by Don Batten, creation.com
Atheists frequently pose this question to justify their disbelief. Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), a famous British philosopher, in his influential little essay, Why I am not a Christian, put this forward as his first objection.1 Today’s atheists repeat the objection, including Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion) and Australia’s own Philip Adams at the 2010 Global Atheists’ Congress in Melbourne Australia, who said,
“The great argument for God was that there had to be a Creation, a beginning. … But my objection was simple. If God was the beginning who began God?”2
The universe had a beginning; almost no one disputes that, because the laws of thermodynamics demand it: the universe is running down and it cannot have been running down forever, or it would have already run down. No stars would be still churning out energy and we would not be here.
Some have proposed one universe giving birth to another, but again, there cannot be an infinite series of such births and deaths, as each cycle must have less energy available than the last and if this had been happening for eternity, the death of everything would have already happened.
There must have been a beginning
One of the most established principles of logic / science / reality is the principle of causality: something that has a beginning has a sufficient cause. The principle is not, ‘Everything has a cause’; Bertrand Russell misstated it. No, the principle is, ‘Everything that has a beginning has a sufficient cause’. Just a moment’s thought confirms this—something which had no beginning has no need of a cause. Furthermore, a cause has to be sufficient, or adequate. ‘You were found in a cabbage patch’ is not a sufficient explanation for your existence.
This principle of causation is so fundamental that if I said that the chair you are sitting on, which must have had a beginning, just popped into existence without any cause, you might justifiably think I need a psychiatric assessment!
Today’s atheists, who like to use words like ‘rational’, ‘reasonable’ and ‘scientific’ in describing their beliefs, believe that the greatest beginning of all—that of the universe—had no cause whatsoever! Some admit it is a problem, but they claim that saying ‘God did it’ explains nothing because you then have to explain where God came from. But is this a valid objection?
What must the cause of the universe have been like?
The cause of the universe must have been non-material because if the cause was material / natural, it would be subject to the same laws of decay as the universe. That means it would have to have had a beginning itself and you have the same problem as cycles of births and deaths of universes. So the cause of the universe’s beginning must have been super-natural, i.e. non-material or spirit—a cause outside of space-matter-time. Such a cause would not be subject to the law of decay and so would not have a beginning. That is, the cause had to be eternal spirit.
Furthermore, the cause of the universe had to be incredibly powerful; the sheer size and energy seen in the universe together speak of that power; there had to be a sufficient cause.
That sounds like the God of the Bible to me. The Bible reveals the Creator of the universe as:
- eternal
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. (Psalm 90:2)
- all-powerful
Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all. Both riches and honour come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all. (1 Chronicles 29:11–12)
- spirit (non-material)
God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. (John 4:24)
Note that the Bible says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). Here God created time itself. Only One who is outside of time, that is, timeless, or eternal, could do this.
Now to ask where someone who is eternal, someone who had no beginning, came from (‘Who created God?’) is like asking, ‘To whom is the bachelor married?’ It is an irrational question.
The Bible matches reality, which is not surprising when we consider that it claims to be from the Creator Himself.
To Continue Reading Click On Link Below:
Odd that you cite the laws of thermodynamics as if you accept them as truth but then go on to completely misstate or misunderstand them: “Some have proposed one universe giving birth to another, but again, there cannot be an infinite series of such births and deaths, as each cycle must have less energy available than the last”
Wikipedia: “The first law of thermodynamics is a version of the law of conservation of energy, adapted for thermodynamic processes. In general, the conservation law states that the total energy of an isolated system is constant; energy can be transformed from one form to another, but can be neither created nor destroyed.”
In other words, there would be exactly the same amount of energy available to each “new birth” of the Universe as there was for the initial birth, assuming this is how things happened and are happening. Energy and matter are conserved. Energy can be converted to matter (fusion) or matter can be converted to energy (fission) but the total energy and matter is never diminished. Energy can also change forms from potential to kinetic of visa versa or from electricity to light and heat or from chemical to electrical or motion. But at the end of the day there is just as much energy in the system as there was at the beginning of the day.
“
You have addressed the wrong person. PatriotandLiberty posted the article but Don Batten penned it. You can ask your question of him here: https://creation.com/who-created-god.
I’d say it’s a matter of negative entropy, in which all forms have a tendency to disintegrate. There is not enough positive entropy to hold things together. Related to that is Murphy’s Law which says: “what can go wrong, will go wrong”. By the end of the day, energy is not unified enough to do any particular work.
Come to think of it, that’s probably all that dark energy/matter do: they provide a continuum that holds time and energy in place.
No one has yet provided a satisfactory answer to that, that I know of.
Sorry, I meant time and space.
The fact that you are talking about “a law” renders your argument paradoxical. And is ironical given atheists parrot the “who made God” paradox
You speak of explosions and then the appearance of laws, when explosions create chaos not order. The Big Bang is a “scientific” creation myth sold as “truth” to people eager to be deceived.
Similar to abiogenesis and evolution which are mythical theories “propped up”by science because the alternative is unthinkable…….The Creator.
Science doesn’t really know much about anything but definitely knows the Judeo Christian God didn’t do it haha
Thank you Linda. This explains quite satisfactorily those fanciful attempts to explain a self-creation, such as multiple universes, an explanation which I hadn’t seen before.