“In the beginning God created...” [Spirituality & Religion]

“What’s important to understand is how reversed the situation is from, say, a hundred years ago. Back then, Christians had to maintain by faith in the Bible that despite all appearances to the contrary, the universe was not eternal but was created out of nothing a finite time ago.
“Now, the situation is exactly the opposite. It is the atheist who has to maintain, by faith, despite all of the evidence to the contrary, that the universe did not have a beginning a finite time ago but is in some inexplicable way eternal after all. So the shoe is on the other foot. The Christian can stand confidently within biblical truth, knowing it’s in line with mainstream astrophysics and cosmology. It’s the atheist who feels very uncomfortable and marginalized today.
“Certainly there have been earlier ages when the culture was more sympathetic toward Christianity. But I think it’s indisputable that there has never been a time in history when the hard evidence of science was more confirmatory of belief in God than today.”

(William Lane Craig)

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CopperCicada · M

The questions of the origins of the universe is really an epistemological tightrope.

What we call the “universe” is just the totality of what we claim exists, either through direct observation or inference. Since we’re talking about faith, that could be through revelation as well. We really can’t talk about what is “outside” the universe as that would be something that doesn’t exist. Something we can’t know by observation, inference, or through revelation. That “outside” can be spatial, or it can be temporal— the famous question of what is “before” the universe. We are just talking about edges, limits, to our knowledge.

I really don’t know why the beginning of the universe is of such interest. It is really just, by definition, an edge to our knowing. Scientists can postulate what happened at t <= 0, but that is just speculation. Nobody can verify that. It is the same with religious claims. All we are doing is asking the following. What was before the universe, what is outside the universe? Those are no different than what do I know about what I can’t know?

Carazaa · F

@CopperCicada
God is very clear about creating all matter, how he did it, and how He will destroy it and how all things unseen is eternal!

CopperCicada · M

@Carazaa I think what I says stands. “The universe” is just what we know to exist. What is outside that? Before that? Either what does not exist or what we do not know exists.

Speedyman · 70-79, M

Absolutely! In the beginning God created.....@CopperCicada