Who Created God? | What Makes This Answer GREAT?

who created God? If you ask that question, it shows you've immediately categorized

God as creator. I'm absolutely amazed at the fact that this question, this kind of question still floats around, especially on social media, which actually

I shouldn't be surprised. He's pointing out why this challenge is a huge L.

It's a fundamental mistake in logic. To ask this question is to show that you do not understand the issue.

I think a lot of people who wield this question, particularly as a weapon, don't realize that it swings back around and hits them too.

John Lennox, one of the most popular living Christian apologists, answers a question about who created

God. But have you ever stopped to really break down that answer? Like why is the answer to the question so great?

And can knowing this actually help us as we get out there and engage others for Christ? We're gonna get into all of that in this video.

My name is Nate Sala. Thanks for watching. If you're brand new to the channel, welcome. This is Wise Disciple, where I'm helping you become the effective

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One of the most basic difficulties for those who hold the view of the materialistic universe is the question of a beginning.

And as you pointed out before, Christianity has long claimed that the universe was created, and now we have the

Big Bang Theory that suggests at least that it started at a certain time.

And yet, then there's always the issue, yes, but if there can't be an uncaused cause, then what created

God? And I guess Christianity perhaps gives different answers to that.

As I understand it, Augustine's answer was that God is outside time. And in a way, that's a good answer, but it seems to me that that's a way of saying we don't know what the explanation is because none of us has the slightest idea of what it means to be outside time.

Or Christianity says that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are three, but they are one.

And from those statements, many wonderful things follow. And yet, it seems to be a way of saying we don't know what it is because we have no idea of what it means to be three and to be one and how a

God as powerful and as amazing, let's say, as the God of Job could appear in the form as a human being and be the

Holy Spirit. So my point is this, and as I say, I think this may be a strength or a weakness, but it does seem as if many of the difficult questions are just explained by mysteries, which is a

Christian word, that in a way are saying we don't know.

So this was a meandering question that I think it sort of began with the big idea, which is the origin of the universe, right?

How did the universe begin to exist? Obviously, we Christians have scriptural verses that give us an indication of the origin of the universe,

Genesis chapter one, for example, John chapter one, for example. But if you don't accept the scriptural answer and you reject it outright, then maybe a way to provide a challenge to Christians is to say, okay, you say

God created the universe. Well, who created God, right? I've been hit with this challenge before.

Have you? I'm sure many of you have as well. Let's see how Lennox responds to this. So I don't know whether that's a challenge or a suggestion or a help, but.

It's a wonderful challenge. But I'd be interested in your response to it. Yes, yes, I love this particular thing, and I've had to think about it a great deal because of course it is absolutely obvious that replacing one mystery by another is not always a helpful way forward.

Sometimes it might be. Yeah, well, if it's a more sensible mystery. Let's unpack this because there are three or four questions, which is why

I wrote them down, because with my dying brains, I can't remember everything. That's Lennox's nice way of saying that this question was meandering.

You know, it was just kind of all over the place, which is why, and I've said this before in previous videos, especially in settings like this, we need to keep the questions more clear and concise so that the person that we're talking to and the audience, if you happen to be on stage, will be able to track what you're saying.

Let's come to that first question, which has interested me because it's become a great focus recently, both at North America and Britain and in Europe.

Everybody's talking about it. I thought I'd left it behind in Russia. And that's the question, who created

God? And Dawkins has made it the heart of his book, The God Delusion.

I was staggered when I found it there. What I mean about Russia, ladies and gentlemen, is I used to get this all the time at the

Academy of Sciences when I was traveling out to Russia in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, you see, that that was almost the first question.

If you believe that God created the universe, then logically, you've got to ask the question, who created God? And then you have to ask who created the

God that created the God that created the God that created the God that created the God, and so on ad infinitum.

Which is a big problem. And I'm absolutely amazed at the fact that this question, this kind of question still floats around, especially on social media, which actually,

I shouldn't be surprised actually by that. But the question persists for some reason, even though it's a huge mistake.

Not only in understanding what Christians are actually saying about God, but it's a huge mistake in logic. Let's see if Lennox explains this.

And that was the end of God, of course. And that's exactly what Dawkins says in The God Delusion. Well, let's analyze it for a moment.

