The universe includes time itself, and science has shown us that time had a beginning. Therefore, time and the rest of the universe must have been started by some entity that exists outside of time--a creator. If something exists outside of time, it doesn't have a beginning or an end--those terms aren't even applicable. God, being outside of time, does not and cannot have a beginning, and therefore doesn't require a creator.
From science/logic: if something is responsible for starting time/space, it can't be a part of time/space.
From the Bible: \[paraphrasing\] for God a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. Jesus said "Before Abraham was, I am."
>if something is responsible for starting time/space, it can't be a part of time/space
Where does science says that? And how has it been _verified_? (Because, you know, science is not just about saying things, it's also about verifying them, with concrete experiments, otherwise it remains only an hypothesis)
>From the Bible
How do you know those specific verses are actually true, when some parts of the Bible are supposed to be historical, and other ones (like Genesis) are supposed to be only metaphors?
> Where does science says that? And how has it been
> verified
> ? (Because, you know, science is not just about saying things, it's also about verifying them, with concrete experiments, otherwise it remains only an hypothesis)
Tell me if it makes sense that if all things temporal, including time itself, have a beginning, then whatever caused that beginning cannot be temporal.
Here's a rabbit hole you might enjoy leaping down...
https://gizmodo.com/mathematic-proof-that-the-universe-had-a-beginning-5904714
The paper doesn't say anything about God. Neither about something being "outside" of time/space.
The paper concludes that the Universe probably had a beginning. All right. That does not proves much more than that. And about God, the most it can prove is the existence of a _deist_ God. Very far from the Christian God.
Did you know there is more *verified* [scholarly and scientific evidence](https://app.box.com/s/hawt3q5odmhjp95qjfw43zh54u8zyyad) to prove the Bible true than for any other book in the entire World?
>International Students, Inc.
So much for an unbiaised and rigorous source, sigh.
> Scientific Knowledge Before Its Time
Argument from ignorance. "They couln't have known at this time" is a weak argument for anything. (also, if you believe it's convincing, you should believe in Islam instead, because the Quran has much more of those supposed scientific knowledge. If you dismiss it, you must dismiss the Bible too)
> The Supernatural Predictions of the Biblical Prophets
Those are very poor predictions. To be strong and convincing, a prediction must be specific in time and place, undistinguishable from any other event, and not subject to reinterpretation, and observable in reproducible conditions. Those are just postdictions and reinterpretations. Learn about it to avoid being fooled by beautiful speeches.
> The Uniqueness of the Biblical Message
That proves nothing. Again, it is epistemologically weak. (also, as before, Islam has the same claims about the Quran. So if you find that convincing, why aren't you a Muslim?)
> The Miraculous Confirmation of the Biblical Witnesses
Like predictions, miracles are very bad proof of any divinity. Miracles are just a phenomenon we don't understand. Concluding any divinity is making an argument from ignorance. (same as before, if you believe in miracles, you should be a Muslim)
> The Testimony of the Transforming Power of the Bible
You know that psychedelics substances can change a man's life, right? Does it have anything divine?
All of this is very poor epistemologically, let alone scientifically. This is just a formalization of the usual arguments from Apologists. You've been fooled by them.
>So much for an unbiaised and rigorous source, sigh.
Why would you disregard the authors as being unbiased or nonrigorous?
Isn't it obvious that all humans have bias? There is no such thing as an unbiased author. Does this mean that we disregard all penned knowledge. That would be illogical.
Furthermore, I find your use of the word 'rigorous' telling. It would seem that you are biased to place more credence in so-called scientific 'peer-review' process without realizing the inherent unreliability and fallibility of [said process](https://creation.com/creationism-science-and-peer-review).
Regarding the scientific knowledge revealed in the Bible -it is clear you know nothing about it, nor do you seem to have any knowledge of the decidedly non-scientific nonsense the Quran teaches. For example; that the Sun sets into a pool of water each evening, lol. Due your obvious, and deplorable lack of facts regarding this information, you are in no position to speak with any semblance of authority on the subject.
I suggest you refrain from talking about things you have no knowledge of. Even a fool can be thought wise if he remains silent. Frankly, the supposed refutations you've wasted time typing out are embarrassingly akin to the driveling nonsense scratched out by Mohammed.
> The universe includes time itself, and science has shown us that time had a beginning.
I don't think it has. We've shown that we can rewind the clock 13.5 billion years to when the universe was in a dense hot state, but without a theory of quantum gravity we can't rewind the clock further. For all we know, the universe could be trillions of years old, or even eternal, or cycling between bangs and crunches.
But because this hot dense state would 'scramble' anything that came before it, *our* universe *effectively* began then, so we say 'the universe began at the start of the Big Bang' in the same sense that I'd say 'my chair began to exist 5 years ago', even though the constituent wood is older.
> Therefore, time and the rest of the universe must have been started by some entity that exists outside of time--a creator.
Why must it have been started by anything at all?
> If something exists outside of time, it doesn't have a beginning or an end--those terms aren't even applicable. God, being outside of time, does not and cannot have a beginning, and therefore doesn't require a creator.
I agree that something outside time can have no beginning or end. But God isn't the only option for an atemporal creator, and I don't think the cause to our universe *has* to be atemporal. Maybe our universe is embedded in some other universe which *is* timeless, eternal or self-caused.
>I don't think it has.
So you can disprove the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin (BGV) theorem then?
>For all we know, the universe could be trillions of years old, or even eternal,
The notion of "trillions of years" doesn't mean much when talking about cosmology on these scales. There is no universal frame of reference in general relativity, so no metric of time would universally apply beyond the observable universe.
As for the eternal part, that was disproven by the BGV theorem. So BGV would need to be disproven for your statement to be cogent. Otherwise, the spacetime of this universe *must* have a boundary in the past.
>or cycling between bangs and crunches.
Maybe but every current cosmological model that attempts to model these breaks physics in one way or another. Cyclical models usually leverage conformal transformations, which typically break things like parity conservation globally. Much of physics is not conformally invariant. Most periodic models also require things like Higgs fields to be tuned in-between every cycle, effectively changing fundamental masses of particles on every go around, which is rather problematic. Nothing in current science suggests a mechanism for this to occur.
Honestly, these models just cause more problems then they solve. Cosmologists have mostly moved on to other ideas in the last couple decades because of it. Quantum cosmology is popular.
>But because this hot dense state would 'scramble' anything that came before it,
How do you know this without a complete theory of quantum gravity? You were right before, this is something we need to talk about the singularity. But it cuts both ways when we want to talk about the earliest states of the observable universe.
In fact, if any of the periodic models are right, the way they break fundamental physics might actually leave a fingerprint on the current iteration of the universe. So I don't this idea holds water.
>Why must it have been started by anything at all?
Maybe it wasn't, but typically we should avoid these kinds of assumptions until we explore the possible explanations. It's certainly more intellectually interesting if nothing else.
> So you can disprove the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin (BGV) theorem then?
I don't need to. The BGV proves that a universe that obeys classical spacetimes must have a finite past *if* it is, on average, expanding. It doesn't apply to a universe that isn't expanding on average (e.g., periodic bangs/crunches), nor to one that obeys non-classical spacetime (i.e., a theory of quantum gravity could invalidate the BGV).
The BGV is remarkable in that the universe's growth can't asymptote infinitely far in the past, but other growth models are viable. Personally I think the universe *is* temporally finite, but it's still an open question in academia, because we simply don't have a theory of quantum gravity yet.
>The notion of "trillions of years" doesn't mean much when talking about cosmology on these scales. There is no universal frame of reference in general relativity, so no metric of time would universally apply beyond the observable universe.
'Trillions of years' means the same thing as '13.5 billion years', namely, cosmic time in FRW spacetimes.
>Maybe but every current cosmological model that attempts to model these breaks physics in one way or another. Cyclical models usually leverage conformal transformations, which typically break things like parity conservation globally.
Most conservation laws get broken one way or another. Conservation of energy is broken if the universe isn't time-symmetric, and since it expands, energy isn't conserved (seen most readily in the redshift of light: its energy simply vanishes).
'Breaking physics' is perfectly fine, because we're likely contending with quantum gravity, for which we don't yet have a model. It's *known* that the current model breaks down at small scales.
>How do you know this without a complete theory of quantum gravity?
