Who is God?
Does God exist? To get an answer to this question, we must understand who God is. God is the Creator who created this universe and everything in it.
Let’s now see if the Universe has a Creator.
Did this universe exist forever or does this universe have a beginning?
Scientists say that the age of the universe is 13.8 billion years. If the universe has been around forever, can we measure the age of the Universe? Of course not. For example, if you never had a beginning, will you have an age? The fact that the Universe has an age tells us that it had a beginning.
Can science tell us how the universe began?
Atheists believe in “scientific” analysis for everything. To know if science can tell us how the Universe began, we should understand what “science” is.
What is science?
The famous Oxford dictionary defines science as:
knowledge about the structure and behaviour of the natural and physical world, based on facts that you can prove, for example by experiments
Oxford Dictionary
As one can see, science is a study of the natural and physical world, which means, science operates within the realms of the Universe.
For us to find out how the universe began, we must know what happened before the universe began, i.e know what happened outside the Universe. This is because the “cause” of the Universe must be outside the Universe.
Is it possible to use ‘science’ that can operate only within the Universe to find out the “cause” which lies outside the Universe? The answer is no. Since “science” as a tool is incapable of finding out the “cause” of the Universe, we must adopt a logical approach to know the origin of the Universe.
Logical approach to find the cause of Universe
Let’s use logic to identify the different possibilities for the origin of the Universe. There can be only two logical possibilities for the origin of the Universe.
- The universe created itself.
- ‘Something’ created the universe.
Let’s examine the two possibilities above.
Can the Universe create itself?
Can something that did not exist create itself? The answer is No. Does it make sense to say “You gave birth to yourself”? No. Saying “Universe created itself” is similar to saying “you gave birth to yourself”. So, the universe could not have created itself.
‘Something’ created the universe
We are now left with only one possibility, which is: ‘something’ must have created the Universe. We call this ‘something’ as God. The immediate question that would occur in someone’s mind is “Who created God?” Let’s discuss this question.
Who created God?
We use ‘time’ to measure the beginning and end of something. If there is no ‘time’, then there will be no beginning and end. Everything in this universe is dependent on time; so they all have a beginning and an end.
Just like the universe, ‘Time’ also came into existence and has a beginning. So, like the Universe, ‘Time’ must have been caused by ‘something’ because ‘time’ could not have come into existence on its own. So God, who is the cause for the beginning of the universe, is also the cause for the beginning of ‘time’. This is because, if God is within time, it would mean He has a beginning. If God has a beginning, there must be a cause for God’s beginning and that cause must have a cause as everything happens within the ‘time’ loop. If the chain of “causes” does not end, it will go on infinitely and nothing would have been created. Let’s understand this through an example.
Mr. A is a fisherman who requires permission from Mr. B to begin fishing.
Mr. B requires permission from Mr. C.
Mr. C requires permission from Mr. D.
Mr. D requires permission from Mr. E.
Mr. E requires permission from Mr. F and
Mr. F requires permission from Mr. G.
If the chain continues like this without an end, will Mr. A ever get the required permission from Mr. B? The answer is no.
Like in the example above, if God is within ‘time’, the chain of causes will go on infinitely and the Universe could not have been created. But, the creation of the Universe is a reality. So God, who is the cause for the beginning of the Universe, is beyond ‘time’ and is also the cause for the ‘time’.
God who is beyond ‘time’, can have no beginning or end. Therefore, it is meaningless to ask who created God.
Conclusion
- The Universe’s age is measured and therefore the Universe has a beginning.
- Universe could not have created itself, so ‘something’ created the Universe.
- We call the ‘something’ as God.
- Like the Universe, ‘time’ also came into existence.
- God cannot be within ‘time’ as it leads to an infinite loop of causes.
- God is beyond ‘time’ and therefore, God has no beginning or end.
- It is meaningless to ask ‘who created God?’ as God has no beginning or end.
