In the beginning...

[stone]

God created (blank) from...


What material?

...and using what level of approximate power? (limited or omnipotent)

Don't wanna make assumptions, I'll wait for a Christian to fill me in.

By simply speaking his words.

[Minimalist]

I see the jesus freak bullshit committee is in fine form already this morning.

Should be a good day.

[The Grand Nudger]

God created (blank) from...


What material?

...and using what level of approximate power? (limited or omnipotent)

Don't wanna make assumptions, I'll wait for a Christian to fill me in.

Ooooh....ooooh..can I play?

God created (a bunch of things we positvely value, but none of the shit we don't)

From - magic

Using a -mysterious- level of power.

How did I do?

[Darwinian]

God created (blank) from...


What material?

...and using what level of approximate power? (limited or omnipotent)

Don't wanna make assumptions, I'll wait for a Christian to fill me in.

By simply speaking his words.

But how could he speak the words if there was no time or space or atmosphere or air pressure or language or etc.....

[Minimalist]

How did I do?

They may make you pope.

[The Grand Nudger]

I wouldn't pass the pedo requirement, I don't like the hat, and I wouldn't wear the dress.

The chair is nice though.

[stone]

God created (blank) from...


What material?

...and using what level of approximate power? (limited or omnipotent)

Don't wanna make assumptions, I'll wait for a Christian to fill me in.

Ooooh....ooooh..can I play?

God created (a bunch of things we positvely value, but none of the shit we don't)

From - magic

Using a -mysterious- level of power.

How did I do?

*buzzer* wrong answer.

[The Reality Salesman01]

I only ask because I was on a different forum, and thought it would be interesting to hear asnwers of a few Christians before sharing what another person posted on the very subject. Many of the things already posted are covered in it. I'll share the post, and then leave a link at the bottom that will lead you to the thread. It's a pretty damn good argument, the following was written directly at this very subject:

"In a response to a question issued on this very website (http://www.reasonablefaith.org/must-the-...rial-cause), Dr. Craig attempts to explain why God did not require the existence of a material cause in order to create the universe. The explanation is given as such:

Craig:
"Since God has the power to create the universe, then even in the state of affairs of God’s existing alone, there is the potential for a universe to exist. That potential resides, not in some non-existent object or in nothing, but in God Himself and His ability to cause the universe."



At face value, Dr. Craig's contention seems plausible, if not somewhat recondite. Yet upon closer inspection, we find a glaring lack of robusticity in the use of Craig's terms. Craig claims that God's causal power alone provides the potential for a universe to exist, yet he fails to recognize that the degree to which causal power possesses the potentiality to create is wholly predicated upon the existence of something upon which that power might exert itself. Power is made manifest only when it is exerted upon something. In the absence of some entity upon which to exert causal power, causal potential will never breed forth actuality. Craig's error is to assume that causal power alone provides the means by which its own potentiality might be actualized.

From this, an interesting question emerges. If causal power alone is not sufficient to provide the conditions necessary in order for a universe to actualize, what material cause might there have been with God, through which God's causal power might manifest itself, and thus produce our universe? Dr. Craig is a strong proponent of creatio ex nihilo (creation from nothing). Yet Craig, himself admits in the aforementioned article, that "nothing" itself lacks the potentiality necessary from which to actualize a universe. He states:

Craig:
"1. A causal event requires an agent to actualize an event (or an object), and the potentiality of the event to occur.

Moreover, I also agree with your second premiss

2. "Nothingness" contains no potentiality, or else it would be "something."


If "nothing" cannot logically constitute the potential required in order for a universe to causally emerge, and God's own causal power alone is not sufficient to provides such potentiality, what then would suffice? The options seem reduced to two. Either we must posit the existence of some immaterial substance (which is not God) upon which God might exert causal power, and thus actualize the universe we presently inhabit, or God himself must provide the immaterial substance through which his own causal potential is actualized in the form of a material universe. Regarding the former, if it were true that immaterial entities can exist separate and distinct from one another, we would still require an explanation for this entity's existence. If we say God caused it to come into being, then we are forced to ask, ad infinitum, from what preceding substance was the substance from which the universe was sculpted ultimately created? Barring some uncaused immaterial substance which exists eternally coextensive with God, It seems that at some point, God's own immaterial substance must form the first "material cause" from which all other material causes are born...Which leads us to assess the implications of this latter alternative.

If God's own being is that upon which his own causal power was exerted in order to create the universe, then we are left with a strikingly panentheistic cosmogony. God, is rendered not merely the creator of the universe, but God becomes the very universe itself. The theological implications of this are not trivial for the Christian apologist, which is why I suspect Craig denounces this view when he states:

Craig:
"His solution is very different from the panentheistic solution you mention and rightly reject, that the universe is made out of God’s own being."


