How can God be immaterial?

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filter2700

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I’ve run into a problem when I think about who God is. How can God create a physical, material universe if he isn’t physical? The universe came into being from nothing, so what is God made of? If God isn’t material, then what is God? He is eternal, but what is he made of? How can a non-physical being like God create the universe? How can God be described if he isn’t physical and perceivable to us in a real way we can directly see and understand? How can God be immaterial and exist? How can God exist if he isn’t physical and material?

I’m looking for scientific answers, but feel free to back up your thoughts by using scripture. Thanks.
 
God is pure spirit, and all His attributes are perfect and equal. God is simple in His essence, and is not divided into parts.

One of God’s attributes is absolute power. With this power, God, who is pure spirit, is able to create matter out of nothing. For Him, it is not necessary to be a material being in order to create matter.

Does that help?
  • Rob in Oregon
 
How can we know God if he isn’t material?

Jesus said, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.”
  • Rob in Oregon
 
filter2700 said:
I’ve run into a problem when I think about who God is. How can God create a physical, material universe if he isn’t physical? … I’m looking for scientific answers.
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We know from scientific evidence of physics, astronomical observation and mathematics that the material universe came into being 13.75 ± 0.17 billion years,(whereas the decoupling of light and matter had occurred about 380,000 years after that), and that the diameter of the observable universe is at least 93 billion light years or 8.80×1026 meters. So, before that, there was no material universe, only God. Since God is eternal, He is clearly not be material. There are a great many books on the existence of God. One of the best I have found is “New Proofs for the existence of God from Physics and Philosophy” by Dr. Robert Spitzer.
 
So God isn’t physical, or material, and isn’t visible in the universe. He is an unseen spirit not made of matter. To me, that sounds like something that doesn’t exist.
 
It’s real simple. Physical objects ultimately have nonphysical causes. Think about it.
 
The only things that exist are those that are provable within this universe. Claiming something exists outside of our physical, material reality sounds very wacky to me.
 
I’m not sure what you mean by provable in this universe. What if you have a thought? How do you even prove to someone else that it existed when you thought it? Then how can it be provable in our universe? I don’t doubt it is in our universe, but how is it provable in our universe? But maybe I don’t understand what you are saying.
I wonder too–you presume in your first sentence that only things within our universe exist, though without showing why this is so. Then as your conclusion, you simply repeat the idea in your first sentence, and say that claiming that something exists outside our universe seems wacky to you. I believe you when you say this sounds wacky to you. But you never say why you think in the first place that only things within this universe exist. I presume you have a reason for thinking this, but you never say what the reason is.
 
filter2700 said:
The only things that exist are those that are provable within this universe. Claiming something exists outside of our physical, material reality sounds very wacky to me.
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Why do you have Catholic as your religion? Either you are not really Catholic or you are a very poorly catechised one!
 
Rob_in_Oregon said:
How can we know God if he isn’t material?

Jesus said, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.”
  • Rob in Oregon
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Jesus transfiguration gives us an example - light.
We know God by knowing Jesus in the gospel - loving and merciful.
Jesus in his human nature is God.So God physically existed as Jesus becoming a part of the Human story.
The gospel of John clearly states that Jesus is God.
 
filter2700 said:
I’ve run into a problem when I think about who God is. How can God create a physical, material universe if he isn’t physical? The universe came into being from nothing, so what is God made of? If God isn’t material, then what is God? He is eternal, but what is he made of? How can a non-physical being like God create the universe? How can God be described if he isn’t physical and perceivable to us in a real way we can directly see and understand? How can God be immaterial and exist? How can God exist if he isn’t physical and material?

I’m looking for scientific answers, but feel free to back up your thoughts by using scripture. Thanks.
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I would encourage you to get the deceptively small book Theology for Beginners by Frank Sheed.
 
filter2700 said:
I’ve run into a problem when I think about who God is. How can God create a physical, material universe if he isn’t physical? The universe came into being from nothing, so what is God made of? If God isn’t material, then what is God?.
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See, when we are here, we think this is the solid, “real” stuff. It’s actually what it is: nothing. You want science, go do the research yourself. By the time you follow all matter down to it’s most basic level, it is all the same thing: nothing at all.

God IS. Spiritual doesn’t mean less than; it’s all there really is.

God is more solid and real than the monitor you are staring into.
 
filter2700 said:
I’ve run into a problem when I think about who God is. How can God create a physical, material universe if he isn’t physical? The universe came into being from nothing, so what is God made of? If God isn’t material, then what is God? He is eternal, but what is he made of? How can a non-physical being like God create the universe? How can God be described if he isn’t physical and perceivable to us in a real way we can directly see and understand? How can God be immaterial and exist? How can God exist if he isn’t physical and material?

