Posted on 02/13/2003 6:03:04 PM PST by scripter
Psa 33:6 By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.
The universe was spoken into existence. It was not "organized" from pre-existing material. All the material necessary to make the universe was created by God, by the breath of his mouth.
Wai-ming, if you believe that there was anything that pre-existed God, then what was it and what proof do you have to support your position?
I have no problem with a God who works within natural laws rather than circumventing them. Did God create everything out of nothing? He probably could have if He had wanted to. But perhaps matter and energy have always existed, just as God has.
Ps 33:6 By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.
Great scripture. God decreed it, and so it was done. Nothing "ex nihilo" about that.
Wasn't it Julie Andrews who sang "Nothing comes from nothing. Nothing ever will..."?
I get the feeling from your posts that you do not accept scripture as authority for your theology. Thus, I see no use in discussing the theoloigcal ramifications of the article above. If you cannot accept the scripture as autoritative, then your theology is subject to every wind of doctrine.
In response to your post, who do you think created the universe? Who set into motion this First LAW of Thermodynamics? Is the First Law of Thermodynamics superior to God?
The Bible is quite clear on this. If there is a Law of Thermodynamics it is because GOD decreed that law at the creation. God works within the natural laws because he decreed those natural laws.
Col 1:16 for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities--all things were created through him and for him.
Col 1:17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Thus even the particles that make up the atmos in our universe are held together by the power of the Word of God.
If you wish to limit your God to a being who must work with existing materials to create, then you believe in a lesser God than the God revealed in the Bible.
You are free to worship such a being, but you must remember that if you are wrong about the nature of God you may be very well wrong about your status before him.
BTW if you get your theology from a Julie Andrews song, I can guarantee you that you are headed for Hell. :-)
There are an awful lot of Mormons who believe in the magical power of "R" rated movies...
But what if the materials did exist from all eternity?
Would God be guilty of "waste" if He were to create the universe out of new material when there were already perfectly good atoms, just waiting to be used?
Perhaps you didn't read the verses. Try diagraming these sentences:
Col 1:16 for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities--all things were created through him and for him.
Col 1:17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Now Cubicle. What part of "all things" do you fail to understand? Are not these atoms -- that you claim existed from all eternity -- "things?" Do you believe that these atoms somehow came into existence without being spoken into existence by God?
Was there a universe before God created it?
The Bible says that the universe and everything that exists in it was created by the God that I worship.
I know that the god that some people worship had nothing to do with the creation of the universe. This is not the God of the Bible.
What, Cubicle, do you believe that God evolved and that the universe somehow evolved before God? Did the physical universe exist before the spirtual realm? Is God merely a product of the nature of the physical universe, or is God the creator of the physical universe like it says in the Bible?
Hmmmm?
You invited us to "critique" the article and ideas found therein. If this "Christian Concept of God" does not hold water, shouldn't we expose its logical flaws so that they might be corrected?
This is a Religious forum where ideas can be discussed openly. If one can bring unique perspectives from a background in science, Buddhism, or even atheism, to the debate, should he not be allowed to do so? Or must everything that doesn't support your particular theology be expunged?
The Jews love to debate theology. It hones their thinking skills. Certainly, Christian doctrines can withstand the scrutiny of deep questioning. What are you so afraid of, P?
I know you are a lawyer, and that as such, you have to frame every debate so that you must win.
But in religious issues, it helps to have an open mind. That's how I first learned about Christianity. And that's the only way I can continue to learn more.
Well you never answered my points. Instead you start into a personal attack on me and accuse me of trying to frame the debate so that I will win because I'm a lawyer and that's what lawyers do.
Well if you would spend as much time thinking about coming up with an intelligent response as you did coming up with reasons to attack my character, then maybe we could have an intelligent discussion.
So how about it? Do you think you can answer my points? Or are you satisfied accusing me of being a chicken and leaving it at that?
Did you also learn Newtonian laws of Physics? If so, you can see that you might just be over simplifying your explanation.
