God?

  • Thread starter Thread starter lemonbeam
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
L

lemonbeam

Guest
Wouldn’t the God who created the universe have to be more complex than the universe he has created? Which simply begs the question who then created a God intelligent enough to create the universe and so on and so fourth.
 
lemonbeam said:
Wouldn’t the God who created the universe have to be more complex than the universe he has created? Which simply begs the question who then created a God intelligent enough to create the universe and so on and so fourth.
Click to expand...
Personally I think it’s a mystery, a matter of pure faith. I don’t think it’s something we will ever be able to understand. I don’t think laws of science like, “Wouldn’t the God who created the universe have to be more complex than the universe he has created”, are really applicable to the one who wrote the laws of science. Hope this helps!
 
lemonbeam said:
Wouldn’t the God who created the universe have to be more complex than the universe he has created? Which simply begs the question who then created a God intelligent enough to create the universe and so on and so fourth.
Click to expand...
Our ideas of causality and properties are very limited, and even if we completely understood them in our own “dimensions” we could not apply those laws to something “outside” our universe. Your question is sort of like asking, “How much does God weigh?” It simply doesn’t apply.
 
lemonbeam said:
Wouldn’t the God who created the universe have to be more complex than the universe he has created? Which simply begs the question who then created a God intelligent enough to create the universe and so on and so fourth.
Click to expand...
No it doesn’t beg such a question.

You say you are a Catholic. You therefore know God was not created. He has always been. God has no beginning and no end.
 
In order to believe God had to be created, you have to measure Him against the properties of THIS world in time and space in order to assume He had to have a creator. However, He is outside of time and space, and thus the principle of causality should not apply to Him. There is no such thing as “before” God.
 
lemonbeam said:
Which simply begs the question who then created a God intelligent enough to create the universe and so on and so fourth.
Click to expand...
Greetings my Catholic brother, our logical reasoning, while limited can grasp some reality of this.

First, God is the ultimate reality of what it means to “exist”, He is “existence” in the fullest meaning and He is “reality” in the fullest meaning, hence He can not be “caused” or “created”. This relates to God’s own name “YHWH” “I AM”. God is the fullest meaning of “creator” hence He can not be “created”. Second, “creation” and “cause” are reflected in time, and time is limited to the material expansion of the universe (change). God exist separately from the material universe, God exists in eternity. Eternity is roughly comparable to an everlasting present. So there was no “before God”, because there is only “present with God”. Third, “creation” and “causation” is a characteristic of matter, matter is caused, exists in time, and is subject to change. God is not material hence free from matter’s characteristics and limitations.

God is pure Spirit, the Holy Spirit of the Father and the Son, three persons in one God. I hope this helps.
 
CeltusSanctus said:
Greetings my Catholic brother, our logical reasoning, while limited can grasp some reality of this.

First, God is the ultimate reality of what it means to “exist”, He is “existence” in the fullest meaning and He is “reality” in the fullest meaning, hence He can not be “caused” or “created”. This relates to God’s own name “YHWH” “I AM”. God is the fullest meaning of “creator” hence He can not be “created”. Second, “creation” and “cause” are reflected in time, and time is limited to the material expansion of the universe (change). God exist separately from the material universe, God exists in eternity. Eternity is roughly comparable to an everlasting present. So there was no “before God”, because there is only “present with God”. Third, “creation” and “causation” is a characteristic of matter, matter is caused, exists in time, and is subject to change. God is not material hence free from matter’s characteristics and limitations.

God is pure Spirit, the Holy Spirit of the Father and the Son, three persons in one God. I hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Thats a great answer:)
 
Lisa44 said:
sorry for the double post, can I quote you on that?🙂
Click to expand...
Greetings my Catholic Sister, I’m glad my answer was helpful to you, yes feel free to use what I have said. God bless.
 
According to the bible, everything was created by God. Implying everything has a beginning and end. Including our universe, including our time. Even if God exists outside our time, he must also be bound by cause and effect and some sort of concept of time, otherwise it would not have taken him time to create the earth. Therefore if he is also bound by a notion of time he must also have had a beginning and will also have an end. Even if in his own reality. ??
 
lemonbeam said:
According to the bible, everything was created by God. Implying everything has a beginning and end. Including our universe, including our time. Even if God exists outside our time, he must also be bound by cause and effect and some sort of concept of time, otherwise it would not have taken him time to create the earth. Therefore if he is also bound by a notion of time he must also have had a beginning and will also have an end. Even if in his own reality. ??
Click to expand...
Not if God created time. And then the rest of His creation existed in time.
 
