What was God doing before creation?

Safehands

If God created the world some 14 billion years ago and if he always existed before this creation, what was he doing for the billions and billions of years before he decided to create the universe?

J C

Safehands wrote: »

If God created the world some 14 billion years ago and if he always existed before this creation, what was he doing for the billions and billions of years before he decided to create the universe?

He is the great I AM that is transcendent of time and matter ... and He therefore existed before time or the Universe existed.

What He did, He hasn't told us ... but perhaps when we die He will share it with us.

sawdoubters

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-04/could-there-be-planet-hidden-opposite-side-our-sun

Peregrinus

There is no "before creation". Time is one of the properties of creation; it was created along with everything else.

3rdDegree

Peregrinus wrote: »

There is no "before creation". Time is one of the properties of creation; it was created along with everything else.

Not true I'm afraid, according to the bible, God is eternal and has been around forever.

3rdDegree

Safehands wrote: »

If God created the world some 14 billion years ago and if he always existed before this creation, what was he doing for the billions and billions of years before he decided to create the universe?

The world was created 6,000 years ago.

dobman88

3rdDegree wrote: »

The world was created 6,000 years ago.

It wasn't created 6,000 years ago, it has been here a lot longer, we just evolved enough to record history 6,000 years ago.

Earth wasn't "created" by some mystical being who has never shown proof he/she exists. It evolved.

Peregrinus

dobman88 wrote: »

Earth wasn't "created" by some mystical being who has never shown proof he/she exists. It evolved.

There is no necessary contradiction between the claim that the earth was created and the claim that the earth "evolved".

(Though, just to pick nits, I would point out that SFAIK "evolution" describes current scientific accounts of the phenomenon of life. The cosmos didn't evolve; life evolved within the cosmos, but the cosmos was certainly present before the evolution of life began.)

Peregrinus

3rdDegree wrote: »

Not true I'm afraid, according to the bible, God is eternal and has been around forever.

No, it just says that God was around "in the beginning". But there was no before the beginning because, if anything could be said to have happened before that point, then that point would not be "the beginning".

God precedes creation, but it is meaning to say that he was around "before Creation" because, without creation, the word "before" has no meaning. Without creation, there is no time. As God exists outside of creation, he exists outside of time.

dobman88

Peregrinus wrote: »

There is no necessary contradiction between the claim that the earth was created and the claim that the earth "evolved".

(Though, just to pick nits, I would point out that SFAIK "evolution" describes current scientific accounts of the phenomenon of life. The cosmos didn't evolve; life evolved within the cosmos, but the cosmos was certainly present before the evolution of life began.)

Meh, not bothered tbh. Cosmos, evolution, creation, whatever. You live, you die, that's it. Thinking that there is some magical being in the sky looking down on us is just ludicrious though.

Turtwig

Mod note:

According to a very famous saint, before God created the cosmos he created hell for people who ask the OP question. However, that is the subject matter of this thread. So we are indeed attempting to ask or answer that question. THIS is NOT another creationist/evolution debate.

Peregrinus

Going back to the OP, isn’t it the case that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is, in part, an attempt to grapple with this question?

“God is love”, in the words of scripture, and we experience this in the fact that God loves creation. But Christian accounts see creation as an expression of God’s love, which means that God’s love precedes creation - God creates because he loves, not the other way around. But this raises the question: antecedent to creation, God loves what, exactly? Love surely requires a lover and a beloved? And Christians answer this by pointing to the Trinity - God is the lover, God is the beloved and God is the love between them. So (overlooking for a moment the fact that “before creation” is a challenging concept) one answer to the question “what was God doing before creation?” is “He was loving”.

thetoffeeman

God would have created the World earlier, but he was waiting for the undercoat to dry

Safehands

Peregrinus wrote: »

“God is love”, in the words of scripture, and we experience this in the fact that God loves creation. But Christian accounts see creation as an expression of God’s love, which means that God’s love precedes creation - God creates because he loves, not the other way around. But this raises the question: antecedent to creation, God loves what, exactly? Love surely requires a lover and a beloved? And Christians answer this by pointing to the Trinity - God is the lover, God is the beloved and God is the love between them. So (overlooking for a moment the fact that “before creation” is a challenging concept) one answer to the question “what was God doing before creation?” is “He was loving”.

