The question “if God created the universe, then who created god”, can satisfactorily be address by the following logic:
I regard God as the “supreme and eternal intelligence”, by nature spirit.
Modern cosmology has finally proved that the universe came into existence around fourteen billion years ago.
At that event, TIME was created as well as energy (later to partially condense to matter (in the formation of hydrogen)
- hence we now call it SPACE/TIME. There is therefore NO “Time”, as we can know it, before “the Big Bang”, which created it.
For that reason we can never know anything scientifically “before or outside of Time”, or outside of this universe.
The very laws of nature came into existence at that moment and for us, can only apply within it.
A supreme designer, who conceived those laws, existing outside the constraints of TIME, is the only logical conclusion…
i.e an eternal being. The God of the Bible told Moses at the “burning bush, I AM, WHO AM”.
Jesus said “before Abraham, I AM”.
A leap of faith is needed finally whether theist or atheist, but a “Multiverse”, would seem to be just TOO great, when Christ
offers such hope.

Dr Lennox’s argument simply comes down to arbitrarily defining the god he believes in as “uncreated” and, hey presto, problem solved.  I am going to define two groups of things, those that belong to me and those that don’t.  I have just placed Dr Lennox’s house in the category of things that belong to me.  Keys please.

Hello!

Below is my brief review of Richard Dawkins’ who-designed-the-designer objection, which appeared in the Journal of the International Society of Christian Apologetics, Vol. 3, No. 1 (2010): 119-122. The who-designed-the-designer objection is basically the same objection as the who-created-the-creator objection addressed by Professor Lennox in the above video. I think that what I’ve written will nicely complement (and strengthen) Professor Lennox’s case, so I present it here.

(What follows is a slightly edited version of what appeared in Journal of the International Society of Christian Apologetics. I encourage interested readers to subscribe to this fine journal.)

Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion now has sold over 1.5 million copies, has been translated into over 30 languages, and recently has been re-issued in paperback.  In the book’s crucial fourth chapter, ‘Why there almost certainly is no God,’ Dawkins argues that the objection/question ‘Who designed the designer?’ blocks any inference to a designer.  In this brief review I will argue that this important objection is a philosophical failure.

First I will clarify the objection.  Then I will set out my critique.

According to Dawkins’ who-designed-the-designer objection, appealing to an intelligent designer to explain nature’s complexity (a.k.a. apparent design) is to pass the explanatory buck.  The intelligent designer hypothesis merely transfers the mystery of nature’s complexity, which is the puzzle to be explained, to the mystery of the designer’s complexity, which is a new puzzle to be explained.

More specifically, Dawkins argues that because the complexity of the natural world is highly improbable, and because the intelligent designer must be at least as complex as the complexity of the natural world that’s being explained by the intelligent design hypothesis, it follows that the intelligent design hypothesis must be at least as improbable as the natural world (113-114).  But, Dawkins argues, this is to explain one improbability by another improbability as great as, or greater than, the first improbability (114).  What is worse, this also raises the question of the origin of the designer, thereby adding yet another layer of improbability to explain the additional complexity of the designer’s designer (120).  And what about the complexity of the designer of the designer’s designer?  And so on, ad infinitum (120).

Because of this unending regress of additional improbabilities, Dawkins thinks that the God hypothesis cannot be a rational explanation for the apparent design found in nature.  Thus, according to Dawkins, God is illusory.  In addition, Dawkins would have us believe, we are all stuck with the logical implication that some atheistic form of evolution, Darwinian and/or other, must have created the apparent design (158).

Clearly, as Dawkins himself seems to realize (157-158), the who-designed-the-designer argument is the crucial philosophical foundation of The God Delusion.  If the who-designed-the-designer argument fails, then so do Dawkins’ hopes for an atheistic explanation.  So the question arises: Is Dawkins’ who-designed-the-designer argument logically sound?

I think not, for two reasons.

First, intelligent designer explanations are accepted in science even if the designer is complex e.g., in archaeology (to explain cave paintings and arrowheads), in cryptography (to explain codes), and in forensic science (to explain who dunnit).  In fact, in these sciences the designer is even more complex than the objects or phenomena explained, yet the designer hypothesis is scientifically legitimate.  If we were to accept Dawkins’ who-designed-the-designer objection, then - to be logically consistent - the aforementioned explanations would not be legitimate.  But they are legitimate.  Thus, it’s false that the complexity of a designer makes a design hypothesis improbable.

