I Am

Not counting "Opening Thoughts," which was exactly that, the first two articles in Trying to Walk were cohesive and headed in a specific direction. That direction takes you to where there is a God. "Rational" Or Irrational" posited that anything exhibiting design requires a designer; thus the universe requires God. "Is Anything Right? Or is Everything Right" demonstrates why there cannot be a universally defined right and wrong without God.

"Where did God come from?" the atheist might ask. The atheist, of course, believes all the "stuff" in the universe became whatever it became without the help of God. A good question for the atheist to answer is, "where did all the 'stuff,' or more appropriately, inanimate matter, come from?" The fact is, that a believer can't get past God. God is the starting point (and the ending point.) God has always been (and always will be.) The atheist may not like this answer, but the atheist is owed no other answer. The believer traces everything back to God and can go no further. The atheist traces everything back to inanimate matter and can go no further. Your idea of origins either begins with God, or it begins with inanimate matter. Take your pick.

Trying to understand the who?, how?, why?, what?, concerning God is truly a mind-boggling task if there ever was one. As God, Himself, says in Isaiah 55:9, "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." If you are an atheist and reading this, I understand that quoting from the Bible is a totally unconvincing excercise for you, but the fact is that whether we had this quote from God or not, this statement just has to be true of God. God cannot be God and be like any human. To be God means to have inherent in your nature certain characteristics that elevate you above mankind and separate you from mankind.

This "elevated supremacy" of God is one attribute that atheists refuse to accept. In their arrogance if they cannot understand and fully comprehend God, then He cannot exist. In this, they are inconsistent. Those that don't understand or fully comprehend the inner workings of computers, both hardware and software wise, don't refuse to recognize the existence of computers. That, of course, is because computers are obvious in the physical world. The atheist prefers to think that God is not obvious in the physical world. Design and 'right and wrong' argue otherwise.

As an aside, this 'elevated supremacy' of God is something with which many believers need to come to terms as well. Please stay tuned, because this is something we'll deal with much more thoroughly in the months to come. Suffice it to say for the time being, that as you read in your Bible about your relationship with God, and you come across the term, 'bond-servant,' that word is actually 'slave.' Fortunately, God is a loving master, as we shall discuss. But He is the master, we are the slave, and we need to approach Him from that position.

Another attribute of God that is problematic for those looking for problems is His eternal existence. If He has not always existed, then He had to come from somewhere, some source. That source would be greater than Him. That is to say that source would be God. This becomes a rabbit hole of epic proportions. There either must be one original, God, or this is a never ending loop. There is no credence to it. God is that source from which all else came.

To look at the concept of God's eternal existence from another viewpoint, consider that before God initiated creation of the physical universe, there was no time. Actually God exists in a realm without time. Time was a constraint God placed on His physical creation. For that matter, so was space. God is not bound by time and God is not bound by space. Both of those were created for a physical creation to exist in. In Genesis 1, and in John 1, when the phrase "in the beginning" is used, it refers to God's creation of time for the physical universe He created. Genesis 1:5 reads, "the evening and the morning were the first day." That is when time began, but it means nothing to God. 2 Peter 3:8 "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." God is eternal. He existed before time, and He will exist after time.

We have hardly touched the "hem of the garment" so to speak. Besides His elevated supremacy and His eternal existence (unbound by time and space) which we have barely mentioned, there is God's omnipotence, His omniscience and so many other attributes that we haven't mentioned at all. All of these the believer accepts, and we will be spending some time as we progress trying to understand them in greater depth and especially understand what they mean to us and our relationship with God.

All of these are stumbling blocks to the atheists because the atheist (like the believer) cannot fully comprehend this awesome majesty which is God, but unlike the believer the atheist is too arrogant to accept what he cannot explain. It is sad for the atheist, but so long as God's ways are 'heavens above the earth' above man's ways, and God's thoughts are the same to man's thoughts, that is the way it will be. If it were not that way, God would not be God. This is a dilemma, because it appears that if God were not God, the atheist might believe in Him.