Did God occupy any space before creation?

[PaulThomson]

Then, if that is your opinion, you need to agree that, according to scripture, God is something since creation that He was not before creation - spatial to be everywhere and temporal to operate within time. But are you willing to admit that?

that is not what he said. The created cannot comprehend the Creator. Time, space, and matter are relevant at the time they entered or stopped. That did not change the one who created time that can be measured. God is the First Cause uncaused. Your understanding is putting limits on the God of the Bible, who doesn't have any. We have to admit no such thing.

You are claiming that the created cannot comprehend the Creator, and then proceed to make biblically unfounded inferences about the Creator as if you do comprehend Him. Are you uncreated? Scripture identifies space and time as uncaused. Things were made within God's time and space: things like planets and stars, land and sea, angels and man, morning and evening, days, hours, weeks.

The creation of this cosmos did not change God's nature because God is infinite time and infinite space. Prove me wrong from scripture.

 

[PaulThomson]

Not at all. Your mind is inadequate to understand what it is to be God. God was both at one and the same time both operating within the bounds of creation and outside of it.
As far as being something new, as in being made human, from our perspective it would appear so. But that, too, is not of necessity so. What you seem to fail to understand is the nature of God. You are looking at Him with a finite mind. We cannot grasp what it is to be infinite.
Do you believe your worship is holy and acceptable to God? Do you believe it adequately ascribes to God all that He is and sufficiently imparts to Him the glory that He is worthy to receive? Even if you were unencumbered by sin, would your worship, though it were ceaseless, ever adequately be all that God is worthy to receive? Why not?
Will you ever be able to say you worshipped God acceptably in your own self?
I use this example because it illustrates the limitations we have. God is beyond finding out. We may think we understand a particular subject concerning God and still not. There is nothing wrong with exploring these matters. It is the glory of kings to do such. But as Clint Eastwood famously said...A man's got to know his limitations.

So, why is my understanding wrong, but yours right, if your mind is inadequate to understand what it is to be God?
Why are you saying that I am failing to understand the nature of God, as if you do. Surely, you must consider your understanding to be just as inadequate as you consider mine. Do you recognise your limitations, that exclude you from making any categorical statements about God and exclude you from giving any meaningful critique of another's concept of God.
By your standards, since the plain sense of scripture to you is not definitive, and the law of non-contradiction does not necessarily apply to the incomprehensible God, you cannot insist God is either or both unitarian and trinitarian, either or both loving and indifferent, either or both both present everywhere and present nowhere.

That sounds insane to me.

 

[PaulThomson]

you remind me of "paralysis by analysis". i never said that God, definitely can be no where.. i said i believe He could be no where if He wanted to. maybe, i am incorrect. it sounded possible to me. i never studied that. no one has seen God the father but Christians will see Him 1 day, His shekinah glory.

You said "God can have size & not have size." You think God can possibly be nowhere if He wants to be? Your opinions about God are interesting, but I could not take those ideas seriously and still believe scripture has anything meaningful to say about anything.

 

[CS1]

None of your comments, though interesting, answer the actual OP questions.
"Does God have size? If God has size, how big is He? If God has size now, was God always this big?"


My proposition is that God is love, holy, merciful, just... and time and space. So no one made space for God. Prove me wrong from scripture. Where does scripture say God made tme and space, rather than God made a beginning for the world and made the world within His space?

If the God of the bible is a mystery, how do you knpw your own inferences about Him are true? And how were you authorised to arbitrate on the accuracy of other people's different inferences about God. I use the bible, the cross and logic to arrive at my inferences about God. I have shown scripture in this thread that says Cod is everywhere. I cannot escape His presence. If I ascend to heaven He is there. If I descend to sheol He is there. He is in every believer. How can these be true if His spirit is not spacial so that He is imminent within all things? You are proposing a contradiction to these biblical statements that is not stated within scripture. Why? Where does you idea come from?

How can you say I don't know the God of the Bible but you do, when my propositions are clearly stated in the Bible and yours are not?
How can you say I will not accept God as creator, when I have referred to Him creating many times in this thread?
How can you assert God is outside of time and space when scripture clearly states the opposite, and does not state what you assert?

Ecc 3:1-8
1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: 2a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; 3a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; 4a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; 5a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; 6a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; 7a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 8a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

 

[CS1]

If He is everywhere, He must be near. What is your point?

May I ask you a qestion
Do you have a personal relationship with GOD?

 

[PaulThomson]

Anthropomorphic language is an attempt to ascribe human characteristics to God. It helps in terms of relating to Him. Science cannot measure a spirit, or a soul.

He is exactly the size He needs to be: always has been and always will be. Only He knows His true size.

David says that he could not escape God's presence whether he fled to anywhere in heaven or hades. So He must extend into those domains, right? Or is God perhaps only a countless number of sizeless points of consciousness embedded within living souls, and that is why we cannot escape his presence - because we take our sizeless point of God wih us everywhere?

 

[PaulThomson]

May I ask you a qestion
Do you have a personal relationship with GOD?

Yes, I do.

