Bertrand Russell once quipped, “If there’s anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God.” In this brief clip, R.C. Sproul demonstrates what is wrong with this line of thinking.
Transcript
I “quarrel” with what Bertrand Russell says “If there’s anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God.” Is that true? Let me state it this way. If there has to be something that is uncaused, and we’re agreeing with Bertrand Russell – there must be something that is uncaused – it may as well just be Sproul as God. What’s wrong with that? Sproul has a beginning. Sproul is finite. Sproul is derived. Sproul is dependent. Sproul is contingent. Sproul undergoes mutations. Sproul lacks the power of necessary being, just as every physical thing lacks the power of necessary being, and so it is not true that it just as well be the world as God. What we need is an eternal, self-existent, independent being, who Himself or itself is not an effect. Nothing less, dear friends, can save the phenomena of the universe in which we live.
