God exists before the Creation?

Discussions on creation beliefs within Christianity, and topics related to creation.
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Oriental
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God exists before the Creation?

Post by Oriental »

I ain't sure if anyone has asked before.

If God exists before the Creation, and given that Creation involves the creation not only of matters and energy but also time, is there any fallacy in interpreting this statement on its own:

"God exists before the Creation?"

The word "before" suggests a time factor so God run on a time scale only from past, present to future. If "time" is created on a point of time of Creation, (so that there are "before" and "after" for God to be existent or not), it doesn't make sense and logical for this statement to hold true.

How do you guys think? Is it clear about what I query?
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Canuckster1127
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Re: God exists before the Creation?

Post by Canuckster1127 »

Oriental wrote:I ain't sure if anyone has asked before.

If God exists before the Creation, and given that Creation involves the creation not only of matters and energy but also time, is there any fallacy in interpreting this statement on its own:

"God exists before the Creation?"

The word "before" suggests a time factor so God run on a time scale only from past, present to future. If "time" is created on a point of time of Creation, (so that there are "before" and "after" for God to be existent or not), it doesn't make sense and logical for this statement to hold true.

How do you guys think? Is it clear about what I query?
What makes you believe that God is limited or can only exist within the context of time?

This is an area that I believe science has helped to provide something of an answer. Time itself is relative and tied into the fabric of this universe. Einstein determined this in his theory of relativity.

God created time itself and he is not tied to it. If we imagine Him to be it it because we tend to project upon God our own perceptions and experiences which is natural, because that is our point of reference. That's why God sent Jesus Christ and gave us the Bible and the Holy Spirit to take us out of our point of reference and introduce us to His.
Dogmatism is the comfortable intellectual framework of self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is more decadent than the worst sexual sin. ~ Dan Allender
Oriental
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I could be misleading.

Post by Oriental »

I think I did not express myself well enough.

I was questioning about the non-believers' challenge over "if universe has a beginning, what is there before the beginning?" They insist upon the absence of Creator and universe exists on its own self without the beginning and end.

Ask them what proof they have of that assertion and watch their replies for circular reasoning.
Atticus Finch
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Re: I could be misleading.

Post by Atticus Finch »

Oriental wrote:I think I did not express myself well enough.

I was questioning about the non-believers' challenge over "if universe has a beginning, what is there before the beginning?" They insist upon the absence of Creator and universe exists on its own self without the beginning and end.

Ask them what proof they have of that assertion and watch their replies for circular reasoning.


If we lived in a time when one could believe in an eternal universe then it would be very hard to find where God fit into the picture. Since we've discovered that there was a beginning it makes it a lot simpler to realize that God must have made it. How can something come from nothing? The universe had a beginning and will have an end. Isn't that a wonderful thing to think about? Imagine the very start, from a single point came the huge expanse of universe we now have. It's still expanding and at some point it will all collapse back again. I think from that point it's very difficult to assume that there's no purpose at all and we're uncreated in life and merely the happening of chance and luck.

I'm quite stupid so I cannot really comprehend what was before this universe and before time. Is there time in the biblical concept of Heaven and Hell? If it is a place outside of this universe then will it be time of a similar sort? Wouldn't it be wild to live for eternity? It's almost too good to be true. It makes me feel giddy and overcome with happiness inside thinking about it.
Oriental
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Re: I could be misleading.

Post by Oriental »

Atticus Finch wrote:
If we lived in a time when one could believe in an eternal universe then it would be very hard to find where God fit into the picture. Since we've discovered that there was a beginning it makes it a lot simpler to realize that God must have made it. How can something come from nothing? The universe had a beginning and will have an end. Isn't that a wonderful thing to think about? Imagine the very start, from a single point came the huge expanse of universe we now have. It's still expanding and at some point it will all collapse back again. I think from that point it's very difficult to assume that there's no purpose at all and we're uncreated in life and merely the happening of chance and luck.