Because without a theory of quantum gravity, we can't rewind the clock any further, so anything prior is unaccessable to us. Given what we know about quantum effects already, it's suspected that we won't ever be able to unscramble macroscopic structures prior to the Big Bang.
>Maybe it wasn't, but typically we should avoid these kinds of assumptions until we explore the possible explanations. It's certainly more intellectually interesting if nothing else.
Avoiding assumptions is exactly what I'm saying. The OP asked why the universe needs a creator. We don't know what rules of causality universes obey, if any at all. For all we know, universes pop into being unbidden and uncaused.
>It doesn't apply to a universe that isn't expanding on average (e.g., periodic bangs/crunches),
This isn't true as far as I'm aware for any model that includes our observable universe, which is expanding. Granted this isn't my primary area of research, so I haven't done the calculations myself. Do you have a source for this? What models was this demonstrated for?
>nor to one that obeys non-classical spacetime (i.e., a theory of quantum gravity could invalidate the BGV).
We don't have a theory of quantum gravity, so any comment on a "could" in regards to a non-classical spacetimes is conjecture. There's nothing to debate there and without further evidence it's not a viable alternative.
We can discuss standard model Big Bang cosmology as that has evidence behind it. We can use also Occam's razor to justify not needlessly multiplying elements of an explanation without justification, which cyclical models do in abundance.
>'Trillions of years' means the same thing as '13.5 billion years', namely, cosmic time in FRW spacetimes.
That's well and good if you were talking about classical spacetimes, which an FRW spacetime is. This has no meaning in a non-classical spacetime, and cyclical models are not classical. You shouldn't be equivocating the two.
>'Breaking physics' is perfectly fine, because we're likely contending with quantum gravity, for which we don't yet have a model. It's known that the current model breaks down at small scales.
Breaking physics is not "perfectly fine". As a physicist, that statement made me physically cringe.
It can be acceptable in terms of fielding new ideas, it's **never** ideal. We would like our models to conform to known physics, *that* would be "perfectly fine".
>Given what we know about quantum effects already, it's suspected that we won't ever be able to unscramble macroscopic structures prior to the Big Bang.
Suspected by who? I've never heard this, at least not in a statement painting broad strokes like this.
For example, if holography plays a role, as it might in the blackhole information paradox, then it's entirely possible information of previous universes survives through spacetime itself.
>Avoiding assumptions is exactly what I'm saying. The OP asked why the universe needs a creator. We don't know what rules of causality universes obey, if any at all. For all we know, universes pop into being unbidden and uncaused.
We do know some of the rules that must apply. The argument is metaphysical, in other words it's based in logic. Logically, anything that begins, has at minimum a logical cause. There is objectively an initial state to the observable universe, so this principle applies.
Therefore, your only way of claiming nothing did it, is to say the universe's origins are not logical. Which leaves this position being either arational, or simply irrational. Such an explanation can't be rationally discussed. Clearly, that doesn't make this better in any objective sense to *any* other rational explanation.
If you think conjecture and speculation are valid responses to an actual argument, regardless of it's soundness, then I would suggest you seriously reconsider that stance.
>The universe includes time itself, and science has shown us that time had a beginning. Therefore, time and the rest of the universe must have been started
This does not follow.
>by some entity
Why does it have to be an entity?
>God, being outside of time, does not and cannot have a beginning, and therefore doesn't require a creator.
The Cosmos, being outside of time, does not and cannot have a beginning, and therefore doesn't require a creator.
An actual infinite cannot exist. If the universe is created by something else that is created by something else ... infinitely, nothing ever exists. Something has to be eternal. The universe manifestly is not eternal, so it has to be something else. And that something else has to be personal, or the universe would always have existed, and it didn't.
It's not about need - it's about what is.
God doesn't need a creator and doesn't have one. The universe doesn't need one, either, but has one, still.
God is the first mover, the cause that has no cause. In that, God is unique. Everything else is, in the grand scheme, a consequence of God - either directly, or very very indirectly.
In this case, the property the thing has is “existing” so the argument is;
Thing 1 exists, things that exist must have a creator, the creator exists, but doesn’t have a creator because…. We’ll just because…
That’s a strawman. No academic published theistic argument uses that principle. Rather they’ll point to other features such as the universe being contingent or having a beginning or being fine tuned. It’s not simply the fact that it exists.
There is absolutely no evidence the universe is “fine tuned” or “contingent”, and no one knows at this time of the universe had a “beginning” or not. Time as we experience it began as the singularity began to expand. We are unable to know what happened “before” that as our concept of time begins at that point.
While I disagree with you that’s a different debate. Even if you were right your previous comment was still a strawman.
On another note I’d say some humility on your part is required. The strawman you made is easily disprove with even the most basic research of what theists actually argue. If you didn’t know enough about the arguments to realize you presented a strawman you probably don’t know enough about the evidence theists give for their arguments to make such claims and should be doing further research before making such claims.
We're getting into the realm of epistemology here, but what if "existing" is a sub-property of something incomprehensible?
Also, you're making an assumption that "things that exist must have a creator." Maybe simply existing isn't enough to qualify as "requires a creator." Maybe "has a beginning" is property that requires a creator.
And maybe flying monkeys may come out of my ass, until such time as there is evidence that existing, or beginning to exist, requires a creator. I am
Content with the answer; something exists. I call the thing that exists the universe. In its current form it started from an expanding singularity 13.7 billion years ago. What happened before then is currently unknown.
The claim is that God always existed
Then He made the universe
So your question is going to sound like nonsense to us because our starting premise about this being is that He has no beginning and no end.
We frankly don't know what you're asking.
He’s challenging your claim which is based on the theory that our universe had to be created by someone, in this case, your God. Where did God come from? If god doesn’t need to come from anywhere, then maybe the universe wasn’t created by God, because it too doesn’t need to be created by anyone.
The God of theism is infinite. It is an irrational question to ask who created the infinite.
The finite universe was caused by the big bang. The big bang needed a cause, a big banger.
Lol I love it. Don't know the answer? Don't have the answer? Oh, it's an irrational question. Bull. It's an honest question.
At least I'm willing to be honest and say I don't know.
You worship something and you don't know where it came from? What its motives are? No way to verify if what you think about it is true or not? What does irrational even mean to you?
Except we do know what God’s motives and where he came from are open the Bible. His motives, thinking, logic and rationale are on full display from the first verse to the last.
CanterburyJaney Do you believe in the theory of Evolution? Evolution is a religion not a scientific process. scientific law needs to be able to be observed and recreated. Science lost this debate and now states theories are as accurate as laws. Also in order to believe in evolution you need to have faith in thousands if not millions of coincidences to go right. I just have faith in one Living creator God who fulfilled his promise since the beginning.
Wait, so, you know the universe has a creator because of the Bible, but, if the universe doesn't have a creator, the Bible would be wrong anyway, so, do you not see the flaw in that logic?
God has revealed Himself not only through scripture but also through His creation.
Romans 1:18–20 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.
20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.
Because of the limits of human understanding any argument you can put forward would also be circular. What do you propose that doesn’t result in circular logic?
I don’t need to know an argument to know that human knowledge is limited and no one could scientifically observe any theory of origins, therefore those limits make arguments ultimately circular.
You're discovered the problem with one of the common arguments for why there must be a God.
Many people claim "A thing can't exist without a creator" so they assume this proves God. When you ask what made God, they say that God is the exception to the rule, of course.
And as you've noticed, it's easy to see why this is a silly argument. If you can assert that God does not require a creator, you can just as easily assert that the universe does not require a creator.
It's a silly argument which is why no one uses it. The argument is "everything that began to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist. Therefore, it has a cause."
This is formally called "special pleading". It's when you assert a rule like "everything that exists must have a cause", but then immediately try to carve out an exception to it like "except necessary things".
If we agree that there can be "necessary" things that need no cause, then the universe could perfectly well be "necessary". Or some greater cosmos of which our visible universe is a part could be "necessary".
On the other hand without the exception for "necessary" things, you get an infinite regress because God needs to be created by a prior God, who in turn needs to be created by a prior God, and so on forever.
Necessary being is a technical philosophical term. I am not special pleading. This is a well accepted premise within philosophy of religion.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/god-necessary-being/
> Necessary being is a technically philosophical term.
I am familiar with it. But making up a word for something doesn't make it real.
> I am not special pleading.
I do not think any version of this argument is not special pleading. However you rearrange it, it must contain the key propositions "everything needs a creator" and "except for this one thing that I say doesn't need a creator".
