{"id":60599,"date":"2025-03-06T18:57:38","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T23:57:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=60599"},"modified":"2025-03-06T18:58:23","modified_gmt":"2025-03-06T23:58:23","slug":"is-god-dead-but-who-made-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2025\/03\/is-god-dead-but-who-made-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Is God Dead?: But Who Made God?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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We have been standing on the back porch with the Bible skeptic Michael for the last few weeks, gazing at the stars. We have been working our way through the simple argument:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. The universe began to exist.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Therefore, the universe had a cause.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Regarding premise two, \u201cthe universe began to exist,\u201d we have considered the impossibility of walking a timeline from eternity past and ever reaching today. We have also looked at the data from the Hubble telescope indicating the universe is expanding from a tiny beginning point, and we have looked from the Second Law of Thermodynamics that the stars still have fuel to burn. These observations (and others not mentioned here) tell us the universe did begin to exist. \u201cTherefore,\u201d the conclusion suggests, \u201cthe universe had a cause.\u201d This does not tell us that this Cause is the God of Christianity\u2014far from it. But before we look deeper into the nature of this \u201cCause,\u201d we must answer a fundamental question; \u201cwho made the Cause?\u201d It is an important question that bears directly upon the Law of Causality, which is the foundational basis of all scientific discovery. In its pure form, science looks at \u201ceffects\u201d and makes scientific assumptions about their \u201ccauses.\u201d We have all heard of cause and effect. At the ground level, that is what good science is based upon. And from extensive observation throughout science, we know that every effect has a cause. So drives the question, \u201cIf everything that begins to exist has a cause, \u2018who\u2019 caused the Cause?\u201d or, we might ask, \u201cWho created the Creator?\u201d It is a legitimate question, and it deserves an answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    We can say that the first premise does not apply to the First Cause because the Christian claim is that the Cause of the universe did not \u201cbegin\u201d to exist but has always existed in a timeless and spaceless realm. Before the universe was created there was absolutely nothing existing except for the Cause . . . nothing. (Aristotle once defined nothing<\/em> as \u201cthe thing that rocks think about\u201d). At any rate, the Law of Causality applies only to things that \u201cbegin\u201d to exist. That means the First Cause, existed from all eternity outside of space and time because space and time did not exist until the universe came into being. Christian apologist Norman Geisler put it this way; \u201cWhen you get right down to it, there are only two possibilities for anything that exists: 1) it has always existed and is, therefore, uncaused, or 2) it had a beginning and was caused by something else.\u201d That is why Aristotle reasoned there had to be an \u201cunmoved mover\u201d of the universe: a First Cause that exists outside the Law of Causality that caused everything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Although we cannot yet say this is the God of Christianity, we can say some significant things in our conversations with the Bible skeptic, Michael, about what type of Cause the evidence suggests. Paul told the Romans that there are things we can learn about God\u2019s \u201ceternal power and divine nature\u201d based upon what \u201ccan be clearly seen\u201d in nature (Rom 1:19-20). The evidence from nature suggests that the First Cause is beginningless because He is uncaused. Also, we can say that the First Cause is changeless because He exists outside of time. But we can still say more: that the First Cause is immaterial because material things involve changes, at least at the molecular and atomic level, and that the First Cause is timeless. Given that time had a beginning, the cause of time\u2019s beginning must be timeless. The First Cause is spaceless since He transcends both time and space. And we can say that the First Cause is enormously powerful by virtue of creation ex nihilo<\/em> (out of nothing). But more importantly, we can deduce from the evidence so far that the creation of the universe can only be explained by an Agent and his volitions (will). Since an Agent acting to satisfy his will is a personal action, we can say the creation of the universe was a personal<\/em> demonstration of the will <\/em>of the First Cause. Creation ex nihilo<\/em> also eliminates all pantheistic gods since the Creator, and the creation cannot be one and the same. From what we have learned from \u201clooking at the stars,\u201d we can deduce this: there exists an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe, who in relation to the universe, is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless, and enormously powerful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    As we look to new evidence next week in our quest to answer the question, \u201cIs God dead?\u201d I leave you with a sobering thought. In his PhD thesis, the brilliant physicist Steven Hawking argues convincingly that time had a beginning; sadly, he spent the rest of his life trying to disprove what his own conclusion points to. Nonetheless, both atheists and Christians alike come to the same conclusion: it seems that the universe (and time) has not always been here. Robert Jastrow summarizes the significance of the evidence this way: \u201cFor the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Does God exist? And if so, is God dead? The quest for truth continues next week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Gloria in excelsis Deo!<\/em>Ty B. Kerley,<\/strong>DMin.<\/strong>, is an ordained minister who teaches Christian apologetics and relief preaches in Southern Oklahoma.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    We have been standing on the back porch with the Bible skeptic Michael for the last few weeks, gazing at the stars. We have been working our way through the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":60372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60599"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60599"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60600,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60599\/revisions\/60600"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}