Browse Search Feedback Other Links Home Home The Talk.Origins Archive: Exploring the Creation/Evolution Controversy

Index to Creationist Claims,  edited by Mark Isaak,    Copyright © 2004
Previous Claim: CI191   |   List of Claims   |   Next Claim: CI301

Claim CI200:

Every event has a cause. The universe itself had a beginning, so it must have had a first cause, which must have been a creator God.

Source:

Craig, W. L., 1994. Reasonable Faith: Christian truth and apologetics, Crossway Books, Wheaton IL.
Morris, Henry M., 1974. Scientific Creationism, Green Forest, AR: Master Books, pp. 19-20.

Response:

  1. The assumption that every event has a cause, although common in our experience, is not necessarily universal. The apparent lack of cause for some events, such as radioactive decay, suggests that there might be exceptions. There are also hypotheses, such as alternate dimensions of time or an eternally oscillating universe, that allow a universe without a first cause.

  2. By definition, a cause comes before an event. If time began with the universe, "before" does not even apply to it, and it is logically impossible that the universe be caused.

  3. This claim raises the question of what caused God. If, as some claim, God does not need a cause, then by the same reasoning, neither does the universe.

Previous Claim: CI191   |   List of Claims   |   Next Claim: CI301

created 1999-9-17, modified 2004-4-22