supernatural is more probable that even the most remote of natural explanations.

Thus, saying a God created the universe (based on intellegent design argument, or whatever) is just a probable as a society of Gods created it all, or an eternal, omnipotent slug, or some fifth-grader in a science class who resides in an alternate universe. Anything goes.

 

[Snide]

If God created the universe, then who created God?
Answering the Critics
Jonathan Sarfati
Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal 12(1):20–22, 1998


‘If the universe needs a cause, then why doesn’t God need a cause? And if God doesn’t need a cause,
why should the universe need a cause?’
Everything which has a beginning has a cause.1
The universe has a beginning.
Therefore the universe has a cause.
The universe requires a cause because it had a beginning, as will be shown below. God, unlike the
universe, had no beginning, so doesn’t need a cause. In addition,
Einstein’s general relativity, which has much experimental support, shows
that time is linked to matter and space. So time itself would have begun
along with matter and space. Since God, by definition, is the creator of
the whole universe, he is the creator of time. Therefore He is not limited
by the time dimension He created, so has no beginning in time — God is
‘the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity’ (Is. 57:15). Therefore
He doesn’t have a cause.
In contrast, there is good evidence that the universe had a beginning.
This can be shown from the Laws of Thermodynamics, the most fundamental
laws of the physical sciences.
1st Law: The total amount of mass-energy in the universe is constant.
2nd Law: The amount of energy available for work is running out, or
entropy is increasing to a maximum.
If the total amount of mass-energy is limited, and the amount of usable
energy is decreasing, then the universe cannot have existed forever,
otherwise it would already have exhausted all usable energy — the ‘heat
death’ of the universe. For example, all radioactive atoms would have
decayed, every part of the universe would be the same temperature, and no
further work would be possible. So the obvious corollary is that the
universe began a finite time ago with a lot of usable energy, and is now
running down.
Now, what if the questioner accepts that the universe had a beginning, but
not that it needs a cause? But it is self-evident that things that begin
have a cause — no-one really denies it in his heart. All science and
history would collapse if this law of cause and effect were denied. So
would all law enforcement, if the police didn’t think they needed to find
a cause for a stabbed body or a burgled house. Also, the universe cannot
be self-caused — nothing can create itself, because that would mean that
it existed before it came into existence, which is a logical absurdity.
IN SUMMARY
The universe (including time itself) can be shown to have had a
beginning.
It is unreasonable to believe something could begin to exist without a
cause.
The universe therefore requires a cause, just as Genesis 1:1 and Romans
1:20 teach.
God, as creator of time, is outside of time. Since therefore He has no
beginning in time, He has always existed, so doesn’t need a cause.

