Try not to think about the word God for a moment, but instead of what or who is the source and maintainer of all things.
Who is the source and maintainer of all things? We can conclude that the source and maintainer of all things is Being, which has certain characteristics. What are these qualities?
it exists by itself
First, this being it exists by itself.
It is the cause of all being unfunded.
It has no beginning or end, it is endless
It has no beginning or It won’t have an end. It did not arise for some reason. is what Aristotle called a motionless mover. A being that has always existed and will always exist. This being is also endless, That means it has no end. This being does not have the potential to improve, because this being is as good as possible and already completely realized.
it is not made
We could say that this being is also simple. This means that it is indivisible. It has no parts. This is one of the reasons we know that God is not created.
Everything that is created is composed, it consists of parts. You consist of parts, I consist of parts. If something is put together, then someone had to put it together, put its parts together. In other words, the supreme being cannot be composed. it is unfolded, simple.
He does not live in time or space
Also, this being must be spaceless to cross space, and timeless to pass time. This being is eternal. This being created time. She is not inside time, she created it.
it is not material
This being is also immaterial, which means spiritual, it is not composed of matter. Jesus said a famous sentence to a woman at the well: ‘God is the Spirit, and we must worship him in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:24)
omnipotent and ubiquitous and omniscient
This being is also omnipotent, which means that it is omnipresent and has all the power.
This does not mean that God is in everything, that would be pantheism. God is not this computer. God is not this table. But his power is present in all things. His power is holding all the folded things together right now. He not only folded all things, but also holds them together. It is also omniscient.
unchangeable
This being is immutable and unchangeable. What could change about this being when it is perfect? Any change would require Going from perfection to imperfection. So this being does not change.
Personal
It is also personal, which means that it has a mind, emotions and will and can make decisions.
By the way, you can work towards all these qualities even without the Bible. Good philosophical thinking is enough. thinking used by people like Aristotle and Aquinas. You can come to these conclusions without any reference to any Bible book.
However, you cannot come to this last conclusion without it. To know that this being is a triune, you need a Bible.
triple
This being is three persons in one divine essence.
holy and morally perfect
And finally, this being is holy, separate, morally perfect. This being is morally perfect in love and justice.
cannot break his word
I mention all this because the Bible tells us how we can imagine such a being.
How to imagine a being that exists in itself, is infinite, spaceless, timeless, immaterial? How can we even imagine this being if we ourselves do not have these qualities?
The Bible tells us how to do it in Isaiah 40:25-26 So who do you want to compare me to? Saint says: Who can match me? Lift your eyes and look: Who created all this? Who is holding the parade of stardoms, who calls them by name, all in numbers? He has immense power, his power is amazing – he never misses a single one!
God speaks and tells us how we can understand what he is. In other words, he says, ‘Do you want to know what I’m like? Here’s a comparison. Raise your eyes and Look at the Heavens. Who created all this? He who carries out the stellar multitudes one by one and calls each one by name.
He himself determines the number of stars and calls each of them by name. Psalm 147:4 (B21) Thanks to their great power and strength, none of them are missing. In other words, do you want to know what this god is like? Look at the heavens!
When you look to the heavens, you get a certain idea of what God really is. So what we will do today is to look to the heavens. And if we look at the heavens, what will we see? We will see three things.
First we will see that the heavens are Precisely created and designed.
Then we will see that the heavens are unimaginably extensive. We are not even able to understand how vast the heavens are, but we will try. The Bible gives us a clue to understand it.
And finally we will see that the heavens are dazzlingly beautiful. And the Hubble Space Telescope will help us with that.
1. The heavens are Precisely created and designed
We know that the heavens are created and designed because there is a theory you’ve probably heard of is called the Big Bang. ‘But, Frank, we are Christians, we don’t believe in the Big Bang!’ You don’t believe in the Big Bang? I believe in the big bang, but I know who cracked it!
The evidence for the Big Bang is so convincing that even atheists recognize this data. They admit that space, matter and time had its beginning from nothing.
Ladies and gentlemen, let me ask you a question. If space, matter and time had its beginning from nothing, that could create space, matter and time? Only something that is spaceless, timeless and immaterial. Something out of space, mass and time. Spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, personal, intelligent being. You can obtain these attributes of God using one argument for God, and that is the argument about the beginning of the universe.
The universe is finely tuned
Now I want to talk about the fact that the universe is finely tuned. Not only was it created, but it was created so precisely that if any of the many attributes of the universe were even slightly different, there would be either no universe or no universe that could support life.
