[Avodah] intelligent design

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 02:19:16PM +0000, Harry Maryles via Avodah wrote:
: They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad
: infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause'
: premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By
: definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no
: creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no
: less difficult than saying the universe has always existed.

I think you are making a mistake with your "He has always existed".
That gives G-d an age of infinity. Within time, albeit within all of it.
Hashem is lemaalah min hazeman. He has no beginning and no end in time
because He has no first-hand time.

And that answers their question.

Hashem is not First Cause in the sense of beginning at the beginning
of the chain of causes. That would put Him within time, albeit somehow
before the first moment of the universe and its time.

Hashem is First Cause because He caused the chain as a whole, in a manner
unrelated to the causal linkage within the chain of time. Not only the
first link in the chain alone, like some Deistic view of creation.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             In the days of our sages, man didn't sin unless
micha at aishdas.org        he was overcome with a spirit of foolishness.
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