Yes, but who or what was he loving if there was nothing but himself to love? Did love exist before creation?

Peregrinus

Safehands wrote: »

Yes, but who or what was he loving if there was nothing but himself to love? Did love exist before creation?

Yes, it did. There are various scriptural references to the nature of God being love, and since God can't preexist his own nature, if there is God there is love.

The reality of God is perfect self-giving love, in the Christian view. That love exists not only between God and his creation - including us - but within God. God is complete and perfect in Himself. It is in the nature of God to be eternally making a perfect gift of Himself, and this is how we should understand the Trinity.

We usually talk about God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Augustine suggsets that other language we might use in relation to the Trinity is:
- Lover (gives self away eternally)
- Beloved (accepts gift and returns it perfectly)
- Love (endless perfect bond of mutual self gift).

In brief, Love implies a Lover and a Beloved; the Trinity supplies all three.

From all eternity, God is an explosion of perfect self-giving love. This self-gift is the fundamental ground of all that exists - i.e. of all creation.

Boogietime

Safehands wrote: »

If God created the world some 14 billion years ago and if he always existed before this creation, what was he doing for the billions and billions of years before he decided to create the universe?

It's all in the question, I believe. God did create the world back then, but there isn't such a thing as billions and billions of years before, time and space were concepts introduced upon the Creation act.

In other words you can try an exercise to grasp that God simply is, regardless of time and space.

dvae

perhaps god was busy creating the universe, angles, ect before he started on the earth.

wildlifeboy

dvae wrote: »

perhaps god was busy creating the universe, angles, ect before he started on the earth.

Did it take him longer to produce acute angles or obtuse ones?

dvae

wildlifeboy wrote: »

Did it take him longer to produce acute angles or obtuse ones?

lol, I always make that mistake.

Eramen

J C wrote: »

He is the great I AM that is transcendent of time and matter ... and He therefore existed before time or the Universe existed.

What He did, He hasn't told us ... but perhaps when we die He will share it with us.

This is the best answer. Though I wouldn't say God exists at all. He is beyond even existing.

God is a transcendent darkness that cannot be grasped by the mind. He is above our conceptions of time, place and reason. He has no quality that we can positively identify him with, he being infinity.

Though he is the beginning of everything that is intelligible, he is not himself intelligible. Yet we can have contact with God through experience in God, this is the only way.

"We do not know what God is. God Himself does not know what He is because He is not anything. Literally God is not, because He transcends being." - John Scotus Eriugena [yer man on the old punt fiver]

Safehands

Eramen wrote: »

This is the best answer. Though I wouldn't say God exists at all. He is beyond even existing.

God is a transcendent darkness that cannot be grasped by the mind. He is above our conceptions of time, place and reason. He has no quality that we can positively identify him with, he being infinity.

Though he is the beginning of everything that is intelligible, he is not himself intelligible. Yet we can have contact with God through experience in God, this is the only way.
"We do not know what God is. God Himself does not know what He is because He is not anything. Literally God is not, because He transcends being." - John Scotus Eriugena [yer man on the old punt fiver]

I think this is a great posting.

What if God "exists" in a fifth, sixth, or seventh dimension? Does he exist then? We cannot ever prove he does or does not because we are not, nor will we ever be capable of understanding or measuring that which is outside our physical realities.
Is he still infinity though, if those "dimensions" are occupied by other entities who have existed for an infinite period also?
Time, as we know it, did start at some time though. Whether that was 14 billion years ago or 10,000 years ago is irrelevant. Before that, our physical universe did not exist. So length, breadth, width and time were unknown. But God "existed", probably as some form of energy, in whatever dimension he inhabited. Was he alone?
If he was present (I'm being careful not to say "existed" here) for an infinite period, why did he choose a specific time to create our universe?

