Questions about G-d: Who Made G-d?

 

I made a short series of videos considering questions about G-d that I have noticed get asked from time to time. Below is a rewriting based on the script for the first video, followed by the video itself.

I hardly know what to say about this question, but it does come up sometimes, and it needs a response.  It seems to arise in response to cosmological arguments for the existence of G-d. The response “Who made G-d then?” seems to be a sort of “Gotcha!” response.  Or maybe it’s an honest question.

Either way, it’s based on a serious misunderstanding of arguments like this. These arguments don’t say that everything needs a cause.  They say that things that do need a cause have one.

G-d does not need a cause.  G-d is the Uncaused Cause, the Unmoved Mover, the Uncreated Creator.

Now you can say that you think there is no such thing as an Uncaused Cause, and hopefully explain why you think that. But there’s no point asking who created the Uncreated Creator or who caused the Uncaused Cause.  It’s a little bit like asking why 3 is a bigger number than 17, or who put all the right angles in a circle.

The first thing is just to understand what Christians (or other classical theists) are talking about when we talk about G-d as the Uncaused Cause.  One good way of putting this is: Most things are caused, and everything that’s caused needs an explanation, and there is no explanation unless there is something that is not caused.

Another good way of putting it is: Everything needs an explanation.  Most things need something else to explain them, but the First Cause or the Uncaused Cause is His own explanation.

And the second thing is to understand why we think this way.  In terms of biblical history and ancient literature, the idea of G-d as the Uncreated Creator comes originally from the Torah.  “In the beginning G-d created the heavens and the earth.” G-d creates by speaking.  He has that kind of power.  “Let there be light.  And there was light.”  He is not creating out of any preexisting matter, like the gods in creation myths of the polytheistic religions of the cultures by which the ancient Hebrews were surrounded.

And He is not Himself a being who comes with a past, a beginning, a backstory like the gods of those creation myths tend to.

And in terms of philosophy, or philosophical theology, there are only a few ways we could possibly try to explain cause and effect.

There are chains of causality—me, my parents, their parents, and so on.  We could say that these chains go on infinitely into the unlimited past. But then there’s no explanation for anything, because every explanation has to come from somewhere, and it can’t come from anywhere if it never begins anywhere. My parents can’t explain me unless they are explained.  If there is no beginning to the chain of cause and effect, nothing is explained: Every supposed explanation is based on the link in the chain before it, but ultimately based on nothing at all, so that nothing is actually explained.

Let me try another way of saying this: My parents cannot explain me unless they are explained, and they cannot be explained unless their parents are explained, and so on. Nothing in a chain of cause and effect is explained except by an explanation that gets passed on from one link to the next.  But if every link in the chain needs an explanation, then no link in the chain has one.

This is the sort of thing Thomas Aquinas is thinking of when he talks about G-d as the First Cause in the beginning of his Summa Theologiae.

It’s a little bit like changing some Hong Kong dollars for some US dollars, changing them for Pakistani rupees, changing them for Kenya shillings, changing them for Emirati dirham, changing those for South African Rand, and continuing indefinitely without ever expecting to change any currency at all for any gold, or even using it to buy a Coca-Cola.

And there are other issues with talking about infinite sets of causes, or scientific evidence that the universe had a beginning such that there was not an infinite amount of time for this to happen in anyway.

Those are all concerns with saying there is an infinite chain of causes.

What are our other options? Well, we could try saying that there is something which is the Cause of Itself, but this makes no sense either. It can’t be caused unless it is not there yet, but it can’t cause itself unless it is there.  So nothing is the Cause of Itself.

And that leaves us with the idea that something is an Uncaused Cause.

Of course, that’s just a beginning.  Proving there is a First Cause does not prove the existence of G-d as such, much less prove that an entire religion like Christianity or Islam or Judaism is true.

The next step might be to argue that the Uncaused Cause is a personal G-d, like my friend Andrew Loke does in one of his books.  Or arguing for a MASSIVE amount of other information about What and Who the First Cause is, like Aquinas does in the rest of his Summa Theologiae.  Or telling the story of how this Creator G-d interacted with his creation, like the Torah and the rest of the Bible does.