 

[Sipsey]

David says that he could not escape God's presence whether he fled to anywhere in heaven or hades. So He must extend into those domains, right? Or is God perhaps only a countless number of sizeless points of consciousness embedded within living souls, and that is why we cannot escape his presence - because we take our sizeless point of God wih us everywhere?

I see you don’t like simple answers.

 

[CS1]

Then, if that is your opinion, you need to agree that, according to scripture, God is something since creation that He was not before creation - spatial to be everywhere and temporal to operate within time. But are you willing to admit that?


You are claiming that the created cannot comprehend the Creator, and then proceed to make biblically unfounded inferences about the Creator as if you do comprehend Him. Are you uncreated? Scripture identifies space and time as uncaused. Things were made within God's time and space: things like planets and stars, land and sea, angels and man, morning and evening, days, hours, weeks.

The creation of this cosmos did not change God's nature because God is infinite time and infinite space. Prove me wrong from scripture.

well, let me correct my words for you. Outside of the three revelations of God, one can't know him (God). We know God :

1. by general Revelation, His creation
2. Special Revelation His word
3. illumination in a Relationship with the Son

 

[CS1]

Yes, I do.

how do you know you are?

 

[PaulThomson]

Anthropomorphic language is an attempt to ascribe human characteristics to God. It helps in terms of relating to Him. Science cannot measure a spirit, or a soul..

How does God describing Himself in terms that bear no relation to His reality help us relate to Him? Analogies only have usefulness if they convey a figurative likeness to what is actual.

In what way does the image of God measuring the waters in his hand help us relate to God if God has no size?

 

[Cameron143]

So, why is my understanding wrong, but yours right, if your mind is inadequate to understand what it is to be God?
Why are you saying that I am failing to understand the nature of God, as if you do. Surely, you must consider your understanding to be just as inadequate as you consider mine. Do you recognise your limitations, that exclude you from making any categorical statements about God and exclude you from giving any meaningful critique of another's concept of God.
By your standards, since the plain sense of scripture to you is not definitive, and the law of non-contradiction does not necessarily apply to the incomprehensible God, you cannot insist God is either or both unitarian and trinitarian, either or both loving and indifferent, either or both both present everywhere and present nowhere.

That sounds insane to me.

If you are going to misrepresent what I'm saying you might easily think it sounds insane.
I never claimed to be correct. I did claim that God was both and at the same time operating in time and space and beyond it. I also claimed that time and space were created and haven't existed eternally.
I didn't say God was both trinitarian and unitarian. The Bible demonstrates the triune nature of God. This is what actually explains how God was both operating inside and outside of time and space simultaneously. The Father operates outside of space and time. Jesus became a man and was subjected to time and space.

 

[CS1]

Yes, I do.

please answer how do you know you're in a personal relationship with GOD?

 

[PaulThomson]

well, let me correct my words for you. Outside of the three revelations of God, one can't know him (God). We know God :

1. by general Revelation, His creation
2. Special Revelation His word
3. illumination in a Relationship with the Son

So what in those three revelations of God confirms to you that space and time.are not attributes of God?

 

[CS1]

So what in those three revelations of God confirms to you is space and time.are not attributes of God?

lol, we know from those Attributes of God HE is the Author of time and space. Roman chapter One creation declares His eternal Godhead.

 

[CS1]

Yes, I do.

how do you know ???

 

[Adstar]

Scripture describes God as having **size**. Why do you feel compelled to deny scripture chsracterising God as having size?

Psalm 8:3–4. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

Ps. 95:3For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods.
4In his hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also.
5The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land.
6O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our Maker.

Ps.139:5Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.
6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.
7Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
8If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
9If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
10Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.

Acts 17:26And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;
27That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
28For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.

Is.40:12Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?
13Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being his counsellor hath taught him?
14With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding?
15Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing.

Is.48:13Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens: when I call unto them, they stand up together.

The Words in His hands are not pointing to His hands it is a way of stating that the thing in question is under His complete control.. Same with all the other ""hand "" references in the scripture you have quoted.. It has nothing to do with a physical hands..

 

[Karlon]

You said "God can have size & not have size." You think God can possibly be nowhere if He wants to be? Your opinions about God are interesting, but I could not take those ideas seriously and still believe scripture has anything meaningful to say about anything.

imagine Christians up in heaven playing games with God at play time. like hide & seek. & He makes Himself invisible!. maybe or maybe He can't do that. just saying, that's all.

 

[CS1]

Then, if that is your opinion, you need to agree that, according to scripture, God is something since creation that He was not before creation - spatial to be everywhere and temporal to operate within time. But are you willing to admit that?


You are claiming that the created cannot comprehend the Creator, and then proceed to make biblically unfounded inferences about the Creator as if you do comprehend Him. Are you uncreated? Scripture identifies space and time as uncaused. Things were made within God's time and space: things like planets and stars, land and sea, angels and man, morning and evening, days, hours, weeks.

The creation of this cosmos did not change God's nature because God is infinite time and infinite space. Prove me wrong from scripture.

I have asked more than once How do you know God? You have yet to answer?

 

[Blade]

God is a Spirit, therefore He is not limited by size or space. He is present in all of His creation. That is called "omnipresence".

Amen and to think everything that is, is Him so.. yeah HUGE haha