JustAddWater

sawdoubters wrote: »

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-04/could-there-be-planet-hidden-opposite-side-our-sun

The answer is clearly and obviously NO! It's says so straight after it's poor attempt at attention grabbing. What a rubbish headline and an equally rubbish article

rwg

According to Chris he was playing poker

Eramen

Safehands wrote: »

What if God "exists" in a fifth, sixth, or seventh dimension?
Is he still infinity though, if those "dimensions" are occupied by other entities who have existed for an infinite period also?

Other dimensions exist, but it would be wrong to look at them as different arrangements of matter, it's better think of them as different states of conscious expressions. I don't think that God exists at all. If this was the case then it wouldn't be God, as anything that can be contemplated is of a qualitative character, thus being finite, changeable, natural and subject to manipulation. All qualities are is the gaining/expending of energy of the 'object', making the object relative.

If God is God, he therefore must represent the Image of a perfect Absolute, as everything only makes sense (ie facts, ideas, events etc) when compared with a constant static source of information. It is only through this source that relationships and comparisons can be made. This is how facts, evidence, ideas, theories etc come about and can be applied to the qualities they describe, making the world relational flowing around the constant. It's because the world is (inter)relational that it is conceivable to us, and it's because God is Absolute that he is unintelligible.

Safehands wrote: »

Time, as we know it, did start at some time though. Whether that was 14 billion years ago or 10,000 years ago is irrelevant. Before that, our physical universe did not exist. So length, breadth, width and time were unknown.

Time and space are emergent properties. They are not a constant (or infinite). Instead they only gain meaning when quantum material is observed going through a cycle of changes - then these changes can be qualified through information. Essentially time constitutes information or ideas, this is all that time is composed of. It's certainly not the basis of existence. It's a handy tool gauge how information occurs.

If you think about it this way, time supposed to be non-extant in some parts of the universe [like in a black hole], and of a different nature in different galaxies, which in turn will then affect the constitution of information/consciousness. So time can't be a basis for anything other than a unit of measurement of descriptive notions, in which the descriptive notions (or information/ideas) are the reality.

All this isn't new age science. Physicist Fotini Macropoulou from the University of Cambridge has done much work in this direction. In fact this has all be talked about for centuries, and more.

Safehands wrote: »

But God "existed", probably as some form of energy, in whatever dimension he inhabited. Was he alone?
If he was present (I'm being careful not to say "existed" here) for an infinite period, why did he choose a specific time to create our universe?

Well, infinite energy is myth (by myth I mean a dialectic that can be applied in all situations), a modern metaphysical replacement for what is called God. The universe needs a constant (to account for relativity), and energy was designated this by some scientists. Scientifically it's a dogma, as we don't know if it actually is a constant.

All I can say is my own personal interpretation, that God emanated into being the everything, and this was caused by his self-contemplation. In this way God accomplishes himself through our being, as we mirror and reflect him through the fabric of the Soul. In this way the 'creation' gains the Eternal Godhead and the Divine Image of God realises itself through us in Jesus Christ. This brings us full circle to the words of the Gospels.

And before anyone accuses me of being 'new age', this is what the Saints and mystics taught.

Morbert

Here's an interesting summary of thoughts on God and time.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/god-time/

It's an interesting read, though around the half-way mark they wade into some dodgy territory with "metaphysical time" which seems to be poorly defined and ad hoc.

As an aside, I find it curious that William Lane Craig puts forth the idea that God became temporal from a state of timelessness, while in other articles he objects to such an idea when it is proposed in the context of quantum cosmology.

sellon

Occupying our minds on matters such as what God was doing before He created life is rater futile because to understand and comprehend such a thing would be to know God and understand His ways, and that is not possible.

We can never truly know what "God" is, we don't even have the language to describe Him so we refer back to our human understandings of relationships with titles like "father" or "master".

Therefore we cannot even begin to understand the dynamics behind the beginnings of life, and I'm not referring to evolution here as we all can understand that, but am referring to the question of why there is something rather than nothing which I believe is the basis of the OP's question. It is here we use faith and religion to make sense of the senseless.

Mrs OBumble

Safehands wrote: »

If God created the world some 14 billion years ago and if he always existed before this creation, what was he doing for the billions and billions of years before he decided to create the universe?