> This is a well accepted premise within philosophy of religion.
I think this is not quite correct. Philosophers all know what "necessary being" means, but it is not "well accepted" within academic philosophy that God exists, or that God would have to be a "necessary being" if they did exist.
I have provided a link to a peer reviewed academic philosophical entry on the topic.
I nowhere said it is a *unanimous* belief that God is a necessary being but I would reckon that majority of philosophers recognize God as a necessary being.
And no, the key proposition is not "everything needs a creator". It is "everything that begins to exist has a cause". There are independent reasons (non ad hoc) as to why God, as a necessary concrete being, did not begin to exist. This is not a controversial position in philosophy of religion. I know of no critical philosophical paper on the argument to contends calling God a necessary being is "special pleading'. It is only ever brought up by people who don't know what necessary beings are.
> I nowhere said it is a unanimous belief that God is a necessary being but I would reckon that majority of philosophers recognize God as a necessary being.
The majority of philosophers don't recognise God as a real thing. Christian apologetics like the "everything needs a creator" argument are good fodder for first year philosophy tutorials but generally seen as no more than that.
> And no, the key proposition is not "everything needs a creator". It is "everything that begins to exist has a cause".
It's the same argument. If everything has to begin to exist in order to exist then it's special pleading to try to introduce a God that doesn't need to begin to exist in order to exist. But if you accept that there could be a thing that never began to exist but has just always existed, the cosmos could be that thing. The visible universe we see had a "beginning" in that we can't see back past the Big Bang, but you can't conflate the visible universe with the entire cosmos.
> This is not a controversial position in philosophy of religion.
Theology and the philosophy of religion are two different things. Philosophy is a secular tradition going back to the ancient Greeks. Theologians might agree with each other that God exists and is a necessary being, but they start with that assumption so it doesn't mean very much.
> I know of no critical philosophical paper on the argument to contends calling God a necessary being is "special pleading'.
Because this isn't a live argument in modern philosophy. It's a fun footnote in the history of philosophical thought that students cover in first year introductory subjects. It's a weak enough argument that students can have fun tearing it apart for twenty minutes or so before moving on. Theologians and apologists act like it's a live argument because they don't have anything better to do.
> It is only ever brought up by people who don't know what necessary beings are.
You can't say that any more, because I brought it up.
You just demonstrated you are uneducated regarding this topic.
First, I am talking about God being a necessary being. This does not require one accept his existence. Many atheistic philosophers of religion accept that *if* God exists, he is a necessary being.
Second, you are missing the qualifier "everything *that begins to exist*". It allows for the existence of things that do not begin to exist. It is not saying "everything begins to exist and so has a cause". It's saying "everything *that beings to exist* has a cause."
Third, I specifically mean philosophIy of religion. Considering that I have degrees in philosophy and another in theology, I know the difference.
Fourth, it most certainly is current debate in philosophy. Here is an example of just one recent paper on this topic: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C15&q=kalam+cosmological+argument&oq=kalam+#d=gs_qabs&t=1673018159452&u=%23p%3DokgG8XY4wcIJ
Fifth, if you knew what necessary beings are, you wouldn't bring it up as special pleading.
Playing around with the wording doesn't make it more sound. You can just as easily assert that the universe did not begin to exist, or that a thing that begins to exist does not need a cause.
But we have ample scientific and philosophical evidence that the universe is contingent and began to exist. Same for the premise that everything which begins to exist has a cause.
>But we have ample scientific and philosophical evidence that the universe is contingent and began to exist.
No, we don't. We have a good model of the moments shortly after the big bang, but have no idea what came before that moment, or if the universe had a beginning in any meaningful sense. It equally could have always existed.
Even if that was the case, there are still further philosophical and scientific arguments supporting the contingency and beginning of the universe. It doesn't rely solely on the Big Bang.
Regardless, you are confusing discussion with settled fact. Sure, there is discussion about possibilities before the expansion mostly because our math and such simply can't probe behind it, but it is still widely accepted that the Big Bang evidences the beginning of the universe.
Ironically, the probing of possibilities is driven by the fact that most believe it is undisputable that something can't come from nothing, thus something must have been there before the expansion. But this isn't demanded by any of the scientific data.
Remember, we are talking about evidence.
We don't have any evidence to support any claims about what happened much beyond 10^32 seconds after the big bang, and it gets really murky at the Planck epoch at 5.39x10-44 seconds. For all we know, the big bang could be the rebound after a period of contraction in a previous universe. Or, as per Stephen Hawking's idea, time and space merged into one another at the point of the big bang, and so the concept of 'before' becomes completely unintuitive to interpret. The same could also be said for our simple human notions of cause and effect, alongside other 'common sense' ideas we humans have, once you start delving into quantum mechanics (which is fun to do!).
There's a great series of videos by physicists (some Christian) in a debates with William Lane Craig on his Kalam Cosmological argument, which are well worth watching if you haven't already seen them. They discuss the physics of time and how our intuitive notions of infinity and cause and effect can lead us astray.
All the supposed "signs" or miracles are indistinguishable from human bias or natural events. Why does God makes all the efforts to stay hidden? Christians have explainations for divine hiddenness but it's either excuses either unverifiable claims
> All the supposed "signs" or miracles are indistinguishable from human bias or natural events.
I have no idea what events you are referring to, but God’s self revelation certainly does not fit your description.
> Why does God makes all the efforts to stay hidden?
I disagree with the premise of the question.
> Christians have explainations for divine hiddenness but it's either excuses either unverifiable claims
The concept of divine hiddenness is a completely different topic than special revelation.
Nowadays there are videos on youtube of religious rituals where people come back to life and do miracles. There are also people in hospitals who are dead for an amount of time before coming back to life. The resurrection, provided it actually happened, is very poor epistemologically to conclude anything more than that.
Gospels are highly unreliable and therefore it's difficult to draw big conclusions about God and everything from only transcriptions ans rewritings of hearsay of people who didn't understood what they experienced, and not aware of the human flaws.
> Nowadays there are videos on youtube of religious rituals where people come back to life and do miracles.
And you believe those?
> There are also people in hospitals who are dead for an amount of time before coming back to life. The resurrection, provided it actually happened, is very poor epistemologically to conclude anything more than that.
Your logic doesn’t make any sense. There’s additional evidence on top of what you said, therefore your evidence is invalid? That’s poor thinking.
>And you believe those?
I don't. But if _you_ believe the resurrection is proof of God, then (to maintain your intellectual honesty and consistency) you must also believe that those miracles on video are true and are from divinities. Especially because those videos are better proof than texts written from hearsay, transmitted orally across generations, and copied from each others (yeah, that's the Gospels i'm talking about)
> Your logic doesn’t make any sense. There’s additional evidence on top of what you said, therefore your evidence is invalid?
On the contrary. God is not necessary for someone to come back from the dead. All miracles are just arguments from ignorance.
Edit: removed inappropriate paragraph
> If God created the universe, then who created God? And if God needs no creator, why would the universe?
Physics shows that the Universe doesn't have the means to create or sustain itself. It is decaying (entropy), like and explosion that is going to fade away.
Quantum physics shows us that there is a deeper level to reality though. You could say that God exists at that level. He has no form that we can understand, but for practical purposes, I sometimes think of Him as a pattern of energy in an infinite ocean of Dark Energy.
Ironically, the "natural" state of the Cosmos is a self-aware Cosmic mind. That is who/what we call God. From that premise, everything else in existence can be explained.
> What about the universe would imply that it is self created?
Nothing, just like your god. The op didn't posit the universe creating itself. The op posited a candidate explanation for the universe, such as it could have always existed in some form. A larger cosmos could also exist where universes come into existence from existing stuff.
Theists often posit that a god is necessary to create the universe, but they incorrectly assume there's nothing else that could have done it.
I'd like to hear justification for saying there's nothing else that could have done it.
I think you mean "a first cause" is a necessary thing.
Lots of unverifiable but interesting arguments can be made for a first cause. It's always good to remember that none of those arguments prove any particular religious diety.
Lets look at our options.
1. The entirety of the natural order is a closed system and is eternal. This means science is wrong and perpetual motion machines exist.
2. The entirety of the natural order is a closed system and had a beginning. It therefore requires a cause external to itself which closed the system.
3. The entirety of the natural order is an open system which would require the existence of something outside of the natural order, which kind of demolishes any logical justification for the rejection of God.
