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Against All Odds

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Against All Odds

Category Archives: Creating

Questing for Answers about God’s uncreated and eternal Nature

21 Tuesday Oct 2014

Posted by Prime Theologian in Apologetics, Creating, Difficult Questions, Philosophical Explanations for God

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Contingency, Cosmological Argument, Creation, god, Necessary Being, Space-Time

Recently, I was asked: “How was God always there? From a human perspective, all we understand is that everything has a beginning and an end?”

This is a challenging question because of the limitations of our thinking. Right up front, then, I want to clarify between an absurdity and a mystery. An absurdity is something that is logically impossible like a round square. A mystery is an idea that goes beyond humans’ ability to think about it. A mystery is not without a logical basis; indeed it is logical at its base, but its full meaning “extends” beyond the human mind’s ability. When I say “mystery,” I am saying two things: first, a mystery is understandable as far as the human mind can go, and, second, a mystery’s full meaning cannot be adequately explained without loosing the mystery we were trying to understand in the first place.

Before I move into the bulk of the question, humans who have a “human perspective” see from the position of contingency, that is, we are limited, changeable, and ultimately not our own explanation of ourselves. Thus, we must be careful not to attribute to God what creatures are since we know that we have came from somewhere else and need someone else to give us meaning beyond death. God, as we will see, is not contingent.

There are a number of ways to answer the question, but I will offer one that fits with modern science. Cosmologists, (e.g., Borde, Guth, Vilenkin, Sean Carroll) are much agreed that the universe had a beginning point, what they call “a first moment in time.”  A well known principle in philosophy is that from nothing, nothing comes. I mean “nothing” here in the sense of absolute negation, no space, no time, no particles, and thus no quantum mechanics. So now we have two things to deal with: the fact that the universe “began” and the fact that the universe did not create itself. This requires a hypothesis to explain the universe’s existence. There are only two eternal things the human mind can have clear knowledge about: abstract ideas like numbers or an eternal mind — not linked to a material brain though. Abstract ideas can’t create anything, however, leaving us with only the eternal mind thesis, which we call “God.” I say this to show that the universe is on the one hand not an explanation of itself, but God on the other hand is.

Traditionally, theologians have described that God is a necessary Being. This means that it is impossible to conceive a world without God. The current status of science largely upholds the notion that God is a necessary Being because the universe cannot create itself. For any universe to begin necessarily requires a being to start it: God. This necessary Being, God, would have to have existence in Himself, not taken from elsewhere otherwise He would no longer be a necessary Being. Theologians summarize all of this into an attribute they call Aseity (self-sufficient, necessary). It is to be recalled that cosmologists affirm that both time and space began at the first moment of time. Thus, God, “prior to” His fashioning of time cannot be thought about in terms of time. God’s Aseity excludes the possibility that He could have a beginning and an end. At this point, we have arrived at the edge of the mystery. We have given a logical basis to the mystery, however. Further, the mystery is partly understandable to the human mind, but not completely understandable. We know what it means to exist, because we do. We know in part what it means to be sufficient, yet not utterly self-sufficient like God. We know when something is necessary, and we can imagine, through abstract reasoning, an interval of endless duration by extending our experience of passing through limited durations. All of this points to the fact that the human mind is capable of attending to the mystery of God, “getting” some of it while never depriving it of it mysterious “beyondness.” Theologians have a saying for this, “God always conceals Himself in every revealing”; mind you, this is logical and not a nonsensical paradox.

All of this long discussion to say, God’s attribute of Aseity eliminates the possibility that He could have not been, or was created, or had a starting point. Once someone thinks God could have at one point not have been, they have now thought of another god other than the traditional Deity of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. It is likewise important to see that postulating an eternal set of causes is endless, and thus impossible by reductio ad absurbum (by reduction to the absurd). I am putting up a great discussion and debate of this very point between renowned biologist Richard Dawkins and Mathematician and Philosopher John Lennox. The specific question is asked at 45:17 and 52:18.

Dr. Scalise

Women, child bearers & God, Spirit Creator: a harmony of creation

17 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by Prime Theologian in Creating, Exegesis and Interpretation, Theological Interpretation

≈ Comments Off on Women, child bearers & God, Spirit Creator: a harmony of creation

Tags

1 Peter 1:3, birth, born, child bearing, creating and birthing, god, Spirit, spirits, women

1 Peter 1:3 “. . . [God] who beget us again . . .”

Woman is not the birther in 1 Peter 1:3 but, rather, God the Father, the One after whom woman’s giving birth is patterned.  God, on the one hand, creates all things and so births all things whereas, on the other hand, women are the physical medium of this spiritual birthing.

Where is the spirit or who can say from where the soul arrives? No medical procedure will ever turn up some substance called the spirit or soul.  Only the Spirit births spirits; only the Holy Spirit births spirits of endless variety.

Humans think too lowly and narrowly about the nature of birth even if calling birth a real miracle.  Mircle, indeed, for as many humans have a spirit, there are likewise that many miracles.  Birth is an interruption in the flow of time and space for at this moment God intervenes, heaven meets earth, and a divine kiss happens with a new spirit born alive.  Women contain in themselves a unique presencing of God while He weaves His creational work of birthing a new spirit together with the woman’s body’s physical weaving of a new baby.

It is truly amazing that God does not fully override personality qualities of the parent when birthing this new spirit.  No, God incorporates, by means of genes and DNA, some personality qualities of the parents (parent spirits) into the newly born baby (newly born spirit).  What freedom is this that God partners with woman (and man) in making this new baby (spirit).  But all parents know that there is something different about their children, differnt from them.  What is this we see in these personalities of our children that are so different from our own? Are we not seeing a glimpse of God, the Orginator of all human personality?

Woman, giving birth, do a dance with the Divine, sub-creating with Him. Women are not the source of the new creation of lives but are bearers of miracles, coordinated with God, even as David said (Ps. 139:13):

For you formed my inward parts;

you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.

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