Did god create universe within himself?

[Sv.Sava]

Hello all =) this is my first post I hope you can help me!

Well my question is if god created us within himself, but that wouldn't make sense since we then would be a part (equal) to god?? But if god is eternal infinite etc. where else would he be able to create us??

I'm interested in all opinions but also in the Orthodox point of view, hope there are some Orthodox Christians.

Thank you all, ps: I tried looking for an answer to my question but couldn't find anything

regards

 

[Pegg]

hi, thats an interesting question.... im honestly not sure if anyone can know for sure.

My personal opinion is that the physical universe has been created in a different dimension to the dimension where God resides. It is a dimension where physical beings cannot go...the scriptures say 'flesh and blood cannot inherit Gods Kingdom' as in flesh cannot enter the heavenly realm where God resides.

So the universe where we can travel in is obviously not Gods heavens. That must be beyond our physical universe.

 

[Crandle]

Good question,

The idea of pantheism is never encountered in the bible, we are always considered physically and spiritually not God as well as through our actions being separated from God. The whole point of Christianity is that God has done everything to reconcile us to him, so we can be in a right relationship with him. This does involve having God inside you in the form of the Holy Spirit. However, it never states we can be a part of him, or as powerful as him, so the average Christian would reject the idea that we are part of God.

By saying the question about where could he create us if not in himself, maybe you have a misunderstanding of the physical/spiritual existence, or maybe I do. But what we know of God is not described in a Physical being (except for Jesus) therefore to attribute such limitations or characteristics on God is over reaching the bounds of what we know.

 

[*Deleted*]

When we read "God" in the Hebrew scriptures, at least I am reading a translation. If I read the Hebrew scriptures, I don't see "God"---I see Elohim, I see Yahweh, I see El-Shaddai. I see males gods who were conquered from enemy tribes and then subsumed into "God"---by the writers. To what ends? For what reasons? Writing from their own point of view. Thing to me is that we have to figure out our own point of view and not depend on the point of view of those writers writing 2000, 3,000 years ago. We'd have exactly what in common with them?

 

[Crandle]

When we read "God" in the Hebrew scriptures, at least I am reading a translation. If I read the Hebrew scriptures, I don't see "God"---I see Elohim, I see Yahweh, I see El-Shaddai. I see males gods who were conquered from enemy tribes and then subsumed into "God"---by the writers. To what ends? For what reasons? Writing from their own point of view. Thing to me is that we have to figure out our own point of view and not depend on the point of view of those writers writing 2000, 3,000 years ago. We'd have exactly what in common with them?

This may belong in its own thread, as it is off-topic here, we are discussing Christian pantheism, maybe we can discuss whether God is male, psuedo-male, sexist, masogynistic, a myth created by an evolution of writings in another thread.

 

[*Deleted*]

Crandle,

My point really is that I think humans created God or the idea of God. That's why a reader who knows Hebrew can see so many names for what is seen as "God" in English translations. So I'd say humans created the Sacred from within themselves not vice versa. Doesn't mean the Sacred isn't "real"---just that if humans knew so much about "Him" then humans would be the Ultimate, Sacred, God, Goddess, whatever, anyway.

 

[Crandle]

Clare,
I think I may have misunderstood you again. something that is common between judaism/chrisitanity/islam is that God is the one Creator, and everything is created by him, humans, the earth, whatever all created. Are you saying that we created the idea of God and therefore God is possibly real?

 

[*Deleted*]

IMO, I think that the idea of "God" (by whatever name) is a human construction. At least as we know it. As we read it in scriptures that are deemed highly authoritative. That doesn't mean there is not a "Sacred" or "Divine"---I just think it's not how it's been imagined is all. I think humans are evolved, but not that evolved. Sort of like saying that humanity can't see the forest for the trees kind of thing. Our gods are created, written by humans themselves. Inspired, OK, but all artists are inspired---we can say that about any writer, really. I don't say "God"---rather I say, "the great mystery"---and humans have named that great mystery many names. What that mystery is, I have no idea---I'm a sojouner and seeker, explorer but I want to do my own exploring and come to my own conclusions (like many on this forum) and not be "boxed" in by writers of any holy writ. Who wrote for what reasons? There are many reasons they wrote. Some we know, some we don't know their agendas. That kind of thing. Does that clarify at all?

