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THEIST: “There is so much complexity in the world, it must have been designed by an Intelligent Designer. The best explanation for our world is an Intelligent Designer.”
ATHEIST: “But then who designed the Designer?”
THEIST: “Nobody.” (Or perhaps: “I don’t know.”)
ATHEIST: “Well then you have explained nothing.”
The above question represents a common conversation between theists and atheists across all ages. We take a stab at it ourselves…
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Show Notes
Can something come from nothing?

* Science: Conservation of Mass/Energy

* In experiments everything must be accounted for

* Philosophy: Principle of Sufficient Reason

* Presupposition for all thinking and knowing
* Cannot prove- have to presume it to be true in order to do so

* In the real world things do not just appear or disappear
* To say the world appeared magically or without reason results in a nonsensical claim.

If God is the cause of our Universe, who/what caused God?

* Everything we experience in life has a cause
* If God were caused there would be an infinite regress
* God is first cause- without a first cause you cannot have a second cause, third cause, …
* God is

* uncaused
* necessary being
* exists by definition
* does not have existence added to his essence
* source and cause of existence of everything else

(Not quite correct to call God the cause of himself- implies prior existence)
Distinction between essence and existence and why they are distinct in us and not in God?

* Whatever a thing has besides its essence is caused either by that essence (from within) or by an exterior agent (from without).
* Essence associated with ‘What is man?’ (answered by a definition)
* Existence associated “Is there a man?” (not answered by a definition)
* If God’s essence is not his existence, then he would have to get it from within or without.
* Not from exterior agent then he wouldn’t be God.
* Not from his essence Would need to exist prior to existence
* Therefore, God’s essence is his existence