• Does God Exist?
• What Created God?

Does God exist? What created God? What can we know about Him? These are fundamental questions. In previous posts I have made a bit of progress towards answering these questions. In his letter to the Romans, Saint Paul declares:

... since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. 

Romans 1:20 [NIV]HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® by Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved., Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by International Bible Society publisher: International Bible Society

I began with what we know about the material universe and what we know about ourselves. With the help of modern physics, astronomy, and even some atheistic philosophers we derived some helpful conclusions:

• We know the material universe is governed by cause and effect, and that we have freedom of thought and action. That freedom does not come from the material universe, but from the soul each person has (see my post Do We Have Free Will?^<1>.)
• We know The Material Universe^<2> could not create itself. It evolved after it got started, but what caused it to start in the first place?
• We know the Deep Mysteries of Physics^<3> are far stranger than we could imagine on our own. Every material thing, at bottom, is only energy, and we do not know what energy is.

So, does God exist? Who or what is meant by the word "God" anyway?

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Genesis 1:1 [NIV]HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® by Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved., Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by International Bible Society publisher: International Bible Society

According to Genesis, God is the cause and creator of everything, including the material universe. He created energy and the laws of nature that determines how the material universe behaves. Those laws enable us to experience energy both as warmth from the Sun, and as three billion year old rocks.

What created God? The Bible has an answer for that question also, but it needs a bit of back-story.

Moses was born around 1500 BC These dates are debated. I am using dates that roughly agree with the Biblical narrative. ^[1]. At that time the Hebrew people were slaves in Egypt. Pharaoh had ordered that all boys born to the Hebrews should be killed. Moses was saved because Pharaoh's daughter adopted him as a baby, so he was raised as a prince. As a young man he became enraged when he saw an Egyptian guard beating a Hebrew slave. Moses killed the guard, then fled far into the wilderness (to a land called Midian) where he lived as a shepherd and raised a family. In about 1450 BC Moses saw a bush that appeared to be burning, but was not consumed, so he investigated it. God spoke to him, seemingly out of the bush. He asked Moses to return to Egypt and free the Hebrew slaves. Moses was afraid, and tried to argue God out of it. He doubted the Hebrew people would even believe God had sent him. So he questioned God:

Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?"  God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.'"  God also said to Moses, "Say to the Israelites, 'The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.' "This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation."

Exodus 3:13-15 [NIV]HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® by Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved., Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by International Bible Society publisher: International Bible Society

This is not the answer Moses was expecting. As a prince he learned about the numerous Egyptian gods, such as Ra, the Sun god. He was probably expecting the name of one of those gods, or of some other god that ruled all of them.

I usually introduce myself by saying, "I am Chris." If instead I greeted you with, "I am," what would you think? It would not make sense. All it says is that I exist, which you already knew. It does not tell you anything about me. I am one person among many and have a finite life span. I need a name to help distinguish myself from everyone else.

So what does God mean when He says, "I AM?"

• He is God and there is no other. He does not need a name to distinguish himself from other gods. There are no other gods.
• He created everything else. He is the God of Genesis 1:1, since there is no other god.
• He is existence. God exists without any preconditions. His existence does not depend on anything else. He gives existence to everything else.

What does, "God is existence" mean? The same construction is used in:

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 

First John 4:7-8 [NIV]HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® by Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved., Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by International Bible Society publisher: International Bible Society

This does not mean God is composed of something called love or something called existence. Our bodies are made from things that existed before we were made:

By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.

Genesis 3:19 [NIV]HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® by Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved., Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by International Bible Society publisher: International Bible Society

God's existence is not dependent on, or derived from, anything else. God said, "I AM." We say, "God IS." But we also like to talk about God's character, so we extend the sentence. We say, "God is love," and "God is existence," without contradiction. These are characteristics of God, not things God is made from.

Saint John says,

God is love. Love comes from God.

Using the same construction we can say,

God is existence. Existence comes from God.

What do you think? Are the Biblical answers satisfying? What are the alternatives? Please tell me your thoughts in the comments section.