CREATOR IMPOSSIBLE

Creation defined

Nothing is when there isn't anything at all and no possibilities. It is because there are no possibilities that something cannot appear where there is nothing.

Religion guesses that God can make something where there was nothing before. There is not something from which all that is has been made. This must be stressed. The Church denies that God made the universe out of his power but he used his power to command it to be and it came into being.

We must be careful with the statement that he used his power to cause the universe. Using your power on nothing to turn it into anything is a contradiction for there is nothing there to use it on.

The excellent Philosophy of Religion for A Level, OCR Edition (Anne Jordan, Neil Lockyer and Edwin Tate, Nelson Thornes Ltd, 1999) page 16 while talking about the creation account in the Bible, puts it as follows: "Prior to the act of creation there was only God; the 'heavens and the earth' were created out of nothing (creation ex nihilo). Whatever God commands happens, and on each of the six days of creation, the different parts of the universe are created...The will of God was all that is required to create the material universe."

Kant and Hume argued that you were not there to experience how the universe came to me so you should shrug and say nothing about it.

I would add that this is especially true if all you can come up with is magic!

Catholic teaching

"We believe that God needs no preexistent thing or any help in order to create, nor is creation any sort of necessary emanation from the divine substance. God creates freely ‘out of nothing’" (Catechism of the Catholic Church 296).

Note

This webpage should be short but as there is so much confusion in the world on the subject of creation and the doctrine gets its credibility through being a trick with words, it is necessary to discuss the different ways the doctrine is stated. Do not think that because this page is long that it means creation is hard to refute. It is dead easy.

The Important Points

Keep in your mind the following: Nothing means that which cannot become something. It cannot become something as it is not something. It is nothing.

Ideas such as, "Nothing comes from nothing unless there is a God to cause something to come out of nothing" are useless. They contradict the definition of nothing. If nothing is that which cannot become something for it is its complete opposite then even a God cannot make any difference.

God is said to have infinite power. But it is also said he does not have the power to do anything nonsensical or self-contradictory. It does not follow that if there is a God that he can create. In fact, the existence of the universe REFUTES AND CONCLUSIVELY DISPROVES the existence of God!

It does not matter if power is infinite or not. You cannot make something out of nothing.

Summary of the Argument: The teaching about creation can be confusing if you forget that all it is saying is that all things depend constantly on God's will to keep them in existence. Without that will there will just be nothing.

Creating means changing nothing into something. But there is nothing there to change. So what is being said is that creation popped out of nothing. So that is magic. It is contradictory. If God causes the universe to pop out of nothing then it can do it by itself. If something can come from nothing with God it can do it without him. But if it popped out of nothing then God has had nothing to do with it. He would not be God or supreme. In that sense, creation refutes the very doctrine of God it is contrived to back up! Whatever the mystery about the existence of all things is, creation is the worst possible answer. It is worse than princes being turned into frogs and we consider that absurd and impossible!

Religion says that all things came from nothing. It says that nothing can come from nothing. It says that God can make things out of nothing. This is saying that something can come from nothing after all. We have a contradiction! Something coming from nothing is strange enough. But God making out of nothing as if it were a material that can be turned into something is worse!

Parmenides many centuries ago stated that out of nothing nothing comes. He was right. Yet Islam and much of Christianity rose up in defiance of this truth and to this day they obscure it with their lies.

Conclusion: Creation is absurd. Creation by God is the worst explanation for the origin of the universe. It is an explanation from magic and therefore not an explanation at all.

Back to the magic creator God. Magic makes all things come from nothing not God so you don't need God. God after all uses magic so it is bigger than him.

Did it come from nothing or not?

To say the universe came from God is to affirm that the universe did not come from nothing. God commanding the universe to exist and its coming into existence without him using any power to make it from is not the same as saying the universe came from God. If I get pregnant the baby comes from me but if I use magic to put the baby there it does not come from me. See the point? Magic is not me.

Big Bang?

Why do so many stick to the explanation that the universe came from or as a result of God's power? Why not some other kind of power? Science tends to say that there was energy that was close to being nothing and it turned into something. The universe began when this entity exploded at the big bang.

Whatever became the universe went through a process of inflation before the big bang. “Inflation – seems to make not one Big Bang but an infinite number of them. This is known as eternal inflation.” (Christianity in the Light of Science).

A cause and effect can be simultaneous. There is no contradiction in that. The big bang is both cause and effect.

Even if God exists it does not necessarily follow that he can create

If God exists, it does not follow that God necessarily can create or that he is the creator of the universe.

Some say, "If nothing comes from nothing, then if creation exists it came from God and did not come from nothing." But many suggest that it could be that the creation just popped into existence and had nothing to do with God.

God is supposed to be self-sufficient and to have no need to create. There is then no reason to suppose that he has the power to create. Christians only assume God can create. They have no understanding of how he could do it or why he could have the power to do it. They use lofty words to hide the fact that they don't know what they are talking about!

