Considering God

Imagine, if it is possible, the very beginning of all things. Start with your own life. What is the earliest memory you possess? That is certainly not the beginning. Before your birth there were others, your parents for example. Before them were their parents. In your mind think of the many generations that have lived before you. Eventually one is led to ask who or even what started it all?

Most of the world's population believes in an almighty God, a Creator. The many religions around the globe vary greatly in worship, philosophy, and lifestyle. However, the majority will point us to their own unique slant of one God whom they consider to be in ultimate and sovereign government over everything. With such universal acceptance of a very basic belief in God, it is academic to ask where did God come from?

In the book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible's Old Testament we read "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. (Genesis 1:1 KJV). It is very easy to apply this scripture to understanding our own beginning. Even the agnostic who questions the validity of the Bible or the existence of God cannot contest that this passage merely acknowledges that there is a beginning. But could this passage lend us some insight into the beginning of God so to speak?

The question is not meant to be blasphemous as we are taught and believe that God is eternal. However, it is easier for our finite minds to envision God's future with no end, than to comprehend God having always existed in the past with no actual starting point. So what was there before God created the heaven and the earth?

The answer is God. God was there.

God was where? There. Where is there? Beyond this planet and our vast universe, all other existence, to us, is non-tangible, even theoretical. The Bible passage above explains that God was there before anything else was created. It does not tell us if God was in a glorious dwelling place, or perhaps if God was the place.

Let's imagine again. Each one of us has consciousness, a sense of awareness, or self. For all of us our bodies eventually wear out and we are buried in the ground. Most of us have been conditioned from birth to believe that when we die our souls live on either in Heaven or in hell. In a strictly hypothetical example, let's take a moment to consider our personal sense of awareness. If God had not yet made a place for us to go after the expiry of our bodies, where would our sense of consciousness tell us that we are? Without any tangible substance of any kind to relate to, we would be pure, unadulterated thought energy. Now, in this example let's also imagine that we would be taking with us the memories of our lives on earth. But before God created all things He did not have memories as we know memories. He had creative ideas drawn from a resource of infinite possibilities and yet these ideas had no previous existence from which to relate.

If God existed before all things, that would mean He existed before heat and cold, dark and light, laughter and tears, breathing, or even past, present, and future. A way to help us imagine this is to consider the experience of being in a deprivation tank where the purpose is to have all our senses "deprived" of all stimuli.

As we picture God to be living in this eternal non-stimuli state of existence (or perhaps in and of Himself, He is all that comprises this so-called deprivation tank), we should note that by no means is this to be considered a giant test tube of nothingness. (For something - creation, or our existence - cannot come from nothing. There must be a Power in order to generate). Remember this is where Almighty God is. This is where His unlimited existence dwells. Just His very Person would make this a wondrous place to behold. Nevertheless we should also bear in mind that this is a place, (a world?) -an existence of no tangible external stimuli- at least by human senses.

Is this where the very mind of God conceived all that is created? Could it be that this understanding of the existence of pure thought is in fact a crude explanation of Who or what God is? When God said to Moses, "I AM THAT I AM" was He describing Himself as a complete state of being? With no previous standards by which to compare Himself God is therefore All in All. He was telling Moses He just is.

In pondering God from this perspective it is fair to ask the question; was there ever a moment when God became self-aware? To help answer this question we can refer to the book of Job 36:26 (NIV) which addresses the matter by stating, "How great is God - beyond our understanding! The number of His years is past finding out." For the skeptic who is not yet certain that the Bible is a reliable source from which to draw absolute conclusions let us bear in mind that the book of Job is very poetic and deals with the philosophies of God by at least four different men. The above scripture quote merely expresses the limitations we possess to fathom the scope of God, or the concept of Him having always existed before the creation of the universe.

Though we cannot fully understand the origin of God, the above conversation is a modest attempt to establish a concept of Who and what God is. It is merely a philosophical approach to the topic. Though the ideas conveyed thus far are obviously incomplete, they are intended to lend us a deeper appreciation of something more important and more tangible…God Himself; not the concept, the Person. (End of section)

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