I have no problem with a God who works within natural laws rather than circumventing them. Did God create everything out of nothing? He probably could have if He had wanted to. But perhaps matter and energy have always existed, just as God has.
The very existence of matter and energy begs the question "where did these things come from?".
Your statement confuses me somewhat. First you say that you have no problem with a God who works within natural laws, then you admit that God "probably" could have created Ex Nhilo if He had wanted to.
First, from a purely naturalistic view, your statement about the "laws" of thermodynamics is flawed (as well as the rest of the physical "laws"). Current Scientific thinking is that as the time elapsed from the "big bang" approaches zero, the "laws of physics" do not apply. Again, this is an argument from scientific theory only. If natural laws change it follows that God is not subject to them. Second: If you are honestly looking for a creation ex nhilo text in the bible, here it is:
Literal translation: All (things) through him became [came into existence], and apart (from) him came into existence not even one (thing) that came into existence and yet exists.
Wasn't it Julie Andrews who sang "Nothing comes from nothing. Nothing ever will..."?
i never was a big fan of Julie Andrews, though i saw "Mary Poppins" when it originally came out...now if you want to discuss the songs of Dar Williams or the late Kate Wolf, that is another matter
What i would really like to know is what you would consider as "proof"?
Ok wai ming. You stated that the article is flawed. You claim you can refute it. You wanted this debate. So, how about answering some of the questions we have posed?
Hmmm?
In my opinion, the paragraphs under the heading "the Christian concept of God" have inconsistencies both in logic and with regards to what Christians actually believe.
You claim you can refute it.
I made no such claim. I have merely exposed what I see as its problems in logic. See my #15 above.
So, how about answering some of the questions we have posed?
Which "we" and which questions?
Would you offer me the same courtesy? How about answering some of the questions I have posed?
Ok pick one and we'll talk about it. I'm not going to waste 50 pages of valuable bandwidth trying to answer each one of your sweeping unsupported statements in post 15. That could take all night.
So, you see a "logical" inconsistency in the Christian concept of God. Prove it. And don't just say it is a logical inconsistency. Use the rules of logic to make your point and lets see if it holds water.
English grammar sometimes baffles me, but here goes:
(Col 1:16) for in him all things were created,
(Comma splice. Also don't most sentences begin with a capital letter?)
Sentence analysis: Passive. Someone or something created all things. The "agent" is normally indicated with a "by phrase" as in all things were created by God, but in this case, the agent is not specified. Instead the phrase "in him" is used, and that carries other connotations.
Continuation of sentence diagram:
in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities--
(Specific examples of what is to follow after the dash)
all things were created through him and for him.
Two new prepositions here. "through" indicates passage or penetration, and "for" indicates "on his behalf".
(Col. 1:17) He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
The prepositions are ambiguous here. "Before" can mean two things: "previous" and "in front of". "In" usually refers to "within" or "inside".
Sentence diagram complete.
Thanks for the more respectful tone. BTW, I did not ask you to hold your breath, only to take a deep one. Now I need to do the same.
I'm trying to answer questions from previous posts, so this discussion may seem a bit disjointed. i.e. I might still be writing answers to old questions while you are posting new ones, and vice-versa. I'll try to keep up.
We say that a painter "creates" a work of art. That doesn't mean that he created the atoms of the paint, the canvas, etc.
It means that he took of these materials and tools, and "organized" them with an intelligent pattern in mind (well, most of the time, depending on the artist). What is created is that organized pattern.
By the same token, I suspect that much of the earth's geological history is from a time before the "creation," when this same place was used for other reasons. That's why the dinosaurs, for instance.
That's my own theory, but my point is that the earth, and the universe, wasn't created ex nihilo, because the materials are ETERNAL. They have no beginning, and they have no end. They ALWAYS "are."
Yet another example of the paucity of your imagination.
You simply can't get your mind around the concept of "eternal," can you.