Probably much the same as he / she has been doing since the universe was created!

Joe1919

Perhaps the world (in some sense) BOTH always existed and was created by God?

'We thus ought to determine whether there is any contradiction between these two ideas, namely, to be made by God and to have always existed. And, whatever may be the truth of this matter, it will not be heretical to say that God can make something created by him to have always existed,........'.Thomas Aquinas

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/aquinas-eternity.asp

Safehands

sellon wrote: »

We can never truly know what "God" is, we don't even have the language to describe Him so we refer back to our human understandings of relationships with titles like "father" or "master".

Maybe then, we make up a language that we think describes him. I'm amazed at the amount of material written about something nobody can truly understand, and its written as if the authors totally understand who God is and what he was doing at the beginning of time.

sellon

Safehands wrote: »

Maybe then, we make up a language that we think describes him. I'm amazed at the amount of material written about something nobody can truly understand, and its written as if the authors totally understand who God is and what he was doing at the beginning of time.

That's exactly what we do however our language will always fall short. The best avenue towards understanding God is through Jesus Christ, primarily because he became human so we immediately can relate to that and then have somewhere to work from.

Thomas Aquinas spoke about the nia negativa or knowing what God is not so as to come to some idea of what he/she might be. We know God is not the universe or nature or some distant force. He is transcendent and very much present and active in our lives but ultimately is unknowable.

St John sums it up well with God is Love.

But I think its important not to get hung up on this. Focus on what we do know, on scripture and on Christ which all bring us closer to God. We don't need to understand the dynamics of this God to be complete but understanding and knowing His unquestionable love and mercy for us all is what's most important.

Peregrinus

Safehands wrote: »

Maybe then, we make up a language that we think describes him. I'm amazed at the amount of material written about something nobody can truly understand, and its written as if the authors totally understand who God is and what he was doing at the beginning of time.

The reason we don't have the words is because we don't have the experiences. English had no word for a kangaroo until English-speakers first encountered a kangaroo, and had to borrow or coin a word to name it.

So, we have no words to describe what it's like outside of time because we've never been outside of time - we've never had that experience. And even if we coined a word ("extratemporal"?) that still can't tell us what it's like to be outside of time.

And, yes, this is a problem for all disucssion of God. I think it's Thomas Aquinas who says that everything we can say about God is true only in an analogical sense, because God is outside our experience (in this life) and therefore outside our language. So we call God "Father", but in fact my father is a retired accountant who lives in Dundrum. My relationship with and connection to my father is a useful way of understanding and talking about my relationship with God, but that's all.

catallus

It occurs to me, reading the above post, that Wittgenstein should be taught alongside religious studies in our schools; a lot of the confusion surrounding the idea of god is indeed, like so much else, rooted in the finite scope of language.

Safehands

sellon wrote: »

St John sums it up well with God is Love. His unquestionable love and mercy for us all is what's most important.

God may have many qualities, but unquestionable love is not one of them, I'm afraid.

tommy2bad

Safehands wrote: »

God may have many qualities, but unquestionable love is not one of them, I'm afraid.

Ah here! you can't leave it at that. Support your assertion with some examples and explanation at least.

bogwalrus

Safehands wrote: »

Yes, but who or what was he loving if there was nothing but himself to love? Did love exist before creation?

I'm pretty sure love is what he used to create the universe. It has good adhesive properties unlike hate.

bogwalrus

Morbert wrote: »

As an aside, I find it curious that William Lane Craig puts forth the idea that God became temporal from a state of timelessness, while in other articles he objects to such an idea when it is proposed in the context of quantum cosmology.

You can pretty much substitute the most recent answers science has given as to what happened before the big bang and put in a god. Plenty of scientific research out there. You just have to keep swapping in a god as they make new theories and test them. Science will eventually know what was there before mass (in the physical matter sense) and just substitute that for God. Probably no point questioning until science has advanced a good bit farther.