OBJECTIONS
There are only two ways to refute an argument:
Show that it is logically invalid
Show that at least one of the premises is false.
a) Is the argument valid?
A valid argument is one where it is impossible for the premises to be true
and the conclusion false. Note that validity does not depend on the truth
of the premises, but on the form of the argument. The argument in this
paper is valid; it is of the same form as: All whales have backbones; Moby
Dick is a whale; therefore Moby Dick has a backbone. So the only hope for
the sceptic is to dispute one or both of the premises.
b) Are the premises true?
1) Does the universe have a beginning?
Oscillating universe ideas were popularized by atheists like the late Carl
Sagan and Isaac Asimov solely to avoid the notion of a beginning, with its
implications of a Creator. But as shown above, the Laws of Thermodynamics
undercut that argument. Even an oscillating universe cannot overcome those
laws. Each one of the hypothetical cycles would exhaust more and more
usable energy. This means every cycle would be larger and longer than the
previous one, so looking back in time there would be smaller and smaller
cycles. So the multicycle model could have an infinite future, but can
only have a finite past.2
Also, there are many lines of evidence showing that there is far too
little mass for gravity to stop expansion and allow cycling in the first
place, i.e., the universe is ‘open’. According to the best estimates (even
granting old-earth assumptions), the universe still has only about half
the mass needed for re-contraction. This includes the combined total of
both luminous matter and non-luminous matter (found in galactic halos), as
well as any possible contribution of neutrinos to total mass.3 Some recent
evidence for an ‘open’ universe comes from the number of light-bending
‘gravitational lenses’ in the sky.4 Also, analysis of Type Ia supernovae
shows that the universe’s expansion rate is not slowing enough for a
closed universe.5,6 It seems like there is only 40-80% of the required
matter to cause a ‘big crunch’. Incidentally, this low mass is also a
major problem for the currently fashionable ‘inflationary’ version of the
‘big bang’ theory, as this predicts a mass density just on the threshold
of collapse — a ‘flat’ universe.
Finally, no known mechanism would allow a bounce back after a hypothetical
‘big crunch’.7 As the late Professor Beatrice Tinsley of Yale explained,
even though the mathematics says that the universe oscillates, ‘There is
no known physical mechanism to reverse a catastrophic big crunch.’ Off the
paper and into the real world of physics, those models start from the Big
Bang, expand, collapse, and that’s the end.8
2) Denial of cause and effect
Some physicists assert that quantum mechanics violates this cause/effect
principle and can produce something from nothing. For instance, Paul
Davies writes:
… spacetime could appear out of nothingness as a result of a quantum
transition. … Particles can appear out of nowhere without specific
causation … Yet the world of quantum mechanics routinely produces
something out of nothing.9
But this is a gross misapplication of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics
never produces something out of nothing. Davies himself admitted on the
previous page that his scenario ‘should not be taken too seriously.’
Theories that the universe is a quantum fluctuation must presuppose that
there was something to fluctuate — their ‘quantum vacuum’ is a lot of
matter-antimatter potential — not ‘nothing’. Also, I have plenty of
theoretical and practical experience at quantum mechanics (QM) from my
doctoral thesis work. For example, Raman spectroscopy is a QM phenomenon,
but from the wavenumber and intensity of the spectral bands, we can work
out the masses of the atoms and force constants of the bonds causing the
bands. To help the atheist position that the universe came into existence
without a cause, one would need to find Raman bands appearing without
being caused by transitions in vibrational quantum states, or alpha
particles appearing without pre-existing nuclei, etc. If QM was as acausal
as some people think, then we should not assume that these phenomena have
a cause. Then I may as well burn my Ph.D. thesis, and all the spectroscopy
journals should quit, as should any nuclear physics research.
Also, if there is no cause, there is no explanation why this particular
universe appeared at a particular time, nor why it was a universe and not,
say, a banana or cat which appeared. This universe can't have any
properties to explain its preferential coming into existence, because it
wouldn't have any properties until it actually came into existence.
Is creation by God rational?
A last desperate tactic by sceptics to avoid a theistic conclusion is to
assert that creation in time is incoherent. Davies correctly points out
that since time itself began with the beginning of the universe, it is
meaningless to talk about what happened ‘before’ the universe began. But
he claims that causes must precede their effects. So if nothing happened
‘before’ the universe began, then (according to Davies) it is meaningless
to discuss the cause of the universe’s beginning.
But the philosopher (and New Testament scholar) William Lane Craig, in a
useful critique of Davies,10 pointed out that Davies is deficient in
philosophical knowledge. Philosophers have long discussed the notion of
simultaneous causation. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) gave the example of a
weight resting on a cushion simultaneously causing a depression in it.
Craig says: The first moment of time is the moment of God's creative act
and of creation's simultaneous coming to be.
Some skeptics claim that all this analysis is tentative, because that is
the nature of science. So this can’t be used to prove creation by God. Of
course, sceptics can't have it both ways: saying that the Bible is wrong
because science has proved it so, but if science appears consistent with the Bible, then well, science is tentative anyway.

