The First with no beginning


Imagine a sniper who has acquired his designated target and radios through to Head Quarter to get permission to shoot. HQ however, tells the sniper to hold on while they seek permission from higher up. So the guy higher up seeks permission from the guy even higher up and so on and so on. If this keeps going on, will the sniper ever get to shoot the target? Of course not! He’ll keep on waiting while someone is waiting for a person higher up to give the order. There has to be a place or person from where the command is issued, a place where there is no higher up. [1]

So our example illustrates why there is a rational flaw in the idea that there might be creators creating creators ad infinitum… We can’t have creators creating creators forever, or else, just as the sniper will never shoot, the creation will never get created. But the creation is here. It exists. So we can dismiss the idea of an infinite regression of causes as being an irrational proposition. So what is the alternative? The alternative is a first cause. An uncaused cause! We could conclude that the nature of the intelligent and willful force behind the universe, life and everything must have a different nature from the creation, and as we have seen, there are compelling

reasons to do so. So…if the creation is needy, the Creator should be self-sufficient. And if the creation is temporary, the Creator should be eternal. And if the creation is confined by space and time, the Creator should be free of space and time. And if the creation is common, the Creator should be unique. And it follows reasonably that there could only be one unique, eternal, self-sufficient being unconfined by space and time, for if there were more than one then these attributes could not apply. How could there be two or three eternal beings, or two beings unconstrained by space or time? This is why it makes so much sense to believe in One Unique Eternal and Self-Sufficient Creator. Common sense and reason lead easily or perhaps even inevitably, to the conclusion that the universe has been created by a transcendent being, unlike in essence to anything that we know.

Inside of Us

A three-year international research project, directed by two academics at the University of Oxford, finds that humans have natural tendencies to believe in gods and an afterlife.

Project Co-Director Professor Roger Trigg, from the University of Oxford’s Ian Ramsey Centre, said: ‘This project suggests that religion is not just something for a peculiar few to do on Sundays instead of playing golf. We have gathered a body of evidence that suggests that religion is a common fact of human nature across different societies. This suggests that attempts to suppress religion are likely to be short-lived as human thought seems to be rooted to religious concepts, such as the existence of supernatural agents or gods, and the possibility of an afterlife or pre-life.’ [2]

 


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References:

[1] The Man in The Red Underpants

[2] Project Co-Director Professor Roger Trigg, Ian Ramsey Centre in the Theology Faculty at Oxford University ,‘The Cognition, Religion and Theology Project’ from the Centre for Anthropology and Mind at Oxford University, Humans ‘predisposed’ to believe in gods and the afterlife, 13 May 2011

http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2011/110513.html

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