Dear Friends,
I am often asked, “How can we know God exists?” The other question I have been asked in conjunction with that is, “If God exists, has he always existed? And if so, where did He come from?” Likewise, “If He always existed, what did He do for all that time before He created anything? After all, even if one did happen to believe the universe is millions or billions of years old, God would still have existed for infinite ages before that!
And no, I am not so presumptuous that I think I can offer a viable answer to all those questions in a short 5-6 paragraphs of text! I know better. But I will give you (those who care enough to think about it) some short answers I have given to people who have asked me, simply to get them to ponder the reality and existence of the God we Christian’s call “I AM” – a name which is nothing more than the Hebrew verb “to be."
God’s self-given name is, “I AM,” because He is the uncreated God who is, and always has been, and ever will be. As Scripture declares, “from everlasting to everlasting you are God” (Psalm 90:2). That is, from the everlasting past to the unending future, without beginning and without end, God has, and shall continue, to reign over all. The following ‘thoughts’ are simply for your consideration or possibly to share with friends who ask you similar questions. Enjoy.
FIRST, the argument for the existence of God goes something like this: Being cannot come from non-being. That is, something cannot come from nothing. Therefore, if being exists (as we know it does, since it exists in us) God must exist. And if God exists, He must always have existed, or He would not and could not exist now, since (once again) something cannot come from nothing. In fact, we ourselves are the greatest proof of His existence, since reasoning backwards, if being cannot come from non-being, our existence proves God's existence, and His existence proves the eternality of His existence.
Most all theologians have tended to agree on this, and Malachi 3:6 confirms it where it says, "I am the Lord, I do not change." Change is part of that which is limited, lacking, or finite. A God who changes (increases in knowledge, wisdom, understanding) would be finite and limited, and would not by definition be God. To be infinite is by nature to be changeless and immutable and everlasting – none of which would be true of God IF He had a beginning. In this sense the biblical assertion that God is all-knowing demands that He must have existed forever, for if He was not an eternal Being, or came into being at some point in time (which is again an impossibility, since being cannot come from non-being), then He could not be omniscient, for He could not know what transpired before He came into existence.
SECOND, regarding the issue of what God did prior to creating, and why He created (regardless of when one asserts that to have taken place) Daniel Fuller gives this answer in his book "The Unity of the Bible" (a must read by the way!) in the chapter entitled: "Why Did God Wait So Long to Create the World?"
"The declaration in Psalm 90:2 that, 'Before the mountains were born or you (God) brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God," indicates that vast eons of time elapsed before God acted to establish the earth so it would reflect His glory. But Irenaeus, Augustine, and Calvin – some of the church's greatest leaders – have sternly warned people not to ask what God was doing before he created, or to wonder why he waited so long to create... I believe, however, that it is both lawful and expedient to ask why the Triune God waited a long time to create the world. For from the very fact that God waited, we know that he did not create out of the necessity involved in need-love. [ie: He did not create because he was lonely, or needed someone to love, as I, pastor Jeff, was initially taught within months of my conversion.]
Since God the Father found infinite happiness in Jesus, the Son, then it becomes clear that from all eternity God has enjoyed his Son's love and companionship, showing the creation of the world was NOT a necessary act that God undertook to overcome loneliness, but an act that flowed from the freedom involved in benevolent love. It would be threatening to our future happiness to know that God created us to meet some need in himself... Yet the moment we understand that all of God's need-love was met in being a Trinity, then we see that he was free to act toward us, his creation, solely in terms of the freedom of a benevolent love.
A striking way to represent the difference is to say that if God were to have created us out of need-love, it would be like inviting us to a banquet, only to inform us that we were one of the courses for the meal! But when God invites us to a banquet out of benevolent love, he wants us to join with him as guests at his table, to enjoy the feast along with him – as the psalmist put it, to drink from the river of his delights (36:8). So, God's having delayed creation for a long while, makes it unmistakably clear that he created us not out of need, but in the freedom of his benevolent love – out of mercy and grace.”
I know such arguments can seem rather ethereal and philosophical, yet they do matter. Revelation is not a slave to logic, but rightly understood, or given the right presuppositions, it should help things make sense to the person who desires more than just pat answers.
In His Grace, Pastor Jeff
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