Please don’t misunderstand the beginning.

And please don’t stop at the beginning.

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  1. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    FrankTorson (View Comment):

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    FrankTorson (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):


    What SA’s argument really does is create a talisman out of the word “began.” It uses it to refer to stuff changing state, and then applies it to the universe — but without this time referring to stuff changing state, but rather to some other hypothetical origin of stuff from no previous stuff, unlike the earlier examples not a state change at all.

    It’s a rhetorical device, this shifting of meaning, a kind of sophistry.

    Henry, St. Augustine agrees with you in comment #120 where he says, “Nothing comes from nothing,” meaning you can’t create a universe of matter/energy out of nothing. This means that the universe did not begin to exist but has instead always existed.

    That’s not at all correct.

    Nothing is caused by nothing. If there is nothing at all, nothing will come from it. If there is nothing, there will be nothing.

    Something may be made out of nothing. The universe was. It began to exist, and there was no previously existing thing out of which it was made.

    You say, “Nothing comes from nothing.” (comment #120).

    Then you say, “Something may be made out of nothing.” (comment #149).

    It seems like you are trying to have it both ways.

    Plainly I am not. You’re interpreting “Nothing comes from nothing” in one very different way.

    I’m telling you what I mean by it.

    It’s bolded above.

    It’s only what Christians and philosophers have been saying for millenia.

    • #151
  2. FrankTorson Member
    FrankTorson
    @FrankTorson

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    FrankTorson (View Comment):

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    FrankTorson (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):


    What SA’s argument really does is create a talisman out of the word “began.” It uses it to refer to stuff changing state, and then applies it to the universe — but without this time referring to stuff changing state, but rather to some other hypothetical origin of stuff from no previous stuff, unlike the earlier examples not a state change at all.

    It’s a rhetorical device, this shifting of meaning, a kind of sophistry.

    Henry, St. Augustine agrees with you in comment #120 where he says, “Nothing comes from nothing,” meaning you can’t create a universe of matter/energy out of nothing. This means that the universe did not begin to exist but has instead always existed.

    That’s not at all correct.

    Nothing is caused by nothing. If there is nothing at all, nothing will come from it. If there is nothing, there will be nothing.

    Something may be made out of nothing. The universe was. It began to exist, and there was no previously existing thing out of which it was made.

    You say, “Nothing comes from nothing.” (comment #120).

    Then you say, “Something may be made out of nothing.” (comment #149).

    It seems like you are trying to have it both ways.

    Plainly I am not. You’re interpreting “Nothing comes from nothing” in one very different way.

    I’m telling you what I mean by it.

    It’s bolded above.

    It’s only what Christians and philosophers have been saying for millenia.

    We have 2 options.  Something can emerge from nothing, which means a universe could begin to exist from nothing.  Alternatively, nothing can emerge from nothing, which means the universe always existed in some form.  You can’t have both.  

    • #152
  3. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    FrankTorson (View Comment):
    We have 2 options.  Something can emerge from nothing, which means a universe could begin to exist from nothing.  Alternatively, nothing can emerge from nothing, which means the universe always existed in some form.  You can’t have both. 

    It emerges from nothing–if that’s how you insist on using that language.

    The point is it does not emerge uncaused.

    • #153
  4. FrankTorson Member
    FrankTorson
    @FrankTorson

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    FrankTorson (View Comment):
    We have 2 options. Something can emerge from nothing, which means a universe could begin to exist from nothing. Alternatively, nothing can emerge from nothing, which means the universe always existed in some form. You can’t have both.

    It emerges from nothing–if that’s how you insist on using that language.

    The point is it does not emerge uncaused.

    So, are you withdrawing your comment from comment #120, where you say “Nothing comes from nothing?” 

    • #154
  5. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Really, guys, we all know that the universe came into existence after G-d invented the burrito.

