Or, ‘Who designed the Designer?’ This is the central argument of Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion, and as such, has become something of a steaming hot potato in recent years. Since the Big Bang exploded onto the scene in the 1960s, we’ve known that the universe had a beginning. The Bible has been saying that all along, but Science now agrees. The universe therefore needs an explanation – we can no longer say that the universe is just there, like a brute fact.
But why? Why can’t we just accept that it’s just there? Why do we need to find an explanation?
Imagine you were walking through town and you bobbed down a back alley. In the floor in front of you you saw a small translucent glowing orb. Would you just shrug your shoulders and slope on by? Of course not. You’d at least try and play futuristic football with it.
Now imagine that translucent glowing orb was the size of a house …
Now imagine it was the size of a universe …
The universe needs an explanation. Both atheists and theists are stuck with the question of how things started.
The atheist would say that the universe created itself out of nothing. That sounds impressive, but we’ve known since The Sound of Music that, “nothing comes from nothing; nothing ever could.” Julie Andrews taught us that, and she is practically perfect in every way.
The atheist might then whip out The Multiverse – something for which there is absolutely no evidence, and which, besides, only begs the question: ‘Who created The Multiverse?’ Nothing? Julie Andrews? Don’t be so foolish.
So anyway, there are 3 responses that we, as Christians, can make to the question of ‘Who created the Creator?’
The first is one made popular by philosopher, Alvin Plantinger. Plantinger shows that causality (things causing other things) only comes into effect once time and space are in place – so when the universe has already been created. By way of weak analogy, hitting a six only has meaning within the game of cricket.
The second thing we can say is that for something (a) to be the best explanation of something else (b), we don’t need to have an explanation of the original something (a). So, if I go to Wetherspoons for a full English, for the chef to be the best explanation of the cooked meat, I don’t need to check his family tree and guarantee his ancestors. When the waitress dumps the plate in front of me, I don’t exclaim: ‘Well who created the chef?!’ That sort of behaviour doesn’t go down very well in Wetherspoons.
Finally, and maybe most crucially, we can say this: that when you say that God needed a creator, you’re talking about a created God, and Christians don’t believe in created Gods. The Biblical view isn’t that God was created, but that he is eternal.
So when someone asks ‘Who created the Creator?’ The answer is simple: nobody. You have to hit a brick wall somewhere, and if that brick wall isn’t God, then it’s simply nothingness. And you wouldn’t want to disagree with Julie Andrews. I’ve heard she has quite a temper.
