The Catholics have been arguing over this for centuries (St Augustine:who moves the mover?).Their reasoning,though specious,is far more interesting than anything the Borg has to say.
Why doesn't God need a creator, while the Universe does?
by Bloody Hotdogs! 26 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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prologos
Warren Wilson5 minutes ago
The Catholics yeah, if you have three entities in one unit, they can push against each other and generate movement that way. -
maksutov
When I was a JW I would have used special pleading to argue that whatever the first cause was, it had to be eternal, since if everything needs to be created, and someone created God, then that someone was the first cause, not God. We could regress with that argument indefinitely, but as the Bible tells us that God was the first cause and has existed eternally, and the Bible proves its veractiy with unerring prophecy (barf), we can be confident that it is true. As God is supernatural, and invented the laws of physics, he is not himself subject to the laws of physics, and can exist outside of the universe, thus not needing to have a beginning (whereas there is evidence that the universe itself did have a beginning). Ugh, I can't believe I just typed that BS.
westiebillie11: ...I have a circular thought re universe expansion....if it is expanding..what is it expanding in?..ie.what is outside it for it to expand into?....after a while I get a headache!
As for what the universe is expanding into - I think people often misunderstand what 'the universe is expanding' means (not saying you do, but it is easy to get the wrong idea). It does not refer to matter spreading out in space, it refers to space itself getting bigger. Imagine a two dimensional universe by drawing little pictures of stars and galaxies on the surface of a balloon. Then inflate the balloon - the dots and galaxies move away from each other because the balloon (space) is expanding, not because the dots are moving along the surface (that's not to say stars and galaxies don't move through space, they do, but that's not what expansion is about).
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punkofnice
Any JW worth his salt should know the 'biblical(tm)' answer to this. I think the real thing here is that he want's to count time and have a 'doorstep bible study(tm)' to put on his report. With this he can buy salvation from the WBT$.
It's all about counting time.
With any difficult question, the answer is always, 'god did it using special magic.'
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Half banana
Nobody is as yet in a position to say precisely how the universe came to be but God indeed does have a creator. God is the product of the human imagination. -
bohm
Bloody hotdogs!:
Great question! I agree with everyone on this page the argument he present will be special pleading, however you should be aware there are ways to postpone the special pleading which he may pursue.
If you are interested in this type of stuff, you should really check out the christian philosopher William Lane Craig who has done much to popularize this type of argument. The way he would answer the argument would properly be: "Because God is eternal, so it does not make sense to ask where he came from anymore than it makes sense to ask for a square circle".
Now, this does not really answer the underlying point your question raised: "If god can exist eternally why can't the universe (or some other reality)?" and this is in my opinion too a fatal flaw.For this reason the argument is typically presented so as to first establish the universe *is not* eternal but must have had a prior cause -- which can then be god. Notice this shifts the discussion to discussing cosmology and specifically what *cannot* be the case in cosmology rather than presenting a positive argument that god is eternal and created the universe. This is a nearly universal tactic in modern apologetic and I imagine your elder is going to go down that route.
The arguments that the universe is *in fact* not eternal are based on bad physics (a miss-application of the Borde Guth Villenkin theorem or the second law of thermodynamics), bad math (miss-application of transfinite mathematics) or quote-mining (the big bang is often said to be the beginning of the universe so this proves the universe began to exist). Notice these are rhetorically *very* effective arguments and you should be well-prepared to what he might say.
The best way to counter these arguments is that whenever he present and argument why the universe cannot be eternal you must turn it around and ask yourself (and eventually him) how *theism* solves this problem. For instance, he might say the universe cannot be eternal because it would then have to contain an eternal chain of cause and effect and such an actual infinite chain cannot exist because it would be absurd (his reason to think this is absurd does not matter at this point). However if this is absurd, supposedly god has existed for infinitely long time, and thought an infinite number of thoughts, so why does this argument not just rule out God?
At this point even William Lane Craig resorts to special pleading: Because time works different for god than for our universe.
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SecretSlaveClass
I think I was around ten or eleven when I began to ask my mom who made god and the same old, regurgitated explanation was used: Jehovah has no beginning and no end. Even back then it made no sense to me.
I agree with Viv, if a creator didn't need a creator, then why not until proven otherwise accept that the universe came to be without a creator? And along with what Prologos said, a creator existing in a void makes no sense either. Accept what science demonstrates - it all began with a BB or you're just a dog chasing its own tail.
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alanv
Yes for JWs, it is a very simple question. They will just say that God has always been, and just like the concept of time and space, he has no beginning and no end.When I was a JW I would ask a householder where time and space began and where and when would they end. Most people cant answer that, so JWs just say it is the same with God, our brains simply cant understand those concepts. -
punkofnice
the default setting is that god has special magic.
This is more about counting time fro the JW...I'm sure of it.
but it must wait for next time he calls.
Wait...I'm repeating myself...........................it's okay, I'll count the time.
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StephaneLaliberte
No one truly understand what was “before” time and what will be “after” time. Even the big bang doesn’t make sense: All energy was in a microscopic dot before exploding… so, where did that energy come from?
What about life itself, intelligence and self-awareness? I still find it implausible that these things would be the result of evolution. But then, what about God? How did he come to life, become intelligent and self-aware? The only possible answer would be that he lives in an alternate reality where the rules of our universe do not apply. In our universe, things have a beginning, and an end, weather in time or in space.
Hence, I find it reasonable for someone to stop thinking about what was before God. That being said, if there is indeed a God, I would believe that he used evolution as part of his creation process. However, the very acceptance of God as being a possibility does not imply accepting the bible or any religion. Heck, we could wonder if he created the universe and every planet out there. If he came out of the big bang. If there are in fact other God’s like him. Questions can go on and on from this point.