Let's. Who created God? If you ask that question, it shows you've immediately categorized

God as created. So you're talking about a created

God. Now, you imagine if Richard Dawkins had written a book called The Created God's Delusion.

I don't think many people would have bought it. Because I don't need him to tell me that created gods are a delusion.

We usually call them idols, incidentally. But you see, this question. This is what

I love about Lennox. He's just brilliant in the way that he talks about things that we've heard before, you know?

But in a manner that is fresh and uniquely interesting. This isn't the first time that we've talked or thought about the

Big Bang or wrestled with the challenge of who created God, right? But this is probably the first time that we've heard it spoken of like this or responded to this way.

At least for me, this is the first time I've heard something like this. It's funny because I think

Lennox is a, he's a mathematician by trade, but in actuality, he's a storytelling teacher. That means he's a bit of an artist.

He thinks in terms of story and narrative, and he frames the things he says in that way.

He, actually, I think he would have been a great itinerant rabbi, you know what I mean? He's got that way about him.

And I think that's what a lot of people love about Lennox, whether they realize it or not. He helps them understand difficult concepts in fresh ways.

This question is extremely interesting because it's an illustration of a question that already rules out the explanation that's most likely to be true.

Because the Christian claim is that God wasn't created. So if God was uncreated, in the beginning was the

Word, and I'm coming to your three in one now, and I'm bringing it in obliquely. In the beginning was the

Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He already was. So the central

Christian claim is, and in Judaism and Islam, of course, equally, is that God is eternal.

So the question, by definition, doesn't even apply to him. That's immensely important.

The only way you can get anything out of it then in the negative sense is to assume that everything is in the category of the created, but that's just begging the original question.

And the Greeks were interested in it, and that's why John's gospel starts with those words. In the beginning, the

Word already was, and then it says all things came to be through him.

Yeah, I hope you appreciate what Lennox is doing. He's pointing out why this challenge is a huge L.

Like right from the start, it's a big L. Why? Because it's a fundamental mistake in logic.

To ask this question is to show that you do not understand the issue. It would be like asking, you know, what do colors taste like?

The moment someone asks this kind of question, you can immediately see that they fundamentally misunderstand the issue.

And it comes down to, in my opinion, one simple but huge missing component.

If you miss this, you make this mistake in logic, you ask the question, who made God? If you understand this component, you'll never talk like this again.

What's the missing component? I hope Lennox points it out. If he doesn't, I will, so just stick with me.

The Greeks were interested in the question of two categories, the things that came to be, the created things, and the things that already were.

And the question resolves down to this. Is there a thing or a being that never came to be?

And that is the Christian claim, and he's called God. But there's a little connoisseur to this, you see.

Richard Dawkins, and I had a debate with him on this very topic in Oxford. And I said to him,

Richard, you say that who created God is a legitimate question.

I don't think it is, but let me assume now that it is. You believe that the universe created you.

So I beg leave now to ask you, using your own question, who created your creator?

I'm waiting still for the answer. Hey, real quick, I'm so grateful that you're watching.

If I've earned the right to get your sub, I'd love it if you would just click the like and subscribe button. It would really help me to get the video out to more and more people.

I really do appreciate you. So he stops short of spelling it out, but he's right to point out that atheists or skeptics who ask the question, not only have they not done something substantial or substantive to challenge the

Christian, but they're also posed with the same question themselves, which is amazing. I think a lot of people who wield this question, particularly as a weapon, don't realize that it swings back around and hits them too, okay?

So let's talk about why this answer is great. And let me set the table here, because I think it'll make sense in a moment, okay?

Is anyone familiar with the Kalam cosmological argument? It's brilliant. It's short, it's memorable.

It's also philosophically unassailable, in my opinion. And basically it goes like this. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.

The universe began to exist, therefore the universe has a cause. You can easily track the flow of thought here.

It purports with the scientific data that we have about the Big Bang. And so consequently, it forces us to think about the cause of the origin of the universe, particularly the implications of such a cause, which is that this cause must not have been composed of the same elements that make up the universe.

In other words, it's timeless, it's spaceless, and it's immaterial.

All attributes to this cause are the same attributes that we see God has in the

Bible. But even in the face of the Kalam, people still ask the question, oh, okay, but who made God, right?

