#1008 Is God Still Around?

Dr. craig’s response

As a matter of fact, Chris, I have already addressed your question in my published work on the kalām cosmological argument. Your snide personal comments in your fourth paragraph are quite uncalled for, and therefore I shall ignore them.

Technically, your objection is (or should be) that the tense in the conclusion of the kalām cosmological argument is wrong: it should be that the universe had a cause, not that the universe has a cause. The argument’s proponent assumes that the cause of the universe still exists, but maybe he has ceased to exist and so is no longer around.

Now notice that this objection, contrary to your assertion, is inapplicable to any theistic argument that demonstrates the existence of a metaphysically necessary being. For it is impossible that a necessary being cease to exist. Once you have demonstrated the reality of such a being, you need to not be concerned that he may no longer be around. Among the various theistic arguments that I have defended, minimally the Leibnizian cosmological argument from contingency, the moral argument, and the ontological argument all imply the existence of a metaphysically necessary being. These fulfill your request for “arguments that He exists now,” that is, has not ceased to exist. (Whether God exists “in our Universe” is another question concerning God’s relationship to space; I’m inclined to think that he does not exist in our universe but rather transcends space.)

Now the kalām cosmological argument is part of a cumulative case for the existence of God. I have compared it to one link in a coat of chain mail, where the various links reinforce one another. Even if the kalām cosmological argument does not prove the existence of a metaphysically necessary being, that feature is supplied by other arguments, such as those mentioned above. Similarly, the kalām cosmological argument says nothing about the moral qualities of the Creator of the universe, but that is not a fallacy in the argument. In a cumulative case that feature is supplied by the moral argument for God’s existence.

But even if we consider the kalām cosmological argument in isolation, it leaves it an open question whether the Creator of the universe is metaphysically necessary or contingent. Assuming for the sake of argument that the Creator of the universe is contingent, is there any reason to think that he still exists or should we fear that at some time in the past he ceased to exist? It seems to me that a being who transcends time and space and who had the power to bring the entire universe into existence without a material cause in all probability continues to exist. For there is nothing in the entire universe over which he does not have control, and as an immaterial being he has no inner disposition to decay or corruption. So we have no reason at all to think that he has ceased to exist.

So despite your evident confidence in your objection, Chris, you really need to ask yourself why no philosopher that I know of, no matter how hostile or skeptical, propounds your objection. It is universally assumed that if a transcendent Creator brought the universe into being, then in all probability he is still around to be reckoned with.

Now you seem to come to terms with that fact when you say that the person who says that “‘He must be so great, He must therefore still be here’ dismisses His own agency to make the Universe and then decide to leave us to it.” But once again, Chris, you are merely displaying your ignorance of the relevant literature. I explicitly considered this hypothesis, lo, those many years ago, in the final words of my 1979 book The Kalām Cosmological Argument:

But if our argument is sound and a personal Creator of the universe really does exist, then surely it is incumbent upon us to inquire whether He has specially revealed Himself to man in some way that we might know Him more fully or whether, like Aristotle’s unmoved mover, He remains aloof and detached from the world that He has made (152-153).

That paragraph set the table for my subsequent work on the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection. My claim is that the best explanation of Jesus’ fate is that “God raised Jesus from the dead,” just as the original disciples claimed. In its religio-historical context, that event provides dramatic and public divine vindication of Jesus’ radical personal claims, whereby he put himself in the place of God Himself. If Jesus really was who he claimed to be, as the evidence suggests, then God is clearly still involved in our universe and even wants to be active in your life, Chris, as well.