Thursday, September 10, 2009

If God Made the Universe, Who or What Made God?


(Ann Arbor)

Some people (usually not professional philosophers) ask the question, "If God made the universe, who or what made God?" The answer to this question is: it's a nonsense question. Here's why.

If God is a being that exists necessarily, this means God could not not exist. This is how theists view God; viz., as a necessary being. This does not imply that God actually exists. Even if God does not exist, this is how theists define God, much as all define a "unicorn" as a one-horned horselike creature. Even atheists can acknowledge that, by the term "God," is meant a necessarily existing being.

Following the idea of God as presented in the Kalam Cosmological Argument, God did not "begin to exist." If only what begins to exist has a cause, and God did not begin to exist (because God's existence is necessary), then to ask "What caused God?" is akin to asking "What color is the note C?" (See Moreland, 63)

So the question is incoherent. It is a "pointless category fallacy" (the ascription of a wrong feature to the wrong thing). (Ib.)