God and the Universe

[DaisyD]

Hmm…lots of creationists will say I am using that “vague” “metaphorical” “abstract” language they seem to hate so much…

But I would say that it is FACT that the universe is 13 Billion years old and created in the big bang. But TRUTH that it was created in 6 days.

They will say, “all fact is truth” etc…because they have no nuance. They will call my statement “poetic fluffery at best” because they cannot think abstractly (honestly, most people can’t…hence the question about “what was God doing all that time?” in the first place).

But there is a difference between fact and truth. Fact is mundane. And the mundane fact is a 13 billion year old universe.

But Truth is always eschatological, always teleological, always Imminent and Transcendent. And the Truth is that the world was created in six days.

Were these “literal” days? Such a question totally would indicate that the person asking missed the nuance of my point and the teaching of the Church.

Arguing about petty stuff like the literal days of mundane historical creation is not religion exactly because it is an argument about a natural FACT. It is for the natural philosophers to sort out how much natural, historical time was needed to make the world. Not within the sphere of religion.

But religion’s TRUTH is that the world was created in six days. But the supernatural meaning of “create” is totally different than the natural. The mystical religious meaning of “six days” is entirely different than the scientific meaning.

BOTH sides (religious and scientific) miss this point. Sort of, I think, like the arguments between Catholic and Orthodox (which are largely over terminology and misunderstood phrasing).

So when I see a Christian zealous argue that 6 24-hour periods (in the natural sense) were needed to make the universe…it saddens me.

So too am I saddened when I see a scientist argue that, “a deity capable of engineering all the organised complexity in the world, either instantaneously or by guiding evolution, . . . must already have been vastly complex in the first place . . .”
As if the laws of thermodynamics would apply to God.

To avoid modernism, clearly the FACTUAL TRUTH of some things (like the Ressurection) must be literally proclaimed. These truths mainly relate to the life of Christ in whom Natural and Supernatural, Physical and Spiritual, were reconcilled and where, therefore, fact meets truth.

But arguing that the earth was created in a week 6000 years ago misses the poetry of Genesis, the mystical signification, and shows simplicity, lack of abstraction, and ultimately carnality…a being tied down to a concrete physical mindset.

So the Six day creation is an error in your opinion or we can not understand the what God meant by :so the evening and the morning were the third day. gen1:13

 

[Keikiolu]

I have been wondering lately about the universe. It is billions of years old and humankind has only been around for thousands of years. What did the Holy Trinity and the angels do during all the time before humankind? I just am confused. It seems that all of our talk about faith and salvation concerns only a relatively few minutes in the history of the universe. I just don’t understand how it can be that God is so intimately involved in our lives when there were billions of years before us when the universe existed.

I am catholic and practice my faith as best as I can.

Thank you.

Mike Puckett

How long does it take to make a single cupcake from scratch, such that you have to grow the wheat and the sugar-cane, raise the cow for her butter from a calf, and build the oven from bricks…?

How long does it take to eat a single cupcake, if you’re REALLY REALLY hungry…?

Who has more patience than God?

Do you really think God had “nothing else to do” while the universe was “temporally developing”?

 

[a_priori]

So the Six day creation is an error in your opinion or we can not understand the what God meant by :so the evening and the morning were the third day. gen1:13

Up front I must say that the creation story in Genesis as applied to God’s relationship with mankind is every bit as useful and instructive regardless of whether it refers to literal 24 hour days or not. The concept of an old earth does no violence to the Biblical account, IMHO.

What is a day? One who attempts to read ancient scripture as if it were an airtight legal document will have problems. The Bible is true. But it cannot conflict with information that is in front of our noses. IMHO, it is not an act of faithfulness to God to ignore obvious data regarding the earth’s age and smush it into a given interpretation of scripture. We know God created everything and that the message of Christianity is truth itself. No scientific discovery can change that. God is not that fragile.

St. Paul tells us that creation points us back to God in Romans 1. It’s good stuff.

 

[nobody]

I have been wondering lately about the universe. It is billions of years old and humankind has only been around for thousands of years. What did the Holy Trinity and the angels do during all the time before humankind? I just am confused. It seems that all of our talk about faith and salvation concerns only a relatively few minutes in the history of the universe. I just don’t understand how it can be that God is so intimately involved in our lives when there were billions of years before us when the universe existed.

I am catholic and practice my faith as best as I can.

Thank you.

Mike Puckett

This thread has gotten many replies, I have only read through the first few, so forgive me for butting in on anyone’s conversations. I just wanted to comment - Have you seen photogrpahs of nebulas and novas and all the beautiful “stuff” out there in the universe? Yes, God is outside and inside of time. Inside time, while he was “waiting” for man, I think He and the angels were watching the most spectacular fireworks show ever!!!

 

[a_priori]

This thread has gotten many replies, I have only read through the first few, so forgive me for butting in on anyone’s conversations. I just wanted to comment - Have you seen photogrpahs of nebulas and novas and all the beautiful “stuff” out there in the universe? Yes, God is outside and inside of time. Inside time, while he was “waiting” for man, I think He and the angels were watching the most spectacular fireworks show ever!!!

I agree. The cosmos is incredibly more wonderful than they ever could have imagined in the Middle Ages. It is profoundly beautiful and came straight from the “mind” of God. It all points directly to Him.

 

[hlmem]

God not being bound by time kinda of makes me thing since God does not recognize before and after that God has Alzheimer’s.

That’s why he is so forgiving, He can’t remember what you did wrong…

I kid I kid

 

[a_priori]

That’s why he is so forgiving, He can’t remember what you did wrong…

“I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins” (Isaiah 43:25).

 

[hlmem]

“I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins” (Isaiah 43:25).

And that right there is the life being sucked out of my joke

 

[mchale]

I agree with alot that has been already said in this thread… I also disagree with alot. Specifically, I am a proponent of Big Bang Cosmology (or rather, the more recent revisions of such) and evolutionary biology as the mechanisim by which our biological forms arrived on the scene. That being said I do have a couple of thoughts to add.

Whether God exists in time or outside of time, the problem for men and their egos is the same. The Universe seems much larger in both time and space than we could ever hope inhabit. The problem with this view is that it looks at man in his current fallen state. As far as we know, after the resurrection, we might have this Universe to explore for ourselves, from beginning to end, both in time and space. While it may seem huge by our current standards, by our standards then, it will, i think, seem very small.

–
Bill