Who Created God?

Where We Begin Podcast Team Derek Caldwell Alycia Wood Lou Phillips Xandra Carroll

In today’s episode, the group discusses the idea that if we all have mothers and fathers then did God have parents before the earth was made? Listen to find out!

Play Video

References:

Infinite Regress

Richard Dawkins – British Evolutionary Biologist and Author

Neil deGrasse Tyson – American Astrophysicist, Planetary Scientist, Author, and Science Communicator

Lawrence Krauss – “A Universe from Nothing”

Stephen Hawking – English Theoretical Physicist, Cosmologist, and Author

George Lemaitre – Belgian Catholic Priest, Theoretical Physicist, Mathematician, Astronomer, and Professor of Physics

Fred Hoyle – British Astronomer

George Greenstein – Astrophysicist, Educator, and Writer

Paul Davies – English Physicist, Writer, and Professor at Arizona State University

William Lane Craig – American Analytic Philosopher, Christian Apologist, Author, and Wesleyan Theologian

Robert Jastrow – American Astronomer and Planetary PhysicistAntony Flew – British Philosopher

Transcript – who created god?

WWB S2E4 TRANSCRIPT

00:00:00:06 – 00:00:22:04

Derek

Who created God? Today on Where We Begin.

00:00:22:04 – 00:00:44:09

Derek

Welcome back to Where We Begin: a podcast that responds to some of the toughest objections to Christianity today. I’m your host once again, Derek Caldwell. The one and, praise God, the only. We’re with – I’ll say it so Lou doesn’t. And we’ve got Alycia Wood, Lou Phillips, and Xandra Carroll with us again. How is everyone today?

00:00:44:10 – 00:00:45:03

Alycia

Oh, we’re good.

00:00:45:04 – 00:00:45:12

Lou

Great.

00:00:45:12 – 00:00:46:14

Derek

Everyone looks happy.

00:00:46:17 – 00:00:47:06

Lou

So good.

00:00:47:06 – 00:00:48:08

Alycia

We’re happy to see you, Derek.

00:00:48:08 – 00:00:51:18

Lou

It’s a beautiful day today. I don’t know if you checked outside, but it’s stunning.

00:00:52:18 – 00:00:56:00

Derek

Is that a joke about my pale skin or something?

00:00:56:23 – 00:00:59:07

Xandra

I don’t know when the time you’ve seen outdoors is but –

00:00:59:07 – 00:01:02:00

Lou

It doesn’t look like you get out much, but if you would it’s beautiful.

00:01:02:05 – 00:01:07:09

Derek

I can’t go outdoors it – it burns. I also don’t see myself in mirrors.

00:01:09:10 – 00:01:10:19

Derek

But anyway, so today –

00:01:10:19 – 00:01:15:20

Lou

I wonder how many subscribers we lose by the intro of our podcast every week?

00:01:16:08 – 00:01:18:10

Derek

Yeah, it’s probably. Yeah, quick.

00:01:18:10 – 00:01:22:22

Xandra

People probably introduce it to their friends like, as long as you can make it through the intro, it gets better.

00:01:22:22 – 00:01:37:06

Derek

Yeah, we’ll see. Well, this one, I think, will prove them all wrong. Because today we’re going to start with this question, and this is the main question. What came first: the chicken or the egg? And we’re going to just spend 30 minutes on that.

00:01:37:06 – 00:01:37:14

Lou

Great.

00:01:37:16 – 00:01:38:17

Xandra

Wow. Ok.

00:01:38:17 – 00:01:40:05

Derek

Yeah. No, not really. But I do want –

00:01:40:05 – 00:01:41:16

Lou

We get it. We know what it is.

00:01:41:16 – 00:01:45:23

Derek

Xandra, you can’t answer because you probably actually know the – you probably actually –

00:01:45:23 – 00:01:48:12

Xandra

I was about to blow everyone’s minds but I guess I won’t now.

00:01:48:15 – 00:01:52:12

Derek

I want to hear first, what is your response to this? Alycia?