lemonbeam said:
According to the bible, everything was created by God. Implying everything has a beginning and end. Including our universe, including our time. Even if God exists outside our time, he must also be bound by cause and effect and some sort of concept of time, otherwise it would not have taken him time to create the earth. Therefore if he is also bound by a notion of time he must also have had a beginning and will also have an end. Even if in his own reality. ??
Click to expand...
The creation narrative is written from man’s perspective, for man’s understanding. It does not follow that because it is described as happening within a timeframe that God is bound by some cause and effect. The Bible had to be written so man could understand it. This is axiomatic. When I teach my kids, I have to get down to their level, you cannot explain to a 2 year old that the earth is a big ball floating in space. They might be able to memorize the statement, but their minds can’t yet grasp the magnitude of what you’re saying. Just an analogy, but God has to do the same thing to make sense to us - he has to come down to our level.
 
lemonbeam said:
Wouldn’t the God who created the universe have to be more complex than the universe he has created? Which simply begs the question who then created a God intelligent enough to create the universe and so on and so fourth.
Click to expand...
It’s true that both theists and atheists must posit something that simply exists, without cause or explanation. For theists this is God. For atheists it is the material universe.

The problem with the latter is that the universe gives us very strong evidence that it has not always existed, and that it will not always exist, and that nothing made of matter and energy can exist forever. The universe has made it very clear to us that it is a temporary thing, that it was born and that it will age and die.

No such evidence exists for the temporary nature of God, however.
 
lemonbeam said:
According to the bible, everything was created by God. Implying everything has a beginning and end. Including our universe, including our time. Even if God exists outside our time, he must also be bound by cause and effect and some sort of concept of time, otherwise it would not have taken him time to create the earth. Therefore if he is also bound by a notion of time he must also have had a beginning and will also have an end. Even if in his own reality. ??
Click to expand...
If you really are Catholic then you must believe God has no beginning and no end. God was NOT created.
 
VociMike said:
It’s true that both theists and atheists must posit something that simply exists, without cause or explanation. For theists this is God. For atheists it is the material universe.

The problem with the latter is that the universe gives us very strong evidence that it has not always existed, and that it will not always exist, and that nothing made of matter and energy can exist forever. The universe has made it very clear to us that it is a temporary thing, that it was born and that it will age and die.

No such evidence exists for the temporary nature of God, however.
Click to expand...
Great points.
 
Greetings my Catholic brother,
lemonbeam said:
According to the bible, everything was created by God. Implying everything has a beginning and end. Including our universe, including our time. Even if God exists outside our time, he must also be bound by cause and effect and some sort of concept of time
Click to expand...
No. To exist outside of time is to exist outside of “begining and ending”. To be outside of time, is to be eternal. Eternity is roughly comparable to an “ever lasting present”. God exists in an ever lasting present. Science has already proven to us that time only exists in the material expansion of the universe (Space-time).

Since God exists in an ever lasting present (eternity), God can not be caused. This is because “cause” is directly connected to time. To be “caused” implies a “begining point”, since God exists in an ever lasting present (eternity), this is impossible. Cause effect relationships are characteristics of matter. God is “non-material” or “Spiritual”. God is pure Spirit, and is therefore not subject to the material laws of Physics.

Remember, “cause effect” the very laws of Physics did not exist before the Big bang. The Laws of Physics exist “after” the Big Bang, and can only be applied to matter.
lemonbeam said:
otherwise it would not have taken him time to create the earth. Therefore if he is also bound by a notion of time he must also have had a beginning and will also have an end. Even if in his own reality. ??
Click to expand...
No. God chooses to “act in time”, but as we already know, time is only an illusion brought about by Space-Time (the material expansion of the Universe). The earth is material and therefore exists in time, not eternity. God created the material world “in time”, so for us creation is expressed in terms of time, but not for God. God may choose to “act in time” from eternity, but His existence is not “in time”. To be the creator is to be “un-created”.

God the Son, Jesus, entered into time through taking flesh (human nature) but He Himself (the person not His body) exists in eternity. Hence Jesus tells us before Abraham was He Is. Jesus glorified His body, His human nature, by His glorious ressurection and ascension. Jesus Christ is the living union of the Spiritual World and the Material World, because He united Human nature to Himself. This means human destiny is to be transformed from time to eternity through Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit to realize the plan of the Father. Mary is the ultimate reality of the creature being transformed by the Creator in this way. Mary in this sense represents what we all will become through Jesus Christ.

The Universe itself will also be transformed in a similar manner at the Second Coming, this is the New Heaven and the New Earth, the Heavenly Jerusalem being made on earth. The Universe itself will be brought into perfect harmony with God Himself.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top