    • #155
  6. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    FrankTorson (View Comment):

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    FrankTorson (View Comment):
    We have 2 options. Something can emerge from nothing, which means a universe could begin to exist from nothing. Alternatively, nothing can emerge from nothing, which means the universe always existed in some form. You can’t have both.

    It emerges from nothing–if that’s how you insist on using that language.

    The point is it does not emerge uncaused.

    So, are you withdrawing your comment from comment #120, where you say “Nothing comes from nothing?”

    No, I’m telling you what I mean by it.

    Observe how HR apparently suggests that things might begin uncaused, and how I respond. And observe how I tell you what I mean:

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    Maybe particles really are coming into existence from nothing. We. Don’t. Know.

    Nothing comes from nothing.

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):
    Nothing is caused by nothing. If there is nothing at all, nothing will come from it. If there is nothing, there will be nothing.

    But for Heaven’s sake, if you have trouble using “Nothing comes from nothing” my way, don’t use it. Use any phrasing you can understand to understand what I’m saying.

    Nothing begins uncaused. The universe, which began to exist and was not made out of any preexisting matter, began because it was caused.

    • #156
  7. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Really, guys, we all know that the universe came into existence after G-d invented the burrito.

    No, it came into existence when FORTY-TWO.

    • #157
  8. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Really, guys, we all know that the universe came into existence after G-d invented the burrito.

    No, it came into existence when FORTY-TWO.

    Yep. Forty-two minutes after that first burrito.

    • #158
  9. FrankTorson Member
    FrankTorson
    @FrankTorson

    Saint Augustine (View Comment)

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):
    Nothing is caused by nothing. If there is nothing at all, nothing will come from it. If there is nothing, there will be nothing.

    But for Heaven’s sake, if you have trouble using “Nothing comes from nothing” my way, don’t use it. Use any phrasing you can understand to understand what I’m saying.

    Nothing begins uncaused. The universe, which began to exist and was not made out of any preexisting matter, began because it was caused.

    The idea that the universe could emerge from nothing seems to contradict our experiences.  If you start with neither peanut butter nor chocolate, you don’t end up with a reese’s peanut butter cup.  Based on our observations, it seems far more likely that the universe has always existed in some form or another.  

    • #159
  10. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Really, guys, we all know that the universe came into existence after G-d invented the burrito.

    Out of quantum foam.

    And refried beans.

    • #160
  11. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    FrankTorson (View Comment):

    Saint Augustine (View Comment)

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):
    Nothing is caused by nothing. If there is nothing at all, nothing will come from it. If there is nothing, there will be nothing.

    But for Heaven’s sake, if you have trouble using “Nothing comes from nothing” my way, don’t use it. Use any phrasing you can understand to understand what I’m saying.

    Nothing begins uncaused. The universe, which began to exist and was not made out of any preexisting matter, began because it was caused.

    The idea that the universe could emerge from nothing seems to contradict our experiences. If you start with neither peanut butter nor chocolate, you don’t end up with a reese’s peanut butter cup.

    Nothing begins unless there is a cause sufficient to explain it.

    Based on our observations, it seems far more likely that the universe has always existed in some form or another.

    But it didn’t, apparently.

    • #161
  12. FrankTorson Member
    FrankTorson
    @FrankTorson

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    FrankTorson (View Comment):

    Saint Augustine (View Comment)

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):
    Nothing is caused by nothing. If there is nothing at all, nothing will come from it. If there is nothing, there will be nothing.

    But for Heaven’s sake, if you have trouble using “Nothing comes from nothing” my way, don’t use it. Use any phrasing you can understand to understand what I’m saying.

    Nothing begins uncaused. The universe, which began to exist and was not made out of any preexisting matter, began because it was caused.

    The idea that the universe could emerge from nothing seems to contradict our experiences. If you start with neither peanut butter nor chocolate, you don’t end up with a reese’s peanut butter cup.

    Nothing begins unless there is a cause sufficient to explain it.

    Based on our observations, it seems far more likely that the universe has always existed in some form or another.

    But it didn’t, apparently.

    Or maybe it did.  As Henry has said, we don’t know.  Anyone who says they know doesn’t know what he is talking about.  

