The creation conundrum

A creator is only needed in all cases (as suggested) if:

a) You assume things cannot appear spontaneously
b) Causality is relevant


Causality only makes sense when view events from the perspective of time flowing forward. Otherwise there are simply relationships between events, but not necessarily causation.

So, the most likely option is that some originator was uncreated due to the lack of need for creation criteria. This fits in well with our current model, with the Universe. As time began (theoretically) with the start of the universe, there is no need for a creation because the need for causality is moot.

Now we have to ask ourselves which is the more logical, likely event. The absolute first thing that existed created itself and spawned spontaneously, or it had always existed and is eternal.

Can't it be both? If it was created spontaneously, along with time, then it would have existed since the beginning of time, and as long as anything good possibly have existed, which is about as eternal as you can get. Eternity would mean very little beyond that point.

If you are proposing that there can be uncaused causes, then the big question that remains is why do you need a God?

The cosmological argument's first premise is that the Universe cannot account for itself, but then concludes that something must be able to account for itself for there to be something rather than nothing. Why can't the Universe simply be an uncaused 'brute fact' as Russell puts it?

It is possible of course, but we know the universe had a beginning. So I guess we'd have to extend the definition of the Universe to before the big bang also, and its current form is just a different variation of what it was before.

If you are proposing that there can be uncaused causes, then the big question that remains is why do you need a God?

The cosmological argument's first premise is that the Universe cannot account for itself, but then concludes that something must be able to account for itself for there to be something rather than nothing. Why can't the Universe simply be an uncaused 'brute fact' as Russell puts it?

It can be. Anything that creates itself from absolutely ntohing is an uncaused cause. Whether that uncaused cause was the big bang, god, or something previous is anyones guess. The point I'm making is what is more likely?

Something creating itself from absolutely nothing where nothing existed before and is responsible for all other creation. Or that something has always existed and always will exist. It never created itself because it always was.

I guess you could argue that the thing that created itself could go on to exist forever, but does that make it eternal? I think if something can be created then it can be destroyed.

It's a tough question and I really don't know what to believe, both some equally outrageous statements to make but nevertheless one of them is true.

Either something has always existed, or the first thing to exist created itself.

It can't be both like I said, because if something has always existed, then it was never created in the first place.

I guess you could argue that the Universe as a brute fact has always existed in one form or the other, although I don't know enough about physics to explain how that works. It is philosophically possible for the universe to create itself, and philosophically possible that the universe has always existed. Whether or not a God is more likely to be the brute fact, I don't really know (I think its impossible to prove that it is).

Don't forget that the universe as we understand it couldn't have always existed because it came into existence from the big bang. The big bang is the start of the creation of the universe.

I think you mean the energy that made the big bang possible has always existed? That's perfectly valid.

Well I did a GCSE in astronomy, and one theory is that the Universe is just a continuous cycle of Big bangs and big crunches, or that the life of a universe is completely circular. Of course, we can never know for certain, but I can see a viable possibility for an eternally existent universe, or even just energy, which still provides us with an uncaused cause.

Unforntunately that big bang - big crunch theory is pretty much forgotten about now. We know that the universe is expanding and that it's accelerating faster and faster. The universe has nothing to slow down it's acceleration as far as we know so it will just keep getting faster.

Who knows maybe the universe will get so large that it can't support itself anymore and will eventually come back in on itself but Hubble's law states that the universe is expanding and gaining speed.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/7955379/The-universe-will-expand-forever-new-Nasa-study-on-dark-energy-concludes.html little read for you, it'sa tad old but nevertheless.

It can't be both, if something is created then it isn't eternal. For something to be eternal is has to have always existed, it is infinite. Even if said thing creates itself it isn't classed as eternal because at some point it didn't exist.

But thats the point. If we are talking about something that time is intrinsically tied to (i.e, the Universe), then it has always existed, and there never was a point where it didn't exist, simply because there never was a point before it: 'before' it would have no meaning.

In the case of the Universe (or something similar), the very concept and possibility of before and after was generated alongside it.

Time as we know it never existed. But to say because time was created when the universe was created, nothing could have existed before the universe because there was no time is a bit silly.

Time as we know it is directly linked to our universe, so yes before time our universe never existed. That doesn't mean that there wasn't a universe before ours, with it's own local time and date of creation.

The only time we can say that nothing was before is if we're talking about something which has always existed.

I think you seem to think that nothing existed before the universe, well we know the big bang created the universe. The big bang was an event so it also came into existence.