“The question about God’s existence is not open for discussion. We don’t need God to explain the origins of the universe. Let’s move on with our lives and not concern ourselves with what is an irrelevant waste of time, and unnecessary at best! What I do know,” he says, “is my own life. I can observe reality through my five senses. I have the capacity to reason, to take what I know and organize it into concepts and categories so I can survive and thrive. To that end, I can create value.”
In John’s worldview, there is no need and no room for faith. Ayn Rand was emphatic in one of her published letters.
I regret I have even less sympathy or interest than you have in anything relating to the mystical, to the "other-dimensional," the irrational or "super-rational." (I don't believe there are any such things or realms.) I am an atheist. Therefore, I cannot follow you at all in your definition of why the existence of a finite world presupposes that it was created by God. It doesn't.Dad’s understanding of the Universe was totally different. He said, “At the center of the universe is an omnipotent Designer who created and sustains everything.”
“That just seems so arbitrary,” I said.
Dad startled me. “Arbitrary!” he said, “is exactly what it’s not.” His voice trailed off. “The order in the universe was designed, by an Intelligent Designer, as opposed to chance.”
I knew about Aquinas. At least, I studied the cosmological or “First Cause” argument for God, among others. Since everything was caused by something else, it stands that the universe was caused by something, so the universe itself requires a first cause. That’s God. But it seemed simplistic. “If everything in the universe requires a cause, why is “God” an exception?” I asked.
“That’s why He’s God.”
“If you’re making an exception for God, why does the series of effects and causes stop there? Why couldn’t it stop earlier in the regression, with the appearance of the universe itself?”
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I'm not sure there is a good answer to this question, but it doesn't stop the discussion. There are compelling reasons beyond the origins of the universe to discuss God's activity in the world. As always, I am interested in your thoughts.
3 comments:
The problem is the scientific world does not acknowledge anything that can’t be observed or demonstrated. The religious world can belief anything it wants without proof. Given a choice I choose science, but if all the unknown answers are beyond our observations then science is a closed system. The unknown answers will never be known. I say a middle ground is needed in the form of educated speculation. Instead of the burden of proof be on the speculator let the science world pick it a part they do any ways. If a God were to exist before everything else it would like anything else have to be here before time and space. The only entity that holds true is infinity of potential energy, an entity with the potential to create.
Science has its limits. We are rightly awed by scientific discovery, but we are over-awed when we think it can explain everything we see and experience.
More properly phrased, the philosophical principle is that "anything that has a beginning has a cause." Why does the chain stop at God? Because He has no beginning. Why can't it stop at the universe? Because all evidence points to the universe having a beginning. This is, for example, why Einstein (who did not believe in a creator God) disliked the overwhelming scientific evidence for an expanding universe. He wished for a steady-state universe, so that it might be eternal, and thus uncaused.
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