Читать книгу Email "Messages" - Steven A. Crane - Страница 6

 Inbox [2/70]

To: Dr. Crane [eaglechristianchurch.com]

Subject: Who Made God?

---Original Message---

I’ve heard it said that everything needs a cause. If that is true, then what caused God?

Reply:

I hear this argument often. Philosophers call this the Principle of Sufficient Reason. We use it every day—it is common sense. If you saw a little puppy that did not belong to you suddenly appear in your living room, no one in your family would say, “Hi, puppy. You came from nowhere, didn’t you?” No, you would likely look around to try to determine how it got in, and where it came from. You might be unable to find all the answers to your questions, but still you can know with certainty that the puppy came from somewhere—it didn’t come from nowhere.

That is the principle to which you refer. But the principle should not be quoted as saying, “Everything needs a cause.” The principle needs to be stated, “Everything that has a beginning needs a cause.” Every finite, contingent thing needs a cause. But God is neither finite nor is he contingent upon anything or anyone. In other words, God does not have a beginning, or a cause—because God is infinite. God is the “uncaused” cause of all finite things. The very word for God used in Scripture is the “I Am”—the always existent one.

If God were finite, your question would be valid—God would need a cause. If God needed a cause, we would then have a problem and would need to look to a point before God existed and then ask, “Who created God?” But that wouldn’t solve our problem, it would only intensify it. We would then need to ask, “Who created the one that created God?” This would lead us into a quagmire of “preceding causes.”

As it is, we can’t ask, “Who caused God?” because God is infinite. You can’t go back any farther than that. If you understand this argument, this becomes a powerful argument FOR God rather than an argument against God, because everything that had a beginning needs a cause. Where did the stuff come from that caused stuff? Without God as part of the equation, you will find yourself in a logistical quagmire.