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How do you see proof for His existence? Personally I feel Christianity has the most convincing answers. The universe is a good place to start for me. Something or Someone had to get the ball rolling at some point in time, Big Bang or not, something put things in motion. As St. Thomas said, in order for there to be an effect, there has to be a cause.
How do you know something or someone put it in motion? How do you know it hasn’t always existed?
Proof for God is difficult just as proof against God is equally difficult.
"Jon":3p9i1aan wrote:How do you know something or someone put it in motion? How do you know it hasn’t always existed?[/quote:3p9i1aan]
We do know God created all things and someday will destroy them,but my question is were did God come from? I know it says I’m the Alpha and Omega but everything has to have a beginning, or his God a spirit with no bodily form.
dave: You have posed a really BIG question. philosophers over the years have been all over the place on this one. there are, of course, Aquinas’s famous five ways (including the one you mentioned). there is also anselm’s ontological argument (which aquinas thought was unconvincing). and then there were people like hume and kant who attacked all the traditional arguments, kant finally coming up with a “proof” based on our moral sense.then there are those who use the fact of evil as “proof” that there is no God (or, if there is, that he is a worthless God). my own view is that anything as complex and fine tuned as our universe, had to be created by a superior power, it didn’t and couldn’t have happened by chance. in this regard, you might want to look at some of the recent arguments for intelligent design, including discussions of the so-call anthropic coincidences. but, i must caution, this is just a quick response (and it probably doesn’t fully answer your query). but at least i hope it helps. tom st. martin
"weather":2xzqm4qf wrote:"Jon":2xzqm4qf wrote:How do you know something or someone put it in motion? How do you know it hasn’t always existed?[/quote:2xzqm4qf]
We do know God created all things and someday will destroy them,but my question is were did God come from? I know it says I’m the Alpha and Omega but everything has to have a beginning, or his God a spirit with no bodily form.[/quote:2xzqm4qf]
Why must everything have a beginning?
We will probably never know,thats like saying if a tree falls in a forest and nobody was there did it make a noise(I think it did).I also think at some point in time there was nothing,something or somebody started it. I also believe that there are some other form of life in the universe but us.
"weather":1m4ymid5 wrote:Wthats like saying if a tree falls in a forest and nobody was there did it make a noise(I think it did).[/quote:1m4ymid5]
Of course it did; that’s basic science. Just because no one was there to record the noise doesn’t mean the noise wasn’t made.Now, the other life in the universe thing is interesting. I think it’s possible too, but if there is other life, what is its role? Are there other species just complex as us? How do they fit into the whole salvation thing? It’s interesting to think about and I suppose no one has to come up with any answers until/if other advanced life is discovered and we make contact with it.
"Jon":1054z0y1 wrote:How do you know something or someone put it in motion? How do you know it hasn’t always existed?Proof for God is difficult just as proof against God is equally difficult.[/quote:1054z0y1]
It is easier to believe that there is a Creator than to believe everything came from nothing.
Here are some ways to prove God’s Existence using logic(reasoning) based on Thomas Aquinas:1) Newton’s first law states, “an object at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by an outside force.” So if you look at a book on the table that book will not move unless some force moves it. In order for something to have force it has to have acceleration which means it has to have to move itself(F=ma). What this means is nothing moves by itself but needs a moving object to move it.
Now when you look at the earth and ask what put it in motion-a scientist might say A put the earth in motion. Then you ask what moved A-the scientist answers B moved A. So again you ask what gave B movement to move A and the scientist says C and so on till you get to the end and at the end you will find the last thing lets call it Z. The question now is who moved Z and no one will be able to tell you because it is not in physical creation. Then using the Law of Newton you have to say there must be an invisible first mover that put Z into motion. That would lead you to the first mover, which we call God.2) There is nothing in life that causes itself. If something caused itself then it existed prior to its own existence which is an absurdity and an impossibility. So if you take anything lets say a bean plant. and ask what caused it. You will be answered a seed. Ask what caused the seed and you will be answered another bean plant from last year. If you keep going back to the very first bean plant and ask where did that plant come from and you will come to the conclusion that a first cause had caused this plant that first cause we call God.
3) Nothing without intelligence can direct itself in an intelligent manner to a good end. A basketball cannot by itself go into the hoop. A human with intelligence has to direct it to go there. If you look in creation there is so much intelligence in unintelligent creation that it is an impossibility that everything is directing itself. For instance how do trees know that they should grow buds in spring-the answer is length of daylight. Then you ask who told the plant that it should go by length of day? The answer is :the genes (DNA). Who told the genes to be formed in such a manner as to take the length of day into account? You could stop here and say an intelligence outside the plant or if you keep going on to more causes at the end you will find no more reasons except some intelligence which we call God.
Carmelite, those are the most compelling arguments I’ve ever read. Thanks for sharing!
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How did God create so many races out of just two people (Adam and Eve)? How do you make an equation for that?
The Bible does not explicitly give us the origin of the different “races” or skin colors of humanity. In actuality, there is only one race – the human race. Within the human race is a great amount of diversity in skin color and other physical characteristics. Some speculate that when God confused the languages at the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9), He also instituted racial diversity. It is possible that God made genetic changes to humanity to better enable people to survive in different ecologies, such as Africans being better “equipped” genetically to survive the excessive heat in Africa. According to this view, God confused the languages, causing humanity to segregate linguistically, and then created genetic racial differences based on where each racial group would eventually settle, geographically. While possible, there is no explicit Biblical basis for this view. The races / skin color of humanity are nowhere mentioned in connection with the Tower of Babel.
After the flood, when the different languages came into existence, groups that spoke one language moved away with others of the same language. In doing so, the gene pool for a specific group shrunk dramatically as they no longer had the entire human population to mix with. Closer inbreeding took place, and in time certain features were emphasized in these different groups (ALL of which were present as a possibility in the gene code). As further inbreeding occurred through the generations, the gene pool got smaller and smaller, to the point that people of one language family all had the same or similar features, and it would be a rarity when a different feature arose.
Another explanation is that Adam and Eve possessed the genes to produce black, brown, and white offspring (and everything else in between). This would be similar to how a mixed-race couple often has children that vary greatly in color from one another. Since God obviously desired humanity to be diverse in appearance, it makes sense that God would have given Adam and Eve the ability to produce children of different skin tones. Later, the only survivors of the Flood were Noah and his wife, Noah’s three sons and their wives, eight people in all (Genesis 7:13). Perhaps Shem’s, Ham’s, or Japheth’s wives were of different races. It is possible that Noah’s wife was of a different race than Noah. Maybe all 8 of them were of mixed race, which would mean that they possessed the genetics to produce children of different races. Whatever the explanation, the most important aspect of this question is that we are all the same race, all created by the same God, all created for the same purpose.
Recommended Resource: Bible Answers for Almost all Your Questions by Elmer Towns.
A third explanation is that Adam and Eve are not literal people. They could serve as literary characters of the love God has for humanity (in our creation) and an explanation of sin in the world (through human choice to reject God).
On another note, just as problematic is that Cain and Abel had children (or one of them did), but with whom? If Eve was the only female is the Bible suggesting (or promoting) incest?
How do we reconcile these things? I don’t have the answer, but even if Adam and Eve were not actual people, the lessons and the values of the Creation stories remain.
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