    • #162
  13. Django Member
    Django
    @Django

    Percival (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Really, guys, we all know that the universe came into existence after G-d invented the burrito.

    Out of quantum foam.

    And refried beans.

    When men such as Roger Penrose, Stephen Hawking, Paul Davies and others whose names I can’t recall at the moment discuss what might have preceded the Big Bang, I listen attentively if I have time. When others say the Big Bang never occurred, I wonder if I’m listening to some nutcase seeking attention or a super-genius who noticed something no one else did. 

    If the Universe has an estimated age of 13.8B years, what happened at T=0? Something changed, but it doesn’t imply that nothing existed before. It’s just that no one knows what it might have been. Hell, if “simulation theory” is correct, it just means that an unimaginably advanced civilization decided to run its “ancestor simulation” and the program initialized. 

    • #163
  14. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    FrankTorson (View Comment):

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    FrankTorson (View Comment):

    Saint Augustine (View Comment)

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):
    Nothing is caused by nothing. If there is nothing at all, nothing will come from it. If there is nothing, there will be nothing.

    But for Heaven’s sake, if you have trouble using “Nothing comes from nothing” my way, don’t use it. Use any phrasing you can understand to understand what I’m saying.

    Nothing begins uncaused. The universe, which began to exist and was not made out of any preexisting matter, began because it was caused.

    The idea that the universe could emerge from nothing seems to contradict our experiences. If you start with neither peanut butter nor chocolate, you don’t end up with a reese’s peanut butter cup.

    Nothing begins unless there is a cause sufficient to explain it.

    Based on our observations, it seems far more likely that the universe has always existed in some form or another.

    But it didn’t, apparently.

    Or maybe it did. As Henry has said, we don’t know. Anyone who says they know doesn’t know what he is talking about.

    So rebut the argument.

    • #164
  15. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    Django (View Comment):
    If the Universe has an estimated age of 13.8B years, what happened at T=0? Something changed, but it doesn’t imply that nothing existed before.

    Something existed. It just wasn’t the universe.

    • #165
  16. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Django (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Really, guys, we all know that the universe came into existence after G-d invented the burrito.

    Out of quantum foam.

    And refried beans.

    When men such as Roger Penrose, Stephen Hawking, Paul Davies and others whose names I can’t recall at the moment discuss what might have preceded the Big Bang, I listen attentively if I have time. When others say the Big Bang never occurred, I wonder if I’m listening to some nutcase seeking attention or a super-genius who noticed something no one else did.

    If the Universe has an estimated age of 13.8B years, what happened at T=0? Something changed, but it doesn’t imply that nothing existed before. It’s just that no one knows what it might have been. Hell, if “simulation theory” is correct, it just means that an unimaginably advanced civilization decided to run its “ancestor simulation” and the program initialized.

    When I first heard about “quantum foam,” it was an attempt to describe what the conditions were before the Big Bang. The foam somehow collapsed and that created the explosion that created everything else.

    So:

    • Where did the foam come from?
    • What made it collapse.?

    It seems to just push the starting point back.

    • #166
  17. Django Member
    Django
    @Django

    Percival (View Comment):

    Django (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Really, guys, we all know that the universe came into existence after G-d invented the burrito.

    Out of quantum foam.

    And refried beans.

    When men such as Roger Penrose, Stephen Hawking, Paul Davies and others whose names I can’t recall at the moment discuss what might have preceded the Big Bang, I listen attentively if I have time. When others say the Big Bang never occurred, I wonder if I’m listening to some nutcase seeking attention or a super-genius who noticed something no one else did.

    If the Universe has an estimated age of 13.8B years, what happened at T=0? Something changed, but it doesn’t imply that nothing existed before. It’s just that no one knows what it might have been. Hell, if “simulation theory” is correct, it just means that an unimaginably advanced civilization decided to run its “ancestor simulation” and the program initialized.

    When I first heard about “quantum foam,” it was an attempt to describe what the conditions were before the Big Bang. The foam somehow collapsed and that created the explosion that created everything else.