Second, the issue of the complexity and origin of a designer simply has no bearing on the process of determining whether something is designed.  Consider the science known as SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence).  In SETI the intelligent design hypothesis is allowed to explain ET’s communications (if they were to occur); moreover - and significantly - whether the alleged message is truly a message from ET depends not at all on our knowledge of ET’s complexity or origin, but solely on whether the message displays design.

How do we discern design?  Think about some long words in a Scrabble game, or consider some sophisticated computer software.  Or imagine, say, the discovery of strange complex machinery on Mars.  Or recall the messages from outer space in the movie Contact.  The way to discern whether something is designed is to determine whether the thing is (1) highly improbable via non-intelligent causes and (2) strongly analogous to things we know from empirical experience to be designed by intelligent causes.

Who designed the designer?  Perhaps the designer just is (and always has been).  Or not.  Perhaps the designer is complex.  Or not.  The point here is that we need not understand the nature of a designer (i.e., whether it’s complex or not) or even the origin of a designer (whether it has a designer or not) to determine that something has been designed.  Therefore, as an alleged block to discerning a designer from its designed effects, the who-designed-the-designer objection is beside the point - it’s not relevant.

To recap, Dawkins’ who-designed-the-designer objection has two major flaws: it is based on a falsehood, and it is basically irrelevant.  In other words, the objection that constitutes the philosophical foundation of The God Delusion is (to put it mildly) a philosophical blunder.

Significantly, nature’s apparent design remains and continues to suggest an Intelligent Designer.

Many religions exist...Atheistic Evolutionary Theory is just the next..their god is the Big bang, their savior is Darwin, and his disciples are the likes of Dawkins, Gould and Mayr.

We Christians believe what we believe, we’ve survived the rise and fall of many religions...we haven’t let fanatics deter our faith, just as many evolutionists with respect to their fanatics…

No one can be won over through clever argument, or persuasion. Every battle is won on your knee in prayer. If they chose to dismiss us, we must dust our feet of them, and let them take their chances with God, it’s not our battle.

If evolutionists are so comfortable with their belief (or Theory that is), why do they try so hard to discredit all the other religions and justify themselves, what is their motivation I ask??

It cannot be spreading the truth. If you are atheist, there is no consequence to knowing the truth apart from self refinement. You live, you die, you cease to exist, there is no ultimate consequence, so why does an evolutionist care if someone believes in a religion if they aren’t affecting anyone else...in a time of scientific freedom why do evolutionists try so hard to convert to their cause…

Answer me this.

Andy well said, I agree totally, why do they get so personal
and nasty. What’s the problem? Just like you, christians are
a meek lot, usually helping anyone they can, even if they
don’t deserve it. They all seem to come up with this argument
of wars in the name of religion, e.g. Northern Ireland, etc.
This is quite pathetic really, because it’s like saying,"I once
heard something bad happened somewhere, so I’m very sceptical
about anyone from there”.
The truth is it’s a spiritual world and they hate us.

Perhaps someone could explain something to me?

I’m a born-again Christian, and my faith is based on evidence, but, for the sake of argument, what if I, along with all my fellow Christians are mistaken. If I spend my life following principles and values which are basically good, such as ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ and ‘be kind and compassionate to one another’ etc, what harm am I doing to other people? All the Christians I know, do good things on a regular basis. (Those people who have done bad things in the name of Christianity, aren’t true Christians; the bible does warn us that some in the Church will be false). My question is, what is the motivation behind people like Richard Dawkins and anyone else who campaigns against biblical belief?

If atheists really think our beliefs are ridiculous, why even bother trying to refute them. Again, what’s the real motive behind it?

Has Christianity messed up the world? Do the teachings of Jesus screw people up? Have people like Mother Teresa, William Wilberforce and Martin Luther King damaged the world irrevocably? I could understand people vehemently campaigning against any beliefs that threaten a return to nazism, but Christianity?

If Christians are wrong, what will the eternal consequence be? If the atheist is wrong about the Bible,.........?

Jonathan Moreyia wrote:

“But that’s where the problems arise: at this point, EVERY religion uses special pleading to grant their particular deity exemption from the physical laws from the creatures/"watches" they create.”

The maker of a car cannot by definition be him/herself subject to the inner workings of the car, because he/she is not part of the car. Otherwise this would imply self-creation which is self contradictory.

