What Contains God's Universe? Would Anyone like to make a hypothesis?

I believe in Christian Intelligent Design Theory and an Old Universe. God the Father spoke and the Logos, Jesus the Son, created, in other words, there was the Big Bang. What method of creation was used and how old the universe is does not matter. God who is outside of time and space did it. Everything we know on earth is touching something else. We touch the earth, buildings touch the ground, the sky is held up by gravitational forces. My question is this: What contains the universe?

@Edward,

would you believe that the Universe is constructed out of God’s very thoughts? - - outside of time and space… but creating both of them, within the “boundary conditions” created by his very thinking… thinking.without.End.

For Theological/Scientific Boundary Conditions, see book

Google Books Link to: Editor N.H. Gregerse’s book: “Interplay Between Scientific and Theological Worldviews: Part 1”, page 16.

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I thought you were interested, George. Thank you for your contribution.

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This is interesting. I like the idea of the eternal now. Good work, George.

Thanks again,

Edward

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Panentheism?

Sounds like it.

I would try to phrase this differently.

I don’t think the universe has to touch anything. And besides, the universe is expanding.

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You are correct.

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@BoltzmannBrain,

Pan-Entheism, as “All [Space-Time] is within God”, conjoined with “God is greater than All” and “God’s Emmanence and Transcendance are Complete” all suit me.

But to capture the flavor, i am inclined to Kabbalah’s “Contraction/Condensation”, or: Tzimtzum.

"A commonly held understanding in Kabbalah is that the concept of tzimtzum contains a built-in paradox, requiring that God be simultaneously transcendent and immanent."

“On the one hand, if the “Infinite” did not [ minimize a portion of ] Itself, then nothing could exist—everything would be overwhelmed by God’s totality. Thus existence requires God’s transcendence, as above.”

"On the other hand, God continuously maintains the existence of, and is thus not absent from, the created universe. “The Divine life-force which brings all creatures into existence must constantly be present within them … were this life-force to forsake any created being for even one brief moment, it would revert to a state of utter nothingness, as before the creation”.

This understanding is supported by various biblical teachings:

“You have made the heaven … the earth and all that is on it … and You give life to them all” (Nehemiah 9:6);
“All the earth is filled with God’s Glory” (Numbers 14:21);
“God’s Glory fills the world” (Isaiah 6:3).
“Creation therefore requires God’s immanence.”

Rabbi Nachman of Breslav discusses this inherent paradox as follows:

"Only in the future will it be possible to understand the Tzimtzum that brought the “Empty Space” into being, for we have to say of it two contradictory things … [1] the Empty Space [required to house the Universe] came about through the Tzimtzum, where, as it were, He [withdrew] His Godliness and contracted it from there - - it is as though in that place there is no Godliness … [2] the absolute truth is that Godliness must nevertheless be present there, for certainly nothing can exist [except God] … [where God fully dwells].
— Likkutei Moharan I, 64:1

I have been quite drawn to panentheism myself lately, seems to me like the more elegant and consistent theological and metaphysical view of God.

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The best analogy I can think of is a big circle (maybe with an infinite area) written “God” with a smaller circle inside written “reality”, and a third circle inside reality written “universe”. That is just my personal view, of course.

@BoltzmannBrain

There’s lots of art out there … some of it was too “far out” to paste here …

image

I finally found a “mostly viewable” URL for the Collected Essays so frequently mentioned in articles on Kabbalah:

Use clickable link below:

Google Books link to Aryeh Kaplan’s “The Aryeh Kaplan Reader: The Gift He Left Behind”, including his essay on “Paradoxes”.

[quote=“Edward, post:1, topic:38690, full:true”]
I believe in Christian Intelligent Design Theory and an Old Universe. God the Father spoke and the Logos, Jesus the Son, created, in other words, there was the Big Bang. What method of creation was used and how old the universe is does not matter. God who is outside of time and space did it. Everything we know on earth is touching something else. We touch the earth, buildings touch the ground, the sky is held up by gravitational forces. My question is this: What contains the universe?[/quote]

The love of God. Here’s why:

I am neither a Scientist, nor a Theologian of any pedigree whatsoever; But I do have a thought about God and the age of the Earth. Can you picture God sitting around an empty Universe for eons of time, contemplating creating what is, but unable to make up His mind about which to do first, to establish all necessary parameters by which everything will settle into its own predetermined niche, and function precisely as intended?

Neither can I.