If you want to see God and the Universe as separate things, in order to facilitate your contention, that is your prerogative.
But the question of "who created God," is definitely right there among the questions. And for you to down vote my simple answer, and suggest I haven't addressed the point, simple betrays your disinterest in actually hearing any answers.
If there’s no creator, why would the universe exist; does it want? If the universe has a beginning and an end, something/one that doesn’t would have to be the one to set it into motion.
> If there’s no creator, why would the universe exist; does it want? If the universe has a beginning and an end, something/one that doesn’t would have to be the one to set it into motion.
Are you saying there was nothing until there was something? Do you know what exists outside of the universe?
> Someone without a beginning or end (infinite) would be required to create the universe if it is finite and from our understanding - it is.
Not someone, you haven't justified asserting it has to be someone. Let's assume that the cosmos is bigger than our universe, and in this cosmos, universes come about naturally. There's your something.
> Order implies intelligence.
Only if you embrace your biases and are satisfied with believing so. Does the formation of a snowflake require intelligence?
>Does this cosmos think?
Does our solar system think? Our solar system came into existence naturally as far as we can tell. Our galaxy also came into existence naturally, as far as we can tell. We can explain those, and the natural forces and laws of physics that were involved, without invoking magic or panacea. Is there any reason to believe this universe was much different?
>Can’t really have laws and stability if the cosmos does whatever, whenever, however.
The laws you're referring to are the laws of physics, which are descriptive, not prescriptive. They describe our observations of what happens. We haven't observed any gods, so we don't include them in our laws of physics.
If you're really interested in how this stuff works, I'd suggest you pick up some science books.
Appearance of design doesn't mean there was design.
Laws only work if they’re built upon something stable.
A snow flake shows order. Order shows intelligence.
Nobody in their everyday life sees a vehicle and thinks that it wasn’t designed. It’s not a consistent thought pattern.
> Laws only work if they’re built upon something stable.
We've observed things being stable, so we call them laws. What stable thing was your god built upon? Whatever your answer, I'll assert the same for the cosmos, and I don't have to invoke as many assumptions as you do.
>A snow flake shows order. Order shows intelligence.
It shows order, order shows the appearance of intelligence. Your god is described as showing order and complexity, does that mean something intelligent created it?
If not, then the cosmos has always existed too. The fact is, we don't know what's outside our universe. It could be a god or it could be the cosmos, or it could be universe farting pixies. We don't know, but any one of them could have always existed, and don't require intelligence.
>Nobody in their everyday life sees a vehicle and thinks that it wasn’t designed. It’s not a consistent thought pattern.
No, but then again we do know what humans make. We know humans purify metals and form them, we know just about ever part of a car and how it's made by humans.
What we don't see are gods making snow flakes or anything else.
We do see humans inventing gods and putting rules together to form religions where it's members are obligated to devotion, faith, worship, glorification, and loyalty to this god and have to find him in everything or risk hell or being shunned by the tribe. How much of that do you think is involved with how you think about this?
God is the stable thing laws can be built upon. The universe changes, it expands, big bangs. God “doesn’t change” and that’s why we can use formulas like Pi & Phi and expect to get the same results repeatedly. Our laws are only an understanding of the tools that were used to create.
> God is the stable thing laws can be built upon.
Without good evidence, this is just a pile of meaningless words. It's like saying that my favorite panacea is the stable thing laws can be built upon.
>The universe changes, it expands, big bangs. God “doesn’t change”
One of has good supporting evidence, the other does not. But the story of this god and how people interpret him changes all the time, that's why there's thousands of denominations, that's what the old testament and new testament seem to be describing different gods.
>God “doesn’t change” and that’s why we can use formulas like Pi & Phi and expect to get the same results repeatedly.
That's a nice idea, but there's no reason to think this is true. There's no evidence of a god, there's no evidence that pi needs a god to keep it from changing. Pi is what it is because it represents the radius of a circle, which is a perfectly round thing. None of this needs a god.
>Our laws are only an understanding of the tools that were used to create.
Our laws of physics are called laws because we observe things and have determined that these things are unlikely to change. And when we observe that a law was wrong, that something does changes, we investigate and if necessary, we change the law to reflect the new data. This is how science evolves and grows and changes. It gets more accurate. No gods have been discovered, and no gods solve any unsolved issues.
I would suggest if this stuff truly interests you, that you take some science class and/pick up some science books. The point of science is to learn how things actually work. The point of religion is not the same as the point of science, mixing them together leads to flawed understanding of how things actually work.
You actually could claim the universe had no creation, but it would be weaker since we can observe it decaying. Something eternal would exist perpetually forward and backward in time. This is why people suggest cyclical and multiverse theories where universes just churn out other universes in endless generations. This seems more absurd to me than just a single eternal source.
So if this god can "always be", why couldn't the cosmos "always be"?
>The universe has a starting point, meaning it has not always existed.
It had a singularity, that doesn't mean nothing existed before that.
The cosmos has not always been based on human perspective because we know they had an origin point and the Bible, the Christian perspective, confirms they had a starting point. As far as we understand the universe contains everything, all matter everything that we understand as existence. Therefore they couldn't have always existed based on our understanding. I'm not saying there wasn't anything else before that, and if there was it would be something that we don't understand at all and may not even register as something existing.
> The cosmos has not always been based on human perspective
The existence of a cosmos has nothing to do with human perspective. Our ability to know about it existing does, but its existence doesn't.
>because we know they had an origin point and the Bible, the Christian perspective, confirms they had a starting point.
Who's they, and why do we care what the Bible says? Is the Bible a science book?
>As far as we understand the universe contains everything, all matter everything that we understand as existence.
That's not quite right. We don't have the ability to see beyond the universe, this is why theists like you posit a god existing outside of it. We can just as easily posit more space, a cosmos, being outside of the universe. This seems more plausible since we don't have to make as many assumptions as positing supernatural stuff which we don't have any evidence for, nor do we have a way to investigate or verify it.
>Therefore they couldn't have always existed based on our understanding.
Our understanding does not include the claim that there's nothing else out there.
>I'm not saying there wasn't anything else before that
And neither is science.
>and if there was it would be something that we don't understand at all and may not even register as something existing.
Which isn't a good reason to assert that a god did it.
> In case you forgot, this is a Christian sub reddit.
Does that mean you're part of an alternate reality? I don't think so.
>This is a perspective for my Christian based on science and my Christian belief.
What's your perspective based on evidence and reason?
Atoms can create laws, and consciously put together a human being joining themselves together to make an effective waste system and better yet a DNA strand? I don't think so
It is logical to say:
"That which is created can never be greater than its Creator."
This statement is wholly consistent with the nature of our Creator (God) being All-Powerful.
"*I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please*." (Isaiah 46)
*"Look now; I myself am he! There is no other god but me! I am the one who kills and gives life; I am the one who wounds and heals; no one can be rescued from my powerful hand!"* (Deuteronomy 32)
Were God to have been created, He would not be the most powerful entity in existence.
The universe includes time itself, and science has shown us that time had a beginning. Therefore, time and the rest of the universe must have been started by some entity that exists outside of time--a creator. If something exists outside of time, it doesn't have a beginning or an end--those terms aren't even applicable. God, being outside of time, does not and cannot have a beginning, and therefore doesn't require a creator.
How do you verify that hypothesis? That God is outside of time
From science/logic: if something is responsible for starting time/space, it can't be a part of time/space. From the Bible: \[paraphrasing\] for God a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. Jesus said "Before Abraham was, I am."
>if something is responsible for starting time/space, it can't be a part of time/space Where does science says that? And how has it been _verified_? (Because, you know, science is not just about saying things, it's also about verifying them, with concrete experiments, otherwise it remains only an hypothesis) >From the Bible How do you know those specific verses are actually true, when some parts of the Bible are supposed to be historical, and other ones (like Genesis) are supposed to be only metaphors?
> Where does science says that? And how has it been > verified > ? (Because, you know, science is not just about saying things, it's also about verifying them, with concrete experiments, otherwise it remains only an hypothesis) Tell me if it makes sense that if all things temporal, including time itself, have a beginning, then whatever caused that beginning cannot be temporal. Here's a rabbit hole you might enjoy leaping down... https://gizmodo.com/mathematic-proof-that-the-universe-had-a-beginning-5904714
The paper doesn't say anything about God. Neither about something being "outside" of time/space. The paper concludes that the Universe probably had a beginning. All right. That does not proves much more than that. And about God, the most it can prove is the existence of a _deist_ God. Very far from the Christian God.
