St. Pius Catholic Church

Hello Everyone,

Happy Tuesday!  It has been a very busy and exhausting few days for myself and Fr. Schaab, but we continue to carry on at Saint Pius X.  Yesterday was our annual Confirmation retreat, in which, we had around 150 students here for retreat (Fr. Schaab helped there), I was on TEC 270 most of the weekend at the Believers Together Center in Moline, we had the 11am mass on Sunday with no electricity (I shouted the entire mass and Karen led song in a coppela), we had a large wedding here Saturday afternoon and three funerals last week, plus the other day to day activities that keep us busy.  So today, God willing I am going to try and sneak in a nap if I can, and if not I know God will provide what is needed to complete the work that has to be done.

The next TEC coming up is TEC 271, a boys weekend, from February 13-15 and the next girls TEC is March 6-8.  Again they are open to 16-20 year olds and to any adult interested in seeing what TEC is all about.  More information can be found at: www.northwest-tec.com

This week I ask everyone to keep the Saint Pius X youth group in your prayers as they head to the March for Life in Washington D.C.  It is a powerful experience to attend and life changing to say the least.  I have been to it 5 times in my own life and hope that our youth group may have a great experience.  It is also good reminder to pray for an end to abortion and for a greater respect for all human life from conception to natural death. 

This week I would like to make a book recommendation as well.  "Be A Man" by Father Larry Richards.  In preparation for the Quad Cities Men Group meeting this Saturday I have been reading Father Richards' book and I highly recommend it to all men out there.  Fr. Richards gives an honest and straight forward look into the roles God intended for men to fulfill in this life and how a man can become who God intended him to be.  The chapter on being a good father is outstanding and the chapter on why men need to be good pennitents and learn how to go to confession more often is well done also.  The book is published by Ignatius press and has been out for a few months now.  A great read for all men of the faith.

Other than that, not a whole lot else to report for now.  Last week at Pizza and Prayer, a weekly bible study held at Christ the King parish, one of our teenagers of the Quad Cities asked me in front of everyone, "Who Created God?"  And so this week in the little lesson section, I will answer the question, "If God created the universe, then who created God?"

Till next week.

In Christ,

Father Peter Zorjan
Assistant Pastor at Saint Pius X
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"If God Created the Universe, Then Who Created God?"

In short: God is uncreated, He always existed, and He will never cease to exist.  However, for some people this answer baffles them and so let us look at this question and issue a little bit more in depth.

How did God get here?

"Richard Dawkins, among other atheists, thinks he has the ultimate proof that God doesn't exist.  If God created a complex universe, wouldn't it take an even more complex entity to have created God?  However, such logic assumes that time has always existed, rather than being merely a construct of this universe."  (Rich Deem)

Who created God?  It is an age-old question that has plagued all those who like to think about the big questions.  Various religions tend to solve the problem in different ways.  The LDS church (Mormonism) says that the God (Elohim) to whom we are accountable had a father god, then grew up on a planet as a man, and progressed to become a god himself.  Many other religions have claimed that gods beget other gods.  Of course the problem with this idea is how did the first god get here?  This problem of infinite regression invalidates such religions.  Christianity claims that God has always existed.  Is this idea even possible?  Does science address such issues?


Christianity answers the question of who created God in the very first verse of the very first book, Genesis:

    In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1)

This verse tells us that God was acting before time when He created the universe.  Many other verses from the New Testament tell us also that God was acting before time began, and so, He created time, along with the other dimensions of our universe:

    No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. (1 Corinthians 2:7)

    This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time (2 Timothy 1:9)

    The hope of eternal life, which God... promised before the beginning of time (Titus 1:2)

    To the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. (Jude 1:25)


The idea that God created time, along with the physical universe, is not just some wacky modern Christian interpretation of the Bible.  Saint Justin Martyr, a second century saint of the Church, in his Hortatory Address to the Greeks, said that Plato got the idea that time was created along with the universe from Moses:

"And from what source did Plato draw the information that time was created along with the heavens?  For he wrote thus: “Time, accordingly, was created along with the heavens; in order that, coming into being together, they might also be together dissolved, if ever their dissolution should take place.” Had he not learned this from the divine history of Moses?"  (Quoted from  Plato’s Timaeus Part 1)

We need to remember that God exists in timeless eternity:

How does God acting before time began get around the problem of God's creation?  There are two possible interpretations of these verses.  One is that God exists outside of time.  Since we live in a universe of cause and effect, we naturally assume that this is the only way in which any kind of existence can function.  However, the premise is false.  Without the dimension of time, there is no cause and effect, and all things that could exist in such a realm would have no need of being caused, but would have always existed.  Therefore, God has no need of being created, but, in fact, created the time dimension of our universe specifically for a reason - so that cause and effect would exist for us.  However, since God created time, cause and effect would never apply to His existence.

The second interpretation is that God exists in more than one dimension of time.  Things that exist in one dimension of time are restricted to time's arrow and are confined to cause and effect. However, two dimensions of time form a plane of time, which has no beginning and no end and is not restricted to any single direction.  A being that exists in at least two dimension of time can travel anywhere in time and yet never had a beginning, since a plane of time has no starting point. Either interpretation leads one to the conclusion that God has no need of having been created.

Why can't the universe as we know it, be eternal?

The idea that God can be eternal leads us to the idea that maybe the universe is eternal, and, therefore, God does not need to exist at all.  Actually, this was the prevalent belief of atheists before the observational data of the 20th century strongly refuted the idea that the universe was eternal.  This fact presented a big dilemma for atheists, since a non-eternal universe implied that it must have been caused.  Maybe Genesis 1:1 was correct!  Not to be dismayed by the facts, atheists have invented some metaphysical "science" that attempt to explain away the existence of God.  Hence, most atheistic cosmologists believe that we see only the visible part of a much larger "multiverse" that randomly spews out universes with different physical parameters.  Since there is no evidence supporting this idea (nor can there be, according to the laws of the universe), it is really just a substitute "god" for atheists.  And, since this "god" is non-intelligent by definition, it requires a complex hypothesis, which would be ruled out if we use Occam's razor, which states that one should use the simplest logical explanation for any phenomenon.  Purposeful intelligent design of the universe makes much more sense, especially based upon what we know about the design of the universe.

When Stephen Hawking, George Ellis, and Roger Penrose extended the equations for general relativity to include space and time, the results showed that time has a beginning - at the moment of creation (i.e., the Big Bang).  In fact, if you examine university websites, you will find that many professors make such a claim - that the universe had a beginning and that this beginning marked the beginning of time (see The Universe is Not Eternal, But Had A Beginning).  Such assertions support the Bible's claim that time began at the creation of the universe.

God has no need to have been created, since He exists either outside time (where cause and effect do not operate) or within multiple dimensions of time (such that there is no beginning of God's plane of time).  Hence God is eternal, having never been created.  Although it is possible that the universe itself is eternal, eliminating the need for its creation, observational evidence contradicts this hypothesis, since the universe began to exist a finite ~13.7 billion years ago.  The only possible escape for the atheist is the invention of a kind of super universe, which can never be confirmed experimentally (hence it is metaphysical in nature, and not scientific).

I hope this helps everyone. 

Also thank you to Rich Deem with his wonderful insights on this topic and answer to this question.  This explanation is among the easiest to understand that I have seen anywhere.  The vast majority of this little lesson section comes from his article and website, full source citation is given below.

Source: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/who_created_god.html#3no5iw72ah5I