I'm quite stupid so I cannot really comprehend what was before this universe and before time. Is there time in the biblical concept of Heaven and Hell? If it is a place outside of this universe then will it be time of a similar sort? Wouldn't it be wild to live for eternity? It's almost too good to be true. It makes me feel giddy and overcome with happiness inside thinking about it.

I am not a mathematician but for fun I have thought of some possibility what things actually happened before birth of universe. (this "before" is the clock of our universe we measure but not the universe before the zero point of birth of universe)

If time scale expands like this, let take the "zero" being the time the instant universe was borne.

After universe was born, the time must be unidirectional from zero up to now..

0, 1, 2, 3, 4, ............ now ............ to the future

Before the birth of universe, the time scale, at minimum, should go like.

somewhere ...... -100, -99, -98, ....... -4, -3, -2, -1, 0

the only matching point is 0, being the birth of universe.

What is the meaning of time = -1, -2, -99, ...? what is it talking about?

I tend to think the world before the universe is just the "mirror image" of the universe that we are living.

For example, when we are living at time = 1000, something, identical to us, is living at another dimension measured at time = -1000,

we are living in cause-and-effect world, this mirror universe must be going in effect-and-cause world. (since it is negative-time scale, the higher the absolute number of time, e.g. time = -9, relative to our cause-and-effect world {i.e. if we look at this mirror-universe with our clock} , they are actually reverse course of events, as time running from -9 , -10, -11.....)

it is the same as when we look at ourselves in mirror, our left hands are actually our images' right hands. We move our left hands towards left, we "understand" that our images moves their right hands towards right. If we interpret this mirror-image phenomenon in term of time, suppose a water drops from top to bottom, in this mirror-universe, the water anti-drop from bottom back to top; these two universes interlocks so that time=0 moves both directions.

when Apocalypse comes, our Apocalypse is actually the "beginning of the mirror universe" , that is Eden's world, fulfilling Hebrews 4:6-12 for believers to enter His Sabbath-rest.

A bit of crazy thinkings.. :wink:

Oriental.


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LowlyOne
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Post by LowlyOne »

I am not sure this helps, but I have thought about the question "who made God" for sometime now and it dawned on me that the idea that God has always existed in an infinite way, isn't as far-fetched, irrational, or mysterious as some may think. I'd like to make a comparison. Think of numbers. Is it true, that there is no first number, nor is there a last number? I don't think there is. What is the lowest number, and what is the highest?

<15>


So if this is true with numbers, why can it not be true with God? If numbers can have no beginning or an end, then why couldn't God? If my understanding is correct, then we can actually see something natural such as numbers where this is the case. With that in mind, it may just be that this example with numbers is a dim reflection of the Great "I AM".

P.S. I have never heard anyone else come up with this idea, so I did not borrow this from anyone. There is nothing new under the some, and I must say I realize that!
Oriental
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Infinity is the truth

Post by Oriental »

LowlyOne wrote:I am not sure this helps, but I have thought about the question "who made God" for sometime now and it dawned on me that the idea that God has always existed in an infinite way, isn't as far-fetched, irrational, or mysterious as some may think. I'd like to make a comparison. Think of numbers. Is it true, that there is no first number, nor is there a last number? I don't think there is. What is the lowest number, and what is the highest?

<15>


So if this is true with numbers, why can it not be true with God? If numbers can have no beginning or an end, then why couldn't God? If my understanding is correct, then we can actually see something natural such as numbers where this is the case. With that in mind, it may just be that this example with numbers is a dim reflection of the Great "I AM".

P.S. I have never heard anyone else come up with this idea, so I did not borrow this from anyone. There is nothing new under the some, and I must say I realize that!
I agree with you. The tricky point about my crazy thinking is which of the two clocks are we using when talking about what happens before our universe.

