Could someone please explain this? "Creation exists, so God exists."?

Question

I saw this answer a little while ago(I can't remember what the question was), and I'm totally confused. Isn't this circular logic?

I think the basic premise of the answer was that because we were created, then God must exist. I'm not trying to bash anyone, honest. I'm just curious to understand this.

example: "think of it this way you are here on earth but who made you who made the earth. God did!! therefore if you exist God exists."
My head hurts...I really don't get this. Someone please explain. How does my existence prove God's existence?

Answer 1

No.. The premise is that: Where there is a design, there is a designer.

When you find a work of art, you immediately suspect that there is an artist who made it.

Cicular logic would be: Using fossils to date the rocks they're in, while using rocks to date the fossils contained in them.

It's not just about complexity - it's about IRREDUCIBLE complexity ~ which essentially means that certain mechanisms within a structure would have to be completely formed and intact at the moment of design else the whole model would fail catastrophically. This does not allow for half-formed transitional phases, and thus hints at a Creator.

Answer 2

This seems like an okay answer (see attached site for source):
Q. What do you tell a child that says, “If God created everything, then who created God?”

A. I’d say, “Great question! I’m so glad you’re thinking about important things like God!” Then I’d chase down an expert to get a good answer!


The Case for a Creator: Evidence from Cosmology (5:04)
Actually, a few years ago I was a contributor to a book called Who Made God? One of the book’s general editors, theologian Norman Geisler, boiled down the answer in a way that even a child could comprehend:

“Who made God? No one did. He was not made. He has always existed. Only things that had a beginning – like the world – need a maker. God had no beginning, so God did not need to be made.”

Pretty clear, huh? Of course, much more could be said – and Geisler says it in the book. When I get asked this question, I usually refer to the Kalam Cosmological Argument for the existence of God, which says:

Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
The universe began to exist (as virtually all scientists now concede).
Therefore, the universe had a cause.
As my book The Case for a Creator demonstrates, logic dictates that this cause must be an uncaused, beginningless, timeless, immaterial, personal being endowed with freedom of will and enormous power – all qualities of God.

Then who created God? Well, notice that the Kalam argument doesn’t say that everything has a cause. Only those things which begin to exist need a cause. By definition, God didn’t have a beginning and therefore he needs no cause or creator.

Philosopher William Lane Craig says atheists should have no problem with believing something can be eternal. He points out that until the scientific evidence convinced cosmologists that the universe began to exist at a point in the past, atheists had long maintained that the universe itself was eternal and therefore didn’t need a cause. (see William Lane Craig on www.LeeStrobel.com)

Answer 3

I don't know if it has to be circular, but it is faulty. The assertion makes an assumption that can't be verified, so therefore the conclusion is not necessary valid. It also makes the assumption that God is necessary for creation and that it's not just some complex twist on modern physics that we do not yet understand, like exceptions to conservation of mass. Or, using conservation of mass, there could be antimatter created for every new bit of matter created. This antimatter could be anywhere, not necessarily in a detectable space. Or perhaps no matter was ever created. Christians assert that no one created God because God always existed. Why couldn't a logical person conclude the same about all of the matter in the universe?

Basically, nothing should be concluded from this statement; it neither verifies the existance or absence of God.

Edit: I saw some great discussion below by educated theists, and I appreciate them approaching this question from an objective standpoint. If people refuse to do that, discussion never gets anywhere.

Answer 4

It's the core statement of Natural Theology (the existnece of God proven by nature). What started off as a philisophical idea has now grown to be a scientific thesis. Some of the staples of Natural Theology include the fact that, after dating the earth, measuring the radiation and decay rate of the sun, the Smithsonian Intsitute of Astronomy is unable to conclude why the earth wasn't scorched dry over 2 billion years ago. There is also the "All effects need a cause" statement. The big-bang (if you are an Intelligent Design person, like myself) couldn't logically have created itself. Philisophically, reasonably, and scientifically, every effect requires a cause. Nature is a cause of many things, but it also must be an effect of something. If is the effect of the "big-bang", then what caused the big-bang? Something superceding nature. This also goes with the cosmoligical-kalaam argument, stating that an infinite number of moments can not be traversed. Therefore, time had to have a starting point. Again, every effect requires a cause, so there must be something that exists outside of our understandable time that "caused" time.

