Nine year old science-loving child's struggles with an (Alpha) Eternal God

A few points I’ve noticed in bible reading. As being in a body, in Genesis God is physically present with Adam and Eve, He “walks in the cool of the Garden”. Even after they’ve sinned.

I got a lot of understanding in considering the “I AM” name of God, that God is outside of time, the Alpha and the Omega and the right now, all at the same time. You can watch physics professor Frank Tipler discuss this in physics theories watching his chalk-talk The Omega Point" YouTube
https://youtu.be/_BsOKoW9bEE, do not take the shortcut and try to watch on TED (definitely not the same).

It’s and hour long, so I don’t know your 9 year olds being able to watch all, but it is understandable without understanding all the physics. If I got it right the physics he lays out have to do with “The cause before all causes” and Jesus breaking into our linear timeline (fully God/fully human), and after the Resurrection His transformed body is fully changed.

Also, perhaps Bishop Barron on “What Does the Resurrection Mean” https://youtu.be/vjieDxvNFR0 and of the first person accounts in all 4 gospels that refute other theories on the Resurrection.

Also, Blais Pascal, the scientist, mathematician upon who’s work the math of the stock exchanges are based. <Blaise Pascal - Wikipedia > and read “Pascal’s Wager.”

This may be too much for a 9 year old, however, there is the always the “experiment” of asking God “Tell me about who you are?” It’s a relationship between your son and God. Praying for you and your dear one <3. “Lord I believe, help my disbelief.”

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There is no such thing in a linear sense.

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Yes, In his physics talk, Professor Tipler sites bible and physics theory on “the cause before all causes” of what is commonly referred to as the “big bang”.

If one looks at Newton’s objects in motion or rest, how did the motion get started?

From previous motion. There has always been motion. The BB isn’t the beginning of beginnings. There is none.

It always makes sense to ask “… and what happened before that?” To be told it is very hard to conceive of states prior to the big bang makes more sense to me than to say there just weren’t any. If we call tO the last moment at which there was purportedly nothing at all and t1 the moment at which a singularity begins to erupt, then I want to know what happened at a time half way between, and halfway between that and t0, and on and on. I just hate when people state without qualification that what is hard to conceive of was actually nothing at all. Still not buying it.

: ) nuthin comes from nuthin. But even people with qualifications somehow believe that after an eternity of nothing, something happened from it. 'cos God done it. After doing… nothing, forever. Apparently that makes sense even to qualified people!

@klax and @Dale I’m getting deja vu of this conversation from thread about 2 months ago… Please don’t scare off @believeinlove who only just joined us lol

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What, we daren’t say what has been known of God for millennia? That He changeth not. Eternity is scary, so let’s hold hands and face it together.

Thanks Marta,

I appreciate your kindness. I’m not deterred really. I do have to control my urge to ponder way longer than I ought to be disappearing into that black hole of trying to get my thought processes out. It’s all very interesting, but it is love that remains.

Our God is not just one of a cold hard matter universe, beautiful yet not touchable in the flesh. A God who is awesome in the details and complexity of creation, and yet calls us His friends, All about relationship and relativity in His person.

He lets us question Him and argue with Him and run from Him, and “comes walking in the garden in the cool of the day” and loves us in our sin, trying to hide, children with the chocolate smeared on our faces, there are consequences yet He covers us with skins before sending us out to try to be him and grow our own. “I have not yet begun to take hold of it, but forgetting what is behind…”

Here I am going on again…

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If we insist on sticking only to the measurable demonstrable objective truth and deny it is reasonable to believe anything else, then there is no before that.

Anything we say about before is thus a subjective fabrication. Some prefer to accept what the Bible says about that. Others prefer to believe in an extension of the laws of nature into something imaginary beyond what can be demonstrated. Both are on equal footing and it is reasonable as long as they don’t willfully expect others accept some imagined authority on the matter when they have no objective proof. Whether they insist on the divine authority of their book or they prefer to enshrine the laws of nature, it hardly matters, especially when their knowledge of them is so transparently lacking. Is it because they so afraid of unanswered questions or do they simply want to elevate the value of this little knowledge they have to divine proportions in order to believe in their own worth?

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Dale, just a note to say I love your profile’s “evolutionary providentialist” tagline :clap: :clap: :slightly_smiling_face:

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Kristy, thank you for sharing. My heart goes out to you and your son navigating those hard but necessary waters! I’m sorry for the unknowns this season creates but excited to see the Lord’s hand work in shaping you and your son.

A couple years ago, I went through a similarly intense season of doubts as a young man, prompted by some of the same ideas you mentioned. A couple books that were meaningful to me were Findings God in the Questions, by Timothy Johnson, and Who Made the Moon, by Sigmund Brouwer. The Lord used these books to encourage me and help salvage my battered faith. I think they’re both written for adults, but sounds like your son is engaging with these issues at a maturity level beyond his age, so maybe they’d be worth considering.

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