It seems like a very simple question and every believer should know an easy answer on it. But if we google a little bit and read the answers of the Christians and the contrarguments of atheists it shows that everything is not so simple, clear and easy.
That’s why I have a desire to write my own variant of the answer.
To be honest this question is inconsistent and improper actually. And usually believers give a right answer that God is eternal and He appeared from nowhere, that He always was, He is and He will be forever. But the opponents usually ask:
- But why is God eternal?
- If the universe needs a reason in God, then why God doesn’t need the reason or why the universe is not eternal?
- Who told that God is eternal?
- How can you prove that God is eternal?
- And so on…
And here at the moment something is wrong, not so clear and plain. Usually Christians use the Bible as an argument not taking into consideration that this book is not the authority for non-believers and that is the main problem of the question. We need the generally accepted arguments. This question belongs to such kinds of questions that can’t be proved by only one Bible. Here we must use logic, philosophy and laws of the universe. Why do we Christians forget that the whole world is created by God and that “… For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen …” So let’s show God to the atheists through the creation if the Bible is not the authority for them.
Let’s take the philosophy, logic and mathematics and let’s answer philosophically.
Firstly we need to understand clearly the meaning of the word “God”. We will use the generally accepted source.
God is a name of Almighty supernatural Creation in theism and deism. In monotheism Abraham’s religions God is supposed to be a personality and personification of the Absolute as an uncomprehending transcendent private God (God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob), and as a demonstration of higher reality as the only single God who doesn’t have any similar creatures.
It is important to specify, that we talk about God of monotheistic abrahamic religions. And this determination of the word “God” we use, because such understanding of God is accepted by most people, because most inhabitants of the earth belong to these religions.
Here is said that God is a personification of the Absolute. And what then is the Absolute? This is a philosophical concept.
Absolute ( from Lat. absolustus – unconditional, unlimited, irrespective, perfect) is a fundamental principle of the world, foundation of the whole Being, eternal and permanent, that is meant as the only, general, the very first and that is opposed to comparative and conditional Being.
So, God is the Absolute. This be very important to know and understand. A self concept “God” already plugs in itself that He is the Absolute.
And what does it mean? It means that God is absolutely eternal, if He is the Absolute.
And what is eternal? Eternal means that something does not have an end! That never ends. Endless.
Or moreover eternal is something that regardless to the time according to its nature is out and over the time.
Examples from science:
A geometrical ray and geometrical line are endless, they do not have an end. Thus, geometrical ray is relatively endless, because it does not have an end, but has beginning. And geometrical line is absolutely endless because it has neither beginning nor end. Opposite to the geometrical segment that has beginning and end. It means that science that is so loved by scientists operates concepts endless for a long time. Thus, there are two types of endless: absolute as a ray and absolute as a line. These two concepts are not sucked from a finger or taken from ceiling- they are a scientific fact. Or do atheists have something against science?
Therefore the philosophical concept of the absolute has a fully scientific basis.
And when we talk about God, we mean that He is the Absolute, it is meant that He is absolutely eternal and endless and has neither beginning nor end like a geometrical line. It is incorrectly to put a question «Where did God come from?» The same situation with a question: “And where did begin a line”? Next time answer an atheist: “I will say you where God is from, when you will show me the beginning of a geometrical line”.
It is important to specify, that in this article, I do not try to prove existence of God, and finiteness of universe. These are themes for other articles. I simply draw an analogy clear to the people for whom the higher authority is science. And I only specify the philosophical understanding of term “God”, and also how we should apply the term. If we talk about God, we must have the generally accepted philosophical determination of this concept. We with non-believers should have the common denominator, the general foundation on the basis of which we can have a constructive discussion. If non- believers began to speak about God they must understand what means this concept.
God is Absolute!
You are very intelligent and I like your discussion, but I think English is not your first language?
Yes, English is not my first language. I am from Ukraine.
I have been a Christian for more than 50 years and I have always believed and taught that God is eternal with no beginning. And, although I still believe this, more recently I have questioned whether God could ever have originally created TIME . I used to believe and teach that God created time by imagining that God is “outside of time” or that God “transcends time”. But even when I was using those expressions, I always had the uncomfortable feeling that I was covering up a logical fallacy.
Well, in November of 2014, I discovered that it is a logical impossibility for God to have created time in the first place, because creating time requires time to exist (during the creating) and not exist at that very same moment (during which, time still needs to be created because time does not yet exist). In other words, if time did not yet exist, in order for God to create time in the first place, a moment in time must already exist during which God recognizes his need to create time; a second moment in time must already exist during which God designs a plan to create time; and a third moment in time must already exist during which God implements his plan to create time, and all three of these moments in time must exist precisely during a time when time itself does not yet exist in order for time to still need to be created. And this unsolvable paradox doesn’t disappear simply by claiming God is “outside of time”, or God “transcends time”, because no matter what dimension we imagine God to be in when God is “outside of time”, God still cannot create time within that imaginary dimension unless time already exists in that imaginary dimension, because creating time in any dimension will always require time to exist and not exist at the very same moment in that very same dimension in that very same context, and thereby violate the Law of Non-Contradiction (i.e. “an idea cannot be both true and not true at the same moment in the same context in the same sense”).
