My mind's in a knot... (Re: Who/what created God?)

Rrhain writes: With this apparent prevelege (spelling?) also comes responsiblity.Do you want to make decisions on the God has to make ? Who should live today and who should die? At what age should this or that person die?I would not like to have to make the decisions that God makes. Rather than complain I recognize that I would not be able to bear up under the heaven burden of justly administering the entire universe. I don't think I say "some things happen on their own". I say that God occupies a class of which there is only one unique member.Do you also complain why we can't detect the outer end of the universe? Everything else has a boundary of some type. Hey, its not fair that the universe gets to be infinite. Do you complain about that also?Does it irk you that as far as we can see there are galaxies? Does it annoy you that you can't with all of your human smarts bump into the wall of the universe?And life is greater than material. So don't complain about an uncreated and eternal divine Life. If you can't beat em, join Him. That's the way to peace. What are the "others" besides God that don't get to be created? Please identify these OTHER things that share this right. Though we do not get to be eternally uncreated we DO get to have eternal life and an eternal future through God's salvation.Why not take that and be happy. At least the eternal God has kind of met you half way?God loves you and desires that you have eternal life. Rather He desires that you have Him as your eternal life. So you at least to get half of what He is - you get eternal from now on.Instead of grip why not consider sharing the eternity future in His love and enjoyment? Who are the "those" you refer to. Not even the angels are said to have always lived. The class of Eternal God is occupied by ONE.Theologians sometimes refer to this as God as the "Ground of Being." I think Paul Tillich is the one who most used that phrase. He'll argue with you.We cannot like God say that we always were. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ. We can say that we derive from Him eternal life into the endless future.The fact that my Heavenly Father is uncreated perplexes my limited mind. But it does not engender resentment in me. Rather it draws forth my praise, and love, and worship in the enjoyment of such a one.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Yes." Indeed,from eternity to eternity, You are God" (Psalm 90:2)From eternity God was. Unto eternity God will be. Is that the case? Or is it the case that you intend not to accept what the Bible told you? I mean, could it be that you just decided that the idea of the eternality of God is not in the Bible no matter what is pointed out to you?Do you have some perculiar twist of Psalm 90:2 to make it say the opposite of what it says? From eternity His is God. I don't think so. - "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen. 1:1)That means there is a start to the universe.In fact through the Word it says everything that came into being came into being through Him:"All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him not one thing came into being which has come into being." (John 1:3)I think I hear you saying "But Heaven as God's abode always was." I don't know that from the Scripture. I see no passage telling me that. I see passages suggesting that what the NT would refer to as "the third heaven" is also created.God says in Isaiah 66: The passage impresses me as stressing that nothing in all the vault of the universe anywhere or in any dimension could really be called God's abode. But He does look for His ultimate rest and abode in man - "but to this kind of man I will look ..."God looks to dwell in man. God chooses His abode to be with a kind of human being. We can see in Jesus Christ a Man within whom the eternal God lived.And we can see God's desire to expand this dwelling of Himself in man. He wants to make an abode in the lovers of Christ the standard model of God in man and man in God: [qs][b]"Jesus answered and said to him, If wnytone loves Me, he will keep my word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him." (John 14:23)[/][/qs]In Isaiah 66 God said all creation, all the universe could not serve as His abode. But He would look to a certain kind of man for His house. And in John we see the Triune God coming to make an abode in that kind of man - "We will come to him and make an abode with him"This is why Jesus - the living temple of God, said in the beginning of the chapter [b]"In My Father's house there are many abodes. If it were not so I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you." (14:2)He means that through His death and resurrection He will prepare a place in God. That is a place in the Father. Man and God will mutually abide in each other. This is the eternal mutual abode that God seeks.My opinion is that angels were created and heaven in the sense of some other dimensional place of God was also created. And it is clear to me that in eternity future the dwelling place of the Triune God will be in a corporate group of saved people into whom the Triune God will dispense Himself as eternal life. Genesis 1:1 plainly tells us that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. So the universe has not always been as God has always been.To carry out His plan to dispense Himself into man He had to create a universe as a realm for out existence.I have to discontinue now. I will respond to your other comments latter.

Stephen Hawking also made a metaphysical proposal of something he called "Imaginary Time" to deal with the problem of how the universe could explode into being from nothing.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen.1:1)I think it is as clear as it is humanly possible for us to grasp the fact. The universe came into existence because of an act of will of Someone - God. This was the beginning of the universe.As far it is possible to grasp with our limited minds - it is clear, I think. I mean I believe we are encountering Someone with limitless knowledge and ability trying to communicate with us the most essential things about our existence and that on a level in which the greatest number of us can understand.I think God succeeded in informing of (if we want to listen) that in the beginning He created it all. This seems contradictory. First of all it says "the heavens AND THE EARTH"."In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."Without imposing any preconceived concept, I think you have to admit that "the heavens and the earth" stand for the universe. By implying that it only says "...God created the heavens" you are actually changing what is written there to agree with your concept. It doesn't work. That may be your kind of metaphysics. Maybe you have some special definition of the universe.However, the passage says that He created the heavens and the earth. Now if He could not exist except from within the heavens and the earth then He could not be able to create it. In that case He would not be there to do so.That makes no sense. So God and the WILL of God had to be first in place before HE could create the heavens and the earth.Now I may not be able to explain that. I will grant you that. But that doesn't break my heart because we are dealing with the Ultimate Divine Being.But at any rate "FIRST" He was there and "then" He created the heavens and the earth. And that is a realm into which He may freely interject Himself and His influence if He desires. For example, the incarnation of God as a man in Jesus Christ certainly was God entering freely into that heavens and earth which He created in the beginning.But the Bible shows God's plan, God's good pleasure, God's desire, and God's will as things which preceeded the existence of the universe. And as much as it may kill the modern man to do so, I think our response should be love and worship rather than complaining that God transcends our world in a way that we simply cannot comprehend.I mean, as I asked before - Do you really want to bear the heavy burden of understanding everything? I mean I am as curious as the next person. And I think we should study as much as we can. But do you really know what a crushing responsibility is it to have total knowledge of EVERTHING ?That we leave the total understanding of EVERYTHING up to God as His responsibility is not an offense to me.Got to give a kid a ride to school now. Latter.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.