I’m looking for scientific answers, but feel free to back up your thoughts by using scripture. Thanks.
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The supernatural cannot be proved in the natural world. For some, it may be inferred.

Going down the road of proving or disproving the nature of God is a fruitless occupation. My opinion is that anyone who makes definitive statements is merely engaging in self aggrandizement.
 
filter2700 said:
I’ve run into a problem when I think about who God is. How can God create a physical, material universe if he isn’t physical? The universe came into being from nothing, so what is God made of? If God isn’t material, then what is God? He is eternal, but what is he made of? How can a non-physical being like God create the universe? How can God be described if he isn’t physical and perceivable to us in a real way we can directly see and understand? How can God be immaterial and exist? How can God exist if he isn’t physical and material?

I’m looking for scientific answers, but feel free to back up your thoughts by using scripture. Thanks.
Click to expand...
Read John

God is Love

Love is immaterial but you believe in Love without scientific answers. You know love as a set of feelings when you feel good. Okay so scientifically you can test that feeling under proper scientific guidence and would you feel that love 100% every time you carried out particular action or something. Possibly not if you carried it out over 200 times etc.

But you know love is by your own experiences and yet there is nothing materialistically that you can tangiable get hold of to show love.

God is likewise. God is love and we know Him and know how to be with Him and like love there is nothing tangiable but that is where we have Jesus and we have the church to help us. Priests guide us.

How can God be immaterial? Just as much as How can Love be immaterial?
 
filter2700 said:
I’ve run into a problem when I think about who God is. How can God create a physical, material universe if he isn’t physical? The universe came into being from nothing, so what is God made of? If God isn’t material, then what is God? He is eternal, but what is he made of? How can a non-physical being like God create the universe? How can God be described if he isn’t physical and perceivable to us in a real way we can directly see and understand? How can God be immaterial and exist? How can God exist if he isn’t physical and material?

I’m looking for scientific answers, but feel free to back up your thoughts by using scripture. Thanks.
Click to expand...
If God were material that would mean that matter existed before, and independently of, God. That would make matter the First Cause, not God. And matter only exists in time, so now time existed before, and independently of, God as well. And matter obeys laws, so now these laws existed before, and independently of, God too. So you’re back to explaining how time and matter and energy and the laws of physics exist, how they account for themselves.

What is God? God is existence. “I am.”
 
snarflemike said:
What is God? God is existence. “I am.”
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And as pure existence, God holds everything into being, sustaining their existence. Without God, matter (including creatures, obviously) would not exist.

Addressed to the OP:
Perception is not the measure of existence. We have limited means of perception in our human, earthly dimension. Many things exist outside of our perception of them. Scientists theorize all the time about invisible and unfelt aspects of the universe which they induce and deduce undoubtedly exist, based on other factors and the dynamic of life.
 
filter2700 said:
I’ve run into a problem when I think about who God is. How can God create a physical, material universe if he isn’t physical? The universe came into being from nothing, so what is God made of? If God isn’t material, then what is God? He is eternal, but what is he made of? How can a non-physical being like God create the universe? How can God be described if he isn’t physical and perceivable to us in a real way we can directly see and understand? How can God be immaterial and exist? How can God exist if he isn’t physical and material?

I’m looking for scientific answers, but feel free to back up your thoughts by using scripture. Thanks.
Click to expand...
That’s a strange problem. “How can God create a physical, material universe if he isn’t physical?”? Well, is the question “How can a physical object create a physical, material universe?” any easier? We don’t know how (that is, by what process) a universe can be created by someone non-physical, we also don’t know how a universe can be created by someone physical.

However, we do have an argument (not necessarily a very strong one) that might explain that a physical object existing in the universe couldn’t create it: if it did, did it create itself, as a part of the universe (that would be strange), or did it exist before the creation of the universe (that would also be strange: is the object in question so different from the other objects that it doesn’t require creation? Or was it created previously?)? On the other hand, such argument doesn’t work with anything non-physical: that is a difference, maybe it is a sufficient one.

Oh, and one more thing: what exactly do you mean by “physical”? Maybe we simply do not understand what you are saying?
 
filter2700 said:
So God isn’t physical, or material, and isn’t visible in the universe. He is an unseen spirit not made of matter. To me, that sounds like something that doesn’t exist.
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The thoughts in your mind, do they exist? They aren’t physical or material, they aren’t made of matter.

The rules of arithmetic that state 1+1=2 are not physical or material - they are not made of matter. Do the rules of arithmetic exist?

The rules of logic that state A cannot both be and not be are not physical or material - they are not made of matter. Do the rules of logic exist?

The love you have for parent, child, spouse, are not physical or material - it is not made of matter. Does your love exist?

Why would you believe that only the material exists? Given that belief is not physical or material - it is not made of matter - how can you even have a belief about anything?
 
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