Has matter always existed?

[JerryZ]

I am not a scientist, experimental or theoretical.

I do not believe we have enough information to solve your question.

There are too many things that we just do not know.

We do not know the size of the universe.

We do not know the essence of the physical laws.

We do not know the essence of the basic forces of nature.

There are many different kinds of science, and that is really important.

First, science would have to prove that there was a time when there was nothing.

Or science would have to prove that there physical being is necessary.

TOUGH, TOUGH, TOUGH, and that is for both points, I think.

Time did not exist in the pre big-bang singularity.
We think of time as a sequence of events that produce change as the result. A physicist sees time as 1 of the dimensions that bind our universe together.
As a result, “it” came into existance at the precise moment that the big-bang happened.

We do know how old the universe is and we can extrapolate an aproximate size from that information bearing in mind that we know also that the rate of expansion has not been constant. But we can get a rough number.
The big-bang discoveries have trown a huge monkey wrench on the atheists for it is yet one of the best proofs of the existance of GOD.
Very prestigious mathematicians and phycisists freely admit they believe in a creator idea of the universe.

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[meltzerboy]

I have heard that the Jews did not start believing the idea that God created matter until they started studying Greek philosophy which said matter had a start. I had heard they believed matter always existed and that it was just in “chaos” and that God organized matter. That when the book of Genesis says create it is not talking about God creating everything but organizing everything. And that it was just before Jesus time when the Jews started saying that God created matter and energy and adopted it from Greek philosophy. Is there any possibility matter has always existed?

AFAIK all the streams of Judaism (Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and the other 20 or so movements) have ALWAYS believed that G-d created EVERYTHING, including matter and energy. When Genesis says “create,” it literally means that G-d created the universe and everything in it, even evil, and that G-d is separate from His creation. Where did you read that the Jews believed G-d organized matter rather than created it?

 

[sidetrack]

If by monism we mean the doctrine that there is only one ultimate principle of all reality, the answer is yes, the God who is Existence, gives existence to all reality, the spiritual as well as the physical and all truth proceeds and leads back to God

Monism…and with the part I emboldened there my mind goes “panentheism”.I’m not saying it’s at odds with the conventional monotheism we’re taught to believe;I’m just saying that when that (the emboldened part) is said something that my mind thinks is something oriented more toward theocosmocentrism than a “personal God only”,per se.

That being said,it might be an important factor to consider in this discussion,I think.

 

[ynotzap]

Monism…and with the part I emboldened there my mind goes “panentheism”.I’m not saying it’s at odds with the conventional monotheism we’re taught to believe;I’m just saying that when that (the emboldened part) is said something that my mind thinks is something oriented more toward theocosmocentrism than a “personal God only”,per se.

That being said,it might be an important factor to consider in this discussion,I think.

The God who has Existence as His Nature, His essence is existence, is the same God-man Jesus Christ, who identified Himself, as the I Am, who Am. I n Jesus Christ He becomes a Personal God, who invites all to have a person relationship with Him.

Pantheism is a belief that creation is part of God, God has no parts, and if creation was part of God, it would experience no change, for God is Pure Act, He is all that He can be and thats Total Being, the I Am. Creation is always moving and changing, and it doesn’t move itself but is moved by another,and is dependent, not subsistent

 

[sidetrack]

The God who has Existence as His Nature, His essence is existence, is the same God-man Jesus Christ, who identified Himself, as the I Am, who Am. I n Jesus Christ He becomes a Personal God, who invites all to have a person relationship with Him.

Pantheism is a belief that creation is part of God, God has no parts, and if creation was part of God, it would experience no change, for God is Pure Act, He is all that He can be and thats Total Being, the I Am. Creation is always moving and changing, and it doesn’t move itself but is moved by another,and is dependent, not subsistent

I said in the quoted part you did panentheism not pantheism.It wasn’t a mistake of typing.Using wikipedia here

Pantheism is the belief that the universe (or nature as the totality of everything) is identical with divinity, or that everything composes an all-encompassing, immanent God.

though I said

Panentheism…(“God”; “all-in-God”) is a belief system which posits that the divine…interpenetrates every part of nature and timelessly extends beyond it. Panentheism differentiates itself from pantheism, which holds that the divine is synonymous with the universe. Unlike pantheism, panentheism maintains the identity and significance of the non-divine in the world.

