Did he just always exist? Did he make himself? PS - no atheists in the poll, please; I'm trying to get a Christian perspective on this.
I use the cosmological argument that states that anything that had a beginning implies that there was something before it that was eternal. If God was created then why wouldn't we call what created God, God? Here's a lecture by William Lane Craig: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36cKSRVojRE"]YouTube - Leibnizian Cosmological Argument (1 of 2) His most famous statements is this quote: "Therefore, there exists a Personal Creator of the universe, who, sans the universe, is timeless, spaceless, beginningless, changeless, necessary, uncaused, and enormously powerful." Thomas aquinas argued the prime mover http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theism/cosmological.html The start of the Bible mentions that both the universe and earth were created. It also mentions that there are 3 worlds. The first two is heaven (the universe) and earth and the third is God's dwelling place. This implies that God is eternal in the Christian perspective and not a being that was created. I liked how Monkey boy once explained it to me: 'Imagine the universe expanding inside God' (paraphrasing).
I will vote always existed, but in reality it is a mystery in the sense that everytime we descibe God using words, we fall short to fully capture the majesty and fullness of the nature of God. God did not come into being, but has always been. This is one interpretation of the present tense response of "I Am Who Is" by God to Moses through the burning bush. There was never a time without God and there will never be a time without God. God is even outside time, but can be within time. God is mystery.
Well no, I took the "mystery" in ther poll to not be my understanding of mystery, ans so for statistical purposes, I didn't even vote for any. I took it to mean that it could be any of the previous three, however it is not the second two. God has always existed, but what that truly means is a mystery. I can say that from the beginning of time that we can measure (i.e., from the beginning of the Universe) God has existed and wil continue to exist until the end of the Universe. God has also existed prior to and after the Universe's existence. That is the mystery. An existence outside of time.
Isn't this like the chicken or the egg question? in a way then.. i have been raised as a christian..but for me god is just a personification for what is the absolute/objective source of all wisdom and life energy. I think this question is beyond something we can answer in the language we know..i don't even know if the concept of time plays a role here.
See; I was raised Christian an d find Yahweh to be another in a long list of god's created by man, in man's image. But I still believe very strongly in a deep universal connection and all that jazz. This poem has always fit very well, what I believe: My Delight and thy Delight My delight and thy delight Walking, like two angels white, In the gardens of the night: My desire and thy desire Twining to a tongue of fire, Leaping live, and laughing higher: Thro' the everlasting strife In the mystery of life. Love, from whom the world begun, Hath the secret of the sun. Love can tell, and love alone, Whence the million stars were strewn, Why each atom knows its own, How, in spite of woe and death, Gay is life, and sweet is breath: This he taught us, this we knew, Happy in his science true, Hand in hand as we stood 'Neath the shadows of the wood, Heart to heart as we lay In the dawning of the day. -Robert Seymour Bridges
As per my previous statement, I think it does. If we say that something exists, what does that mean. It means it is perceivable, because as physical beings, we should be able to sense something to state existence (quantum and theoretical physics probably may not fall in here, but as per this discussion, bear with my assumptions). If we say that God does exist, it shouldn't be through philosophical thought, but as a response to a particular experience. We can only experience that which occurs within time. Hence the concept of time being pertinent. Now we can get into sticky issues of what exactly is the nature of time. For all intents and purposes we view time as linear. What is a little different from the modern materialist view of time is that time can also function simultaneously in the past present and future. This is how Christ's Sacrifice works in the context of the Divine Liturgy, or in the West--Mass. Christ did die once, but his Sacrifice works into the past, and into the future. His death can be made present on the modern altar, even though the chronological time is off by now 2000 years. It could even be argued that God is even beyond this concept of time, and so what does it really mean for God to be eternal. God is that which was, is, and always will be.
