Who Created God?

Who created God?

What created God?

Has God always existed?

Is there a being that existed before God?

Did God create God’s self?

Does God have a beginning? Or an end?

Is God a being, or a collective consciousness, or an energy?

big bang
The Big Bang

Quantum physicists posit that outside of our realm of understanding and existing, in the bulk that contains three dimensional space, time exists as a fourth dimension. Were you a “bulk being,” capable of existence outside the limits of our three dimensional universe, then you would experience time as a physical, spatial dimension. Perhaps it would be like valleys and mountains, or an ocean.

This would indicate that God exists outside of time as we know it. God is not beholden to our understanding of past and future. Time is not a limited dimension for God like it is for us.

So if time doesn’t exist linearly outside our experience, then no, God has no beginning. Or end.

Or more accurately, God’s beginning, middle and end all exist concurrently, right now and forever. In that experience outside of the 3-dimensional bounds of time, you experience God as God always was and always will be and how God is right now….and now….and now….

God exists outside the paradigm of our understanding of being and creation and time and space. When God says “I AM”, that’s what God means. God just…..is. And was. And will be.

So, who created God?

Maybe it’s not even necessary that God be created.

Two Things You Can’t Be Simultaneously: A Christian and a Trump Supporter

Donald Trump epitomizes everything that is messed up with the modern American psyche.

Arrogant, greedy, tone deaf, self absorbed, incurious, emotionally stunted, bullying, contemptuous of those less fortunate or different than him, proudly clueless, gleefully ignorant: Trump takes all these traits to their furthest absurdity.

donald-trump-is-now-selling-his-make-america-great-again-baseball-capAnd a good chunk of the American electorate is eating up; they are looking at his trainwreck of a political campaign and seeing themselves standing there in that ridiculous white hat, saying the things they think but that us liberals supposedly won’t let them say.

The saddest part of this whole thing is that to be leading any GOP nomination poll, a candidate must be garnering a good chunk of the conservative evangelical Christian vote. Somehow, someway, a portion of American Christians, that portion who exclaims loudly that they are the best followers of Jesus and do everything with God in mind, are looking at Donald Trump and seeing the best fulfillment of Christ among this years candidates.

If that doesn’t illustrate the spiritual bankruptcy of modern American evangelical conservative Christianity, then I don’t know what does.

Christ wouldn’t demonize immigrants who want a better opportunity in life by classifying them all as druggies, rapists, and murderers.

He wouldn’t view committed, nursing mothers as disgusting.

He wouldn’t paint all observant, peaceful Muslims as terrorists and dangers to society.

He wouldn’t consistently demean women and conduct himself like a general misogynist.

He wouldn’t dismiss the less fortunate in our society as being losers just because they weren’t bequeathed a multimillion dollar real estate empire by their daddies.

Basically, Donald Trump, politician, is everything that Jesus very emphatically and actively wasn’t.

Listen, I’m always very leery of making claims around who I think Jesus would or wouldn’t vote for. I avoid invoking the endorsement of Jesus in any political commitment I make or express. I see committed, authentic Christians on both sides of the political divides, people who honestly believe their faith pulls them in that direction. And I think one of the defining characteristics of Jesus was that he worked outside the existing power structures, and that he very explicitly wouldn’t have aligned with either political party, or any contemporary political movement.

But I make an exception for certain candidates and political ideas. I feel very confident in saying that I really, really don’t think Jesus would identify with Donald Trump, and that it is near impossible to be both a follower of Jesus and a Trump supporter. The world views of the two men are just much too diametrically opposed.

A lot of conservatives decry today’s culture and long publicly for a return to a “simpler” time. I can sympathize with this attitude when it comes to things like integrity and honor and respect. These folks are generally looking for a political candidate they feel can take them back to that better day, who can restore America to a supposed halcyon moment that has long since passed.

But if you feel our country is headed in the wrong direction and support Donald Trump as an answer, then you are just advocating to return to  a time when women and minorities were treated like shit. You aren’t voting for a politer, simpler, more Christian America. You are voting for bigotry and bluster and proud stupidity.

But, as I always like to say, we get what we vote for, or more accurately, what we don’t bother to get out and vote for.

Blogging the NT: Ephesians 1-3

There isn’t a lot of meat in the first three chapters of Ephesians. Mostly, we get introductions, prayers and a recap of Paul’s ministry to the Gentile world.

bloggingthentThe best stuff comes in chapter 2, where the author ruminates on Christian unity and the building a universal church.

So, let’s take this opportunity to a little background on Ephesians, and the whole idea of “pseudo-Pauline.”

There is a lot of scholarly debate about whether these next few books-Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, Titus, 2 Timothy-were actually written by the apostle Paul. There are strong arguments for each, with Ephesians having the most claim down to 2 Timothy, which seems the least likely (I’m proceeding through them in order of most to least likely.)

So if not Paul, then who?

Good question. And not one we can really answer. But I have a theory. I think, especially for books like Ephesians and Colossians that seem especially close to Paul and his thought, that a close follower or student synthesized some Pauline thought, through their own eyes, into something they could send out to churches.

And remember, assigning another’s name to something even if they didn’t write it was a fairly common thing in the ancient world. Paul’s name carried a lot of weight in the early church, and so signing something in his name was a way to gain legitimacy, and to pay tribute.

Now, the condensation of Pauline thought in these letters is not perfect by any means. The theology is a little less universal than Paul was in his letters. In their great book “The First Paul,” John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg identify three distinct “Paul’s” among the authentic and pseudo letters: radical, conservative and reactionary. The authentic letters fall into the “radical” category; Ephesians, Colossians and 2 Thessalonians as “conservative”; and the three pastoral epistles as “reactionary.”

Borg and Crossan justify this categorization like this:

Our purpose is not to raise a debate about the use of terms like radical, conservative, and reactionary. Rather, it is to insist that the post-Pauline pseudo-Pauline letters are anti-Pauline with regard to major aspects of his theology. They represent a taming of Paul, a domestication of Paul’s passion to the normalcy of the Roman imperial world in which he and his followers lived.

Although it is the closest to the authentic Paul, you can definitely see a taming of Paul already present in Ephesians. We’ll explore that more as we move into the meat of this letter.

Next: Ephesians 4-6

For an explanation on this series, click here.