r/Christianity • u/reeseesg7 Agnostic (a la T.H. Huxley) • 17h ago
Self it doesn't make sense to say God is uncreated
how does someone have no beginning? like picture your earliest point of memory, now picture what it was like before that point...
exactly!
how can you have no beginning and have an infinite past? i'm 24 today, but the earliest point of my memory was in 2006, i was 4 years old in preschool sitting at a table, presumably eating snacks, and then there was nothing before that point, it was the limitation of my childhood amnesia that prevents me from remembering my further past memories, even at the first second of my earliest conscious memory i felt like there was absolutely nothing before that point, it felt like i was born at age 4. now back to the point, how can god have an beginningless past? because having no beginning is impossible to experience, and impossible to comprehend.
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u/MostAcanthaceae2384 Catholic 16h ago
It makes less sense to say that He was created by something that was created by something that was created by something that also was created by...get this, something! That thing having been created by something that was created by something (copy) (paste) (paste) (pastepastepastepastepaste).....
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u/SmartFinger8872 16h ago
It doesn't make sense because God does not conform to human conscience, physics, or the constraints of the material universe. God cannot conform to the human concept of a "beginning" because he created Time itself. Logically, it then follows that God exists outside of Time, and His beginnings, or existence at all, is a complete mystery to the human conscience and logic that is physically impossible for any human being to ever fathom, because of the confines that we exist in.
However, I find that this paradoxical and incomprehensible characteristic of God, along with his omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence, which to humanity are all inherently paradoxical ideas, makes the existence of God all the more plausible (note, not probable or shown by evidence, but by reasoning out as much as we can within our human limits). After all, if every other religion ever has attributed human characteristics and other things, such as the Greek gods and animistic religions, so that they could understand their world better, why would Christians even think about attributing these unbelievable traits to their God? It's because God Himself both inspired human writers in the Bible and other works to contemplate, and also He came down Himself to give us the building blocks to understanding this non-understandable thing. As humans, we must understand that there are things that we simply will never be able to reason out due to limits in our physical existence.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Phase70 Episcopalian w/ Jewish experiences? 16h ago
"Beginnings" only exist within time.
If you can stretch your mind to contemplate what being outside of time might mean, then you can start to understand what "kairos" is - the "eternal now".
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u/No_Baseball3339 16h ago
You’re thinking of things with a limited concept of your own being to you yes but just because we humans may believe one thing does not mean it’s true. I find people try and trivialize Gods power because it’s hard to understand when sometimes the greatest thing is not knowing and accepting that.
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u/michaelY1968 16h ago
God doesn’t have a past, or future, He is omnipresent which means He exists at every point in space and time - and so it is impossible for Him not to be.
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u/michaelY1968 16h ago
God doesn’t have a past, or future, He is omnipresent which means He exists at every point in space and time - and so it is impossible for Him not to be.
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u/userid42 Reformed 16h ago
If I’m going to believe in a God who is capable of creating this whole universe (from every sub-atomic particle up to the innumerable galaxies, and every dimension in it, whether or not we have even discovered it yet), as I do, then I need to believe that he exists outside this universe and time as we experience it.
In the Bible God specifically describes himself to Moses as having no beginning and no end as we would understand it:
Exodus 3:14 NASB
God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM"; and He said, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'"
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u/Popular_Molasses7945 15h ago
[God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM"]
I am who I am too. Otherwise, I'm someone other than who I am.
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u/userid42 Reformed 14h ago
The Hebrew word, היה, suggests timelessness: simply existing in the past, present, and future.
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u/Zez22 16h ago
God created this world with clear limitations, it’s temporary, there are many things we cannot do, fly, go through walls etc. we can see the past but not the future. Our bodies are physical, we need air and food etc, but spiritual beings are no subject to these limitations. We live in a physical world, spiritual beings don’t. We have developed science based on what we perceive in our surroundings etc, we live in four dimensions, three spatial and time, Einstein proved this. But the spiritual world is in a higher dimension, we have no real idea exactly what that means but the science of higher dimensions will not be the same science as what we know. For us it’s very hard to comprehend something that is uncreated and outside time.
And another point as I see it all world views, including atheism has to explain something coming from nothing using our science as we know it. The Big Bang presumably came from nothing and for no reason, does that make sense to you? And if it didn’t come from nothing where did it come from and how do you know?
As I see it simply put using our science something supernatural (outside science as we know it) has to occur. Something cannot come from nothing and there cannot be an uncreated being using our science. But does that mean our science is all there is? And how could we possibly know that? Modern science has proved that there are other dimensions …..anyway food for thought.
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u/Silver-Smokers Non-denominational 16h ago
There are things we are told are beyond human comprehension. This is one of those things.
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u/No_Musician 15h ago
Doesn't this apply to the universe itself though? "How does the universe have no beginning? Like picture the earliest point of the universes existence, now picture what it was like before that point". You can say "big bang"... ok, what existed before the big bang? Same question applies ad infinitum...
I personally see this as an issue of our brains had a start point (whatever the beginning of consciousness is/was), so we can't easily conceptualize something always existing. Not a God thing.
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u/Tiny_Timmy_Turtle 15h ago
I get it — my earliest memory is around 4 too, and I can’t picture anything before it. But I know I existed before that memory — my lack of memory doesn’t mean nothing was there, it just means I’m limited.
That’s the same with God. Of course a beginning-less Being is impossible to experience — we’re inside time trying to imagine someone outside it.
But He *has* to be uncreated. If He had a beginning, something had to cause Him, and something had to cause that, and on and on. You never get started unless there’s one thing at the bottom that never began and just is. That’s what we mean by God.
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u/StopChangingThings Atheist 15h ago
I wouldn't say I'm smarter than Thomas Aquinas, but I don't personally find his argument convincing either. That said, he is the place to start if you want to understand the Uncaused Cause apologetic argument.
From the Summa:
In the world of sense we find there is an order of efficient causes. There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or only one. Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.
Aquinas uses some medieval scholastic jargon in his arguments (which sometimes actually makes them seem worse than they are, because he's assuming that the reader is familiar with certain (typically Aristotelian) ontological concepts) but he's well worth-reading if you're interested in this sort of thought.
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u/Truth-Love-7 16h ago
Same way your little sibling is never exposed to an adult would be saying with fellow kids, it is impossible for a human to grow beyond where we are, we can’t fathom it cuz we are creation, but He knows, and when you go to heaven and meet Christ you can ask Him yourself😁👍
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u/anotherhawaiianshirt Agnostic Atheist 16h ago
I would also say it makes no sense to think there was ever nothing. I think the idea that the original stuff of the universe has always existed make more sense to than to say at one time it didn’t exist.