One idea that many people - both Christians and non-Christians - seem to struggle with a fair bit is the idea of God being the first thing out there. It just doesn't seem to work with the principle of causality. For example; the common way that Christians might put it (if they were looking at it from that scientific perspective) is that God 'caused' the universe. But then the skeptic/atheist/whatever then poses the question - what 'caused' God? I've seen non-Christians who think that this is almost an unanswerable question, and Christians who get absolutely stumped by it.
I suppose I got lucky, in a sense. I got a book when I was a kid that explained it pretty simply. Causality is the reason for the ruckus, here. Causality basically means cause and effect. The effect follows the cause. Here's where it falls down, though; causality depends on one crucial element: time. Without time, causality don't really work too well, because there's no 'after' or 'before', so you can't really have an effect following after a cause. God created time, so he was before time, and causality doesn't apply to him. Simple as that.
Ooh. Wow. I must admit I could never think of an answer apart from "He's God, he plays by his own rules" :-S But that is brilliant! And supports that article I wrote about God knowing the future because he can look back on it - i.e. He operates both within time and outside the limitations of time simultaneously. Someone ought to write "Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and God". :P
ReplyDeleteHaha, cool. There you go, it was worth me posting that :) I do my best to never be happy with "he's god, so he can", though sometimes it can be hard to find other answers. Think you can find a lot of them of you just look in the right places, though. This particular one I stole from a young teens range Christian series that was actually about a time travelling orange VW Beetle :p
ReplyDeleteYes, it definitely was. Keep up the good work! Yes, sometimes the best answers come from the oddest places! :-)
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