12 year old questioning (sorry long)

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My daughter will be 12 tomorrow, and she’s a very faithful, intelligent girl. She frequently asks me great questions about the faith as compared with others (as she has friends from Jewish, Muslim, and Morman faiths). I do my best to answer her questions, and I consider myself to be pretty intelligent, but I’m no apologist.
Last night’s question was: “If God made the world, and heaven and hell at the beginning of time - who made God?”
Memories from my agnostic “searching” days flooded back to me. I remember having this very discussion at Loyola Marymount while earning my BA in Philosophy, and recall the “first cause” arguments, but I just couldn’t translate all that into cohesive language for my daughter. I’m very out of practice.
But I encourage her to ask tough questions because I KNOW that it will deepen her faith, and she has to come to God as an individual, not just to fultill her duty as a member of a “Catholic family”.
I only wish I had the answers.
Which brings me to my question… **Does anyone out there know of a good book of faith-oriented questions/answers from a Catholic perspective written for a teen?:**confused:
 
This is just one of the mysteries of our faith. We have to accept that God always was.

Bible texts to back that up is Genesis 1

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

John 1

1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

A good book on the Christian Faith for a girl your age would be: Catholic and Christian for Young Adults: Questions and Answers About the Faith
 
Nobody made God. If anybody made him, he wouldn’t be God; rather the person who made him would be God, unless of course, some other person made him. God is at the end of the line, and is not created.
 
she is thinking temporally - not eternally. God exists outside of time. There is no before or after to God, only now. Without a ‘before’ there is no need for a ‘maker.’ Time is part of God’s physical creation and it is what we experiece … and, er, uh…

you could just say, “it’s a mystery”
 
Thanks everyone, I’ll check out Catholic and Christian for Young Adults: Questions and Answers About the Faith.

I will definitely bring up the temporal aspect of our understanding and God’s existence beyond it.

Thanks!
 
You should also get back into practice of your faith, this will help her also benifit her faith greatly.
 
Amy Welborn does a very good job answering questions in her books. “Prove it church” is especially good for teens.

amywelborn.com/
 
All this is giving me [edited] .:confused: Before, after, after, before. God is first, nothing else.
 
GreenPatrick, do you think you could chose your words more carefully?:confused: I find your post offensive.
 
mullenpm said:
GreenPatrick, do you think you could chose your words more carefully?:confused: I find your post offensive.
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oh come on. slightly immature maybe, but its not that bad.

anyway, i was going to say pretty much what all these guys have said. so good luck with your daughters question!🙂
 
I think your best bet is to try to explain how God created time, and is not “inside of time”

So for God there was no yesterday, there is no today, there will be no tomorrow. He just “is”. He has however, come into time at various times, so we see God in the past, we see him in the present, and hopefully will see him in the future, but these are glimpses of an eternal reality.
 
SenorSalsa said:
I think your best bet is to try to explain how God created time, and is not “inside of time”
.
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I agree. The old analogy of the Great Author may be useful. An author who has written a story already knows the beginning and the end but is not tied to the timeline within the book. The best part of the whole book though, IMO, is when the Author miraculously inserts himself into the story!
 
cabolissa said:
My daughter will be 12 tomorrow, and she’s a very faithful, intelligent girl. She frequently asks me great questions about the faith as compared with others (as she has friends from Jewish, Muslim, and Morman faiths). I do my best to answer her questions, and I consider myself to be pretty intelligent, but I’m no apologist.
Last night’s question was: “If God made the world, and heaven and hell at the beginning of time - who made God?”
Memories from my agnostic “searching” days flooded back to me. I remember having this very discussion at Loyola Marymount while earning my BA in Philosophy, and recall the “first cause” arguments, but I just couldn’t translate all that into cohesive language for my daughter. I’m very out of practice.
But I encourage her to ask tough questions because I KNOW that it will deepen her faith, and she has to come to God as an individual, not just to fultill her duty as a member of a “Catholic family”.
I only wish I had the answers.
Which brings me to my question… **Does anyone out there know of a good book of faith-oriented questions/answers from a Catholic perspective written for a teen?:**confused:
Click to expand...

God is not a creature - that is what makes God inconceivably unlike created beings: He is not* from* a source, but is self-existent. To be God, is to be Infinite - only finite beings can be created. We creatures are like our Creator, but He is not like anything, because He is Unique. The Unique God is Incomparable.​

 
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