In the same way, the creator of ALL physical reality CANNOT be subject to the laws of physics, because he/she/it CANNOT be part of its own creation.

A creator of anything has to be outside the system of what he/she creates. If not, it resolves in self-contradiction. This is logically inescable.

So this isn’t special pleading at all.

“2. The something that was created is less intelligent then its creator. So to say that matter created itself is absurd ive never seen something create itself in the 3D world. have you? or am i crazy.”

This analogy fundamentally fails in logic. It explains one reason why the Watchmaker Argument is so riddled in fallacy. The watch, of course, is “less intelligent” (whatever that means, and of course, you haven’t defined the term) than the watchmaker… but the watchmaker, in every single way, without a doubt, is subject to the same physical laws as that watch.

But that’s where the problems arise: at this point, EVERY religion uses special pleading to grant their particular deity exemption from the physical laws from the creatures/"watches" they create. You cannot compare a watch being created to the universe being created, because the “creator” is given abilities outside of what its creation has! So the analogy utterly fails!

“...God is outside of our parameters so therefore he doesnt have to be created...”

Oh goodie! Special pleading! So therefore, by your definition (and by Dr. Lennox’s), a god is valid because the arguer’s god fits within THEIR parameters! So therefore, you have proven EVERY SINGLE DEITY AND MYTHICAL CREATURE OUT THERE!

Also to say that the universe is eternal without a creator is absurd. To say that matter was always here and needed no creation is a copout in a way because we observe matter in science ever day everyone observes matter we know that it cant create something just as complex as itself. We know of two rules that apply to this argument. 1. something within our parameters of the world has to be created by something, this is what we observe everyday and have never observed differently. 2. The something that was created is less intelligent then its creator. So to say that matter created itself is absurd ive never seen something create itself in the 3D world. have you? or am i crazy.

Show me something within our realm that has not been created. anything. By the observable standpoint everything has been created so why do we think differently about the beginning of our universe. A lot of you missed what this article says, which is that God is outside of our parameters so therefore he doesnt have to be created. Or maybe he was you really dont know, read deutoronomy 29:29. Try to comprehend what it would be like to be in a 4th dimension. Imagine what you would look like. Imagine the rules of that dimension and also how do you live in that dimension. You cant even begin to comprehend what the 4th dimension looks like. Maybe God is within another dimension where things can create themselves where matter is actually self-existent. But as we know in our parameters of our universe matter has never been self-existent so why believe in self-existent matter. My ultimate point is that we know for our universe that there has to be something that created it or put it into motion since matter is not self-existent. We know nothing else about any other dimension or its parameters and how physical laws work if there are any within that dimension. Just because you cant comprehend God doesnt mean he’s not real. Some people cant even comprehend the complexities of this earth but yet those things are still factual. I dont see how this is a hard concept for athiest to grasp it bewilders me at times.

Quite on the Contrary the God of the Bible is described as incomprehensible and partly comprehensible. In the book of Jeremiah God describes himself in this way: ‘Am I only God nearby...and not a God far away? Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him...Do not I fill the heaven and earth’ (Jeremiah 23: 23-24) and in Isaiah as the one who has measured the heavens (Isaiah 40: 12).

King Solomon said: ‘But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven cannot contain you. How much less the temple I have built’ (1 Kings 8: 27). This passage indeed describes the incomprehensible side of God, the God that is not depended upon time, space, matter, energy, creation etc, from everything emerged, and secondly the side of God they could comprehend, which is the revelation of God in terms of prophecy and action or intervention in the created realm.

Hence when you state that the God of the Bible is a smaller God because he is comprehensible according to some of the biblical terms or because of creation you fail to differentiate between the God who simply is, whom we cannot comprehend, describe or phatom and the revelation of this God in prophecy and divine interaction within the created realm.

@ Douglas:

“God is the only logical way to explain why we are here.”

It’s a question that all creationists hate hearing (pointed out by Ravi Zacharias, who presented at my university last month), but it holds extremely valid: WHICH god?

All religions claim to “know” how the universe came about. As pointed out in my last post, Taoists believe all in the universe grew out of the Dao--how is this extravagant claim any less valid than your own? “Logically” only works when, under ALL circumstances, your reasoning will ALWAYS apply, no matter who looks at it. Therefore, all claims that “God did it” are illogical to atheists who lack a belief in God, Buddhists who lack a belief in any deity, Muslims who lack a belief in YOUR god, and everyone else who doesn’t believe in your god.

