HASHEM-----who created the creator? 2

If it impossible to exist without a creator then how does the Creator exist without a creator? And if it is possible for the creator to exist without a creator, why can’t the world exist without a creator?

Indeed, to someone familiar with basic Torah hashkafa, there is a simple answer to this question.

More: The question doesn’t even begin. For this issue is settled in every single machshava sefer of every Rishon that has ever written a machshava sefer*. And they all – every one of them – say the same thing. I kid you not.

Take your pick: Rav Sadiah Gaon, Chovos Halevovos, Rambam, Raavad (the other one), the ibn Ezras (both of them), Ran, Ikarim, R. Chisdai, Abarbanel --- you name it, its there.

And anybody who has ever had any exposure at all to any of the classic Hashkafa works of our Rishonim – or many Achronim, including the Ramchal, would be able to answer this question easily.

But I did promise to use only Yeshivishe and Chasidishe seforim, so I will later tell you what the Chazon Ish says in answer to this question: If everything needs a creator, who created the creator?

But until then, to prove a point, I am going to let the teenagers on this site answer this question themselves. You already know enough to do it. Hint: Read the “G-d” section on this site, and tell me why Slifkin’s question doesn’t even start. The question, again, is:

Every entity has to have a cause. The causes in turn also needed a cause, Ultimately, then, there had to be a First Cause, i.e. Hashem.

But if there the First Cause did not need a cause, then why do you assume anything else did?

Please – tell me why this question is an error. You can definitely do it. Many of you may come up with different ways of saying it, but in the end all your answers will boil down to the same thing, You have 48 hours – until 1:00 pm this Tuesday – to do it.

And please tell me your age together with your answer (if you don’t want to reveal your age as your regular sn, just make another sn for this issue).

All winners get a reward in Olam Habah for Yedias HaTorah.

Again, the Q: Why is it that we can logically say Hashem is the First Cause, but we cannot logically say the world is the First Cause?

I apologize for the delay. The deadline has passed and a dozen or so frumteeners submitted the right answer in various forms. There were also some other submissions that contained good ideas.

The answer is that a physical thing cannot be a First Cause. A First Cause Is causeless. This means there is no reason (cause) for its existence. There is nothing without which the thing would not be here.

Obviosuly, any physical entity that possesses form and substance cannot be a First Cause, since without its form and substance it would not exist. Without its body it would not exist. Without time or space it could not exist. Anything that depends on something else to exist is not causeless and thus is not the first cause..

In short, anything that is what we call “efsher hametziyus” – anything that could theoretically not been here under other circumstances cannot be the First Cause, since such a thing depends on things for its existence.

The First Cause, thus, by definition cannot be subject to time or space, or to anything at all, because then it would have a cause. It cannot have any measurable or describable attributes (because those measurements and attributes would be its cause, since without them, the entity would not exist), such as length, width, breadth. It cannot have any describable nature whatsoever because if it would then that nature would be what causes it to be what it is, meaning, it would have a cause.

The First Cause is what we call “muchrach hametzius” or “mechuyav hametius” – something that must be. This means that this First Cause not only happens to exist, but could not have not existed. Everything in the world happens to exist, but theoetically could not have existed. The First Cause, however, could never have not existed.

Since this First Cause exists without being subject to circumstances, nothgin in the world can affect it. It cannot change, cannot disappear, cannot cease to exist. If its existence is not because of any circumstances of factors at all, then no circumstances or factors can affect it.

And since we can easily prove that there was indeed a first cause – because an infinite chain of causes n the past is absurd * - we know clearly that:

There exists a first entity, that was not created but always existed, and always will exist, that caused everything else to come into being,

Call this entity whatever you like. This entity is what we worship. This is what we refer to as Hashem Yisborach.

In fact, according to the Ran, the Mitzvah to believe in Hashem is not to believe that Hashem exists. Rather, it is to believe that the First Cause described above is in fact the entity that took us out of Egypt and gave us the Torah etc. But the fact that this entity exists, that is simple logic. This is what it means, the Ran says, by “Anochi Hashem Elokecha asher hotzaisicha”, meaning Hashem is introducing Himlsef to us, kivyachol, and saying: “You all know of the entity that is First Cause, Well, I, Who brought you out of Egypt, I am that same First Cause that you always knew existed”.

This is why the Rishonim, including the Rambam and Ramban, when they discuss the Mitzvah of Emunah, first describe Hahsme as a an “entity” that created the world and maintains it, and is the cause of all exsitence, and then, afterwards, they say “This entity is Hashem.”

Even though they don’t agree with the Ran regarding the technicalities of the obligation of Emunah, they all agree that the idea of a First Cause that cannot die or cannot change etc is simple logic, and so they are saying that this First Cause that we all know exists – that is what we worship. That is what we call Hashem, and that is what took us out of Egypt and gave us the Torah.

OK – so now lets go over this Apikore’s question: If the world needs a cause then so would the creator! And if the Creator doesn’t need a cause, then who should the world?

The answer is that the First Cause cannot be a physical world. It must be something that exists outside of time and space, and not susceptible to circumstances (i.e. causes).

It’s a ridiculous question to begin with, to someone who knows literally the first thing our seforim tell us about Hashem.

And you teenagers on frumteens understand this a lot better than some big shot world famous Harvard and Yale physicist.

There were others (“1983” to be exact) who submitted an answer saying that if the word was always here then the sun would have already exloded and destroyed the world.

This argument – that the world is infinitly old then no matter how much time it woud need for any event to happen, it already would have happened, since there was an infinite amount of itme in the past, is a good argument against kadmu haolam – that opinion that the world was always here. The Ralbag in milchemes hashem uses it, as do others.

But although it does prove that the world needed a cause, it does not explain why the world cannot be a First Cause.