Using our clock to look at mirror-universe, the mirror-universe is working in effect-and-cause happenings. (the number is running at higher and higher absolute numbers; using our clock, higher the number means earlier the time the course of event back to history)

However, the people living in mirror-universe, using their clock looking at our universe, our time is relatively negative valued to their clock; so even though we think we are living at cause-and-effect course of event; in their thinking, we are living at effect-and-cause course of events. Only with this logics can these two universe meet at zero point of time - the birth of universe.
Oriental.


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Iggy
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Post by Iggy »

first off, i dont think there is a mirror universe. i cant prove that it doesnt exist, just like you cant prove that it does.

Numbers have no beginning or end. God himself has no beginning or end (yet declairs himself the beginning and the end) in #'s (not the book) "0" is normally thought of as the first number. it's the beginning of positive numbers, the end of negative numbers.

on the other hand "0" if anything is the middle number. it isn't negative or positive. but you cant have a middle unless you have a start and finsih.

so either Numbers is God (neither have a beginning or end)
God = 0 because 0 is the beginning and the end.

but back to the topic...
check this out: -5, -4, -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

if the number "0" is the creation of earth, life and everything. what was going on at -5 thru -1? dont think of it as "time" as we know it. oddly enough, i cannot get past the fact that God made time. because as long as something or someone (God) exists, time exists. maybe God = Time!!!
wow, that makes sense... it took a week (week = time) to create the world
Bible says God is everywhere, time is everywhere. wow, now i gotta think about all this...
Iggy
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Post by Iggy »

first off, i dont think there is a mirror universe. i cant prove that it doesnt exist, just like you cant prove that it does.

Numbers have no beginning or end. God himself has no beginning or end (yet declairs himself the beginning and the end) in #'s (not the book) "0" is normally thought of as the first number. it's the beginning of positive numbers, the end of negative numbers.

on the other hand "0" if anything is the middle number. it isn't negative or positive. but you cant have a middle unless you have a start and finsih.

so either Numbers is God (neither have a beginning or end)
God = 0 because 0 is the beginning and the end.

but back to the topic...
check this out: -5, -4, -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

if the number "0" is the creation of earth, life and everything. what was going on at -5 thru -1? dont think of it as "time" as we know it. oddly enough, i cannot get past the fact that God made time. because as long as something or someone (God) exists, time exists. maybe God = Time!!!
wow, that makes sense... it took a week (week = time) to create the world
Bible says God is everywhere, time is everywhere. wow, now i gotta think about all this...
Oriental
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Reverse time scale intersecting the physical universe.

Post by Oriental »

The following link is a good illustration bearing the multi-dimensional possibilities that explains why God may be hidden from us: (actually I have come across similar argument well before visiting this link; the passage explains in greater detail the rationale behind more succinctly and vividly.

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/xdimgod.html

I don't know either what it means by time = -5, -4... 0. I can tell they are another set of dimension other than the space and time where we are living in. Because it is probably only one of all possibilities of time scale, the wordings like "past, present, and futre" may not make sense of this scale; so, if it is another set of dimension hidden in our physical universe, it may intersect any of the points in time scale which clock we are using. For example, maybe -5 exists in some time in the future of our universe and the flow may go like a mess.

Another way to understand this, based on the link, is, e.g. to draw a line perpendicular to the width, height and breath simultaneously. In this physical universe it is not possible. Imaginary as it may look like, it is not improbable in God's viewpoint.

Another example why I think mirror universe may exist, based on, for example, the miracle that Jesus performed on a man born blind. [John 9:1-34] This miracle is not possible in physical universe we are living unless a mirror universe exist where Jesus makes it intersect the physical universe so that time flew in direction reverse to the time scale we are living. So the man born blind somehow lived "back to history" because in the mirror universe, this man had never been blind initially in mirror universe but turned to blind when this man lives back to the time when he was born to his father.

Don't take too serious what I said, by the way, my words aImaginary imaginery ones without any academic backing.

Oriental.


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