    So:

    • Where did the foam come from?
    • What made it collapse.?

    It seems to just push the starting point back.

    If I understood the idea, the foam just is. Under those proposed conditions, time has no meaning and it’s questionable whether space does. The far-out theorists insist that neither time nor space are fundamental. I would liken it to radioactive decay. When we say that strontium-90 has a half-life of 28.8 years we are claiming that half the atoms in a given amount will decay. We can’t predict which will decay and, strictly speaking, there seems to be no cause for each atom: It just happens to atoms at random. If the quantum foam is unstable, some part of it may transition to space/time/energy. Universe(s) happen(s). 

    • #167
  18. Django Member
    Django
    @Django

    • #168
  19. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    Percival (View Comment):

    When I first heard about “quantum foam,” it was an attempt to describe what the conditions were before the Big Bang. The foam somehow collapsed and that created the explosion that created everything else.

    So:

    • Where did the foam come from?
    • What made it collapse.?

    It seems to just push the starting point back.

    And if space hadn’t begun yet, where was the foam?

    But I can’t personally rule out that the physicists have discovered a concept of place without 3D space. (Philosophers had that one down as early as Plato.)

    Django (View Comment):
    If I understood the idea, the foam just is. Under those proposed conditions, time has no meaning and it’s questionable whether space does. The far-out theorists insist that neither time nor space are fundamental.

    Place without space. Maybe it’s a viable concept.

    And, apparently, change from one state to another but without time.

    Now if this is what HR was talking about–good.  I keep asking what else there might be in the physical universe that we don’t know about, that we can speculate about, that is not in space or in time. I never said no physicist had some kind of an answer. An answer might undermine the kalam cosmological argument nicely.

    • #169
  20. FrankTorson Member
    FrankTorson
    @FrankTorson

    One alternative idea regarding the universe, one that posits that the universe did not have a beginning, is known at the Hourglass Universe.  Instead of the Big Bang, at which point the universe began to exist, there is a Big Bounce, where the universe contracts until it starts expanding again.  Which hypothesis is correct?  We don’t know.  

    • #170
  21. Django Member
    Django
    @Django

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Django (View Comment):
    Theories abound. The most entertaining is “Eternal Inflation”,

    It’s not eternal, though, only since 1912.

    Audit The Fed!!!!

    • #171
  22. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    FrankTorson (View Comment):

    One alternative idea regarding the universe, one that posits that the universe did not have a beginning, is known at the Hourglass Universe. Instead of the Big Bang, at which point the universe began to exist, there is a Big Bounce, where the universe contracts until it starts expanding again. Which hypothesis is correct? We don’t know.

    How small does it shrink? Is there still some finite size?

    • #172
  23. Django Member
    Django
    @Django

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    FrankTorson (View Comment):

    One alternative idea regarding the universe, one that posits that the universe did not have a beginning, is known at the Hourglass Universe. Instead of the Big Bang, at which point the universe began to exist, there is a Big Bounce, where the universe contracts until it starts expanding again. Which hypothesis is correct? We don’t know.

    How small does it shrink? Is there still some finite size?

    Who am I to say that a physics Ph. D. is incompetent in his field? I can’t because I’m not qualified, but I can say that a particular physicist is borderline illiterate. He conflated “Universe” with “visible Universe” and that led to a lot of confusion. If cosmologists believe they have wound back the expansion of the Universe to 1 X 10-36 seconds, then the radius of the visible Universe is how far light could have traveled in that time, i.e., not very far. That says nothing at all about the size of the entire Universe.  

    • #173
  24. FrankTorson Member
    FrankTorson
    @FrankTorson

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    FrankTorson (View Comment):

    One alternative idea regarding the universe, one that posits that the universe did not have a beginning, is known at the Hourglass Universe. Instead of the Big Bang, at which point the universe began to exist, there is a Big Bounce, where the universe contracts until it starts expanding again. Which hypothesis is correct? We don’t know.

    How small does it shrink? Is there still some finite size?

    That’s a great question.  I’m not sure anyone knows the answer to this right now.  

    • #174
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