Over the years, as I've sat with the Kalam and just kind of chewed on it. And then I've also observed people engage the

Kalam. It's become clear to me that many of us on both sides of the aisle are just missing something.

We're actually missing something that Leibniz pointed out a long time ago.

And it's very philosophical in nature, which is perhaps why many of us don't truly appreciate this. Leibniz was a,

I mean, he was everything. He was a mathematician, he was a philosopher, he was a scientist back in the 17th century.

And he pointed out that everything that exists has an explanation for its existence, whether that explanation is due to some kind of outside or external cause, or maybe it's due essentially to its own nature.

It has an explanation for its existence. Now, in the way that he would make his argument,

Leibniz would talk about explanations. But what he's really doing is he's highlighting that everything falls into two categories.

Something is either contingent. In other words, they require an explanation outside of itself, or something is necessary and therefore does not require an explanation for its existence outside of itself, okay?

I'm reminded of the famous Hindu story of the origin of the universe, right?

So according to the Hindu myth, the whole world is actually held up by a gigantic elephant.

You heard this one? For a lot of you who are philosophically minded, you're probably already thinking, okay, but what's the elephant standing on, right?

And the answer is a gigantic tortoise. It is said that at one time, an

Englishman approached like a Hindu teacher, you know, like a sage, and the Englishman asked the sage, well, wait a second, okay, the world is being held up by an elephant, the elephant is standing on a gigantic tortoise, what is the great tortoise standing on?

And the Hindu sage says, another turtle, to which the man replied, well, wait a second, okay, what is that turtle standing on?

And the sage says, well, it's turtles all the way down. This is what's called a vicious regress in philosophy, and it's a problem when we start trying to understand the true origin of the universe.

I mean, not that we would actually take this very seriously, but if a tortoise is a contingent being and it stands on top of another turtle, which is another contingent being, then we fall into an infinite series of contingent beings, each requiring another external explanation for itself, outside of itself, ad infinitum.

That's why it's called a vicious regress. It leads to a metaphysical impossibility. And it doesn't do anything to truly answer the question about the source or the origin of the universe.

Leibniz went on to make his own argument, which is that the universe must have an explanation for its existence, but that explanation must be

God. He made this argument before we gained new information about the origin of the universe, before we knew about the singularity or the

Big Bang. Now we recognize that the universe came into existence at a finite time in the past.

That means that the universe is contingent, right? One of the features of contingency is that it comes into existence and goes out of existence.

This is where the Kalam helps us, okay? Remember, whatever begins to exist has a cause, but whatever begins to exist is contingent.

The universe began to exist, therefore the universe has a cause.

But wait a second, that's it! That first cause that the Kalam points to, that caused the universe itself, it cannot be contingent, or else we slip into a vicious regress.

It has to be necessary. It cannot be something that came into existence, or else it would just be another contingent turtle going all the way down, right?

Turtles all the way down. No, it must be necessary. It must be eternal.

And that necessary thing, according to the Christians, is the God of the Bible, that in Genesis chapter one spoke the world into existence.

John 1 .1 says it like this, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was

God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

This very Word of God created all things, but was himself not created, okay?

All other contingent things were made through him, but not him.

And we are told in verse 14, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory.

Glory is of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. This is Jesus. Not only the

Word of God, but God himself, the necessary being that is the source and origin of the universe.

The Bible calls him eternal. Logic dictates that he is necessary. He is not contingent.

But, you know, it's the very nature of contingency and necessity that needs to be highlighted in conversations like this, or else someone will hear about God, and then they'll say, oh, but wait a second, who created

God? Right? What the person is assuming when they ask the question is that God is just another contingent thing.

This is what Lennox was pointing out. But that's not true. In reality, God does not belong in the category at all.

So the question is what's called a category error in philosophy. God is a necessary thing.

He's the necessary being that brought the contingent universe into existence in the first place.

That's what Lennox is pointing out, and that's what makes his answer so great. Okay, now it's your turn.

What do you think of the question, who created God? Is it really a challenge to Christians or not? Were you ever posed with this kind of challenge before?

What did you do? Let me know in the comments below. Also, hey, what do you think of Lennox? Is he as brilliant to you as he is to me?

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