Last year while serving as Pastor of Discipleship at Good Shepherd UMC, Methodist Examiner James-Michael Smith was given a series of questions that the Children's Pastor had collected from the kids on various topics related to God, the Bible and the Christian faith. The following question is one that children and adults alike frequently wonder about (and some, such as the outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins, believe to be a proof of God's non-existence):
"Who is the creator of God?"
If everything requires a creator and God created everything, then who created God? And if something created God, then wouldn't that thing be God? And if so, who created that thing that created God?? This leads to an 'infinite regress', which strikes most people as absurd...therefore implying that the concept of God is itself absurd (as Dawkins and co. argue frequently).
However, the absurdity lies not in God's existence, but rather in the question itself. The question commits a basic categorical error because it is based on incorrect assumptions. God (if He exists) is, by definition, uncaused, eternal, and exists apart from the created universe. This is not philosphical sleight-of-hand, as some skeptics claim. Rather, it is a very straightforward claim that rests upon sound logic and good theology.
Everything that begins to exist must have a cause. But if something exists apart from time and space (which God does, if He exists at all) then it does not require a beginning, because 'beginning' is a term that applies to things which exist within the flow of natural time.
Asking "who created God?" is like asking "what is that bachelor's wife's name?" or "how sharp is that circle's corner? It's an illegitimate question. (Not that it's illegitimate for a chlid to ask the question, of course! But once the flawed nature of the question is pointed out and explained, it is certainly illegitimate to insist that it serves to disprove God's existence or show the absurdity of belief in God!)
So, who is the creator of God? No one. Creation is a property that created things have. Eternal things (such as God) require no creator.
A hard answer for our created, time-bound minds to grasp...but a correct answer nonetheless.
For a mind-bending look at the nature of eternity, time and God's nature be sure to check out "Time and Eternity" by William Lane Craig. For a more readable exploration of the issue, see "Beyond the Cosmos" by Hugh Ross.
Comments
Assuming for a moment that I accept you premises, and from my understanding of cosmology it’s not at all certain that the universe either has a beginning or needed a cause, what requires the uncaused cause to be a sentient, omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, personal deity?
I think when atheists ask this question generally this is the point we’re trying to get at. What explanatory power does adding God to the equation grant that say a quantum wave fluctuation or even an impersonal deistic type of god doesn’t? It may be nicer to think of the universe as specially created just for us, but just because something is nice doesn’t make it true.
KarateMonkey,
It is definitely a far cry from "a first cause exists" to "the God of Israel exists". And the purpose of this article isn't to offer a full apologetic. It's simply to show that what some atheists (like Dawkins) offer as their trump card (which he does in his writings) is actually a logically fallacious question to begin with. IF God exists, then God has no creator. That is the point of the article.
OK, fair enough. I've seen enough believers try to make the leap, via a lot of hand waiving, from a first cause exists to my version of God exists. I read the same thing into your article, and that wasn’t fair to you. Looking back I see you did qualify your statements about the nature of God with an “if he exists.”
I'm not so sure I'm completely satisfied with this argument. The complete form would need to start with the definition you are using, something like:" I define a deity as something (a set of things) which is "uncaused, eternal, and exists apart from the created universe". That defines a set of things. One needs to establish that there exists something (an x) such that x is "uncaused, eternal, and exists apart from the created universe". We have no reason to think that set has at least one member.
Further, you assert assumptions that one can question. "Everything that begins to exist must have a cause." How do you know this to be true? In fact, how do you know that anything ever begins to exist (as opposed to being a transformation from an already existing form) or that, even if things do come into existence they have causes? In this case, how do you define a cause? We have the concept of a cause as a mechanism linked relationship between events. I don't see creation as part of this
"So, who is the creator of God? No one. Creation is a property that created things have. Eternal things (such as God) require no creator."
Or alternatively: So, who is the creator of Existence? No one. Existence is a property that things that exist have. Eternal things (such as existence, matter and energy) require no creator.
In fact, we have no data upon which to build testable hypotheses as to existence prior to what we infer was the singularity that resulted in the big bang. We can, of course speculate, make up possible scenarios etc. but without data, which is unavailable, and may never be available, we can do little more. That's not to say we can't keep looking.
IF GOD CREATED THE UNIVERSE, THEN WHO CREATED GOD?
Earlier it was impossible for us to give any satisfactory answer to this question. But modern science, rather we should say that Einstein, has made it an easy task for us. And Stephen Hawking has provided us with the clue necessary for solving this riddle. Actually scientists in their infinite wisdom have already kept the ground well-prepared for us believers so that one day we can give a most plausible and logically consistent answer to this age-old question. Let me first quote from the book “A Brief History of Time” by Stephen Hawking:
“The idea of inflation could also explain why there is so much matter in the universe. There is something like ten million million million million million million million million million million million million million million (1 with eighty zeroes after it) particles in the region of the universe that we can observe. Where did they all come from? The answer is that, in quantum theory, particles can be created out of energy in the form of particle/antiparticle pairs. But that just raises the question of where the energy came from. The answer is that the total energy of the universe is exactly zero.”
