If we agree that the existence of the Creator is highly likely, or even undeniable, then our next question could very well be: How can we know if this is the same Creator or God as described in the Bible?
That is a very reasonable question, and we will discuss it in the following posts. However, there is another question that we are going to address now.
Suppose we agree that there is a Creator. Can there be several creators? Maybe the creator who created our Universe was created by another even mightier creator? Can the creator be a highly intelligent alien living on another planet, and there are thousands of them on that planet? Can it be some kind of impersonal power like the "Force" in the Star Wars movies that created the Universe? Perhaps it is just a big dream in my own head that things even exist? Maybe each one of us lives in a virtual reality controlled by machines as some movies said? There are endless possibilities. How do we know if there is only one, the Creator?
It is hard or even impossible to eliminate all the possibilities. Yet, is it really necessary? If simple answers are right next to us, why don’t we look into them first? Why do we prefer complicated answers over simple ones?
Actually, simple explanations to problems are always preferred over complicated explanations. It is described by a philosophical principle called “Ockham’s Razor”. There are several ways to state the principle. One of them is “Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity”. Another one is “It is futile to do with more things than which can be done with fewer”. The idea is that when two or more hypotheses account for the same body of evidence, then the simpler hypothesis is to be preferred.
In fact, we use the principle described as “Ockham’s Razor” very often even though we may have never heard of this name. For example, I slept at 2 am last night and got up at 7 am today. I felt tired this morning. Why? Because I did not have enough sleep. This is the simplest explanation for my tiredness, and I have no reason to doubt it. In fact, it is already an application of Ockham’s Razor. Other possibilities exist that can explain my tiredness this morning. Did I accidentally drink some medication that caused my sleepiness this morning? Did someone play some kind of special music at a non-audible frequency that causes my sleepiness? It would be hard to disprove these hypotheses, but I would not bother to look into these possibilities. The simplest explanation – not enough sleep – is good enough.
Instead of looking into endless possibilities to explain creation, assuming we agree that the Universe and our own existence are created, we are going to look into one simple explanation: the one and only God as described in the Bible is the Creator.
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