Would God have to have had a creator? Am I "copping out" by saying he is beyond phsics?

Question

Secular science has put forth quite a few theories as to the origins of our universe, but all of them have the problem of the singularity; that is the single point of existance right before the beginnig of our universe. The problem with attempting to offer a scientific explanation for our universe is that whatever caused our universe to exist, (the singularity, if you will,) existed before our universe, and obviously, before our universal laws of physics. In order to try to rectify this, scientists have put forth theories such as "string theory" and that of a "dimension of infiniti". The funny thing is that these theories are simply renaming God and taking away his personality. All of them, however, agree that there has to be something of an infinite nature which existed before our universe. So why is it a cop out to say that God need not have had a creator?

And before you go there, I did not say anything about Jesus or Christianity, (although I am a Christian,) so please don't even go there in a vain attempt to change the subject...

String theory can be tested? Hahahahaahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...

At least someone actually read the entire question though...

Once again with the "God had to have had a creator" thing...

WHATEVER MAKES YOU SLEEP AT NIGHT.

Answer 1

Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God

This argument states that there must be an effect for every cause, and God must be that Cause.

1. The series of events in time is a collection formed by adding one member (moment) after another.
2. A collection formed by adding one member (moment) after another cannot be actually infinite.
Conclusion: The series of events (moments) in time cannot be actually infinite.


Syllogism 1:
Every effect has a cause.
The universe is an effect.
There cannot be an infinite regress of cause, and effects.
There must be an Uncaused Cause.

Syllogism 2:
Everything that moves must have a mover.
The universe is moving.
There cannot be an infinite regress of cause, and effects.
There must be an Unmoved Mover.

Syllogism 3 (Kalam):
Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
The universe began to exist.
The universe has a cause (God).

Teleological Argument

This argument states that the order of the universe evidences intelligent design rather than chaotic chance. Therefore, there must be a designer.

Syllogism
If there is design, there must be a designer.
The universe in all its parts has a design.
There must be an Un-designed Designer

Answer 2

The atheist Bertrand Russell wrote in his book "Why I am Not a Christian" that if it is true that all things need a cause then God must also need a cause. He concluded from this that if God needed a cause then God was not God (and if God is not God then of course there is no God). This was basically a slightly more sophisticated form of the childlike question, "Who made God?" Even a child knows that things do not come from nothing, so if God is a "something" then He must have a cause as well, right?



The question is tricky because it sneaks in the false assumption that God came from somewhere and then asks where that might be. The answer is that the question does not even make sense. It is like asking, "What does blue smell like?" Blue is not in the category of things that have odor, so the question itself is flawed. In the same way, God is not in the category of things that are created, or come into existence, or are caused. God is uncaused and uncreated - He simply exists.



How do we know this? Well, we know that from nothing, nothing comes. So if there was ever a time when there was absolutely nothing in existence then nothing would have ever come to exist. But things do exist. Therefore, since there could never have been absolutely nothing, something had to have always been existing. That ever-existing thing is what we call God.

Recommended Resource: Knowing God by J.I. Packer.

Answer 3

You're still stuck in that circle... you're assuming that God is the singularity, and you mold his shape as that gap of knowledge gets smaller and smaller. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's what you said here:

"The funny thing is that these theories are simply renaming God and taking away his personality."

You're also wrong when you say this:
" All of them, however, agree that there has to be something of an infinite nature which existed before our universe."
None of them agree on this... we do not yet know what existed before the universe, and there's no way to find out... so we cannot assume that it was the Christian God.

It's a cop-out to say that God need not have a creator because, QED, it's special pleading.

Answer 4

I offer you a Qabalistic explanation which may or may not satisfy you, but it explains the origins of the Universe which, to me, correlates science with creationism. The singularity is Ain -- No-thing, unknowable, Qabalistically. From Ain emerged, following the effort to escape which is unimaginable to us, a Primal Ray (Original Consciousness, God, or the Big Bang), Qablistically designated Ain Soph (limitless or scientifically potential space); the evolution of creation resulted in Ain Soph Aur and the emergence, in the physical plane, of hydrogen (the first element). Qabalistically, God is the Limitless Light and crestes via the utterance of the Hebrew alphabet (*the Word), but that is the allegorical explanation of creativity. Scientifically, the singularity is as unknowable as Ain; it may have been the collapse of a previous Universe, which only begs the question: what came before that? There are questions which are, at least currently, unanswerable, and why the Universe exists is one of them!

