Question:
One only needs to open their eyes, heart, and soul to reality to see that God does exist. However, I have one question. If as you say “everything must come from something”, and that something is God. Where then did God come from? He had to come from something; where or what was it?
Answer:
Before I answer your question, let me point out a technique that is often used to “prove” a point, called the “straw man” technique. It’s not always done on purpose, but very often it is.
To set up a “straw man”, one presents a secondary or lesser argument then uses that argument to either prop up or knock down the primary argument.
In this case, you first state without support or discussion that “as you say, everything must come from something”. This statement is out of context of the series you cite (“Does God Exist” – https://www.seriousfaith.com/series_details.asp?seriesid=7) then used to prove your next point. (I’m not saying you are taking my statement out of context on purpose, or maliciously; I will assume your question is just that… an honest question).
However, you start with one premise to support the second. The first premise is false, so it cannot support your second, main point. I will start by commenting on the argument of “everything must come from something”.
In one sense, it is true. Every THING must come from some THING. “Thing” implies creation – that is “it once did not exist, and now it does exist”. Every THING that fits this definition MUST come from something else. If God were a “THING” in the “did not exist, now does exist” sense, then He would have had to come from somewhere or something.
However, this is where some simple logic must come into play. For ANY THING to exist, something must be ETERNAL. In other words, you can’t keep asking infinitely, “where did that come from? Well, where did that com from?” At some point, something MUST (no matter how far you go back) exist eternally for anything to exist presently. We only have two choices:
- That material THINGS (the Universe) are eternal
- Or, that something outside our universe (or some ONE) existed FIRST, and then every other THING came from this eternal FIRST CAUSE.
Can the Universe be eternal? Logically… No. All the Laws of Science, specifically Thermodynamics make the idea of eternally existing MATERIALS an absurdity and illogical. To believe that the Universe is eternal and self existent is to still deny the obvious question: where did the material the universe is made of come from? The universe is made of tangible, physical material. No matter how long, or in how many forms it has existed, it still begs the unaswerable: where did the Universe come from? Why? Because the universe is PHYSICAL.
Even if you accept the illogical and hopeless position that the Universe is eternal, you are still left with the statistical absurdity that life and design just happened by “chance” (a enigma to begin with!). So to simply give in and believe by “faith” that the Universe is eternal, leaves you with an almost equally hopeless leap of faith that the “eternal Universe” then transformed by chance (evolution), into all of the exquisite design we see. BY CHANCE, it accidently became all the wonders of space, all the life on our planet, and finally in an infinite leap, intelligent man “evolved” by chance with all the characteristics that separate us from every other living thing (ability to reason, love, appreciation, empathy, justice, creativeness, compassion).
The LOGICAL answer is: something NOT physical, or someone, has EXISTED ETERNALLY and made a purposeful and willful choice to CREATE all else that exists.
Once we reach God, there is no need to ask “where did God come from” because God has existed UNCREATED eternally. He did not come from anything. He has always been. Only something that was not created can exist eternally. Everything material thing must have a cause. God is not material. God is Spirit. Eternal Spirit.
God is the First Cause. He is the Source. He is the Creator. It is natural that we cannot fathom this because the CREATED is never equal to the CREATOR.
What house can fathom the carpenter that built it? What cake can comprehend the cook? What computer can explain and understand the engineer that designed it? No matter how powerful computers become, they are always far INFERIOR to the intelligence that created it.
In the same way, we (the created) cannot hope to fathom and completely grasp God (the Creator). Why do we accept the FACT of God then?
Because it is logical. Because it is the only reasonable choice. Because God has DESIGNED into our spirit a deep down sense that HE exists, and that is why we look for Him. How could evolution ever bring about a need, a sense, a longing for, or even the idea of “God”? Evolution does not need God; evolution does not need hope; evolution has no use for beauty, love, poetry, heaven or eternity. It is only concerned with “survival”.
The very fact that we can conceive of God, think about God, partially comprehend God and have faith in God is part of the PROOF of God’s eternal existence and plan.
God did not come from anything. He is Eternal. We cannot grasp that but it is fundamentally logical, spiritually sensible and yes, scientifically sound. God was first, then He created all that is, for His reasons, and His good pleasure.
All things come from God. God is the FIRST CAUSE. Material things that need a cause came from the eternal God who was not caused but simply IS. That explains the name God calls Himself by: I AM.