00:01:52:12 – 00:01:53:10

Alycia

Chicken.

00:01:53:10 – 00:01:54:00

Derek

OK.

00:01:54:12 – 00:01:55:20

Derek

Lou?

00:01:55:20 – 00:01:56:08

Lou

Chicken.

00:01:56:13 – 00:01:58:13

Derek

Ok, so we know who the amateurs are. Xandra?

00:02:00:08 – 00:02:00:22

Xandra

Rooster?

00:02:02:04 – 00:02:12:19

Derek

Oh, a third option. Well, I asked Dr. Wikipedia, and the answer is the egg. Eggs have existed long before chickens. Now –

00:02:14:13 – 00:02:18:15

Alycia

Good thing you trust that doctor. We would all be better if we just said that.

00:02:18:15 – 00:03:13:06

Derek

So you can tell the question today is: Who created God? Another way you hear it is: If God made everything, then who made God? That’s another way. But the question we received was: Who created God? So this one we get – and by the way, this – sometimes apologists will receive this question and say, oh, this has been answered for a while, but it’s still getting – there are people like Richard Dawkins who are still making this argument, and it’s persuasive to some people. So, why don’t we start off first with if you’re not a scientist and you’re not a philosopher, how would you begin to answer this question? Because you’re asking someone to say, oh, I disagree with Richard Dawkins, who and other people who seem to know a lot. What right do I have? Surely they would understand this more than I would. How do we begin to answer this?

00:03:14:02 – 00:03:19:23

Lou

Oh, I was just laughing because I’m not a philosopher or a scientist. I can just tell you how I’d answer it. It’s as simple as that. But –

00:03:19:23 – 00:03:21:20

Derek

Yeah, well, we just saw you weren’t a scientist. Yeah, but –

00:03:23:05 – 00:03:58:08

Alycia

I think one thing I’d like to point out, I guess with this question, is we’re talking about – first of all we’re talking about God. In other words, we’re talking about a being who created things. We’re talking about a being who was morally perfect. We’re talking about a being who is all knowledgeable. In other words, we are talking about something that is not human. And the reason why I say that is because we oftentimes we struggle with the answer to this question because we assume God is like us. And maybe if we start by saying, actually, we’re talking about something that exists in a different way than humans are, then that could be our starting point.

00:03:59:08 – 00:04:20:11

Lou

Yeah and I genuinely had this question when I was a kid. I remember being really confused that Jesus had his mother, Mary, but then God didn’t have a mom. And I remember going up to my mom and being like, “Well, who is God’s mom?” And she’s like, “He doesn’t have one.” I’m like, “Well, that’s not possible.” She’s like, “No, but…” And I was like, “But no, like everyone that I know has a mom, like, someone has to. Like, it’s not possible. So it’s a –

00:04:21:07 – 00:04:25:01

Derek

Did it help when you found out that Jesus created his own mom? Was that –

00:04:25:01 – 00:04:27:17

Lou

Exactly? No –

00:04:27:17 – 00:04:28:16

Xandra

He’s still recovering.

00:04:28:22 – 00:04:29:18

Derek

Did that make it clearer to you?

00:04:30:10 – 00:05:40:13

Lou

Even more clear, yeah. I mean, when I’ve seen maybe a secular naturalist arguing this, I give them all the credit that’s due. That they would say no. Like, we all get back to the one singularity as to what started this whole thing called life. And many skeptics or agnostics would just say, we can’t know anything about that thing, whatever it is. Whether it’s a being, a cosmic force, whatever, we get it. I think in many ways we’ve all agreed to this that something happened. And as Christians, we would argue that this one thing was God himself. It was the Unmoved Mover that started the whole chain of events that – because there’s no logical argument as to this arriving out of not something doing something. And I know it seems so vague to say, but I’ve never seen that argued once. It’s like, no, no, there is there – I just feel like it gets kicked down – the can gets kicked down further down the road because it’s like, well then who created? That doesn’t do anything for any of us because we’re all still stuck at the one position. OK, but what was that first thing?

