Solving the "Who Made God?" Problem

One popular argument for the existence of God is the cosmological argument and it goes like this:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore the universe has a cause.

As Peter S. Williams points out here, many atheists attack a straw-man version of this argument that goes something like this:

1. Everything has a cause.
2. The universe is a thing.
3. Therefore the universe has a cause.

As you can see, the cosmological argument doesn't claim that "everything has a cause."  When presented correctly, it states that "everything that begins to exist has a cause."  However, this doesn't stop the atheist from many times asking the oft-repeated question, "If everything has a cause, then what caused God?"

Williams offers a solution to this problem.  He suggests offering a version of the cosmological argument that goes like this:

1. Every dependent thing needs something to depend on.
2. The universe is a dependent thing.
3. Therefore the universe needs something to depend on (God). [1]

Williams explains:

"This argument avoids the 'Who made God?' problem by replacing ‘every thing needs a cause’ with ‘every dependent thing needs something to depend upon’. Once this is done, we can answer the 'Who made God?"'question by saying that God simply exists without having a cause, because God is not a dependent thing. God is an independent thing.

In other words, the answer to the 'Who made God?' question is: 'No one made God, because God isn’t the sort of being that needs to be made.'

The existence of an un-made maker (God) answers the question: 'What made the universe?' The cosmological argument shows that to avoid accepting this answer, atheists must show that denying the premise ‘the universe is a dependent thing’ is at least as reasonable as affirming it." [2]

Courage and Godspeed,

Chad

Footnotes:
1. Peter S. Williams, "Who Made God?", 2005.
2. Ibid.


Comments

Anonymous said…
This is a very interesting point of view. Thanks for sharing.