The universe that we know--and there are likely others; the mathematics of physics tells us it is so--has ALWAYS been here, and it always WILL be here.
Time only is measured to man, remember? And by that we mean "us mortal men, in the stage of existence as we are right now."
The course of God, OTOH, is "one eternal round."
Wrong. The very existence of that QUESTION can only come from someone who HAS to think in terms of "beginning, middle, and end."
Our minds do not readily accept the concept of "eternity" or "infinity."
Even when we can "define" the words, or the mathematical constructs, most of us can't deal with something that has no beginning, middle and end.
Matter and energy are because they always WERE and they always WILL BE. Period.
Was there a universe before God created it?
Yes or no.
After you answer yes or no you may take as many paragraphs as you want to explain your answer. Or you can ignore the question and refuse to respond. Take your pick.
For what it's worth.The teaching of normative Christianity affirms creation ex nihilo. By implication, the Hebrew verb bara' refers to ex nihilo creation as well. Not so the teachings of the Restoration. The Doctrine and Covenants affirms that "the elements are eternal" (D&C 93:33). Joseph Smith, in his sermon at the funeral of King Follett, stated:
You ask the learned doctors why they say the world was made out of nothing; and they will answer, "Doesn't the Bible say He created the world?" And they infer, from the word create, that it must have been made out of nothing. Now, the word create came from the word baurau which does not mean to create out of nothing; it means to organize; the same as a man would organize materials and build a ship. Hence, we infer that God had materials to organize the world out of chaos-- chaotic matter, which is element, and in which dwells all the glory. Element had an existence from the time he had. The pure principles of element are principles which can never be destroyed; they may be organized and re-organized, but not destroyed. They had no beginning, and can have no end. [Joseph Smith, "King Follett Discourse," in Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 350-52.]
The doctrine of creatio ex nihilo was not so in the beginning of Christianity. According to Jonathan Goldstein, "medieval Jewish thinkers . . . held that the account of creation in Genesis could be interpreted to mean that God created from pre-existing formless matter, and ancient Jewish texts state that he did so." [Jonathan Goldstein, "The Origins of the Doctrine of Creation Ex Nihilo," Journal of Jewish Studies 35 (1984): 127.] Indeed, again according to Goldstein, "We have to wait until the second half of the second century to find unambiguous Christian statements of creation ex nihilo." [Ibid., 132.] In his history of the Christian teaching concerning ex nihilo creation, Gerhard May notes with some surprise (and dismay) that this doctrine was introduced only at the end of the second century, and only then by the Gnostic Basilides. [Gerhard May, Schöpfung aus dem Nichts: Die Entstehung der Lehre von der Creatio Ex Nihilo (New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1978), 53-55.] At root, this orthodox Christian doctrine may have been a Gnostic heresy! Indeed, in recent years many scholars have begun reassessing their position on ex nihilo creation. "The verb br' used in the very first sentence of the creation story," states Assyriologist Shalom M. Paul, "does not imply, as most traditional commentators believed, creatio ex nihilo, a concept that first appears in II Maccabees 7:28, but denotes, as it does throughout the Bible, a divine activity that is effortlessly effected." [Shalom M. Paul, "Creation and Cosmogony in the Bible," Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Encyclopaedia Judaica, 1972), 5:1059.]
Certainly gave me something more to think about.
The very existence of matter and energy begs the question "where did these things come from?".
As does the very existence of God. Where did He come from?
Your statement confuses me somewhat. First you say that you have no problem with a God who works within natural laws, then you admit that God "probably" could have created Ex Nhilo if He had wanted to.
Perhaps God made a choice between the two. Just because he "could have" done it a certain way, doesn't mean he actually did it that way.
Your scripture reference is a good one. Haven't seen that one before. I can see how it can be used in support of the ex nihilistic point of view. I will ponder it carefully.
What I really would like to know is what you would consider as proof?
After I have passed on, I will ask God how He did it. Until then, I will continue to ask questions and question answers.
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