In panentheism, the universe in the first formulation is practically the whole itself. In the second formulation, the universe and the divine are not ontologically equivalent. In panentheism, God is viewed as the eternal animating force behind the universe. Some versions suggest that the universe is nothing more than the manifest part of God. In some forms of panentheism, the cosmos exists within God, who in turn “transcends”, “pervades” or is “in” the cosmos. While pantheism asserts that ‘All is God’, panentheism goes further to claim that God is greater than the universe.

which might compel a different reply instead of what reply you gave me* had I said pantheism.

*Though I’m grateful and thankful for that reply ,rest assured on that.I’m not trying to be rude here.

 

[ynotzap]

I thought is was a typographical error.
From what I understand panentheism can be confused with pantheism, it is a very complex system of beliefs which affect many religions Catholic beliefs coincide with some beliefs, and not with others God is the animating force of the universe coincides with the idea that God is the total cause of creation by giving it existence. God is not part of the universe as some believe. St.Paul stated in Act l7-28 “in Him we live and move and have our being” this agrees with panentheism, but to avoid confusion between pantheism and panentheism the word was coined by some to unitheism. Panentheism is problematic by those that insist that creation is part of God.

I never thought you were rude, and I’m grateful for calling it to my attention, live and learn.

 

[opusAquinas]

Not to blow your mind but even Aquinas says it is possible for the universe to be eternal but created.

Now please correct me if I’m wrong but I have been told that the Big Bang theory is not creation from nothing but rather the universe was so compacted that it suddenly expanded.

 

[ynotzap]

The way I view this situation is Because every act of creation by God is an eternal act, He brings something into existence, for nothing exists without Him, and nothing stays in existence with out Him. The world is created, so it could never be eternal, but finite,it was created in time and undergoes constant change, but because God holds it in existence and His acts are infinite, eternal the created world accidentally looks, or appears eternal, so what it amounts to is that God maintains a finite creation that still remains finite eternally

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I have heard that the Jews did not start believing the idea that God created matter until they started studying Greek philosophy which said matter had a start. I had heard they believed matter always existed and that it was just in “chaos” and that God organized matter. That when the book of Genesis says create it is not talking about God creating everything but organizing everything. And that it was just before Jesus time when the Jews started saying that God created matter and energy and adopted it from Greek philosophy. Is there any possibility matter has always existed?

No. It is De Fide Catholic doctrine that God created the world out of nothing, in time. For Catholics there is no wiggle room, no massaging the meaning of " nothing. " As far as the Church is concerned, the universe has a finite past, period.

Linus2nd

 

[Verbum]

Hi, ynotzap,

To complete your thought, if matter always existed then it would be in its nature to exist. But existence is not part of the definition of matter. Therefore matter did not always exist.

There is only one nature that has existence in its definition : God. The ultimate cause of all things must necessarily exist.

Verbum

 

[Charlemagne_III]

St. Thomas, if I recalled accurately, says creation is an article of faith.

Human reason cannot answer settle the question one way or the other.

With contemporary science, I hold the opinion we still do not know enough.

Because modern science has advanced the ball, we can say with more assurance that creation is more than just an article of faith.

Carl Sagan in Cosmos, 1980 A.D.

“Ten or twenty billion years ago, something happened – the Big Bang, the event that began our universe…. In that titanic cosmic explosion, the universe began an expansion which has never ceased…. As space stretched, the matter and energy in the universe expanded with it and rapidly cooled. The radiation of the cosmic fireball, which, then as now, filled the universe, moved through the spectrum – from gamma rays to X-rays to ultraviolet light; through the rainbow colors of the visible spectrum; into the infrared and radio regions. The remnants of that fireball, the cosmic background radiation, emanating from all parts of the sky can be detected by radio telescopes today. In the early universe, space was brilliantly illuminated.”

Genesis, 1200 B.C. : “In the beginning God said: ‘Let there be light.’”

As astronomer Robert Jastrow pointed out in God and the Astronomers.

“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

It’s true that there are still possibilities that universes create each other, and that the sequence of universes may be infinite and eternal, raising into question the necessity of God, but there is no decisive science that supports such a notion.