Where did God come from?

[NGT]

brinny, I've got to admit.. God doesn't sound like what I imagined him to. I thought he would have a deeper voice.

 

[brinny]

brinny, I've got to admit.. God doesn't sound like what I imagined him to. I thought he would have a deeper voice.

Well actually, according to the Bible, His voice is like many thunders...but there's only one way to find out, isn't there?

 

[ViaCrucis]

Christians believe that God created humans, and that humans did not evolve from earlier life forms. If that is the case, and that humans' existence didn't happen through the marvels of nature and science, then who/what created God? How did he first come into existence? (If you are willing to apply the answers "He just is." or "He was just always there.", then why can't the same view be applied to the scientific matter that could have evolved into all of our species, including us?)

Thanks.

Two things:

1) It's not true that Christians do not beleive that "humans did not evolve from earlier life forms". That is only the position of certain kinds of Creationists who do not represent the whole of mainstream Christian orthodoxy. I am a Christian and I believe I am a great ape, with a common ancestor shared with other great apes, a primate, a mammal, a vertebrate, an animal, and ultimately we all go back to a common unicellular ancestor billions of years ago in Earth's ancient past. I'm not alone, nor am I a minority. Millions of Christians across denominational and theological lines have no struggle with evolution.

2) The issue of evolution is ultimately unrelated to the meat of your question, which is, "where did God come from?". That is a theological/philosophical question, and one succinctly answered by saying God has no origin, no source. God is the Eternal. We confess God is, in His essencie, Uncreated, Unoriginated.

He is (to borrow a little from Aristotle) Uncaused Cause.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[drich0150]

then why can't the same view be applied to the scientific matter that could have evolved into all of our species, including us?)

Because that "scientific matter" had a beginning, or so says science. God does not, so says God.

 

[GrayAngel]

Christians believe that God created humans, and that humans did not evolve from earlier life forms. If that is the case, and that humans' existence didn't happen through the marvels of nature and science, then who/what created God? How did he first come into existence? (If you are willing to apply the answers "He just is." or "He was just always there.", then why can't the same view be applied to the scientific matter that could have evolved into all of our species, including us?)

Thanks.

God wasn't created by anything. Before any physical material existed, He was there. Before change (time) was started, God was there. There are reasons why the universe needs a creator but not God:

The universe is always changing. Anything that is changing is subject to time, meaning it has a beginning and an end. God, however, is timeless. He doesn't change.

We know that the world hasn't always been around. Naturally, something that is created must have come from somewhere. You don't see random Big Bangs happening in our universe. If something can come from nothing, then why did our universe only get one Big Bang, not several random ones?

With God, however, we have no reason to think that He hasn't always been around. It is conceivable that such a being could have always existed in the beginning. As I said, God doesn't change, which makes it possible for Him to exist at the starting point of the universe. And because He isn't timeless, that He is all-powerful, and He is all-knowing, He alone would have every resource needed for starting the universe.

The laws of the universe are designed in an orderly fashion that necessitates the existence of a creator. To claim that a world like ours could come to exist by chance, rather than a totally chaotic world with inhospitable laws, is like claiming that you found a Rolex that just happened to form itself out of the natural materials surrounding it. There are no logical reasons why the universe must operate the ways that it does, but it does anyway.

 

[elopez]

I say that it cannot be applied to God because (for the sake of argument) God exists and anything that exists has to have an origin. The main problem I'm encountering here is that many of the arguments being thrown out here can be applied using identical logic to other beliefs.

We know things that exist must have an origin because that's how we understand cause/effect in a material universe. However, God's existence is vastly different from our existence. Cause/effect cannot be applied to an atemporal deity, and if God created the universe He existed prior to it. If God existed prior to the universe, then He existed prior to time hence in a timeless state and thus not subject to having a cause.

Also, what exactly do you mean when you use the term "identical logic"? Do you mean the identity relation? What other beliefs are you talking about? Can you elaborate here?

 

[Radagast]

Okay, so then if you choose to believe that he was just always there and didn't need to be created, then obviously there shouldn't be anything wrong with people applying the same logic, and believing that the initial biological matter of the world was just there, and didn't need to be created by God.

I'm sorry, but modern science does not accept that biological matter has eternally existed, therefore there is a need to explain both the formation of matter (the Big Bang) and Abiogenesis.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Post deleted

 

[Radagast]

Doesn't there have to be a passage of time for god to cause anything?

