How could God not have a creator?

  • Thread starter Thread starter lissa70
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Furthermore, are there other universes with their own “Gods?” Does I AM know the others? These are tough questions and will generally come to mind during a peaceful meditiation to attack faith or distract from prayer. Sometimes one feels so close to an answer, and then we lose that feeling. Doubt and confusion come to mind.

While I generally eschew Descartes, I like the recognition that personal consciousness is adequate proof for one’s own existence, at least. The outgrowth of Chaos Theory/Complexity Science and the principle of self-organization suggest that “nothingness” is an unstable/untenable condition.

Who hasn’t thought of these things lying on a grassy hil and looking into the Milky Wayl on a warm summer night?
 
PJM said:
LOVE! God loves us and created us so we could Love Him too:thumbsup:
Click to expand...
Yes! God doesn’t need a creator because Love is the most powerful force that exists. The Blessed Trinity is like a spiritual sphere in the sense that the Love of the Three Persons in One God is eternal, absolute and perfect. Love is the Source of everything we hold most precious: truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty, peace and harmony. St Paul summed it up in these magnificent lines:

“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Amen.
 
lissa70 said:
My 8-year-old son told me the other day that he was having trouble understanding how God has always existed. He explained that it was difficult to understand because everything else was created (by Him), but not God; He always existed. I had a response, but I was wondering what any of you out there would say.
Click to expand...
God is the Creator of everything that exists, by definition He could not have a creator. If He did, He wouldn’t be God but the one who created Him would be God.
 
Thanks for sharing, it is definitely nice to read others’ thoughts and approaches to this question, for I know someday my children will be asking the same.

My response would be something like this:
“Unfortunately, this is a question that can only be answered the moment you are with God in Heaven, and He shares all of His knowledge with you.”

If my child inquired further, I would share the following:
“It is best not to ponder long on this question, for if you try to answer it, you will lose focus on what God and you want most for your life: Peace and Happiness. Instead ponder greatly on: How did Jesus, as a man, Love God and others?”
 
Children have great questions. Some people try to stop them from doing that. They will find out the same way they find out many other things along the way.
 
smichhertz said:
I think this is the crux of the issue. We have to remember that time itself is a creature, which greatly helps us understand how God can exist with no creator. I think that isn’t too beyond an 8 year old to understand.
Click to expand...
👍
Understanding that even time is created was the key for me to understand how God has always existed. I too believe that that approach would be appropriate for an eight year old.
byeway said:
Amazing!

So many interesting thoughts but haven’t you missed an important point? The question is invalid from the start; the real question has to be, “Is it possible for God to have a creator?” for if “God” is created, then the one or the thing which created God is superior to God … of which, by definition, there cannot be any such.

The problem is one of semantics and intuition; we lack language to express the inexpressible, and attempting to explain to children why their intuition leads them to false conclusions is not possible, for a child lacks the experience and education to follow the needed explanation. You might more easily explain to the child why gamma rays cannot be seen but can kill, or why electrons are compelled to flow along a wire by the “pressure” of voltage.

A similar problem arises often when trying to explain “infinite.” Most try to describe how infinite means “bigger than anything” but actually, infinite has nothing to do with size, dimensions, or limits. In reference to “the infinite” those terms are meaningless … there simply are none of these involved in “infinite.”
Click to expand...
I recall being annoyed with my grade four teacher in her definition of ‘infinite’.
She said that the number of grains of sand on all the beaches in the world was infinite. Even for at least one grade four boy this idea was very flawed – the number of grains of sand is very, very large … but still finite!
Sheesh!
 
lissa70 said:
My 8-year-old son told me the other day that he was having trouble understanding how God has always existed. He explained that it was difficult to understand because everything else was created (by Him), but not God; He always existed. I had a response, but I was wondering what any of you out there would say.
Click to expand...
The most important thing in a child’s life is love. That is why the most effective answer must be in terms of love - which surpasses everything else.
 
OP here. Thank you everyone for your wonderful responses. When I first started this thread I didn’t want to post what my response was because I didn’t want my response to influence other people’s responses. This whole thread has been both affirming and enlightening.

When I gave my response to my son, I basically told him it probably was difficult to understand how God did not have a creator and how he always existed because we live in a world bounded by time. But God created time and so he is not bounded by it. To God time is like us looking at a piece of paper. He sees all of creation from beginning to end at one time. We can only see the part of creation that we are living right now, and through our memories, what we have lived up to this point. But we can’t see anyone else’s time, though through our imagination, art and pictures we can speculate what their time was like.