00:05:41:11 – 00:05:48:21

Derek

And so what you’re talking about is, I wonder if could someone can spend time and just explain this because what you’re talking about is basically ‘infinite regress.’

00:05:49:01 – 00:05:49:13

Lou

Yes.

00:05:49:14 – 00:05:59:23

Derek

So what what is this idea? Because if anyone looks up this question, they’ll see this term used over and over again. What is infinite regress?

00:06:01:12 – 00:08:22:06

Xandra

I think it has to do with causality. So I don’t know how to talk about this without getting into philosophy a little bit. But yeah, I mean, I suppose if you were to Google search like ‘infinite regress’ or regress, as you say, Derek, because you’re so fancy, you’d find probably the story of how do you explain the world, how do you explain the Earth? Well, it’s balanced on top of this particular thing, which is holding this up. And that’s being held up by this. And then you get down to like the turtle at the bottom, but then it keeps going down forever because you have to have an explanation for everything that exists. You can’t get something from nothing. You just can’t. That’s – So an infinite regress is basically a causality problem, right? At least in this context it is. And interestingly, I would agree in part with Richard Dawkins with, you know, you don’t get something from nothing. So we should be asking questions about, OK, you posit that this thing exists where did that thing come from? That’s not an irrational question to ask. I think it’s valid and it’s that very question that led Antony Flew, who was very similar, a similar thinker to Richard Dawkins. He was an atheist and he wrote a book arguing against the existence of God. But at the age of 81, he converted to theism. And it was because of this exact question. He said, you can’t get something from nothing. And therefore, where did all of this come from? Where did time itself come from? Where did information come from? Like, yes, we have material things. Yes, we have organic things. But even inorganic things, like, where did it all come from? It must have had a point of origin. And it was because you can’t have infinite regress that he posited God must have actually existed. And He went back on his atheism which I find really interesting. So, as Lou said, you know, kicking the can down the street further, you’ve got to have a starting point at some juncture. And for me, it’s the contingency which, actually, Derek, we were talking about this at lunch the other day. Was it yesterday or the day before? I can’t remember.

00:08:23:18 – 00:08:24:18

Derek

What is time?

00:08:24:18 – 00:08:59:23

Xandra

What is time? I’m fascinated by that. And I’ve been thinking about it and writing about it and reading about it. And I – because of the law of contingency, Time, which exists, had to have come into existence from an external source. And you can have people who say, well, it was spawned from some sort of quantum vacuum. OK, great. Well, where did that quantum vacuum come from? How did – and by the way, what is a quantum vacuum? We have no scientific evidence for what that is. So, again, as Lou so rightly said, that’s just another kick of the can going further down the street. So that’s my two cents.

00:08:59:23 – 00:10:58:10

Derek

Yeah, I think. And so what I’ve heard so far is, you know, obviously I agree with it because I’m a theist and a Christian. Some might say a Christian. But a lot of times what we’ve said is sort of, well, you know, we do have options. And what we’re appealing to here is just a God of the gaps. That actually one day we’ll find, just like everything else, one day we’ll find out. And there have been so many instances where maybe Christians in the past have said, um, or at least the perception is that Christians in the past said, well, we don’t know, therefore God. And so to – it’s Neil deGrasse Tyson who will say, well, if this is what you think, your God gets smaller and smaller with each new scientific discovery. And so when we talk about this, this Prime Mover or Unmoved Mover or whatever, why does that have to be God? Why couldn’t that be, you know, so like, there are people like, well, I had a physics instructor tell me an undergrad that, or tell the whole class that, you know, it’s because you can, you know, from states of, sort of, you know, entropy is sort of chaotic. And from this nothingness of chaotic entropy, things can sort of pop into existence. And there’s the redefinition of the word “nothing.” And people like Lawrence Krauss or Stephen Hawking and – so why does that, why would you say that has to be God? Is there an argument to be made that the Prime Mover is God without it being just a God of the gaps? Is there positive argument to be made?