Peregrinus

bogwalrus wrote: »

You can pretty much substitute the most recent answers science has given as to what happened before the big bang and put in a god. Plenty of scientific research out there. You just have to keep swapping in a god as they make new theories and test them. Science will eventually know what was there before mass (in the physical matter sense) and just substitute that for God. . . .

That won't really resolve the matter though, since the identification of this new pre-matter stuff just raises a new question; how do we account for the existence of that?

sellon

Safehands wrote: »

God may have many qualities, but unquestionable love is not one of them, I'm afraid.

I believe God's love for His creation is a certainty, from every side of the religious spectrum.

Safehands

tommy2bad wrote: »

Ah here! you can't leave it at that. Support your assertion with some examples and explanation at least.

I love my children unconditionally, and unquestioningly. If it is within my power, I will prevent anything unpleasant from happening to them. I do not require them to adore me or to tell me how great I am. If they curse at me, I will tell them not to do it but I will not harm them in any way.
Now, if a person does not get baptised, which is basically a symbolic ceremony, if they never pray to God, never adore him, they going to be punished by him. We are told that they will not be with God when they die. They may go to Hell, which is the worst punishment imaginable, we are told.
Does that sound like the actions of a being who has unquestioning love and mercy? I don't think so!

tommy2bad

Safehands wrote: »

I love my children unconditionally, and unquestioningly. If it is within my power, I will prevent anything unpleasant from happening to them. I do not require them to adore me or to tell me how great I am. If they curse at me, I will tell them not to do it but I will not harm them in any way.
Now, if a person does not get baptised, which is basically a symbolic ceremony, if they never pray to God, never adore him, they going to be punished by him. We are told that they will not be with God when they die. They may go to Hell, which is the worst punishment imaginable, we are told.
Does that sound like the actions of a being who has unquestioning love and mercy? I don't think so!

Ahh OK, I don't care for that god either. Sounds too much like a projection of an insecure man to me.
Acts 17:25'
And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else

Morbert

Peregrinus wrote: »

That won't really resolve the matter though, since the identification of this new pre-matter stuff just raises a new question; how do we account for the existence of that?

When we're talking about timeless things, the insistence that there is a cause becomes less compelling. We can still ask "Why is there something rather than nothing?", but it might be as misguided as asking "Why is there a God rather than nothing?"

robp

Safehands wrote: »

I love my children unconditionally, and unquestioningly. If it is within my power, I will prevent anything unpleasant from happening to them. I do not require them to adore me or to tell me how great I am. If they curse at me, I will tell them not to do it but I will not harm them in any way.

Good parents aim for this but they never do. By definition it is always conditional. Indeed the role a parent has in creating children is so much less then the role God has creating us and the universe. Hell is seen as simply the act of denying God's love rather then some sort of carefully arranged punishment that God has decided is necessary. In that sense it should be sense as inevitable.

robp

Morbert wrote: »

When we're talking about timeless things, the insistence that there is a cause becomes less compelling. We can still ask "Why is there something rather than nothing?", but it might be as misguided as asking "Why is there a God rather than nothing?"

Arguing there is no cause is a logical fallacy. Sure, you can make the argument of a Godless cause but there is unquestionably a cause. Otherwise there would be still nothing.

Red Nissan

Safehands wrote: »

If God created the world some 14 billion years ago and if he always existed before this creation, what was he doing for the billions and billions of years before he decided to create the universe?

Practicing. I'd say he has to have another go at it as well. :pac:

Morbert

robp wrote: »

Arguing there is no cause is a logical fallacy. Sure, you can make the argument of a Godless cause but there is unquestionably a cause. Otherwise there would be still nothing.

It clearly isn't a logical fallacy. Rules of logic are about inferring statements from other statements, so I'm not sure what you mean there.

Also, as an aside, a physicist's nothing is different from a philosopher's nothing. Formally speaking, a philosopher's "nothing" is

[latex]\{\}[/latex]

It is what metaphysical nihilists obsess over - the absence of any thing other than (possibly) abstractions. a physicist's nothing, on the other hand, is

[latex]|0\rangle[/latex]

It is a quantum state with no matter, energy, space, or time. When you hear authors like Lawrence Krauss argue that the universe came from "nothing", it is this latter definition they are using. A quantum state is something insofar as it can generate space, time, matter, and energy.