My response was influenced many years ago by a book I read called Flatland by Edwin Abbot Abbot. It is actually a satire about Victorian culture, but what is most interesting about the book is its examination of dimensions.

It is about a character called Square, who lives in a two-dimensional world. He becomes enlightened when “Sphere” from the 3-D world comes to show him what it is like to live in a one dimensional world and then the 3-D world from which Sphere comes.
 
lissa70 said:
OP here. Thank you everyone for your wonderful responses. When I first started this thread I didn’t want to post what my response was because I didn’t want my response to influence other people’s responses. This whole thread has been both affirming and enlightening.

When I gave my response to my son, I basically told him it probably was difficult to understand how God did not have a creator and how he always existed because we live in a world bounded by time. But God created time and so he is not bounded by it. To God time is like us looking at a piece of paper. He sees all of creation from beginning to end at one time. We can only see the part of creation that we are living right now, and through our memories, what we have lived up to this point. But we can’t see anyone else’s time, though through our imagination, art and pictures we can speculate what their time was like.

My response was influenced many years ago by a book I read called Flatland by Edwin Abbot Abbot. It is actually a satire about Victorian culture, but what is most interesting about the book is its examination of dimensions.

It is about a character called Square, who lives in a two-dimensional world. He becomes enlightened when “Sphere” from the 3-D world comes to show him what it is like to live in a one dimensional world and then the 3-D world from which Sphere comes.
Click to expand...
Ahhh Flatland how I loved that book. Your explanation is a good one. I too have used Flatland sometimes in explaining how all of time could be present to God.

God bless.
 
Luke_K said:
No circle we know of hasn’t been created. Geometrical boundaries are not relevant to questions of eternal existence. Besides, I can say the beginning of a circle is an arbitrary point (1,0 on the coordinate axes) that was then drawn around into a circle back to its starting point.

It can be hard to understand why God is the exception to the rule of being created. Why can’t we just say the universe doesn’t have to be created if God doesn’t have to be? That is the question.
Click to expand...
The fact is that God always was, is now, and will always be. It is even hard to explain this to adults. The problem exists because the human mind is finite and quite limited in it’s ability to conceptualize Reality.
Things change and we see patterns and think in terms of cause and effect but cause and effect need not always be the reason that one event follows another. Because our minds are used to thinking in terms of cause and effect, the mind balks at the idea that God has always existed, but because the mind balks at this doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

The other thing necessary in having an understanding of God always existing is the matter of time. The mind conceptualizes that there is a past because we have memories but memories only exist in the mind. The mind has the ability to imagine and so imagines a “future”, but these imaginings exist only in the mind.

In Ultimate Reality, there is no such thing as time, it is always Now. Sometimes the Ever Present Now is likened to Eternity. These concepts are very difficult for the mind to accept and so people wonder and doubt; asking, How is it possible that God always was and had no creator but these doubts are due to the limits of the mind and not because there is any truth to them.
 
Almagore said:
The fact is that God always was, is now, and will always be. It is even hard to explain this to adults. The problem exists because the human mind is finite and quite limited in it’s ability to conceptualize Reality.
Things change and we see patterns and think in terms of cause and effect but cause and effect need not always be the reason that one event follows another. Because our minds are used to thinking in terms of cause and effect, the mind balks at the idea that God has always existed, but because the mind balks at this doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

The other thing necessary in having an understanding of God always existing is the matter of time. The mind conceptualizes that there is a past because we have memories but memories only exist in the mind. The mind has the ability to imagine and so imagines a “future”, but these imaginings exist only in the mind.

In Ultimate Reality, there is no such thing as time, it is always Now. Sometimes the Ever Present Now is likened to Eternity. These concepts are very difficult for the mind to accept and so people wonder and doubt; asking, How is it possible that God always was and had no creator but these doubts are due to the limits of the mind and not because there is any truth to them.
Click to expand...
Well written Almagore! 👍

I think you have summed up many of the thoughts we have been expressing … with varying degrees of success.

By the way, welcome the CAF!

Dominus tecum, Reg.
 
God is spiritual and not bound by physical laws of nature or units such as time or matter.
 
lissa70 said:
My 8-year-old son told me the other day that he was having trouble understanding how God has always existed. He explained that it was difficult to understand because everything else was created (by Him), but not God; He always existed. I had a response, but I was wondering what any of you out there would say.
Click to expand...
By contrast, I don’t see what’s difficult to grasp about it.