https://carm.org/dictionary-law-of-non-contradiction
Most Christians recognize that God could never have created HIMSELF because that would require God to exist and not exist at the same moment, which is a logical impossibility. Yet 100% of those same Christians who believe that God could never have created HIMSELF still believe that God could and did create TIME, even though creating time requires time itself to exist and not exist at the very same moment, which is also a logical impossibility. In fact, it is the IDENTICAL logical impossibility! So if God could never have created HIMSELF under any circumstances, then it should be abundantly clear that God could never have created TIME under any circumstances either. In fact, for a Christian to claim that “God is outside of TIME” in order to provide an imaginary way for God to create TIME (that does not require time to exist and not exist at the very same moment), is no different than claiming, “God is outside of HIMSELF” in order to provide an imaginary way for God to create HIMSELF (that does not require God himself to exist and not exist at the very same moment). Since it is not logical to claim that God is “outside of HIMSELF” to get around the Law of Non-Contradiction so God can create himself, then it is certainly not logical to claim that God is “outside of TIME” to get around the Law of non-Contradiction so God can create time.
Not only is it impossible for an all-powerful God to have created time to begin with, but it turns out that an eternal God couldn’t even exist before the existence of time in order to create time to begin with, because no matter when God would create time, a truly eternal God would have already lived an eternity of time prior to that moment, otherwise he wouldn’t be eternal. But an eternal God could never be living for millions of “years” (or for any other “measure of eternal time”) prior to creating time in the first place, since for millions of “years” to pass, time would have to already exist. This paradox also requires time to exist and not exist at the same moment and therefore also violates the Law of Non-Contradiction. Accordingly, an eternal God could never have even existed before the existence of time.
But if an eternal God could never have existed before time existed, then God cannot be older than time, and so time must be older than God. Of course, if God could never have created time, then time itself must be Uncreated, Uncaused, and naturally eternal. Also, if God could never have created time, then it is impossible for for God to be the one and only Uncaused First Cause of everything (because God could never have created time)! So the true, one and only Uncaused First Cause must be something different, something that is Uncreated, Uncaused, naturally eternal, that pre-existed God and that God himself could never have created–eternal time.
But if God had to come AFTER time, then God must have come FROM time, so by default, God must be “LIVING TIME”—-specifically, four dimensional, LIVING SPACETIME, and therefore the Trinity must be the LIVING PAST (the Father), the LIVING PRESENT (Jehovah/Jesus), and the LIVING FUTURE (the Holy Spirit). Perhaps this is why Jesus said, “I AM [literally] the BEGINNING and the END–the LIVING PAST and the LIVING FUTURE.
In summary, time itself is an actual “thing”, a thing that allows the laws of physics to work, a thing that allows us to age, and a thing that can actually be slowed down by gravity. However, since God could neither have created the thing that is time nor could an eternal God have even existed before time existed, then time itself must have existed before God existed and so time itself must be Uncaused, Uncreated and naturally eternal. Therefore, since an eternal God could never have existed BEFORE time existed, then God must have come into existence AFTER time existed. But if God came AFTER time, then by default, God must have come FROM time, which means that God must be Living Time—specifically four-dimensional LIVING SPACETIME. Accordingly, the Trinity must be the LIVING PAST, the LIVING PRESENT, and the LIVING FUTURE. No other possibility exists.
Only a non-living entity (like time itself) that is naturally eternal with no beginning that transitions into being alive can explain the origin of a living God who is likewise naturally eternal with no beginning. And, only a non-living entity composed of three inseparable parts (like time itself) that is naturally eternal with no beginning that transitions into being alive can explain the origin of a Trinity of three inseparable living beings who are likewise naturally eternal with no beginning.
Of course, since God could never CREATE time, Christ would never say, “I CREATED the Beginning…”. And since God could never have EXISTED before time, Christ would never say, “I EXISTED before the Beginning…” But as Living Time, Christ would literally BE the BEGINNING, so it would be only natural for Christ to say, “I AM [literally] the BEGINNING…” (Revelation 22:13), a statement that strongly suggests,
“I AM [literally] the Beginning and the End”-—the Living Past and the Living Future. This is who and what I actually am and this is who and what the Trinity actually is—The Living Past, the Living Present and the Living Future. And since time itself is naturally eternal with no beginning, then I am likewise naturally eternal with no beginning, because I AM Living Time itself.
So when the apostle John says, “God is Spirit” (John 4:24), the physical nature of God’s Spirit may actually be four-dimensional LIVING SPACETIME.
If you are interested, I have created a detailed YOU-TUBE VIDEO EXPLANATION about this idea at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApYOxD3EIkg&feature=youtu.be
And you can read more about this idea at unique bibleanswers.com
“In monotheism Abraham’s religions God is supposed to be a personality and personification of the Absolute as an uncomprehending transcendent private God (God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob),”
It is amazing how much lack of comprehension there is about YHVH. How can a personality be both a personification of the Absolute, and be uncomprehending?
If the Absolute is personified, that Absolute certainly comprehends. There would be no point of his personification if he did not comprehend, nor indeed of his existence as a person.
This is a translation from Russian. And the place you quote is generally taken from Russian Wikipedia. Perhaps this is a bad translation, it is difficult for me to answer you, because I see some contradiction in meaning.