Here the question stops. So the clue is this: if we can ultimately arrive at zero, then no further question will be raised, and there will be no infinite regression. What I intend to do here is something similar to that. I want to show that our God is a bunch of several zeroes, and that therefore no further question need be raised about His origin. And here comes Einstein with his special theory of relativity for giving us the necessary empirical support to our project.
God is a Being. Therefore God will have existence as well as essence. So I will have to show that both from the point of view of existence as well as from the point of view of essence God is zero. It is almost a common parlance that God is spaceless, timeless, changeless, immortal, and all-pervading. Here we are getting three zeroes; space is zero, time is zero, change is zero. But how to prove that if there is a God, then that God will be spaceless, timeless, and changeless? From special theory of relativity we come to know that for light both distance and time become unreal. For light even an infinite distance is infinitely contracted to zero. The volume of an infinite universe full of light only will be simply zero due to this property of light. A universe with zero volume is a spaceless universe. Again at the speed of light time totally stops. So a universe full of light only is a spaceless, timeless universe. But these are the properties of light only! How do we come to know that God is also having the same properties of light so that God can also be spaceless, timeless? Scientists have shown that if there is a God, then that God can only be light, and nothing else, and that therefore He will have all the properties of light. Here is the proof.
Scientists have shown that total energy of the universe is always zero. If total energy is zero, then total mass will also be zero due to energy-mass equivalence. Now if there is a God, then scientists have calculated the total energy and mass of the universe by taking into consideration the fact that there is also a God. In other words, if there is a God, then this total energy-mass calculation by the scientists is God-inclusive, not God-exclusive. This is due to two reasons. First of all, even if there is a God, they are not aware of the fact that there is a God. Secondly, they do not admit that there is a God. So, if there is a God, then they have not been able to keep that God aside before making this calculation, because they do not know that there is a God. They cannot say that they have kept Him aside and then made this calculation, because by saying that they will admit that there is a God. At most they can say that there is no God. But we are not going to accept that statement as the final verdict on God-issue, because we are disputing that statement. So the matter of the fact is this: if God is really there, then total mass and total energy of the universe including that God are both zero. Therefore mass and energy of God will also be zero. God is without any mass, without any energy. And Einstein has already shown that anything having zero rest-mass will have the speed of light. In other words, it will be light. So, if God is there, then God will also be light, and therefore He will be spaceless, timeless. So from the point of view of existence God is zero, because he is spaceless, timeless, without any mass, without any energy.
Now we will have to show that from the point of view of essence also God is zero. If there is only one being in the universe, and if there is no second being other than that being, then that being cannot have any such property as love, hate, cruelty, compassion, benevolence, etc. Let us say that God is cruel. Now to whom can He be cruel if there is no other being other than God Himself? So, if God is cruel, then is He cruel to Himself? Therefore if we say that God is all-loving, merciful, benevolent, etc., then we are also admitting that God is not alone, that there is another being co-eternal with God to whom He can show His love, benevolence, goodness, mercy, compassion, etc. If we say that God is all-loving, then we are also saying that this “all” is co-eternal with God. Thus we are admitting that God has not created the universe at all, and that therefore we need not have to revere Him, for the simple reason that He is not our creator!
It is usually said that God is good. But Bertrand Russell has shown that God cannot be good for the simple reason that if God is good, then there is a standard of goodness which is independent of God’s will. Therefore, if God is the ultimate Being, then that God cannot be good. But neither can He be evil. God is beyond good and evil. Like Hindu’s Brahma, a real God can only be nirguna, nirupadhik; without any name, without any quality. From the point of view of essence also, a real God is a zero. Mystics usually say that God is a no-thing. This is the real God, not the God of the scriptures.
So, why should there be any need for creation here, if God is existentially, as well as essentially, zero?
But if there is someone who is intelligent and clever enough, then he will not stop arguing here. He will point out to another infinite regression. If God is light, then He will no doubt be spaceless, timeless, etc. Therefore one infinite regression is thus arrested. But what about the second regression? How, and from whom, does light get its own peculiar properties by means of which we have successfully arrested the first regression? So, here is another infinite regression. But we need not have to worry much about this regression, because this problem has already been solved. A whole thing, by virtue of its being the whole thing, will have all the properties of spacelessness, timelessness, changelessness, deathlessness. It need not have to depend on any other external source for getting these properties. Thus no further infinite regression will be there.
H. S. Pal
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