00:10:58:10 – 00:14:04:23

Alycia

Yeah. You know, I think going back to maybe something that was originally stated with the fact that whatever it is, it can’t be us, OK? Because all of us, at one point, didn’t exist and have now come into existence and none of us have the ability to create something out of nothing. So we are not able to whatever this thing is, it’s just it cannot function in the way that we do, cannot be limited in its abilities, the way that we are. So Lawrence Krauss wrote his book “A Universe from Nothing,” which I read and looked at, and it was supposed to be this big revolutionary kind of thing about how we can, you know, have the creation of the universe without God and this kind of thing. And Richard Dawkins wrote, I think, the forward to it. But it really didn’t answer the question at all because essentially he said something like, you know, basically because we have black holes, and things come out of black holes, and blah-blah and everybody was like, but that’s still something. In other words, everything whenever – anything we do in our immediate, kind of, in our world and in the way that we understand physics and biology of how things came into being, nothing in this world is able to answer that kind of question. So we’ve got to go beyond what we see and experience around us into, this is where the philosophy comes in, into trying to conceive, into something else that is different. And so the only thing that you – that I see is possible. And so I would say it doesn’t necessarily have to be the Christian God. So I think I would grant that. I think I would say God in general is – the only thing I see that would have to be necessary is that something that didn’t start to exist like we did. So we started to exist, in other words. So once something starts to exist, you have to say, well, what put that thing into place? But that question only applies to things that start to exist. But the minute you have something that, once again doesn’t exist like we do, but is actually – and so it doesn’t have a beginning. You no longer have to ask that particular question because that being was always in existence. And so I think without going too deep into the answer, because I know, you know, we’ve all been asked this question before, but I just think that – I would concede that it doesn’t necessarily have to be the Christian God, but whatever you want to concede, whatever you want to say that it conceptually is, is going to have to be a being that is eternal, that doesn’t have a cause behind it. Because that’s when you get into infinite regress. If it does have a cause behind it, then you say, well, what caused that cause? And you say, well, this thing caused that cause. And then you go into what caused that cause? That’s the infinite regress, that cycle of asking what caused caused, caused, caused, caused? So it’s going to have to be something that is uncaused. That has no cause. And so if you want to call it God. You want to call it a computer. Well, then you say, Who created computer? I mean, there’s all these kind of things because the intelligence that goes into a computer, the computer doesn’t create it on its own, its first planted there by something else, and then maybe the computer can work from it. So you’re still getting into that kind of cause. So I would say, at least in a general sense, I would concede that it does need to be some sort of being that is eternal and therefore does not have a cause.

00:14:05:15 – 00:15:39:15

Lou

I think to – like I respect the going against God of the gaps arguments. I think they’re terrible and I think we should never do them, actually. I think we only get bit as Christians. This question, though, doesn’t fit within the category of those questions. Every time somebody applies that, it’s on something that is not speaking of the something that started it all. It’s always about something – It’s like, let’s talk about a medical anomaly right now. Oh, that was God. Then we figure it out later. Oh, OK. Understanding stars? So it’s never actually – the question never gets to the origin of it all. And that would actually by definition be, if God exists where he belongs, right? And all these other things. So the idea that this could be considered a God of the gaps question, to me – that doesn’t make sense because it’s an entirely different question. It’s not the types of questions that we have used over time where Christians have failed. We’re like, we throw in God. It’s like, oh, this is a God thing. It’s like, actually, we figured out this is lightning and this is like, and this is how it works. But again, that is something – that’s a natural something that’s happening in our time. This is not talking about the beginning of the thing that started it all That is a very different question that does not – because this one is right. If you keep answering all these, God does get smaller and smaller. If you answer this one, God doesn’t exist. Like it’s a very different question. This is the one that – everything hinges on that versus these are just. I just think it’s a cheaper argument. And I, I do respect the idea that somebody says it does not have to be God. I just want to hear a better – I want to hear more compelling case because –

00:15:39:15 – 00:15:40:02

Xandra

There needs to be some explanation.

