Flatline's Question

I was intrigued by the question brought up by Shelby in her presentation on Flatland. It also tied in with my Philosophy class pretty well, so I thought I would blog about the connection.

So the question was, what if there is a being greater than God? Shelby's take on the films and book encouraged us to always question and look beyond what we know and what we are told. So, if there is a being greater than us, in this 3D plane, that is what we consider to be God. However, what if there was something greater than Him? Then, perhaps, there is also something greater than that being, as well. This could go on for infinity.

In my Philosophy class, we read an excerpt from Saint Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica on the existence of God. One of the arguments is that there must be an efficient cause for everything. That is, there must always be an agent that causes something into being. Therefore, a being cannot exist before its time, nor can it cause itself to come into existence. However, while there must always be an efficient cause for something to come into being, there must also be a first efficient cause. If there is not a first efficient cause, an agent that exists infinitely back in history, and infinitely forward in the future, there could not possibly be any "intermediate" or later efficient causes. Put simply, we wouldn't be here, and neither would anything else.

Therefore, while I think it is important to question your faith and strive to answer those questions, as this practice will result in the strengthening your faith, the notion that there could be something greater than God actually goes against the essence of God. In order for God to exist, He must be omniscient, omnipotent, omni-benevolent, and etc. Therefore, He must be the most powerful being. If there were always something greater than another being, and never a first efficient cause, there would simply be no God. However, there are many, many excellent Philosophical arguments supporting the existence of God that I will not discuss because it is not relevant to the topic. So God exists because there must necessarily be a first efficient cause. There can be no being greater than the first efficient cause, just as there cannot be anything greater than God in order for God to exist. That is not to say that we shouldn't question anything. This is me questioning, and this is the answer that I found.