And the religious can’t explain how God just always existed.
1. A known designer is not required by Intelligent Design - you don't need to know who designed the designer when you discover an arrow - you know it was designed. (Can be applied the the fine tuned universe, DNA, rare earth, consciousness, etc...)
2. We know the universe had a beginning (Big Bang) and if there was an infinite past we would never arrive at the present. Logical reasoning leads to the conclusion that the initial cause of motion must be something that is not, itself, in motion - an unmoved mover - the Prime Mover (concept advanced by Aristotle). If every cause is the result of a previous cause, or, if everything is caused by something else, then we have an "infinite regress" of causes which is logically incoherent (who designed the designer). Furthermore, natural processes cannot create natural processes (circulus in probando). So we are logically left with 'creation' from outside of nature.
3. When postulating a creator outside of nature, asking who created the creator would be like asking 'how long did it take to create time' - 'how much area did it take to create space' - 'how much weight did it take to create matter'.
4. From a theological Judeo-Christian standpoint, the question becomes "who made God?" - which means you are reduced to thinking about created gods. I don't know any Christian who believes God was created. It just becomes an absurd question you might hear a child ask.
SEE ALSO: God, Gods, and Fairies - David Bentley Hart
John Lennox’s response to Richard dawkins for the “Who designed the designer”:
‘It’s the old schoolboy question, ‘Who created God?’, I’m actually very surprised to find it as a central argument in your book because it assumes that God is created. And I’m not surprised therefore that you call the book “The God Delusion” because created gods are by definition a delusion. And if you say, ‘if there is a God you have to ask, ‘Who created God?’, that means you are reduced to thinking about created gods. Well none of us believe in created gods, and I think that argument is entirely beside the point and perhaps you should put it on your shelf marked celestial teapots, where it belongs.”
-John Lennox
And the religious can’t explain how God just always existed.
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The explanation is that God exists outside of time. We’re created beings who cannot understand this because we must live in time, but God is not. This makes more sense than the creation creating itself.