Answer 5

One of the answers gives away not only how circular, but how limited this idea is. The answerer alludes to an artist who "creates." We all know what he means, but in truth that's not at all what we mean when we talk about God.

The artists' end products may be "original." But at best what they've done is arrange, or re-arrange, existing materials in new or novel ways. No one expects artists to start with absolutely no materials and wind up with beautiful pictures or statues.

And this is the only type of "creation" we know of where there is a "designer." The point here is to be consistent with your own premises. So if God is like the rest of the "designers," would he then be arranging existing materials? That doesn't quite do it for the "creationists," but they'll just have to come up with something a little more substantial than those not-well thought out arguments.

Answer 6

If I were to go into it, it is debatable and endless. Many people are of the belief that a God does exist and that he created the universe and everything in it. And so for creation to exist, he must exist. Someone must have made it because everything is so perfect: how the planets work, how day fades into night, and how animals in an ecosystem are so dependent on each other.

Others believe there is no God and that the world and creation exists as accident and unpredictable evolution.

These two opposing sides come up with many arguments to prove or disprove the existence of God.

And so your statement belongs to the people who do believe in God. Thus, to say that 'creation exists' then God must exist to 'Create it'.

Answer 7

They probably meant that because life is so complex that it "must have" been created by an intelligent designer.

but check this out from
http://www.godisimaginary.com

Did the complexity of life arise spontaneously, or did it require a creator?

Christians believe that a creator is essential. Scientists believe that the idea of a "creator" is pure mythology, and that the complexity arose through natural processes like evolution. Who is right?

You can actually answer this question yourself with a little logic. Here are the two options:

1. The complexity of life and the universe did arise completely spontaneously and without any intelligence. Nature created all the complexity we see today.

2. An intelligent creator created all of the complexity that we see today because complexity requires intelligence to create it.

The advantage of the first option is that it is self-contained. The complexity arose spontaneously. No other explanation is required.

The problem with the second option is that it immediately creates an impossibility. If complexity cannot arise without intelligence, then we immediately must ask, "Who created the intelligent creator?" The creator could not spring into existence if complexity requires intelligence. Therefore, God is impossible.

In other words, by applying logic, we can prove that God is imaginary.

Answer 8

no; it's not circular logic. it's common sense. it's the law of cause-and-effect: where there is an effect, there must be a cause.

Creation is the effect, so there must be a cause.

Scientists try to say that the Big Bang is the cause -- THAT is circular logic, because the Bang itself is an effect, and therefore must have a cause, one that science is unable to explain.

Christians maintain that God is the Cause; hence the argument, "creation exists, therefore God exists." you could say it, "there is an effect, therefore there must have been a cause."

God does not have a cause -- if He did, then He would be an effect, which means He could not be God. if you use the logic of the law of cause and effect, you come back inevitably to an "uncaused cause." science is unable to provide an "uncaused cause," every physical rule denies this possibility.

only a supernatural being, God, could be such an "uncaused cause."

Answer 9

when u c a house in the middle of the wilderness what does logic tell u? did it just pop up there? nothing happens by chance. someone built that house, right? same with the earth, God's creation.

some say they don't belive what they can't c. but they can't c wind, can they? they know the wind exists through its actions. so is the case with God. we cannot c God, but we can realize that the diversity and complexity of life calls 4 a projectant. just think of the instinct some birds have to travel hundreds of miles accross the globe. who taught them that? evolution? they were programmed by a Programmer. there are so so many other examples. Something created clames a creator.
"Creation exists, so God exists." (leaves move so wind exists)

Answer 10

Easy. According to science all that exists has to have ben created by something. For example: a watch exists because someone made it. A poem exists because someone thought enough to write words down on a sheet of paper [now good poetry is a whole different issue entirely.:)]. You were born because your parents got a little frisky one day/ night and your father planted a seed in your mother's womb.

So, to make a long story short without getting biblical (yes, I do happen to be a Christian) everything had to have a starting point logically. Even creation itself.

Answer 11

The idea is that because there was a creation, there had to be a creator. The only concept of a creator that humans have is God. The problem with the statement is that it implies that creationism is an accepted fact. It is circular logic.