Atheism is Bad Philosophy

For many atheists, the philosophical knock-out punch that makes belief in God an impossibility is the question, “If God created the universe, then who created God?”

A meaningless question

Bertrand Russell said it was that question that converted him to atheism as a boy because it seemed unanswerable. In his book, “The God Delusion,” atheist Richard Dawkins calls it the question on which the whole argument about the existence of God turns, suggesting an untenable “infinite regress” of Creators creating Creators from which there is no escape.

But this admittedly unanswerable question is far from the clincher atheists claim it to be. In fact, the reason the question remains unanswered is not that believers can’t explain who created God, but that the question itself makes no sense. And the reason for that is all wrapped up in a fact that everyone, theists and atheists alike, accepts: the universe had a beginning.

The key is the Big Bang

British astronomer Fred Hoyle coined the term “Big Bang” to describe the unimaginably immense explosion of matter and energy that was the beginning of our universe. At that moment of creation, the universe existed as what is known as a singularity, with all matter and energy compressed to a point of zero volume and infinite density. As famed physicist and atheist Stephen Hawking notes, it is impossible to say what happened “before” the instant of the explosion because, “time began at the Big Bang.”

In other words, not only did the Big Bang result in the creation of all the matter and energy in our universe, it was the start of time itself. Thus, time is a concept that has meaning only from the moment the universe began. And that fact underlies the philosophical trap into which many atheists have fallen.

A false assumption leads atheists to an erroneous conclusion

The very question of who created God carries an implicit assumption that is at odds with the fact that time began when the universe was created.

To ask who created God implicitly assumes that God had a beginning. But if God is indeed the Creator of the universe, He had to predate it. In other words, the Creator of the universe had to already exist at the moment the universe came into being. But at that moment, there was no such thing as time — it came into existence only at the instant of creation. Obviously then, God, if He created the universe, does not exist within time, since time is something He created along with matter and energy.

The question “who created God” is based on the hidden assumption that God had a beginning. But what does “beginning” mean when there is no such thing as time?

Asking the “who created God?” question in a slightly different way underscores its absurdity. If God was created, it would make sense to ask when that happened. But if time did not exist because God had not yet created it, what is the meaning of the word “when”?

God has always been understood to inhabit timeless eternity. For a timeless being, terms like “beginning” and “end” are meaningless. And if God has no beginning, the question of when and by whom He was created is likewise meaningless.

Other articles in this series:

Atheism is Bad News
Atheism is Bad Science
Atheism is Bad Morality