Genesis begins by telling us God is six times more active as He is restful. So I find a certain reluctance to suppose God waited a Looooong time to begin His creative process, which process resulted in Me and My Generation.

No, I like to think of God considering His
"aloneness" as lacking purpose, and being
"God by nature" [Gal 4:8], began almost immediately with “Let there be light” as He put into reality, that which previously was only in the mind of God; the great “storehouse” wherein the Universe exists.

That would make the Earth just an infinitesimal bit younger than God Himself. It really matters not how old God is, nor yet how old His creation, so long as He contains in Memory, the “how to’s” and the “needs” thereof for sustenance; and remembers His children of creation.

Some assuming God “created TIME,” but there is no such statement nor reference in scripture, and it defies logic to suppose God existed outside of time and space, as There has to “BE” time in which God can “BE.” And there has to “BE” “SPACE” wherein God “IS.” And God never tells us otherwise.

God created Sun and moon and stars for the purpose of measuring what was already there,i.e., Time and Space. Remember, God said in His TOME, “I AM THE BEING.” [Exo 3:13-15 SEPTUAGINT].

I am convinced beyond doubt God used Evolution in this thing called Creation. Evolution REQUIRES time for things to “Evolve.” I look to “Creation” as Causative, and Evolution as a necessary tool thereof.

Suppose mountains never lose their height, and rivers never dig into the surface of Earth, and Green things never turn into deserts, all such activities contribute to that thing we call “Evolution.”

And look to the Continents to study the differences in animal life that is found on one continent, or island, or desert, and no where else. THAT’s Evolution. The three year old child “evolved” from that embryo of yesteryear. We call it “Growing,” but it could just as well be called “Evolving.”

And consider something that took place “Before”(a reference to time) God’s “works of old.” Creative activity did not begin at Gen 1:1 as some think. Listen to the words of God as He describes activities that took place prior to His works as depicted in Genesis. The story actually begins with God “giving Birth” to Wisdom, with whom He joins in creating the Heavens and the Earth, and all that is therein.

Prov 8:22 The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his “In the beginning” of [Gen 1:1] works of old. 23 I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. 24 When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. 25 Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth:

As for God not existing in “space” - WHEREVER God WAS, the newly created UNIVERSE existed in HIS mind until it was spoken into BEING in that SPACE in which God already WAS.

To assert God was “No PLACE” is to assert “God was NOT.” For there would be of necessity, neither “place,” nor “time” for Him to “BE.”

And we know He was “God by NATURE.” Gal 4:8 (above).

Because Genesis begins with “In the beginning” we assume carelessly, that it is a reference to a “Beginning of time,” But we know that to be a false assumption, because the same Author of scripture tells us of an activity that took place “BEFORE his works of old” which was that “In the beginning” of Gen 1:1.

There had to “BE” some “place” for the darkness to “BE” and for light to “BE” prior to their separation, and while we can pinpoint a “beginning” for the existence of Light, no such event accounts for “darkness” within which Light “WAS.”

And in the Proverbs 8 account, both “Before” and Began" are references to time, which preexisted creation of Genesis 1:1. And to read “In the beginning GOD…” we can therefore safely say, God is at least as old as Time and Place.

I have seen on debate boards, the suggestion that “Time” is defined as “The passage of events.” Just as "fish exist in water, “Fish” is not water; And “Events” take place in “time” in no way suggests events are time. They rather are effected BY time.

Others have suggested “God is not subject to Time.” I submit God subjects HIMSELF to TIME when HE establishes “Feast days” and events which require HIS participation, like pausing to hear prayers of the faithful, and Punishing recalcitrant Children.

It was God who introduced the rules of Covenant with Man. It was God who bound Himself to “times and seasons”, Holy Days, and Sabbaths, ages, and events taking place in those variances of time. It is God who says he is “longsuffering” [Psa 86:15][rom 2:4][I Pet 3:20] God never bound MAN to one side of Covenant, while not binding Himself to the other side of that same Covenant.

Now, consider a new concept of eternal God - He was in “Time” and He was in “Place,” and He was always “LOVE” but with no one to respond to that NEED to be fulfilled. Consider, if God was “THREE Persons” - THERE WAS ONLY perfect love. Why would God create creatures having the ability to commit Sin? Why create problems He does not NEED?

Because He was NEVER A TRIUNE BEING. He had only Himself, and His spirit, which was subject to HIMSELF. We know this because God said “The spirits of the prophets are subject to the Prophets.” [I Cor 14:32] And we are the image of God.[I Cor 11:7]

And God has said over and over again, He sends HIS SPIRIT to accomplish things; NEVER is there a reference to a Third-Person-Of-A-TRINITY Holy Spirit.

HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD referenced 33 times
God The Holy Spirit referenced not at all.

2)Gen 6:3, Gen 41:8,
2)Num 11:29, Num 24:2,
4)Jdg 3:10, Jdg 14:6, Jdg 14:19, Jdg 15:14,
2)1 Sam 11:6, 1 Sam 16:13,
1)2 Sam 23:2,
1)Ezr 1:1,
2)Job 26:13, Job 34:14, ,
4)Isa. 34:16, Isa. 40:13, Isa. 6)8:16, Isa. 59:19, Isa. 63:10, Isa. 63:11,
1)Ezek. 3:12,
2)Mic. 2:7, Mic. 3:8,
1)Zech. 7:12,
1)*Acts 8:39,
2)*Rom. 8:9, *Rom. 8:11,
1)1 Co. 2:10,
1)Gal. 6:8,
2)Eph. 3:5, Eph. 3:16,
1)*1 Thess. 4:8,
1)2 Thess. 2:8,
2)*1 Jn. 3:24, *1 Jn. 4:13,
33)
*6)God has Given to us HIS Holy Spirit

God needs objects upon which He can pour out His love, Because He is God by nature, and Love is His nature.[I John 4:7]

How do I know this?
I John 4:7 God is love
Gal 4:8 God is God by nature
I COR 11:3 Who is the head of MAN? Christ is the head of MAN.
I Cor 11:3 Who is the head of CHRIST? GOD is the head of Christ.
I COR 12:12-21 For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.
17 If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?
18 But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.
19 And if they were all one member, where were the body?
20 But now are they many members, yet but one body.
21 And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee:
nor again the head (God) to the feet (The humblest of Christians), I have no need of you.

God needs us because there was never a trinity wherein three could spend their perfect love upon each other. It requires loving those who may not ever learn how to be able to repay it.

God loved us so much that “While we were yet sinners,. He gave his son to die for us.”[Rom 5:8]

We have direct instantaneous access to the throne of God, if we are in Christ;
Eph 2:4-7 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace ye are saved; 6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

And that is MY understanding of God and his Universe.

Wow!
A lot here.
On Love, God is perfect love, and without us there is no object for His love. Does God need us? I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. But God definitely loves us!

On properties of God - from the bible - omniscient, omnipresent, almighty, the beginning (Alpha)and the end (Omega). So what about space - it’s infinite - hard to understand, but there always has to be a box outside of a box, so it has to be infinite as God is.

As the Almighty is his power infinite? From a scientific standpoint I used to be concerned with God having infinite power, because if space was finite and power infinite we would be vaporized. But indeed a little energy in infinite space equals infinite power. God is sovereign, so he has control over it all.
Pantheism? I think not.
But then what substance other than the mind of God exists in the universe? Quanta (subatomic particle/wave substance per quantum physics - observation or choice collapses the wave form into a particle, thus creating reality)! But what came first quanta or the mind of God? Well they both must have existed from the beginning.
In the beginning the earth was without form and void (the quantum state of uncertainty) and God said let there be light. (but not uncertain to God who sees all future possibilities and chooses His will out of love)
But then is quanta part of God? Yes! I think of it as the glorified body of God and it exists with him just as we will have a glorified body in the end times. We are made in his image!
Yes this is our sovereign, all loving God.
And the mind of God (the Father) transcends time, see all possibilities, and by the Word of God the Son creates everything that has been, through the power of the Holy Spirit (the advocate) who also fills us with God’s Word and guides us in our daily lives - three in one ! Yes a triune God.
And that is my understanding of the universe.
Neal

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Thank you, Neal and God bless.

I think you meant to say that God the father created through Jesus the Son?

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Yes, God the Son did create after God the Father gave the command. The Logos as I’m sure you know is God the Son who would be born as Jesus of Nazareth. That is what I said. Remember John 1. God bless.
http://www.biblestudytools.com Logos can mean Word or Study, e.g., Jesus is the Word of God or I study about God, e.g., Theology or Theos Logos, which means God Study.

Look up Logos: The Word is God the Son-John1: 2-4

Logos also has other meanings in English and German.

Jesus the Word of God caused the Big Bang.

It is always nice discussing things with you. I wish certain others were that way.

What contains the universe?
Let’s call it X.
What contains X?
Let’s call it Y.
What contains Y?
Let’s call it Z.
What contains Z?
No more letters. Darn.

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