It seems that a closer inspection of the Kalam Cosmological Argument yields forth a rather disquieting array of implications for the Christian apologist which Craig has not yet seemed to adequately address. Creatio ex nihilo is not sufficient in addressing the problem of potentiality and an appeal to panentheism seems crippling to an orthadox Christian theology..In light of these discrepancies, how might the apologist resolve the unsettling implications which flow from the KCA?"

I'd reccommend reading the responses in the thread before making the same mistakes others did when you post your response.

http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22502&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

---

Ooooh....ooooh..can I play?

God created (a bunch of things we positvely value, but none of the shit we don't)

From - magic

Using a -mysterious- level of power.

How did I do?

*buzzer* wrong answer.

Welcome to the Dark Side Stone! Ha ha ha, I think you'll like it here.

[stone]

I only ask because I was on a different forum, and thought it would be interesting to hear asnwers of a few Christians before sharing what another person posted on the very subject. Many of the things already posted are covered in it. I'll share the post, and then leave a link at the bottom that will lead you to the thread. It's a pretty damn good argument, the following was written directly at this very subject:

"In a response to a question issued on this very website (http://www.reasonablefaith.org/must-the-...rial-cause), Dr. Craig attempts to explain why God did not require the existence of a material cause in order to create the universe. The explanation is given as such:

Craig:
"Since God has the power to create the universe, then even in the state of affairs of God’s existing alone, there is the potential for a universe to exist. That potential resides, not in some non-existent object or in nothing, but in God Himself and His ability to cause the universe."



At face value, Dr. Craig's contention seems plausible, if not somewhat recondite. Yet upon closer inspection, we find a glaring lack of robusticity in the use of Craig's terms. Craig claims that God's causal power alone provides the potential for a universe to exist, yet he fails to recognize that the degree to which causal power possesses the potentiality to create is wholly predicated upon the existence of something upon which that power might exert itself. Power is made manifest only when it is exerted upon something. In the absence of some entity upon which to exert causal power, causal potential will never breed forth actuality. Craig's error is to assume that causal power alone provides the means by which its own potentiality might be actualized.

From this, an interesting question emerges. If causal power alone is not sufficient to provide the conditions necessary in order for a universe to actualize, what material cause might there have been with God, through which God's causal power might manifest itself, and thus produce our universe? Dr. Craig is a strong proponent of creatio ex nihilo (creation from nothing). Yet Craig, himself admits in the aforementioned article, that "nothing" itself lacks the potentiality necessary from which to actualize a universe. He states:

Craig:
"1. A causal event requires an agent to actualize an event (or an object), and the potentiality of the event to occur.

Moreover, I also agree with your second premiss

2. "Nothingness" contains no potentiality, or else it would be "something."


If "nothing" cannot logically constitute the potential required in order for a universe to causally emerge, and God's own causal power alone is not sufficient to provides such potentiality, what then would suffice? The options seem reduced to two. Either we must posit the existence of some immaterial substance (which is not God) upon which God might exert causal power, and thus actualize the universe we presently inhabit, or God himself must provide the immaterial substance through which his own causal potential is actualized in the form of a material universe. Regarding the former, if it were true that immaterial entities can exist separate and distinct from one another, we would still require an explanation for this entity's existence. If we say God caused it to come into being, then we are forced to ask, ad infinitum, from what preceding substance was the substance from which the universe was sculpted ultimately created? Barring some uncaused immaterial substance which exists eternally coextensive with God, It seems that at some point, God's own immaterial substance must form the first "material cause" from which all other material causes are born...Which leads us to assess the implications of this latter alternative.

If God's own being is that upon which his own causal power was exerted in order to create the universe, then we are left with a strikingly panentheistic cosmogony. God, is rendered not merely the creator of the universe, but God becomes the very universe itself. The theological implications of this are not trivial for the Christian apologist, which is why I suspect Craig denounces this view when he states:

Craig:
"His solution is very different from the panentheistic solution you mention and rightly reject, that the universe is made out of God’s own being."


It seems that a closer inspection of the Kalam Cosmological Argument yields forth a rather disquieting array of implications for the Christian apologist which Craig has not yet seemed to adequately address. Creatio ex nihilo is not sufficient in addressing the problem of potentiality and an appeal to panentheism seems crippling to an orthadox Christian theology..In light of these discrepancies, how might the apologist resolve the unsettling implications which flow from the KCA?"

I'd reccommend reading the responses in the thread before making the same mistakes others did when you post your response.

http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22502&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

---

*buzzer* wrong answer.

Welcome to the Dark Side Stone! Ha ha ha, I think you'll like it here.

Hold on, you asked me to come here and speak with you guys. If you want to debate with DR.Craig, then speak with him, if you want to speak with me, then speak with me.

[Neo-Scholastic]

... God's causal power alone provides the potential for a universe to exist,...the potentiality to create is wholly predicated upon the existence of something upon which that power might exert itself. Power is made manifest only when it is exerted upon something.

I don't disagree with this statement, since it only applies to creation "out of nothing." Out of nothing, nothing comes. That has been understood as true since ancient times.