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Copyright © 2001, TruthQuest Publishers
All Rights Reserved. No reproduction of any kind permissible without the expressed written consent of the publisher.
We
have all either asked the question or have been asked it: Who Made God?
Everything we know of has a beginning and was caused to exist by
something else. Everyone reading this article began to exist and was
caused to exist by their parents. But what about God? Who caused Him to
exist and when?
At some time
or another most of us have asked the question, "How did God come to
be?" The question is actually an intelligent one and reveals deep
thought on behalf of the inquirer. Unlike us, God did not have a
beginning. He has always existed. Yet how can this be? What did he do
before He created the heavens and the earth? What was His existence
like?
While these questions may have to remain
unanswered for now, one does not have to know everything about
something in order to be justified in believing it. Of course we want
to be careful not to believe something that is certainly incoherent;
for example, the existence of a married bachelor. Unless you alter
their proper meanings, the terms "married" and "bachelor" can never be
joined.
The terms, "eternal" and "Being" are not incoherent. So we can believe
that God is an eternal Being without fully understanding how this may
be so. But we can go further. An eternal "something" is not only
coherent, it is logically required. Why? There are only two options:
the first thing to exist must either be eternal or it began to exist.
For years scientists believed that the universe was eternal. In 1929,
Edwin Hubble, after whom the Hubble telescope was named, noticed that
the universe appeared to be expanding. This was confirmed in 1965 by
Wilson and Penzias. The Big-Bang theory has since enjoyed acceptance by
the consensus of astronomers.
The current consensus among cosmologists is that with the Big-Bang,
matter, space, and time came into existence. Current thought is that
there was not a cold vacuum of space where one could have watched the
Big-Bang occur, but rather that space came about as a result of the
Big-Bang. Imagine a parking space with a car. The parking space can
exist, being empty when no car occupies it. However, if the parking
space does not exist, neither can the car (in that spot at least).
Neither can time elapse, measuring the existence of the space or the
amount of time the car occupies it.
Everything that begins to exist has a cause. Although this cannot be
proven with absolute certainty, history and common sense affirm it. The
only other option is that something began to exist without a cause.
Although this cannot be ruled out at the outset, not only do we lack
experience and knowledge that this can be the case, but it seems
absurd. Ex nihilo nihil fit is the Latin for out of nothing, nothing
comes. Just as you cannot get blood out of a turnip, you cannot get
something out of nothing. Even the famous Scottish skeptic, David Hume,
wrote, "But allow me to tell you that I never asserted so absurd a
Proposition as that anything might arise without a cause."
The Big-Bang actually creates a tremendous problem for the atheist. If
nothing at all existed prior to the Big-Bang, then what exploded?
Moreover, the atheistic view, that the universe is all there is,
requires that the universe, for no reason, just came into existence out
of nothing. But again, this seems absurd. If the Christian had
postulated such a proposition, he or she would have been laughed out of
court.
The response of atheists to this dilemma has been silence. Atheist philosopher, Quentin Smith writes,
"The
idea that the Big Bang theory allows us to infer that the universe
began to exist about 15 billion years ago has attracted the attention
of many theists. This theory seemed to confirm or at least lend support
to the theological doctrine of creation ex nihilo. Indeed, the
suggestion of a divine creation seemed so compelling that the notion
that "God created the Big Bang" has taken a hold on popular
consciousness and become a staple in the theistic component of
‘educated common sense’. By contrast, the response of atheists and
agnostics to this development has been comparatively lame."
Under
the atheistic worldview, the Big-Bang is problematic. It requires the
atheist to make an incredible "leap of faith," a leap that goes against
experience and common sense. By contrast, although some Christians have
problems with the estimated age of the universe, the Big-Bang theory is
at home within the Christian worldview. We observe that everything that
begins to exist has a cause. The Big-Bang confirms that the universe
began to exist. Therefore, the universe must have been caused.
The skeptic may respond, "If an uncaused beginning is problematic for
the universe, isn’t it problematic for God as well?" Not at all.
Uncaused beginnings are problematic no matter what or Who you may be
talking about. However, while we now know that the universe had a
beginning, no one is claiming that God began to exist.
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