What Was God Doing for All Eternity?

Gordian Knot

Gordian Knot

Being Deviant IS My Art.
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Someone I was having a discussion with came up with a fascinating question that I have never considered before. I don't think there is any real answer, though maybe there are religious texts that do cover this.

Namely, what the heck was God doing before he created the Universe. The Universe has been around for only 14 billion years. God is eternal. So what was he doing 25 billion years ago? Or 100 billion years ago? Or a trillion years ago?

Thoughts?
 
Some-one once asked Martin Luther that, and he replied "He was in the forest, cutting rods to beat people who ask silly questions." But that's just Luther.

The usually accepted answer is that of Augustine, that time came into existence with the universe: how can you speak of time without events happening? So, there was no time before the creation. We can distinguish between being eternal and being everlasting. The classic definition of being eternal is that of Boethius: "the complete and perfect possession at once of an endless life." In other words, God is outside time even after the universe is created. That has a lot of problems for Christian theology and the Protestants abandoned the idea. But it does imply that time just doesn't exist for God and that was what Augustine meant.

If God is everlasting, then your question is a real one, which is why Luther found it embarrassing. You'll just have to wait and ask him!

The other answer is to reject the idea of the universe having a starting point. "God created the universe" can mean "without God the universe would not exist." And just because physicists can't see further back doesn't mean there's nothing there.
 
Gordian Knot said:
Someone I was having a discussion with came up with a fascinating question that I have never considered before. I don't think there is any real answer, though maybe there are religious texts that do cover this.

Namely, what the heck was God doing before he created the Universe. The Universe has been around for only 14 billion years. God is eternal. So what was he doing 25 billion years ago? Or 100 billion years ago? Or a trillion years ago?

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Geez GK, I already have a headache! I doubt if you'd be able to find 2 people in agreement on what God is doing now, let alone billions of years ago. Maybe this is not God's first attempt at making the universe. Perhaps he's done it all before, wiped the whole thing out and started over countless times. The scriptures are rather ambiguous on the subject. From what I've read, before there was anything God was busy creating the angles. It is unclear how long that may have taken though. Then again, what of time itself. We are counting billions of years in the sense that we understand time now. Before the universe existed there was no need for time as there was nothing to keep track of. By creating the universe, time itself was simultaneously created.
 
Yeah, time is a very human concept, I've never considered something so big through such a limiting concept. But here's hoping someone strolls by with a fresh perspective.
 
Hey David, Hi and welcome.

I appreciate all the responses. It is my understanding that there is no consensus, amongst scientists anyway!, whether time was created with the universe or not. And there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of consensus about what might have existed before the BB, if anything.

On the theological front, I have often heard the theory that God is outside of time and space, and I can sort of see the thought process behind this. I'm trying to wrap my mind around the concept that time does not exist for God. That one is harder. I suppose when one is defining an all knowing, all seeing God, then it would follow that God exists at all times and in all places simultaneously. Is that the right concept?
 
"What Was God Doing for All Eternity?"

The finite human mind cannot comprehend the infinite, so I do not think we can answer such a question.
 
I reckon the Biblical deity spent all that time working how it could best create humans to give it as much entertainment as possible. Maybe it gets off on human misery!
 
If the supreme being had a clock before He created the universe I wonder if the hands would be moving around the dial?
 
'Kay. If I understood that, the Theosophical thinking is that space and time are linked and cannot be separated. Which would agree with what I understand the plurality of scientists seem to believe.

But God is above all this in that he is not bordered by space and time. Or so many believe anyway. I guess I'm trying to wrap my brain around the concept of a divine existence without time.
 
"I guess I'm trying to wrap my brain around the concept of a divine existence without time."

--> Yes, that's where it gets tricky. According to Theosophy, 'time' began with the Big Bang (the beginning of our universe), and there is no such thing as time between universes. Yet, there must be some way of deciding how long to 'wait' between universes. It is a paradox.
 
Quirkybird said:
I reckon the Biblical deity spent all that time working how it could best create humans to give it as much entertainment as possible. Maybe it gets off on human misery!
Click to expand...
God doesn't get off on our misery. Human beings went from immortals to mortals because of the sin of adultery.
 
Gordian Knot said:
I guess I'm trying to wrap my brain around the concept of a divine existence without time.
Click to expand...
It's a good one ... but we are inescapably creatures bound by space and time, so it there will always be something of a dichotomy.

But can you ever remember a moment when you were so engrossed that you were not conscious of time and place?

Space and time are measurements of movement, of change ... so we have to try and conceive an existence that neither moves nor changes, but is causative and creative.

So creation is not something God did at some point in His own existence, God creates, and His creative act is no more nor any less now, at this precise moment in time, than it was at the moment of the Big Bang.

The discussion of dimensions and multiverses and cosmological theory is healthy and, for me, a delight and an inspiration, but it can never encompass the totality of the Divine Act, our minds just ain't big enough!

Short answer to the question: Same as He is now. As He always ever was, and as He always ever will be.
 
If a supreme being always was, then there would have to be infinite regression. And if there was infinite regression, how did anything advance to begin with?
 
rstrats said:
... then there would have to be infinite regression ...
Click to expand...
Only from a finite POV, though ... there's the problem, it's the finite trying to explain the infinite ... it can't.
 
Thomas,

re: " ...it's the finite trying to explain the infinite..."


What would the infinite trying to explain the infinite look like?
 
According to scripture God created humans in his image. The deity processes thought, contemplates, creates and acts like a human being. Thus there must be a history of God's existence before the creation of the universe if in fact he is eternal. The idea he existed in an other worldly place without time or space doesn't really jive because of the parallels between God and humankind. If one was to believe in a deity it's just as likely he was created within the first instance of the Big Bang.
 
Welcome DaW. You're first post and you jump right into the deep end of the pool. I like that! Methinks there is a flaw in your argument however. If God was created along with the Big Bang, it follows that he was not the originator of the Big Bang.

That makes God finite, does it not? And if God didn't start the Bang, who or what did? Or am I misunderstanding what you were trying to say?
 
Also, does "God created human in his image" equal "rocesses thought, contemplates, creates and acts like a human being"? I know many who wouldn't agree with that.
 
@ GN- Yes I was tossing a monkey wrench into the discussion of creation. (Which I probably shouldn't have done in this thread)

I read the following arguments.

(1) God is eternal and created the universe.
(2) God created the Big Bang which created the universe.
(3) The Big Bang created the universe without divine intervention.

So I contemplate:

(4) The Big Bang created God.

@ COT- Sure ppl can disagree. But I am basing my comments on what is written in the Bible. It's right there.
 
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