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LibralAteoJesus
Guest
From your Catholic beliefs; how did God get into existence from nothing?
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Charlemagne_II
Guest
From my Catholic beliefs, God did not come into existence. God is eternal by definition.
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LibralAteoJesus
Guest
How?
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petersomething
Guest
God was never created. He is meta-cosmic in the sense that He transcends the created order and so is termed uncreated. All things in creation, the archangels, the angels, the cosmos and humankind are created by God.
Meister Eckhart puts it this way: “God is a Word, an Unspoken Word. Where God is, He utters His Word. Where He is not, He does not speak. God is spoken and unspoken. The Father is a speaking work, and the Son is the speech at work.”
God “unspoken” is actually the Godhead or Divine Essence where “He does not speak” and where “He is not.” (According to Eckhart, “If I also say, God is a Being, it is not true; He is transcendent Being and superessential Nothingness.”) God “spoken” is where “God is” and refers to His Self-revelation in the Divine Persons, starting with the Father and then through the Son, Holy Spirit. The Father is Pure Being – the speaking work – and the Son is the Logos of Being – the speech at work.
So God, in His absolute essence, transcends even the polarities of being and non-being, of existence and non-existence. This would have to be so if God is truly above all opposition. Existence and non-existence are still human attributes which God is not subject to, hence He neither exists, nor does not-not exist. That is not to say those attributes are not real, they just do not apply to Him in His purest essence, but through Him they are manifest.
Again, according to Eckhart:
“The Godhead in itself is motionless unity and balanced stillness and is the source of all emanations. Hence I assume a passive welling-up. We call this first utterance Being, for the most intrinsic utterance, the first formal assumption in the Godhead is Being. Being as essential Word, God is being, but being is not God. Now the origin of the Father is necessarily involved in this assumption of a passive welling-up. In other words, the Deity being in Itself intelligence, therefore, the divine nature steps forth into relation of otherness: other, but not another, for this distinction is rational, not real. Thus, the first Person arises in the Godhead passively, not from any active beginning. Hence its beginning is without property. The question is, what is the Person of the Father. I answer that it is Being in the Godhead, not according to essence but according to paternity, which is the formal notion specifically determining the Father.”
Meister Eckhart puts it this way: “God is a Word, an Unspoken Word. Where God is, He utters His Word. Where He is not, He does not speak. God is spoken and unspoken. The Father is a speaking work, and the Son is the speech at work.”
God “unspoken” is actually the Godhead or Divine Essence where “He does not speak” and where “He is not.” (According to Eckhart, “If I also say, God is a Being, it is not true; He is transcendent Being and superessential Nothingness.”) God “spoken” is where “God is” and refers to His Self-revelation in the Divine Persons, starting with the Father and then through the Son, Holy Spirit. The Father is Pure Being – the speaking work – and the Son is the Logos of Being – the speech at work.
So God, in His absolute essence, transcends even the polarities of being and non-being, of existence and non-existence. This would have to be so if God is truly above all opposition. Existence and non-existence are still human attributes which God is not subject to, hence He neither exists, nor does not-not exist. That is not to say those attributes are not real, they just do not apply to Him in His purest essence, but through Him they are manifest.
Again, according to Eckhart:
“The Godhead in itself is motionless unity and balanced stillness and is the source of all emanations. Hence I assume a passive welling-up. We call this first utterance Being, for the most intrinsic utterance, the first formal assumption in the Godhead is Being. Being as essential Word, God is being, but being is not God. Now the origin of the Father is necessarily involved in this assumption of a passive welling-up. In other words, the Deity being in Itself intelligence, therefore, the divine nature steps forth into relation of otherness: other, but not another, for this distinction is rational, not real. Thus, the first Person arises in the Godhead passively, not from any active beginning. Hence its beginning is without property. The question is, what is the Person of the Father. I answer that it is Being in the Godhead, not according to essence but according to paternity, which is the formal notion specifically determining the Father.”
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smichhertz
Guest
God always was, and always will be. He was never created.
Our Catholic beliefs don’t really get into the science of HOW this is possible. It’s not like there was some experiment done or formula discovered to prove it.
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empther
Guest
This is a typical child’s question.
The more fundamental question is: “How can anything exist?”
It’s obvious that nothing can create itself. So how can anything exist?
The answer is that there is one thing that didn’t come into existence, but always existed.
It is its own existence. This we call God.
He is the Necessary Being. He cannot not exist.
Why? We don’t know. Only God can understand that. But if it weren’t true we wouldn’t be here to worry about it.
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DCNBILL
Guest
Since we are created beings this would be our only frame of reference, we only understand a way of being as that of being created. So of course we can not comprehend our Creator. All we can do is attempt to use our limited language to describe “how are Creator is.” The Catholic view is that God is eternal, without beginning or end, He is being itself. All of creation comes from Him and nothing exists except that which He created and only is because it “participates in His being.”
Hope this helps a bit.