Only that which begins to exist needs to have a cause.
 
Sair said:
Slightly poor analogy in that the locomotive requires (name removed by moderator)ut and is powered by some physical source of energy. What source powers God in his creation? Is he a perpetual motion machine?
Click to expand...
I think it’s a great analogy for an 8 year old.
 
lissa70 said:
My 8-year-old son told me the other day that he was having trouble understanding how God has always existed. He explained that it was difficult to understand because everything else was created (by Him), but not God; He always existed. I had a response, but I was wondering what any of you out there would say.
Click to expand...
Oddly enough I remember having a different, but related trouble at that exact age. It seems strange now, but at the time I was terrified of eternity. When we sang ‘world without end’ in the doxology I was afraid. I think I was frightened of being bored but there was also some notion in my mind that eternity boggled my mind. Often times it seems like young minds aren’t mature enough to grasp some ideas. But then they are also not corrupted or limited by routine.
 
Almagore said:
In Ultimate Reality, there is no such thing as time, it is always Now. Sometimes the Ever Present Now is likened to Eternity. These concepts are very difficult for the mind to accept and so people wonder and doubt; asking, How is it possible that God always was and had no creator but these doubts are due to the limits of the mind and not because there is any truth to them.
Click to expand...
If I recall the philosophy of time includes the notion that time is change. God’s unchanging nature would make sense as being eternal in contrast to His created world which has time and is limited by it. Our daily experience of the world numbs our mind to the infinite.

Another interesting idea is whether there can be an actual infinite rather than just a possible one. An actual infinite would be something like time going backwards without end. A possible infinite would be time going forward without end. It would be possible to go on forever, but not for something to have literally been going on forever. A lot of philosophers deny actual infinities. This does not invalidate God because he is literally outside of time.
 
GWright said:
Hiya,

When people say to me “Who made God?”, I ask them “Who made 2+2=4?”.

While they are spluttering around, trying to think of what to say, I expand:

“Did someone make 2+2=4, or has 2+2 always just equalled 4?”

They then have to admit that no-one made 2+2=4, and 2+2=4 “just exists”.

So, if they can accept that simple numerical truths “just exist”, why cannot they accept it about God and the Truth?
Click to expand...
 
I like your reply that no one created the fact that 2+2 =4, it always existed. While there may be some technical inaccuracies with this, I think it is something that a child may understand and be satisfied with. After all, the goal is not to have a young child understand “exactly” why God always existed, even the most intelligent theologian can’t fully understand that.

I think that the goal is to explain how God has always existed in a way that is as close to the truth as a small child can understand. A man by the name of Jean Piaget developed the theory of Stages of Cognitive Development, which most psychologists recognize as true and it can be observed to be true to anyone who is a parent and watches their child’s cognitive development.

Piaget’s last stage of cognitive development is the stage of “abstract operations”. It starts at puberty and is finished in the late teens or early 20’s. It is in this stage that the human brain develops to the point it can understand and use abstract concepts. Before puberty a child is physically unable to understand abstract concepts because the brain has not physically developed to the point it can do that.

It is much better to think of a “concrete” example that is similar to what you want to explain to the child

The fact that God has always existed is true whether we can intellectually conceptualize this or not. For the child, it is enough to explain this in a way that the child can accept as true and counter arguments by his non Catholic Christian playmates and possibly atheist teachers in the public school system. Of course the child should not argue with atheist teachers, it is enough that he knows in his mind that those teachers are in error.
 
The good sisters at St. Mark’s Elementary did not mess around when I asked the same question as a kid. They went straight to a (simplified) explanation from Aquinas, which I more or less understood:

All things either have a cause (origin) or not.

If they have a cause, two things cannot be the cause of one another. If you stick two things (A and B) in a classroom, A could be the cause of B, or B the origin of A, but A can’t be the origin of both B and A. (This was explained to me in the form of parentage as a cause or origin: John could be Joe’s parent, but John couldn’t be both Joe and John’s parent). There would have to be another cause or origin or parent outside the classroom.

If we put 100 people, or a million, or all the things in the universe, or an infinite number of things in the classroom, there would have to be (still) an cause outside the classroom that doesn’t have it’s own parent / origin / cause. An infinite number of caused things still can’t be the cause for their own creation, anymore than just two things could. That creator outside the classroom couldn’t have its own cause, or it would just be part of the same group of created things. There could only be one cause, which would have no creator and would be the creator of all things, and would be our God.

Richard Dawkins can’t grasp that, but I bet your 8-year old is smarter.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top