So metaphysically speaking, theoretical physicists aren't actually speculating that the universe came from nothing, despite their sloppy language.

Safehands

robp wrote: »

Good parents aim for this but they never do. By definition it is always conditional. Indeed the role a parent has in creating children is so much less then the role God has creating us and the universe. Hell is seen as simply the act of denying God's love rather then some sort of carefully arranged punishment that God has decided is necessary. In that sense it should be sense as inevitable.

We are talking about unconditional, unquestioning love. If I am not baptised am I punished? If I do something bad and don't repent, will God accept me? If I never tell him I love him, will he be bothered? Unquestioning love is exactly that, unquestioning. No questions asked. If there are conditions, then the love is not unquestioning, simple really!

Peregrinus

But that just underlines my point. If [quantum state] is antecedent to [mass, energy, time, etc], can't we reasonably ask, why [quantum state] as opposed to [ nothing] which, logically, is an equally feasible state of affairs?

And am I right in thinking that the physicist's answer to that question would be some variation of "that question is outside the scope of natural science"?

tommy2bad

Safehands wrote: »

We are talking about unconditional, unquestioning love. If I am not baptised am I punished?

Well we only know that if you are baptised you have a better chance, as to if your not baptised? well I for one won't tell God who He can and can't save.

Safehands wrote: »

If I do something bad and don't repent, will God accept me?

You will be accepted, if you want to be, how can God do anything for someone who doesn't want it?

Safehands wrote: »

If I never tell him I love him, will he be bothered? Unquestioning love is exactly that, unquestioning. No questions asked. If there are conditions, then the love is not unquestioning, simple really!

So as a parent, no matter how much your kids refuse your help, reject you and never see or talk to you, how will you love them exactly?
You might have some feeling of willingness to love them but until they engage with you, their's bugger all you can do.
Love is a 2 way street.

Safehands

tommy2bad wrote: »

Well we only know that if you are baptised you have a better chance, as to if your not baptised? well I for one won't tell God who He can and can't save. You will be accepted, if you want to be, how can God do anything for someone who doesn't want it?

This appears to me to be a serious watering down of the normal Christian position.

tommy2bad wrote: »

So as a parent, no matter how much your kids refuse your help, reject you and never see or talk to you, how will you love them exactly?
You might have some feeling of willingness to love them but until they engage with you, their's bugger all you can do.
Love is a 2 way street.

I think you are missing the point. If my kids do all that I will still love them and will not want anything bad to happen to them. There may be nothing I can make them do but that won't stop me loving them and doing what I can to help them, not punishing them. Its called "unconditional love".

tommy2bad

Safehands wrote: »

This appears to me to be a serious watering down of the normal Christian position.


I think you are missing the point. If my kids do all that I will still love them and will not want anything bad to happen to them. There may be nothing I can make them do but that won't stop me loving them and doing what I can to help them, not punishing them. Its called "unconditional love".

In fairness it not so much a watering down of the classic Christian position as a clear statement of what it is.
Yes the RCC do have an outside of the church theirs no salvation policy, I think they are wrong. The other major Christian denominations don't hold to this, but then again they wouldn't would they.
I object to this because it's a legalistic attitude which misses the point about salvation being a process. Saying that if you don't tic all the boxes, tough luck! doesn't sound like what a God would do, its a bureaucratic attitude to what is about love not law.
I take a position of 'who am I to tell god who he can and can't save'.

Now your getting it, God still loves us even when we ignore, defies or fail Him. That never changes. He will however respect us enough to not to stage an intervention. God isn't so needy.
The door is always open though should we want to return.

Peregrinus

Safehands wrote: »

This appears to me to be a serious watering down of the normal Christian position.

Depends on what you define as the "normal Christian position".

In the Irish context, the dominant flavour of Christianity is Roman Catholicism, and . . .

tommy2bad wrote: »

Yes the RCC do have an outside of the church theirs no salvation policy . . .

No, they don't. From the Second Vatican Council:

"Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it . . . Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation."