Dear Dr. Richard,

Recently I've had a few discussions with my wife who considers herself a secularist. I've asked her about her belief in God and she says that she doesn't know if she can believe in the idea of God as I do as a Catholic. She states that if God created everything then something had to have created God, and that a another God would have had to create that God, and so on. She stated that if she were to believe in God then why not ten or twenty gods. In other words she believes that there is a possibility for a line of creation that extends from a singular God who kept on creating clones of himself, instead of a singular creator who exists as He is, and is simp,y creation Himself. What would you recommend for me to do in order to present God to her and help her to understand God not as a continual creation of a pre-existing God but as a singular trinitarian God that has, is, and always will be?

Dear Nick,

You can point out to her that if she is right about every god having a beginning, then the the Christian God is impossible. He is the first cause. He cannot be caused. She is assuming that everything must be caused, even creators. The pagan Aristotle and the Christian Aquinas argue that an infinity of causes each causing the other is impossible. You could study up on that. But the more pertinent question is this: Does she want that there be a God or is she indifferent about it? If she is indifferent to the idea or even hostile, all philosophical arguments will be a waste of time. Why do any intellectual labor over a matter to which one is indifferent or even hostile?

Dr. Geraghty

COPYRIGHT 2013

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