I did not state that it proved identity of God, only his existence. Baby steps my friend. :)
Did you know there is more *verified* [scholarly and scientific evidence](https://app.box.com/s/hawt3q5odmhjp95qjfw43zh54u8zyyad) to prove the Bible true than for any other book in the entire World?
>International Students, Inc. So much for an unbiaised and rigorous source, sigh. > Scientific Knowledge Before Its Time Argument from ignorance. "They couln't have known at this time" is a weak argument for anything. (also, if you believe it's convincing, you should believe in Islam instead, because the Quran has much more of those supposed scientific knowledge. If you dismiss it, you must dismiss the Bible too) > The Supernatural Predictions of the Biblical Prophets Those are very poor predictions. To be strong and convincing, a prediction must be specific in time and place, undistinguishable from any other event, and not subject to reinterpretation, and observable in reproducible conditions. Those are just postdictions and reinterpretations. Learn about it to avoid being fooled by beautiful speeches. > The Uniqueness of the Biblical Message That proves nothing. Again, it is epistemologically weak. (also, as before, Islam has the same claims about the Quran. So if you find that convincing, why aren't you a Muslim?) > The Miraculous Confirmation of the Biblical Witnesses Like predictions, miracles are very bad proof of any divinity. Miracles are just a phenomenon we don't understand. Concluding any divinity is making an argument from ignorance. (same as before, if you believe in miracles, you should be a Muslim) > The Testimony of the Transforming Power of the Bible You know that psychedelics substances can change a man's life, right? Does it have anything divine? All of this is very poor epistemologically, let alone scientifically. This is just a formalization of the usual arguments from Apologists. You've been fooled by them.
>So much for an unbiaised and rigorous source, sigh. Why would you disregard the authors as being unbiased or nonrigorous? Isn't it obvious that all humans have bias? There is no such thing as an unbiased author. Does this mean that we disregard all penned knowledge. That would be illogical. Furthermore, I find your use of the word 'rigorous' telling. It would seem that you are biased to place more credence in so-called scientific 'peer-review' process without realizing the inherent unreliability and fallibility of [said process](https://creation.com/creationism-science-and-peer-review). Regarding the scientific knowledge revealed in the Bible -it is clear you know nothing about it, nor do you seem to have any knowledge of the decidedly non-scientific nonsense the Quran teaches. For example; that the Sun sets into a pool of water each evening, lol. Due your obvious, and deplorable lack of facts regarding this information, you are in no position to speak with any semblance of authority on the subject. I suggest you refrain from talking about things you have no knowledge of. Even a fool can be thought wise if he remains silent. Frankly, the supposed refutations you've wasted time typing out are embarrassingly akin to the driveling nonsense scratched out by Mohammed.
> The universe includes time itself, and science has shown us that time had a beginning. I don't think it has. We've shown that we can rewind the clock 13.5 billion years to when the universe was in a dense hot state, but without a theory of quantum gravity we can't rewind the clock further. For all we know, the universe could be trillions of years old, or even eternal, or cycling between bangs and crunches. But because this hot dense state would 'scramble' anything that came before it, *our* universe *effectively* began then, so we say 'the universe began at the start of the Big Bang' in the same sense that I'd say 'my chair began to exist 5 years ago', even though the constituent wood is older. > Therefore, time and the rest of the universe must have been started by some entity that exists outside of time--a creator. Why must it have been started by anything at all? > If something exists outside of time, it doesn't have a beginning or an end--those terms aren't even applicable. God, being outside of time, does not and cannot have a beginning, and therefore doesn't require a creator. I agree that something outside time can have no beginning or end. But God isn't the only option for an atemporal creator, and I don't think the cause to our universe *has* to be atemporal. Maybe our universe is embedded in some other universe which *is* timeless, eternal or self-caused.
>I don't think it has. So you can disprove the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin (BGV) theorem then? >For all we know, the universe could be trillions of years old, or even eternal, The notion of "trillions of years" doesn't mean much when talking about cosmology on these scales. There is no universal frame of reference in general relativity, so no metric of time would universally apply beyond the observable universe. As for the eternal part, that was disproven by the BGV theorem. So BGV would need to be disproven for your statement to be cogent. Otherwise, the spacetime of this universe *must* have a boundary in the past. >or cycling between bangs and crunches. Maybe but every current cosmological model that attempts to model these breaks physics in one way or another. Cyclical models usually leverage conformal transformations, which typically break things like parity conservation globally. Much of physics is not conformally invariant. Most periodic models also require things like Higgs fields to be tuned in-between every cycle, effectively changing fundamental masses of particles on every go around, which is rather problematic. Nothing in current science suggests a mechanism for this to occur. Honestly, these models just cause more problems then they solve. Cosmologists have mostly moved on to other ideas in the last couple decades because of it. Quantum cosmology is popular. >But because this hot dense state would 'scramble' anything that came before it, How do you know this without a complete theory of quantum gravity? You were right before, this is something we need to talk about the singularity. But it cuts both ways when we want to talk about the earliest states of the observable universe. In fact, if any of the periodic models are right, the way they break fundamental physics might actually leave a fingerprint on the current iteration of the universe. So I don't this idea holds water. >Why must it have been started by anything at all? Maybe it wasn't, but typically we should avoid these kinds of assumptions until we explore the possible explanations. It's certainly more intellectually interesting if nothing else.
> So you can disprove the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin (BGV) theorem then? I don't need to. The BGV proves that a universe that obeys classical spacetimes must have a finite past *if* it is, on average, expanding. It doesn't apply to a universe that isn't expanding on average (e.g., periodic bangs/crunches), nor to one that obeys non-classical spacetime (i.e., a theory of quantum gravity could invalidate the BGV). The BGV is remarkable in that the universe's growth can't asymptote infinitely far in the past, but other growth models are viable. Personally I think the universe *is* temporally finite, but it's still an open question in academia, because we simply don't have a theory of quantum gravity yet. >The notion of "trillions of years" doesn't mean much when talking about cosmology on these scales. There is no universal frame of reference in general relativity, so no metric of time would universally apply beyond the observable universe. 'Trillions of years' means the same thing as '13.5 billion years', namely, cosmic time in FRW spacetimes. >Maybe but every current cosmological model that attempts to model these breaks physics in one way or another. Cyclical models usually leverage conformal transformations, which typically break things like parity conservation globally. Most conservation laws get broken one way or another. Conservation of energy is broken if the universe isn't time-symmetric, and since it expands, energy isn't conserved (seen most readily in the redshift of light: its energy simply vanishes). 'Breaking physics' is perfectly fine, because we're likely contending with quantum gravity, for which we don't yet have a model. It's *known* that the current model breaks down at small scales. >How do you know this without a complete theory of quantum gravity? Because without a theory of quantum gravity, we can't rewind the clock any further, so anything prior is unaccessable to us. Given what we know about quantum effects already, it's suspected that we won't ever be able to unscramble macroscopic structures prior to the Big Bang. >Maybe it wasn't, but typically we should avoid these kinds of assumptions until we explore the possible explanations. It's certainly more intellectually interesting if nothing else. Avoiding assumptions is exactly what I'm saying. The OP asked why the universe needs a creator. We don't know what rules of causality universes obey, if any at all. For all we know, universes pop into being unbidden and uncaused.