Claims prove nothing. Unless those claims are presented with factual evidence, peer-reviewed by scientists and other groups, your claims will remain nothing more than claims.

And they are certainly not logical. Special pleading fallacies are always used by those with no evidence for their claims. And so I say, justified under special pleading: “DAO DID IT!”!

I think people (my self included) have a hard time understanding or comprehending God. But ultimately we are here, so we had to get here some how. Romans 1:20 says “For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.” There are things you must take on faith either way you look at it because we have no eyewitness. IF God exists, then He cannot play by the same rules so to speak. IF He created everything, then He is not bound by the same laws as we are. What we need to do is not try to fit God into our parameters, because He is outside of them. Realize that God is ALL KNOWING, AND ALL POWERFUL. I would cite the fact that we are here as the most compelling argument. Matter cannot exist eternally, and cannot be self existent. God is the only logical way to explain why we are here. The fact we can reason about things like this proves there is an all powerful God. Colossians chap. 1 says “He is before all things, and by him all things are held together.” I hope this will help.

Whose word do we choose to believe?

The Word became flesh, and dwelt with us…

Learn who Jesus is; check him out in the book of Matthew, or Mark or Luke or John.  They were there.

Blessings to you.

The reason we talk of creation is that we notice that laws and rules apply to things in the universe. Then we think something must have programmed the laws. What if we talk about a programmer rather than a creator?

If we say “God” is “Something all-powerful” then I believe in God. Take an object. It’s not all-powerful because it has laws restricting it. What about those laws? Are they all-powerful? If not, there are laws restricting them.

Eager theists may be tempted to say “Well, if we go back far enough, we’ll find something with no laws. Hey presto, God!”

But the line may stretch infinitely back. I’m a theist, but I think it makes more sense if we think of the whole of existence as a single thing. Are there laws outside it? If yes, then we’re not thinking about all existence. If no, then it’s all powerful, for there is nothing outside it restricting it.

“So that something exists, something has to have existed forever, because the nothing, nothing creates.”
You either believe that God is self-existent, or that something else is. Because if you keep going back to “what created what?” you will always end up with something self-existent.

You play fallacy, then so will I.

What an incredible argument John Lennox points out. “Of course the Christian doctrine is that God existed eternally, so that, by definition, the creation *word?* so to speak, stops there.”

So, by definition, the Christian God is defined to be defined as out of anything rhetorically sound, right? What a fantastic argument. Anything that *would* be applied to God with any sort of scientific reasoning would simply be dismissed as, “Well, we define God to be outside of a naturalistic point of view,” or “Scientific laws don’t apply to those outside of the universe.”

Rhetoric likes to call such arguments Special Pleading Fallacies. And if John Lennox can perform such a fallacy and it is regarded as acceptable, then so can I. So I say, that by definition, MY god is outside of the rules of your Christian doctrine, but YOUR God is within the realms of mine.

His argument is just as valid as a Daoist argument of “creation,” which says everything grew from the Almighty One, the Dao itself. But unlike with the Christian God, the Dao is too great to be limited to simple HUMAN descriptions. The Christian God, then, is limited by the descriptions in the Bible--the Dao is not. Therefore, the Dao is much greater than God, because it is far too perfect to even be described.

You play fallacy, then so will I.

I am a Christian that thoroughly enjoys science and apologetics. There is a such thing as a response that might embarrass you, so please think about your postings before you actually do. I would also recommend watching these videos twice since they’re short and you might catch something you missed. Watch them without any other browser tabs open and be focused.

Please don’t make your statements in such a way that would portray itself as a debate ending statement. Nobody is here to convert someone to one side or the other. I’m assuming that most people make posts to share what they believe/think and why. This is a forum to ask questions and share ideas. Thought-out responses are received better, and help others think more critically, generating a better response and promoting more thinking.

I think it goes a little bit like this:

Faith: Life is too complex not to be designed. Someone must have created it.

Science: Ok, but the creator must be even more complex than the creation. Who created the creator?

Faith: Well, who says everything that is complex needs to have a creator?

Science: You just did!

Faith: Nah-ah.

One must believe in God to not believe in God.
Life is empty and meaningless....and it doesnt mean anything that it doesn’t mean anything.