 

[kepha31]

God is the Ground of Being by which all being proceeds.

One of the sophisticated concepts used by great Christian theologians is that of "The Ground of Being." This concept indicates not that God is the fact of things existing, but that God is the basis for the existence of all things. God is more fundamental to existing things than anything else. So fundamental to the existence of all things is God, that God can be thought of as the basis upon which things exist, the ground their being. To say that God is The ground of being or being itself, is to say that there is something we can sense that is so special about the nature of being that it hints at this fundamental reality upon which all else is based.

The phrases "Ground of Being" and "Being itself" are basically the same concept. Tillich used both at different times, and other theologians such as John McQuarrey prefer "Being Itself," but they really speak to the same concept. Now skeptics are always asking "how can god be being?" I think this question comes from the fact that the term is misleading. The term "Being itself" gives one the impression that God is the actual fact of "my existence," or the existence of my flowerbed, or any object one might care to name. Paul Tillich, on the other hand, said explicitly (in Systematic Theology Vol. I) that this does not refer to an existential fact but to an ontological status. What is being said is not that God is the fact of the being of some particular object, but, that he is the basis upon which being proceeds and upon which objects participate in being. In other words, since God exists forever, nothing else can come to be without God's will or thought; and since there can't even be a potential for any being without God's thought, all potentialities for being arise in the "mind of God" then in that sense God is actually "Being Itself." I think "Ground of Being" is a less confusing term. God is the ground upon which all being is based and from which all being proceeds.

Being:sub sub menu on topic of Being itself

 

[*Deleted*]

I like "Ground of Being" too---it gets at the Primordial Mother from whence all things came (ie the Earth and those upon it)---as seen in the beginning. And as seen actually in Taoism now, for example. I think the theologians who used that language (Ground of Being) were perhaps unaware that they were using the language of the Primordial Mother---some theologians today do use that term (ex: Marcus Borg) and know the original meaning.

 

[Jordan St. Francis]

Yes, I believe it is possible that we exist inside God, in some sense. This does not make us equal to Him. We are created within the relations of the Trinitarian life. A medieval portrait of the Trinity, for example, will show the Father seated with the Holy Spirit and the Son still bearing his wounds and crown of thorns. Christ, bloody and transfigured by his contact with the world, holds a sphere in his hands- symbolic of all that is created. This is where the world still is today and always was- in the hands of the Son, being returned to the Father in the Holy Spirit.

And at the same time, I saw this bodily sight, Our Lord showed me a spiritual vision of his familiar love. I saw that for us he is everything that is good and comforting and helpful. He is our clothing, wrapping and enveloping us for love, embracing us and guiding us in all things, hanging about us in tender love, so that he can never leave us. And in this vision, as I understand it, I truly saw that he is everything that is good for us.

And in this vision he showed me a little thing, the size of a hazel nut, lying in the palm of his hand, and to my mind's eye it was as round as any ball. I looked at it and thought, 'what can this be?', and the answer came to me: 'it is all that is made'. I wondered how it could last, for it was so small I thought it might suddenly disappear. And the answer in my mind was 'it lasts and will last forever because God loves it, and in the same way everything exists through the love of God'...

God, truly, the lover, the maker, carer, for until I become one substance with him, I can never have love, rest or true bliss; that is to say, until I am so bound to him that there may be no created thing between me and my God. And who shall do this deed? Truly himself, by his mercy and grace, for he has made me and blessedly restored me to that end.

Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love

 

[The Wizard]

If the creator is so powerful and infinite the universe and everything could be a cell in creators brain or a brief figment of his/her/its imagination.. just pondering, no?