God in autopilot.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

As you might have guessed, I don't subscribe to the creation story in Genesis, but for the fun of it, let's assume that Genesis 1:1 is true. I suppose the first implication is that God always existed. This - in and of itself - is a tough concept to grasp. It means that God lived forever and THEN decided to create the heavens and the earth ... and us. Many Christians claim that this is not a valid point to make, because "God resides outside of space and time," but this seems - to me - to be an entirely meaningless statement. Why? Because our minds can't possibly comprehend something that does not take up space and time. "Exactly! We can't comprehend God! His ways are higher than ours!" So you can't comprehend God's ways, but yet you claim to know His will and speak to him through prayer? God resides outside of space and time, yet he can intervene and effect things that happen within space and time? Whatever you say. I digress ...

Now, before God created anything, he could have created anything. That is to say he didn't have to create this universe. He didn't have to create life, and in particular, human life. More specifically, he didn't have to create a human race that he knew full well would rebel against him (since He is omniscient, he had to have known this by definition) and then exact justice against the rebels. Yes, that's right. God had a choice. Or did He? To say that God had or made a choice would mean that He considered the infinite number of possible creations, and then, picked one. Assuming the creation he chose was not arbitrary, it means that God had to have a reason for creating our universe and no other. But if God had a reason for why he created the universe, to whom did he appeal to? In other words, when you or I make a choice, we consider all possible options, and for some reason, we pick one over the others. Maybe that reason is that one option would result in the most amount of joy. But to make such a choice, we have to appeal to some standard of joy - a standard that likely developed over the whole course of our lives as we - through our experiences - learn what we like and don't like. So, returning to my question, to what standard would God have appealed to when he chose this creation over all the others? Since God is the be-all, end-all, He is the standard and by definition, cannot appeal to a higher standard, or rather, an external standard.

To put it another way, if God chose this creation for any particular reason, then He had to have appealed to a standard outside Himself, which, by the definition of God, is not possible. I conclude, therefore, that God had no choice. He had to create this universe ... And that, to me, sounds like Spinoza's God: a God that is everything. God is nature.

As I ponder these questions, I start to feel bad for God if He has a concious. Imagine how lonely he must have been all that time. And to think that there is really nothing he could ever do about it, because let's face it, no matter what he creates, he knows it came from him, so he already knows everything about it. Nothing can surprise God. Or to put it another way, life is full of surprises, but not for God.