Challenge Response: There’s No Possibility of a Creator

Posted: September 15, 2011 by Brett Kunkle in God is Real, Weekly Challenge

I asked a special guest to weigh in on this week’s challenge…

Comments
  1. Justin says:
    September 15, 2011 at 11:44 am

    I agree Hawking’s argument that “there was no time for God to create in” was debunked, but there were other aspects of Stephen’s comment that could have been explored. For example, saying there is no time for God to create the universe, would sound to me to be the same thing as saying there is no time for the big bang to actually “bang” in, therefore Hawking’s view of the big bang itself seems to be suicidal. It would be interesting to see this explored.

    Also, Stephen Hawking apparently gives a view of the universe’s existence that doesn’t require a creator at all. Why wasn’t this debunked? All the video did was debunk whether or not there was a way for God to still have “created” the universe; it did nothing to expose the inadequacy of Hawking’s view of the universes existence/creation. It would have been nice to hear a response to that.

    On a more scientific level, I would like to hear more on whether or not protons can suddenly “pop” into existence, but I realize this is outside of Greg’s realm of expertise.

    God bless,
    Justin

    • Amy Hall says:
      September 16, 2011 at 12:21 pm

      I think we’re going to have to cover that one another time! Unfortunately, we can’t cover too much in one of these videos.

      But I think that’s a good question about the Big Bang. It does seem that Hawking would have to say that time existed before the Big Bang created time. Otherwise, there would have been no time for the Big Bang to happen in. That seems so simple…am I missing something?

      • Justin says:
        September 16, 2011 at 1:22 pm

        Sounds like a classic Suicide to me!

        “There was no time for God to create the universe in…but there was time for a microscopic ball of mass to ‘pop’ into existence prior to the big bang, and there was time for that microscopic ball of mass to actually ‘bang’, thus creating time itself.”

  2. Paul says:
    September 15, 2011 at 2:48 pm

    Oh hi Greg!

    Looking good mate……for an old guy. 🙂

    Paul from Oz

  3. Sam Harper says:
    September 15, 2011 at 5:14 pm

    I don’t know if this completely solves the problem Hawking raised. It seems to me that it only postpones the problem. Even if there was time before the beginning of the universe, there’s still the problem of how time itself could have begun since God couldn’t have existed before time. If Greg thinks time had no beginning, then he’s got to deal with all the problems Bill Craig raises against an infinite past–the impossibility of an actual infinite, and the impossibility of forming an actual infinite by successive addition. But if Greg thinks time had a beginning, then a good response to Hawking’s argument should’ve included an account of how God could be the cause of time beginning without God existing before time.

    • Amy Hall says:
      September 16, 2011 at 12:18 pm

      Well, this one is beyond my ability. I know I’m supposed to believe in the A theory of time and that God is now in time with us, but I’m still not convinced it’s not B. I somehow think this could be more easily solved with B. I know that raises questions about how I could be the same person that existed in the moment before me…and I suppose there are other problems, but I haven’t done the necessary work to have a firm explanation that I’m confident in…or maybe I just love the idea of time travel too much to concede this one.

  4. Paul says:
    September 15, 2011 at 5:24 pm

    Hi Sam,

    (Before the experts get here….)

    I think the answer lies in the difference between ‘infinite’ and ‘eternal’.