Tag Archives: Divine Coherence

Commentary

Answering Richard Dawkins’ question: “Who made God?”

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UPDATE: Welcome visitors from Apologetics 315! Thanks for the link Brian!

Atheists are very uncomfortable with the progress of science in the areas of cosmic origins and cosmological constants. On my friend’s Rick Heller’s blog, he responded to my article on the 6 scientific discoveries that led to the theory that the universe, including all matter, time and space, was created out of nothing.

Here is an excerpt from Rick’s response:

The traditional rebuttal to the First Cause argument is, who created God? That makes a nice point, but I don’t find it entirely convincing, because it contains a complacent acceptance of an uncaused universe.

I think we humans find ourselves unable to resolve the logical paradox–things don’t come into existence without a cause, yet there is no explanation for the first cause. Neither the atheist nor theist views quite hang together.

Richard Dawkins asks a similar question in his book “The God Delusion”. My friend Canbuhay got there first and posted the correct answer. Here is what he said:

The First Cause argument is not simply about how the universe must have a cause because everything else we know about, does. Included in the argument is that whatever must have caused the universe must be unique. Why? Because if everything began at the Big Bang, including time, then whatever caused the Big Bang would have to be outside of time. It could literally have no beginning because there was no such thing as “before” or “beginning” when there was no time.

The atheistic response that there had to be something that caused the causer of the Big Bang cannot adequately account for the time factor.

Whereas, the theistic one can: the causer of the Big Bang is a Deity who lives outside of time.

I got there next and I posted this comment:

There is no physical universe, and no time, causally prior to the Big Bang. That means that whatever causes the universe to exist is not in time, it is outside of time. It is eternal and exists necessarily. It does not “come into being” because that is a time-bound notion. It exists timelessly, and brings the entire universe into being.

Now, you may well ask, “Wintery! What immaterial thing can bring an entire physical universe into being?”. Well the only two non-physical realities that we are aquainted with are abstract objects, such as numbers, or minds. And that is what caused the universe. A big M I N D. Dawkins’ objection of “who made God?” is thus defeated. The universe is contingent, the cause of the universe is not.

Yes, I stole “big M I N D” quote from J.P. Moreland. If you haven’t read his book “Love Your God With All Your Mind”, then you should. My friend Andrew affectionately calls JP’s book LYGWYM (“lig-wim”). JP seems to be going soft lately, just like Ravi Zacharias, who hasn’t written anything useful since “Can Man Live Without God?”. Look how tough JP used to be.

If you don’t like my answer to “Who made God?”, check out Perry Marshall’s answer. He recently debated on the origin of life. I like his ideas, because he is a software engineer, and not a squishyhead. Yes, I stole “squishyhead” from Henry F. Schaefer. Have you ever read his paper on the big bang and who made God? The video is here: part1, part2.

Commentary

Can God make a rock so big he can’t lift it?

5 Comments

Over at Tough Questions Answered, I notice they are putting out a lot of quality work. But they also have some answers for beginners. I am going to be posting two of their beginner answers today, just to make sure we can all answer them. Here is the first question they answered: “Why can’t God make a rock so big he can’t lift it”

This is a common question that is asked by those who misunderstand the nature of God’s omnipotence.  Another humorous way of asking this question is: Can God make a sandwich so big he can’t eat it?  (I owe that jewel to my friend Greg).

You’ll have to go over there for the answer, I’m not telling!

UPDATE: My answer is actually a little different than their answer. My answer would be that a rock that can’t be lifted is self-contradictory. All objects that have mass can be lifted, by definition. So what the questioner is really asking is something like this: “Can God make a married bachelor?” or “Can God make a round square?”. God’s power does not allow him to perform self-contradictory things. That is not a limit on his power – self-contradictory things are nonsense, and no one can do nonsense.