When Would God Cease to Exist?

[dcrowmik]

If we did not have the choice to love God, then love would cease to exist (& thus God Himself would cease to exist!).

Find the rest here.

 

[coolduude]

I’m not a philosophy professor, but I’m pretty sure God cannot not exist by His very nature of being God.

Besides, isn’t God giving us a choice as essential as the laws of logic? For if God is love (which He is), then it follows that He must give us a choice because it is His nature to do so. It can be argued that he cannot not give us a choice.

This whole statement (the op) is absurd in my mind and in my opinion. Its self refuting.

But like I said, I am no professor

 

[MarcusAndreas]

If we did not have the choice to love God, then love would cease to exist (& thus God Himself would cease to exist!).

…

That idea is absolutely stupid.

God IS a community of love, three persons, The Father generating the Son and Holy Spirit, and the Son generating back the Holy Spirit to the Father, completely bound in love for each other that they are eternally one, and this has existed from all eternity. There was a…time…for lack of a better word, when God was the only being that was. No creatures necessary to choose to love Him!

It can be argued that creation exists as a bridegroom for the Son (read some John of the Cross for more on that), and I’d like to propose that rational creatures capable of choosing love for God is not necessary, since such a period existed in creation before the creation of angels, men, and other rational creatures we have not been given knowledge of.

If God is self-sufficient, which would be a logical element of perfection, then there is no actual need for creatures, God does not depend on them.

 

[The_Scott]

That is assuming that God is contingent - that is, He’s dependent on existence.

Let’s put it this way: before God created time, space, and the universe, did He not exist? A There was certainly nothing around to worship Him! A basic cosmological argument for the existence of God (a created thing must have a Creator, for instance) would refute this.

God isn’t dependent on the worshipers; the worshipers are dependent on God!

 

[The_Scott]

Sorry for double-posting.

I always like the answer that Augustine gives to the omnipotence paradox (“can God create a stone so heavy that He Himself cannot lift it?”):

“For He is called omnipotent on account of His doing what He wills, not on account of His suffering what He wills not; for if that should befall Him, He would by no means be omnipotent. Wherefore, He cannot do some things for the very reason that He is omnipotent.”

Basically, God cannot do anything that cannot make God God (make sense?)

 

[Veritas41]

God, according to St Thomas Aquinas, is *Ipsum esse subsistens --*unlimited act of existence. He is pure existence, so He can never “go out of existence.”

 

[vz71]

If we did not have the choice to love God, then love would cease to exist (& thus God Himself would cease to exist!).

So we are to assume that those within the creation must manifest love in order for such to exist?

 

[centurionguard]

That is assuming that God is contingent - that is, He’s dependent on existence.

Let’s put it this way: before God created time, space, and the universe, did He not exist? A There was certainly nothing around to worship Him! A basic cosmological argument for the existence of God (a created thing must have a Creator, for instance) would refute this.

God isn’t dependent on the worshipers; the worshipers are dependent on God!

Let’s put it this way: before God created time, space, and the universe, did He not exist? A There was certainly nothing around to worship Him!

The fallacy in this statement is that God has NO Need of Worship from any of His creation

A basic cosmological argument for the existence of God (a created thing must have a Creator, for instance) would refute this

Exactly; fact is God didn’t need Time, Space, the Universe or anything else seen or unseen. Everything seen and unseen is reliant on God’s Eternal Existence.

Peace
Chris