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I’m not saying “God is the origin” removes all the unknowns or difficulties, or is sufficient to explain every detail. Quite the opposite: it adds another dimen

I’m not saying “God is the origin” removes all the unknowns or difficulties, or is sufficient to explain every detail. Quite the opposite: it adds another dimension of unknowns and mystery, because it allows “why?” to be a meaningful question (speaking of ultimate meaning/purpose, beyond natural preconditions and mechanisms) in scientific inquiry, in addition to “what”, “how”, etc.

khazhoux 8y ago
It doesn't really add many unknowns or mystery. It's quite simple: "God created everything". Now you're left with only one unknown, "who/what/how created God?" But the answer to that can't be a "who" or you have the problem of a Super-God, which (by convention) is disallowed. So instead, people say "God is eternal both into the past and into the future" and neatly tie up any possible question. God always was and always will be and he created everything -- a clean solution where if you accept the premise of God, then any and all follow-on questions just point back to the premise.
- TimTheTinker 8y ago
  > Now you're left with only one unknown That doesn't make any sense to me. "God created everything" is nearly content-less even if you assume it. If you stop there, you're left with nearly zero understanding of how the world/nature/universe works. Inquiry of all sorts (scientific included) is still indispensable for discovering content about the world. > "who/what/how created God?" The only way to know anything about the Christian God, at least, is to look at what he’s done and what he says about himself - again a line of inquiry involving discovery, questions, deductions. > a clean solution where if you accept the premise of God, then any and all follow-on questions just point back to the premise. Agreed, it does tie it up neatly. But again, assuming the Christian God, we have no ability to know anything about him unless he chooses to reveal it (him being an infinite being). And assuming everything that begins to exist has a cause, there must be something that did not begin to exist -- which must then be defined as having no beginning. You might be familiar with logical systems if you're a developer. At the most basic levels, where everything is bootstrapped, a lot of self-references are often involved.

khazhoux 8y ago

It doesn't really add many unknowns or mystery. It's quite simple: "God created everything". Now you're left with only one unknown, "who/what/how created God?" But the answer to that can't be a "who" or you have the problem of a Super-God, which (by convention) is disallowed. So instead, people say "God is eternal both into the past and into the future" and neatly tie up any possible question. God always was and always will be and he created everything -- a clean solution where if you accept the premise of God, then any and all follow-on questions just point back to the premise.

TimTheTinker 8y ago
> Now you're left with only one unknown That doesn't make any sense to me. "God created everything" is nearly content-less even if you assume it. If you stop there, you're left with nearly zero understanding of how the world/nature/universe works. Inquiry of all sorts (scientific included) is still indispensable for discovering content about the world. > "who/what/how created God?" The only way to know anything about the Christian God, at least, is to look at what he’s done and what he says about himself - again a line of inquiry involving discovery, questions, deductions. > a clean solution where if you accept the premise of God, then any and all follow-on questions just point back to the premise. Agreed, it does tie it up neatly. But again, assuming the Christian God, we have no ability to know anything about him unless he chooses to reveal it (him being an infinite being). And assuming everything that begins to exist has a cause, there must be something that did not begin to exist -- which must then be defined as having no beginning. You might be familiar with logical systems if you're a developer. At the most basic levels, where everything is bootstrapped, a lot of self-references are often involved.