The above arguments are perfectly consistent with a recent creation in six consecutive normal days, as taught by Scripture.
REFERENCES
Actually, the word ‘cause’ has several different meanings in philosophy.
But in this article, I am referring to the efficient cause, the chief
agent causing something to be made. Return to text
Novikov, I.D. and Zel’dovich, Ya. B., 1973. Physical Processes Near
Cosmological Singularities. Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics
11:401–2. Return to text
Schramm, D.N. and Steigman, G., 1981. Relic Neutrinos and the Density of
the Universe. Astrophysical Journal 243:1–7. Return to text
Watson, A., 1997. Clusters point to Never Ending Universe. Science
278(5342):1402. Return to text
Perlmutter, S. et al., 1998. Discovery of a supernova explosion at half
the age of the universe. Nature 391(6662):51. Perspective by Branch, D.
Destiny and destiny. Same issue, pp. 23–24. Return to text
Glanz, J. New light on the fate of the universe. Science
278(5339):799–800. Return to text
Guth, A.H. and Sher, M., 1983. The Impossibility of a Bouncing Universe.
Nature 302:505–507. Return to text
Tinsley, B., 1975. From Big Bang to Eternity? Natural History Magazine.
October, pp. 102-5. Cited in Craig, W.L., 1984. Apologetics: An
Introduction ,Chicago: Moody, p. 61. Return to text
Davies, P., 1983. God and the New Physics, Simon & Schuster, p. 215.
Return to text
Craig, W.L., 1986. God, Creation and Mr Davies. Brit. J. Phil. Sci.
37:163–175. Return to text

Psalm 119:160 Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy
righteous judgments endureth for ever.

Most people understand God to be a infinite being. IE: He doesn't have a life cycle like we do, he has no beginning or end.

 

[lucaspa]

Not to off track this a little bit, but how many writers of the Gospels actually witnessed the events in the bible?

Probably none. The gospels are a written form of earlier oral traditions. Which did, allegedly, originate from witnesses.

 

[lucaspa]

even "experience" of our own is questionable since there may be alternate explanations. I will try to hunt down an article I read a while ago about people with a certain brain disorder having holy visions....

The article is about research on other presence conducted by Persinga. And it appeared in the Sunday Supplement of the London Times. Not exactly the peer-reviewed literature. Although Persinga does have peer-reviewed papers on the subject -- but not that particular anecdotal experience.

The possibility of alternate explanations allows you to DOUBT the experience. Since it isn't YOUR experience. However, for Aquinas and Lewis, both very good critical thinkers, they tested all the alternatives they could think of and eliminated them. Since we weren't there, we can't say that they were wrong.

Back to Persinga. What Persinga has done is stimulate a certain section of the brain with very complex electromagnetic fields. When he does that the subjects experience an "other presence". If a strobe operating at a specific sequence was added, ONE person "saw" Jesus.

Now, if you stop and think for a moment, IF deity communicates with people, THEN such communication is going to have to come through the nerves of the brain. IOW, even tho the source of the communication is supernatural, the mechanism of the communication has to be material, because our brains are material. Therefore a deduction is that there should be some kind of pathway that, if stimulated by an exogenous signal, would yield an image in the brain. Just like there is a pattern of nerves that, if stimulated, will cause us to "see" a cloud or bird or whatever even if the signal doesn't come from our eyes. After all, that is what happens in dreams, isn't it?

So, the issue is going to revolve around the nature of the artificial exogenous signal. IF it is something common found in nature -- sunlight, sunspots, wheat germ, brocoli, etc. -- THEN we would be justified in inferring that people are not seeing deity. However, IF the signal is very abtruse and NOT to be encountered in nature, THEN the inferrence is that we have simply found the material method by which God communicates.

Persinga's signals, as I have said, are VERY abtuse and not found in nature at all.

 

[Jet Black]

Everything which has a beginning has a cause.1
The universe has a beginning.
Therefore the universe has a cause.
The universe requires a cause because it had a beginning, as will be shown below. God, unlike the
universe, had no beginning, so doesn’t need a cause.

Show that it is logically invalid
Show that at least one of the premises is false.

an infinite God is not a logical conclusion. one could equally have an infinite something of some type which spawns a universe. we have now removed sentience and a divine being from the equation. neither are testable (yet) but it shows that God is not the logical conclusion to the age old cause and effect debate.

 

[Jet Black]

The article is about research on other presence conducted by Persinga. And it appeared in the Sunday Supplement of the London Times. Not exactly the peer-reviewed literature. Although Persinga does have peer-reviewed papers on the subject -- but not that particular anecdotal experience.

Persinga's signals, as I have said, are VERY abtuse and not found in nature at all.

are you sure that is all it was? Granted I can't remember the source now... part of the problem with 3rd hand sources that you see while looking at something else.