00:15:40:09 – 00:16:12:23

Lou

It seems to be like, no, it’s not God, but we don’t know it yet. It’s like see, that’s a science of the gaps though. If you’re going to try and play that game, it’s like you’re doing the very thing you’re telling me I can do, which is like, OK, fine, it’s something there. What? What singularity are we talking about? If you’re saying we can’t know anything about it, it’s like, you’re right. I completely agree. Unless it is a God and that God actually put himself inside for us to know. And that’s what Christianity is arguing. So you’re – it’s almost like the whole, is it C.S. Lewis? It’s always C.S. Lewis. He talks about the –

00:16:13:09 – 00:16:14:08

Xandra

When in doubt, just pretend it’s C.S. Lewis.

00:16:14:10 – 00:16:16:02

Derek

Sometimes it’s Tim Keller.

00:16:16:02 – 00:17:23:21

Lou

No, no it is. It’s probably Tim Keller or C.S. Lewis. No, C.S. Lewis talks about this. He’s like, we try to relate to God like tenants in an apartment building. Like we assume that God is the person above us in the building versus saying he’s completely outside of that category. And the same thing of like, in a play and everybody thinks like – The only way for us to understand the author of a play like Hamlet, and if you want to understand the author of this, Shakespeare would have to write himself inside of it, for anyone, for anything in that world to understand anything about the author, right? It’s completely outside of the thing we’re talking about. So, in the same way, if God does exist, the only way we would know that he exists is if he intentionally wanted us to know that. And that’s what we’re arguing as Christians. We think all this evidence is pointing to God, then we have all the evidence of him saying this is the type of God I am, and here’s the life that you’re going to experience. And it makes sense. That’s why I think it’s more rational to argue with this infinite regress that there is a God behind it and that God is personal and that God is the God of the Bible.

00:17:23:21 – 00:17:24:04

Derek

Yeah.

00:17:25:00 – 00:19:09:18

Xandra

And just to add one tiny thing. I don’t think it’s – I don’t think that we should quickly forget the history of science here because people were not having this conversation a while ago. There was a time when people thought that the universe was eternal and didn’t have a beginning. And it was because of good scientific research, in part done by a Christian, George Lemaitre, who was basically like a monastic dude, he was basically like a monk, who did some really good work and showed that the universe had a beginning. And, you know, Einstein had, you know, was just face palming there in the corner and just realizing that he had the worst moment of his career at that time and was going to have to change all of his models and things because of this humble little French Christian man. But three out of four of the top cosmologists at that time began their quest to understand who, what they called, this super intellect was. Frederick Hoyle was quoted as saying a super intellect has monkeyed with physics. And George Greenstein or Greenstein, I don’t know how you say his name, basically was asking the question, who is it? Who is it behind this? They weren’t asking what? They were all asking who? And I find that really significant. Frederick Hoyle, Greenstein, and Paul Davies are the three that I’m thinking of. You know, and they all had to change their view after we realized that the universe was not eternal, because you can’t have something come into existence without a cause. And the universe had a beginning. It was very compelling.

00:19:09:22 – 00:21:00:12

Derek

And fascinatingly to even, because we look, you know, in the Bible talks about a beginning and you think, well, how would they know it’s a beginning? And it wasn’t even in ancient literature – It’s not like, oh, every ancient person just assumed there was a beginning. No. There was a lot of eternal universes being discussed in the ancient world and in old mythologies. And yeah, there’s a beginning to humans, but there’s this primordial past and there’s sort of always been stuff around material, and the gods were made out of that. So when the Bible talks about there being a beginning, this is one case in which people you know, kind of stuck to their Bibles and ended up kind of being like more true to the natural world that, yeah. So that’s interesting. I did want to point out too, that, I know we mentioned kind of conceptual type stuff and describing what would be needed to – what would be needed at the beginning. Something eternal, you know, and William Lane Craig has this kind of great quote where he kind of looks at, you know, the candidates for a first cause would be something – scientifically – immaterial, beginningless, uncaused, timeless, and spaceless. And essentially he says, you know, it’s an unembodied mind. So it’s not a God of the gaps. It is by looking at the scientific data and saying, oh, we’ve heard these words before and you know, we’ve heard these definitions and – just real quick, it made me think of this. It’s kind of a famous quote by Robert Jastrow or Jastrow. I think he’s an astrophysicist. Uh oh. Which way is it?

