The Eternal God
The eternal God is a centerpiece of Christian theology. God’s existence is eternal in that he existed before time existed. Time is considered a dimension such that it is a created thing similar to the other three dimensions of space.
Infinity
The Bible is the only holy book that unambiguously states that God existed before the beginning of time and that time itself even has a beginning.
Before God created “the heavens and the earth,” God could do things even before the dimension of time was created. The Bible alone describes God as acting independently of the physical world and its ten space-time dimensions, for he is not subject to length, width, height, and time for he is the one who brought them into existence.
Scripture also defines God in ways that defy explanation in terms of our four space-time dimensions, such as God as a being who is both singular and pleural (Trinity) and the simultaneity of human free will and divine predestination.
Hebrews 11:3 indicates that God made the Universe from what we cannot detect. Scripture also explicitly informs us that God existed before time,
This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time. (2 Timothy 1:9)
…in the hope of eternal life, which God who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time. (Titus 1:2)
These verses indicate time had a beginning and that God was doing things before the beginning of time,
…you love me before the creations of the world. (John 17:24)
For he chose us in him before the creations of the world. (Ephesians 1:4)
He was chosen before the creation of the world. (1 Peter 1:20)
The Greek word “kosmos” can refer to a part of the earth, the whole earth, or the entire Universe. Strong’s Greek Dictionary of the New Testament defines “kosmos” (Strong word 2889) as,
Kosmos is first a harmonious arrangement or order, then by extension, adornment or decoration, and came to denote the world, or the universe, as that which is divinely arranged.
Scripture also explicitly states there is nothing that exists that God did not create,
Through him all things were made; without him, nothing was made that has been made. (John 1:3)
For in him, all things were created; things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him, all things hold together. (Colossians 1:16-17)
Who Created God?
It’s about time!
A question often asked of Christians is, if God created everything, then who created God? The question only makes sense for objects that are part of the physical reality of the universe.
We live in four known dimensions, including time, but time can only go in one direction and never backward. The proof of a creation event lies in the mathematical observation that time must have had a beginning, or there would be no way to get to our present time. If we think of time as a physical distance, if the distance (time) started an infinite distance (time) away from us, then there would be no way to get to our present location, for you would have to have traveled an infinite distance.
The need for an absolute beginning applies to the entire cosmos and everything in it.
But God is not physically contained within the Universe because it is something he made, just as you are not physically part of a house you build. God can see the whole “house” of creation from outside of that creation in at least four dimensions. He can see creation in the familiar three physical dimensions, but through the entirety of time all at once. This would help explain the Scripture in Isaiah 10 that God operates by,
Declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times the things that are not yet done.
String theory posits there are at least ten dimensions; the multiple other dimensions are not accessible to us in our mortal existence. Our physical bodies are constructed in such a way as to be limited to the four dimensions of height, width, depth, and time. However, Christian physicists such as Hugh Ross posit that God may be able to travel through the other multiple dimensions not accessible to us. This might be how Christ could walk through physical doors and appear within the closed Upper Room in Scripture.
We can only imagine what exists in those extra dimensions and how they exist in our world.
Summary
Modern physics strongly suggests the Universe must have had a beginning in time. This is established as a near certainty by the BGV theorem, which states that any universe (or set of universes as with a Multiverse) that, on average, expands must have had an absolute beginning or singularity.
The simple notion is that since time only goes in one direction, it would be impossible for us to get to this “time” if we traveled along an infinite timeline from the past.
Scripture (the Bible) is quite clear that the Universe had a beginning in time and that God created the Universe before the existence of time.
It is rare that philosophy, religion, and science all seem to agree on a particular topic helping to affirm each other. Of course, these conclusions are not held universally. They are flat-out contradicted by many atheist scientists who seem desperate to look for a loophole – a way out of the obvious conclusion that a transcendent Creator created all there is.
This Creator seems to have gone through a lot of trouble to create the Universe – and us.
related posts
The Multiverse
The multiverse has been proposed as a means for getting around the statistical impossibility of forming the universe by chance. A statistical impossibility is frequently taken as being any event that has less than one chance in 10^200. This number is chosen as the maximum number of events that could… Read More »
The Multiverse
The Multiverse No science concept has caught the public imagination more than that of a multiverse. In the popular imagination, it is the theory that there are other universes present simultaneously with our own, with people resembling us acting out their lives along with a completely different storyline. There is… Read More »
Imaginary Time
Why Imaginary Time Many cosmologists have struggled with the theological implications of cosmological theories suggesting a beginning of the universe. The absolute beginning poses nothing that existed prior to the origin of the universe from which the universe might develop. Cosmologists struggling with the theological implications of such a beginning… Read More »
Paradox of the Dark Night Sky
The paradox of the dark night sky refers to the simple idea that if the universe were infinite in extent in every direction, then the night sky should appear bright – even brilliant. This is because there should be an infinite number of stars in every bit of space in… Read More »