From: exukjb@exu.ericsson.se (ken bell)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Stop thinking? (Was: Why I am an atheist)
Date: 11 Sep 92 22:08:52 GMT
Organization: Ericsson Network Systems, Inc.

In article <1992Sep9.235653.4639@newsgate.sps.mot.com> weaver@chdasic.sps.mot.com (Dave Weaver) writes:
>From: weaver@chdasic.sps.mot.com (Dave Weaver)
>Subject: Re: Stop thinking? (Was: Why I am an atheist)
>Date: 9 Sep 92 23:56:53 GMT


>hartigan@ac.dal.ca writes:
>>If God created the universe, who created God?


>This question seems to pop up frequently. Here goes ...

>The Bible makes claims that point toward the transcendence of God, that  
>he exists in dimensions apart from our experience. One of those claims is
>of his existence "prior to" or "apart from" the existence of the universe. 
>Since time as we know it originated at the big bang, existence apart from 
>the big bang points to additional dimensions of time. If God is transcendent
>and exists in multiple dimensions of time, then the whole concept of a 
>"begining" becomes absurd. In two dimensions of time, where is the "begining"
>of a plane? In three dimensions, where is the "begining" of a sphere? The 
>whole question "who created God" implies a linear timeline, an invalid
>assumption if transcendence is one of his attributes.

>The Christian concept of God includes the idea of "self-existence", that the
>very power of being rests in him. 


>Dave Weaver

If you are refering to the traditional notion of God's aseity or absolute 
ontological independence, I would say that it does not appear to follow 
from this doctrine "the very power of being resets in" God, if this means 
that without God nothing else could conceivably exist.  Consider an 
eternally burning candle.  The beams of light are being cast out and 
reflected in mirrors.  Clearly the reflections are ontologically dependent 
on the flame, but the flame does appear to be similarly dependent on the 
reflections or beams of light.  But the ontological independence of the 
flame doesn't seem to entail that other things in the universe--must less 
the fact of being itself--depended on the flame or that the "very power of 
being rested in" the flame.  

I suspect the idea of creatures' "power of being resting in" God is a 
reference fo the ex nihil creatio doctrine. But it is worth noting that
some religious systems and some philosophies have an idea about many things 
being ontologically independent besides God--Plato's forms, for example, and 
perhaps also Liebnitz's monads, and in some forms of Hindu thought the soul 
is begininnless and increate, though greatly dependent on higher forms of 
being in some respects, but not for their being or primal characteristics as 
souls. I don't see why, in logic at least, there couldn't be a multiplicity 
of absolutely ontologically independent beings. 

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