00:21:00:17 – 00:21:03:10

Xandra

I’m just enjoying watching you flounder. Go for it.

00:21:03:11 – 00:21:03:23

Derek

OK.

00:21:04:16 – 00:21:05:21

Xandra

I don’t know what the answer is.

00:21:06:00 – 00:21:34:00

Derek

Still, after all these years, you should be used to this by now. But he said, “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance. He is about to conquer the highest peaks. As he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.” Which I just think is like a very beautiful.

00:21:34:01 – 00:21:35:00

Xandra

So good.

00:21:35:00 – 00:21:37:12

Derek

Who got chills? Who got chills? Yeah.

00:21:37:18 – 00:21:38:05

Lou

No, not even close.

00:21:38:17 – 00:21:38:21

Derek

No?

00:21:40:08 – 00:21:40:17

Alycia

Lou has a cold heart.

00:21:40:17 – 00:21:42:05

Derek

Lou feels nothing.

00:21:42:05 – 00:21:44:00

Lou

I actually passed out during that quote. It was so long.

00:21:46:00 – 00:22:40:00

Derek

Well, the last – just in our remaining time here, I wanted to switch gears just real quickly. And we don’t have to spend a lot of time on this, but I think some people would answer this like this, who created God? If God made everything, then who made God? And some people would say, easy, we know that. Humans made God. It’s simple. That’s what humans do. And this is, you know, Freud would call it wish fulfillment or something like that. So how would you answer someone who takes more of the – we take this as a sociological or as sort of a theological question, a philosophical question. What about the person who does take it, kind of the sociological route of this is just one myth among many. No different than anything else. Yeah. How would we respond to that?

00:22:40:02 – 00:24:50:22

Lou

I feel like you first honor the fact that, look, as a Christian, I believe you are 99.9% true in what you just said. Like, I think you’re right that there’s a lot of myths out there. In fact, I actually think a lot of these we have created. And I think if you look around, there’s a lot of man-made gods. And so, yeah, so – And the evidence is insane actually on that side. The question is, is there even one that’s true? And obviously as a Christian, I would say, yeah. And I know this is probably our harping point every time we do – the person and work of Christ is the most compelling everything to me. When I look and read and see, he’s just so not man-made and I look at the way even Scripture fits together. And I think I’ve actually said this on another podcast, like if this thing is not true, I want to know who made Christianity? Because I would struggle not to want to worship them. And I know it sounds heretical to say, but what I’m saying is like, this is such a profoundly beautiful story and it resonates with reality and this concept, again, of grace that no man, no woman ever created grace. You wanna know why? Because you can’t even weaponize it. It makes no sense for us to even think of this thing because it is so other – It’s so other humanly. It’s not something we would have created because it fits, not even within the paradigm of how we operate. That’s why it’s so beautiful. And I think grace changes every aspect of why we believe what we believe as Christians. And that’s – so I would just tell that person, yes, you’re right. In fact, have I used even the belief in God as a crutch at times? 100% But the beauty of the Christian gospel is that it’s not even just simply a crutch. It’s like, it’s actually the very thing that gives life. Like you don’t need just crutches inside, you need genuinely revived because you’re actually so, so in need of something outside of yourself. Not just something that helps you carry through bad times. Does that work?

00:24:51:11 – 00:24:52:01

Derek

It works for me.

00:24:52:02 – 00:24:54:15

Lou

You don’t look compelled. Does anybody else want to say something to it?

00:24:54:16 – 00:24:55:00

Alycia

No.

00:24:56:12 – 00:24:57:15

Xandra

It’s a good answers, Lou.

00:24:57:20 – 00:24:59:13

Lou

I feel like there’s more to it though so –

00:25:00:18 – 00:25:03:18