Question about God Himself

ScientArtist · Oct 6, 2015

Alright, here's the ultimate kicker for me. Yeah, New Testament dates and all that, this is what really bugs me.

A lot of Christian arguments assume that everything exists because someone created it, be it God, Brahma, Quetzalcoatl, Gaea/Ouranos, Nu Wä, Sa, etc. So how did the creator come into existence? We, some say, are profoundly complex organisms (which I will not deny) that require a creator. So, if you say that God has always been, why doesn't the most complex, profound, intelligent being of all of time and space require a creator under your logic?

food4thought · Oct 6, 2015

Good question.

God does not dwell within our physical universe, although He can and does interact with it. It has been shown to the umpteenth decimal point that time is a property of our physical universe. God stands outside time. In line with this, the Bible tells us that God inhabits eternity; which is not a ton of time, but a state of timelessness. With no time, there is no cause or effect, everything just is. So to say that God requires a cause is based upon flawed assumptions.

Hope this helps;
Mike

com7fy8 · Oct 6, 2015

Well, Scientist Artist

If we did "go there" and decide that God needed to be created by a God Creator, then someone named Scientist Artist Pagan might be asking if it is logical or not that "God Creator" was created by Creator of God Creator. And then it could keep on being pretty busy, about someone else creating whoever did the creating

I find it wondrously amazing that there is any existence, at all . . . versus nothing. And we even have One so great as God, who has always existed. He did not bring Himself into existence. And He "is love" (in 1 John 4:8&16), and personal and sharing with His children.

Soyeong · Oct 6, 2015

If every explanation required an explanation, then it would be impossible to talk about anything having an explanation without resorting infinite regress, so not every explanation needs an explanation, and it is perfectly reasonable to talk about God being the cause of the universe without knowing what caused God. For example, if we had found some sort of mysterious artifact on the moon, then it might be reasonable to say that it was created by aliens without knowing anything about where the aliens came from.

That being said, there is a concept of a necessary being, which is not dependent on anything else for its existence, and which is impossible to not exist. For example, if you have causal series ordered per se, such as a hand moving a stick, which is moving a rock, which is moving a leaf, the hand can be thought of as the primary cause of series, while the stick, rock, and leaf are secondary causes because they all derive their causal power from the hand. Without the hand, it would be impossible for the series to exist because none of the other objects has the power in itself to move the next object. So a causal series ordered per se necessarily must have a primary cause, from which all the other objects derive their causal power, but which does not derive it's causal power from anything else, or else it would be just another secondary cause in the series. When we look at what is causing the universe to exist at every moment in which it exists, then there necessarily must be a primary cause, which is an attribute that corresponds to our concept of God.

xpower · Oct 6, 2015

God is not a created being. He has always existed before the universe was created and will always exist when the universe is gone.God never came into being, he always existed eternally "in what we call the past".

David Hunter · Oct 6, 2015

As a believer, that's something that's still hard to fathom. To me, the more important question is... is Jesus who he says he is?

If yes, as I believe and all the facts show, then God exists.

You shouldn't let not knowing how God was created from you believing. Because, if that's the question you're trying to get answered then you'll be searching forever for an answer that makes sense to you.

RC1970 · Oct 6, 2015

If something created God then wouldn't that something, that created Him, also have to have a creator, ad infinitum? In other words, wouldn't you have to have an infinite series of finite causes? And, wouldn't this just be another version of self-creation? And, isn't self-creation an absurd concept?

ViaCrucis · Oct 7, 2015

As someone who doesn't believe that complexity is reason enough to believe in a creator, the belief that God requires a creator Himself is perhaps rather moot.

The Christian confession about God involves that God is entirely other to everything else. There's the universe, and then there's God (and by "universe" we can include the many worlds theory if we so wish). Christian and other theistic philosophers have addressed the issue many ways; but what is important is the theology: God is entirely other, and being entirely other is without beginning, end, or duration.

Things don't require a creator because they're complex--evolution does a pretty good job explaining the diversity and complexity of life here on earth for example--but rather we say God is the creator of all things because this, we believe, is what is revealed of God, that He is Lord and Maker of all things. In our Creed we say,

"I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, of all things, visible and invisible."

-CryptoLutheran

aiki · Oct 9, 2015

A god who is him/her/itself created is not how Christians understand God to be. The Christian conception of God is that He is uncreated, the uncaused Cause, a non-contingent Being. To ask a Christian, then, who created God is akin to asking how many right angles make up a circle, or how many married bachelors are there in New York. By definition, a circle has no right angles, and a bachelor cannot be married, and God (within the confines of Christian theology) cannot be caused.