Answer 5

To say that god transcends physics is a cop-out. There were physics before the big-bang, just kinda wacky physics.

Try researching quantum fluctuation. Something can come from nothing, fairly easily.

Also, research the string theory. There are some cyclic universe models that refute your ideas.

Edit: Wow. You have no idea what you're talking about. String theory is a mathematical definition, god is some kind of ambiguous gap-filler. String theory is an attempt to define something through rational means. Technically speaking, it is still the string hypothesis, however, because it hasn't yet been proven. At least it makes logical sense.

Answer 6

Of course theories can be tested. That is the difference between science and faith. If string theory proves to be unsupportable it will be discarded, in the same way that Lamarkian theory was discarded.

As for the creator issue: if we assume one, we must assume an infinity of them, each one more clever than the one before, because the creator must be wiser or more knowing than the thing created. If we go back to this invisible guy in the sky as the creator of the universe, or multiverse, or whatever we have here, then what created him? It becomes an infinite regression. To the logical, rational mind, there is no need to theorize a creator. I can sleep fine at night knowing it just is.

EDIT: the post prior to mine demonstrates a series of logical flaws. One of the commonest is to mistake "evidence of design" for "appearance of design." Appearance is not evidence. Again, to presuppose a design is to require a designer, and now we begin that infinite regression again. These syllogisms are intellectual mind games but they are proof of nothing.

Answer 7

Science is funny. We can not even explain how an atom exists or even if quarks exists out side the therory part of it. We want answers to all the questions weather there right or wrong. You should take a look at the realitivity of applied math. this can make your head spin on it's own. The therories applied in space do not apply on earth or visa versa.
If you think of a thought, are you not the creator.If you apply that thought did you not create it your self?
If at the begining god had a thought and acted upon it to create it. Or better yet if god was the thought and acted upon it's self to create it, then would he not be the begining? Then created the realms of heaven and spiritual realms , then the physical realms with in rules in which they could exist?
We meger humans think we can profile anything. We often get it wrong be we always say we are close.
Rule one is love unconditionally not just your self but all his creations. Perfection is his job, or goal is to try and live with it.
Science has only rescently excepted that energy is constantly changing but always there. You never loss it, it just changes.

Answer 8

YES YOU ARE COPPING OUT. THE PROBLEM IS HOW CAN SOMETHING COMPLEX "JUST EXIST"? saying it was created by a prior greater complexity is obviously a huge coppout.

Complexity, what we mathematicians call Kolmogorov complexity, is a measure of the number of ways a system could be other than it is. If you claim an infinitely complex god, you are claiming a context free being which just happens to be infinitely unlikely as it could be otherwise in infinitely many ways.

WHY DOES YOUR INFINITELY UNLIKELY BEING "JUST EXIST"?

The problem with the design hypothesis is that it cannot explain the origin of complexity. Presupposing a prior greater complexity only makes a bigger problem or leads to infinite regression.

Just saying there was a single big bang which was the result of random chance is not a viable solution either. That does not solve the complexity issue either.

The only viable solution to the complexity problem is that reality as a whole is profoundly simple. This requires that our universe is just one of an infinite number of realities and that our universe is selected by our existence. Reality as a whole must be simple otherwise you need to ask why is it not otherwise. And there can be no reason because reality as a whole includes everything so no explaination outside it is then possible.

Given that reality as a whole is simple, how does the complexity we observe come about. The answer is obvious, our existence selects a locally complex region from the simple whole. Only in locally complex subsets of reality can we exist.

How does the simple whole come about you ask? It must be necessary since there is nothing external to it. What could that be? What do we know that is necessarily true and tautologically simple? I only know one thing: mathematics.

Answer 9

Your description of the big bang and before is not quite accurate. The big bang was not the beginning of the universe, but the beginning of space-time. The big bang does not address what went before. Your claim that it is god is unsupported conjecture, which may or may not be correct, but which is completely irrelevant to any scientific understanding, which is the context that you yourself set. Why is it a cop out to say that god did not need a creator? It is a cop out because you make unreasonable and non-scientific demands on science which you claim that your own conclusion. god, need not comply with because of the fact that nothing about god requires any supporting evidence.

Answer 10

Actually, several theories are also in place that could explain even the singularity. They will be tested in the next few years. So check back.

No, string theory is NOT god. String theory can be tested. God cannot.

If you're suggesting some ultimate intelligence, then yes, it had to have come from something else by your own arguments for why you need a god in the first place. But if you want physical laws, what you get are physical laws.