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LibralAteoJesus
Guest
Perhaps there is a higher god who created the god who created us, since our existence is useless without bringing a God as an explanation, why God’s existence isn’t useless without a higher creator? Specially in the case where the materialist world is measured unlike the supernatural world.This is a typical child’s question.
The more fundamental question is: “How can anything exist?”
It’s obvious that nothing can create itself. So how can anything exist?
The answer is that there is one thing that didn’t come into existence, but always existed.
It is its own existence. This we call God.
He is the Necessary Being. He cannot not exist.
Why? We don’t know. Only God can understand that. But if it weren’t true we wouldn’t be here to worry about it.
So anyone can bring up a supernatural story and consider it as an origin even without evidences to support it and an explaination for the “How”, just like Russell’s teapot which cannot be disproved.
What makes the Catholic god as a supernatural story more valuable?
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Linux
Guest
I don’t agree with empthers arrogance and disrespect; but like he said it is not a matter of who created God, because if God was created he is not God to begin with. When one speaks of God in an ontological sense one is speaking of that being upon which everything else is dependent on for its existence. Now if you want to dispute that some ultimate reality exists or dispute whether that being is or is not the universe, thats fine. But the fact remains that there has to be a being from which all contingent things ultimately originate; unless of course you are of the opinion that things just pop of nothing for no reason at all. We can discuss that too.
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Charlemagne_II
Guest
linux
**I don’t agree with empthers arrogance and disrespect; **
I don’t agree. There is nothing wrong with asking a childish question if you happen to be a child.
Nor is there anything wrong with asking a childish question if you happen to be an adult.
We are all children of God, and so we all ask childish questions.
**I don’t agree with empthers arrogance and disrespect; **
I don’t agree. There is nothing wrong with asking a childish question if you happen to be a child.
Nor is there anything wrong with asking a childish question if you happen to be an adult.
We are all children of God, and so we all ask childish questions.
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LibralAteoJesus
Guest
How can God exist without a creator? A simple question that I need a Catholic “scientific” answer for, not looking for atheism vs theism debate, saying a creator cannot be created because he wouldn’t be a god to begin with isn’t explaning a lot.
I didn’t claim I know what existed before the Big bang.
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cjkaupke
Guest
St Thomas Aquinas proved, very convincingly, that there must necessarily be a being that is uncaused, uncreated, perfect, necessary, and the governor of the universe. It is logically impossible for there not to be.
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R_C
Guest
I hope I don’t get in trouble for throwing in some humor from Catholic Memes…
http://chirho.me/memes/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/inTERNET-aTHESIT.png
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dshix
Guest
empether already answered your question. God CANNOT not exist. It is in the nature of God to be THE necessary being.
If you suggest that there was an even higher being which created God, then we would be forced to ask what created THAT higher being. Your question is circular.
The very nature of the concept of God is a first mover; a being which is not caused and does not need to be caused, because that being, by its nature, IS. God has no beginning and no end; He has always and always will exist.
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LibralAteoJesus
Guest
I first remember asking this question when I was a child to a priest, his answer was : " you’ll know when you get to Hell".linux
**I don’t agree with empthers arrogance and disrespect; **
I don’t agree. There is nothing wrong with asking a childish question if you happen to be a child.
Nor is there anything wrong with asking a childish question if you happen to be an adult.
We are all children of God, and so we all ask childish questions.
It’s good to remember that there is no problem in asking a question no matter how it may appear “heretic” or “childish”.
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davidv
Guest
The sciences applicable to your question are Philosophy and Theology.
The essence of the first mover argument is that given the our existance and the changes it undergoes, it is a logical necessity that there is an unmoved mover.
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LibralAteoJesus
Guest
Neil deGrasse Tyson is an atheist, also explaining the scientific existence of a creator supposing that is equal to explaining the scientific existence of Big bang doesn’t leave out the possibity of having a higher god for both.I hope I don’t get in trouble for throwing in some humor from Catholic Memes…
http://chirho.me/memes/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/inTERNET-aTHESIT.png
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LibralAteoJesus
Guest
Excuse me here, how is saying that God has no creator, no beginning and no end, make it true without an absolute proof to believe that? What is that proof that God supposing he exists have no creator?
I’ll go far with you that there is a creator for the big bang; how can you be able to know the character of that creator and that he wasn’t created.
Saying he is the alpha and omega, isn’t enough.
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Richca
Guest
The eternity of God is incomprehensible to our minds. When I reflect on the eternity of God, it brings to my mind how awesome His being must be!
The fact is that you and I exist and the world exists and existence cannot come from absolutely nothing. Though we believe the universe was created by God out of nothing, still it came from God. So, we either have to believe that the world existed from all eternity or there is a being such as God who has existed from all eternity.
God has made know to us through His revelation that He exists and that the universe was created by Him.
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davidv
Guest
Why are you expecting absolute proof. I don’t believe such a thing exists. St. Thomas of Aquinas has presented a valid logical proof of the claim.
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