The Eternality and Supernaturality of God
I would like to further expound upon my first point in yesterday's post. Please allow me to summarize. My first argument for the assertion that it is reasonable to believe in a god is the idea of cause and effect. Everything visible to the human eye has a cause. All things are composed of something, and everything comes from somewhere by some process at some definite specific point in time. These are our boundaries. To say that the universe has always been would violate the boundary of time because if the universe has always been we never would have come to this point in time. It is physically and scientifically impossible.
However, would it not be just as irrational to say that there is a god who has always been? After all, does that not demand the question Who created God?
This is a good question. But I do not believe it is illogical or irrational to believe in a god who has always been. If he has always been, however, he must meet certain criteria:
1. God is not primarily a physical being.
I say this because I have just explained that everything we see - everything that is physical - has a cause. If we can see God with physical eyes in a physical place - that is, if God is only or primarily a physical person - he must be a created or caused being. However, the biblical idea of God recognizes this in the following statement: "No one has seen God at any time" (John 1:18).
Here I am not saying - not yet, anyway - that this means the God of the Bible is the one true God. All I claim thus far is that God must be a supernatural deity who transcends the universe and its natural laws. Also, I find it necessary to take a look at the following statement in the book of John: "The only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him." This is the reason I said God is not primarily a physical being. Of course, if He is sovereign, God can take on any form He wants. But His beginning makeup, His primary being is not a physical one. It is superphysical.
2. God is the greatest being that is.
Either He is the greatest, or He is equal to the greatest. Humanism claims that matter has always been. But where did that matter come from? Other matter? Okay, where did that matter come from? And so we go on and on and eventually end up with self-existing, eternal matter (which I think is rather silly).
Let us take an alternate approach. Matter comes from matter and changes form by natural process. But who set matter in motion? Who created it? God did. Okay, who created God? Once a young child was asked that very question; her response: "A bigger god." So then we do the same thing with God and come up with a self-existing, eternal God. If God created all matter and God was all there was before He created, God must be the ultimate transcendent being. He Himself is that bigger God. He has always been.
So, the argument goes, why can you say that God is self-creating and that it is not matter? Why do we need God if they do the same thing? This drives us back to my first point: matter is primarily - and strictly - physical. It is bound by time and the other laws of the universe. It would be a contradiction to say that matter could have always existed. However, since God is supernatural, not natural, He is not bound to those same laws. It is reasonable, and even expected, to believe that God has always been.
This is not to say that He self-created. By definition, that is impossible. He has always been. And if He has always been, He could never have not been to have created Himself. And even if He had not been, nothing ever would have come into being because He could not bring Himself into being since He was not there to do it. In short, self-creation cannot happen. God is eternal.
Conclusion
Here we find ourselves having come to the conclusion that God is eternal, supernatural, and the greatest being in all of existence. This was reached on the premises of reason and science alone. It is the only thing that makes sense.
I shall continue this series soon.
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