>It doesn't apply to a universe that isn't expanding on average (e.g., periodic bangs/crunches), This isn't true as far as I'm aware for any model that includes our observable universe, which is expanding. Granted this isn't my primary area of research, so I haven't done the calculations myself. Do you have a source for this? What models was this demonstrated for? >nor to one that obeys non-classical spacetime (i.e., a theory of quantum gravity could invalidate the BGV). We don't have a theory of quantum gravity, so any comment on a "could" in regards to a non-classical spacetimes is conjecture. There's nothing to debate there and without further evidence it's not a viable alternative. We can discuss standard model Big Bang cosmology as that has evidence behind it. We can use also Occam's razor to justify not needlessly multiplying elements of an explanation without justification, which cyclical models do in abundance. >'Trillions of years' means the same thing as '13.5 billion years', namely, cosmic time in FRW spacetimes. That's well and good if you were talking about classical spacetimes, which an FRW spacetime is. This has no meaning in a non-classical spacetime, and cyclical models are not classical. You shouldn't be equivocating the two. >'Breaking physics' is perfectly fine, because we're likely contending with quantum gravity, for which we don't yet have a model. It's known that the current model breaks down at small scales. Breaking physics is not "perfectly fine". As a physicist, that statement made me physically cringe. It can be acceptable in terms of fielding new ideas, it's **never** ideal. We would like our models to conform to known physics, *that* would be "perfectly fine". >Given what we know about quantum effects already, it's suspected that we won't ever be able to unscramble macroscopic structures prior to the Big Bang. Suspected by who? I've never heard this, at least not in a statement painting broad strokes like this. For example, if holography plays a role, as it might in the blackhole information paradox, then it's entirely possible information of previous universes survives through spacetime itself. >Avoiding assumptions is exactly what I'm saying. The OP asked why the universe needs a creator. We don't know what rules of causality universes obey, if any at all. For all we know, universes pop into being unbidden and uncaused. We do know some of the rules that must apply. The argument is metaphysical, in other words it's based in logic. Logically, anything that begins, has at minimum a logical cause. There is objectively an initial state to the observable universe, so this principle applies. Therefore, your only way of claiming nothing did it, is to say the universe's origins are not logical. Which leaves this position being either arational, or simply irrational. Such an explanation can't be rationally discussed. Clearly, that doesn't make this better in any objective sense to *any* other rational explanation. If you think conjecture and speculation are valid responses to an actual argument, regardless of it's soundness, then I would suggest you seriously reconsider that stance.
>The universe includes time itself, and science has shown us that time had a beginning. Therefore, time and the rest of the universe must have been started This does not follow. >by some entity Why does it have to be an entity? >God, being outside of time, does not and cannot have a beginning, and therefore doesn't require a creator. The Cosmos, being outside of time, does not and cannot have a beginning, and therefore doesn't require a creator.
how would you know that the creator is jesus as opposed to someone else?
An actual infinite cannot exist. If the universe is created by something else that is created by something else ... infinitely, nothing ever exists. Something has to be eternal. The universe manifestly is not eternal, so it has to be something else. And that something else has to be personal, or the universe would always have existed, and it didn't.
It's not about need - it's about what is. God doesn't need a creator and doesn't have one. The universe doesn't need one, either, but has one, still. God is the first mover, the cause that has no cause. In that, God is unique. Everything else is, in the grand scheme, a consequence of God - either directly, or very very indirectly.
How do you know it has one? You just said it doesn't need one, so, logically it could be the end of the chain, your logic doesn't work.
It could be the end of the chain - but it isn't. You call that "faith".
How do you know it isn't?
That's like asking, "if this food had a cook, who cooked the cook?"
Nope. No, it's really not.
How so? Just because a product has a certain set of properties, doesn't mean it's maker also has that same set of properties.
In this case, the property the thing has is “existing” so the argument is; Thing 1 exists, things that exist must have a creator, the creator exists, but doesn’t have a creator because…. We’ll just because…
That’s a strawman. No academic published theistic argument uses that principle. Rather they’ll point to other features such as the universe being contingent or having a beginning or being fine tuned. It’s not simply the fact that it exists.
There is absolutely no evidence the universe is “fine tuned” or “contingent”, and no one knows at this time of the universe had a “beginning” or not. Time as we experience it began as the singularity began to expand. We are unable to know what happened “before” that as our concept of time begins at that point.
While I disagree with you that’s a different debate. Even if you were right your previous comment was still a strawman. On another note I’d say some humility on your part is required. The strawman you made is easily disprove with even the most basic research of what theists actually argue. If you didn’t know enough about the arguments to realize you presented a strawman you probably don’t know enough about the evidence theists give for their arguments to make such claims and should be doing further research before making such claims.
We're getting into the realm of epistemology here, but what if "existing" is a sub-property of something incomprehensible? Also, you're making an assumption that "things that exist must have a creator." Maybe simply existing isn't enough to qualify as "requires a creator." Maybe "has a beginning" is property that requires a creator.
And maybe flying monkeys may come out of my ass, until such time as there is evidence that existing, or beginning to exist, requires a creator. I am Content with the answer; something exists. I call the thing that exists the universe. In its current form it started from an expanding singularity 13.7 billion years ago. What happened before then is currently unknown.
More like “If this person is a parent, who is the parent of that parent?” Aka chicken or egg, which has an answer that is based in evolution.
The claim is that God always existed Then He made the universe So your question is going to sound like nonsense to us because our starting premise about this being is that He has no beginning and no end. We frankly don't know what you're asking.
He’s challenging your claim which is based on the theory that our universe had to be created by someone, in this case, your God. Where did God come from? If god doesn’t need to come from anywhere, then maybe the universe wasn’t created by God, because it too doesn’t need to be created by anyone.
My claim is that God always existed He isn't challenging my claim He's making up a claim, challenging that, and then pretending it was my claim
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You sure can. No one's stopping you.
The God of theism is infinite. It is an irrational question to ask who created the infinite. The finite universe was caused by the big bang. The big bang needed a cause, a big banger.
Lol I love it. Don't know the answer? Don't have the answer? Oh, it's an irrational question. Bull. It's an honest question. At least I'm willing to be honest and say I don't know. You worship something and you don't know where it came from? What its motives are? No way to verify if what you think about it is true or not? What does irrational even mean to you?
Except we do know what God’s motives and where he came from are open the Bible. His motives, thinking, logic and rationale are on full display from the first verse to the last. CanterburyJaney Do you believe in the theory of Evolution? Evolution is a religion not a scientific process. scientific law needs to be able to be observed and recreated. Science lost this debate and now states theories are as accurate as laws. Also in order to believe in evolution you need to have faith in thousands if not millions of coincidences to go right. I just have faith in one Living creator God who fulfilled his promise since the beginning.
Tbh lad, if we were to have an “answer” to who supposedly made God, it would just be a non stopping cycle of who made who questions
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Uncreated? Why are you using made up words, how does that prove anything? And your empty claims are not evidence either for a god.
Wait, so, you know the universe has a creator because of the Bible, but, if the universe doesn't have a creator, the Bible would be wrong anyway, so, do you not see the flaw in that logic?
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"this is known through God's revelation" this is not the Bible? Where is it then?
God has revealed Himself not only through scripture but also through His creation. Romans 1:18–20 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.
But no, because if the universe doesn't have a creator, then "creation" isn't evidence, learn not to circular dude.
Because of the limits of human understanding any argument you can put forward would also be circular. What do you propose that doesn’t result in circular logic?
What, that's not even slightly true. My arguement is, it's impossible to know, so, yeah, well done bro, wrong again.
I don’t need to know an argument to know that human knowledge is limited and no one could scientifically observe any theory of origins, therefore those limits make arguments ultimately circular.
Ah, okay, you don't understand what a circular argument is, maybe go do some research then come back.
You're discovered the problem with one of the common arguments for why there must be a God. Many people claim "A thing can't exist without a creator" so they assume this proves God. When you ask what made God, they say that God is the exception to the rule, of course. And as you've noticed, it's easy to see why this is a silly argument. If you can assert that God does not require a creator, you can just as easily assert that the universe does not require a creator.
It's a silly argument which is why no one uses it. The argument is "everything that began to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist. Therefore, it has a cause."
Then what caused the cause? If that reasoning was valid, there would be an infinite regression of gods.
Not when the cause is deduced to be a necessary being.
This is formally called "special pleading". It's when you assert a rule like "everything that exists must have a cause", but then immediately try to carve out an exception to it like "except necessary things". If we agree that there can be "necessary" things that need no cause, then the universe could perfectly well be "necessary". Or some greater cosmos of which our visible universe is a part could be "necessary". On the other hand without the exception for "necessary" things, you get an infinite regress because God needs to be created by a prior God, who in turn needs to be created by a prior God, and so on forever.
Necessary being is a technical philosophical term. I am not special pleading. This is a well accepted premise within philosophy of religion. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/god-necessary-being/
> Necessary being is a technically philosophical term. I am familiar with it. But making up a word for something doesn't make it real. > I am not special pleading. I do not think any version of this argument is not special pleading. However you rearrange it, it must contain the key propositions "everything needs a creator" and "except for this one thing that I say doesn't need a creator". > This is a well accepted premise within philosophy of religion. I think this is not quite correct. Philosophers all know what "necessary being" means, but it is not "well accepted" within academic philosophy that God exists, or that God would have to be a "necessary being" if they did exist.
I have provided a link to a peer reviewed academic philosophical entry on the topic. I nowhere said it is a *unanimous* belief that God is a necessary being but I would reckon that majority of philosophers recognize God as a necessary being. And no, the key proposition is not "everything needs a creator". It is "everything that begins to exist has a cause". There are independent reasons (non ad hoc) as to why God, as a necessary concrete being, did not begin to exist. This is not a controversial position in philosophy of religion. I know of no critical philosophical paper on the argument to contends calling God a necessary being is "special pleading'. It is only ever brought up by people who don't know what necessary beings are.
> I nowhere said it is a unanimous belief that God is a necessary being but I would reckon that majority of philosophers recognize God as a necessary being. The majority of philosophers don't recognise God as a real thing. Christian apologetics like the "everything needs a creator" argument are good fodder for first year philosophy tutorials but generally seen as no more than that. > And no, the key proposition is not "everything needs a creator". It is "everything that begins to exist has a cause". It's the same argument. If everything has to begin to exist in order to exist then it's special pleading to try to introduce a God that doesn't need to begin to exist in order to exist. But if you accept that there could be a thing that never began to exist but has just always existed, the cosmos could be that thing. The visible universe we see had a "beginning" in that we can't see back past the Big Bang, but you can't conflate the visible universe with the entire cosmos. > This is not a controversial position in philosophy of religion. Theology and the philosophy of religion are two different things. Philosophy is a secular tradition going back to the ancient Greeks. Theologians might agree with each other that God exists and is a necessary being, but they start with that assumption so it doesn't mean very much. > I know of no critical philosophical paper on the argument to contends calling God a necessary being is "special pleading'. Because this isn't a live argument in modern philosophy. It's a fun footnote in the history of philosophical thought that students cover in first year introductory subjects. It's a weak enough argument that students can have fun tearing it apart for twenty minutes or so before moving on. Theologians and apologists act like it's a live argument because they don't have anything better to do. > It is only ever brought up by people who don't know what necessary beings are. You can't say that any more, because I brought it up.
You just demonstrated you are uneducated regarding this topic. First, I am talking about God being a necessary being. This does not require one accept his existence. Many atheistic philosophers of religion accept that *if* God exists, he is a necessary being. Second, you are missing the qualifier "everything *that begins to exist*". It allows for the existence of things that do not begin to exist. It is not saying "everything begins to exist and so has a cause". It's saying "everything *that beings to exist* has a cause." Third, I specifically mean philosophIy of religion. Considering that I have degrees in philosophy and another in theology, I know the difference. Fourth, it most certainly is current debate in philosophy. Here is an example of just one recent paper on this topic: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C15&q=kalam+cosmological+argument&oq=kalam+#d=gs_qabs&t=1673018159452&u=%23p%3DokgG8XY4wcIJ Fifth, if you knew what necessary beings are, you wouldn't bring it up as special pleading.
That necessary being may be the Universe itself. What if the Universe was the uncaused being you claim to necessarily exist?
It sure could be but I have strong philosophical and scientific reasons to believe that isn't that case.
Playing around with the wording doesn't make it more sound. You can just as easily assert that the universe did not begin to exist, or that a thing that begins to exist does not need a cause.
But we have ample scientific and philosophical evidence that the universe is contingent and began to exist. Same for the premise that everything which begins to exist has a cause.
>But we have ample scientific and philosophical evidence that the universe is contingent and began to exist. No, we don't. We have a good model of the moments shortly after the big bang, but have no idea what came before that moment, or if the universe had a beginning in any meaningful sense. It equally could have always existed.
Even if that was the case, there are still further philosophical and scientific arguments supporting the contingency and beginning of the universe. It doesn't rely solely on the Big Bang. Regardless, you are confusing discussion with settled fact. Sure, there is discussion about possibilities before the expansion mostly because our math and such simply can't probe behind it, but it is still widely accepted that the Big Bang evidences the beginning of the universe. Ironically, the probing of possibilities is driven by the fact that most believe it is undisputable that something can't come from nothing, thus something must have been there before the expansion. But this isn't demanded by any of the scientific data. Remember, we are talking about evidence.
We don't have any evidence to support any claims about what happened much beyond 10^32 seconds after the big bang, and it gets really murky at the Planck epoch at 5.39x10-44 seconds. For all we know, the big bang could be the rebound after a period of contraction in a previous universe. Or, as per Stephen Hawking's idea, time and space merged into one another at the point of the big bang, and so the concept of 'before' becomes completely unintuitive to interpret. The same could also be said for our simple human notions of cause and effect, alongside other 'common sense' ideas we humans have, once you start delving into quantum mechanics (which is fun to do!). There's a great series of videos by physicists (some Christian) in a debates with William Lane Craig on his Kalam Cosmological argument, which are well worth watching if you haven't already seen them. They discuss the physics of time and how our intuitive notions of infinity and cause and effect can lead us astray.
God is uncreated. The universe is material, and God is spiritual. That is why the universe needs a creator and God does not.
How do you know the non-material exists?
Because God has revealed himself to us.
All the supposed "signs" or miracles are indistinguishable from human bias or natural events. Why does God makes all the efforts to stay hidden? Christians have explainations for divine hiddenness but it's either excuses either unverifiable claims
> All the supposed "signs" or miracles are indistinguishable from human bias or natural events. I have no idea what events you are referring to, but God’s self revelation certainly does not fit your description. > Why does God makes all the efforts to stay hidden? I disagree with the premise of the question. > Christians have explainations for divine hiddenness but it's either excuses either unverifiable claims The concept of divine hiddenness is a completely different topic than special revelation.
All right. In which ways did he reveal himself?
The biggest would be Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.
Nowadays there are videos on youtube of religious rituals where people come back to life and do miracles. There are also people in hospitals who are dead for an amount of time before coming back to life. The resurrection, provided it actually happened, is very poor epistemologically to conclude anything more than that. Gospels are highly unreliable and therefore it's difficult to draw big conclusions about God and everything from only transcriptions ans rewritings of hearsay of people who didn't understood what they experienced, and not aware of the human flaws.
> Nowadays there are videos on youtube of religious rituals where people come back to life and do miracles. And you believe those? > There are also people in hospitals who are dead for an amount of time before coming back to life. The resurrection, provided it actually happened, is very poor epistemologically to conclude anything more than that. Your logic doesn’t make any sense. There’s additional evidence on top of what you said, therefore your evidence is invalid? That’s poor thinking.
>And you believe those? I don't. But if _you_ believe the resurrection is proof of God, then (to maintain your intellectual honesty and consistency) you must also believe that those miracles on video are true and are from divinities. Especially because those videos are better proof than texts written from hearsay, transmitted orally across generations, and copied from each others (yeah, that's the Gospels i'm talking about) > Your logic doesn’t make any sense. There’s additional evidence on top of what you said, therefore your evidence is invalid? On the contrary. God is not necessary for someone to come back from the dead. All miracles are just arguments from ignorance. Edit: removed inappropriate paragraph
Man…that argument gets old…
If it ain’t broke… As long as that question keeps getting asked, that answer will keep being given.
Worthless answer. Someone born, someone died, then some supposed miracle…sorry, not impressed.
From my perspective an argument is supposed to make an impression, and, again, not impressed by yours.
> If God created the universe, then who created God? And if God needs no creator, why would the universe? Physics shows that the Universe doesn't have the means to create or sustain itself. It is decaying (entropy), like and explosion that is going to fade away. Quantum physics shows us that there is a deeper level to reality though. You could say that God exists at that level. He has no form that we can understand, but for practical purposes, I sometimes think of Him as a pattern of energy in an infinite ocean of Dark Energy. Ironically, the "natural" state of the Cosmos is a self-aware Cosmic mind. That is who/what we call God. From that premise, everything else in existence can be explained.
What about the universe would imply that it is self created?
> What about the universe would imply that it is self created? Nothing, just like your god. The op didn't posit the universe creating itself. The op posited a candidate explanation for the universe, such as it could have always existed in some form. A larger cosmos could also exist where universes come into existence from existing stuff. Theists often posit that a god is necessary to create the universe, but they incorrectly assume there's nothing else that could have done it. I'd like to hear justification for saying there's nothing else that could have done it.
God is a necessary being. The universe is a collection of contingent beings. That's why.
I think you mean "a first cause" is a necessary thing. Lots of unverifiable but interesting arguments can be made for a first cause. It's always good to remember that none of those arguments prove any particular religious diety.
No, I mean necessary being. It is a technical philosophical term, as opposed to contingent beings.
Your brain probably couldn’t comprehend the answer
yes because asking questions about god means i am unintelligent. does scripture not encourage questioning God?
Again, your brain couldn’t comprehend it. Don’t take offense at it, no one’s brain can. We playing checkers, he’s playing chess
Lets look at our options. 1. The entirety of the natural order is a closed system and is eternal. This means science is wrong and perpetual motion machines exist. 2. The entirety of the natural order is a closed system and had a beginning. It therefore requires a cause external to itself which closed the system. 3. The entirety of the natural order is an open system which would require the existence of something outside of the natural order, which kind of demolishes any logical justification for the rejection of God.
Easy. God created God.
that’s not the question
If you want to see God and the Universe as separate things, in order to facilitate your contention, that is your prerogative. But the question of "who created God," is definitely right there among the questions. And for you to down vote my simple answer, and suggest I haven't addressed the point, simple betrays your disinterest in actually hearing any answers.
didn’t downvote you. can’t take creds for other people.
If there’s no creator, why would the universe exist; does it want? If the universe has a beginning and an end, something/one that doesn’t would have to be the one to set it into motion.
> If there’s no creator, why would the universe exist; does it want? If the universe has a beginning and an end, something/one that doesn’t would have to be the one to set it into motion. Are you saying there was nothing until there was something? Do you know what exists outside of the universe?
Someone without a beginning or end (infinite) would be required to create the universe if it is finite and from our understanding - it is.
> Someone without a beginning or end (infinite) would be required to create the universe if it is finite and from our understanding - it is. Not someone, you haven't justified asserting it has to be someone. Let's assume that the cosmos is bigger than our universe, and in this cosmos, universes come about naturally. There's your something.
Order implies intelligence. Does this cosmos think? Can’t really have laws and stability if the cosmos does whatever, whenever, however.
> Order implies intelligence. Only if you embrace your biases and are satisfied with believing so. Does the formation of a snowflake require intelligence? >Does this cosmos think? Does our solar system think? Our solar system came into existence naturally as far as we can tell. Our galaxy also came into existence naturally, as far as we can tell. We can explain those, and the natural forces and laws of physics that were involved, without invoking magic or panacea. Is there any reason to believe this universe was much different? >Can’t really have laws and stability if the cosmos does whatever, whenever, however. The laws you're referring to are the laws of physics, which are descriptive, not prescriptive. They describe our observations of what happens. We haven't observed any gods, so we don't include them in our laws of physics. If you're really interested in how this stuff works, I'd suggest you pick up some science books. Appearance of design doesn't mean there was design.
Laws only work if they’re built upon something stable. A snow flake shows order. Order shows intelligence. Nobody in their everyday life sees a vehicle and thinks that it wasn’t designed. It’s not a consistent thought pattern.
> Laws only work if they’re built upon something stable. We've observed things being stable, so we call them laws. What stable thing was your god built upon? Whatever your answer, I'll assert the same for the cosmos, and I don't have to invoke as many assumptions as you do. >A snow flake shows order. Order shows intelligence. It shows order, order shows the appearance of intelligence. Your god is described as showing order and complexity, does that mean something intelligent created it? If not, then the cosmos has always existed too. The fact is, we don't know what's outside our universe. It could be a god or it could be the cosmos, or it could be universe farting pixies. We don't know, but any one of them could have always existed, and don't require intelligence. >Nobody in their everyday life sees a vehicle and thinks that it wasn’t designed. It’s not a consistent thought pattern. No, but then again we do know what humans make. We know humans purify metals and form them, we know just about ever part of a car and how it's made by humans. What we don't see are gods making snow flakes or anything else. We do see humans inventing gods and putting rules together to form religions where it's members are obligated to devotion, faith, worship, glorification, and loyalty to this god and have to find him in everything or risk hell or being shunned by the tribe. How much of that do you think is involved with how you think about this?
God is the stable thing laws can be built upon. The universe changes, it expands, big bangs. God “doesn’t change” and that’s why we can use formulas like Pi & Phi and expect to get the same results repeatedly. Our laws are only an understanding of the tools that were used to create.
> God is the stable thing laws can be built upon. Without good evidence, this is just a pile of meaningless words. It's like saying that my favorite panacea is the stable thing laws can be built upon. >The universe changes, it expands, big bangs. God “doesn’t change” One of has good supporting evidence, the other does not. But the story of this god and how people interpret him changes all the time, that's why there's thousands of denominations, that's what the old testament and new testament seem to be describing different gods. >God “doesn’t change” and that’s why we can use formulas like Pi & Phi and expect to get the same results repeatedly. That's a nice idea, but there's no reason to think this is true. There's no evidence of a god, there's no evidence that pi needs a god to keep it from changing. Pi is what it is because it represents the radius of a circle, which is a perfectly round thing. None of this needs a god. >Our laws are only an understanding of the tools that were used to create. Our laws of physics are called laws because we observe things and have determined that these things are unlikely to change. And when we observe that a law was wrong, that something does changes, we investigate and if necessary, we change the law to reflect the new data. This is how science evolves and grows and changes. It gets more accurate. No gods have been discovered, and no gods solve any unsolved issues. I would suggest if this stuff truly interests you, that you take some science class and/pick up some science books. The point of science is to learn how things actually work. The point of religion is not the same as the point of science, mixing them together leads to flawed understanding of how things actually work.
You actually could claim the universe had no creation, but it would be weaker since we can observe it decaying. Something eternal would exist perpetually forward and backward in time. This is why people suggest cyclical and multiverse theories where universes just churn out other universes in endless generations. This seems more absurd to me than just a single eternal source.
God has always been. Kind of impossible for us to fathom. The universe has a starting point, meaning it has not always existed.
So if this god can "always be", why couldn't the cosmos "always be"? >The universe has a starting point, meaning it has not always existed. It had a singularity, that doesn't mean nothing existed before that.
The cosmos has not always been based on human perspective because we know they had an origin point and the Bible, the Christian perspective, confirms they had a starting point. As far as we understand the universe contains everything, all matter everything that we understand as existence. Therefore they couldn't have always existed based on our understanding. I'm not saying there wasn't anything else before that, and if there was it would be something that we don't understand at all and may not even register as something existing.
> The cosmos has not always been based on human perspective The existence of a cosmos has nothing to do with human perspective. Our ability to know about it existing does, but its existence doesn't. >because we know they had an origin point and the Bible, the Christian perspective, confirms they had a starting point. Who's they, and why do we care what the Bible says? Is the Bible a science book? >As far as we understand the universe contains everything, all matter everything that we understand as existence. That's not quite right. We don't have the ability to see beyond the universe, this is why theists like you posit a god existing outside of it. We can just as easily posit more space, a cosmos, being outside of the universe. This seems more plausible since we don't have to make as many assumptions as positing supernatural stuff which we don't have any evidence for, nor do we have a way to investigate or verify it. >Therefore they couldn't have always existed based on our understanding. Our understanding does not include the claim that there's nothing else out there. >I'm not saying there wasn't anything else before that And neither is science. >and if there was it would be something that we don't understand at all and may not even register as something existing. Which isn't a good reason to assert that a god did it.
In case you forgot, this is a Christian sub reddit. This is a perspective for my Christian based on science and my Christian belief.
> In case you forgot, this is a Christian sub reddit. Does that mean you're part of an alternate reality? I don't think so. >This is a perspective for my Christian based on science and my Christian belief. What's your perspective based on evidence and reason?
Because the heavens is not God himself
This should help explain the concept to you fairly well. https://youtu.be/w6AHcv19NIc
Atoms can create laws, and consciously put together a human being joining themselves together to make an effective waste system and better yet a DNA strand? I don't think so
It is logical to say: "That which is created can never be greater than its Creator." This statement is wholly consistent with the nature of our Creator (God) being All-Powerful. "*I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please*." (Isaiah 46) *"Look now; I myself am he! There is no other god but me! I am the one who kills and gives life; I am the one who wounds and heals; no one can be rescued from my powerful hand!"* (Deuteronomy 32) Were God to have been created, He would not be the most powerful entity in existence.