If God is really self-sufficient he only has the abilities he needs.

Popped into existence?

Suppose it is an extreme absurdity to hold that all things had no cause at all and just popped into existence. Does God having the power to be the universe's creator solve the problem? Suppose all things could pop into existence. Then they can do this whether there is a God or not. So if there is a God and if all things have come from nothing the believer cannot decide between saying, "God exists but the creation just popped into existence", and saying, "God exists and caused the creation." It is simply not true that creation indicates the existence of a creator. When you assert that it does, you are showing this is not about God but about you wanting to believe. The argument from creation does not take you to God even if he exists. It takes you to the God you have made in your head. The argument of creation in a sense is an argument against God.

Saying there is a God and creation came from nothing is as far as the believers can go. They should not connect the two necessarily. They have to leave it there.

God gave no power to make all things. He commanded them to exist. If he gave no power then creation did pop out of nothing. He gave no power and therefore he was not its cause. His commanding creation to exist only coincided with it appearing. It was not a cause in any sense.

Christians say God made all things out of nothing. He is his own power and he did not make anything out of himself. Their teaching is self-refuting. They are saying both that he created all things and then they are saying they popped into existence without him.

The doctrine of creation means that God made nothing turn itself into something. If nothing can do that then surely it can do it without God?

If a power can turn nothing into something then why can't nothing turn itself into something? If some power can make 1=100 it is possible for 1=100 without that power. Why? Because power or not it means 1 can = 100. This is because if it can't, no power can do anything about it!

God made all things not of his power but by it

What about the idea that God made matter by his power but not of his power?

Creation out of nothing does not mean that God uses his power on nothing to turn it into something. Nothing can't be turned into anything for it is nothing. God does not make out of his own power for that is making out of his power and not out of nothing.

The Christians believe that God made matter out of nothing by just commanding it to exist. Is this really making matter? No it is calling on magic to make the matter for you. If God provides no power and makes no input except just ordering then that is magic. If I order pizza and provide the goods for making it that is okay. If I order pizza and no goods are provided to make the pizza then my order will not work. Ordering alone cannot make anything unless power is provided to fulfil the order. God did not make the universe out of his power or himself or anything but out of nothing - that is no power. He just commanded it to exist which means he didn't make it at all.

If God made matter of his power then it did not come from nothing. But his power can't work on nothing to turn it into something because nothing is nothing. There is nothing there to work on. You can't make a cake out of ingredients that don't exist. The power has no material to work on. There is no real power used. It just drives us back to the idea of God commanding. You can't make a pig fly when there is no pig. You can't even try. You can only command it. Of course nothing will happen.

Is nothing from nothing a mere natural law?

Religion says that God is the master of nature and he is not limited to its rules and laws. They say that nothing comes from nothing is a natural law. So God can suspend or change this law. He is not bound to it.

It is a natural law but it is also a logical law. To say that something can come from nothing is to talk nonsense. Nothing and something contradict each other.

Imagine it was a natural law and we had no way of being sure it was a logical one too. When we are not sure, we are best to assume it is a logical law.

If nothing comes from nothing is just an optional natural law then it follows that if there is no God it is the law only by chance or luck. But that is as silly as saying that it is pure luck that means that 2 and 2 make 4.

To say that nothing coming from nothing is a natural law that can be changed by God is to deny that reason proves that nothing produces nothing. Reason says if there is absolutely nothing in the universe there will always be absolutely nothing for there is nothing there for something to come out of. That’s a way of re-phrasing the point. If nothing can produce something then we don’t need a God. Reason is no good. If A=A which is the first principle of reason, then to say something can come from nothing is to say that Nothing can be = to A or vice versa. It is the abolition of reason.

Objection: You are confusing creating with transforming

This objection is directed at those who think nothing was transformed into something. Those who say it are only using a figure of speech. There is nothing there to transform.

The logic is that something can appear where there was nothing at all. But it is absurd to imagine nothing being transformed into something. There is nothing there to transform. God's creating the universe means that he brings about the universe coming into being as in an absolute beginning of existence. It is not a transition of anything from non-existence into existence/non-being into being.

We are not even saying God commanded things to exist and this command was transformed into whatever he asked for. There was no power or magic word that became all things. It did not come from anything.

A thought

G.K. Chesterton once wrote: “It is absurd for the evolutionist to complain that it is unthinkable for an admittedly unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing, and then pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn itself into everything”.

Suppose it is too much to imagine that all things popped into existence from nothing. But strictly speaking they didn't. A mess appeared from nothing and became all things.

A seed appearing from nothing doesn't seem as hard to believe. What if that seed had the power to multiply itself and thus make the vast universe? What if the seed appeared from nothing but the rest did not?

EXISTENCE CANNOT EMERGE FROM NOTHING FOR THERE IS NOTHING THERE