It has been argued that God is actually a remarkably simple Being. All the complexities of the material universe do not apply to Him. He is, essentially, just an unembodied Mind, or a Spirit. The idea of His complexity demanding a cause, then, is a non-issue.

Selah.

Another Lazarus · Oct 10, 2015

John 1New International Version (NIV)
The Word Became Flesh
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

dcalling · Oct 11, 2015

Science can be used to show that there is a very high probability of God, but science along can never be used to understand God.

chilehed · Oct 13, 2015

This talk by Peter Kreeft includes a very good discussion of the First Cause argument:
http://peterkreeft.com/audio/08_arguments-for-god.htm

That being said, it's not true that God is complex. To the contrary, he is very simple... St. Thomas Acquinas discusses it in the Summa Theologica, which is easily found online.

NJA · Oct 13, 2015

To ask "who made God" is wrong thinking, it projects physical science principles into a realm where they don't apply.

The physical realm is maintained by an invisible realm.
We now know this from science, some people previously realised it:

"Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things
which are seen were not made of things which do appear" (Heb.11:3)

"the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal"
(2 Cor.4:18)

"I AM" (Ex. 3:14) is what is, the eternal reality.

God is in that realm, logically you should rely on his answer, he existed before anything was created.

You could not even make one hair on your head, your parents didn't create you,
they were used as ingredient providers.
We cannot make DNA, the machine designed to make our physical components.
Our creator is infinitely more intelligent and powerful than us.

People may scoff at believing in someone who they cannot see, but they rely on various things
they have not seen - or understood - gravity, love, atomic forces, the money system, etc.

We have the ability to be guided by eternal things and increasingly know God, after we have received that Spirit
(see Acts 2:4, 33, 37-39; 1 Cor. 14:2, 4 for details).

Hawkins · Oct 13, 2015

That boils down how you define the term "TIME". What is time?

We acquired our concept of creation (things from none to existence in the axis of time) from our time concept. Our time concept however is proven to be not accurate by science. Furthermore, our concept of time doesn't apply to God.

hedrick · Oct 13, 2015

Something has to "just be there." The usual Christian idea is that it's God. Some Christians think that's the only logical possibility. I don't. I think it could just as well be the universe and a set of physical laws. So whether the ultimate is God or not, for me, depends upon having some reason to think that there is a God, and largely (at least for Christians) that means some kind of supernatural being that interacts with us and our history.

For completeness, I note that it is also possible to believe that both a physical universe and God exist eternally. That would be consistent with "open theism," which sees God as existing within a preexisting context and having some limits. Of course that isn't orthodox, but there are Christians who believe it.

(There is also another possibility that one might consider, which is that God arises from an eternal universe, but didn't exist eternally. I believe this turns out not to be a real possibility. If the universe is eternal, and God would arise from it naturally in a finite time, you can prove that he was always there. Infinity is weird.)

One poster referred to the idea of "necessary existence." That's something that I find conceptually attractive, though I'm not sure whether I accept that it's true. There's an obvious question of why whatever is the foundation exists, whether we imagine it to be God or some kind of meta-universe. Christian philosophers have considered -- and some tried to prove -- that God exists necessarily. I.e. God doesn't just happen to exist, it is logically necessary for him to exist. Slightly weaker, that if anything at all is to exist, God must exist. I find this kind of philosophy just about completely opaque, so don't look to me for proofs of this kind of thing.

Job8 · Oct 13, 2015

Because He is the SELF-EXISTENT Creator. There is no creator outside the Creator. Only the Creator needs no creator, but all else is created by Him.

Neogaia777 · Oct 15, 2015

He did require a "creator" and that creator is Jesus Christ, for by him, and through him, and for him, were all things made...

God Bless!

civilwarbuff · Oct 15, 2015

Do you understand forever?....infinity?.....time without end?....no beginning and no ending?....if you do then you are the smartest human being who has ever existed. If not, you don't have a point of reference and can't even begin to understand and will have to take it on faith like the rest of us.

civilwarbuff · Oct 15, 2015

Seems like another one...throw a grenade and then run for the bombshelter....

South Bound · Oct 17, 2015

It's called the aseity of God. It means, essentially, that God is self-contained, does not need a beginning or need to be sustained, and that anything greater than God, which could create God, would be a higher god than God.

Honestly, I really hate it with atheists play little word games like "under your logic".

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