No. There is a causal (in the more general sense of the word) relationship between mathematical laws and scientific laws, but this is not a temporal cause-and-effect.

 

[Radagast]

Just a reminder, btw, lest the mods close this thread down:

This is NOT a debate forum.

Here is how the forum works: A Non-Christian member may start a thread. Only Christians can respond to the the thread. The person who started the thread CAN ask follow-up questions.

If you are not a Christian, do not post in an existing thread. Start your own.

If you are a Christian, please do not start threads here.

 

[FundiMentalist]

Christians believe that God created humans, and that humans did not evolve from earlier life forms.

This generalization appears inaccurate.

There are 2 billion and a few more Christians in the world.

You may want to be aware of, for instance, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican orientations toward evolution.

There is general consensus within Christianity that God created humans but there is not consensus that it is how described via a literal interpretation of Genesis.

If that is the case, and that humans' existence didn't happen through the marvels of nature and science, then who/what created God?

The question stems from an anthropologically bent conception of God.

This is not the conception of God of many Christians in times both historic and present.

The infinite regress, wherever or however, one tries to describe or terminate it comes with paradox.

Just as one can debate who or what created God, so can one debate what nothingness is and whether nothingness exists and what kind of nature nothingness has and who or what created that nothingness when nothing was all that existed? And what does "exist" even mean?

How did he first come into existence? (If you are willing to apply the answers "He just is." or "He was just always there.", then why can't the same view be applied to the scientific matter that could have evolved into all of our species, including us?)

Thanks.

Any basic theologian would tell you God doesn't "exist" in the way matter exists. Some say "He" is beyond the categories of existence and non-existence and that way in which God exists is Ineffable.

All that said, I'd say many Christians don't conceive God as such and have an almost materialistic conception of God.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Post deleted

 

[Radagast]

I apologize for interjecting my question. I thought it was relevant to the OP since several of the answers posted related the idea of "god existing outside of time". I'm not trying to start a debate or change the topic, I simply wanted someone to clarify what that means since it seems to be contradictory with the temporal nature of cause and effect. If anyone objects to my post, just say so and I'll remove it myself.

I didn't object, and indeed responded to your comment, but the inevitable discussion would probably be better handled in a new thread.

 

[Radagast]

I just like to know a little background about the main character of a book when I read it.

The personality of the main character emerges during the course of the story. By the end of Revelation 22 you should understand it.

Oh, and in answer to an earlier question -- Psalm 9:2: Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Post deleted.

 

[Radagast]

... Cause and effect are definitely temporal in nature. Cause always chronologically precedes effect...

Yes, for space-time events, but, as I said, there is a more general non-temporal causality by which, for example, the laws of mathematics cause/explain/produce the laws of science.

These are questions that are thousands of years old, and the answers have been around almost as long. To misquote C.S. Lewis: "It's all in Aquinas, all in Aquinas: bless me, what do they teach them in these schools?"

 

[Ana the Ist]

Post deleted.

 

[elopez]

Just out of curiosity, How does a being existing in a "timeless state" go about "causing" anything at all? Wouldn't we then be able to describe this being according to time? IE. Before god caused the universe, when god caused the universe, after god caused the universe. Doesn't there have to be a passage of time for god to cause anything?

I'd be more than happy to answer this question, only problem is you're suppose to start your own thread, not interrupt someone else's.

 

[eugenelester]

God has neither beginning nor end. That’s why to ask the question “Where did God come from?” is incorrectly the same as to ask “Where is the beginning of the line?”
Where did God come from?

 

[-V-]

Admittedly, this is my whole point here. If people are able to so readily accept that God was always there, and that he was always "just that way", then why is it so farfetched for somebody to use that same ideology about something else, like biological matter... that the matter came together and formed into organisms, and became humans, because "that's just how it was".

You have to remember where you are - "Exploring Christianity".

Part of the Christian religion is accepting that the Bible is the Word of God. The Bible is clear - God created the universe. Therefore, the universe and matter being eternal is NOT an option for those who accept the Bible as the Word of God.

God exists and anything that exists has to have an origin.

No, that doesn't necessarily follow. Things that BEGAN TO EXIST need origins. In other words, every effect needs a cause. God did not begin to exist, and God is not an effect. Therefore, God does not need an origin or cause.