Exploring Self-Existence: God, the Universe, and Creation

And in our last study, I pointed out that if something exists now, the idea of something that is self-existent is not only possible but rationally necessary, and then I made the distinction between that which is rationally necessary and that which is ontologically necessary. And I was saying that whatever it is that this self-existent, eternal something must be -- not only rationally necessary but ontologically necessary as well -- and I said that that squares with the Judeo-Christian understanding of the nature of God. [00:00:54]

The first question is this: If the state of nature is to move inherently towards disorganization, you have to ask the question how it became organized in the first place? And we would have to say that if it is moving towards disorganization, then it is moving from organization and that organization was the original state of things, which is what the Big Bang suggests. [00:05:26]

Now the 64 million dollar question about the Big Bang is, what caused the bang? And I've heard all kinds of people say we don't need to answer that question; that goes beyond science, and that goes into the realm of philosophy or theology or religion or whatever. And I say, "Wait a minute! When you are going to give an explanation for all of reality, and you pin all of your hopes upon this concept of a big bang, why don't you answer the question, 'what causes the big bang'?" [00:08:42]

Biblical Christianity has the answer to that readily available -- that this is exactly what is involved in the doctrine of creation: that we have a self-existent, eternal being who has the power of motion, who has the ability to move that which is not moving. That is what Aristotle understood in all antiquity when he talked about the "unmoved mover" -- that he understood that there has to be an origin to motion, and that which has the origin of motion must have the power of motion within itself -- just as it must have the power of being within itself, and that is why we attribute these attributes to God. [00:09:50]

And so we say that one of the chief characteristics about God is that He transcends the universe. Now the materialist comes along and says, "Yes, I understand there has to be something that is self-existent and eternal, that must have the power of being within itself. I don't want to retreat -- as many of my colleagues do -- to an idea of self-creation; I grant that that's absurd. So we have to have a self-existent, eternal something, but I'm not going to grant to you, oh Christian, that this self-existent, eternal something is God -- that He is a transcendent being. Rather, He is part of the universe, or it is part of the universe or the sum total of the universe." [00:14:01]

But what we mean -- and this is critical that you get this -- what we mean by transcendence is not a description of God's location. Transcendence is not a geographical description. We're not saying that God is transcendent in the sense that he lives somewhere out there, east of the sun and west of the moon. What is meant by transcendence, in philosophy and theology, is something is a higher order of being. That is, rather than transcendence being a geographical description, beloved, it is an ontological description. [00:18:26]

When we say that God is transcendent we mean to say, simply, He is a higher order of being than we are. He is a higher order of being than this chalk is. He is a higher order of being than the sun is. He is a higher order of being than pure energy is. That is what we mean by transcendence -- that God is a higher order of being. We don't care where He lives. [00:19:55]

If you're saying that there is some unknown, invisible, immeasurable, pulsating point or core within the boundaries of the universe that is self-existent and eternal, from which everything else is generated, ultimately, what you are saying is, that there is something here that transcends everything else out here because you must distinguish between this being and all the derivative, dependent, derived, contingent things that are generated by and from it. [00:21:38]

Now we are just arguing over its name, whether the name of it is 'X' or Yahweh. But no matter how you slice it, you're forced back to a self-existent, eternal being from whose being and from whose power all things come into existence. [00:22:20]

Now many Christians object at this point, and will say to me, "Okay, we grant that philosophy and reason argues and demonstrates that you have to have a self-existent, eternal something. But how do we get from that to the God of the Bible? So far, all we have is Aristotle's 'unmoved mover'; all we have so far is an abstract idea of self-existent, eternal being. You haven't come yet to the God of the Bible, and what is the connection, it is raised -- and it is a legitimate question -- between the God of the Bible and the god of the philosophers?" [00:24:02]

As you know, most of what I have been saying in the last several lectures, about this question about the existence of God, has been based more on philosophy than on biblical exegesis. And I grant that. And my burden that I have now for the Christian community, will be a burden I will address in our next session about the relationship between the god of the philosophers and the God of the Bible. [00:25:11]