And we’ll start with an atheist named Stephen Hawking. You’ve probably heard of him. He was probably the most famous physicist in the world before he died a few years ago. And here is what Hawking said about the beginning of the universe: ‘If the universe was just a little different, there would be no universe or any universe that could support life.’ He also said, ‘If the rate of space expansion differed by one thousandth of a billion billion, a second after the big bang the universe would collapse back in on itself or would never create a galaxy.’
In other words, if the rate of expansion was so slightly different from the very beginning, none of us would be here.
Now there is no evolutionary explanation for this. Why? Because the rate of expansion did not develop to a certain point. The rate of expansion began there. This is what scientists call one of the initial conditions of the universe. When space, time and matter were created, the rate of expansion was perfect.
It seems to me that the same being who created space, matter and time is the same intelligent being who set the rate of expansion exactly as it should have been. If it were different in any way, there would be no universe or a universe that could support life.
Not only that, The universe is precisely tuned in terms of gravitational force. If it had been changed by more than one part in the 10th final power, we would not have existed. What is one part in the 10th final power? That’s one part in one with 40 zeros behind it. Are you telling me you can’t imagine such a number? I know. Neither do I. So I’ll illustrate it for you. Take a tape measure and stretch it across the entire known universe. Set the gravitational force to a specific centimeter on this meter. I realize that gravity is not measured in centimeters, but this is just to give an idea of the scale. If the force of gravity differed by 2.54 cm on either one side or the other on a scale as wide as the entire known universe, we would not be here.
I don’t have enough faith to believe that this value ended by accident.
By the way, does chance cause things? Who caused it? Coincidence?! No, chance is not the cause. Chance is a word we use to describe mathematical possibilities. When scientists use the word random, do you know what they really mean? -We don’t know.
Look, there are only two options why this value is what it is. Either it was designed or it wasn’t. What do you think is more reasonable? – It was designed, someone determined it that way.
I just gave you two of about a dozen parameters of our universe. If you change any of them slightly, none of us will exist. So the universe was created and is designed.
…
the 2. The universe is unimaginably huge
We will talk about how unimaginably huge this universe is. We will start in our solar system. And our solar system will show us how big our galaxy is when we look at the solar system and the galaxy. Even the solar system itself appears to be designed – designed.
Here is the solar system, we are the third planet from the Sun.
If we were just a little closer or a little further from the sun, we wouldn’t be able to survive. A little closer and we would burn. We would freeze a little further. We are in what scientists call the Goldilock Zone. It’s not too hot or too cold here.
The axial slope (axis slope) is 23 and 1/2°. Change it just a little and we don’t exist.
24 Hours Earth Rotation. Just change it a little and we don’t exist.
Size and distance of the moon from us. Just change it a little and we don’t exist.
If Jupiter were not in its current orbit, we could not have existed on Earth. Why not? What does Jupiter do for us? Jupiter’s gravitational force is so strong that it attracts most of the meteors and space waste to itself, not to us. Jupiter is actually a space vacuum cleaner. If Jupiter wasn’t there, we wouldn’t be here. Want to see a close-up of Jupiter? You see you dark spots (down) on Jupiter? Those dark spots are the impacts of comet fragments that are larger than the Earth. Thank God for Jupiter, because if Jupiter wasn’t there, we wouldn’t be here, and by the way, Saturn fulfills the same function.
…
3. The heavens are dazzlingly beautiful
Here are some images from the Hubble Space Telescope. unabled
from 24:53-25:53 minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOYFVZfi5jg&t=380s
Finally,
What comes to mind now that you hear the word God after reading this and seeing the wonderful pictures of the universe?
God is not a grandfather on a cloud. It’s not ‘the one up there’. He is not just our friend. it is source and maintainer of all things.
Prayer
God Creator, I’m sorry that I often forget how huge you are. Sometimes I’m too familiar with you and I want you to do and be what I want. I forget you said: “As high as the sky is above the earth, so my ways are above yours, so is my thinking.” (Issaiah 55:9) Compared to you, I’m just an ant.
I beg you, restore respect for you. Help me always keep in mind that you are love and justice. Let it also be clearer to me that when something is written in your word, it is, and who am I to say something else. After all, you are the word (John 1:1 and 14) A “All Scripture is breathed in by God.” (2 Timothy 3:16)
Help me to always remember who you are and who I am compared to you. And thank you for loving me. amen
As the sky is high above the earth, so great love is for those who honor it. Psalm 103:11
