This popped into my mind: “Go to the beginning. Go directly to the beginning. Do not pass the beginning, do not count years where there is no time”.
Yes - this gives you a Monopoly on understanding God as the uncaused first cause.
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I remember in a philosophy course that God was referred to as “the Prime Cause”. Today that would seem to connect Him with Amazon. 
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I should clarify. I love the humour, not the specific content. IMHO an uncaused event does not ,(and never has) exist(ed).It is gibberish or at best an oxymoron.
Richard
So is God caused by something higher?
God is.
You cannot have an event without a cause. We may not know what the cause is, but something/one caused it
God’s own being and origins are beyond human comprehension or language. There is no need to try and invent a word or phrase to compensate.
Richard
In the sense that “is” relates to the universe as we know it, we experience God as "is"ing. This is due to our being immersed in a unidirectional time sequence. “Is” differs from both “was” and “will be” for the simple reason that time flows.
God does not flow; God invented this “river,” time. God’s existence outside this universe is impossible for humans to conceptualize.
In this universe, you are correct. But you appear unaware of the root problem: something outside this universe invented it - either time is infinite, or not. And clearly time as we understand it cannot exist BEFORE the start of the universe. I plainly had a Moment Zero.
Genesis 1:1,3
[[ skipping verse 2 on purpose because it grandfathers in the pagan idea of how the world began: Genesis corrects the important matter, about God. One chapter, done deal, moving right along ]]
declare that God invented time, space, matter, and light, all at one go.
Inventing the universe specified all of its attributes: quarks, mesons, gluons, protons, electrons, mass, gravity, the speed of light - the fundamental characteristics of matter that resulted in the table of elements, from hydrogen to uranium, and beyond.
The chemistry they exhibit, interacting with each other, establishes the chemistry of life itself. In other words the universe is God’s perfect Creation.
Great - now we agree. God is impossible to reverse-engineer. This, by the way, is the reason for pastors to dislike Trinity Sunday, because they have to propose a profundity in terms that only have meaning outside the bounds of the universe, and those don’t exist.
As a preacher, Trinity Sunday is not one I dread or look forward to. Basically my message is that the Trinity should not be seen as impossible or even mysterious., but more important, that it should not be a bone of contention. The Trinity is an attempt to rectify the anomily of God being on earth in Christ, yet still in Heaven as God the Father It is based on what God has revealed but does not necessarily represent all that God is. The main point being the divinity of Christ rather than a Triune deity.
I think one of the greatest mistakes of theology was to claim God as a mystery He is unfathomable but very accessible and able to be known. We do not have to know all of God to have a relationship with Him
Richard
PS I realise that there are dictionary definitions of an uncaused event but maintain that , in terms of linguistics and physics, it cannot be.
Not for mathematicians.
Given that the Trinity was not invented by the church but came out of second Temple Judaism, they just need to study a bit more.
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Your answer to everything? Study?
You missed his point. it is not about the derivation or existence of the Trinity it is about defining God. The Trinity attempts to do the impossible. God is not the Trinity., in the way that it is defined. God is more than the Trinity and that is what @JoelHinrichs was trying to express.
Richard
Exactly - God escapes our ability to understand or conceive of. When someone finds a fourth emanation of God, we may use Quaternity. Trinity is our perception.
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- John 15:26 [New American Standard Bible 1995]
- “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me."
- I don’t know about the rest of you heathen, but I count three: the Spirit of Truth, Jesus the Son, and the Father.
- BTW. Isn’t the topic of the Trinity a long ways from the topic in the cockamamie OP?
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